René Guénon, or: Veeky Forums investigates modern deviation a.k.a. 'degeneracy'

A cursory investigation of Julius Evola (a.k.a dat spiritual badboy rayciss on da block) will reveal his mentor, René Guénon. From Wikipedia:
>From these considerations, René Guénon traces to its source the origin of the modern deviation, which, according to him, is to be found in the destruction of the Templar order in 1314.
>deviation
What did he mean by this?
Could the historical origins of modern degeneracy lie in the toppling of the Templar order? Would the extirpation thereof require a broad revival of Templar virtues?

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>The things the knights confessed under torture defied belief: trampling and urinating on the Crucifix, secret rites of obscene kisses, sodomy, usury, treason, idolatry, heresy. After the arrests came seven years of inquisition, then hundreds and hundreds of public executions by burning. In the end, Pope Clement V abolished the order.

>As a large crowd closed around the scaffold, the last Master of the Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem, 70-year-old Jacques de Molay, stood alongside three of his brothers in arms, listening as the papal legate read their crimes in horrible detail. But mercy would yet be theirs if they repeated to the people of Paris the guilt they had confessed before the inquisition. Five stakes piled high with brushwood and faggots awaited them if they did not.

>Two of the knights, eyes cast downward, mumbled their guilt. Then de Molay and Geoffrey de Charney of Normandy stepped forward.

>"On this terrible day," shouted de Molay, his gaze meeting the eyes of the crowd, "in my final hour, I shall let truth triumph and declare, before heaven and all the saints, that I have committed the greatest of all crimes." The crowd pressed in.

>"But my crime is this: that I confessed to malicious charges made against an order that is innocent so that I could escape further torture. I shall not confirm a first lie with a second. I renounce life willingly. I have no use for days of sorrow earned only by lies."

>The King’s police seized the two knights and chained them to the stakes. Brush and branches were set aflame. As the old men were roasted alive, they shouted their innocence and their love for Jesus Christ before falling silent. Thus the last Master of the Knights of the Temple of Jerusalem was reduced to ashes.

Don't post Evola and Guenon here. This place is filled with fedora neckbeards and commie faggots.

Should we post traps?

The confession of so-called heretics seem to possess a unique conformity. For instance, some scholars wonder why such so-called blasphemous acts as 'licking frogs' are consistently found in Inquisition records.

Methinks that these were either stock answers provided under duress or torture, or worse yet, a way of disseminating peculiar practices by the Church.

what did he see?

Well if it's so full of fedora neckbeards, Evola should be quite popular.

A way out of Western materialism?

why did he have such an oddly-proportioned skull?

Too much Aryan-Neanderthal genes.

>the originator of muh traditional occidental aryan virtues ideology
>ends up converting to Islam

really makes you think.

Sufi mysicism, tbqh famalam.

Question: Aquinas is as important as the Viennese in stemming the tide of Islam in Europe. He lives in an era in which Islamic learning is ascendant, and people wonder whether or not Europe should convert to Islam. Aquinas retorts that Christianity exhorts man to use reason.

Fact: This is exactly what the Qur'an states. Does the Christian gospel explicitly tell adherents to do the same? Or is it Aquinas plagiarizing? Is the only reason why Europe is Christian because Aquinas grafted Islamic doctrine and philosophy onto his own?

Inb4 Wahhabism, a British ruse to get Bedouins to attack fellow Muslim Turks: conspiracyschool.com/wahhabis
Or globalism which seeks to reconcile a newly-ascendant Islam with the long-dead Roman magick cult through forced migration.

>tfw Islam is the final redpill all along

Tbqh, he had he the courage to do what many an Enlightenment and Renaissance thinker didn't.

It's a common misconception that interest in non-European religions and cultures is an exclusively leftist phenomena. During the 19th and early 20th century and interest in all things eastern enraptured both the left wing and right wing. Islam was no different than Buddhism or Hinduism in this regards. An eastern religion that people had a great interest in.

>tfw you have a friend who really loves traditionalism and espouses 99% Guenon does and starts reading his works, only for him to go full stop because he found out he converted to Islam later on.

It's almost like historical philosophers don't match up 100% to your current beliefs.

>When the contemplation of and yearning for union with the Universal Logos steers a civilization towards progress more aptly than an amalgamation of ancient fertility and mystery cults called "Christianity" which, even if fully understood for its components, still leaves an unwarranted authority that *blocks your path* in your pursuit of Truth and possibly also burns you at the stake.

This guy looks like a painting of some inbred aristocrat, not a real person.

In Islam, the conditional Truth is the law, while the ultimate Truth is the Creator.

In the West, "science" or rather 'scientism' has replaced the Church as the authority. We are permitted to think what this authority tells us wel can, which is anathema to the scientific spirit.

Problem?

>Islam
>logos
Pick one

I would say he's right about a lot, but despair drags him to another religion and away from Christianity. That's the one thing I don't care for about him, he saw how shitty things were getting and instead of trying to fix them, he abandoned them entirely.

To be fair–at the point Guenon was at– there really is no difference between Christian esotericism and Sufi Islam.

Excerpt like that other user said, the church never fully accepted esotericism. In the west there's a constant tension between esoteric and exoteric, which we don't find in eastern religions. The Catholic Church has condemned practically all worthwhile Christian mystics (such as Meister Eckhart, Jacob Boehme), and even Eastern Orthodox hesychasm, shunning mysticism and preferring to embrace "vain philosophy" in scholasticism, which many argue has paved the way to rationalism and eventually positivism. In Islam and Judaism, on the other hand, the exoteric fully recognizes the esoteric (Kabbalah and Sufism, respectively), each one having its proper domain and function.

Except*

Fucking phone.

Other interesting Christian esotericists: Eriugena (ignored if not condemned, not sure), Pico (condemned) and Ficino (faced trial for heresy in his own lifetime; his patrons the Medici had to intervene to save his life). The Knights Templars possibly had something interesting going on, but all is just speculation. And don't get me started on the Cathars.

Anyway, in forcing every form of esotericism to go underground, the catholic church created its nemesis. We could have had something like a catholic freemasonry in the military and knightly orders, instead of the deeply anti-catholic and liberal freemasonry that we that ended up having. When denied a place in the regular tradition, these esoteric movements assumed the place of the anti-tradition, degenerating into occultism, anticlericalism, satanism and even atheism.

It was protestantism that got the ball rolling.

A lot of Catholics mystics are widely accepted. Saint Bridget, Saint Herman, St. Hildegard, Padro Pio just to name a few off the top of my head. You all are speaking more about Roman Catholic esotericist/metaphysicians (for lack of a better word). its also not that Catholicism is lacking in orders to join. It has the Dominicans, Benedictines, jesuits, etc,

While some people struggle with the idea of esotericisms I stuggle with the idea of exotericism and have a hard time understanding what the value in it is. Is it purely necessary for the "masses" or for proving a "space" in which esoteric ideas and proliferate? That would make it something with a functional value but no intrinsic value.

providing*

can proliferate*

jeez sorry for al the errors

may as well add, one of the reasons I can't take the Abrahamic faiths seriously is their emphasis on exoteric beliefs (like believing in historical figures or events). I'm interested in practices and what they can accomlish. I don't see what difference it makes one way or the other whether Jesus actually existed, or Muhammed actually received a revelation from God in the exact manner described. In this sense I'm more on Evola's wavelength than Guenon: what is most crucial is action and results, not abstract contemplation or belief in dogma.

bump

Contemplation is key to esotericism. This being said, if you rightly understand prayer, fasting, meditation and reading scriptures to be an action (something I think Evola accepted later in life when he said actions and contemplation are two sides of the same coin) and it isn't really a conflict of interest.

As for the exotericism of any faith (not just Abrahamics) look at it this way. Every learns biology in 10th grade but not everybody goes on to study college level biology. I maintain that for normies the catechism is enough. They don't care to learn more anyway.

>I maintain that for normies the catechism is enough. They don't care to learn more anyway.

I agree with that fully. I don't want to say that the average man is ignorant or anything, but going beyond to developing a deep understanding of why is beyond the reach of many people. Our clerics spend the majority of their lives reflecting on the bible and the history and traditions of the faith, and even then only the most illuminated among them gain even the tiniest insight into the faith as a whole. How can the layman, who spends a night reading the bible and assumes he is an expert, even approach the wisdom of his forefathers, who have dedicated their lives to the examination of faith?

It seems most people agree, we have experts for a reason: Doctors should be those who treat patients, architects design buildings, all the way down to the mostly of workers being the primary keeper of knowledge of their craft. But when it comes to religious matters, suddenly everyone thinks they're just as capable of understanding even without any real base of knowledge to work with. The option is there if they choose to pursue understanding, but they instead climb a hill and declare they've reached the top of the mountain.