RENÉ GUÉNON
by Mircea A.
Tamas
Our modern
world, and mainly the Western world, is now the abode of emotional and rational
human beings, more emotional than rational, with no place for intellectual people.
The same way the true Rosy-Cross disappeared and found retreat in
For a long time, Guénon’s work was under
suspicion, and the official pundits and scholars tried hard to suppress it. A
heavy silence reigned over his “subversive” books, maybe one day they would be
forgotten. Yet René Guénon was not forgotten. His influence remained so
powerful that “the law of silence,” which proved to be fruitless, was changed
with “the law of logorrhea.” Everybody started to use frequently Guénon’s name
and his writings, including on the Internet, his work being misinterpreted, his
intellectual stature being downplayed; the purpose was to reduce Guénon to a
common writer or philosopher, and so, to annihilate his spiritual function. For
example, the street in
Many are more interested today in Guénon’s
individuality than in his intellectual works. Others, wearing the mask of appreciation
and understanding, have labeled Guénon as an “outsider,” suggesting that he
knew only superficially the Christian esotericism, the Taoism, Hebrew Kabbalah,
the Hindu tradition and even the Islamic doctrines.
We may ask ourselves: is or not Guénon an
orthodox exponent of the One-and-only Tradition? The answer, for the honest and
qualified people, is an easy one: René Guénon was the providential interpreter
of the everlasting Tradition. He is the one who, in Occident, brought the
metaphysics to its real and deserved brightness, who clearly stated the
universal principles of the traditional doctrines, who presented the true face
of the initiation, and described the cosmic cycles. [1] The Hebrew Kabbalah
identifies three main and symbolic elements that constitute the sacred significance
of traditional rites and writings: the Cosmos, the Year and the Man (Sepher
Ietsirah III.2). Guénon’s work was built on studies about cosmogony (the
Cosmos), about the theory of the cosmic cycles (the Year) and about the
spiritual realization and initiation (the Man), yet always as applications of
the metaphysics, which is the domain of the supreme Principle.
Guénon spent an immense effort to modify
the Western mentality, to open the modern mind and thinking towards the metaphysical
and initiatory truths, to recover the spiritual and primeval meanings of the
traditional symbols, to facilitate the sacred writings to be not only read but
also comprehended. [2]
That was only a part of his mission. More
important is that Guénon succeeded to unify the various particular traditions,
to pacify the apparent oppositions, to restore the “ideal model” of what would
have been the primordial Tradition; in a conciliatory way, and not at all bias
or narrow minded, Guénon assimilated synthetically the fundamental data of the
diverse traditional forms, and tried to recompose the primeval form. [3] Taking
into account that the present moment of our cosmic cycle is favorable to the
sentimental and emotional elements, especially in the Western world, and that
the domain of metaphysics goes far beyond the individuality, René Guénon raised
the traditional data at the level of the pure intellect; only there, at the
highest level – the order of pure metaphysics, the particular traditions are
united in the Unique. [4] Voluntarily, he left aside the bhakti and karma
aspects of the doctrine, and even more, he rejected all the heterodox branches
of the Tradition, careful not to permit any confusion or pseudo-knowledge to develop.
The rigorousness of his writings had as
main purpose to modify the superficiality of the Western thinking; even now
some sentimental scholars are profoundly unhappy with Guenon’s tough discipline
imposed to the style and the form of his work. Guénon’s “super-intellectual”
approach is, though, the only valid way when a theoretical transmission is
involved. [5] Using mathematical symbols and language, even if disagreeable to
some scholars and literate individuals, facilitated a precise and exact style,
very different from all the inflated and tortuous phrases of the modern rationalists.
Nicholas of Cusa, who reminds us of René
Guénon, writes: “the mathematics represent the scientific domain that offers
the most numerous similarities with metaphysics”, and adds: Nihil certi habemus in nostra scientia, nisi
nostram mathematicam, stressing
that from Pythagoras and Plato to Saint Augustine and Boethius, the
philosophers stated that nobody can reach the knowledge of the divine order
without learning mathematics. “On this path,” concluded Cusa, “we will follow
them, and, because there is no other way to lead to the divine order but that
of the symbols, we affirm that we may select the mathematical signs, which
contain an incorruptible certitude.” [6]
There are some people who are upset that
Guénon did not develop some specific doctrinal subjects, or, that he did not
insist on the Greek-Orthodox tradition, for example, proving that he did not
study the Fathers of the Church. Sure, we can be sorry forever that some
authors did not write about this or that. Yet in Guénon’s case, we have to
stress that he transmitted everything what really counts, offering to the
qualified ones an infallible guide in the spiritual domain. His work, even
without quoting all the Fathers of the Church, is the best guide to decipher the
Christian mystery. And we have to keep in mind that Guénon was not an ordinary
scholar or a philosopher or a thinker, or even a spiritual master.
René Guénon, as an individual, did not
count, as he himself insisted many times. It is difficult for the modern
mentality, totally attached to the order of the ego and of the individuality,
to accept such a statement. Guénon was invested by, let’s say without
elaborating, by the Superiores Incogniti [7] with the function of restoring
the primordial Tradition, a function comprising as main objective the
modification and regeneration of the Western mentality. His writings do not
have other purpose. As a transmitter of the absolute Truth, Guénon’s only
“errors” could appear because of the difficulty to dress in human words a
Knowledge that surpasses the human and individual domain. Those who call themselves
“guénonists,” referring to Guénon as individual, make a terrible mistake. Those
who call themselves “guénonists,” referring to Guénon’s work, they are not less
mistaking. Guénon’s work is just the porch of the
It is totally useless – Gilis stresses –
to try to find out the exact circumstances regarding the beginning of Guenon’s
initiatory career (Gilis 27). We can assume that between 1908 and 1912
“something” happened to Guénon and he aquired a “universal initiation” that
came directly from the spiritual invisible center, let’s call it Agarttha. After
that, Guénon followed a more “human” path and was introduced to all the
important particular traditions (Islamism, Taoism, Hinduism, Masonry), which
seems normal considering his overall initiation. “The spiritual influences,
which converge towards him, coming from particular initiatory centers, and
having as intermediaries individuals representing the major metaphysical
traditions of the East, appear as a consequence of a major event caused by
Guénon’s investiture” (Gilis 30).
Guénon “has confirmed himself to André
Préau that he received from oral Oriental teaching his knowledge of Hindu doctrines,
Islamic esotericism and of Taoism. Michel Vâlsan, on his part, considering
Hinduism, Taoism and Islamism in an analog perspective, regarded ‘the three
main forms of the present traditional world, representing the Middle-East, the
Far-East, and the Near-East, as reflections of the three aspects of the Lord of
the World.’[8] The mention of the mysterious Lord of the World here is a
confirmation of Guénon’s ‘mission’ that came from the Supreme Center, which was
acting this time using external forms and traditional institutions” (Gilis 31).
As we already said, the period 1908-1912
is very enigmatical. That is the period when Superiores Incogniti
empowered Guénon with the function of messenger, transmitter and translator of
absolute truths, primarily to the Western world. This function Guénon will
fulfill consistently until his corporeal disappearance; he was not allowed to
be a spiritual master, and that is why he didn’t accept to have disciples.
In 1908, René Guénon is already involved
with the Occultist “schools” of that epoch, trying to find an opportunity to
start the renovation of the Occidental mentality. He soon realizes that, unfortunately
for the Western world, there is not much hope. In the same year, Guénon tries
to provoke a breach in the profane mental wall. Members of the Martinist Order
received an “astral message” to bring René Guénon at Hotel des Cannettes,
and, after more meetings, the Renovated Order of the Temple was founded having
Guénon as leader; yet the activity of the Order had no effects upon Western
mentality and Guénon is forced to dismantle the organization. This experience
proved to Guénon “the necessity, because the impossibility to follow his
mission inside the Order of the
Guénon’s attachment to Islam is not a
“conversion,” but an application of his “universal initiation” in order to
fulfill his function, after the attempt to generate an “extraordinary” organization
failed. “Guénon declared more than one time that he was never ‘converted’ to
anything, and, in 1938, in a letter to Pierre Collard, that he even did not
‘embraced the Muslim religion,’ more or less recently, as some ones try to make
people believe for some obscure reasons. And he added: ‘the fact of the matter
is that I am attached to the Islamic initiatic organizations for thirty years,
which, of course, is completely different’” (Gilis 57).
As
we said, Guénon’s function was not that of being a spiritual master for a
specific path. There are some people who are upset that Guénon presented so
little about specific methods of the spiritual realization and Liberation,
which means that they completely misunderstood Guénon and his function.
Guénon’s writings constitute the
theoretical fundament, Guénon intentionally exposing the elements of different
traditions in a general form, and we can notice his endeavor to stay away from
specifics and details, to be at the general, or better universal level. We have
to keep in mind that his writings aim the Western people in the first place;
that is why Guénon presented an ideal type of Oriental being (that has real
existence, but not as a quantitative majority, in Orient, the genuine spiritual
masters, the initiation and the traditional doctrines being a reality, even if
today a process of profanation and of “occidentalization” takes place). To
obtain a “break” inside the modern mentality, Guénon used different strategies,
all criticized today and considered errors.
Today, the modern people are hypnotized by
“information” and “to be informed”; many of them consider Guénon’s work just
another source of information, and regard the traditional lore transmitted by
him as a common “bibliography” that now is obsolete. These people look for new
facts, new information, they fight to obtain Guénon’s letters, hoping to discover
some spicy detail of his individual life; today, texts assigned to Guénon are
published (see Psychologie).
Some scholars consider Guénon and his
writings out-of-date. Of course, if they have in mind the sacred kernel of his
work, their ignorance needs no comments. We remember, to give an example, the
opinion of a French “Orientalist” who wrote us many years ago that Guénon is
completely obsolete, that his knowledge about Hindu tradition was very poor,
which is normal for his times, and now, it is out-of-date; that he mixed three
elements: a incomplete information, a so-called “esoterically tradition” of
Western origins, and his imagination. At that time, we expressed our comments,
but now we just wanted to illustrate the ignorance we were talking about.
Others complained that, visiting Guénon at
However, Guénon did not accept
“disciples.” Even though so many tried to call themselves “guénonists” or
Guénon’s “pupils,” no one has the right for this appellative. René Guénon
stated clearly, and many times, that his mission is not to be a “teacher” and
he does not have disciples; that, what it counts, is the traditional lore he
transmitted through his writings, and anything else connected to his
individuality, intimate deeds or words, is his personal business. Yet any
honest student of Guénon’s work cannot avoid the question: how valid are
Guénon’s followers, from Schuon to Gilis? And many years ago, we asked the late
Giovanni Ponte, from Rivista di Studi Tradizionali of
In my opinion, nobody by far has the authority Guénon has. Each one has
exposed valid things, especially Coomaraswamy, yet each one was marked by his
individuality, a mark more or less decisive, and which became very damaging
when the individuals believed to be spiritual masters (like Schuon). Regarding
Burckhardt, even if he is more balanced than Schuon, the fact that he was
Schuon’s disciple marked him; on the other hand, I don’t see how Evola can be
called an “exponent of the Tradition.” I don’t know very well Eliade; I know
that he used copiously traditional notions from Guénon’s work, but I don’t
think he went beyond the profane order. And Matgioi, despite his profoundness
in some of his works and his remarkable role related to Taoism and Guénon, he
is not an incontestable authority, far from that, considering the last part of
his life… That is why I think that is important not to know a lot of authors or
to judge them, but to study deeply the traditional teachings in order to apply
them.
It is not the place and not our task to
emit judgments regarding the individuality order, but we have to mention that,
after Guénon’s death, some of his “collaborators” were very active to reduce
Guénon’s work at the profane level. Marco Pallis, for example, who was
encouraged and helped by Guénon in his traditional studies, wrote a curious
article against Guénon’s Le Roi du Monde; Pallis tried to prove that
Agarttha and the Lord of the World were just results of Guénon’s imagination,
that nobody heard in India or Tibet about Agarttha and the Lord of the World. There
is an extraordinary incomprehension about the symbolism of the Lord of the
World, about what really Guénon transmitted in his fundamental book Le Roi
du Monde. [10] Marco Pallis is one of the examples of this incomprehension.
We have to keep in mind that Guénon
transmitted through his writings a unitary doctrine, unaffected by
contingencies, a synthesis of all particular traditions that can be find in it,
but which, at the same time, inevitable, are different from it, because the unification
of the particular doctrines implies to preserve the “spirit,” not the “letter.”
René Guénon had as objective to establish the doctrinal essence of the
universal metaphysics, opening the eyes and smoothing the way towards spiritual
knowledge; he left on purpose aside the specific elements that would more confuse
than clarify the modern mentality.
We can ask ourselves: is René Guénon the
creator of a new doctrine? No, absolutely not! In the Foreword of his
book Le Symbolisme de la Croix, Guénon confesses that he wants “soit
exposer directement certains aspects des doctrines métaphysiques de l’Orient,
soit adapter ces mêmes doctrines de la façon qui nous paraîtrait la plus
intelligible et la plus profitable, mais en reste toujours strictement fidèle à
leur esprit.” [11] Guénon dressed in essential clothes the traditional data,
presenting a unitive doctrine about Unity, and here appears brightly his providential
function. [12] Guénon writes: “nous n’avons jamais entendu nous renfermer
exclusivement dans une forme déterminée, ce qui serait d’ailleurs bien
difficile dés lors qu’on a pris conscience de l’unité essentielle qui se
dissimule sous la diversité des formes plus ou moins extérieures, celle-ci
n’étant en somme que comme autant de vêtements d’une seule et même vérité.”[13]
Many don’t want and cannot recognize the
unitary doctrine renovated by René Guénon, and we are not surprised. Gandhi
fought his entire life for the independence of
Notes
[1] “Generally speaking, Guénon’s
doctrinal work regards the highest universal truths, and also the symbolical
rules and the cyclic laws that regulate their traditional adaptation” (Michel
Vâlsan, L’Islam et la fonction de René Guénon, Les Editions de l’Oeuvre,
Paris, 1984, p. 14). Michel Vâlsan, a native Romanian, became after Guénon’s
corporeal death, the director of Guénon’s journal, Études Traditionnelles.
[2] “The universal and
comprehensive character of Guénon’s teachings explains why these offer the key
that permits to the Western people to penetrate within any metaphysical
doctrine, by understanding and assimilating its fundamental aspects”
(Charles-André Gilis, Introduction a l’enseignement et au mystère de René Guénon,
Les Editions de l’Oeuvre, Paris, 1985, p. 11).
[3] “Exposing truths that were
unthinkable for the contemporarily people, Guénon’s metaphysical modes of
expression had necessarily an independent character in comparison to the known,
or used, doctrinal modes of expression in Occident. On the other hand, because
Guénon didn’t attach himself exclusively to a single Oriental tradition, but he
found support from everything that was opportune and could serve to express
universal ideas, which he gave the synthesis, this characteristic of formal independence
exists, for some extent, even in comparison to the doctrinal modes of expression
of Orient; this thing was inevitable because René Guénon wrote in a language totally
different from the usually languages of the regular doctrines” (Vâlsan, Islam,
p. 14).
[4] “Such an identity and
universality [of the Tradition] is real only for the highest aspect of the
metaphysics: regarding this, the Islamic masters said: ‘the doctrine of Unity
is unique’ (at-Tawhîdu wâhidun)” (Vâlsan, Islam, p. 13).
[5] “That is why if one would try
to translate Guénon’s work in any Oriental language, the translation should be
followed by commentaries. Guénon expressed and thought in modes belonging to
what we can call a ‘sapiental spirituality,’ modes different from the regular
ones that are the support of ‘religions based on revelation’” (Vâlsan, Islam,
p. 15).
[6] Nicolas de Cusa, De la docte
Ignorance, Guy Trédaniel, 1979, p. 58.
[7] “The mysterious character of
René Guénon privileged status is connected to the intervention of a spiritual
influence operating ‘outside the regular and common ways of initiation,’ that
is, independently of the existent initiatory organizations, which were apt to
confer a regular initiatory attachment” (Gilis 26).
[8] Études Traditionnelles,
nos. 293-294-295, 1951. See Michel Vâlsan, La fonction de René Guénon et le
sort de l’Occident, p. 218. Vâlsan specifies that Guénon was the first one
who gave a proper definition for the Lord of the World.
[9] Gilis stresses “the remarkable
coincidence between the end of the Order of the Temple and Guénon’s attachment
to Islam” (Gilis 47). Also, in 1911,
Guénon is initiated in Masonry (Gilis 48).
[10] “The explicit reference to the
Supreme Center of the World and its Leader marks, more than any other aspect of
Guénon’s work, the incomparable and privileged character of his function in the
Western world” (Gilis 16).
[11] René Guénon, Le symbolisme
de la croix, Guy Trédaniel, 1989, p. 9. Guénon writes that he wants either
to expose directly some aspects of the Oriental metaphysical doctrines, or to
adapt these doctrines to our mentality, preserving their spirit.
[12] “The Islamic spirituality as a
whole is specially sensitive to recognizing the divine Unicity, which, for it,
is the fundament and the first criteria of validity for any religious form. Or,
René Guénon teaches and affirms the fundamental unity of the existent
traditions because he notices that the essence of all doctrines is that of
Unity or Non-Duality of the Principle of the Truth” (Vâlsan, Islam, p.
27).
[13] Guénon explains that he doesn’t want to be limited by the frame of
a specific doctrine, especially when someone is aware of the essential unity of
all these doctrines, the various forms being just garments of the same truth.