/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.24104156]

Schizo or keyed?

[Anonymous No.24104197]

peace status? upon him

[Anonymous No.24104202]

>>24104156
There is nothing schizo about him, it's just premodern metaphysics.

[Anonymous No.24104212]

>>24104156
a lot of forced memes in this op.
sage

[Anonymous No.24104341]

>>24104156
I don’t have a problem with the content of Guenon’s analysis. I do have a problem with the idea that this is all foretold in some great cycle of history. The problem revolves around the age old questions of fate, free will and consciousness.

Let’s accept that it’s true that some great sage in ancient India, while meditating under a tree, stole the password and hacked into the central computer at Cosmic Headquarters and mentally downloaded the plans of the cosmos for the next trillion years. According to those plans, everything that is happening right now has already been foretold and the decadence of the modern West is just part of the cycle. If that is true, what can be the point in criticising the modern West for its decadence? If the modern West is just part of the inevitable cycle, a simple act of fate, surely there is no point in arguing about it. Yet, that’s what Guenon does. In fact, he spends several books outlining with wonderful clarity a principled critique of the West based on what he calls the traditionalist approach. But, again, what is the point of this traditionalist approach given everything is inevitable anyway?

Let’s put this in the form of a thought experiment.

Let’s say everybody in the modern West reads Reign of Quantity and completely agrees with Guenon that the traditionalist approach is best. Realising the error of our ways, we stop doing everything we are doing and re-arrange society according to Guenon’s principles. If we were to do that, we would have circumvented the Kali Yuga. The West would no longer be decadent materialists obsessed with quantity. The cycle would have been short circuited because we followed Guenon’s advice.

Alternatively, we could take a more Dostoevskyan perspective. We read Guenon and understand that everything is fate. It doesn’t matter what we do, the Kali Yuga will manifest anyway, society will spiral downwards in decadence until the new cycle starts its inevitable progression. One of the ways we might respond to this knowledge is to say “screw you, cosmos! We’re not playing your stupid cycle game” and proceed to commit mass suicide. In doing so, we would also circumvent the Kali Yuga because it is a cycle of humanity and if there’s no humans around you can’t have any more cycles of humanity. In both of these cases, the overarching pattern would have been broken.

It seems to me that Guenon can’t have it both ways. Either the cycle is inevitable or the act of analysing the problems of modern society can make a difference. (There is an obvious compromise position where fate determines most things while human will has the ability to initiate change but Guenon seems quite specifically to reject this).

[Anonymous No.24104347]

just freemason

[Anonymous No.24104370]

>>24104341
Guenon is not writing for hoi polloi, there, solved your mystery.

[Anonymous No.24104432]

>>24104341
You completely missed his point, which is that the very way we now experience the world in Kali Yuga is different from the way it used to be experienced in the preceding cycles. Even if all modern people read Guénon and agreed that they need to adopt traditional principles, it wouldn't change the fact that they have lost their ability to perceive transcendental truths directly through their intellectual intuition. This latter fact is the reason that they won't agree with Guénon in the first place. Also Guénon is not writing to "reverse Kali Yuga," which he regards as an impossible endeavor. He has two aims: firstly, according to the very Hindu manvantara doctrine, in each cycle there are periods in which the downward trajectory is slightly reversed. He hoped that, if such a thing were still possible by his time, his writings would help in bringing it about. If that has already become impossible, then his other aim is to facilitate the formation of an intellectual elite that will carry out the transition from Kali Yuga to the next golden age. Also it's worth keeping in mind that the cyclical time doctrine is not an exclusively Hindu idea. It's also found in ancient Greece, Zoroastrianism, and some Islamic esoteric branches primarily associated with Shi'sm.

[Anonymous No.24104434]

>>24104341
You completely missed his point, which is that the very way we now experience the world in Kali Yuga is different from the way it used to be experienced in the preceding cycles. Even if all modern people read Guénon and agreed that they need to adopt traditional principles, it wouldn't change the fact that they have lost their ability to perceive transcendental truths directly through their intellectual intuition. This latter fact is the reason that they won't agree with Guénon in the first place. Also Guénon is not writing to "reverse Kali Yuga," which he regards as an impossible endeavor. He has two aims: firstly, according to the Hindu manvantara doctrine, in each cycle there are periods in which the downward trajectory is slightly reversed. He hoped that, if such a thing were still possible by his time, his writings would help in bringing it about. If that has already become impossible, then his other aim is to facilitate the formation of an intellectual elite that will carry out the transition from Kali Yuga to the next golden age. Also it's worth keeping in mind that the cyclical time doctrine is not an exclusively Hindu idea. It's also found in ancient Greece, Zoroastrianism, and some Islamic esoteric branches primarily associated with Shi'sm.

[Anonymous No.24104732]

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