René Guénon, truly a man of genius.

Helioform

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Anyone familiar with this French intellectual who wrote books on metaphysics?

He used to be a Freemason but later on realized that they were part of the problem and not the solution. As most of us here, know. I'd say he was the precursor for what we call today "conspiracy theory." He was probably a century ahead of everyone in this field.

"Rene Guenon was born November 15, 1886 in Blois, Loir-et-Cher, France to parents who were landowners, who counted on their vineyards and wine-growing skills to sustain their livelihood. Guenon went to a Catholic school and excelled at mathematics and philosophy.

He was singled out by his teachers for having an innate ability to teach religion, which he later did, though he never accomplished his PhD dissertation on Hinduism because it did not conform to the current scholarly standards. The dissertation was subsequently published independently and became Introduction Générale à l’Etude des doctrines Hindoues (1921), Guenon’s first full-length book.

As a young student, though he maintained his Roman Catholic beliefs, he experienced a period of spiritual seeking, in which he joined the Theosophical Society, Papus’ Martinist Order, and a Freemasonic lodge. Additionally, he joined a Gnostic church and attempted to inaugurate a new Templar Order. He was later disillusioned with all these occult groups, save Freemasonry, claiming they did not represent the true path to religious experience, toward what he called the Ultimate Reality. He eventually quit them all."

...Here are a few quotes, I recommend reading some of his books such as "Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times."

“[Modern scientific] theories can necessarily never be more than hypothetical, since their starting-point is wholly empirical, for facts in themselves are always susceptible of diverse explanations and so never have been and never will be able to guarantee the truth of any theory.”

“The “end of a world” never is and never can be anything but the end of an illusion.”

“It sometimes so happens that people who imagine that they are fighting the devil, whatever their particular notion of the devil may be, are thus turned, without any suspicion of the fact on their part, into his best servants!”

“The quantitative degeneration of all things is closely linked to that of money, as is shown by the fact that nowadays the ‘worth’ of an object is ordinarily ‘estimated’ only in terms of its price, considered simply as a ‘figure’, a ‘sum’, or a numerical quantity of money; in fact, with most of our contemporaries, every judgment brought to bear on an object is nearly always based exclusively on what it costs. The word ‘estimate’ has been emphasized because it has in itself a double meaning, qualitative and quantitative; today the first meaning has been lost to sight, or what amounts to the same thing, means have been found to equate it to the second, and thus it comes about that not only is the ‘worth’ of an object ‘estimated’ according to its price, but the ‘worth’ of a man is ‘estimated’ according to his wealth.”

“Those who might be tempted to give way to despair should realize that nothing accomplished in this order can ever be lost, that confusion, error and darkness can win the day only apparently and in a purely ephemeral way, that all partial and transitory disequilibrium must perforce contribute towards the greater equilibrium of the whole, and that nothing can ultimately prevail against the power of truth.”

“This now leads us to elucidate more precisely the error of the idea that the majority should make the law, because, even though this idea must remain theoretical - since it does not correspond to an effective reality - it is necessary to explain how it has taken root in the modern outlook, to which of its tendencies it corresponds, and which of them - at least in appearance - it satisfies. Its most obvious flaw is the one we have just mentioned: the opinion of the majority cannot be anything but an expression of incompetence, whether this be due to lack of intelligence or to ignorance pure and simple; certain observations of 'mass psychology' might be quoted here, in particular the widely known fact that the aggregate of mental reactions aroused among the component individuals of a crowd crystallizes into a sort of general psychosis whose level is not merely not that of the average, but actually that of the lowest elements present.”

“The falsification of everything has been shown to be one of the characteristic features of our period, but falsification is not in itself subversion properly so-called, though contributing directly to the preparation for it. Perhaps the clearest indication of this is what may be called the falsification of language, taking the form of the misuse of certain words that have been diverted from their true meaning; misuse of this kind is to some extent imposed by constant suggestion on the part of everyone who exercises any kind of influence over the mentality of the public.”

"Matter is essentially multiplicity and division; and this, be it said in passing, is why all that proceeds from matter can beget only strife and all manner of conflicts between peoples and between individuals. The deeper one sinks into matter, the more the elements of division and opposition gain force and scope; and, on the other hand, the more one rises towards pure spirituality, the nearer one approaches to that unity which can only be fully realized by consciousness of the universal principles."

"There is thus all the more reason to exercise extreme vigilance ... against anything that may lead the being to become "fused," or preferably and more accurately "confused" or even "dissolved," in a sort of "cosmic consciousness" that shuts out all "transcendence" and so also shuts out all effective spirituality. This is the ultimate consequence of all the anti-metaphysical errors known more especially in their philosophical aspect by such names as "pantheism," "immanentism," and "naturalism."

https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/239177.Ren_Gu_non

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"Affinity for Masonry is not to say that Guenon thought poorly of the Catholic Church. Until the end of his life he believed that Catholicism—along with Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.—offered a genuine traditional path to an encounter with the Ultimate Reality. But for all of these religions he maintained that both an exoteric adoption of the tradition was required along with an esoteric transmission of its inner truth in order for the initiation process to be a success. Again, we can see why Theosophy and Martinism would, for Guenon, seem so repugnant.

Finally, all hope for the future was not lost. Guenon felt he had located the Primordial Tradition itself in the Biblical figure of Melchizedek, the High Priest of Salem (Genesis 14), who initiated Abraham with bread and wine (two staples of initiatory rites). Melchizedek served as the unifying principle between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Such a triune covenant could serve as the basis for a future Western society united in Tradition.

This society could look to the Eastern traditions in order to recover their lost esoteric knowledge of the Ultimate Reality. This vision, for Guenon, represented the only possible route that the West could take if it hoped to survive. All other routes led to what he termed “the final dissolution.”

https://skfrench.wordpress.com/2016/02/03/rene-guenon-and-the-primordial-tradition/
 

z gharib

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yea Rene Guenon was an extraordinary guy almost a prophet of this age he is a master a critic of the modern time -for me, Guenon is leading intellectual Europe ever seen ....... my first post in this forum was a photograph of Rene Guenon before a year -and I have posted some video and some quotes in different VC forums-thank you for bringing Rene Guenon to light
 

Helioform

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That's a bit too long for me to read all right now but suffice to say that those who say he is "far right" clearly are quite off.

But I just took a glance and spotted this:

"But for further on this subject of why atheism is botha moral and a reasonable way to look at the world, I would recommend the reader to Richard Dawkins very fine and well argued book, the God Delusion, which is an excellent refutation of theism."

Dawkins? Really? The guy is a rabid anti-religion and is biased as all hell. Also a believer of evolution theory, one of the major pillars of Western Scientism (i.e. science as a religion and not a real science).
 
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That's a bit too long for me to read all right now but suffice to say that those who say he is "far right" clearly are quite off.

But I just took a glance and spotted this:

"But for further on this subject of why atheism is botha moral and a reasonable way to look at the world, I would recommend the reader to Richard Dawkins very fine and well argued book, the God Delusion, which is an excellent refutation of theism."

Dawkins? Really? The guy is a rabid anti-religion and is biased as all hell. Also a believer of evolution theory, one of the major pillars of Western Scientism (i.e. science as a religion and not a real science).
Yeah I don’t agree with everything in the essay, I just know that Guenon was influential to fashies like Evola and Mussolini and Steve Bannon. Why don’t you think he or traditionalism is far right?

Evolution is real though and to discount it is to discount biology as a whole but I will not say or respond to anything else on the subject.
 

Helioform

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Yeah I don’t agree with everything in the essay, I just know that Guenon was influential to fashies like Evola and Mussolini and Steve Bannon. Why don’t you think he or traditionalism is far right?
Anybody can influence anybody, that does not make the author guilty of anything. That is just a strawman argument.

The guy was into Sufism and Taoism, which both emphasize humility and spirituality. Knowing this, saying he was a far right reactionary is incredibly ignorant. He wasn't into politics at all, except maybe when he was a mason, but eventually like I said he quit it all. He got disgusted by it all.
 
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Anybody can influence anybody, that does not make the author guilty of anything. That is just a strawman argument.

The guy was into Sufism and Taoism, which both emphasize humility and spirituality. Knowing this, saying he was a far right reactionary is incredibly ignorant. He wasn't into politics at all, except maybe when he was a mason, but eventually like I said he quit it all. He got disgusted by it all.
I’ll look into it more.
 

Helioform

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I’ll look into it more.
Point is, you can take anything from a large body of work such as his, and take it out of context and come up with something insane like wanting to murder a bunch of people because of it. He wrote a truckload of books so it would be very easy to do that. And what he said about Western society was so true back then, that he almost predicted the future. We are nearing that end of the Western "civilization" and it's plainly obvious.
 

z gharib

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he is above party or ideology or class controversy, he writes about basic principles

"Indeed, if a reconstitution were to be attempted at this level-that is to say, working backward and starting from consequences rather than from principles-it would be bound to lack any real foundation and would be completely illusory. Nothing stable could ever come of it, and the whole work would have to be begun anew because the prime necessity of coming to an agreement on essential truths would have been overlooked. It is for this reason that we find it impossible to consider political contingencies, even in the widest sense of this term, as being more than outward signs,. of the mentality of a period ..."
The Crisis of Modern World
 

z gharib

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What of the qualities of mind and temperament revealed in Guénon's writings? Marco Pallis wrote of Guénon ...a mind of phenomenal lucidity of a kind one can best describe as "mathematical" in its apparent detachment from anything savouring of aesthetic or even moral considerations; his criteria of what was right and what was inadmissible remained wholly intellectual ones needing no considerations drawn from a different order of reality to reinforce them - their own self-evidence sufficed.37 Another commentator speaks of Guénon's exposition as "so crystalline and geometric, so mathematically abstract and devoid of almost any human element"38 while Gai Eaton notes that "in him the blade of French intellectuality is tempered to a razor-sharp edge".39 Theodore Roszak writes of his "keen, spiritual discrimination"40 while Schuon, referring to the absence of any sentimental or even psychic dimension in Guénon's work, once used the image of "an eye without a body".41 These images of sharpness, of a finely-honed cutting edge, a mathematical precision and incisive penetration all testify to Guénon's clarity of thought in his metaphysical expositions and his pitiless exposure of the "signs of the times". Nonetheless, Guénon's work is by no means easy to assimilate. Gai Eaton, despite his admiration of Guénon, concedes that "It is questionable whether anyone with the normal tastes and intellectual background of our day can approach Guénon's work for the first time without a sense of revulsion."42 Why so? Firstly there is the substance of Guénon's work. It is not easy of access and, at first sight, often strange, startling, baffling. His premises are too radically at odds with conventional wisdom for him to gain any easy following. His critique of European civilisation is so ruthless, so unnerving in its implications that it often provokes a kind of defensive reflex, an emotional and intellectual resistance which makes for a failure to engage with what is actually being said. Without the right kind of predisposition, the reader is unlikely to recover from the initial shock. An acceptance of Guénon's general thesis also entails a drastic intellectual and existential adjustment for most readers which very few are willing to make. André Gide typified this kind of response to Guénon's work when he wrote: If only I had known Guénon is my youth!... Now it is too late; the die is cast. My sclerosed mind has as much difficulty conforming to the precepts of that ancestral wisdom as my body has to the so-called "comfortable" position recommended by the Yogis... To tell the truth, I cannot even manage really to desire resorption of the individual into the Eternal Being they seek... I cling desperately to my limits and feel a repugnance for the disappearance of those contours that my whole education made a point of defining... I am and remain on the side of Descartes and of Bacon. None the less, those books of Guénon are remarkable...43 This is very much to the point. Guénon's vision cannot be accepted "a little". One might, of course, disagree over details but his fundamental premises must be either accepted or rejected. There is nothing of the smörgåsbord in Guénon's writings. .................

http://www.academia.edu/18006106/René_Guénon?auto=download
 

z gharib

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“Those who might be tempted to give way to despair should realize that nothing accomplished in this order can ever be lost, that confusion, error and darkness can win the day only apparently and in a purely ephemeral way, that all partial and transitory disequilibrium must perforce contribute towards the greater equilibrium of the whole, and that nothing can ultimately prevail against the power of truth.” Rene Guenon
 

Alanantic

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That's a bit too long for me to read all right now but suffice to say that those who say he is "far right" clearly are quite off.

But I just took a glance and spotted this:

"But for further on this subject of why atheism is botha moral and a reasonable way to look at the world, I would recommend the reader to Richard Dawkins very fine and well argued book, the God Delusion, which is an excellent refutation of theism."

Dawkins? Really? The guy is a rabid anti-religion and is biased as all hell. Also a believer of evolution theory, one of the major pillars of Western Scientism (i.e. science as a religion and not a real science).
People have been debating the existence of God for 10,000 years. I bet you've evolved quite a bit since then. Ha!
 

90sWereBetter

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"Guénon sought to meet Sheikh Elkebir himself, him having been 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. "

sufi innovator, likely heretic. no one to look up to. hopefully he repented.
 

90sWereBetter

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""Affinity for Masonry is not to say that Guenon thought poorly of the Catholic Church. Until the end of his life he believed that Catholicism—along with Islam, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.—offered a genuine traditional path to an encounter with the Ultimate Reality. But for all of these religions he maintained that both an exoteric adoption of the tradition was required along with an esoteric transmission of its inner truth in order for the initiation process to be a success. Again, we can see why Theosophy and Martinism would, for Guenon, seem so repugnant."

if this is true, it seems very likely he died as a kaffir.
 
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