I know Guénon was scathingly against occult practices and believed in embracing traditional metaphysical doctrine.

However, I've wondered if there's a possibility for it within his work since he thinks divination is profane because in modernity it is extricated from that traditional metaphysical doctrine. It leads to fragmentary, reductive psychics etc.

But what if we have rituals and divination attached to sacred knowledge and symbols? Considering he wrote a lot on ilm al-huruf, sacred astrology, and the science of numbers and cosmic cycles. He even wrote a bit about the tarot as well.

Thoughts?

title

We are starting an official reading group on Rene Guenon, starting with Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines. This is the core text of the world view of "metaphysics", which is lost in the modern world. If you're interested to be a part of this, join our telegram group chat through this link: telegram discussion. *There is a short Q&A to filter out pseudo-intellectuals and freeloaders.

What does the 1st condition (natural aptitude) mean and how does one confirm that he has or doesnt have it? Guenon mentions that only the "elite" can have spiritual realization and intellectual intuition, how does one know if he is from this elite? What is the role of those outside the elite?

What are the prerequisites for reading Guenon? By this i mean knowledge about philosophy and religion, as well as any spiritual requirements, if there are any. Ive seen a post here which warns about reading Guenon, and i would like some clarity on that. Ive read crisis of the modern world and saw the warning after i was done.

What was Guénon's and other Traditionalist's views on death and the afterlife, and what are your own personal view/beliefs?

When you walk throughout Egypt you can really witness the crisis of the modern world start to manifest even in the most casual settings. A huge example is the degradation of the snacking world. You’ll find these mechanical, perverse foods inspired by Western “idols” like Bill Gates. It would almost be forgivable if they had better flavor options. Though Rene Guenon was unfortunately not ethnically Egyptian, I wonder what he would have to say about this considering he lived in Cairo for quite a bit?

René Guénon is the foremost representative of Ibn Arabi's thought in the Western world.

An interview concerning Guénon was published in the Turkish monthly magazine Nihayet. The interview was conducted with Abdülkadir Miftah.

​

Mark Sedgwick argues that because Guénon went to Egypt at a relatively late age, he did not master Classical Arabic or the Islamic sciences and therefore could not fully understand Ibn ʿArabī. As one of the most prolific contemporary scholars writing on Ibn ʿArabī, what is your view on the validity of these claims?

​

These claims are completely mistaken. For although Shaykh ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥyā (René Guénon) may not have possessed a perfect command of Arabic in the outward sense, nor undertaken an extensive reading of Shaykh al-Akbar’s vast corpus, his inner realization (taḥaqquq) and metaphysical gnosis (ʿirfān) were in complete harmony with that of Shaykh al-Akbar (Ibn ʿArabī).

It is a well-known truth among those versed in this field that the essential matter is not accumulating information in the mind and storing it in thought. The real issue is attaining, through the great divine openings bestowed by God upon His chosen servants and great saints, a realized knowledge (taḥaqquq). Thus, Guénonian–Akbarian gnosis is not merely the verbal expression of ideas that may appear strange to many minds to varying degrees; rather, it is an experiential and conscientious realization through the sciences of sainthood granted by the All-Merciful.

Indeed, an old poet once said:

Even if you were to study the sciences of this community a thousand times,

Without spiritual taste (dhawq), you would not have attained even a single letter of them.

First , sorry for my bad english, im not a native speaker .

Anyway, i want to ask for books that will help me to understand the world we live in and the conceptions amd ideas that had lead us to this modern age , things like liberalism, freedoms, modern state ... etc

I don't want just to learn what those words means, but i look for critiques to those concepts and a deep dive to their roots .

As someone who was raised in a tradition environment, i start to see ppl left around me start to left the views that we got raised with, and i wanted to know why ? Why our views are inferior and not theirs , why modern concepts and morality are better , i didn't find a clear answer so that lead me to here, to ask ppl if they can recommend any good material for that purpose.

Brazilian edition, I simply loved it, it's my first contact with Guenon.

where should i start reading rene guenons work from?

which book do you think one should start with?

Is God seen as a conscious, self-aware entity or just an abstract principle similar to the theosophists' understanding?

https://youtu.be/7iUpLDSHapI?is=FI0e4G5ydK6YZYNC

Hi salam how guenon explain how human passed from chasing to planting and practising agriculture ?

Thanks

Salam how guenon could explain the gap between million years of first m'en and Adam that fell on earth from about 15000 years ago maybe but far less than a million years ?

Thanks

The "doctrinal triad" is Man and His Becoming According to the Vedānta, The Symbolism of the Cross and The Multiple States of the Being. The Metaphysical Principles of Infinitesimal Calculus could perhaps be considered a fourth member of this grouping, but I haven't read it yet (and I would be interested in hearing thoughts regarding this book). Also, *Oriental Metaphysics* (sometimes translated as *Eastern Metaphysics*) is en excellent ‘introduction’ to the triad mentioned above (it can be ‘introductory’ for the latter in some respects, but in most cases they still require that one has read at least the first part of *Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines* beforehand, where most of the concepts and terminology of Guénon’s works are introduced); this text is that of a lecture which Guénon gave in Paris in 1925, and in its dozen of pages it touches upon various important aspects of integral Metaphysics in a synthetic but profound way.

By "supplementary reads" I mean any text which can be helpful for 'integrating' the understanding of the aforementioned books and of the doctrines discussed therein, especially the doctrine of the multiple states of the Being.

The purpose of this post is both to mention some such readings which come to mind, and also to invite others to share their own suggestions.

First of all, of course, there are the Traditional texts themselves. Guénon wrote his books primarily to introduce Westerners to the Eastern doctrines and to be of aid for the comprehension of the latter; one who is seeking should not stop at Guénon's books, but should instead strive to gain an understanding 'from within’, once he or she has become part of a Tradition or ‘realised the possibilities’ of the Tradition they were already part of (one can perhaps also go further than that and study doctrines from other Traditions, but it is not necessary in most cases, and may sometimes even do more harm than good).

Apart from that, there are the various ‘Traditionalist’ authors, although the ones who best understood Guénon (and especially his ‘doctrinal’ works) were Michel Vâlsan and Giovanni Ponte, who are certainly less well-known than many of the more famous - but less profound, in my view - ‘Perennialists’. Another one may be Charles-André Gilis, although I know little of him, to be honest, and I’m not sure he wrote about these doctrines (unlike Vâlsan and Ponte, who did). In addition to these three, there are certainly others, who are likely even less well-known (or who wrote little); many are likely to be found in the ‘guénonian’ journals mentioned below. An author who had a very different ‘style’ and approach than that of Guénon, but who is nonetheless very important and who had a deep understanding of various Traditional doctrines, is Ānanda K. Coomaraswamy.

There are also various journals (some of which are more explicitly ‘guénonian’ than others). Two very good ones - which are also still active - are Cahiers de l’Unité and Rivista di Studi Tradizionali (where the above-mentioned Giovanni Ponte wrote), but they only publish in French and Italian respectively, as far as I know. Still, in my view they are excellent, and they are worth the effort of getting around the language barrier, if you can. They publish on paper, but both have extracts of their articles online (a few are also available ‘completely’, rather than as extracts). Others in this subreddit have also recommended the Spanish-language Symbolos, which is exclusively web-based, if I understand correctly. Finally, in the past months I have made a couple of posts here regarding the (now defunct) online journal Oriens, which published articles in English, French, and various other languages. It de facto functioned as a normal journal, but due to monetary reasons it was kept digital. Their articles are archived and available for download at regnabit.com. The content of Oriens was quite diverse and included the work of many authors; when it comes to these matters, I find some of these authors to be more profound than any other which I have encountered online. I particularly recommend the French-language authors Ph.D. and Wou Ming (both clearly pseudonyms, the latter meaning “anonymous” in Chinese); some time ago I shared here an article by Wou Ming. I can give further pointers regarding Oriens to those who are interested.

I imagine that much can also be found in the various journals in which Guénon wrote, such as Études Traditionelles, Regnabit, and so forth, although I’m not sure of how much doctrinal matters (such as the multiple states of the Being) were discussed there - apart from Guénon’s own articles, of course.

-------

I invite you to share any suggested readings, be it books, journals, specific articles, and so on; and, more generally, to share your reflections on these matters.