New Project on Traditionalist Approaches to East Asian Religions

Traditionalists have drawn heavily on Asian religions and their concepts, notably Islamic Sufism and Indian Vedanta, but also on East Asian religions such as Japanese Zen Buddhism and Shinto, and Chinese Daoism. They have adapted these concepts to their own intellectual framework in an Orientalist manner. 

While the South Asian and Middle Eastern connections and influences of Traditionalism have been relatively well researched, the East Asian dimension has received less attention. Figures such as Julius Evola (who produced two “translations” of the Daodejing, among others) and second-generation Traditionalist Seraphim Rose engaged substantially with East Asia. Orientalist tropes of Japanese religion and culture are conspicuous in several Traditionalist projects, living on in popular culture to this day.

The project “Traditionalist East Asia” therefore explores how Traditionalist thinkers have approached East Asia and its traditions, and how these continue to influence various religious and political discourses, sometimes in highly controversial ways, to the present day. Topics covered range from the contemporary appropriation of Zen by the Far Right and perennialist images of Japan in American counterculture to the mid-twentieth-century exchange of concepts of race and empire.

This three-year project has commenced at the University of Vienna and the University of Graz with funding from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF). The project is led by Lukas K. Pokorny (University of Vienna) and Franz Winter (University of Graz). The postdoctoral researchers are Moritz Maurer (University of Vienna) and Marleen Thaler (University of Graz). The research collaborator is Davide Marino (University of Göttingen).

New Book on the Reception of Traditionalism in Germany

Guest post by Moritz Maurer, University of Vienna. 

Felix Herkert has just published Die integrale Tradition. Rezeptionsgeschichte der traditionalen Schule im deutschen Sprachraum (The Integral Tradition: A History of the Reception of the Traditional School in the German-speaking world), Würzburg: Königshausen & Neumann, 2025.

With this monograph, which is partly based on the author's earlier works, Herkert aims to address a major gap in research on Traditionalism: its reception in the German-speaking cultural sphere. He focuses on what he sees as the core of the Traditionalist school, the works of René Guénon (1886-1951) and Ananda Kentish Coomaraswamy (1877-1947), the latter understood as the most prominent thinker who adapted Guénonian thought in his later work. Julius Evola (1898-1974) is mentioned several times but not systematically investigated.

Sadly, it is hardly an unbiased piece of scholarship. It lags behind the current state of the art, especially in the historical field, which is often given too little space. This seems partly due to ideological reasons, as Mark Sedgwick's works are dismissed as "biased" (pp. 24, fn. 20; 49-50), while preference is given to questionable “scene” literature. 

Part 1.1 provides very brief biographies of (more or less) notable Traditionalists. The biography of René Guénon (1886-1951; pp. 11-24) provides an informative overview of Guénon's Traditionalist works. After a short discussion of terminology, part 1.3 offers a detailed overview of relevant publications, translations and relevant journals.

Chapter 2 unfolds the reception of the Integral Tradition in the German-speaking world. Probably the most interesting case is that of the German philosopher Leopold Ziegler (1881-1958; pp. 69-95). As Herkert points out, it was Ziegler who coined the term "integral tradition," which is commonly used in German, in 1936 (already on p. 45, fn. 48). Ziegler temporarily became a kind of pupil of Guénon, to whose work he was introduced by Siegfried Lang (1887-1970) and André Préau (1893-1976), most likely in 1931. Herkert describes the relationship as initially one of enthusiastic acceptance, which then gave way to appreciative distancing. In the following section, Herkert gives an interesting overview of Ziegler’s Traditionalist monographs Überlieferung (Tradition, 1936), Apollons letzte Epiphanie (Apollo’s Last Epiphany, 1937), and Menschwerdung (Becoming Human, 1948). Other noteworthy examples he touches on are Walter Heinrich (1902–1984), a member of Othmar Spann’s intellectual circle, and the New-Right author Gerd-Klaus Kaltenbrunner (1939–2011), who drew especially on Evola and Guénon in his later Christian-perennialist writings.

In section 2.2, Herkert follows rather loose connections to Traditionalism which can be found in the work of various other intellectuals. While many of these passages are interesting in themselves, the connections remain largely at the level of vague references or rather critical contact. The sources themselves are often rather enigmatic, such as the few, if sometimes euphoric, statements by Carl Schmitt (1888-1985) about Guénon. The next section follows the so far largely overlooked relationship between researchers of Indian art history from German-speaking countries and Traditionalism.

A major weakness of the second part is the author’s neglect of essential secondary literature. For example, the recurring theme of the Reich omits any reference to Richard Faber’s extensive work: These gaps undermine the section’s scholarly depth.

In his Conclusion, Herkert notes that the few German Traditionalist writings are mainly Christian, linked to Romantic philosophy, and more philosophical than initiatory. Here, this reader is happy to follow him. Some conclusions, however, seem speculative—such as attributing the limited reception of Traditionalism to its incompatibility with the Federal Republic’s democratic consensus. Nevertheless, the study opens a valuable field for further research.

Anarchist Podcasts on Traditionalism and Against the Modern World

“The Empire Never Ended Podcast” has been getting into Traditionalism. Episodes are listed below. The Empire Never Ended describes itself as “a weekly podcast about fascist freaks and Balkan (anti)nationalist history” and is hosted by Boris Mamlëz and Rey Katula. Nothing is known of Mamlëz, which may be a pseudonym, but Katula is an editor of Antipolitika, an anarchist magazine (see here) published in English and “Shtokavian,” a supradialect that functions as a substitute for what used to be called Serbo-Croatian. The podcast is serious but humorous, and membership levels proceed from “Regular OK person” ($5) through “Salaried Antifascist” ($10) and “Western Liberal” (§25) to “German” ($50). But some episodes are free.

The first podcasts were part of the “Kali Yuga Reading Room” series in 2023, starting with René Guénon's The Crisis of the Modern World (#217, here) and proceeding to Julius Evola's Revolt Against the Modern World (#221 and #224, here and here), then Men Among the Ruins (#231, here) and Ride the Tiger (#234, here).

In 2025 came three new podcasts, based on Mark Sedgwick, Against the Modern World: #217 on Guénon (here), #340 on Schuon (here), and #341 (here), returning to Evola.

Enjoy. 

(and thanks to  DV for drawing my attention to these podcasts)

Thought-provoking Piece on Dugin

A thought-provoking piece on Alexander Dugin has appeared in Playing Civilization, a new English-language blog run by Georgy Birger, who describes himself as “a Russian journalist in exile.” It is “The Imaginary West and East of Alexander Dugin,” available here.

Birger argues that “it is [Dugin’s] global connections—not the Slavophile philosophy—that make him valuable to the Kremlin,” and that this is risky for him, as he is “the last of ‘Russian civilization’ fans to support the West in any form [that form being support of the Western Radial Right]. Dugin’s involvement in Western culture marks him as someone who has spent too much time with the enemy.”

Birger also explores what he calls “the imaginary West—a vision of the West Russians have crafted over centuries.” The imaginary West that is currently dominant, created with Dugin’s help, is of “the Western radical right as heroes fighting the tyranny of ‘obsolete’ liberalism.” Dugin’s role in Russia. Birger further argues, is “to observe the West, to understand it, and to explain what is going on to those who cannot be bothered with it while they are making Russia great again.” 

The paradox that  Dugin is a Russian nationalist who likes to lace his speeches and writings with non-Russian terms and names has been pointed out before. Birger's piece takes this line of thought several steps further.