The Traditionalist Error

Although the Perennial Fathers were unanimous concerning the essential doctrine, they were divergent in other matters of varying importance. While Guénon wrote that it was only for him to expound the doctrine such as it is and to denounce errors wherever they arise, this is not to say that his work was without opinion. To begin with, Guénon was biased against the ancient West and exaggerated the importance and spirituality of the Semitic religions and the East. Such bias clearly originated from his strict Christian upbringing and his adherence to Islam, which is to say, to influences and opinions voiced by religious figures with whom he was acquainted.

In an early article, Guénon and Pouvourville wrote that one should “love religion and hate the religions,” the former being the metaphysical essence conveyed in all religious texts and the latter referring to the constraining dogmas, excesses in the law, and inefficacious rituals formulated by the organized religions. While Guénon later softened his stance on religion, we find such compromises undesirable now more so than ever for the simple reason that the organized religions today are incompatible with the Aryan tradition, and so must be brought in line with the new world age, of which we are now on the cusp.

Schuon was of the opinion that Aryans are above all metaphysicians and logicians, the deviations of which lead to rationalism and scientism, whereas Semites are mystics and moralists, the deviations of which include sentimentalism and fideism. Tradition applies to the former, whereas religion applies to the latter. Not only have Aryans become Semitic due to Judeo-Christianity, which is a sort of spiritual slavery, but they have fallen into the worst of the Aryan and Semitic deviations, which are distractive and obstructionist, owing to the exaltation of a particular characteristic over and against the greater Truth.

By far, the worst error of the Perennial Fathers was in refusing to pronounce the Judaism and Christianity as heresies; for it is not a question of whether these religions contain some truth, but that these truths are profaned by horrible misrepresentations and distortions. This failure led to an ecumenical and apologist attitude that was especially pronounced in Schuon and his followers, which resulted in a rather unfortunate compromise at the expense of the truth. Schuon went so far as to deny that the Christian rites had lost their initiatic character, as the spiritual influence had essentially withdrawn by the time of Constantine, after which the church, once restricted and secret, was made public and accessible, and its rites were limited to the exoteric domain. This truth is evidenced by history and the Gnostic persecution of which Schuon displays an unbelievable incomprehension coupled with a fantasy of a perfect origin of Christianity in which the apostles and church fathers were seemingly infallible.

The Perennial Fathers, moreover, refused to admit that the Semitic religions were founded on massive borrowings from the very same pagan traditions which the theologians hypocritically denounced. The only exception was Evola, who acknowledged that “the Jews took their religion from the Egyptians” and that the Christians remade the pagan myths. Although Guénon was of the opinion that the Greeks borrowed from the Hindu and Egyptian traditions, he refused to admit that the Semitic traditions were comprised of such borrowings, but suggested, however irrationally, that the opposite was more likely.

Some perennialists even go so far as to claim that the Semitic liturgies were not inventions, but divine inspirations which cannot be altered; yet again these rites were taken from earlier pagan rites and then altered. Schuon was under the delusion that one would be completely mistaken to believe that the Semitic religions could degenerate into paganism, for he says their sufficient reason for being is that they should endure until the end of the world, as formally guaranteed by their founders! This statement is incredible seeing as though Semitic religions are essentially pagan, and because they have already degenerated into mere shells of religion so as to allow their coexistence within the modern world.

Schuon acknowledges that Islam “possesses essentially a political dimension” which in Christianity is only a “profane appendage,” but all Semitic religions are exoteric and therefore political. Schuon admits that exoteric religion deprived of its vivifying esoteric dimension is and can only be profane; yet this has always been the case with Semitic religion in which esoterism has been restricted to a few and therefore ruthlessly oppressed to extinction. Moreover, esoterism is the “one thing needful” that is passed on from those who came before, and which was originally a foreign element to the religion itself that was only subsequently adapted to the borrowed religious form. Such is not the case when concerning a truly metaphysical tradition in which spiritual realization becomes the primary focus and the doctrine is received through divine transmission.

The fact that in religion there is such a vast separation between the exoteric and esoteric dimensions shows just how far removed it is from the primordial tradition—even more so where there is clear evidence of syncretism.

Undoubtedly, syncretism originated from multicultural interactions brought about by political climates of conquests, empire-building, and expanding trade systems. Semitic religion thus arose as a means to unite the people politically through the extermination of all the gentile traditions, through forced conversions and alliances, and through meaningless wars over lands and temples deemed holy in their biased texts.

We must also make mention of the fact that the elements in Judaism which were not taken from earlier traditions are those which sanctify imaginary profane events, particularly those of persecutions, as if being a victim was somehow sacred. But this mentality has only caused the persecuted to persecute others and to build a religion out of mutual persecution. This pseudo-victim mentality is taken to the extreme in the crucifixion of Christ which mixes pseudo-historical events with the sacred mystery. That perennialists have divulged the secrets to the mysteries of the Semitic religions does not mean that we should accept them as our own; an honorable man would never affiliate himself with the corrupt, tyrannical, and erroneous, especially seeing as though it was the Jews and Christians who denied and “crucified” the true incarnated Logos, Diancecht, in order to bring on the War of the End Times in which America and Russia shall destroy themselves with nuclear weapons, thus making Israel the world tyrant for a very short period until they too are destroyed. Such is their “prophecy” which they have stolen from the gods.

Schuon writes, “Whatever the circumstances, a perspective which attributes an absolute character to relative situations, as do the exoterisms of Semitic origin, cannot be intellectually complete; but to speak of exoterism is to speak also of esoterism, and this means that the statements of the former are symbols of the latter.” On the contrary, Semitic exoterism is officially literal or it is a moral parable; thus exoterism does not always coincide with esoterism. When exoterism serves as the basis for the cult of moralism, as is the case with the superstitious observances and political correctness inherent in the Semitic religions, then there can be no question of symbolism. Schuon further admits that “the criterion of metaphysical truth or its depth lies not in the complexity or difficulty of its expression, but in the quality and effectiveness of its symbolism.” Elsewhere, Schuon speaks of “an esoterism that is both fragmentary and vulgarized, hence exoterized,” but disingenuously refused to admit the Christian sacraments were so. He furthermore writes that “Aryans are metaphysicians and logicians whereas Semites are mystics and moralists” yet cannot see that Semitic religion is unsuitable for Aryans.

In regard to Islam, Schuon writes that, “the basis of Moslem morality lies always in biological reality and not in an idealism contrary to collective possibility and to the undeniable rights of natural laws.” But Islam is a universal not a national religion, and its Sharia law is too constraining on individual freedom in response to modernism. Let us not delude ourselves into thinking that Semitic morality is more virtuous than another morality; it is more a mental illness that creates immorality out of natural instincts and suffocates its dupes in obsessive-compulsive ceremonies and observations of entirely imaginary phenomena. Such morality merely provides an excuse to persecute or exterminate anyone who is deemed an undesirable. Besides, man is not in need of a religious morality which runs counter to the natural order. Nature, as a reflection of the Divine will, teaches through reason all the morals man requires to know.

Finally, Schuon recognized that all religious exoterism constitutes an extrinsic heresy—as Augustine says, “All scripture is vain”—for indeed it is an improper and even obscurantist veiling of the truth, as did Guénon admit that the historical religions are heretical in relation to the primordial tradition. It would then follow that the exoteric law is not absolute but must conform to reality, natural and contingent as it is, and this is also the position of Tantrism which holds that in the Dark Age the law is abrogated. It was no small contradiction by which the Perennial Fathers confused tradition with the law that caused the perennialist vision to be incomplete.

The Schuonian Controversy

We have seen how the work of Frithjof Schuon was mainly directed towards a Religio Perennis which strayed from pure metaphysics. This was due to the limited mystical and theological nature of Sufism, for which he headed the Maryamiyya (an offshoot of the Alawiyya), which has not been without controversy, primarily as to whether this Order had become syncretist, to which charge Schuon admitted the mixing of forms without losing any of the essential elements of Islam.

According to Guénon, an initiatic order must maintain “without interruption the continuity of the initiatic chain.” Members of such an organization “have no power to change its forms at whim or to alter them in their essentials.” As further, “Syncretism in its true sense is nothing more than a simple juxtaposition of elements of diverse provenance brought together ‘from the outside’ so to speak, without any principle of a more profound order to unite them.” Whereas “synthesis by definition starts from principles,” syncretism only considers the outer formal elements mixing them in a way that is totally divorced from their principles. Again, “every traditional doctrine necessarily has a knowledge of metaphysical principles as its center and point of departure…everything else it may include in a more or less secondary way is, in the final analysis, only the application of these principles to different domains.”

In the words of Schuon, “Our point of departure is the Advaita Vedanta and not a moralist, individualist, and voluntarist anthropology with which ordinary Sufism is undeniably identified—however much this may displease those who would like our orthodoxy to consist of feigning or falling in love with an Arab-Semitic mentality.” Schuon also spoke briefly “concerning the integration of a foreign element into a particular traditional formalism; this problem places us between syncretism, which is intrinsically heterodox, and esoterism, which in certain cases can admit such coincidences. This is because, in principle, esoterism is ‘open to all forms,’ as Ibn ‘Arabi expressed himself in speaking of his heart; but in fact, such exceptions depend upon certain subjective as well as objective conditions; therefore we must ask, not only what has been done, but also by whom and for what reason.” To this he adds that “in esoterism…there is only one religion with various forms,” for “man bears everything within himself, potentially at least, by reason of the immanence of the one Truth.”

The Evolian Error

Julius Evola, unlike Schuon, actually did form an esoterism removed from regular initiation and forms. His tendency was to reduce everything to will and power which resulted in philosophical errors, as evidenced by his statement that “there is no evil beyond necessity,” and that matter is effectively a sign of imperfection of action and is therefore an injustice and an evil. In the ethical aspect, Evola reduced virtue, the good and true, to power, stating, “there is no evil beyond insufficiency and weakness, no good but the will that is absolutely autonomous.”

On the contrary, according to Schuon, there is no freedom without necessity, which relate to the infinite and absolute; there is no goodness without justice, which are complementary to power. Due to the infinitude of All-Possibility, evil or impossibility is prefigured in the Principle, yet evil does not arise from necessity, which is not the same thing as constraint, but from accidentality; for evil has no cause but is rather deviation, inversion, and falsification, which can only be illusory. The divine by necessity willed Being and cosmos, not the fall. To be an individual being is not a constraint or weakness since its will is to be an individual whose immanence does not run counter to transcendence.

Guénon adds that “natural laws are ultimately only an expression and a kind of exteriorization, as it were, of the divine or principial Will.” Hence, universal manifestation and primordial humanity are themselves revelations of the divine. And according to Plutarch, “Thales says that necessity is omnipotent, and that it exerciseth an empire over everything; Pythagoras, that the world is invested by necessity; Parmenides and Democritus, that there is nothing in the world but what is necessary, and that this same necessity is otherwise called fate, justice, providence, and the architect of the world.”

Further errors of Evola concern the relationship of knowledge and action. Following Guénon, Evola claims that in the primordial tradition the convergence of the sacerdotal and regal functions were in effect the foundation of the traditional civilization, whereas in their divergence the regnum must submit to the sacerdotium or else assume the function of intellection in the royal initiation whereby the two powers, knowledge and action, and the two authorities, sacerdotal and temporal, are once again reunited. However, Evola denies that the warrior caste is more prone to degeneration, that the temporal power is less conducive to intellection, and that the regal function is more easily reduced to temporal functions negating the initiatic spirituality thereby.

This deviation leads to his placement of the temporal power above or equal to the sacerdotal authority, which results in an inverted or feminine spirituality, that is to say a sentimentalism, moralism, and formalism. Such inversion stems from the error that reduces the spiritual authority to mere mediation and elevates the temporal power to a divine dynamism which insofar as it holds the double power is thereby the highest expression of spirituality and, as it were, the completion of the sacerdotal caste.

On the contrary, in many traditional civilizations, the legislative, judicial, monetary, and medicinal functions were under the purview of the spiritual authority, whereas the regal and warrior caste was in charge of the military and law enforcement functions and were entitled minor legislative powers which enabled them to enact certain social legal codes. Where this wasn’t the case it was always due to a degeneration.

The regal warrior initiation does not give access to the same metaphysical heights as found in the sacerdotal initiation, as Evola claims, but by the very nature of the warrior and his function, which requires applications of metaphysics to the temporal realm, such possibilities are thereby limited. Clearly, the sacerdotal function is the conservation of the traditional doctrine of which they are its sole custodians, whereas the warrior and regal functions are preoccupied with the doctrines of war, physical strength, moral law, and social order. Thus while principles must be applied to the temporal world and as such lend themselves to the judgment of right and wrong, the sacerdotium is essentially knowledge and the regnum is power; knowledge directs action without being involved in its vicissitudes, yet action is not independent of action and therefore cannot rise above its own characteristics.

Cultus Perennis

Tradition is not unanimous on every single point in time, nor is tradition the study and reliance on sacred texts, for as the Mahabharata states, “The Vedas differ, and so do the Smritis. No one is a sage who has no independent opinion of his own.” Thus all those who claim to be an authority and to have a complete and single truth or way above and against all others are in error. A lexicon of terms and theories, while acting as a guide, cannot be absolutely enforced as Guénon sought to do. Guénon, however, was right in some respects not to take on any disciples, for as we see in those centered around Schuon and Lings, perennialism became more of a devotion to a master’s particular thoughts and opinions, of which criticism extends to Guénon as well. Evola wrote of Guénon that “a useful action would consist in developing certain aspects of his doctrine that suffer from a fundamentally arbitrary dogmatism since, all things considered, the mixing of traditional data with individual points of view was inevitable even in his case. So much more in France, but also in Italy, groups were formed that follow the master in manner of the ‘head of the class,’ redoubling the dogmatic certainty and claiming to be the only ones to administer ‘orthodoxy’; that thing is somewhat tiresome and can only be harmful to what is best in Guénon.”

After the four perennial fathers, most of the later perennialists became indistinguishable from religious fundamentalists and actually took on all of the tired dogmas of Semitic religions, for most of them could be nothing more than simple Christians and Muslims. None of these traditionalists furthered any of the work that the fathers started concerning what was and still is of utmost importance, being primordial symbology and metaphysics. On the contrary, these later pseudo-perennialists seem more concerned with defending to the extreme positions which their masters held that were in fact erroneous and of no importance to spirituality, such as those attitudes which work towards a traditionalist ecumenism.

In opposition to the above, we outright reject the notion that Revelation, including all of the moral laws, was “written by God, not man,” and therefore reject the call to accept the entirety of the law. Perennialists cannot seriously make the argument that all of the laws are just or should be followed.

Due to such religious prejudices inherent in the law, perennialists have relegated magic to the lowest order, whereas Evola recognized a low and high magic. Indeed, the Semitic view of magic is hypocritical because it proscribes magical rites on the one hand and on the other celebrates magic in the scriptures, of which occurrences are not unlike the magical rites of the Brahmins, as described in the Upanishads, wherewith the use of speech they turned worldly objects into bliss or ether. The Upanishads are clear in that, “if a man departs from this life without having seen his true future life (hence, the Great Ritual of Sacrifice), then that Self, not being known, does not receive and bless him, as if the Veda had not been read, or as if a good work had not been done.” The true initiate knows that clairvoyance and magic result from initiatic rites, and must needs be so to attain blessing.

According to Cicero, all philosophers but Xenophanes approved of divination. Chrysippus said that divination is “the power to see, understand, and explain premonitory signs given to men by the gods.” Apuleius wrote that, “we have reason to believe that all these [means by which we obtain a knowledge of future events] are by the will, power, and authority of the celestial gods, through the obedience, aid, and services of daimons.”

Magic is defined generally as the art of controlling or forecasting natural events, effects, or forces by invoking the supernatural; also, the practice of using charms, spells, or rituals to produce supernatural effects. The philosophers, moreover, recognized a divination by natural means through dreams or frenzy, and also by means of art, hence, prophecy, oracle, omen, augury, and astrology. Magic in its higher sense must therefore be considered as synonymous with miracle.

Now, a more fatal error of perennialists was in denouncing the ancient gentile traditions as dead traditions. The gentile traditions can never die for they are eternal, and nature provides their exoteric structures. Reality, real-life events, astrology, nature, agriculture, fertility, art, science, reason, etc., are what forms our exoterism, while metaphysics and the One Supreme Principle is what all esoterism shares in common. In essence, the One is and can only be universal, as are the initiatic formulas to attain union with the divine. Again, when we speak of revelation or inspiration we mean a natural or cosmological symbolism in harmony with metaphysics and initiation. Traditional mythologies were based on astrology onto which metaphysics was already superimposed. Astrology thus offers a natural exoterism inherent to which are the exoteric rites and symbols of esoteric initiation.

Unlike the Semitic religions, the gentile traditions are not closed systems of dogmas and unalterable books to which nothing more can be added, nor are they based on pseudo-histories. The gentile doesn’t recognize an end to prophets or poets, nor does he fail to distinguish between myth and reality.

Guénon was wrong when he assumed that psychic residues from dead traditions were dangerous and might tear apart the wall holding back the subtle forces of the universe. Christianity had incorporated many pagan rites, symbols, and holidays without any threat to the cosmos. Subtle influences only possess this negative potential if said revivals are attempted without a firm understanding of the forces in question or if carried out in an incomplete fashion, as would conform to a limited interest centered around divination or animism. This is not the case when done by competent spiritual masters who are entirely capable of establishing a spiritual center which transmits both the greater and lesser mysteries.

Furthermore, Judaism and Christianity are very much centered around magic disguised as miracles, whence, for instance, Moses fights the Pharaoh with his magical staff, splits the sea, and leads an exodus through the desert for forty years with magically appearing bread and water. Also, Jesus walks on water, cures diseases by touch, turns water into wine, and raises a man from the dead. Here there is a tendency towards prophesying fantastical and devastating events which turn out to be self-fulfilling, always in promotion of Israel and condemnation of all other traditions which are considered evil and worthless and therefore must be “cast to the fire.”

Exactly which are the remaining living traditions and how much relevancy they still have is often the subject of debate. While perennialists agree that Judaism and Christianity are no longer legitimate, others maintain that Christianity and the sacraments are still valid at the exoteric level; but this is a grave error, for the sacraments are far removed from metaphysics, as is salvation a false idea which distracts from true spiritual realization and is limited entirely to moral behavior which is something quite different even from virtue.

The rift between tradition and religion begins with the aim of religion which strives to create a slave mentality under the guise of morality, whereby fallible and corrupt pseudo-elites having no qualifications or merit whatsoever dictate to the public what to think and do. Followers consequently become fearful, weak-minded, and superstitious rather than pious; for religious creeds are to be believed rather than understood, and dogma is compulsory rather than precise. At the heart of the religious error is the subjugation of metaphysics by a false theology, while ritual and meditation are superseded by priestly ceremonial mediation and false sacraments.

Rather than subscribing to the legalist and revelationist fallacies, perennialism should observe a Platonist philosophy of physics (moral, logical, and scientific), which is inductive, aligned with metaphysics, which is deductive, while acknowledging that there are certainly excesses in metaphysical speculation, which as the Buddhists hold, are indeterminate questions.

Against Pseudo-Traditionalism

The Mahanirvana Tantra states that in the first age the effective doctrine consisted of Shruti, in the second Smriti, third Sanghita or the Puranas, and fourth the Agamas. But to the perennialist all texts of a higher order, which may be referred to as the Arya Dharma, remain ever valid, whereas religions which no longer possess initiatic purity are therefore inefficacious. It is to those false worshipers which the same text speaks, that in the Dark Age men “will be heretics, impostors, and think themselves wise” doing “incantations (japa) and worship (puja) with no other end than to dupe the people.” Thus the modern world has profaned religion by directing it to false ends. For the modern mentality is on the one hand commercialist, which seeks to immortalize and eternalize synthetic products and inventions at the expense of health, morals, and intelligence, and on the other hand, it is fetishist by its constant urge to commemorate through profane ceremonialism every historical occurrence, about which cultish sentimental sermons are preached.

Pseudo-Esoterists, such as Jung and Wilber, have sought to reconcile the perennial doctrine with modernism, but any attempt to do so results in the counterfeiting of all spiritual traditions through a total negation of metaphysics and a modernization of orthodox doctrines. Consequently, there is nothing integral being passed on, for it is nothing more than a deplorable syncretism involving a superficial method of studying different outward aspects of traditions and distorting them to fit a “post-metaphysical” psychologism, which is to say, the reduction of metaphysics to psychological theories and imagination. As Guénon writes, “some people in these days think that they can expound traditional doctrines by taking profane instruction itself as a sort of model, without taking the least account of the nature of traditional doctrines and of the essential differences which exist between them and everything that is today called by the names of ‘science’ and ‘philosophy,’ from which they are separated by a real abyss; in so doing they must of necessity distort these doctrines completely by oversimplification and by only allowing the most superficial meaning to appear, otherwise their pretensions must remain completely unjustified.”

(From Reflections on Tradition and Its Malcontents)