René Guénon (1886-1951) is undoubtedly one of the luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of recent philosophies. His oeuvre of 26 volumes is providential for the modern seeker: pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, at the same time it directs the reader to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the...

The articles collected in this volume represent some of the most unusual from Guenon's pen. They could be described as fragments of an unknown history, a history reaching back through prehistory to protohistory, for they begin with the Primordial Tradition contemporaneous with the beginnings of present humanity. The text opens with a study on cosmic cycles, taking as point of departure the Hindu doctrine of the Manvantara, though similar doctrines appear in Greco-Roman antiquity, among Jewish Kabbalists, Islamic Sufis and Ismailis, and in the Hopi, Lakota, and Maya nations of the New World....

This small volume brings together a number of Guenon's early articles relating to Sufism (tasawwuf), or Islamic esoterism. A later article, 'Islamic Esoterism', has also been included, since it articulates so well the particularities of initiation in Islam by defining the fundamental elements of tasawwuf: shari'ah, tariqah, haqiqah. The first constitutes the necessary fundamental exoteric basis; the second, the Way and its means; the third, the goal or final result. In the other chapters, Guenon expresses with his usual synthetic clarity what tawhid and faqr are, and gives examples of...

To spare readers extended research into obscure back issues of French journals long out of print, Miscellanea gathers together for Anglophone readers various articles by Rene Guenon, and by 'Palingenius', his pseudonym during the time of La Gnose, a journal he founded in 1909. These articles have been divided into three categories: Metaphysics and Cosmology, Traditional Arts and Sciences, and Some Modern Errors. From the first chapter of part one, 'The Demiurge', which we believe is the first text he ever submitted for publication (in 1909, at the age of twenty-three) to 'Profane Science in...

Studies in Hinduism consists of articles published posthumously, to which has been added Rene Guenon's separate study, Eastern Metaphysics, the text of a lecture delivered at the Sorbonne. In this work Guenon completes his presentation of Hindu metaphysics, which he considered the most primordial and comprehensive body of spiritual teaching possessed by the human race, one capable of throwing light upon and illuminating the essence of every other Tradition. Of special interest are three chapters on various aspects of tantra-a doctrine profoundly misunderstood in the contemporary West-which...

In Symbols of Sacred Science, Guenon, a master of precise, even 'mathematical' metaphysical exposition, reveals himself as a consummate exegete of myth and symbolism as well, superior in many ways to Mircea Eliade, and comparable perhaps only to his respected friend Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. This extraordinary text unveils the cosmological meanings of root symbols organized under such general headings as: The Center of the World, Cyclic Manifestation, Symboic Weapons, Axial Symbolism and the Symbolsim of Passage, The Symbolism of Building, and The Symbolism of the Heart. Far more than a simple...

In Symbols of Sacred Science, Gunon, a master of precise, even 'mathematical' metaphysical exposition, reveals himself as a consummate exegete of myth and symbolism as well, superior in many ways to Mircea Eliade, and comparable perhaps only to his respected friend Ananda K. Coomaraswamy. This extraordinary text unveils the cosmological meanings of root symbols organized under such general headings as: The Center of the World, Cyclic Manifestation, Symboic Weapons, Axial Symbolism and the Symbolsim of Passage, The Symbolism of Building, and The Symbolism of the Heart. Far more than a simple...