Eros and the Mysteries of Love by Julius Evola

Author:Julius Evola
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Sacred Sexuality
Publisher: Inner Traditions/Bear & Company
Published: 2018-01-15T16:00:00+00:00

The Fascination of Woman and Activity and Passivity in Sexual Love

The metaphysical trait of the eternal woman as witch, as Maya and maya-shakti, the cosmogonic enchantment of the One, corresponds in general to female fascination. The association of the Aphrodite type with the type of the witch is often to be found in myth and saga. Both aspects were assigned, for instance, to Calypso, Circe, Medea, Isolde, and even Brunhilda in some versions of the saga. At Rome, Venus Verticordia was conceived of as skilled in the arts of magic. Minoan figures of women with magic wands in their hands are well known. A great deal of similar evidence could be readily collected. That woman is more closely linked to “earth,” the cosmic and natural element, is demonstrated on the material plane by the various effects that she undergoes owing to the periodic rhythms of the cosmos. In times of yore, however, this link was referred more to the yin aspect of nature, to the nocturnal and unconscious supersensual field, irrational and unfathomable, of the vital forces. Whence there arise in woman certain powers of magic and prophecy in a restricted sense (opposed to the male and Apollonian characteristics of high magic and theurgy), which are liable to degenerate into witchcraft. In the trials of the Inquisition, by comparison with men, women figure as the accused in the overwhelming majority of cases; in A.D. 1500, Bodin reported fifty trials of women and only one of a man relating to witchcraft and the occult arts. One of the most widely read treatises of those times on the subject of devils, the Malleus maleficarum (Hammer of the Witches), dwells at great length on why witchcraft was undertaken mainly by women. In the traditions of many peoples, this type of magic is related to an archaic feminine and lunar tradition. It is of interest that in China the character wu, used to designate a person who exercised the arts of magic in a strict or “shamanic” sense, was originally applied only to females. The techniques employed by the wu to contact supersensual forces were sometimes ascetic and at other times orgiastic; in the latter case it seems that in the beginning the wu officiated wholly naked. The wu had to have youth and fascinating beauty as preliminary qualifications for her work, and the meanings of the characters yao and miao as “queer” “disquieting,” and “mysterious” refer to the type and qualities of the wu.112 One text says that the nonuranic forces brought down by their rites “eclipsed the sun.”

But what interests us here apart from these specific references to the supersensual is the magic of woman and the sense of her natural fascination and power of seduction. We find the following sentence in Daudet: “I felt myself invincibly attracted by her; only an abyss can cause such fascination.” We dealt earlier with the symbolism and the rite of disrobing and discussed the ultimate expression that this process had, for women, in such forms as the dance of the seven veils.

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