"Alexander's greatness, the light he sheds on all the Western princely crowns, lies more in the fact that he was equal to the Great Territories than to the Great King. More surprising than the fact that he destroyed Babylon is the fact that he returned from India.

It is difficult to say which progress is more important: from West to East or from East to West. Both depart from the realm with their power, and lead to a different law. This is already indicated in the preparation. One side is interested in widening the scope, the other in measuring and limiting it. Levelling and raising the points of reference meet as forms of struggle, as between the Huns and Henry the Builder. Both are attempted by visible and invisible means, physical and mental. The two forms of freedom meet and feel each other as limitations; width and height are their main measures."

~ Ernst Jünger

https://news.1rj.ru/str/ernstjuengerenglish/37

Alexander the Great was Alexander III of Macedon (Ancient Greek: Μακεδονία). His father was Philip II of Macedon, and his mother was Olympias, the daughter of Neoptolemus I of Epirus (Doric: Ἄπειρος). Both Macedonia & Epirus were, like Sparta, comprised of a Doric Greek aristocracy who were, according to Herodotus, the 'purest of the Greeks'.

According to Plutarch, on the eve Philip & Olympias consummated their marriage, Olympias saw a vision of her womb being 'struck by a thunderbolt that caused a flame to spread far and wide'. Some interpreted this to show Alexander was the son of Zeus, or otherwise an incarnation of Zeus or Apollo.

It is said, however, that Olympias thought this supposition 'impious'.

"I speak of art in a more sacred sense - of the art which, in the words of the ancients, is an instrument of the gods, herald of divine mysteries, unveiler of the Ideas. It is that preternatural beauty whose inviolate light illumines only pure souls, which is as hidden and inaccessible to the sensible eye as pure truth itself. The philosopher is not interested in what the vulgar call art. To him, art is a direct and necessary expression of the Absolute, and only insofar as this can be demonstrated has it any reality to him."

- 𝑶𝒏 𝑼𝒏𝒊𝒗𝒆𝒓𝒔𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝑺𝒕𝒖𝒅𝒊𝒆𝒔, 𝑪𝒉𝒂𝒑𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑭𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒕𝒆𝒆𝒏, 𝒃𝒚 𝑭.𝑱.𝑾. 𝒗𝒐𝒏 𝑺𝒉𝒆𝒍𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒈

Whatever may be the case, the religious element constitutes the central core of Romanian Legionarism, which has derived from it a need to create a new man by means of specific ascetic practices. Many a reader will thus be surprised to discover that over 600,000 men – for this is roughly the number of Codreanu’s followers – systematically practice not only prayer, but even fasting: three times a week the Legionaries are asked keep the so-called ‘black fast’, which consists in not eating, drinking or smoking.

Codreanu himself, during one of our conversations, explained the meaning of the above practice in the following terms: the complete supremacy of the spirit over the body must be ensured and fasting is one of the most effective means to this end; by loosening the bonds formed by the most natural,
material part of man, fasting also fosters a favourable condition for evoking invisible forces – forces from on high which are evoked through prayer and ritual. And in all tests and struggles – despite what ‘positive minds’ may believe – these forces play a part no less decisive than that played by visible,
material and purely human forces.

- Julius Evola, Nationalism and Ascesis: The Iron Guard

Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga.

"The initiate, if he truly is such, can place himself beyond the contingent historical forms of a particular tradition, can accuse - whereby to so he receives the mandate - the limitations thereof and place himself above their authority; he can reject the dogma, because he has something more, the transcendent knowledge, and elsewhere he knows of the inviolability of this knowledge; lastly, he can claim to himself the dignity of a free being, because he dissolved from the bonds of the inferior, human nature: in such a way the "free" are also the "peers" and their community can be conceived as a "brotherhood". Well, it is enough to materialise, laicise and democratise these aspects of the initiatic right, and translate them in individualistic terms, to immediately obtain the base principles of the modern subversive and revolutionary ideologies."

- Julius Evola, "The Mystery of the Grail"

"Soma produced a divine rapture, somewhat like that which the devotees of Dionysios sought in wine. Later came a set of practices designed to inhibit all sensation, to dull mental activity, in a word to induce states similar to hypnosis; these became systematized into the yoga... In fact, the yoga seems to have been, according to the time and place, a more popular form of mystic contemplation or else a complete system which included this contemplation."

- 𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝑻𝒘𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒖𝒓𝒄𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝑴𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒍𝒊𝒕𝒚 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝑹𝒆𝒍𝒊𝒈𝒊𝒐𝒏, 𝒃𝒚 𝑯𝒆𝒏𝒓𝒊 𝑩𝒆𝒓𝒈𝒔𝒐𝒏

Asceticism is a tool, as Codreanu puts it, a means to an end - that end being "the complete supremacy of the spirit over the body." Fasting, prayer, rituals, etc. are methods by which we subordinate our bodies and minds to the spirit. They are for reigning in our lower selves.

Having subdued this lower self, we do not remain withdrawn from the world. The name of the game is to go forth and conquer. Surf the Kali Yuga. We are in this material realm; we have this life. What makes more sense than to master the circumstances in which we find ourselves, what else can be done, but to work with what is?

The idea of rejecting the world should be interpreted as attaining mastery over one's senses, attachments, and the letting go of all those things that cause the true nature of reality to be obscured. The world is not inherently and overarchingly evil - we are simply ignorant. If we ever feel the world IS evil, it is because we are operating under a state of illusion and are taken by the "visible, material and purely human forces" that Codreanu speaks of.

The removal of such ignorance and illusion should be the motivation of ascesis - it is exactly what it's for! It should be a stepping stone, a tool, along our path. Again, means to an end, not our permanent resting place. We are indeed here in this world, and no golden age was ever brought about by men who refused to venture forth into it.

"Janus, the ancient divinity of Roman times, god of beginnings and therefore also, in an eminent sense, of initiation as "vita nova", was also a god of sailing; he had the ship among his characteristic insignia. And this ship of Janus, as well as its two keys then passed into the Catholic tradition, appearing in the ship of St. Peter and, in general, in the symbolism of the pontifical function. Now it could be noted that the same term pontifex, in the ancient Roman etymologies, meant the "builder of bridges"; that pons however, archaically it also meant way and the sea was also conceived as "way", and Pontus was called this way for no different reason. Hence we see how elements of the ancient concept of sailing as a symbol have been transmitted through occult plots, up to words and signs, almost no longer understood today." — Julius C. Evola, Sailing as a Heroic Symbol.

furu trikila fiari at kuli
ok a:ustarla arni kafu
tuu sunar:la at sirk:lan:ti:

They fared like bold men far for gold
and in the east gave food to the eagle,
died in the south in Sirkland

—Innoscription on the Gripsholm runestone

Mother tells me, the immortal goddess Thetis with her glistening feet, that two fates bear me on to the day of death. If I hold out here and lay siege to Troy, my journey home is gone, but my glory never dies. If I voyage back to the fatherland I love, my pride, my glory dies…true, but the life that’s left me will be long, the stroke of death will not come on me quickly.

~ Achilles, the Iliad IX, 500-506

“The arcanum of inspiration is of vital practical importance not only for Hermeticism but also for the spiritual history of mankind in general. For just as in the individual human biography there are decisive moments of inspiration, so there are in mankind’s biography—which is history—decisive points where far- reaching inspirations enter into the spiritual life of humanity. The great religions are such inspirations. In ancient India the Rishis had inspiration, which became the source of the Vedas. In ancient Persia the great Zarathustra (“golden star”) had inspiration, which became the source of the Zend-Avesta. Moses and the prophets had inspiration, which became the source of the Old Testament in the Bible. The Event of the life, death and resurrection of Christ was followed by the inspiration which was the source of the written Gospels—of which each author is twofold: man and inspiring Cherubim. Lastly, Islam refers to no other source than the inspiration that Mohammed received from the Archangel Gabriel, which became the source of the Koran.”

- 𝑽𝒂𝒍𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒏 𝑻𝒐𝒎𝒃𝒆𝒓𝒈, 𝑴𝒆𝒅𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 𝒐𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝑻𝒂𝒓𝒐𝒕, 𝑳𝒆𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓 𝑿𝑰𝑽

https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/836653196801081355/986423297866616892/unknown.png?width=670&height=670

"Modern man has not only to fight against materialism, but must also defend himself from the snares and allures of false supernaturalism. His defense will be firm and effective only if he is capable of returning to the origins, of assimilating the ancient traditions, and then of relying upon the ascesis to carry out the task of reestablishing his inner condition. For it is through this that these traditions will reveal to him their deepest and perennially real content and show him, step by step, the path”

Julius Evola, The Doctrine of Awakening

How pleasant is the solitude of a remote place to those who thirst for God! How attractive for those who seek Christ are those solitary lands stretching in every direction under protecting nature. All things are silent there, and the joyful mind is spurred on by silence in its search for God, finding nourishment in ineffable ecstasies. No sound is heard in the desert save the voice of God. Only that sound is sweeter than silence, the holy activity of a moderate and holy way of life, breaks into the state of quiet peace.

St. Eucherius of Lyon, In Praise of the Desert XXXVII

There is a certain ascesis achieved in leaving the company of fellow man. This mirrors the descent into wilderness we've touched on before, where primordial forces reign and wild dangers must be overcome. The danger of the wilderness can be said to really be the danger of leaving civilization. The comfort of home life is the great security it provides, from simple material safety to the strong spiritual fellowship that holds one accountable. Man is a thoroughly social being making the withdrawal from society as treacherous as climbing a mountain.

Even the monastic hermitages still feature an ascetic form of community. Thus this complete descent into nature, in which one is both fully alone and fully in nature, is a great danger but also a great opportunity to overcome. Indeed with no home and no companions—nothing but one's self—in a certain sense one can be said to already be dead. As one descends into nature (the lesser material plane of daemonic forces) the layers of the false self are revealed, and in the trials this presents one can either find at the center the true Self, or, in denial of this truth succumb to the daemonic forces and descend into madness.

Christ's fasting in the desert was also His descent into Hell.

Then was Jesus led aside of the Spirit into the wilderness, to be tempted of the devil. And when he had fasted forty days, and forty nights, he was afterward hungry. Then came to him the tempter, and said, If thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread. But he answering, said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread only, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.

Matthew 4:1-4

In the desert I had found a freedom unattainable in civiliza­tion; a life unhampered by possessions, since everything that was not a necessity was an encumbrance.

I had found, too, a comradeship inherent in the circumstances, and the belief that tranquillity was to be found there.

I had learnt the satisfaction which comes from hardship and the pleasure which springs from abstinence: the contentment of a full belly; the rich­ness of meat; the taste of clean water; the ecstasy of surrender when the craving for sleep becomes a torment; the warmth of a fire in the frost of dawn.

~ Wilfred Thesiger, Arabian Sands

It is neither Pagan nor Christian exclusively, but Metaphysical.