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219-532: Frithjof Schuon ( / ˈ ʃ uː ɒ n / SHOO-on ; German: [ˈfʁɪtjɔf ˈʃuːɔn] ; 18 June 1907 – 5 May 1998) was a Swiss metaphysician of German descent, belonging to the Traditionalist School of Perennialism . He was the author of more than twenty works in French on metaphysics, spirituality, religion, anthropology and art, which have been translated into English and many other languages. He

438-556: A Sufi order of Islam. When he arrived, his outward behavior had changed and he had completely immersed himself in the popular Islamic milieu of the city. Guénon went on to be initiated into the Shadhili order by Aguéli, receiving the name "Abd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā" (“John, Servant of the One”). Agueli and Champrenaud on the other hand had been initiated by Sheikh Abderrahman Elish Elkebir: Guénon sought to meet Sheikh Elkebir himself, him having been

657-401: A mantra is useless without the 'spiritual influence transmitted by the master during the initiation. One cannot initiate oneself alone. Moreover for Guénon, any desire to revive dead traditions (of ancient Egypt, Celts, Germans, etc.) has no meaning. The spiritual laws which govern the spiritual path have nothing to do with the magic or the paranormal phenomena which concern the psychic and not

876-745: A system of 12 categories , divided into the four classes: quantity, quality, relation, and modality. More recent theories of categories were proposed by C. S. Peirce , Edmund Husserl , Samuel Alexander , Roderick Chisholm , and E. J. Lowe . Many philosophers rely on the contrast between concrete and abstract objects . According to a common view, concrete objects, like rocks, trees, and human beings, exist in space and time, undergo changes, and impact each other as cause and effect. They contrast with abstract objects, like numbers and sets , which do not exist in space and time, are immutable, and do not engage in causal relations. Particulars are individual entities and include both concrete objects, like Aristotle,

1095-493: A book capital". On the other hand, Guénon was very disappointed by the reaction of his neo-Thomist friends, his erstwhile supporter Jacques Maritain argued that Guénon's views were "radically irreconcilable with the [Catholic] faith"; he called them a "Hinduist restoration of ancient Gnosis, mother of heresies". After World War II, when Maritain became French Ambassador to the Vatican, he asked for Guénon's work to be listed under

1314-731: A branch of the Alawiyyah - Darqawiyyah - Shadhiliyyah order. In 1980, Schuon and his wife emigrated to the United States, settling in Bloomington, Indiana , where there was already a large community of disciples. The first years in Bloomington saw the publication of a number of important works including From the Divine to the Human , To Have a Center , Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism , and Roots of

1533-402: A conceptual understanding, since it is essentially an intellective and "existential" conformity to Reality or a spiritual and moral assimilation of the nature of things. As Frithjof Schuon has often reminded us, to know is to be. Lived esoterism is, at its apex, the wisdom in which being and knowing coincide. There is therefore continuity between exoterism and esoterism when the latter appears as

1752-525: A critical analysis of the political intrusions of the British Empire into the subject of Hinduism (and India itself) through Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy . The publication of this book earned him rapid recognition in Parisian circles. René Grousset in his "History of Eastern Philosophy" (1923) already referred to Guénon's work as a "classic". André Malraux would say much later that it was, "At its date,

1971-509: A direct transmission of Taoism via the younger son of the Master of Sentences, Nguyen Van Cang, who came to France with Pouvourville and stayed for a while in Paris. Most biographers recognize that the encounter which marked his life and his work the most is that with Hindus, with at least one of whom having played the role of instructor if not of spiritual teacher. This meeting took place very early during

2190-400: A fire, is always followed by another phenomenon, like a feeling of pain. According to nomic regularity theories, regularities manifest as laws of nature studied by science. Counterfactual theories focus not on regularities but on how effects depend on their causes. They state that effects owe their existence to the cause and would not occur without them. According to primitivism, causation

2409-488: A first part, on the different degrees of reality considered, and also from the "transcendent" and "immanent" point of views that can be contemplated: Ishwara is the "Divine personality" or the Principle of universal Manifestation. It is unmanifested, for the Principle of Manifestation cannot be Itself manifested (this is in relation to the symbolism of "black heads": Ishwara has Its head in "darkness"). Atmâ, Paramâtmâ, Brahmâ :

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2628-414: A gradual continuum. The word metaphysics has its origin in the ancient Greek words metá ( μετά , meaning ' after ' , ' above ' , and ' beyond' ' ) and phusiká ( φυσικά ), as a short form of ta metá ta phusiká , meaning ' what comes after the physics ' . This is often interpreted to mean that metaphysics discusses topics that, due to their generality and comprehensiveness, lie beyond

2847-422: A higher degree of existence than matter, which can only imperfectly reflect Platonic forms. Another key concern in metaphysics is the division of entities into distinct groups based on underlying features they share. Theories of categories provide a system of the most fundamental kinds or the highest genera of being by establishing a comprehensive inventory of everything. One of the earliest theories of categories

3066-568: A key role in ethics regarding the moral responsibility people have for what they do. Identity is a relation that every entity has to itself as a form of sameness. It refers to numerical identity when the very same entity is involved, as in the statement "the morning star is the evening star " (both are the planet Venus ). In a slightly different sense, it encompasses qualitative identity, also called exact similarity and indiscernibility , which occurs when two distinct entities are exactly alike, such as perfect identical twins. The principle of

3285-475: A long history in metaphysics, meta-metaphysics has only recently developed into a systematic field of inquiry. Metaphysicians often regard existence or being as one of the most basic and general concepts. To exist means to form part of reality , distinguishing real entities from imaginary ones. According to the orthodox view, existence is a property of properties: if an entity exists then its properties are instantiated. A different position states that existence

3504-755: A long stopover in Cairo , where he saw Guénon again. Shortly after his arrival in Bombay , World War II broke out, forcing him to return to Europe. Serving in the French army, he was interned by the Nazis , who were planning to incorporate all soldiers of Alsatian origin into the German army to fight on the Russian front. Schuon escaped to Switzerland, which was to be his home for forty years. He settled in Lausanne, where he continued contributing to

3723-469: A major reworking in German of the text of The Transcendent Unity of Religions ( Von der Inneren Einheit der Religionen ), published in 1982. In 1949 Schuon married Catherine Feer, a German Swiss with a French education who, besides being deeply interested in religion and metaphysics, was also a gifted painter. He received Swiss citizenship shortly after his marriage. While always continuing to write, Schuon and his wife travelled widely. Between 1950 and 1975,

3942-479: A priori methods have been the dominant approach. They rely on rational intuition and abstract reasoning from general principles rather than sensory experience . A posteriori approaches, by contrast, ground metaphysical theories in empirical observations and scientific theories. Some metaphysicians incorporate perspectives from fields such as physics , psychology , linguistics , and history into their inquiry. The two approaches are not mutually exclusive: it

4161-475: A priori reasoning and view metaphysics as a practice continuous with the empirical sciences that generalizes their insights while making their underlying assumptions explicit. This approach is known as naturalized metaphysics and is closely associated with the work of Willard Van Orman Quine . He relies on the idea that true sentences from the sciences and other fields have ontological commitments , that is, they imply that certain entities exist. For example, if

4380-417: A series of articles on the central subject of initiation originally written between 1932 and 1938 for Le Voile d'Isis (later renamed Études Traditionnelles ). Initiation is introduced as the transmission, by the appropriate rites of a given tradition, of a "spiritual influence". Related articles were later published, in 1952, in the posthumous collection Initiation and Spiritual Realization . While

4599-465: A single cloud is an overlay of countless clouds, one for each cloud-like collection of water droplets. Mereological moderatists hold that certain conditions must be met for a group of entities to compose a whole, for example, that the entities touch one another. Mereological nihilists reject the idea of wholes altogether, claiming that there are no clouds or tables but only particles that are arranged cloud-wise or table-wise. A related mereological problem

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4818-402: A statement is possibly true if it is true in at least one possible world, whereas it is necessarily true if it is true in all possible worlds. Modal realists argue that possible worlds exist as concrete entities in the same sense as the actual world, with the main difference being that the actual world is the world we live in while other possible worlds are inhabited by counterparts . This view

5037-464: A substratum, also called bare particular , together with various properties. The substratum confers individuality to the particular while the properties express its qualitative features or what it is like. This approach is rejected by bundle theorists , who state that particulars are only bundles of properties without an underlying substratum. Some bundle theorists include in the bundle an individual essence, called haecceity , to ensure that each bundle

5256-458: A symbol that is common to almost all traditions, a fact that would seem to indicate its direct attachment to the great primordial tradition". To alleviate the hurdles bound to the interpretations of a symbol belonging to different traditions, Guénon distinguishes synthesis from syncretism : syncretism consists in assembling from the outside a number of more or less incongruous elements which, when so regarded, can never be truly unified. Syncretism

5475-461: A term from German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz 's theodicy , many metaphysicians use the concept of possible worlds to analyze the meaning and ontological ramifications of modal statements. A possible world is a complete and consistent way the totality of things could have been. For example, the dinosaurs were wiped out in the actual world but there are possible worlds in which they are still alive. According to possible world semantics,

5694-401: A truthmaker for the statement "a tomato is red". Based on this observation, it is possible to pursue metaphysical research by asking what the truthmakers of statements are, with different areas of metaphysics being dedicated to different types of statements. According to this view, modal metaphysics asks what makes statements about what is possible and necessary true while the metaphysics of time

5913-621: A unified dimension rather than as independent dimensions. Empirically focused metaphysicians often rely on scientific theories to ground their theories about the nature of reality in empirical observations. Similar issues arise in the social sciences where metaphysicians investigate their basic concepts and analyze their metaphysical implications. This includes questions like whether social facts emerge from non-social facts, whether social groups and institutions have mind-independent existence, and how they persist through time. Metaphysical assumptions and topics in psychology and psychiatry include

6132-523: A wide range of general and abstract topics. It investigates the nature of existence , the features all entities have in common, and their division into categories of being . An influential division is between particulars and universals . Particulars are individual unique entities, like a specific apple. Universals are general features that different particulars have in common, like the color red . Modal metaphysics examines what it means for something to be possible or necessary. Metaphysicians also explore

6351-399: Is a basic concept that cannot be analyzed in terms of non-causal concepts, such as regularities or dependence relations. One form of primitivism identifies causal powers inherent in entities as the underlying mechanism. Eliminativists reject the above theories by holding that there is no causation. Mind encompasses phenomena like thinking , perceiving , feeling , and desiring as well as

6570-435: Is a fundamental aspect of reality, meaning that besides facts about what is the case, there are additional facts about what could or must be the case. A different view argues that modal truths are not about an independent aspect of reality but can be reduced to non-modal characteristics, for example, to facts about what properties or linguistic descriptions are compatible with each other or to fictional statements . Borrowing

6789-521: Is a property of individuals, meaning that it is similar to other properties, such as shape or size. It is controversial whether all entities have this property. According to Alexius Meinong , there are nonexistent objects , including merely possible objects like Santa Claus and Pegasus . A related question is whether existence is the same for all entities or whether there are different modes or degrees of existence. For instance, Plato held that Platonic forms , which are perfect and immutable ideas, have

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7008-442: Is a well-known principle that gives preference to simple theories, in particular, those that assume that few entities exist. Other principles consider explanatory power , theoretical usefulness, and proximity to established beliefs. Despite its status as one of the main branches of philosophy, metaphysics has received numerous criticisms questioning its legitimacy as a field of inquiry. One criticism argues that metaphysical inquiry

7227-457: Is all that exists and its development is constantly being developed, towards destiny. The "Unmanifested" is all that is beyond universal Manifestation, so that it can only be designated by negation. The second chapter also establishes the fundamental distinctions between the "Self" and the ego, or "personality" and "individuality", the first being the only One that is "absolutely real". These ideas are declined in different denominations depending, for

7446-532: Is also the 'King' (Wang) of the Far-Eastern tradition (Tao Te King chap. 25). The conception of the 'Universal Man' establishes a constitutive analogy between universal manifestation and its individual human modality, or, to use the language of Western Hermeticism , between the 'macrocosm' and the 'microcosm'. From these considerations, the geometrical symbolism of the cross, in its most universal signification, can be contemplated: most traditional doctrines symbolize

7665-499: Is at once " metaphysician , theologian , traditional philosopher and logician", versed in "comparative religion", in "traditional art and civilization", as well as in "the science of man and society"; he is also known as "a critic of the modern world in not only its practical but also its philosophical and scientific aspects". In his writings, Schuon's principal themes are "essential and hence universal metaphysics with its cosmological and anthropological ramifications, spirituality in

7884-440: Is beyond nature. He insisted on the fact that this requires going beyond the manifested world and therefore all phenomena. Metaphysics therefore has nothing to do with phenomena even with extraordinary phenomena. Metaphysics must go beyond the domain of being and must therefore go beyond ontology . He added: “metaphysics is supra-rational, intuitive [beyond subject-object duality] and immediate knowledge” (while rational knowledge

8103-440: Is controversial and various alternatives have been suggested, for example, that possible worlds only exist as abstract objects or are similar to stories told in works of fiction . Space and time are dimensions that entities occupy. Spacetime realists state that space and time are fundamental aspects of reality and exist independently of the human mind. Spacetime idealists, by contrast, hold that space and time are constructs of

8322-401: Is determined. Hard determinists infer from this that there is no free will, whereas libertarians conclude that determinism must be false. Compatibilists offer a third perspective, arguing that determinism and free will do not exclude each other, for instance, because a person can still act in tune with their motivation and choices even if they are determined by other forces. Free will plays

8541-400: Is divided into subdisciplines based on the perspective they take. Metaphysical cosmology examines changeable things and investigates how they are connected to form a world as a totality extending through space and time. Rational psychology focuses on metaphysical foundations and problems concerning the mind, such as its relation to matter and the freedom of the will. Natural theology studies

8760-446: Is expressed in the work of Adi Shankara , Pythagoras , Plato , Plotinus and several other representatives of quintessential esoterism. In Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism , Schuon comments on the three notions of perennial philosophy ( philosophia ), perennial wisdom ( sophia ) and perennial religion ( religio ) to show both their concordance and their particularities: The term philosophia perennis , which appeared as early as

8979-436: Is fundamentally neither material nor mental and suggest that matter and mind are both derivative phenomena. A key aspect of the mind–body problem is the hard problem of consciousness or how to explain that physical systems like brains can produce phenomenal consciousness. The status of free will as the ability of a person to choose their actions is a central aspect of the mind–body problem. Metaphysicians are interested in

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9198-420: Is impossible because humans lack the cognitive capacities needed to access the ultimate nature of reality. This line of thought leads to skepticism about the possibility of metaphysical knowledge. Empiricists often follow this idea, like Hume, who argued that there is no good source of metaphysical knowledge since metaphysics lies outside the field of empirical knowledge and relies on dubious intuitions about

9417-469: Is indirect). The path to this knowledge requires "only one essential preparation, and that is theoretical knowledge [implied by traditional doctrines]". But, he clarified, all this cannot go far without the most important means which is "the concentration". Guénon then described the different stages of the spiritual path: In his "Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines", Guénon writes that "metaphysics affirms

9636-434: Is interested in the truthmakers of temporal statements about the past, present, and future. A closely related topic concerns the nature of truth. Theories of truth aim to determine this nature and include correspondence , coherence , pragmatic , semantic , and deflationary theories . Metaphysicians employ a variety of methods to develop metaphysical theories and formulate arguments for and against them. Traditionally,

9855-468: Is made up of only one kind. According to idealism , everything is mental, including physical objects, which may be understood as ideas or perceptions of conscious minds. Materialists, by contrast, state that all reality is at its core material. Some deny that mind exists but the more common approach is to explain mind in terms of certain aspects of matter, such as brain states, behavioral dispositions , or functional roles. Neutral monists argue that reality

10074-456: Is neither limited nor totally expressed by a particular religious form. For Schuon, integral metaphysics – which starts from the distinction between Ātmā and Māyā (the Absolute and the relative) – is the very substance of pure esoterism, To the metaphysical doctrine must be joined a method of realization because, as Patrick Laude points out : The esoteric perspective is not reducible to

10293-419: Is no consensus about the validity of these criticisms and whether they affect metaphysics as a whole or only certain issues or approaches in it. For example, it could be the case that certain metaphysical disputes are merely verbal while others are substantive. Metaphysics is related to many fields of inquiry by investigating their basic concepts and relation to the fundamental structure of reality. For example,

10512-411: Is one of the oldest branches of philosophy . The precise nature of metaphysics is disputed and its characterization has changed in the course of history. Some approaches see metaphysics as a unified field and give a wide-sweeping definition by understanding it as the study of "fundamental questions about the nature of reality" or as an inquiry into the essences of things. Another approach doubts that

10731-494: Is only one single doctrine of which these forms are so many different expressions or so many adaptations related to particular conditions related to given circumstances of time and place. A notable example of syncretism can be found, according to Guénon, in the "doctrines" and symbols of the Theosophical society . Synthesis on the other hand is carried essentially from within, by which it properly consists in envisaging things in

10950-408: Is opposed by so-called serious metaphysicians , who contend that metaphysical disputes are about substantial features of the underlying structure of reality. A closely related debate between ontological realists and anti-realists concerns the question of whether there are any objective facts that determine which metaphysical theories are true. A different criticism, formulated by pragmatists , sees

11169-466: Is possible in this respect is to clarify a few points with remarks "which can only raise suggestions about the meaning of the doctrine in question rather than really explaining it". In the most general sense of the term, a cycle must be considered as "representing the process of development of some state of manifestation, or, in the case of minor cycles, of one of the more or less restricted and specialized modalities of that state". Moreover, in virtue "of

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11388-531: Is possible that René Guénon became acquainted with the initiatic lineage of Shankaracharya , and with Taoism , due to his friendship with Georges-Albert Puyou de Pouvourville , known under the pen-name Matgioi. Pouvourville was initiated into Taoism in Tonkin, Vietnam (circa 1887–1891) by a village chief: the Tong-Song-Luat (the 'Master of Sentences'). Paul Chacornac hypothesized that Guénon would also have received

11607-457: Is possible to combine elements from both. The method a metaphysician chooses often depends on their understanding of the nature of metaphysics, for example, whether they see it as an inquiry into the mind-independent structure of reality, as metaphysical realists claim, or the principles underlying thought and experience, as some metaphysical anti-realists contend. A priori approaches often rely on intuitions—non-inferential impressions about

11826-448: Is rejected by probabilistic theories , which claim that the cause merely increases the probability that the effect occurs. This view can explain that smoking causes cancer even though this does not happen in every single case. The regularity theory of causation , inspired by David Hume 's philosophy, states that causation is nothing but a constant conjunction in which the mind apprehends that one phenomenon, like putting one's hand in

12045-415: Is related. Nothing can fundamentally be isolated from the rest of the manifestation: there is oneness of “Existence”. Like the principle of manifestation, the "Being" (Sat, or Ishvara if considered in a personalized form), is "One." He then sets out the purpose of human existence: the realization of identity with the "Self" understood as the true essence of the human being. He adds that the "Self" resides in

12264-469: Is something outward: the elements taken from any of its quarters and put together in this way can never amount to anything more than borrowings that are effectively incapable of being integrated into a doctrine "worthy of that name". To apply these criteria to the present context of the symbolism of the cross: syncretism can be recognized wherever one finds elements borrowed from different traditional forms and assembled together without any awareness that there

12483-418: Is studied by mereology . The problem of the many is a philosophical question about the conditions under which several individual things compose a larger whole. For example, a cloud is made up of many droplets without a clear boundary, raising the question of which droplets form part of the cloud. According to mereological universalists, every collection of entities forms a whole. This means that what seems to be

12702-449: Is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality . It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the fundamental categories of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle , designate metaphysics as first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry. Metaphysics encompasses

12921-406: Is the cause and the spill is the effect. Besides the single-case causation between particulars in this example, there is also general-case causation expressed in statements such as "smoking causes cancer". The term agent causation is used when people and their actions cause something. Causation is usually interpreted deterministically, meaning that a cause always brings about its effect. This view

13140-417: Is the most basic inquiry upon which all other branches of philosophy depend in some way. Metaphysics is traditionally understood as a study of mind-independent features of reality. Starting with Immanuel Kant 's critical philosophy , an alternative conception gained prominence that focuses on conceptual schemes rather than external reality. Kant distinguishes transcendent metaphysics, which aims to describe

13359-457: Is the principle thereof, and in consequence is itself unmanifested. For want of any other term, we are obliged to designate all that is thus outside and beyond Being as "Non-Being", but for us this negative term is in no way synonym for 'nothingness'. For instance, our present state, in its corporeal modality, is defined by five conditions: space, time, "matter" (i.e. quantity), "form", and life, and these five conditions enter into correlation with

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13578-417: Is to say of combinations of ideas clothed in subtle forms that depend substantially of the subtle form of the individual himself, moreover, of which the imaginal objects of a dream are nothing but accidental and secondary modifications". Then, René Guénon studies the possibilities of individual consciousness and the mental ("mind") as the characteristic element of the human individuality. In chapter X ("Limits of

13797-401: Is unique. Another proposal for concrete particulars is that they are individuated by their space-time location. Concrete particulars encountered in everyday life, like rocks, tables, and organisms, are complex entities composed of various parts. For example, a table is made up of a tabletop and legs, each of which is itself made up of countless particles. The relation between parts and wholes

14016-465: Is whether there are simple entities that have no parts, as atomists claim, or whether everything can be endlessly subdivided into smaller parts, as continuum theorists contend. Universals are general entities, encompassing both properties and relations , that express what particulars are like and how they resemble one another. They are repeatable, meaning that they are not limited to a unique existent but can be instantiated by different particulars at

14235-496: The dhikr . In 1991, one of Schuon's followers accused him of misconduct during collective gatherings. A preliminary investigation was begun, but the chief prosecutor concluded that there was no proof, noting that the plaintiff was of extremely dubious character and had been previously condemned for making false statements in another similar affair in California. The prosecutor declared that there were no grounds for prosecution, and

14454-535: The Catholic Index of Prohibited Books , a request which had no effect due to the refusal of Pius XII and the support of Cardinal Eugène Tisserant . René Guénon first adopted Islam in 1912, he insisted on recalling that the purely religious concept of an immediate conversion did not apply to his case, indicating he had previous acquaintance with the Islamic faith. According to P. Chacornac, Guénon thought that Islam

14673-473: The Gnostic Church of France founded by Léonce Fabre des Essarts (Synesius). While he did not take this Gnostic church seriously either, it enabled him to become the founder and main contributor of a periodical review, La Gnose (" Gnosis "), writing under the pen-name "Tau Palingenius" until 1922, and focusing on oriental spiritual traditions ( Taoism , Hinduism and Sufism ). From his incursions into

14892-481: The Renaissance and was used extensively by neo-scholasticism , designates the science of the fundamental and universal ontological principles; a science that is immutable like these principles themselves, and primordial by the very fact of its universality and infallibility. We would readily use the term sophia perennis to indicate that this is not a matter of "philosophy" in the standard and approximative meaning of

15111-816: The Sorbonne during World War I. In 1917, Guénon began a one-year stay at Sétif , Algeria , teaching philosophy to college students. After World War I, he left teaching to dedicate himself to writing; his first book, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines , was published in 1921. From 1925 Guénon became a contributor to a review edited by P. Chacornac, Le Voile d'Isis ("The Veil of Isis"), which after 1935, because of Guénon's influence, became known as Les Études Traditionnelles ("Traditional Studies"). According to indications reproduced by his biographer Paul Chacornac and some of his close friends or collaborators such as Jean Reyor, André Préau and Frans Vreede, it

15330-521: The Sufi Shādhilī order, he founded the Tarīqa Maryamiyya . His writings strongly emphasize the universality of metaphysical doctrine, along with the necessity of practising a religion; he also insists on the importance of the virtues and of beauty. Schuon cultivated close relationships with a large number of personages of diverse religious and spiritual horizons. He had a particular interest in

15549-500: The Upanishads in ancient India , Daoism in ancient China , and pre-Socratic philosophy in ancient Greece . During the subsequent medieval period in the West, discussions about the nature of universals were influenced by the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. The modern period saw the emergence of various comprehensive systems of metaphysics, many of which embraced idealism . In

15768-457: The ancient Greeks to the classical names of lesser and greater mysteries : "they are not different "types" of initiations, but stages or degrees of a same initiation". Lesser mysteries lead to the "perfection of the human state", in other words to "something traditionally designated by the restoration of the "primordial state", a state that Dante , in the Divine comedy , relates symbolically to

15987-492: The concepts of space, time, and change , and their connection to causality and the laws of nature . Other topics include how mind and matter are related , whether everything in the world is predetermined , and whether there is free will . Metaphysicians use various methods to conduct their inquiry. Traditionally, they rely on rational intuitions and abstract reasoning but have more recently also included empirical approaches associated with scientific theories. Due to

16206-522: The sophia perennis , or religio perennis , conceived as the conjunction of a metaphysical doctrine and a means of spiritual realization". Schuon characterizes "pure" metaphysics as 1) "essential", i.e. "independent of all religious formulation"; 2) "primordial", namely "the truth that existed before all dogmatic formalism"; and 3) "universal", in that it "encompasses all intrinsically orthodox symbolism" and "can therefore be combined with any religious language". For him, pure metaphysics can be summarized by

16425-740: The "terrestrial paradise". On another hand, "greater mysteries" refer properly to "the realization of supra-human states"; they correspond to the Hindu doctrine of "deliverance" ( Moksha ) and to what Islamic esoterism calls the "realization of the Universal Man": in that latter tradition, "lesser" and "greater" mysteries correspond exactly to the signification of the terms "el-insân el-qadîm" (the Primordial Man) and " el-insan el-kâmil " (the Universal Man). These two phases are related to an interpretation of

16644-440: The 'chronological' form under which the doctrine of cycles is presented: since a Kalpa represents the total development of a world, that is to say of a state or degree of universal existence, "it is obvious that one cannot speak literally about its duration, computed according to some temporal measure, unless this duration relates to a state of which time is one of the determination, as in our world". Everywhere else, this duration

16863-518: The 19th century to devote itself to politics in a more anti-traditional (anti-Catholic) direction. Guénon has long kept the hope of an alliance between some members of the Catholic Church and Masonry to reconstitute a complete elite (combining the Catholic religion and Christian Masonry). He envisioned that Eastern masters could spiritually revive these traditions from time to time. The application of

17082-404: The 20th century, traditional metaphysics in general and idealism in particular faced various criticisms, which prompted new approaches to metaphysical inquiry. Metaphysics is the study of the most general features of reality , including existence , objects and their properties , possibility and necessity, space and time , change, causation , and the relation between matter and mind . It

17301-645: The Alawī brotherhood. Returning to Europe, Schuon founded a zāwiya in Basel, another in Lausanne and a third in Amiens . He resumed his profession as a textile designer in Alsace for the next four years. One night towards the end of 1936, after a spiritual experience, Schuon sensed, without a shadow of a doubt, that he had been invested with the function of spiritual master, of sheikh . This

17520-555: The Being is essentially related to the notion of "spiritual hierarchies", which is found in all traditions. Hence is described the universal process of the "realization of the Being through Knowledge". Guénon gave a conference at La Sorbonne on December 17, 1925. This conference was organized by the “group of Philosophical and Scientific Studies for the Examination of New Ideas” founded by Doctor René Allendy . The objective of this association

17739-657: The Catholic Church. At primary school, Schuon met the future metaphysician and art specialist Titus Burckhardt , who remained a lifelong friend. From the age of ten, his search for truth led him to read not only the Bible but also the Upanishads , the Bhagavad-Gītā and the Quran , as well as Plato , Emerson , Goethe and Schiller . Schuon would later say that in his early youth four things had always moved him most profoundly: "the holy,

17958-510: The Crow tribe in 1984. During these sojourns, Schuon and some of his followers organized what they called "Indian Days", in which Native American dances were performed, leading some to accuse him of practising ritual nudity. These gatherings were understood by disciples as a sharing in Schuon's personal insights and realization, not as part of the initiatic method he transmitted, centered on Islamic prayer and

18177-648: The East and West, and the peculiar nature, according to him, of modern civilization: Crisis of the Modern World , and East and West . In 1927 was published the second major doctrinal book of his works: Man and His Becoming according to the Vedânta , and in 1929, Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power . The last book listed offers a general explanation of what Guénon saw as the fundamental differences between "sacerdotal" (priestly or sacred) and "royal" (governmental) powers, along with

18396-621: The Eiffel Tower, or a specific apple, and abstract objects, like the number 2 or a specific set in mathematics. Also called individuals , they are unique, non-repeatable entities and contrast with universals , like the color red, which can at the same time exist in several places and characterize several particulars. A widely held view is that particulars instantiate universals but are not themselves instantiated by something else, meaning that they exist in themselves while universals exist in something else. Substratum theory analyzes each particular as

18615-514: The English language through the Latin word metaphysica . The nature of metaphysics can also be characterized in relation to its main branches. An influential division from early modern philosophy distinguishes between general and special or specific metaphysics. General metaphysics, also called ontology , takes the widest perspective and studies the most fundamental aspects of being. It investigates

18834-515: The French occultist and pseudo-Masonic orders, he despaired of the possibility of ever gathering these diverse and often ill-assorted doctrines into a "stable edifice". In his book The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times he also pointed out what he saw as the intellectual vacuity of the French occultist movement, which, he wrote, was utterly insignificant, and more importantly, had been compromised by

19053-586: The Guenonian perspective that he held at the time, Western Christianity no longer seemed to offer the possibility of following a "path of knowledge" under the guidance of a spiritual master, whereas such a path was still open within the framework of Sufism, Islamic esoterism. Schuon reported that one night in July 1934, while immersed in reading the Bhagavad-Gītā , he experienced an extraordinary spiritual event. He said that

19272-519: The Guénonian journal Études Traditionnelles , as he had done since 1933. In 1947, after reading Black Elk Speaks by John G. Neihardt, Schuon, who had always been deeply interested in the North American Indians, was convinced that Black Elk knew much more about Sioux tradition than was contained in the book. He asked his American friends to seek out the old chief. Following this initiative,

19491-598: The Human Condition . According to Patrick Laude , Schuon became known, through his many books, articles and letters, "as the principal spokesman of the intellectual current sometimes referred to in English speaking countries as perennialism", or the Traditionalist School . During his years in Lausanne and Bloomington he regularly received visits from "practitioners and representatives of diverse religions". Thomas Yellowtail remained Schuon's intimate friend until his death in 1993, visiting him every year and adopting him into

19710-452: The Indefinite"), he comes back to the notion of metaphysical realization ( moksha , or "Supreme identity"). A superior signification of the notion of "darkness" is then introduced, most notably in the chapter entitled "The two chaoses", which describes what is happening during the course of spiritual realization when a disciple leaves the domain of "formal possibilities". The multiples states of

19929-934: The Real, the Absolute, the Principle, Beyond Being, Brahma ( Brahman ); and Māyā the illusory, the relative, manifestation. Schuon develops this metaphysical principle, notably in Form and Substance in the Religions , basing himself on the Sufi doctrine of the degrees of reality, known as "The Five Divine Presences": 1. Ātmā : Beyond-Being, Impersonal Divinity, Supreme Principle, Absolute Reality, Essence, nirguna Brahman . 2. Māyā in divinis (the "relative Absolute", " Ātmā as Māyā "): Being, Personal God, creating Principle, uncreated Spirit, saguna Brahman , Īshvara . 3. Supra-formal manifestation: created Spirit ( Intellect , Logos , Buddhi ), paradise, angels. 4. Subtle or animic manifestation:

20148-624: The Roman world, it exteriorized itself in a providential way: the Christian sacraments then went from esoteric to exoteric status (which would become a point of contention among some of his interlocutors). In the Middle Ages, Christian initiation groups existed, the most important was the order of the Temple . After the destruction of this order, Christian esotericism became more and more closed and separated from

20367-641: The Schuons visited the Brussels World's Fair , where 60 Sioux were giving performances on the theme of the Wild West. New friendships were made on this occasion also. Thus it was that in 1959 and again in 1963, at the invitation of their Indian friends, the Schuons journeyed to the American West, where they visited various Plains tribes and had the opportunity to witness many aspects of their sacred traditions. During

20586-451: The Sheikh's zāwiya . The Sheikh gave him initiation and named him `Īsā Nūr ad-Dīn. However, Schuon was soon forced to return to Europe under pressure from the French colonial authorities. Schuon did not consider his affiliation to Islam as a conversion, since he did not disavow Christianity; in each revelation he saw the expression of one and the same truth, in different forms. But for him, in

20805-517: The Virgin Mary, and expressed this in his writings. As a result, his teachings and paintings are imbued with a particular Marian presence. His reverence for the Virgin Mary has been studied in detail by American professor James Cutsinger , who relates the two episodes in 1965 when Schuon experienced an especial Marian grace. Hence the name Maryamiyya ("Marian" in Arabic) of the Sufi tarīqa he founded as

21024-569: The West, whose modern values were so contrary to his nature, combined with his growing interest in Islam , prompted him to go to Marseilles , the great port of departure for the East. There he made the acquaintance of two key personages, both of them disciples of Sheikh Ahmad al-Alawī, a Sufi in Mostaganem , Algeria . Schuon saw the sign of his destiny in these encounters, and embarked for Algeria. In Mostaganem he entered Islam, and spent nearly four months in

21243-647: The absolute and infinite Self (1). The presence of the three superior degrees in man "made in the image of God" confers upon him the possibility of a knowledge that transcends the limitations of subjectivity, thus in principle allowing him to "see things as they are", that is, objectively: this is gnosis. As did Plato in ancient Greece, Adi Shankara in Hinduism, Meister Eckhardt and St Gregory Palamas in Christianity and Ibn Arabī in Islam – to name some examples –, Schuon attests that

21462-402: The abstract nature of its topic, metaphysics has received criticisms questioning the reliability of its methods and the meaningfulness of its theories. Metaphysics is relevant to many fields of inquiry that often implicitly rely on metaphysical concepts and assumptions. The roots of metaphysics lie in antiquity with speculations about the nature and origin of the universe, like those found in

21681-527: The age of 23. René Guénon's work is generally divided into “four major themes”: Guénon's writings make use of words and terms of fundamental signification, which receive a precise definition throughout his books. These terms and words, although receiving a usual meaning and being used in many branches of human sciences, have, according to René Guénon, substantially lost their original significance (e.g. words such as "metaphysics", "initiation", "mysticism", "personality", "form", "matter"). He insisted notably on

21900-492: The article "Some remarks on the doctrine of cosmic cycles". He writes that giving an overview of this theory and its equivalents in different traditional forms is merely an impossible task "not only because the question is very complex in itself, but specially owing to the extreme difficulty of expressing these things in a European language, and in a way that is intelligible to the present-day Western mentality, which has had no practice whatsoever with this kind of thinking". All that

22119-430: The average person thinks about an issue. For example, common-sense philosophers have argued that mereological nihilism is false since it implies that commonly accepted things, like tables, do not exist. Conceptual analysis , a method particularly prominent in analytic philosophy , aims to decompose metaphysical concepts into component parts to clarify their meaning and identify essential relations. In phenomenology ,

22338-420: The brain is the instrument of the mind, in particular of rational thought, indirect knowledge. It is Buddhi, who resides in the heart of every being, who ensures the unification between all the states of existence and the oneness of "Existence". The general considerations of the "Self", the "Unmanifested" and the universal "Manifestation" are introduced according to Advaita Vêdânta: the "universal Manifestation"

22557-450: The broadest sense, intrinsic morals and aesthetics, traditional principles and phenomena", religions and their esotericisms , sacred art. The traditionalist or perennialist spiritual perspective was initially enunciated in the 1920s by René Guénon and in the 1930s by Frithjof Schuon. The metaphysicians and art specialists Ananda Coomaraswamy and Titus Burckhardt also became prominent advocates of this intellectual current. According to

22776-568: The call of the Most High — Let us repose in God's deep Peace.                                                  World Wheel VII, CXXX For Seyyed Hossein Nasr , Schuon

22995-404: The concepts of truth , truth-bearer , and truthmaker to conduct their inquiry. Truth is a property of being in accord with reality. Truth-bearers are entities that can be true or false, such as linguistic statements and mental representations. A truthmaker of a statement is the entity whose existence makes the statement true. For example, the fact that a tomato exists and that it is red acts as

23214-516: The confusions arising about certain questions related to chronology, these confusions being made possible through the ignorance of the importance of oral transmission which can precede, to a considerable and indeterminate extent, written formulation. A fundamental example of that latter mistake being found in the orientalist's attempts at providing a precise birth date to the Vedas sacred scriptures. The "general characters of eastern thought" part focuses on

23433-763: The correctness of specific claims or general principles. For example, arguments for the A-theory of time , which states that time flows from the past through the present and into the future, often rely on pre-theoretical intuitions associated with the sense of the passage of time. Some approaches use intuitions to establish a small set of self-evident fundamental principles, known as axioms , and employ deductive reasoning to build complex metaphysical systems by drawing conclusions from these axioms. Intuition-based approaches can be combined with thought experiments , which help evoke and clarify intuitions by linking them to imagined situations. They use counterfactual thinking to assess

23652-474: The correlation between these terms indicates that in the case of the Infinite, it is contemplated in its active aspect, while the universal Possibility refers to its passive aspect: these are the two aspects of Brahma and its Shakti in the Hindu doctrines. From this results that "the distinction between the possible and the real [...] has no metaphysical validity, for every possible is real in its way, according to

23871-453: The couple visited Morocco about ten times, as well as numerous European countries, including Greece and Turkey, where they visited the house near Ephesus presumed to be the last home of the Virgin Mary . In the winter of 1953, Schuon and his wife travelled to Paris to attend performances organized by a group of Crow dancers. They formed a friendship with Thomas Yellowtail , the future medicine man and Sun Dance Chief. Five years later,

24090-442: The cross is a symbol that in its various forms is encountered almost everywhere, and from the most remote of times. It is therefore far from belonging peculiarly to the Christian tradition, and the cross, like any other traditional symbol, can be regarded according to manifold senses. Far from being an absolute and complete unity in himself, the individual in reality constitutes but a relative and fragmentary unity. The multiplicity of

24309-571: The danger represented by the perversion of the signification of words which he saw as essential for the study of metaphysics. The exposition of metaphysical doctrines, which forms the cornerstone of Guénon's work, consists of the following books: Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines , published in 1921, on topics which were later included in the lecture he gave at the Sorbonne on December 17, 1925 ("Oriental Metaphysics"), consists of four parts. The first part ("preliminary questions") exposes

24528-452: The different areas of metaphysics share a set of underlying features and provides instead a fine-grained characterization by listing all the main topics investigated by metaphysicians. Some definitions are descriptive by providing an account of what metaphysicians do while others are normative and prescribe what metaphysicians ought to do. Two historically influential definitions in ancient and medieval philosophy understand metaphysics as

24747-442: The distinction between esotericism and exoterism to Christianity, Guénon's position on mysticism and the assertion that the Catholic sacraments have lost their initiatory character have been the subject of strong criticism. It is this point which led to the rupture between Guénon and Frithjof Schuon . Guénon's ideas on esotericism had a significant impact on Freemasonry especially in Latin speaking countries. According to David Bisson,

24966-406: The divine Name Allāh took possession of his being, and that for three days he could do nothing but invoke it ceaselessly. Shortly afterwards, he learned that his Sheikh had died on the same day. In 1935 he returned to the zāwiya of Mostaganem, where Sheikh Adda ben Tounes, Sheikh al-Alawī's successor, conferred on him the function of muqaddam , thus authorizing him to initiate aspirants into

25185-496: The divine and its role as the first cause. The scope of special metaphysics overlaps with other philosophical disciplines, making it unclear whether a topic belongs to it or to areas like philosophy of mind and theology . Applied metaphysics is a relatively young subdiscipline. It belongs to applied philosophy and studies the applications of metaphysics, both within philosophy and other fields of inquiry. In areas like ethics and philosophy of religion , it addresses topics like

25404-469: The doctrine on this and on many other points is fundamentally the same as in the Hindu tradition, in spite of great differences in form." The rigor and quality of the presentation refer to the quality of the Hindu master whom Guénon had met during the period 1905-1909 and about whom he does not breathe a word in his book: some supposed that he must have studied the texts cited directly with these Hindus. The book

25623-449: The erroneous interpretations and misunderstandings of western orientalism and "neospiritualism" (for the latter, notably the proponents of Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy). For all his intellectual's skills might be, it seems unlikely that he succeeded just by himself or with the help of a few books in getting the profound and enlightening understanding of the Vêdânta he seems to have acquired by

25842-557: The essential discernment in metaphysics is that between the Real and the non-real (the illusory), Ātmā and Māyā . He emphasizes that the Real, or Beyond Being, which is absolute and infinite, is the essence of all good (the Sovereign Good). As St Augustine reminds us, it is in the nature of the Good ( Agathôn ) to radiate, hence the projection of Māyā , which is simultaneously divine ( Īshvara ), celestial ( Buddhi and Svarga ) and "earthly",

26061-469: The ethnologist Joseph E. Brown collected from Black Elk the description of the seven Sioux rites which would form the content of The Sacred Pipe . In 1948 Schuon published his first book in French, De l'Unité transcendante des religions . Of this book, T. S. Eliot wrote: "I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion." All his subsequent works – more than twenty – would be written in French, apart from

26280-403: The fact that it is about low initiations (initiations of trades mixed with remains of chivalrous initiations), its passage from operative masonry to speculative masonry in the 18th century prevents the transition from virtual initiation to effective initiation, the latter had to be done by exercising the profession in question. More seriously still, Masonry turned in part from its initiatory role in

26499-534: The family, finding work as a textile designer. He then immersed himself in the world of the Bhagavad-Gītā and the Vedānta ; this call of Hinduism sustained him for ten years, though he was perfectly aware that he could not become Hindu himself. In 1924, while still living in Mulhouse, he discovered the works of the French philosopher René Guénon , which served to confirm his intellectual intuitions and provided support for

26718-739: The fault of metaphysics not in its cognitive ambitions or the meaninglessness of its statements, but in its practical irrelevance and lack of usefulness. Martin Heidegger criticized traditional metaphysics, saying that it fails to distinguish between individual entities and being as their ontological ground. His attempt to reveal the underlying assumptions and limitations in the history of metaphysics to "overcome metaphysics" influenced Jacques Derrida 's method of deconstruction . Derrida employed this approach to criticize metaphysical texts for relying on opposing terms, like presence and absence, which he thought were inherently unstable and contradictory. There

26937-447: The features that all entities share and how entities can be divided into different categories . Categories are the most general kinds, such as substance, property, relation , and fact . Ontologists research which categories there are, how they depend on one another, and how they form a system of categories that provides a comprehensive classification of all entities. Special metaphysics considers being from more narrow perspectives and

27156-543: The first of these visits, Schuon and his wife were adopted into the Sioux family of Chief James Red Cloud, grandson of Chief Red Cloud , and a few weeks later, at an Indian festival in Sheridan, Wyoming, they were officially received into the Sioux tribe. Schuon's writings on the central rites of Native American religion and his paintings of their way of life attest to his particular affinity with their spiritual universe. The 1970s saw

27375-410: The five corporeal elements ( bhutas of the Hindu doctrine, see below) to create all living forms (including us in our corporeal modalities) in our world and state of existence. But the universal Manifestation is incommensurably more vast, including all the states of existence that correspond to other conditions or possibilities, yet Being Itself is the principle of universal Manifestation. This involves

27594-541: The following vedantic statement: Brahma satyam jagan mithyā jīvo brahmaiva nāparah ( Brahman is real, the world is illusory, the individual soul is not different from Brahman). The metaphysics expounded by Schuon is based on the doctrine of what the Hindu Advaita Vedānta refers to as Ātmā and Māyā . Ātmā ( Ātman ) is the Self, both transcendent and immanent; in correlation with Māyā , Ātmā designates

27813-564: The foundation of the theory of multiple states and the metaphysical notion of the "Unicity of the Existence" ( wahdatul-wujûd ) as it is for instance developed in Islamic esoterism by Mohyddin Ibn Arabi . The relationships of unity and multiplicity lead to a more accurate "description" of the Non-Being: in it, there can be no question of a multiplicity of states, since this domain is essentially that of

28032-468: The fundamental structure of mind-independent reality. The concepts of possibility and necessity convey what can or must be the case, expressed in modal statements like "it is possible to find a cure for cancer" and "it is necessary that two plus two equals four". Modal metaphysics studies metaphysical problems surrounding possibility and necessity, for instance, why some modal statements are true while others are false. Some metaphysicians hold that modality

28251-423: The fundamental terms of "esoterism" and "exoterism" are introduced. A chapter is devoted to the idea of "metaphysical realization". The first two parts state, according to Guénon, the necessary doctrinal foundations for a correct understanding of Hindu doctrines. The Introduction to the study of the Hindu doctrines had, among its objectives, the purpose of giving the proper intellectual basis to promote openness to

28470-670: The generosity of an English admirer of Guénon's called John Levy, the couple became owners of a small villa, the "Villa Fatima" named after Guénon's wife, in the modern district of Duqqi, west of Cairo, at the foot of the pyramids. Guénon hardly ever went out and often refused Western visitors; his address remained a secret. He spent most of his time working in his office, praying in his oratory, and talking to close friends. In 1949, Guénon obtained Egyptian citizenship. Sedgwick wrote about Guénon's life in Egypt, that while he continued to be interested in Hinduism and other religions, Guénon's own practice

28689-462: The great, the beautiful, the childlike". In 1920, Schuon's father died and his mother decided to return with her young sons to her family in nearby Mulhouse , France, where Schuon became a French citizen, consequent upon the Treaty of Versailles . One year later, when he was 14, he was baptized as a Catholic. In 1923 his brother entered a Trappist monastery, and Schuon left school in order to provide for

28908-540: The history of Western thought, only the transcendentals of scholastic theology belong to the "Universal". The "Self" contains all the states of manifestation but also all the states of non-manifestation. If one considers the "Self" only as the principle of manifested states only, it identifies with Ishvara , the notion closest to the Creator God in Hindu doctrines, according to him. All manifested states represent "manifestation", or "Universal Existence," where everything

29127-404: The human mind, created to organize and make sense of reality. Spacetime absolutism or substantivalism understands spacetime as a distinct object, with some metaphysicians conceptualizing it as a container that holds all other entities within it. Spacetime relationism sees spacetime not as an object but as a network of relations between objects, such as the spatial relation of being next to and

29346-481: The hurdles that prevented classical orientalism from a deep understanding of eastern doctrines (without forgetting that Guénon had of course in view the orientalism of his time): the "classical prejudice" which "consists essentially in a predisposition to attribute the origin of all civilization to the Greeks and Romans", the ignorance of certain types of relationships between the ancient peoples, linguistic difficulties, and

29565-403: The identity of knowing and being" and that "it does not only affirm it, it realizes it". The effective means of realization are found in what is called initiation . Articles written by him on this subject were collected later in the form of two books including Perspectives on Initiation (1946) and Initiation and Spiritual Realization (published in 1952 after his death). Guénon declared that

29784-632: The inauthentic accretions which so bedeviled other lodges he had encountered during his early years in Paris. This lodge was called La Grande Triade ("The Great Triad"), a name inspired by the title of one of Guénon's books. The first founders of the lodge, however, separated a few years after its inception. Nevertheless, this lodge, belonging to the Grande Loge de France , remains active today. In 1930, Guénon left Paris for Cairo , where he met with Abdalhaqq-Léon Champrenaud, and Abdalhadi Alaqhili, formerly known as John-Gustaf Aguéli , to be initiated into

30003-443: The indiscernibility of identicals is widely accepted and holds that numerically identical entities exactly resemble one another. The converse principle, known as identity of indiscernibles or Leibniz's Law, is more controversial and states that two entities are numerically identical if they exactly resemble one another. Another distinction is between synchronic and diachronic identity. Synchronic identity relates an entity to itself at

30222-415: The individual sciences by studying the most general and abstract aspects of reality. The individual sciences, by contrast, examine more specific and concrete features and restrict themselves to certain classes of entities, such as the focus on physical things in physics , living entities in biology , and cultures in anthropology . It is disputed to what extent this contrast is a strict dichotomy rather than

30441-564: The infiltration of certain individuals of questionable motives and integrity. Following his desire to join a regular Masonic obedience, he became a member of the Thebah Lodge of the Grande Loge de France following the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite . Guénon went on to be discharged from his military service due to his severe health problems; he took this opportunity to study philosophy at

30660-441: The inner dimension of the former and consequently adopts its "language", and there is discontinuity when esoterism transcends all religion: this is the religio perennis , the timeless, essential, primordial and universal esoterism. It constitutes "the transcendent unity of religions" and is based, methodically, on one of the revelations while having as its object the one Truth common to all of them. Metaphysics Metaphysics

30879-491: The latter including the domain of transmigration ( samsâra ). Every good offered by the world comes from the radiation of the Sovereign Good, every evil comes from Its remoteness. Mâyâ both veils and reveals God, the Absolute. Most religions comprise an exoteric and an esoteric dimension. This religious esoterism is qualified as "relative" by Schuon, to differentiate it from "absolute" or "quintessential" esoterism, which

31098-418: The law of correspondence which links all things in universal Existence, there is necessarily and always a certain analogy, either among the different cycles of the same order or among the principal cycles and their secondary divisions". This allows to use one and the same mode of expression when speaking about the cycles, although this must often be understood only symbolically, and this allude here especially to

31317-520: The local press made amends. Some articles and books, including Mark Sedgwick 's Against the Modern World , discuss this event and the related "primordial" practices of the Bloomington community. Schuon continued to receive visitors and maintain a correspondence with followers, scholars and readers. At the very end of his life, he wrote a major collection of over three thousand lyrical "teaching-poems" ( Lehrgedichte ), which combine metaphysics and spiritual counsel, as well as reminiscences of his life. Like

31536-469: The manner in which it is presented, having himself no say in the matter [...] In the case of initiation, on the contrary, the individual is the source of initiative towards 'realization', pursued methodically under rigorous and unremitting control, and normally reaching beyond the very possibilities of the individual as such. For Guénon, there are traditions where the esoteric/exoteric separation does not formally exist ( Hinduism , Tibetan Lamaism ). In China,

31755-500: The master of the Sufi spiritual lineage with which he was affiliated, but unfortunately he had just died, hence he chose to make dhikr at his gravesite instead. Guénon went on to meet Sheikh Salama Radi, the succeeding Qutb , the highest authority of the Shadhilite branch to which Guénon belonged, after the death of Sheikh Abderrahman Elkebir. Several testimonies certify that he became Guénon's final teacher. He lived for seven years in

31974-469: The meaning of a statement is given by the procedure used to verify it, usually through the observations that would confirm it. Based on this controversial assumption, they argue that metaphysical statements are meaningless since they make no testable predictions about experience. A slightly weaker position allows metaphysical statements to have meaning while holding that metaphysical disagreements are merely verbal disputes about different ways to describe

32193-549: The meaning. The academic Michel Hulin , a specialist in Indian philosophy, wrote in 2001 that Man and his future according to the Vedânta remains "one of the most rigorous and profound interpretations of the Shankarian doctrine". The Symbolism of the Cross is a book "dedicated to the venerated memory of Esh-Sheikh Abder-Rahman Elish El-Kebir". Its goal, as Guénon states it, "is to explain

32412-579: The medieval-style Islamic quarters around the Khan el-Khalili and often attended al-Azhar University , an intellectual center of Sunni Muslim scholarship. One morning, at dawn, while praying at the Seyidna el Hussein mosque, in front of the mausoleum housing the remains of Husayn ibn Ali , he met Sheikh Mohammad Ibrahim, an elderly lawyer with whom he became very close. Guénon married Ibrahim's youngest daughter in 1934, with whom he had four children. In 1937, thanks to

32631-460: The metaphysical principles he had begun to discover. Schuon would later say of Guénon that he was "the profound and powerful theoretician of all that he loved". In 1930, after 18 months in Besançon on military service in the French army, Schuon settled in Paris. There he resumed his profession as a textile designer, and began to study Arabic in the local mosque school. Living in Paris also gave him

32850-501: The method of eidetic variation is used to investigate essential structures underlying phenomena . This method involves imagining an object and varying its features to determine which ones are essential and cannot be changed. The transcendental method is a further approach and examines the metaphysical structure of reality by observing what entities there are and studying the conditions of possibility without which these entities could not exist. Some approaches give less importance to

33069-734: The mind used to order experience by classifying entities. Natural and social kinds are often understood as special types of universals. Entities belonging to the same natural kind share certain fundamental features characteristic of the structure of the natural world. In this regard, natural kinds are not an artificially constructed classification but are discovered, usually by the natural sciences, and include kinds like electrons , H 2 O , and tigers. Scientific realists and anti-realists disagree about whether natural kinds exist. Social kinds, like money and baseball , are studied by social metaphysics and characterized as useful social constructions that, while not purely fictional, do not reflect

33288-425: The mode befitting its own nature". This leads to the metaphysical consideration of the "Being" and "Non-Being": If we [...] define Being in the universal sense as the principle of manifestation, and at the same time as comprising in itself the totality of possibilities of all manifestation, we must say that Being is not infinite because it does not coincide with total Possibility; and all the more so because Being, as

33507-462: The multiple states of Being, a doctrine already tackled in The Symbolism of the Cross , leaving aside the geometrical representation exposed in that book "to bring out the full range of this altogether fundamental theory". First and foremost is asserted the necessity of the "metaphysical Infinity", envisaged in its relationship with "universal Possibility". "The Infinite, according to the etymology of

33726-889: The natural sciences rely on concepts such as law of nature , causation, necessity, and spacetime to formulate their theories and predict or explain the outcomes of experiments. While scientists primarily focus on applying these concepts to specific situations, metaphysics examines their general nature and how they depend on each other. For instance, physicists formulate laws of nature, like laws of gravitation and thermodynamics , to describe how physical systems behave under various conditions. Metaphysicians, by contrast, examine what all laws of nature have in common, asking whether they merely describe contingent regularities or express necessary relations. New scientific discoveries have also influenced existing metaphysical theories and inspired new ones. Einstein's theory of relativity , for instance, prompted various metaphysicians to conceive space and time as

33945-601: The necessary distinctions and definitions of seemingly unambiguous terms such as religion, tradition, exoterism , esoterism and theology . Guénon explained that his purpose was not to describe all aspects of Hinduism, but to give the necessary intellectual foundation for a proper understanding of its spirit. The book also stands as a harsh condemnation of works presented by certain other European writers about Hinduism and Tradition in general; according to Guénon, such writers had lacked any profound understanding of their subject matter and of its implications. The book also contains

34164-579: The negative consequences arising from the usurpation of the prerogatives of the latter with regard to the former. From these considerations, René Guénon traces to its source the origin of the modern deviation, which, according to him, is to be found in the destruction of the Templar order in 1314. Urged on by some of his friends and collaborators, Guénon agreed to establish a new Masonic Lodge in France founded upon his "Traditional ideals", purified of what he saw as

34383-412: The notion of initiation is introduced in the most general setting, it is impossible, writes Guénon, to write a complete and comprehensive book on the subject "for an indefinite number of questions could be raised – the very nature of the subject resisting any set limit". However, the subject of initiation being contemplated from a general point of view, the goal of Guénon goes beyond an introduction to

34602-401: The object is present, not the object as a whole. Change means that an earlier part is qualitatively different from a later part. For example, when a banana ripens, there is an unripe part followed by a ripe part. Causality is the relation between cause and effect whereby one entity produces or affects another entity. For instance, if a person bumps a glass and spills its contents then the bump

34821-471: The objective features of reality beyond sense experience, from critical metaphysics, which outlines the aspects and principles underlying all human thought and experience. Philosopher P. F. Strawson further explored the role of conceptual schemes, contrasting descriptive metaphysics, which articulates conceptual schemes commonly used to understand the world, with revisionary metaphysics, which aims to produce better conceptual schemes. Metaphysics differs from

35040-550: The official Church. Freemasonry and Compagnonnage inherited the last Western initiation rites. For Guénon, the Catholic Church has retained its authentic religious dimension but has lost its esoteric dimension no longer making access to final deliverance possible. Mysticism since the Renaissance is a passive path inferior to the initiatory path: it allows to reach the divine but in an indirect and often uncontrollable way. Freemasonry has kept initiatory transmissions but, in addition to

35259-584: The ontological foundations of moral claims and religious doctrines. Beyond philosophy, its applications include the use of ontologies in artificial intelligence , economics , and sociology to classify entities. In psychiatry and medicine , it examines the metaphysical status of diseases . Meta-metaphysics is the metatheory of metaphysics and investigates the nature and methods of metaphysics. It examines how metaphysics differs from other philosophical and scientific disciplines and assesses its relevance to them. Even though discussions of these topics have

35478-420: The opportunity to be exposed to various forms of traditional art to a much greater degree than before, especially the arts of Asia with which he had had a deep affinity since his youth. At the end of 1932 he completed his first book, Leitgedanken zur Urbesinnung , which would be published in 1935 and later translated into English under the title Primordial Meditation: Contemplating the Real . His desire to leave

35697-460: The past. From the perspective of the B-series theory, time is static, and events are ordered by the temporal relations earlier-than and later-than without any essential difference between past, present, and future. Eternalism holds that past, present, and future are equally real, whereas presentism asserts that only entities in the present exist. Material objects persist through time and change in

35916-415: The path to this knowledge requires "only one essential preparation, and that is theoretical knowledge [implied by traditional doctrines]". But he clarified, all this cannot go far without the most important means which is "concentration". The rational study of the initiatory texts and the implementation of the rites are of no use if the spiritual transmission has not taken place: for example, the recitation of

36135-473: The perennialist writer William Stoddart , "the central idea of the perennial philosophy is that Divine Truth is one, timeless and universal, and that the different religions are but different languages expressing that one Truth" – hence the title given by Schuon to his first book in French, De l'unité transcendante des religions . For Patrick Laude, a perennialist author is "one who claims the universality and primordiality of fundamental metaphysical principles and

36354-415: The perennity of the wisdom that actualizes these principles in man, as expressed in all great revelations and major teachings of sages and saints throughout the ages". According to Harry Oldmeadow , this primordial truth or wisdom has "carried many names: Philosophia Perennis , Lex Aeterna , Hagia Sophia , Dīn al-Haqq , Akālika Dhamma , Sanātana Dharma ", etc. Schuon points out that primordial wisdom

36573-494: The period of 1904–1909, possibly upon his exact arrival in the occultist world, if not before. Although the exposition of Hindu doctrines to European audiences had already been attempted in piecemeal fashion at that time by some orientalists , Guénon's Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines advanced its subject in a uniquely insightful manner, by referring to the concepts of metaphysics and Tradition in their most general sense, which Guénon precisely defined, along with

36792-652: The poems of his youth, these were written in his native German, following a series in Arabic and another in English. They are a poetic synthesis of his philosophical and spiritual message, which is articulated around four key elements: "truth, prayer, virtue and beauty". Less than two months before his death on May 5, 1998 at the age of 90, Frithjof Schuon wrote his last poem: Ich wollte dieses Buch schon lang beschließen – Ich konnte nicht; ich musste weiter dichten. Doch diesmal legt sich meine Feder nieder, Denn es gibt andres Sinnen, andre Pflichten; Wie dem auch sei,

37011-480: The possible consequences of these situations. For example, to explore the relation between matter and consciousness, some theorists compare humans to philosophical zombies —hypothetical creatures identical to humans but without conscious experience . A related method relies on commonly accepted beliefs instead of intuitions to formulate arguments and theories. The common-sense approach is often used to criticize metaphysical theories that deviate significantly from how

37230-502: The preparation for the prestigious École Polytechnique and École normale supérieure admission competitions. Guénon observed and became involved with some students under the supervision of Papus . Guénon soon discovered that the Esoteric Christian Martinist order , also supervised by Papus, was irregular: he wrote later that this occultist milieu had not received any authentic spiritual transmission. He joined

37449-449: The principle of manifestation, although it does indeed comprise all the possibilities of manifestation, does so only insofar as they are actually manifested. Outside of Being, therefore, are all the rest, that is all the possibilities of non-manifestation, as well as the possibilities of manifestation themselves insofar as they are in the unmanifested state; and included among these is Being itself, which cannot belong to manifestation since it

37668-497: The principles of unity of the eastern civilizations, and on the definition of the notions of "tradition" and "metaphysics". Guénon also proposes a rigorous definition of the term "religion", which he saw as "the conjunction of three elements", that being a dogma, a moral law, and a form of worship. He also goes on to state the proper differences between "tradition", "religion", "metaphysics" and "philosophical system". The relations between "metaphysics" and "theology" are also explored, and

37887-508: The process, like a tree that grows or loses leaves. The main ways of conceptualizing persistence through time are endurantism and perdurantism . According to endurantism, material objects are three-dimensional entities that are wholly present at each moment. As they change, they gain or lose properties but otherwise remain the same. Perdurantists see material objects as four-dimensional entities that extend through time and are made up of different temporal parts . At each moment, only one part of

38106-401: The publication of three works considered as particularly important by his biographers composed of articles previously published in the French journal Études Traditionnelles . These works have been translated under the titles Logic and Transcendence , Form and Substance in the Religions , and Esoterism as Principle and as Way . Throughout his life, Schuon had great respect for and devotion to

38325-972: The questions about the relation between body and mind, whether the nature of the human mind is historically fixed, and what the metaphysical status of diseases is. Metaphysics is similar to both physical cosmology and theology in its exploration of the first causes and the universe as a whole. Key differences are that metaphysics relies on rational inquiry while physical cosmology gives more weight to empirical observations and theology incorporates divine revelation and other faith-based doctrines. Historically, cosmology and theology were considered subfields of metaphysics.         Ren%C3%A9 Gu%C3%A9non In his writings, he proposes to hand down eastern metaphysics and traditions, these doctrines being defined by him as of "universal character", and adapt them to western readers "while keeping strictly faithful to their spirit". Initiated into Islamic esotericism from as early as 1910 when he

38544-469: The realization of 'Universal Man' by a sign that is everywhere the same because, according to Guénon, it is one of those directly attached to the primordial tradition. That sign is the sign of the cross, which very clearly represents the manner of achievement of this realization by the perfect communion of all states of the being, harmoniously and conformably ranked, in integral expansion, in the double sense of "amplitude" and "exaltation". This book expands on

38763-444: The realization that the Self, "in relation to any being whatsoever, is in reality identical to Atmâ", constitutes the heart of the Hindu doctrine of "delivrance" or "moksha", and that doctrine is absolutely identical to what Islamic esoterism calls the "Supreme Identity" (that is to say, expressed in Hindu terms, the identity of Atmâ and Brahmâ): "the 'Supreme Identity', according to an expression borrowed from Islamic esoterism, where

38982-464: The realm beyond sensory experience. A related argument favoring the unreliability of metaphysical theorizing points to the deep and lasting disagreements about metaphysical issues, suggesting a lack of overall progress. Another criticism holds that the problem lies not with human cognitive abilities but with metaphysical statements themselves, which some claim are neither true nor false but meaningless . According to logical positivists , for instance,

39201-448: The realm of physics and its focus on empirical observation. Metaphysics may have received its name by a historical accident when Aristotle's book on this subject was published. Aristotle did not use the term metaphysics but his editor (likely Andronicus of Rhodes ) may have coined it for its title to indicate that this book should be studied after Aristotle's book published on physics : literally ' after physics ' . The term entered

39420-406: The redefinition of esotericism by René Guénon is considered "as an essential chapter in the history of Western esotericism - as it is conceived and developed by Antoine Faivre ": the latter emphasized the importance of Guénon and the currents that claim to be based on his notion of Tradition in the esoteric Western currents. On the subject of initiation, Guénon clarifies the signification given by

39639-433: The relation between free will and causal determinism —the view that everything in the universe, including human behavior, is determined by preceding events and laws of nature. It is controversial whether causal determinism is true, and, if so, whether this would imply that there is no free will. According to incompatibilism , free will cannot exist in a deterministic world since there is no true choice or control if everything

39858-402: The relationships of unity and multiplicity: in dream state, which is one of the modalities of the manifestation of the human being corresponding to the subtle (that is, non-corporeal) part of its individuality, "the being produces a world that proceeds entirely from itself, and the objects therein consist exclusively of mental images (as opposed to the sensory perceptions of the waking state), that

40077-471: The same Truth. He also shared with them the certitude that man is potentially capable of supra-rational knowledge, and undertook a sustained critique of the modern mentality severed, according to him, from its traditional roots . Following Plato , Plotinus , Adi Shankara , Meister Eckhart , Ibn Arabī and other metaphysicians, Schuon sought to affirm the metaphysical unity between the Principle and its manifestation. Initiated by Sheikh Ahmad al-Alawī into

40296-431: The same time, whereas diachronic identity is about the same entity at different times, as in statements like "the table I bought last year is the same as the table in my dining room now". Personal identity is a related topic in metaphysics that uses the term identity in a slightly different sense and concerns questions like what personhood is or what makes someone a person. Various contemporary metaphysicians rely on

40515-559: The same time. For example, the particulars Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi instantiate the universal humanity , similar to how a strawberry and a ruby instantiate the universal red . A topic discussed since ancient philosophy, the problem of universals consists in the challenge of characterizing the ontological status of universals. Realists argue that universals are real, mind-independent entities that exist in addition to particulars. According to Platonic realists , universals exist independently of particulars, which implies that

40734-418: The science of the first causes and as the study of being qua being, that is, the topic of what all beings have in common and to what fundamental categories they belong. In the modern period, the scope of metaphysics expanded to include topics such as the distinction between mind and body and free will . Some philosophers follow Aristotle in describing metaphysics as "first philosophy", suggesting that it

40953-517: The sentence "some electrons are bonded to protons" is true then it can be used to justify that electrons and protons exist. Quine used this insight to argue that one can learn about metaphysics by closely analyzing scientific claims to understand what kind of metaphysical picture of the world they presuppose. In addition to methods of conducting metaphysical inquiry, there are various methodological principles used to decide between competing theories by comparing their theoretical virtues. Ockham's Razor

41172-416: The spiritual: to be attached to these phenomena is an obstacle to the spiritual development. Guénon considers imperative the need to combine esotericism with the corresponding exoterism and not to mix the practices of different traditions: one must practice only one spiritual path (Islam, Christianity, Judaism, etc.) Perspectives on Initiation , first published at the close of World War II in 1946, extends

41391-520: The states of the being, "which is a fundamental metaphysical truth", implies the effective realization of the being's multiple states and is related to the concept that various traditional doctrines, including Islamic esoterism, denote by the term 'Universal Man': in Arabic al-Insân-al-kâmil is at the same time 'Primordial man' ( al-Insân-al-qadîm ); it is the Adam Qadmon of the Hebrew Kabbalah ; it

41610-402: The study of eastern intellectuality. The study of Hindu doctrines is continued in his book Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta . There he described a part of the doctrine of Vêdânta according to the formulation of Adi Shankara focusing on the human being: his constitution, his states, his posthumous future, the purpose of existence being presented as identity with the Self. ( Âtmâ ),

41829-416: The subject and, doing so, to make clear distinctions between what is relevant to initiation and what is not. First, in particular, he insists on clarifying his position on the essential differences between " mysticism " and initiation so that, to him, initiation is, by its very nature, incompatible with mysticism: In the case of mysticism the individual simply limits himself to what is presented to him and to

42048-406: The symbolism of the cross with the notions of "horizontal" and "vertical" realization. They also correspond respectively to what is traditionally designated in western hermeticism by the terms royal initiation and sacerdotal initiation . Guénon introduces some preliminary aspects of a particular (and extremely complex) cosmological science: the Hindu doctrine of cosmic cycles , for instance in

42267-406: The temporal relation of coming before . In the metaphysics of time, an important contrast is between the A-series and the B-series . According to the A-series theory, the flow of time is real, meaning that events are categorized into the past, present, and future. The present continually moves forward in time and events that are in the present now will eventually change their status and lie in

42486-402: The term which designates it, is that which has no limits", so it can only be applied to what has absolutely no limit, and not to what is exempted from certain limitations while being subjected to others like space, time, quantity, in other words all countless other things that fall within the indefinite, fate and nature. There is no distinction between the Infinite and universal Possibility, simply

42705-405: The traditions of the North American Plains Indians , maintaining firm friendships with a number of their leaders and being adopted into both a Lakota Sioux tribe and the Crow tribe. Having spent a large part of his life in France and Switzerland, at the age of 73 he emigrated to the United States. Frithjof Schuon was born in Basel, in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, on 18 June 1907. He

42924-425: The transcendent principle of being, identical to Brahma . The "Self" is the essence, the transcendent "Principle" of being, the human being for example. He specifies that "Personality" comes under the order of universal principles: pure metaphysics has for its domain the "Universal", which is without common measure with the domain of the general and of what is designated by the term of categories in philosophy. In

43143-445: The two are totally separate ( Confucianism for exotericism and Taoism for esotericism) with relative autonomy from each-other. The two overlap in Islam (with Sharia and Tariqa ) and Judaism (with the Mosaic Law and Kabbalah ) where exotericism has autonomy from esotericism whereas esotericism remains grounded by the former. In the West, Guénon claims that Christianity had a strong esoteric character at its origin but that to save

43362-408: The underlying faculties responsible for these phenomena. The mind–body problem is the challenge of clarifying the relation between physical and mental phenomena. According to Cartesian dualism , minds and bodies are distinct substances. They causally interact with each other in various ways but can, at least in principle, exist on their own. This view is rejected by monists , who argue that reality

43581-417: The undifferentiated and even of the unconditionned: "the undifferentiated cannot exist in a distinctive mode", although we still speak analogously of the states of the non-manifestation: Non-Being is "Metaphysical Zero" and is logically anterior to unity; that is why Hindu doctrine speaks in this regard only of "non duality" ( advaita ). Analogous considerations drawn from the study of dream state help understand

43800-556: The unity of their principle. Synthesis will exist when one starts from unity itself and never loses sight of it throughout the multiplicity of its manifestations; this moreover implies the ability to see beyond forms and an awareness of the principal truth. Given such awareness, one is at liberty to make use of one or another of those forms, something that certain traditions symbolically denote as "the gift of tongues". The concordance between all traditional forms may be said to represent genuine "synonymies". In particular, René Guénon writes that

44019-475: The universal red would continue to exist even if there were no red things. A more moderate form of realism , inspired by Aristotle, states that universals depend on particulars, meaning that they are only real if they are instantiated. Nominalists reject the idea that universals exist in either form. For them, the world is composed exclusively of particulars. Conceptualists offer an intermediate position, stating that universals exist, but only as concepts in

44238-418: The vital center of the human being symbolized by the heart. According to Guénon, according to all spiritual traditions, the heart is "the seat of Intelligence" understood as supra-rational knowledge, the only form of knowledge allowing "Supreme Identity". This supra-rational knowledge (and especially not irrational) is Buddhi , the higher intellect, introduced by Guénon in chapter VII of his book. For its part,

44457-446: The word – suggesting mere mental constructions springing from ignorance, doubt, and conjectures, indeed from the taste for novelty and originality – or we could also use the term religio perennis when referring to the operative side of this wisdom, thus its mystical or initiatic aspect. For Laude, it is not the notion of the "transcendental unity of religions" that primarily characterizes Schuon's teaching, but rather "a reformulation of

44676-401: The world of the soul and the "spirits" ( jinns , sylphs , salamanders , gnomes , etc.). 5. Gross or material manifestation: the visible world. In the human being (the microcosm) the five degrees, ordered inversely, correspond to the body and the sensorial, mortal soul (5); the supra-sensorial, immortal soul (4); the created spirit (or intellect) (3); the uncreated spirit (or intellect) (2);

44895-419: The world. According to this view, the disagreement in the metaphysics of composition about whether there are tables or only particles arranged table-wise is a trivial debate about linguistic preferences without any substantive consequences for the nature of reality. The position that metaphysical disputes have no meaning or no significant point is called metaphysical or ontological deflationism . This view

45114-439: Was 24, he mainly wrote and published in French, and his works have been translated into more than twenty languages; he also wrote in Arabic an article for the journal Al Marifah . René Guénon was born in 1886 in Blois in central France 160 km (100 mi) from Paris. Like most Frenchmen of the time, he was born into a Roman Catholic family, originally from the Angevin, Poitou and Touraine provinces in France; his father

45333-400: Was also a painter and a poet. With René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy , Schuon is recognized as one of the major 20th-century representatives of the philosophia perennis . Like them, he affirmed the reality of an absolute Principle – God – from which the universe emanates, and maintained that all divine revelations, despite their differences, possess a common essence: one and

45552-414: Was an architect. He was very close to his mother and even more to his aunt Mme Duru, a teacher who taught him to read and write, both devout Catholic women. By 1904, Guénon was living as a student in Paris, where his studies focused on mathematics and philosophy. He was known as a brilliant student, notably in mathematics, in spite of his poor health. In Paris in 1905, due to his health problems he abandoned

45771-433: Was confirmed, he later related, by visionary dreams that several of his disciples reported having had the same night. The differences of perspective between Schuon and the Mostaganem zāwiya gradually led to Schuon's assuming independence, supported by Guénon. In 1938, Schuon traveled to Egypt , where he met Guénon, with whom he had been in correspondence for 7 years. In 1939, he embarked for India with two disciples, making

45990-419: Was not until 1949, during a stay in Bénarès, that I learned of René Guénon's work. It had been recommended to me to read by Alain Danielou [who was then living in India in the entourage of Swami Karpatri, a master of Advaita Vêdânta], who had submitted Guénon's works to orthodox pundits. The verdict of these was clear: of all the Westerners who dealt with Hindu doctrines, only Guénon, they said, really understood

46209-436: Was one of the only real traditions accessible to Westerners, while retaining authentic possibilities in the initiative domain. In September 1920, Père Peillaube asked Guénon to write a book against the Theosophical Society . In 1921, Guénon debuted a series of articles in the French Revue de Philosophie , which, along with some supplements, led to the book Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion . His critique of Theosophy

46428-399: Was proposed by Aristotle, who outlined a system of 10 categories . He argued that substances (e.g. man and horse), are the most important category since all other categories like quantity (e.g. four), quality (e.g. white), and place (e.g. in Athens) are said of substances and depend on them. Kant understood categories as fundamental principles underlying human understanding and developed

46647-425: Was published in several parts in the journal Vers Unité in 1926 and then in book form in 1939. During the conference, Guénon clarified what he called by true "intellectuality" and by "metaphysics". These points were essential for the constitution of a spiritual elite which aimed to reconstitute a union between the peoples. He explained that metaphysics "literally means that which is" beyond physics " ", i.e. what

46866-431: Was purely Islamic. René Guénon died on Sunday, 7 January 1951 at the age of 64: his final word was " Allah ". In 1921, Guénon published his first book: an Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines . His goal, as he writes it, is an attempt at presenting to westerners eastern metaphysics and spirituality as they are understood and thought by easterners themselves, while pointing at what René Guénon describes as all

47085-431: Was received positively by conservative Catholics. However, his later book Orient et Occident distanced him from his Catholic supporters. During the decade 1920–1930, Guénon began to acquire a broader public reputation, and his work was noted by various major intellectual and artistic figures both within and outside of Paris. Also at this time were published some of his books explaining the "intellectual divide" between

47304-443: Was the younger of the two sons of Paul Schuon and Margarete Boehler, both of whom were of German origin (the former from Swabia and the latter from Alsace ). His father, an amiable and distinguished man, was a concert violinist, and the household was one in which not only music but literary and spiritual culture were present. The Schuons, themselves raised as Catholics, brought their sons up as Protestants , though not in hostility to

47523-426: Was to reflect on a European union based on overcoming national rivalries and to promote rapprochement between the East and the West. Guénon repeatedly explained that a union could only be based on a restoration of true "intellectuality" which, alone, could transcend the differences between cultures and this is the reason why he clarified what he called by real “intellectuality” during his speech. The Sorbonne conference

47742-428: Was very well received and was the subject of many glowing reviews in the press on the right and on the left, sometimes in newspapers with very large circulation. Paul Claudel spoke about the book placing it next to those of Sylvain Lévi and René Grousset and the Islamologist Louis Massignon wanted to meet Guénon: the meeting took place that year (1925). Paul Chacornac quotes a letter from Roger de Pasquier: "It

47961-707: Was wir auch mögen tun: Lasst uns dem Ruf des Höchsten Folge leisten – Lasst uns in Gottes tiefem Frieden ruhn.                                                     Das Weltrad VII, CXXX I have for long wished to end this book — I could not do so; I had to write more poems. But this time my pen lies down of itself, For there are other preoccupations, other duties; Be that as it may, whatever we may wish to do: Let us follow

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