In the first part of the present work, Guénon addresses the role of sacred languages and the principle of initiation in the Christian tradition. The second part deals with such esoteric Christian themes and organizations as the Holy Grail, the Guardians of the Holy Land, the Sacred Heart, the Fedeli d'Amore and 'Courts of Love', and the Secret Language of Dante. The book closes with a lengthy study on St Bernard of Clairvaux. Guénon's The Esoterism of Dante treats related themes.

Insights into Christian Esoterism

Ren� Gu�non

S. D. Fohr

Perennis, Sophia

Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism (Collected Works of Rene Guenon)

'In Islam,' Guénon wrote, 'tradition is of a double essence: religious and metaphysical. The religious side of the doctrine, which is most outward and is within reach of everyone, can be qualified quite precisely as exoteric, and the metaphysical, which constitutes its deeper meaning and, furthermore, is regarded as the doctrine of the elite, as esoteric. This distinction indeed conserves its proper meaning, since these are two faces of one and the same doctrine.' Asked what he thought of esoteric teaching, the great Sufi master al-Hallaj responded: 'Of which do you wish to speak, the true or the false (batin al-batil aw batin al-Haqq)? If it is a question of true esoterism, the exoterism (shari'ah) is its exterior aspect and whoever follows it truly discovers its interior aspect, which is none other than the knowledge of Allah (ma'rifah bi'llah); as for false esoterism, its exterior and interior aspects are both equally horrible and detestable. Therefore hold yourself aloof from it.' It is fitting to add that for Guénon, esoterism is always and everywhere the same, whatever name is given it according to the variety and diversity of countries and traditions. If true knowledge of ultimate Reality is the final object of esoteric inquiry, the methods utilized, although often analogous, are not necessarily identical; they may vary just as languages or individuals vary. 'The diversity of methods,' Guénon wrote, 'corresponds to the very diversity of individual natures for which they were made; there is a multiplicity of ways all leading to a unique goal.'

Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism

René Guénon (1886-1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while 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, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization.  Studies in Freemasonry and the Compagnonnage is both an attempt to rediscover the lost roots of Masonry and a fascinating look into the many controversies swirling around the subject of Masonry in serious intellectual circles during the first half of the twentieth century. It must also be classed, along with Symbols of Sacred Science, Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power, Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles, The Esoterism of Dante, Insights into Christian Esoterism and Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism-not to mention related sections in many of his other books-as one of René Guénon's masterful excursions into esoteric myth, symbolism, and secret history. Freemasonry may indeed be, as Guénon ultimately concluded, a largely degenerated and thus no longer strictly 'operative' offshoot of a true initiatory lineage; yet its symbolism, like that of the original Rosicrucians, remains profound, traditional, and therefore ultimately legitimate. And given that the 'Spirit bloweth where it listeth', it is always possible that symbolism of this order may awaken in a receptive soul intimations of the Truth and the Way, which can be of inestimable of value in 'the path to the Path', the quest for a living initiatory spirituality.

Studies in Freemasonry and the Compagnonnage

Transformist Illusion

Douglas Dewar

Evolution of Consciousness : Studies in Polarity

Shirley Sugerman

Insight-imagination is an important contribution to emerging postmodern understandings of science and epistemology. Sloan argues that the modem 'technicist' worldview is responsible for the ecological devastation and pervasive spiritual alienation threatening humanity in our age. He explains in clear, non-technical language how the ideas of physicist David Bohm, philosophers Michael Polanyi and Owen Barfield, and other holistic thinkers portray a way of knowing that engages the whole person in a deeply meaningful relationship with the world.

Insight-Imagination : The Emancipation of Thought and the Modern World

Douglas Sloan

Less known in the anglophone world than Berdyaev (who was a pupil of his), or Martin Buber, Vladimir Solovyov (1853-1900), philosopher, mystic, poet, has nevertheless a contribution of the first importance to offer to Western scholarship.   He came from a rich and not yet fully understood tradition; his erudition was stupendous. Like his predecessors he was extremely sensitive to such problems as the religious meaning of history, of creativity, of culture. It is important to emphasize a general link between Solovyov and preceding currents of Russian thought, for his Christian philosophy in a sense embraces them all. Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy sat at his feet.   Godmanhood is the problem of restoring all mankind; it is a concept of salvation as a process of becoming divine.   The differences between the Orthodox, Roman, and Anglo-Catholic and many of the Protestant Churches are not found in relation to the great dogmas or articles of the creed. Solovyov has a vital and unique message to Christians of all denominations; he offers a basis for reunion rarely suggested in Western Christianity.

Lectures on Godmanhood

Vladimir Sergeyevich Solovyov

Peter Peter Zouboff

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