Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power - Couverture rigide

Guenon, Rene

Couverture rigide

ISBN 10 : 0900588470 ISBN 13 : 9780900588471

Editeur : Sophia Perennis et Universalis, 2004

Synopsis

René Guénon (1886-1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization.

Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power is an analysis of cyclical manifestation, and more specifically of the relationship between royal and sacerdotal power. In accord with the Hindu doctrine of manvantaras and Plato's depiction of historical degeneration in the Republic, Guénon views history here as a series of 'revolts' of lower castes against the higher. The kshatriyas (warriors) revolt against the brahmins (priests), thus setting the stage for a revolt of the vaishyas (loosely, the bourgeoisie), as in the French revolution-and, finally, the shudras (the proletariat), as in the Russian revolution (which Guénon does not touch upon in this work). From one point of view, this is a progressive degeneration; from another it is entirely lawful, given the 'entropic' nature of manifestation itself. External, historical descent reflects an inner degeneration: knowledge (the celestial paradise) is eclipsed by heroic action (the terrestrial paradise), which is in turn overrun by the inertia and agitation of the passions. Yet the nadir of degeneration is also the point of renewal: the dawning of the Heavenly Jerusalem-spiritual Knowledge-which begins a new cycle of manifestation.

A propos du livre

Biographie de l'auteur

René Guénon (1886–1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization. René Guénon, of whom Jacob Needleman wrote in The Sword of Gnosis that ‘no other modern writer has so effectively communicated the absoluteness of truth,’ is gradually being recognized by deeper thinkers as one of the few who have truly penetrated the seductive veil of the modern age. As an expositor of pure metaphysics and its application to the science of symbols, Guénon is without peer; and his extraordinarily prescient critique of the modern world is attracting more and more attention among cultural commentators. Little known in the English-speaking world till the recent appearance of his Collected Works in translation, Guénon has nevertheless long been recognized as a veritable criterion of truth by a vanguard of remarkable writers who evince that rare combination: intellectuality and spirituality. After a lonely childhood, often interrupted by ill health, Guénon navigated the seductive half-truths of occultism toward a deeper, unified vision offering a way out from the confusion and fragmentation of our time. Regarded by leading scholars as the first truly authentic interpreter of many Eastern doctrines in the West, Guénon never tired, in face of the seemingly inexorable process of dissolution in the twentieth century, of pointing to the transcendent unity of all religious faiths and the abiding Truth that contains them all.

Présentation de l'éditeur

The present work complements Guénon's East and West, The Crisis of the Modern World, and The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, for whereas the latter detail the West's gradual movement away from traditional values, Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power focuses by contrast on what Guénon believed to be the normal relationship between the spiritual and the temporal implied in a healthy traditional civilization, that is, the supremacy of knowledge over action, of the sacerdotal over the royal caste. Touching first on India and the medieval West, Guénon then illustrates his point by citing quarrels over investiture and disputes of certain French kings with the papacy as evidence of a deviation in Christianity. In his preface Guénon refers to recent 'incidents' that had drawn attention to this general question, and although he says that his deliberations are not meant to deal directly with them, it may be of interest to note that the events concerned centered on a confrontation in 1926 between the political organization Action Française and Pope Pius XI.

Détails de l'édition

• Éditeur: Sophia Perennis et Universalis
• Date d'édition: 2004
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN 10: 0900588470
• ISBN 13: 9780900588471
• Reliure: Relié
• Nombre de pages: 108
• Coordonnées du fabricant: non disponible
• Personne responsable: non disponible