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Book Review by Harry Oldmeadow of "Frithjof Schuon: Messenger of The
Book Review Frithjof Schuon: Messenger of the Perennial Philosophy by Michael Oren Fitzgerald (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2010). Review by Harry Oldmeadow Source: Crossing Religious Frontiers (Studies in Comparative Religion series), edited by Harry Oldmeadow (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2010) © World Wisdom, Inc. www.studiesincomparativereligion.com An issue of Studies in Comparative Religion dedicated to the theme “Crossing Religious Frontiers” could hardly find a more apposite subject than the life and work of Frithjof Schuon. Indeed, two of Schuon’s essays feature in this very issue. His work first appeared in the Anglophone world with the publication in 1953 of The Transcendent Unity of Religions, a book which articulated the metaphysical basis of the inner or essential unity of the world’s great religious traditions. This remarkable work was followed, over the next half-century, by more than thirty books in which Schuon provided a peerless exegesis of immutable metaphysical and cosmological principles, and an explication of their applications and ramifications in the boundless world of Tradition. These works, written in crystalline prose, stand as a beacon for those lost in the spiritual wastelands of modernity. Many years ago, in introducing one of Schuon’s books, Seyyed Hossein Nasr wrote: “His authoritative tone, clarity of expression, and an ‘alchemy’ which transmutes human language to enable it to present the profoundest truths, make of it a unique expression of the sophia perennis”.1 Quite so. Now we have to hand a biography of this frontier-crosser extraordinaire. For many readers of this journal, Schuon—metaphysician, poet, artist, spiritual master— requires no introduction. -
Transcendent Philosophy an International Journal for Comparative Philosophy and Mysticism Editor Transcendent Philosophy Is a Publication of the Seyed G
Volume 9. December 2008 Transcendent Philosophy An International Journal for Comparative Philosophy and Mysticism Editor Transcendent Philosophy is a publication of the Seyed G. Safavi London Academy of Iranian Studies and aims to SOAS, University of London, UK create a dialogue between Eastern, Western and Islamic Philosophy and Mysticism is published in Book Review Editor December. Contributions to Transcendent Sajjad H. Rizvi Philosophy do not necessarily reflect the views of the Exeter University, UK editorial board or the London Academy of Iranian Editorial Board Studies. Contributors are invited to submit papers on the G. A’awani, Iranian Institue of Philosophy, Iran following topics: Comparative studies on Islamic, A. Acikgenc, Fatih University, Turkey Eastern and Western schools of Philosophy, M. Araki, Islamic Centre England, UK Philosophical issues in history of Philosophy, Issues in contemporary Philosophy, Epistemology, S. Chan, SOAS University of London, UK Philosophy of mind and cognitive science, W. Chittick, State University of New York, USA Philosophy of science (physics, mathematics, R. Davari, Tehran University, Iran biology, psychology, etc), Logic and philosophical logic, Philosophy of language, Ethics and moral G. Dinani, Tehran University, Iran philosophy, Theology and philosophy of religion, P.S. Fosl, Transylvania University, USA Sufism and mysticism, Eschatology, Political M. Khamenei, SIPRIn, Iran Philosophy, Philosophy of Art and Metaphysics. B. Kuspinar, McGill University, Canada The mailing address of the Transcendent Philosophy is: H. Landolt, McGill University, Canada Dr S.G. Safavi O. Leaman, University of Kentucky, USA Journal of Transcendent Philosophy Y. Michot, Oxford Centre for Islamic Studies, UK 121 Royal Langford 2 Greville Road M. Mohaghegh-Damad, Beheshti University, Iran London NW6 5HT J. -
From Logos to Bios: Hellenic Philosophy and Evolutionary Biology
From Logos to Bios: Hellenic Philosophy and Evolutionary Biology by Wynand Albertus de Beer submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of D Litt et Phil in the subject Religious Studies at the University of South Africa Supervisor: Prof Danie Goosen February 2015 Dedicated with grateful acknowledgements to my supervisor, Professor Danie Goosen, for his wise and patient guidance and encouragement throughout my doctoral research, and to the examiners of my thesis for their helpful comments and suggestions. From Logos to Bios: Hellenic Philosophy and Evolutionary Biology by W.A. de Beer Degree: D Litt et Phil Subject: Religious Studies Supervisor: Prof Danie Goosen Summary: This thesis deals with the relation of Hellenic philosophy to evolutionary biology. The first part entails an explication of Hellenic cosmology and metaphysics in its traditional understanding, as the Western component of classical Indo-European philosophy. It includes an overview of the relevant contributions by the Presocratics, Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonists, focussing on the structure and origin of both the intelligible and sensible worlds. Salient aspects thereof are the movement from the transcendent Principle into the realm of Manifestation by means of the interaction between Essence and Substance; the role of the Logos, being the equivalent of Plato’s Demiurge and Aristotle’s Prime Mover, in the cosmogonic process; the interaction between Intellect and Necessity in the formation of the cosmos; the various kinds of causality contributing to the establishment of physical reality; and the priority of being over becoming, which in the case of living organisms entails the primacy of soul over body. -
Every Branch in Me: Essays on the Meaning of Man
World Wisdom Every Branch in Me: Essays on the Meaning of Man This collection of essays by 18 thinkers and spiritual leaders of recent times offers a variety of perspectives on the age-old question that poses itself to each new generation: What is human life all about, and what should I do to make my life fit into this greater scheme? The unanimous response from these writers is that human beings find their ultimate fulfillment only through spirituality. The various essays focus on topics ranging from observations on the nature of genius, to examining the meaning and purpose of our everyday work and activities, to realizing new strength through a critical illness. Although every essay approaches the question from a different angle, each comes to the same conclusion: Human beings (and by extension whole civilizations) can find true inner peace and wholeness only by regaining the spiritual heritage that is at the very heart of being human. What is being said about Every Branch in Me? “The sovereign purpose of this anthology, as the editor reminds us, is to reawaken a sense of man's sacred vocation and thus to immunize us against ‘the despair and nihilism which are the final outcomes of the secular and relativist ideologies of our time’ (page xi of the Introduction). It might be said that the structure of Every Branch in Me is polyphonic: various melodies and motifs recur throughout, with each being inflected in new and different ways but always sustaining the central theme. The editor is to be commended on not only the selection of materials but their arrangement. -
A. K. Coomaraswamy and R. Guénon
From the World Wisdom online library: www.worldwisdom.com/public/library/default.aspx Prologue A Fateful Meeting of Minds: A. K. Coomaraswamy and R. Guénon by Marco Pallis Memories of the great man whose centenary we are now wishing to celebrate go back, for me, to the late 1920s, when I was studying music under Arnold Dolmetsch whose championship of ancient musical styles and methods in Western Europe followed lines which Coomaraswamy, whom he had known personally, highly approved of, as reflecting many of his own ideas in a particular field of art. Central to Dolmetsch’s thinking was his radical rejection of the idea of “progress,” as applied to the arts, at a time when the rest of the musical profession took this for granted. The earlier forms of music which had disappeared from the European scene together with the instruments for which that music was composed must, so it was argued, have been inferior or “primitive” as the saying went; speak ing in Darwinian terms their elimination was part of the process of natural selection whereby what was more limited, and therefore by comparison less satisfying to the modern mind, became outmoded in favor of what had been rendered possible through the general advance of mankind. All the historical and psychological contradic tions implied in such a world-view were readily bypassed by a socie ty thinking along these lines; inconvenient evidence was simply brushed aside or else explained away by means of palpably tenden tious arguments. Such was the climate of opinion at the beginning of the present century: if belief in the quasi-inevitable march of progress is nowadays beginning to wear rather thin, this is largely due to the results of two world-wars and to the threats of mass- destruction which progress in the technological field has inevitably brought with it. -
A Sage for the Times
The Matheson Trust A Sage for the Times The Role and the Oeuvre of Frithjof Schuon Harry Oldmeadow Published in Sophia: The Journal of Traditional Studies (Washington DC), 4:2, Winter. If Guénon was the master expositor of metaphysical doctrines and Coomaraswamy the peerless scholar and connoisseur of Oriental art who began his exposition of metaphysics through recourse to the language of artistic forms, Schuon seems like the cosmic intellect itself impregnated by the energy of divine grace surveying the whole of the reality surrounding man and elucidating all the concerns of human existence in the light of sacred knowledge. Seyyed Hossein Nasr1 A Personal Note In the mid-70s I was idly meandering through an Australian weekly magazine which, amongst other things, carried reviews of recently published books from various fields. My eye caught a review of The Sword of Gnosis, an anthology of writings on "Metaphysics, Cosmology, Tradition, Symbolism", edited by Jacob Needleman. The review was sufficiently arresting for me to seek out a copy of the book. It was with growing excitement that I first encountered the writings of several figures whose work I would come to know well over the years ahead—René Guénon, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, amongst others. But the effect of Schuon's essays was quite mesmeric: here, in the exposition of traditional doctrines and principles, was a clarity, a radiance and a depth which seemed to me, as indeed it still does, to be of a more or less miraculous order. Nasr has written of the appearance of Guénon's first book (Introduction générale à l'étude des doctrines des hindoues, 1921), It was like a sudden burst of lightning, an abrupt intrusion into the modern world of a body of knowledge and a perspective utterly alien to the prevalent climate and world view and completely opposed to all that characterizes the modern mentality.2 This, precisely, is how Schuon's essays struck me. -
Frithjof Schuon on Esotericism
The Heart of the Religio Perennis: Frithjof Schuon on Esotericism Harry Oldmeadow Exotericism consists in identifying transcendent realities with the dogmatic forms, and if need be, with the historical facts of a given Revelation, whereas esotericism refers in a more or less direct manner to these same realities. FrithjofSchuon1 If we can grasp the transcendent nature of the human being, we thereby grasp the nature of revelation, of religion, of tradition; we understand their possibility, their necessity, their truth. And in understanding religion, not only in a particular form or according to some verbal specification, but also in its formless essence, we understand the religions... the meaning of their plurality and diversity; this is the plane of gnosis, of the religio perennis, whereon the extrinsic antinomies of dogmas are explained and resolved. FrithjoJSchuon2 Introduction Generally speaking, 'esotericism' refers to a field of 'spiritual' knowledge and practice which is secret, arcane, and initiatory; the term encompasses movements as diverse as hermeticism, alchemy, Rosicrucianism, theosophy, freemasonry, Eastern Tantras and various psycho-physical disciplines, Shamanism, Christian mysticism, Kabbala, and Sufism, as well as a plethora of modem occult and para psychological movements gathered around disparate charismatic figures - Aleister Crowley, Madame Blavatsky, and G.I. Gurdjieff might be cited as representative figures. Today esotericism, ancient and modem, is a burgeoning field of academic study. Scholars from fields as diverse as religious studies, history, psychology and art history (to 1 F. Schuon, Logic and Transcendence, New York, 1975, p. 144 (Schuon, 1975a). 2 F. Schuon, Light on the Ancient Worlds, London, 1966, p. 142. The Heart ofthe Religio Perennis name only a few) are exploring a terrain that earlier remained largely the province of 'occultists' of various mien. -
Kurt Almqvists Bibliotek I Almqvist-Rummet, Sigtunastiftelsen
Kurt Almqvists Bibliotek i Almqvist-rummet, Sigtunastiftelsen HINDUISM / INDIEN Ambrose, Kay, Classical Dances and Costumes of India ; introduction by Ram Gopal, foreword by Arnold Haskell. Adam and Charles Black, London 1950 (Contains newspaper clippings and programmes from dance performances – innehåller en samling tidningsurklipp samt program från dans- uppvisningar ) (Folio) Archer, W.G., The Loves of Krishna in Indian Painting and Poetry , Allen & Unwin, London 1957 (Series: Ethical and Religious Classics of East and West, No. 18) Astavakra Gîtâ, Discours sur le Vedanta Advaïta . Trad. Alexandra David-Neel, Traduction libre du Sanscrit avec notes explicatives, Adyar, Paris 1951 Badarayana, The Vedanta Sutras , with the commentary of Shankara (transl. George Thibaut), Part I, Dover, New York (The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XXXIV) -, The Vedanta Sutras , with the commentary of Shankara (transl. George Thibaut), Part II, Dover, New York (The Sacred Books of the East, vol. XXXVIII) Bhagavad-Gita , with the commentary of Shri Shankaracharya (Sri Sankaracharya), translated by Alladi Mahadeva Sastry, Samata Books Madras (7 th Edn, 1977) La Bhagavad-Gita , Traduite du Sanskrit avec une introduction par Emile Senart (Deuxième Édition avec le texte en regard), Société d’Édition « Les Belles Lettres », Paris 1944 (Collection Emile Senart, volume 7) Bhattacharya, Deben, Indien – Musik – Dikt – Konst ; övers. från engelska Birgit Kjellström, Palmeblads Tryckeri AB, Göteborg (No date – utan årtal) (Folio – litet häfte på 15 sidor, utan ryggmarkering) -, Love Songs of Vidypati (translator—se Vidyapati) Brahmânanda, Swâmi, Discipline Monastique (Volume I, 2ème édition) : Commentaires de Swâmi Yatiswarânanda ; préface de Jean Herbert. Trad. par Odette de Saussure et Jean Herbert. Maisonneuve, Paris 1945 (Les Grand Maîtres Spirituels dans l’Inde Contemporaine sous la direction de Jean Herbert et Lizelle Reymond) Brahmânanda, Swâmi, Discipline Monastique Volume II : Commentaires de Swâmi Yatiswarânanda. -
As It Has Been Often Mentioned, the So-Called Perennial School Traces Its
SEYYED HOSSEIN NASR IN THE CONTEXT OF THE PERENNIALIST SCHOOL As it has been often mentioned, the so-called Perennial School traces its intellectual and spiritual heritage back to three fundamental figures who may be considered as its main inspirers and interpreters in the XXth century. These are René Guénon (1886-1951), Ananda K. Coomaraswamy (1877-1947) and Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998). 1 Aside from his keen and implacable critique of the modern world, René Guénon's seminal contribution was focused on three major domains of exposition: metaphysics, initiation and symbolism. In each of these fundamental domains, Guénon provides his reader with a rigorous definition of what he understood by the term tradition. This understanding was mostly informed by the Hindu, Islamic and Taoist worlds.2 The clarity and rigor of his mode of expression sharply contrasts with the diffuse and confused intellectual ambience of the spiritualist trends of the late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century. Guénon's work dispels confusions and pseudo- spiritual fantasies with an impersonal mastery that is more geometric than musical, more rational (and not rationalist) than intuitive. From Ananda Coomaraswamy the expression of the philosophia perennis gained a new dimension both in its mode and in its content. As for the mode, 1 For an excellent introduction to the “traditionalist” or “perennialist” school see Kenneth Oldmeadow, Traditionalism: Religion in the light of the Perennial Philosophy, Sri Lanka, 2000. 2 It could be said schematically that Guénon’s metaphysical idiom was Hindu, his view of initiation and its relationship to exoterism Islamic, and his symbolist vision Taoist or Far- Eastern. -
A Sage for the Times, the Role and the Oeuvre of Frithjof Schuon
Religio Perennis A Sage for the Times The Role and the Oeuvre of Frithjof Schuon If Guénon was the master expositor of metaphysical doctrines and Coomaraswamy the peerless scholar and connoisseur of Oriental art who began his exposition of metaphysics through recourse to the language of artistic forms, Schuon seems like the cosmic intellect itself impregnated by the energy of divine grace surveying the whole of the reality surrounding man and elucidating all the concerns of human existence in the light of sacred knowledge. Seyyed Hossein Nasr1 A Personal Note In the mid-70s I was idly meandering through an Australian weekly magazine which, amongst other things, carried reviews of recently published books from various fields. My eye caught a review of The Sword of Gnosis, an anthology of writings on "Metaphysics, Cosmology, Tradition, Symbolism", edited by Jacob Needleman. The review was sufficiently arresting for me to seek out a copy of the book. It was with growing excitement that I first encountered the writings of several figures whose work I would come to know well over the years ahead—René Guénon, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, amongst others. But the effect of Schuon's essays was quite mesmeric: here, in the exposition of traditional doctrines and principles, was a clarity, a radiance and a depth which seemed to me, as indeed it still does, to be of a more or less miraculous order. Nasr has written of the appearance of Guénon's first book (Introduction générale à l'étude des doctrines des hindoues, 1921), It was like a sudden burst of lightning, an abrupt intrusion into the modern world of a body of knowledge and a perspective utterly alien to the prevalent climate and world view and completely opposed to all that characterizes the modern mentality.2 This, precisely, is how Schuon's essays struck me. -
Traditional Symbolism Is the Active Expression of Scientia Sacra
The Traditional Doctrine of Symbol The Traditional Doctrine of Symbol © 2007 Timothy Scott Originally published as ‘Understanding “Symbol”’ (Sacred Web 6, 2000) _____________________________________________________________________ God guides towards His Light whoever He wants. God gives symbols for men. God knows everything. Surah 24: Light God made this world in the image of the world above; thus, all which is found above has its analogy below…and everything constitutes a unity. Zohar Worship me in the symbols and images which remind thee of me. Srimad Bhagavatam, xi.v. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as I am known. 1 Corinthians, xiii. 12 That which is below is as that which is above, and that which is above is as that which is below. The Emerald Tablet The Divine Language According to the understanding of the Traditions1 the idea of “symbol” refers to a ‘sensible entity that directs the understanding from the physical towards the supra- physical levels of reality’2. This understanding has been treated variously to different levels of intricacy throughout the writings of the sophia perennis.3 The current paper attempts nothing more than the organization and reiteration of these various elucidations within the context of a defined whole. 1 The use of the term “Tradition” follows Dr. Adrain Snodgrass (Architecture, Time and Eternity Studies in the Stellar and Temporal Symbolism of Traditional Buildings vol. 1, New Delhi: Sata-Pitaka Series, 1990): ‘The term “Tradition”, from latin tradare, “to give over”, here designates a transmission from one generation to another of doctrines concerning a direct, intuitive, knowledge, free from the accidents and limitations of particularities. -
Canterbury Christ Church University's Repository of Research Outputs Please Cite This Publicati
Canterbury Christ Church University’s repository of research outputs http://create.canterbury.ac.uk Please cite this publication as follows: Wilson, S. (2015) René Guénon and the heart of the Grail. Temenos Academy Review, 18. pp. 146-167. Link to official URL (if available): This version is made available in accordance with publishers’ policies. All material made available by CReaTE is protected by intellectual property law, including copyright law. Any use made of the contents should comply with the relevant law. Contact: [email protected] 146-167 Wilson Guénon.qxp_Layout 1 25/10/2015 15:39 Page 146 René Guénon and the Heart of the Grail * Simon Wilson ooking around him, describing and deploring the effects of modern ity, L René Guénon found an answer in the Grail. More than that, he believed that it could light our way back to the Terrestrial Paradise, to the kind of communion with the divine enjoyed by our primordial parents in Eden. It may even offer us deliverance from the world com - pletely, carrying us beyond the cosmos until we are so utterly trans - figured and transformed that we are no longer merely human. As Guénon is undoubtedly one of the most interesting thinkers of the twentieth century, we may find it fruitful to meditate on these ideas. They may not set us on the path to transformation (as Guénon would wish), but they may reveal a truth which is not generally appre - ciated: that at the very centre of Guénon’s challenging thinking, the place where the Grail is to be sought, is a heart overflowing with joy and love.