Description:
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.
The articles that comprise Symbols of the Sacred Science appeared in a number of French journals and were only collected after the author's death. Here René Guénon, a master of precise, even "mathematical" metaphysical exposition, reveals himself as a consummate exegete also of myth and symbolism. This extraordinary text unveils the cosmological meanings of root symbols organized under such general headings as: The Center of the World, Cyclic Manifestation, Symbolic Weapons, Axial Symbolism and the Symbolism of Passage, The Symbolism of Building, and The Symbolism of the Heart. In this sense, it constitutes a kind of "bibliography" of books Guénon found neither time nor pressing call to write-for nearly every article is so pregnant with meaning that it could have been expanded into an independent work. But the same thread of symbolic exegesis woven here into so rich a tapestry does also run through many of Guénon's other works, including Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles, The King of the World, and The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times. Far more than a simple catalogue of myths and symbols from many traditions, Symbols of Sacred Science lays the foundation for a universal esoteric symbology. In this work, Guénon demonstrates the fundamental unity-across all cultures and ages-of the images with which the Absolute clothes itself in its cosmic self-revelation.
Review Quotes: "The traditional cosmological knowledge found in this work constitutes a sum-total of knowledge that has no equivalent in any language." -Roger Maridort
"Guénon established the language of sacred metaphysics with a rigor, breadth, and intrinsic certainty that compel recognition as a standard of comparison for the twentieth century." -Jean Borella"Guénon gave proof of a universality of understanding that for centuries had had no parallel in the Western world." -Frithjof Schuon
"It was Guénon who taught me to seek and love the truth above all else, and to be unsatisfied with anything else." -Fr Seraphim Rose"Encountering Guénon's work is akin to being struck by lightning: a dazzling initiation into a hitherto unknown way of seeing reality that reclaims the original integrity of the human condition." -Samuel Bendeck Sotillos
"Guénon's mixture of arcane learning, metaphysics, and scathing cultural commentary is a continent in itself, untouched by the polluted tides of modernity." -Jocelyn Godwin
"Guénon was an unsurpassed master of the science of symbolism." -Martin Lings
"Guénon reaffirmed the values that constitute the only sound basis for living a life with dignity and purpose, or forming of a civilization worthy of the name." -Philip Sherrard "Guénon was one of the greatest prophets of our time, whose voice is even more important today than when he was alive." -Huston Smith"No modern European writer was more significant than René Guénon, who expounded the universal metaphysical tradition that is the indispensable basis for any civilization deserving to be so called." -A. K. Coomaraswamy
"Guénon's works are such potent metaphysical attacks on the downward drift of Western civilization as to make all other contemporary critiques seem half-hearted by comparison." -Jacob Needleman