/lit/ - Literature

>ywn be rescued from the pit of darkness by a sufi saint

>ywn make humble pilgrimage to guenon's home in cairo

I would highly recommend anyone interested in the Traditionalist school or Advaita Vedanta to read the Ashtavakra Gita

https://realization.org/p/ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita/richards.ashtavakra-gita.html

>>10999117
Thanks for the recc. I saw Ramakrishna mentioned there. Have you read his "Gospel"?

>ywn enter into supra-individual spiritual states during a sufi zikr circle

>>10999121
No, but I know that Guenon thought of him as legit and his works are generally popular and listed as recommended on the websites of Vedanta centers in the US.

In case this turns into a long thread with a bunch of questions about what Guenon meant about something, reading pic related before any of his other works will save you much confusion. It's more of an intro to Traditionalism or Rene Guenon's thought than Hinduism.

pic related is the Guenon reading list. I'm currently reading Symbols of the Sacred Science if anyone wants to discuss it.

Some anon dumped some encyclopedia entries a while ago on Guenon, I can post them here if anyone wants.

>>10999133
afaik Ramakrishna himself didn't write anything, it was recorded by his disciples. The collection known as "the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna" is very good, highly recommended.

>>10999136
>It's more of an intro to Traditionalism or Rene Guenon's thought than Hinduism.
Second half deals broadly with Hinduism, and really well imo, but you are correct regarding the first half of the book. Have a rare.

>>10999109
Normally I don't indulge in these things, bit I'm curious, how did traditionalism come to mean "almost new age stuff mixing Orientalism with all kinds of weird non/cvasi-Christian Western traditions like hermeticism, etc."? Not saying it's a bad thing, but it certainly isn't the first thing that comes to mind when tradition is mentioned.

>>10999109
>calls himself a traditionalist
>hijacks other people's cultures and traditions

That sentiment when Evola might be slowly helping me transform into less of a cynical fag, and now I even believe in love and disregard biological reductionism.

>>10999144
It's not a question of mixing anything. Metaphysical principles are capable of being applied to very diverse domains, in fact, to all domains, so no religion could really be an exception to that rule assuming it's an "orthodox" religion. Metaphysical principles are by nature universal. Really appreciating this fact requires a habituation to a new mode of thinking which isn't widespread in our age, but was more common in the past. We rarely even make the distinction between ratio and intellectus today (pic related).

>>10999109
thanks for this wonderful containment thread

>>10999147
Have you read his "Metaphysics of Sex". That's probably my favorite from Evola. It's really well written. Have a rare Evola.

>>10999139
I recently started 'Man and his Becoming', so far it's pretty good. I glanced through 'Studies in Hinduism' earlier and noticed in at least one spot he references 'Man and His Becoming' and basically says he won't bother explaining something in detail because he did it best in 'Becoming' so it may be better to read 'Becoming' before 'Studies' but I'll have to wait until I read both before making a definitive judgement.

>>10999161
imo, that's backwards. Don't worry about Guenon saying "I wrote about X, Y, and Z in book so and so". It doesn't mean you have to go and read that book first. All his books cross reference one another. It takes time to get acclimated to his thought, to the traditionalist perspective. "Studies" should definitely be read first, imo. But try "Becoming" and let us know how it goes. If you're already acquainted with traditionalist writing via other authors, and with Hinduism then maybe that would be fine for you.

>inb4 that one recurrent theosophy shill starts posting

daily reminder that the weak should fear the strong

>>10999226
I like Evola but this image gets me everytime

>>10999145
>Doesn't know about the Tradition.

>>10999249
I like Evola as well, but definitely prefer Guenon. have a rare evola

>>10999249
>>10999272
I unironically *don't* like Evola. He strikes me as a man in great pain who, unable or unwilling to truly face his inner darkness, turned to advocating for an external "transcendence" in the form of bloody conflict and oppression.

A more sinister snake oil salesman I have yet to see.

>>10999286
He doesn't come off as a "snake oil salesmen" to me, just a gentle old man:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QiCtdi5nCoA
I think you get that impression because of how edgy larpers relate to his work.

>>10999249
Evola went outside for a walk during an air raid, how is he not the Chad?

name a traditionalist who succeeded at anything except book writing

>>10999354
10/10 bait

>>10999354
no one
traditionalism is a wistful coping method for incels

What does Rene Guenon mean by the passage from "theoretical knowledge" to "effective knowledge" via intellectual intuition?

So this is basically what happens when you don't wanna larp as a nazi anymore and you're searching for something meaningful while still being able to hate blacks and jews, right?

>>10999286
What the heck are you even talking about, dude. Evola goes straight to the inner world compared to any other trad.

>>10999452
Not quite. You can love blacks and jews, but still hate blackness and jewishness.

>>10999452
>only white people could possibly be interested in perennial philosophy
So this is basically what happens when you get so worked up over racism paranoia that you actually become racist, right?

is this guy legit?

>>10999500

>>10999452
You might be on to something here, hmmmmmmmm... Guenon hated jews so much he became a muslim. Whoah.

>>10999500
FYI, he's read Guenon and the other trads and likes them but he doesn't regard himself as one

>>10999438

metaphysical realization, intuitive understanding, what is described in this pic >>10999150

>>10999286
>oppression
should we tell him?

>>10999286
I like Evola's writings. I will say he is a very in-your-face writer and I do not think his traditional method is the same as Rene Guenon's.

Massimo Scaligero once wrote that Evola used Tradition as a dialectic, that he used it as a point of departure for attacking the modern world, but that he really wanted something *other* than Tradition, that it was his force of personality that drew him to Evola when he hadn't even gleamed at Evola's writings. From my reading, the name of his magnum opus Revolt Against The Modern World is inseparable from this thesis. Tradition in Evola is always vaguely defined, if ever. It's more of a point that every activity ought to be aimed at "another world."

The traditional method fit him nicely because it allowed him to liberally cut out a picture of another world by using disperse facts about previous civilizations on the postulate that they all reflect a similar spirit. This is even more clear when some of his facts aren't facts at all or don't support his conception. Of course, this doesn't matter because it could be a mere symbol or reflection of another order. Such is how he weaves his argument.

>>10999156
I almost want to say with this guy that Metaphysics of Sex is his real magnum opus, considered a kind of antidote for the thesis that sexuality is an unnamed puppet master fleetingly dominating every person's desires, actions, and beliefs, that there is even a possibility of "beyond" in something seemingly low and crude.

In short, I think Evola is for those disenchanted people who are opposed to "this" but don't really know what kind of world is better. In a way, his book is full of hope that another world is possible, a world where we aren't "nomads of the asphalt." He might be guilty of romanticism. I think Evola's writings are best for men of an intellectual bent that perceive something wrong with the world and even how people articulate that wrongness, but have the capacity to will something more

>>10999543
this doesn't really tell me much.

>>10999536
i saw the very indoeuropean interview too

>>10999577
>well then try not being a brainlet

In all seriousness, all you can do is read more Guenon chronologically, in conjuction with primary texts. If it's still eluding you try taking some acid or attending a meditation retreat, I recommend S.N. Goenka Vipassana (it's free).

>>10999726

It is clear to me you haven't the slightest idea what the Traditionalists are on about if you think their "metaphysical realization" constitutes a psychedelic experience. First, it assumes those "metaphysically realized" comprehensions occurring in rites are just radical psychoses, an assumption even more ridiculous taken to the field of crafts and arts. Second, it assumes that metaphysics is phenomenal, whereas from Guenon's "Oriental Metaphysics:"

"it is absolutely essential to stress one point in order to avoid grave errors of interpretation; it is that all with which we are here concerned has no connection whatever with phenomena of any sort, however extraordinary. All phenomena are of the physical order; metaphysics is beyond the phenomenal, even if we use the word in its widest sense. It follows from this, amongst other inferences, that the states to which we are referring are in no way “psychological”; this must be specifically stated since strange confusions sometimes arise in this connection. By definition psychology can only be concerned with human states,and further, what it stands for today is only a very limited part of the potentialities of the individual, who includes far more than specialists in this science are able to imagine."

I recommend to you to drop the New Age nonsense and reexamine your own pretensions.

>>10999366
>incels
say that to my face faggot and not online and see what happens

>>10999569
i think he argues, for example in Doctrine of Awakening that we are not in a position were we can have immediate access to spirituality just by reconnecting with our traditions given the current state of the world, just like in the times of the appearance of buddhism but worse
>But, let us repeat, Buddhism appeared in abnormal conditions in a particular traditional civilization: it is for this reason that Buddhism placed emphasis on the aspect of action and of individual achievement; and it is also for this reason that the support offered by tradition, in its most restricted sense, was held of little account. Prince Siddhattha stated that he himself had attained knowledge through his own efforts, without a master to show him the way; so, in the original Doctrine of Awakening. each individual has to rely on himself, and on his own exertions, just as a soldier who is lost must rely on himself alone to rejoin the marching army.
>Thus Buddhism, if a comparison of various traditions were being made, could legitimately take its place with the race that elsewhere we have called heroic, in the sense of the Hesiodic teaching on the "Four Ages." We mean a type of man in which the spirituality belonging to the primordial state is no longer taken for granted as something natural, for this tradition is no longer itself an adequate foundation. Spirituality has become an aim to him, the object of a reconquest, the final limit of a reintegration to be carried out by one's own virile efforts.

>btfos traditionalists and perennialists using historiographical methods to trace their movements back to orientalism, theosophy, and reformed protestant hindu vedanta
Nothing personell, larpers....

>>10999775
>refuting metaphysics with historiography
we're reaching levels of brainlet that shouldn't even be possible

>>10999784
Sorry. Meant just plain historical method. He doesn't use a particularly radical historiographical understanding -- just clearly demonstrates how metaphysics is inconstant and inconsistent through different ages (even interpretations of the same text). Amazing author. Practicing Yogi. Traditions are actually more vibrant and exciting when you give up the lame "all is one" bullcrap.

>reinterpreting history to fit metaphysics
Is the real brainlet move and bad historiography.

>>10999814
>metaphysics is inconstant and inconsistent through different ages
>immutable principles are inconstant
wew lad

wouldn't mind a name drop on your author though i'll check him out but lol, you gotta get your mind straight

>>10999354
>Recognising oneself in all beings, and all beings in oneself, be happy, free from the sense of responsibility and free from preoccupation with “me.” 15.6

>Glorious is he who has abandoned all goals and is the incarnation of the satisfaction, which is his very nature, and whose inner focus on the Unconditioned is quite spontaneous. 18.67

>In brief, the great-souled man who has come to know the Truth is without desire for either pleasure or liberation, and is always and everywhere free from attachment. 18.68

>What remains to be done by the man who is pure awareness and has abandoned everything that can be expressed in words from the highest heaven to the earth itself? 18.69

>>10999814
>Amazing author. Practicing Yogi. Traditions are actually more vibrant and exciting when you give up the lame "all is one" bullcrap.
so he practices liberalism, that's fine i guess

>>10999109
If fucking hate how you retards use the word "metaphysics". Because of you I can't crack open Aristotle without pic related popping in mind. This is how the vast majority of you look. Manchildren. LARPers. Dunning-krugered zombies.

>>10999825
I don't doubt that metaphysics qua metaphysics is immutable. I think only Hume and Sheldrake believe otherwise. Nevertheless, metaphysical texts are constantly reinterpreted. Words, metaphors, shmbols, societies, individuals, evolve. Saying you found the true metaphysics seems tantamount to the arrogance of Hegel saying he was the embodiment of consciousness aware of itsef for the first time.

Author is David Gordon White

Kiss of the Yogini, Dark Yogis, and the Alchemical Body are all excellent.

His book about the new ageification of yoga is the biography of the yoga sutras of patanjali. Very good ar arguing with western yoga fags who treat it as "bible".

>>10999840
>I imagine stupid things in my mind when people use words
that sounds like that's your problem. im sorry, anon

>>10999761
I will have the time to respond to this retardedness in detail about 8 hours from now when I get off work.

>>10999842
>Words, metaphors, shmbols, societies, individuals, evolve
They don't "evolve" (evolution = higher elements emerging spontaneously out pf lower), but certainly there are many different manifested forms of a Truth which is essentially unmanifest, the forms in which that Truth is expressed is adapted to time and place. This is exactly what Guenon and the Traditionalists teach.

>>10999845
I'm overwhelmed by disgust everytime I think of traditionalists. Of course it's my fucking problem

>>10999839
For example, look at Plato scholarship. The early platonist, middle platonists, muslims, medievals, moderns, postmoderns, analytic. All different interpretations. Plato is championed as a metaphysician. Sometimes as the "true metaphsics". But different schools have read his texts differently. I am not going to claim that all schools are equal and touch some ineffable core of Plato. I have my own personal preferences and beliefs. Is mine the most true? That depends on how well I can back my argument. Not appeal to tradition.


Anyway, both right wing and left wing in america are liberal so idk ur problem.

>>10999859
And yet you've never met any, and so the image you've constructed in your mind also has its origin purely in your mind. And so if it is YOUR mind that is full of disgusting things, it's fair to say that it's YOU that is repulsive.

>>10999860
Metaphysics is prior to the various philosophical interpretations it is given. None of the platonic schools is the "true one". The only question is which school is best adapted to assisting one in an effective realization of Truth, if any.

>>10999870
>And yet you've never met any
except I have my highschool philosophy professor was (is) an evola aficionado and he was a greasy monstruosity
Also my disgust is directed at what you say and how you say not how you look you manbabby, muh metaphyisicalsd princibbbles muh Truth muh teaching

>>10999882
You're embarrassing yourself. This is like the worst case of projection I've ever seen. Seek help.

>>10999880
That's fine but it's not serious philosophy. Serious philosophy assumes (Metaphysical) Truth can be expressed logically and thus requires logical argumentation rather than appeal to authority or tradition. What do you have then? It's a religion basically. A form of apologetics. Maybe even a cult.

>>10999775
Lots of pre-modern writers attested to a universal philosophy and much of which was borrowed and reinterpreted to fit Western ends.
Celsus, Clement of Alexandria, Diogenes Laertius, etc. just to name a few. Even St. Augustine recognized in Platonism a close kin of Christianity and attributed its teachings to the philosophers in Egypt, India, Persia, Chaldea, etc. Do you think they were distorted about their own beliefs? I think if anything we tend to portray the ancients as much more exclusive with their claims when often religious beliefs were the departure for a cross-cultural language. From the perspective of Perennialism, it is the metaphysics that is one, and not the traditions. They do not consider all aspects.

With that said, what works of White's would you recommend? I've meant to read his work on the Alchemical Body.

>>10999840
How did you get this picture of me? Please delete this.

>>10999846
Great, can't wait. I'm absolutely sure about the conviction that what the Traditionalists name as "metaphysics" has nothing to do with phenomenalism, psychologism, "experiences" and drugs. Nor is meditation meant to effect an "experience." All of this is occultist mythology and theosophical incursions. All "metaphysical realization" is just that, a realization, and not another experience. The fact that you cannot "experience" a non-manifested state is enough to destroy that idea, states that "comprising all those possibilities that, by their very nature, do not admit of any manifestation, as well as the possibilities of manifestation themselves in their principial state" (Sym. of the Cross p. 9).

>>10999905
Metaphysics is much older than "philosophy", or "serious philosophy" as you call it. Philosophy is a particular adaptation given to it by the Greeks, and no it does not assume that it is "logical", but that it is intellectual. It's not inconsistent with logic, but neither is it confined by it. Plato confirms this himself in the Republic. For example, when speaking of the training of the Guardian class he first has them learn mathematics by rote and only afterward, when they are advanced enough confirm the very premises of mathematics in an immediate way (i.e. directky encounter the forms). Such a thing would not be possible if we confine ourselves to logic. Logically, we simply must take premises as given, you cannot use logic to confirm the premises of logic as that would be circular reasoning.

>>10999886
vomiting
please don't talk to me again

>>10999139
please dump articles

>>10999947
Unfortunately I'm not at my computer at the moment and and I don't have them on my phone. If the thread is still up later I'll upload them.

>>10999926
>>10999930
Thanks for the (you)'s. Makes my heart swell.

Alchemical Body is a good place to start. He likes tantra too which is nice. I want to read both his Yoga and Tantra in Practice books soon.

I suppose I am a bit intrigued by Prisca Theologia and Perennialism and Traditionalism. I have gone through Evola and Eliade and Guenon and Schuon and Coomaraswamy in my youth. Feel that they are a bit anti-occidental, however.

I am a particular fan of Plato and Christianity (Especially Catholicism [my birth religion]).

On the subject of Plato, Uzdavinys does an incredible job speaking on continuities between ancient Egyptians and Greeks.

But that said, there are other troubling aspects of traditionalism. Such as links to fascism and racism and glorification of PIE people. Pic related is a book i love that does a great job showing that the PIE tradition both evolved and mixed with other eastern, near eastern and western sources.

I am also troubled by implications of eternal time versus linear time. The cheap way out is spiral time...

I would also agree that realization is not necessarily psychedelic (although as realization not manifestation I dunno if a drug would prevent realization if comprehended)...

>>10999854
I think you are confusing emergentism with evolution as biologists are quick to claim evolution does not imply higher in any sense whereas philosophers and physicists often argue that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts and results in the emergence of higher principles.

>>10999144
It's derived from philosophia perennis, the perennial philosophy. 19th century esoterics like the Theosophists (who syncretised most of the other esoteric/orientalist streams of the century into one blob) often talked about it. Guenon debuts with a critique of the theosophists as a champion of the true philosophia perennis, and "tradition" enters parlance in the 1920s or so, as orientalists and students of Renaissance "perennialism"/gnosticism, Guenonians and quasi-Guenonians, and hardcore philofascist vitalist quasi-Guenonians like Evola and Eliade begin obsessing over the term, often in philofascist contexts (where "tradition" also means "our traditions," but in a semi-mystical, "rediscover the ur-essence of the race/nation" kind of way).

By the late '30s and '40s the "traditionalists" or believers in "tradition" had gelled as as a recognisable movement, mostly thanks to their collaborations and their contributions to journals edited by one another, similar to the syncretism of Theosophy in that it was a grab bag of fellow travellers of tighter or looser affiliation. That's where the New Age stuff comes from. They all knew each other and all syncretised orientalism, alchemy, magic, orientalism, psychoanalysis, and everything else they could get their hands on, as simply manifestations of their metaphysical principles.

It doesn't have much to do with Burkean traditionalism at all, though many admirers of Guenon are admirers of that kind of conservatism as well.

>>10999905
Traditionalism is a cult. Read Mark Sedgwick, a biased and not a very good book, but useful for demystifying the near-sighted hagiography of the opening pictures of this thread.

Guru worship is an oriental phenomenon and offshoot of Theosophy in all but name. Traditionalists are degenerate pseudo-sufis who like being told what to do by a Great Master.

That said, if you ignore extra-logical or supra-rational philosophy as a possibility, you are shutting out an entire aspect of psychic expereince a priori from philosophical investigation, and more pressingly, you are giving the task of interpreting the supra-rational (i.e., the arational or even irrational) over to a bunch of cultists who will interpret it as they see fit. Just look into the political affiliations and behaviours of Trads in the '20s-'40s to see why this is a bad idea.

>>11000047
I like the irrational and arational. It will always be a possibility. And, as Tolkien might say, there will always be a fairytale.

Post-modernism has already paved the way for post-colonial thinking but to really treat cultural traditions fairly then we need a new metaphysics that allows for the possibility of the supernormal. I think Hume does this in a roundabout way even if he says to commit talk of miracles to the flames. Just spitballing though.
>>11000024
I liked philosophia perennis better in the Renaissance...

>>11000024
>>11000047
You would like Hanegraaf btw :^)

>>11000047
>there are people that are actually this stupid

protip: if you read the writings of Adi Shankara not only does he make virtually all of the same points as Guenon but he cites thousands of passages from the Vedas that show that its justified.

>>11000109
I definitely agree with you on the necessity of a new metaphysics that encompasses the "spiritual" (as a catch-all term). What do you think of Anthroposophy?

How do you think Hume does this? That's interesting. I always think of Hume as the universal bugbear of anything spiritual, which I guess is a cliche.

Thanks for the Hanegraaf reference. Hadn't heard of him. There are some good books on "MWEC" (Faivre) and "The Problem of Disenchantment" etc. Joscelyn Godwin has a good book on the Theosophical movement. Godwin and Paul Bishop are two interesting figures working within philosophy and the academy but clearly esoterically inclined.

Frankly I am not as interested in academically-embedded Traditionalists. Many are good people, and I'm friends with many, but Trads are always too dogmatic for me. They are too happy to be True Believers. Still, they have the desire for truth, which is more than you can say for the self-satisfied and power-hungry relativists.

>>11000867
I'll say the same thing to you that I say in my head when I read the big stack of Schuon, Guenon, and Nasr books five feet away from me right now: Interesting if true, but not true, and in fact only a preliminary part of the whole story. Your discovery of pseudo-depth has terminated your search for real depth.

>>11000047
This is so retarded I don't even know what to say. I'm the poster who made the Guenon chart and I even included Mark Sedgewick's book in it. No where in that book does he say that "traditionalism is a cult". He does allege that the Maryamiyyah, the sufi order founded by Schuon, is cult-like, but that in no way affects the viewpoint of traditionalism. You're critiquing things that you demonstrably don't understand. You're way out of your league here.

>>10999842
Hegel was absolutely based.
>Kant
>"I was wrong when I was younger, but I'm right at everything now, but I understand why you think what you do."
>Hegel
>"I was right when I was little, I am right now, and y'all faggots are either literally stepping stones to me or outright retarded."

You're all heretics doomed to hell.

>>11001149
/thread

Any traditionalist Buddhist?
Books on buddhism in relation to traditionalism.

>>11001184
Marco Pallis is a traditionalist who became a Buddhist. Coomaraswamy and Evola both have books on Buddhism.

>>11001048
I've been meaning to investigate Anthrosophy. I was quite a fan lf Tomberg's post-Catholic work and supposedly he got his start in anthrosophy.

I guess maybe this is a total misreading of Hume but I always interpreted his "what if the sun doesn't rise tmrrw?" To imply the possibility of miracles or suspension or alteration of physical laws. Of course, he says put all discussion of miracles to the flame. But ya...

Hangraaf is excellent. So is Faivre and Godwin. Nice reccs. Never heard of Bishop.

I definitely prefer the academically embedded traditionalists to the non-academic ones. But my current primary interest is more Western Esoterica than East/West syntheses.
>>11001098
True that. He also argues better than traditionalists. "Adi sankara agrees so it must be true" gimme a break

>>11001201
Kindly explain in a simple and straightforward manner why you think the traditionalist ideas are wrong. And please, no random digressions on pointless historical details. Just address the ideas.

>>11001184
I recently had a dream where I joined a Sangha. Thinking about joining a Thich Naht Hanh inspired group near me. Sankhya is similar to Buddhism, IMO, and I have been a Sankhya fan for years.

>>11001048
>I'll say the same thing to you that I say in my head when I read the big stack of Schuon, Guenon, and Nasr

Notably you omitted the one person that my whole post centered around, Sankara, which makes your post reek of bullshit. I know what I'm talking about because I've perused his commentaries on the prasthantrayi. Literally take any position of Guenon's and he makes 99% of them, the concept that most exterior forms are symbols for the highest metaphysical principal and not to be taken literally, the concept of sanatana dharma, the fact that Vedanta is implicitly aristocratic in that a fairly small percent of people will likely have the capacity to get it right away.

The fact that he was writing down all of this in the 8th century disproves the notion that this is all some weird theosophy-derived cult with no base that was created in the 21st century after Guenon pulled a buncha stuff outta his ass.

I suspect that you are actually the theosophy shill who periodically plagues these threads and all of this is one sophisticated misdirection on your behalf to make Theosophy seem more legitimate.

>>11001220
I agree with many tenants of traditionalism.

I agree, for example, that most religions are more similar than they are different. I think it is a fruitful area of study to compare cultures and enriching of one's own faith no matter what it is.

On the other hand, I disagree that Judaism and Christianity are somehow different than other religions or somehow degenerate.

My most important intellectual trepidation would be the name itself. "Tradition" seems a fligt of fancy. It is a modern invention, made possible by modern communication, stop larping you're a proto-indoeuropean pleiadian hyperborean atlantean and accept the linear flow of time...

>>11001272
>On the other hand, I disagree that Judaism and Christianity are somehow different than other religions or somehow degenerate.
There may be a handful of traditionalists who feel that way, and they are perfectly entitled to their opinion. It is in no way a "tenet" of traditionalism itself. Schuon for example, believes that Christian sacraments are fully initiatic, and James Cutsinger is a contemporary Orthodox Christian who is also a traditionalist/perennialist.

I'm not LARPing as proto-whatever you said. I'm a Jew by birth, specifically of North African ancestry, and converted to Islam, and by the way, I am in no way of the opinion that Judaism is not an effective tradition, my reasons for leaving it are more complicated. In any case, most traditionalists became Sufi Muslims. Tradition is not a "flight of fancy", it's the main means of transmission for some of the most profound ideas humanity possesses. Did you know that up until the 20th century there were still people reciting the Epic of Gilgamesh orally? We pass down our knowledge from one generation to another like a living flame. This is why book learning is never truly sufficient, as all traditionalists maintain.

Do you have any actual substantive criticisms of Traditionalism or are all your gripes with it basically meme-tier?

>>11001272
A "universal" philosophy has been attested by many persons, including ones in the Christian tradition (Augustine, Clement, etc.), no matter what name you call it. As for your previous reply mentioning Hegel "arguing better" than Traditionalists, Hegelian logic has nothing to do with metaphysics.

>>11001201
Interesting about Hume. I always took him to be denying the possibility of logos at all. Lately I've been researching how the early German idealists and romantics dealt with the problem of revelation (that is, from outside/beneath/above the ordered, "logical" world - therefore extra-rational but not necessarily "irrational" in the true sense).

Random recs for Anthroposophy:
Owen Barfield is a great starting point and easy as hell to read
Henri Bortoft
Ernst Lehrs, _Man or Matter_, bit harder to read but great for "spiritual science"

I'm not an Anthroposophist myself but I think Steiner may be an unrecognised great thinker. He was actually a big influence on many Traditionalists, including Eliade.

>But my current primary interest is more Western Esoterica than East/West syntheses.

Any recs for Boehme and the influence of esotericism/theosophy on the major German idealists, by any chance?

>>11001244
The long and short of it is that I study the history of philosophy, particularly continental and German philosophy since the early modern period, and I just can't agree that perennialism really is "perennial" based on what I know. On the one hand, thought is obviously historical and not perennial in the sense that Traditionalists make it out to be. The ontology of the words, language, concepts, and mentalities mustered to explain primordial reality and first philosophy throughout history has a demonstrable and obvious history, or many histories.

I ultimately agree with the perennialists that historicising relavitism and nihilism are not the urgrund or abgrund, but that true "metaphysics" will take place beyond such relativism and nihilism as we currently know them. I disagree with the perennialists that their Max Muller-vintage readings of "Oriental" philosophy, like Eliade's extremely naive and depressingly simplistic symbol-metaphysics, actually constitute the primal ur-worte of reality itself, based on some dude's personal intuition based on reading a hodgepodge of interwar esoterics like Klages and post-Kantian Protestant theologians like Otto. I agree with the perennialists that this hermetic tradition, very loosely defined, is important, but I'm sorry, I just think it has a secret history beneath the shallow history of unbroken continuity you think it is, and a depth that goes far beyond the Guenon talking points spouted by the fifty guys exactly like you I've met in new age bookstores, who all want to spend 40 years talking about Shankara and accomplishing nothing yet again as the world burns.

If you knew the history of the metaphysics you propound, you would see the cul-de-sac you're in. You'd see that what you're looking for is deeper than what you can understand by being a disaffected lackadaisical New Ager who reads Schuon in his off-time. The Traditionalist synthesis has the same errors and arrogance of the Theosophists and it needs a new Guenon to sublate it, not another Eliade to popularise it.

>>11001334
You are about as clear an example of what Guenon calls "intellectual myopia" of the historicist variety. You talk about the "historical development of ideas", but many of the thinker in that so called "development" would tell you that ideas have a universal validity that transcends history. But you put a priority on history over metaphysics which is beyond absurd. It's actually a self-defeating idea since your particular "historicist" lense is itself a product of historical development and must in turn give way to whatever "develops" (read: becomes fashionable) after it. Your removing the ground beneath your feet.

Half of your post is just ad hominem claiming that we "lack depth" or that we frequent "new age bookstores". Can you read minds too? Have you trained yourself to "remote view"? Why do you presume to know so much about other posters on an anonymous image>>11001334
board? You sound like a kook.

>>11001334
You ought to get a refund for that undergrad history of philosophy class you took! Friend, you are terribly over your head. Metaphysics has nothing to do with German philosophical systems.

>>11001321
Man this guy shits up every single thread like clockwork. Never any substantial critcisms either. It's just a mishmash of irrelevant historical digressions, snide insinuations, vague references, and off handed dismissals. I don't mind critics, I enjoy debate, but this guy is just a snob with nothing to back it up.

>>10999109
>Why aren't you a mutasawwuf, anon?
Islam hasn't given me any of the things that I love.

>falling for this fascist bullshit

>>11001436
That's ok, anon. What religion do you belong to?

>>10999933
hello, I am talking to you again.

>>10999109
The senior Coomaraswamy had more of an active role and impact on the traditionalist movement than Evola.

>>10999366
But Evola was fucking about anything moving.

>>11001228
Just remember that buddha is a buddha, not a deva.

>>11001442
Weimar Classicism / Overman worship

>>11001375
>Your removing the ground beneath your feet.
I'm just interested in the real ground, which is why I am interested in Steiner's Goethean emphasis on cultivation of the faculty (or faculties) necessary for supersensible knowledge, and not in yet another because-I-said-so catalogue of primordial symbols. Let alone their recommendation that I go to their meditation group every week and listen to whatever they say because their master's master's master met Guenon once in a bar.

If you're interested in my personal philosophy (I know you're not, but maybe someone is if they read our exchange), I don't think pure intuition of the metaphysical is possible with our current way of seeing, so I'm looking to understand what I am, as the thing that sees, before (actually, while) presuming to understand reality. I think meditation on the things seen by Guenon and others, that is by reading them and initiating into their way of seeing, is important as a propaedeutic to inner transformation and discovery of the faculty of understanding as such. But I don't think any one of these thinkers had the answer.

>your particular "historicist" lense is itself a product of historical development
Yes, but rather than showing that historicism is wrong, I think it justifies it. You shouldn't flee from history into ahistoricism. If all the erudition of 19th century orientalism didn't get us anywhere, why would it do so now, even if we could get back to that level again? Something's wrong with the epistemology, not the erudition, when the entire Orient becomes "the night" of German romanticism (as Schwab, favourably reviewed by Eliade, described orientalism).

>>11001407
It does actually, a lot! Unless you're an analytic philosopher, then I'm so sorry.

But yeah, saying Guenon isn't a product of German idealism is like saying modern pop music isn't a product of the Western musical tradition because "it just sounds good."

>>11001472
Analytical philosophy developed out of Hegel's failed system. To be genuine and not caustic, I personally think Stanley Rosen is a good modern philosopher to bridge the gap between analytical philosophy and the pre-modern tradition. He also doubles as a Hegel scholar and addresses the same problems that resulted in the collapse of the thought. I don't think he has any relation to Traditionalism.

I have studied Rene Guenon for a long time now and can assure you it has nothing to do with German idealism. You will find yourself much, much closer to understanding by studying Thomas Aquinas. His countless references to the tradition demonstrate his intent to present Eastern ideas to a neo-Thomist audience.

>>10999761
>It is clear to me you haven't the slightest idea what the Traditionalists are on about if you think their "metaphysical realization" constitutes a psychedelic experience. First, it assumes those "metaphysically realized" comprehensions occurring in rites are just radical psychoses, an assumption even more ridiculous taken to the field of crafts and arts.
They are not that different actually, but you have to start reading people who experienced both, not scholars pushing their own narrations. Psychedelics don't just work like TV and there are schizophrenics who claim they discovered something profound about the world and want to preach it to everyone. The true difference between psychedelic junkie or schizophrenic messiah and accomplished mystic is that the latter tested his insight against reality
>metaphysics is beyond the phenomenal, even if we use the word in its widest sense.
Wrong. You wouldn't be able to talk about metaphysics without it being experienced, at least indirectly.

I recommend to stop reading pseuds and start practicing

>>11001468
Thank you.
>>11001422
There are multiple posters here.
>>11001321
Hegel was at least a philosopher who recognized he was doing something new. Not alleging to rediscover old mysteries. Novel argument as opposed to appeal to tradition. But fair point. I am a fan of Christian perennialism.
>>11001317
Good post. I wasn't aware of those Judeo-Christian Traditionalists. I am more familiar with Eliade. He influenced me greatly. But most of my criticisms are leveled at him. I suppose I am guilty of shadowboxing Nazis from time to time. Though, like the other critic in this thread says "I appreciate their passion for truth" compared to folk postmodern relativism.
>>11001334
I read a good book in college called Swedenbord and German Idealism but haven't gotten deep into Boehme yet.

>>11001519
You may believe that, but it's not what the Traditionalists uphold. There is a fine distinction between "initiation" and "mysticism." The latter is inferior.

>>11001317
>I'm a Jew by birth
You shouldn't be posting on /lit/. This is a European culture board.

I'm seriously done arguing with these academic occultists or whatever they are. It's like talking to a brick wall.

>>10999947
1/?

>>11001555
2/?
>>11001549
It may come as a surprise to you, but it's actually not.

>>10999144
Read Umberto Eco's essay, Ur-Fascism

>>11001564

>>11001564
>it's actually not.
Of course it is.

>>11001574

>>11001576
5/?
>>11001576
For the sake of argument, let's say that it is. Guess what? I don't care. Have a nice day.

>>11001549
This is a literature board, actually.

>>11001587
6/?

>>11001593
7/?

>>11001600
8/?

>>11001495
>Analytical philosophy developed out of Hegel's failed system.
How do you mean? Out of the Kantian post-critical desire for apodictic certainty, and out of the various systematic positivisms/rationalisms like Comte, Mach, and the Vienna circle, maybe? But they were pretty explicitly and self-avowedly anti-Hegelian, and I would say implicitly as well. Hegel was probably the single biggest punching bag of the entire analytic tradition since the rejection of British idealism as "metaphysics."

>I have studied Rene Guenon for a long time now and can assure you it has nothing to do with German idealism.
Depends what you mean, I guess. We seem to have different definitions that make the other person's definition inadmissible and incoherent prima facie.
Guenon's conceptual framework is indebted to the orientalist and philological traditions whose conceptual foundations were elaborated by German philosophers and polymaths in an explicitly post-Kantian and romantic worldview right at the turn of the 19th century, and to a metaphysics of primordial symbolism and the irrational that originates with partly with the same people and extends back a bit farther than orientalism proper, to 1750-1810, with figures like Hamann, Herder, Goethe.

I don't think you're interested in this so I won't go into more detail, but if anyone reading is interested, I recommend Paul Bishop's anthology, _The Archaic_. Bambach's essay is really good.

Disentangling the German second "axial age" and its conceptual overdetermination of subsequent philosophy would be a good starting point to recovering an authentic esotericism.. Just saying.

>>11001603
9/?

>>11001613
10/?

>>11001588
Literature = European high culture. If you are not white or aren't able to accept this reality you shouldn't be posting here, and you especially shouldn't be posting in a thread about traditionalism.

>>11001098
>Schopenhauer
>"Hegel a shit."

>>11001624
>shouldn't be...shouldn't be etc
Hmmm, I thought we had already established quite clearly that I don't care.
>>11001621
11/?

>>11001495
>>11001610
I will definitely check out Rosen though.

Sorry also if my reply seemed caustic. I stopped writing it and resumed writing it 20 minutes later, and my mind reset to "I'm replying to a guy who respond to anyone disagreeing with him by throwing his hands up and calling them a retard" and I think I unconsciously wrote more defensively/detachedly than I needed to.

>>11001630
12/?

>>11001632
>my mind reset to "I'm replying to a guy who respond to anyone disagreeing with him by throwing his hands up and calling them a retard"
... by which I mean, I can't tell who's who in the thread, so I simply assumed you were that guy or those guys.

>>11001565
This is good also. Weirdly prescient essay. Roger Griffin's recent book is amazing too.

>>11001624
So, Proust can't be discussed on the literature board now?

>>11001636
13/?
>>11001640
You can, but you might hurt anon's feelings. I suggest you don't, he's very fragile.

>>11001650
14/?

>>11001656
last one

>>11001640
Proust can be discussed in relation to the subversive characteristics of his work due to being a jew. Jews mimicking our culture in order to subvert it is in no way a pure reflection of that culture.

>>11001610
Is the Ecstatic and Archaic the same book? Or just The Archaic?


Also, worth mentioning British Idealism was in vogue prior to Analytic stuff. Of course, analytic philosophy is opposed to it but according to Hegel that's all according to dialectics baby...

>>11001690
Why are you having an extended conversation about British and German Idealism in a thread about traditionalism? wth lol

>>11001681
>Jewish born authors can be discussed on the European high culture board but Jewish born readers can't post on it
>Only discussion unrelated to the author's literary merit is allowed as well
Makes sense.

>>11001696
>Makes sense.
Only true volkisch aryans can understand that reasoning. If you are confused by his post you might be a Jew.

>>11001690
Huh, I didn't even know about "The Ecstatic and the Archaic." Just "The Archaic" is definitely a similar and distinct book. It's a collection of essays, with Bishop writing the introductory one and the one on Jung in particular.

>>11001469
this is the actual face i made when i read your post

here's a documentary on perennialism/traditionalism. it's nice, i guess

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_CNg4dpU54

>Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing. When a man is just born, he is weak and flexible. When he dies, he is hard and insensitive. When a tree is growing, it's tender and pliant. But when it's dry and hard, it dies. Hardness and strength are death's companions. Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. Because what has hardened will never win.

>>11001813
this is why china is basically undefeatable in the long run. one day we will all be speaking chinese, and we won't know what hit us. gotta give it up to those chinks, they sure know what they're doing.

>>11001824
Nah. I've lived in China. They have problems out the wazoo and the backbone of their progress since the 70s has been entirely based on their ability to exploit and rip off white countries. We have allowed this to happen though, so it's important that we stop showing them our cards.

>>11001695
Seemed interesting. Idk.
>>11001733
Nice. Just curious cause the Ecstatic and Archaic was cheaper. Added to my cart.

>>11001843
china always has problems, like every couple decades some cataclysms takes a bajillion chinese lives and no one bats an eye, but they're steadily gaining ground

>>11001856
>they're steadily gaining ground
They have skyrocketed forward since the 70s, but this is because we have given them our technology free of charge and turned our nation into their wholesale outlet mall. If we hadn't done this they would still be just above peasant status because the Chinese evolved as high-functioning slaves without any creative/innovative capacity.

As they say, give the white man a hammer and he'll build you a house; give the Chinaman a hammer and he'll make 10 more hammers.

>>11001961
>disgruntled boomer

>>11001729
I wasn't confused, I said it made sense.

>>11001729
Nice troll, my african american brother

>>11001555
>>11001564
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>>11001587
>>11001593
>>11001600
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>>11001656
>>11001663
Too bad /pol/fags kant read...

>>11002216
>p-please notice me senpai

bump

>>11001184
evola's doctrine of awakening is fantastic

>>10999109
This is literally one of the only high quality threads on /lit/

It's just the same as the new age stuff they claim to oppose, but with some extra difficult words thrown in in order to appear sophisticated.

>>11003632

looking back to an imagined past is the kind of shit that will destroy nations at a time when the pace of change has never been faster

>>10999840
>This is how the vast majority of you look. Manchildren. LARPers. Dunning-krugered zombies.
Oh yeah wow xddddd, /r/neckbeardcringe amrite? Upvote

>>11003661
That's right.... just keep slaving away at that job, oh what? No, of course you don't need a family or a wife, not that you can afford it. No, no no! You don't need religiom either, you just need devotion to yourself, and your spending habits!

>>11003661
Brainlet liberal progressive tier post

>>11003674
nice strawman
>>11003706
nice but well off the mark ad hominem

there's no need to get upset brohs keep LARPing

>>11003729
So what are you then?

>>11003661
Most western nations have already been destroyed, they surviving on an ember of their former selves. They've lost all of their identity. But yeah, mass replacement migration to cope with low birth rates and fall of tradition family and marriage is definitely progress.

>>11003753
What does technological, scientific, economic or any other form of material progress matter when the foundations of the family and the nation and the people have been undermined. Progress for the sake of it?

>>11003749
*huge wet fucking fart*

>>11003749
not everyone is a gay larper who imagines themselves as a NeoCon Strasserist TradBol. you sound like one of those lame kaiserreich playing children who sees politics as "ideologies" they wear as clothes.

>>11003801
I'm not any of those either, you know literally nothing about me

>>11003811
>you know literally nothing about me

>>11003815
Wow xddd nice one bro!

>>11003811
im....Unique

>>11003818
>Wow xddd nice one bro!

>>11003815
I'm not the one making assumptions about people on some thai fishing forum, literally I just had an interest in what is mentioned in the thread and you're the one that's scared of it destroying muh progress and muh nations

>>10999124
That could be arranged if you'll just take a seat in this complimentary helicopter

>>11003827
sick pinochet reference bro.....sick 2 the mAXX!!!!

>>11003826
>thai fishing forum
embarrassing, unfunny, unoriginal
>literally I just had an interest in what is mentioned in the thread and you're the one that's scared of it destroying muh progress and muh nations
Can you even formulate a sentence properly, you weird little shit? Maybe Minecraft and Fortnite is more up to your speed.

>>11003825
>>11003824
>having anything but full devotion to the modern world makes you these

>>11003833
>The Modern World is why im an incel

>>11003831
>>11003830
Why are you being so aggressively autistic?

>>11003837
Oh yeah of course xddddd

>>11003837
What are your political views then?

>>11003833
>WAHH THE MODERN WORLD
Deadass bro, I wish we were back 300 years ago where nobody bullied me for wanting to enslave black people!

>>11003838
>i know you are but what am i!!!
mentally deficient shut-in detected
Back To Gaming

>>11003838
>>11003839
Triggered?

>>11003843
>implying im an american
>implying I agree with slavery

>>11003849
>implying implying
we get it, you're an incel who can only talk in 4chan garbage

>>11003845
>implying I game
>>11003848
>again implying im an American
>implying I support trump

>>11003850
No u

>>11003855
lol hes talking in incel language again

>>11003849
>>11003855
>imblying!!!
another malnourished and undersexed white male ready to get sucked up into the sex industry

>>11003855
No u
>>11003849
No u

>>11003861
>>11003860
Sorry tyrone im in awe of your perfection

>>11003862
>>11003866
No u, you massive big bum faggot, why don't u just fuck off back to your trump loving hole in the ground, you stupid white crusty fool. The modern world Is fine, just because you think your sky daddy and guenon are the best it doesn't mean you have to hate everyone

>>11003861
>implying skinny white men could ever get into the sex industry anyway
You need to lower the bar lol

>>11003872
Incel 4chan speak is all they know, if they went outside they might know Guenon and evola dont really matter

>>11003873
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>>11003843
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>>11003830
Arguing and politics has nothing to do with perennial philosophy or traditionalism. Go somewhere else.

>>11003871
t.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBRqu0YOH14

>>11003874
The Truth Doesn't Fear Investigation.

>>11003879
>>11003882
>>>/pol/

>>11003879
Wow this made me cry