This is the first book I've picked up on Traditionalism and I'm about halfway through.
He continually repeats that in a Traditional society everything derives from a higher principle. The modern/Western world is marked by its negation of these principles.
Until now he still hasn't clarified what these principles are and I doubt that he will. Can anyone here help me?
they are ineffable—pretty convenient, huh?
AAAAAHHHHH
I'll hijack this thread to ask...if I have read Evola Revolt, should I read Guenon's work? Or is it mostly the same?
evola:guenon::nietzche:stirner
The schools of classical philosophy
The institutions and virtues of the Roman Republic
The moral instruction of Cicero, Socrates, and Jesus of Nazareth
The laws of the Franks
The thought of Voltaire and the philosophes
Evola is a mystic
They can only be experienced by initiation.
Eliade is easier because he just comes right out and says a version of what Guenon coyly hints at. Eliade "democratized" traditionalism and initiation. Guenon and Evola both complained, to others and in letters to Evola, that he was just writing their own philosophies without citing them.
It's mostly the same. Usually people start with René Guénon and move on to Evola. I would say that Guénon is less edgy and better understandable.
>and in letters to Eliade*
my bad
yeah, except eliade didnt beleive in that shit
>he still hasn't clarified what these principles
Guenon is a metaphysician.
He has in mind eternal realities. By eternal we mean existence outside of time.
In accordance with traditional metaphysics, some levels of reality are ontologically prior to others. Some principles depend on others for their existence. A higher principle is one that is higher in the chain of dependence. This priority isn't temporal. Rather, these things are prior in "power and dignity." the higher the principle, the more simple it is.
It is good for man to anchor to or orient himself with the principles since they are ever the same and so more stable. This is one reason.
There is clearly overlap between the thought of Evola and Guenon on the one hand, and Eliade on the other.
Yes he did. He openly says it many times. If you read Myth of the Eternal Return or Sacred and the Profane or any of his other works, he flatly and openly states that these are metaphysically real archetypes, that they occur across all cultures, that all cultures have an original (archaic, primordial) connection to them that (likewise explicitly) precedes historical mixtures or merely socio-cultural influences. If you read his journals, around the same time that he wrote these things, he talks frequently about the symbols and archetypes as if they are metaphysically real and that he is personally attuned to seeing them.
Thank you for the answer.
What book of Eliade deals with this specifically?
Can you give me an example of a higher principle?
Society would be based on what god/revelation said so.
He's almost certainly thinking of the intelligible paradigms. It's not so much that he has some specific principles in mind. The point is that man is better off using the eternal and unchanging as his guide. By turning to the essence of things, one apprehends reality in a fuller manner.
You should read man and his becoming according to Vedanta. That's what all this is based on.
Higher principle would be purusha/ishvara or saguna brahman and nirguna brahman
These are all wildly different things.
>ABSTRACT THEM PLEASE, JUST ABSTRACT THEM FOR ME PLEEAAASEE
They are, but all bedrock of the tradition in the west.
Evola didn't really understand guenon. It's clear if you read their correspondence.
Guenon is a much clearer and closer to the truth.
You should read reign of quantity, study of hindu doctrines, man and his becoming in Vedanta. You don't need to read the rest really. Evola is merely a commentary on the fundamental ideas in these texts.
read reign of quantity, crisis of the modern world is kind of an introduction and doesn't get anywhere
>that he was just writing their own philosophies without citing them.
that makes no sense, traditionalism is eternal, you can't "invent" a traditionalist philosophy
so unless Eliade was literally copy/pasting from their books, if he was just telling the same it's weird that they would complain about that
you should read both, Evola had his weaknesses where he sometimes was too optimistic and modern, and some biases against christianity, even though he sort of grew out of it at some point
Guenon is less flawed than Evola in avoiding getting tied up with modern stuff, but he has his biases towards a Deus Otiosus kind of world, where something like personal initiation is impossible unless you tie yourself to an unbroken chain of initiation leading back to the beginning of a cycle where there's a point of divine intervention
it's worth reading both to see their differences and common stuff. Also stop reading Evola's political works and get back to his books about actual traditions, you can read the political ones later
>Until now he still hasn't clarified what these principles are and I doubt that he will. Can anyone here help me?
You should have started with Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines.
as if guenon lays it out there
Care to elaborate?
They were jelly he had a legt scholar position and they had to scrounge on the outskirts of society.
What are eternal principles? Think of them as Platonic forms. Idealist realism. Undo the nominalism of enlightenment empiricism.
wow Blavatsky said that decades before he did that’s weird how that is the case
so just read Vedanta and don’t read Guenon unless you’re an idiot and can’t keep track of implication
>can’t do the thing
they’re all different ideas
guenon and evola invented traditionalism no one in India ever said the shit they said, no christian ever said it either
you should just read the fucking vedas and upanishads and stop being a dumb cattle beast who needs a LARPer to tell them what’s what
yeah this book was fascinating. Only thing I've read by Guenon but I have been searching for exactly that book for a long time
wow except Vedanta has a different conception of the forms than plato did and so do the christians and so did the egyptians who weren’t even strict idealists but closer to animistic theurgic polytheists. its almost as if these are all different ideas and taking the homogenous nature at face value is fucking stupid
>reading guenon
you are like a little baby. guenon was too much of a brainlet to elucidate his higher principles. just assume he meant traditional with a capital T, the masters of old: religious faith, a homogeneous ethnocentric culture, and a pecking order that leaves the individual no option but to support both.
this is not doable in present society. stop reading that hack.
also all you fags taking evola and guenon seriously can die in a fire. eastern mysticism CAN be understood by westerners, but it is too frequently misunderstood. we have a hard enough time decyphering christianity to an adequate degree. stop fetishizing the east and stop reading century-old handholdless virgins.
also stop with blavatsky goddamn she was an idiot and a swindler. just stop.
>stop saying the thing
no faggot, she wrote everything these two retards did before they did and then added to our understanding of eastern mysticism, fuck off or read her works she did not plagiarize anyone and she cites every single fucking author she draws from. it doesn’t matter if anthropogenesis isn’t true or if the masters are just some 19th century cult in india who she found. what they say is interesting and had meaning. fuck off with your gatekeepingn. there’s a reason /pol/ and Veeky Forums shill for these two and ignore her works which are riddled with citations and all constantly cross referencing other people’s ideas. Fohat is fucking genius and anyone who studies the occult appreciates that kind of input, even if she fabricated it its useful for alchemical and kabbalist studies. Fuck off if you don’t take it seriously.
citing fake sources isn't the same as citing real ones
I am not a traditionalist. I think Eliade, Evola, and Guenon are hacks. I do find the idea of Egyptian/Babylonian/Persian/Indian/Hellenistic/Jewish/Christian crossover compelling, however. I have my own ideas regarding metaphysics but sometimes it is helpful to get surveys and syntheses of older ideas.
>t. hasn't read eliade
guenon and evola are hacks. eliade is actually taught in schools though, and his insight is worthy. not even in the same league as muh tradition, muh fallen world.
it's a conspiracy, maaaaaaan. cis white males are out to rob blavatsky of her due respect. she's really not a swindler and a con artist on the level of gurdjieff or ourspensky or rudolf steiner, i swears it!!!!
can you fucking believe rich parents send their kids, in the 21st century, to private school to learn eurythmy? it's fucking scandalous that these scams have survived to the present. i repeat: die in a fire.
Eliade is less hackish but he's still a century old and a secret nazi. He is to be congratulated for arguing the acceptancd of the sacred as real and valid but his theories on "cosmic religion" versus "historical religion" ring false in my ears.
-t.cosmic christian
the difference is eliade holds a scientific distance from his subject. he is not an alchemist like evola or a mystic like guenon, he is simply an anthropologist.
>the nazi meme
kittel was also supposedly a nazi. along with jung and campbell. it's a common accusation (((they))) use to discredit great men. big fucking deal.
What makes gurdjieff or ourspenksy a con artist?
Well where else would they send em to? Public high schools are fucking garbage and you get either forced into diversity quotas or the curriculum is filled with nonsense .
Are you kidding? Pic related. How could he NOT be a con artist? And to be clear Ourspensky was merely his shill.
Gurdjieff relied on the exotic syllables of eastern mysticism to sell his product, rather than good ideas. He had the beginning of a good idea, that spiritual memes had been hijacked by capitalism in the west and put to evil use, but Gurdjieff's mistake was abandoning that heritage for an imaginary system.
He is not a philosopher. He was a snake oil salesman, a guru who held supposed wisdom for ransom, not interested in truth but only trying to feed himself until tomorrow.
>What are eternal principles? Think of them as Platonic forms. Idealist realism. Undo the nominalism of enlightenment empiricism.
What utter fucking nonsense.
Eternal principles are those which tend to exist in myth. Eternally recurring, as Eliade would say. Archetypes, if you will, the forms which inhabit the darkness of the collective unconscious.
Metaphysical, sure, but not the vague garbage you suggest.
wew I hate Veeky Forums new agers so much right now
I was just asking. Haven't read him but ISOTM is on my list. I think I'll still check it out but keep your criticism in mind.
Other people on Veeky Forums have recommended him to me.
sorry, didn't mean any offense towards you personally. just Veeky Forums has a lot of /x/ refugees or larval magicians. they like the mystical guys and don't give a fuck about philosophy they just want secret knowledge so they can cast spells and shit. their ignorance is what perpetuates theosophy and that garbage in the 21st century.
basically these mystics (including evola and to a lesser degree guenon) were trying to interpret the dehumanization of the industrial revolution but didn't have the proper perspective or education. a lot of their nonsense are misunderstandings of eastern practice and ignorance of their own western philosophical/religious heritage.
Eliade is okay. But his work has mostly been succeeded by superior modern works. He insists that the sacred is beyond conceptualization and then says certain conceptualizations are more accurate than others. I think he wanted to be an alchemist or something but was aware that we had entered the terror of history and cannot return. Isn't blaming Jewish religious forms for the terror of history somewhat overtly anti-semitic too?
You know nothing, Jon Snow.
OP here.
So in conclusion higher principles are similar to Jungian archetypes and he clarifies them in his book "Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta", right?
>He insists that the sacred is beyond conceptualization
UHH YEAH BRO the divine is beyond your ken, deal with it.
>certain conceptualizations are more accurate than others
To my western mind, Platonism->Christianity is a more accurate conception of god than shamanic animalism. That does not invalidate the primitive way, I only hold that it is less accessible given my preconceptions. Eliade was not wrong, and did not contradict himself. T O L D.
>Isn't blaming Jewish religious forms for the terror of history somewhat overtly anti-semitic too?
uhh bro take it up with Marcion. he held the Old Testament was a 100% factual chronicle, and the Christ mythos was a new, previously unknown god. Hellenic Jews, the authors of the New Testament as you know it, erased him from history and his work was declared heresy. Manipulation of the truth happens. Crying anti-semitism is a weak fucking non-argument.
>You know nothing, Jon Snow.
good argument. I reply: no u
I would say that is what Guenon was trying to get at, except he was a fucking brainlet European aping the language and ideas of an alien culture because it would sell better.
>UHH YEAH BRO the divine is beyond your ken, deal with it.
Agreed. No argument.
>To my western mind, Platonism->Christianity is a more accurate conception of god than shamanic animalism.
Agreed again.
>That does not invalidate the primitive way, I only hold that it is less accessible given my preconceptions. Eliade was not wrong, and did not contradict himself. T O L D.
Eliade often insists that certain forms of shamanism are degenerate, for example those who use drugs. This is a good illustration of one way his biases cloud his work. He operates with a universalism that is more reductive than inclusive of difference.
Or just read Plato.
>drugs aren't degenerate
>psychoactive substances lead to coherent philosophical breakthroughs
okay fella. I'm not saying primitive methods are not authentic, just they don't help me (sober, literate, trying to elucidate the bounds and roads of the divine) much.
>Or just read Plato.
Well fucking YES goddamn, everyone should read Plato. But user is asking about Guenon, and I am telling him Guenon is a mental midget and his work is pseudomystical shit. user would be better served reading Frazer, or Graves, or Campbell, or Eliade. Someone who does not have a fetish for eastern mysticism.
No, he's not. According to him these higher principles are universal and present in all Traditional societies. The only difference is its expression. The East happens to still be holding on to Traditionalism and that's why Westerners should learn from them.
Guenon is not a brainlet aping the language and ideas of an alien culture? Are you sure? :^)
>universal "higher principles" present in Traditional societies
Name one.
He specifically devoted a whole chapter to people like you.
>Name one
I'm OP so I can't.
As I said, Guenon's fears and his entire analysis were based in the industrial revolution: the incredible economic and social upheaval that shook the west during the 19th and early 20th centuries. If he had been educated in the origins of Christianity and Greek philosophy, he would have written about that and perhaps done some good for the Western man in a vocabulary he could understand. Instead, Guenon retreated East into obscuritanism and mysteries which no one could argue. His ignorance shaped his course, and the allure of those mysteries draw people still. Witness this thread, which we have at least once a week.
They don't help me either (drugs) but still I found him to offer no solution to the cyclical cosmic versus historical messianic religion dialectic. Mayhaps the universe will recur, but we need to be worried about fixing Earth so humanity doesn't die out soon. That involves becoming historical. Even if you do appreciate cosmic and astrological cycles.
>Frazer, Graves, Campbell, Eliade
Still feel these are a bit outdated. I love Campbell though. Feels comfy like soup when you have a cold.