/lit/ - Literature

Guenon was pretty clear that his personal spiritual tastes weren't the same as what an entire civilization should strive towards.

He wrote in praise of Hindu metaphysics very often, but it is recorded that he explicitly told his friends NOT to become a Hindu.
Simply put, to acknowledge the validity of a tradition is not the same as to imply one should personally convert to it. It might be a matter of civilizations as a whole.

>>15666515
Isn't that a bit hypocritical?

>>15666515
He didn't become a Hindu because he didn't want to be an untouchable convert and he didn't want to be a Catholic because to be a priest is a long process and you're subservient to the Church hierarchy so he became a half ass Sufi mystic under some guru type

>>15666659
I am just saying what he believed. You can interpret as you wish.

Guenon, in general, didn't have a whole lot fleshed out with how one would go about rebuilding tradition, and as he progressed later in life, he really didn't write a whole lot about it.

>>15666709
No that is not the case in any way. The presumed reasons why he didn't stick with Catholicism are outlined in his book on Christian esoterism.
As for Hinduism, he didn't convert because he thought their mode of thought was too different from the western mode and he would never truly adapt to it.

He had a boner for Eastern religions, but he didn't like Buddhism or Jainism very much and all the others have bloodline stuff that would bar him from getting initiated. His ideal religion would probably be what the Alawites or Druze follow, but you can't choose to become one.

>>15666769
>The presumed reasons why he didn't stick with Catholicism are outlined in his book on Christian esoterism.
Elaborate? I find lame that he converted to Islam. Asking myself if keep reading the books because of that.

>>15666907
Catholicism didn't fit into his dichotomy of the esoteric and the exoteric very well. (He said that the sacraments were exoteric, a claim that is disputed by other traditionalists, who often say that the esoteric, exoteric dichotomy doesn't work well in the first place)

It is for this reason that Guenon was also known to be against Shia Islam and other sects that blur the lines of esoteric versus esoteric (as opposed to things like Taoism vs Confucianism and Sufi Islam which have very clear boundaries between the legal and the spiritual)

In general, Guenon distances his personal life from his writings pretty heavily, so I wouldn't be discouraged either way. He wrote much more about Hinduism and very little about Islam when put into perspective.

In total, Guenon's writings on Catholicism, Buddhism, and Shia Islam are critiqued pretty heavily so I would take them with a grain of salt. If you are specifically interested in the traditionalist critique of Guenon from the Catholic perspective you are implying, read Christ the Original Mystery by Jean Borella. It is a direct reply to Guenon but reinterprets him a bit.

What would Guenon think about the reconstruction of Kashmir Shavism? Counter-traditional?

>>15666967
Thanks for your insight and kindness anon, without people like you /lit/ would be worthless. I find some ideas of Guenon very interesting but I can't overlook the fact that he converted to Islam. I will give a try to this Borella guy first and see what he says.

>>15667022
Sure thing. Christ the Original Mystery by Jean Borella is a very solid book, just make sure you've read a good amount of Guenon beforehand. Aristotle would help a lot too, and maybe even a bit of Hegel (referenced a couple times)

the first part of the book it is very much just a critique of Guenon, the second part is a philological study of the new testament (i.e. Why does St.Paul use the Greek word Mysterion in the New Testament, the same word that signified the Pagan mysteries?) and the final part is about Catholics that would fit into Guenon's type of spirituality and some obscure Catholic thinkers who have been forgotten.

If that's a bit too much Guenon for your tastes, pic related by Jean Hani, another Catholic Frenchman is also a good read. It doesn't specifically name Guenon, but it tries to advance a picture of Catholicism that would be sympathetic with his viewpoint.

>>15666385
>it is only in Christianity—and we can say still more definitely in Catholicism—that such remnants of a traditional spirit as still exists in the West are to be found.
The blunder of the Traditionalists.

>>15667167
I don't think he would consider the Orthodox sphere as part of "The West".

>>15667104
Thanks again anon. You're a very good anon. I find all of this very interesting, now is time to read it.

>>15667167
Orthodoxy isn't western by his standards, although he didn't comment on it very much.

>>15667205
Rightly so, however it is still fundamentally accessible to the West (although less easily so during Guenon's life - I'm not necessarily faulting him).

>>15666385
>why did Guenon convert to Islam
He had mostly given up hope on the west (and he probably would have declared Catholicism beyond saving had he seen Vatican II) and had moved to Cairo in order to better integrate with that Tradition in day to day life, where he became a part of a bigger Traditionalist community. However, Egypt became increasingly unstable shortly after his death, and with him gone most of that community spread throughout the world because they saw no reason to stay in Egypt anymore. Nowadays, there are very few places left that have any sort of proper exoteric traditional living, and those that retain that way of life have shut themselves off from outside migration entirely e.g. Bhutan.

Bamp

>>15666769
how was their 'mode of thought' different? They both stem from the same root tradition (IE-based) whereas the ontology of Islam is contrary to the western mindset. The only difference between them were superficial religious customs that really only bothered the materially minded people which I presume Guenon did not identify with. He seemed like he was scrambling for reasons to avoid the materially defunct life of a 20th century hindu man even though he could very well have become a Brahmana without being born into the brahmin caste (many people have done so in the past and is scripturally supported).

The best guess I could come up with was that he wanted a comfier life in Cairo, which was quite well off compared to most cities in the near east/orient. As for why he didn't simply maintain his Catholicism or recreate a traditionalist Catholicism, he would've been condemned as a heretic (in the manner of Meister Eckhart) by the church.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traditionalist_School
>Other important thinkers in this tradition include....Jean Borella...

there you go folks, another thinly veiled trad thread by the samefag artist known formerly as guenonfag trying to meme another one of his failed authors (2 years and still cant get people reading guenon btw)

>wow this borella guy is based, thanks for your insight and kindness and homoerotic love my friendly anon xoxo, without people like you /lit/ would be worthless and profane and material but I'm glad 'you' are here to shine a light in this dark place, you're such a good anon, I will begin reading them, see how we're all reading these brilliant authors? are """"we"""" lit enough??

>>15667950
Based

How does he keep outing himself everytime? Is there a single thread where he didn't post blatant self adoration? Someone post the guenon thread anatomy pic.

>>15667910
>As for why he didn't simply maintain his Catholicism or recreate a traditionalist Catholicism, he would've been condemned as a heretic (in the manner of Meister Eckhart) by the church.
This is the real reason desu. I don’t know about the rest. It’s ironic that fast forward a few decades and the Catholic Church is celebrating literal pagan Pacha Mama and multi faith masses. Of course all that is just secular humanism with a religious veneer. The Catholic Church is a dead hollow husk.

>>15667977
The Catholic Church died in 1968. But it was not all of a sudden. It was the culmination of a long process. Perhaps Guenon saw it coming.

>>15667981
Agreed. You could even see vestiges of it into the 200's it gotass blasted as everything going into the 2010's.

>>15667104
I havent read to much Guenon, but what are some perspectives on different branches of protestantism? its not nearly as discussed on this board, and usually it isflung off as just a steeping stone towards athism and materialism rather than much nuance. Personally I thought that puritains and Quakers were quite interesting.

I just got Tradition in the Modern World DVD in the mail. I can rip all the presentations, upload them, and make a /trad/ thread tomorrow if anyone is interested in actual discussion without guenonfag larp shitposting.

>>15668024
Not the person you asked but, Protestantism goes against everything Guenon stood for. It consciously opposed tradition, calling it man-made as opposed to Scripture. It opposed ecclesiastical authority. It purged the Church of images, as well as its mythic and symbolic elements (which Guenon thought contained strata of Traditional Wisdom). I could go on.
>Quakers
Traditionalism is more than just about mysticism. Guenon would denounce any mysticism without a clear traditional metaphysical context as sentimental and sub-rational at best, and dangerous at worse.

>>15668220
Yes please. Would even check out 4chan during the week (which I usually don't do) for that.

>>15667241
Beyond that, orthodoxy was already turned into some half legalistic hogwash by slavic political structures. The orthodox church is still just a hand of the government in most slavic states these days.
Even though he didnt write too much of it, I think it might have been obvious in his day that the orthodox church isn't really a pillar of culture but rather a tool for slav polities and it just prostitutes itself out with no concern for actual tradition

What do you guys think about modernization when it comes to religions and such?
Should such institutions be stalwart or should they change with the times to remain relevant and keep membership up?

I think it's more noble to slowly die out but remain consistent with your beliefs but I'm not sure how to genuinely justify that morally when so many people are dependent on your organization for survival.

>>15668230
Ok thats pretty interesting. Though, from the original protestants perspective, wouldt they be thinking they are returning to the traditions of the church forefathers from the degeneracy of the current regime?

I see some parrelells with how some Chinese dynasties tried to purge Buddhist traditions because they got in the way of the more "pure" tradition of confucianism.

>>15668286
I think Guenon and his followers would say that they threw the baby with the bath water.
Guenon saw the Middle Ages as the realization of a Traditional Society per excellence as far as possible in its historical circumstances (Kali Yuga, etc.). Although the Renaissance Church was corrupt (and Guenon talked about that), by throwing it away Protestantism was throwing away the Medieval Church too.

>>15668330
I can definitly understand that. So would you saying having a tradition is better than the persute of one? since reading protestants of the time of the reformation, it seems to largely be trying to get at something more faithful to a primordial tradition. Note this is not my own opinion, but i get the sense that it was theres (between the material desires that always come along with)

>>15667261
Mount Athos too.

>>15668276
I don't really think this is a valid dichotomy. Catholicism and Protestantism are both shrinking in the west but Catholicism, the more traditional of the two, is shrinking slower. Additionaly, SSPX churches are growing quite rapidly. Africans are generally more conservative and Africa is responsible for a good portion of the growth in christianity. Perhaps at one time this idea held true but the consequences of liberalization have been loss of spiritual authority and a decrease in intelectual power.

>>15668220
>Ripping intellectual property of something you adhere to and have respect for
The Trad cultists will stop at nothing to propogate their neo-religion

>Guenon would be against it
>Guenon said this
>This goes against everything Guenon stood for
Imagine being this submissive that you proselytize some nobody Frenchmen as a Christ figure.

He didn't have access to an authentic Christian reconstruction like LDS.

>>15666871
He only agreed with eastern religion as long as it agreed with him. Basically he's a charlatan.

finished east and west recently. i wonder what he would say of commie china, western south korea and japan nowadays

compared to reign of quantity he was quite optimistic in east and west, he says
>The restoration of a real intellectuality, even if at first it was only within a limited elite, appears to be the sole means of putting an end to the mental confusion that reigns in the West.

some other notes:

>Leibnitz, in his pretension to understand the Chinese symbols better than the Chinese themselves, is a veritable forerunner of the orientalists, who—the Germans above all—have the same pretension with regard to all the conceptions and all the doctrines of the East, and who refuse to take into the least consideration the opinion of the authorized representatives of these doctrines: we have mentioned elsewhere the case of Deussen thinking to explain Shankarãchãrya to the Hindus, and interpreting him through the ideas of Schopenhauer; these are indeed manifestations of one and the same mentality.

>This conception of a God in a state of becoming, who is only immanent and not transcendent, together with that (which amounts to the same) of a truth in the making, which is nothing more than a sort of ideal limit, devoid of all present reality, is by no means exceptional in modern thought;

>The Chinese are the most deeply pacific people that exists; we say pacific and not ‘pacifist’, for they feel not the least need to build up grandiloquent humanitarian theories on that score: their temperament makes war repellent to them, and that is all. ... No one, without all the ignorance that most Westerners suffer from, and their incapacity to see how much the rest of mankind differs from themselves, could possibly imagine the Chinese rising up in arms and marching forth to conquer Europe; a Chinese invasion, if it should ever take place, could only be a peaceful penetration, and that is not, in any case, a very imminent danger.

>If Japan is today ambitious to have the hegemony of the whole of Asia and to ‘organize’ it after its own fashion, it is precisely because Shintoism, a tradition in many ways very unlike Chinese Taoism, and one which gives much prominence to ritual warfare, came into contact with nationalism, learnt of course from the West—for the Japanese have always been only too clever at imitation—and has been changed into an imperialism very like what is to be found in certain other countries.

>In point of fact, the large part played in Bolshevism by Israelite elements is a serious reason for the Easterners, and for the Muslims above all, to be distrustful and to keep their distance

>As for China, she is generally very much out of sympathy with everything Russian, and moreover the traditional outlook is no less firmly established there than in all the rest of the East; if certain things can be tolerated more easily there for the moment, it is because of this power of absorption that is inherent in the Chinese race, and that enables it to turn in the end to its own advantage even a momentary disorder.

>>15666515
>but it is recorded that he explicitly told his friends NOT to become a Hindu.
no, he didn't

>>15666871
>all the others have bloodline stuff that would bar him from getting initiated.
This is not true, there are multiple initiations in Hinduism some of which are open to outsiders and some of which are not. You need to have a caste to be invested with the sacred thread, although there are initiations in Shaivism and various tantric groups that are offered to foreigners who agree to follow their rules. The man who bought Guenon's house for him in Cairo was a British Jew who converted first into Islam and then left that to go to India and was initiated in Hinduism there. In one of his letters to Evola Guenon mentions that some Shaivite groups would initiate him if Evola traveled there and sought them out.

>>15671272
That didn't now that. Well then perhaps he thought that Islam was "good enough". He said that the initiate was in a sense above all religions, so if he believed that then why show favoritism? Islam fit the bill.

>>15671272
If only he lived long enough to see the gate krishna movement

>>15670586
he did. he said a westerner should study eastern metaphysics but not convert to eastern traditions

>>15666385
>Catholicism is a return to tradition
The Minoan snake handlers would like to have a word with you

>>15671316
Sounds like heresy. I'm not sure the based tradcaths are going to assimilate Hindu Doctrines and Sufism into a rejuvenated initiatory Western tradition. Did Guenon have anything to say about Hermeticism or did that fall under his radar? What could be more trad than Hellenistic Egypt?

>>15671450
I never read the letters myself but apparently there was some correspondence between him an Evola who was really into it and considered it a valid path. Guenon disagreed with him.

>>15671498
I would think the pantheism/monism/neoplatonism smuggled into Hermetic revival would appeal to traditionalists but they never seem to talk about it.

>>15671450
>Did Guenon have anything to say about Hermeticism or did that fall under his radar?
He thought it was legit in its time, but that the chain of initiation had been broken. The thing with Guenon, more than any other Traditionalist, is the emphasis placed on an unbroken chain of initiation stemming from a divine scriptural revelation down to the present, so even if a Tradition's doctrine is congruent with the Traditionalist view it becomes defunct as an option if that chain is broken.

Now, maybe there is a some legit Hermetic group out there. But if that it is the case we are talking about a truly secret society and your odds of tracking them down, especially if they don't want to be found, is next to nothing and the point remains that simply reading the texts and declaring yourself to be in alignment with them isn't something looked on as legitimate by Traditionalists.

>>15671304
>He said that the initiate was in a sense above all religions, so if he believed that then why show favoritism?
He didnt show favoritism, he wrote in a letter that his conversion to Islam didn't imply its superiority over other traditions. He was just practicing what he preached since he held the position that despite the essential unity of various traditions that one has to join one and authentically participate in one to actually experience their spiritual/metaphysical teachings etc and the spiritual attainments these lead to

>>15671316
Incorrect, he said in 'East and West' that it would not be good for the entirety of western society to wholesome adopt and convert to a foreign religion from another culture but there isn't a single line of writing in all his books and correspondences that says individual westerners intereted in Eastern religion should not or could not authentically join them, if you want to assert otherwise you should cite the passage

>>15671604
*to wholesale adopt

>>15671540
>the point remains that simply reading the texts and declaring yourself to be in alignment with them isn't something looked on as legitimate by Traditionalists
Oof. How will /lit/ ever recover? I have to wonder however if the emphasis on transmission of teachings by official clerics is still relevant in an age which affords unprecedented opportunities for autodidactism. Given that most institutional forms of "tradition" are broadly seen as corrupt or obsolete, someone of the right disposition could learn more from texts than from a teacher. Or rather, is it possible that this situation allows for the invention of new lineages, of people who are or claim to be 'directly inspired' by the suprahuman source. These claims would be no less authoritative than those of lineage holders, since the latter ultimately traces back to the same kind of founding event as the former, the difference being success in multigenerational propagation over time.

>>15671582
>He was just practicing what he preached
Yes that was the exact point of my post :sigh

>>15671364
tfw when no Minoan big-tittied gf

>traditionalists
more like posers

>>15671693
>I have to wonder however if the emphasis on transmission of teachings by official clerics is still relevant in an age
Evola disagreed with Guenon here. Evola thought that you could be self-initiated, and that in the Kali Yuga, rather than being just one option, it was the only option, because all traditions were undergoing degeneration. But he thought that self-initiation was not about
>autodidactism
Although he was that too. But if it were only that, you would run the risk of having as many interpretations of traditional data as there are individuals (like Protestantism and the Bible). There is also the problem of reading and superficially consenting to it with your dianoia/brain but not actually experiecing with the nous/heart. The goal of initiation is achieving higher states of being.
Thus in short Evola thought that you could self-initiate, but through another type of initiation, not the priestly one, which Guenon taught, but what he called the heroic one: the way of the Greek hero, the samurai, the knight, etc., those mortals who ascended into heaven and were divinized according to legend, but were warriors, not priests.
The problem is that he didn't made very clear how to attain this initiation (that I know of). But it gather (from what I read and the following is my interpretation) that it was putting yourself in harm's way while retaining mindfulness, until, I gather, it happened...

>>15671604
page 102 of east and west

>Certainly, it is not through occultism that the West will ever be able to recover its own tradition, any more than it will be able to rejoin Eastern intellectuality [...] We are not reproaching either Theosophists or occultists with a lack of understanding which, after all, they are not responsible for; but let anyone who is Western (from the intellectual point of view, we mean) acknowledge it openly, and not put on an Eastern mask; let anyone who has the modern outlook at least have the courage to admit it (there are so many who glory in it), and not claim support from a tradition that is not his.

>let anyone who is western not put an eastern mask
>claim support a tradition that is not his

unless i misinterpreted there you go

>>15671450
his metaphysical views are wrong, yeah. im only in for his critique of modernity.

How is a tradition determined to be real? Are Mormons a real tradition because of their belief that Joseph Smith received divine guidance?

>>15672004
>unless i misinterpreted
Yes I think you did. He first says that occultism because of it being bogus will not allow westerners an occultist path to restoring western tradition or qua the west rejoin eastern metaphysical understanding that the west used to have.

>We are not reproaching either Theosophists or occultists with a lack of understanding which, after all, they are not responsible for; but let anyone who is Western (from the intellectual point of view, we mean) acknowledge it openly, and not put on an Eastern mas
he is specifically talking here in this sentence about occultists and theosophists like Blavatsky who falsley put on pretensions of eastern doctrines while actually not knowing much about them, he is not talking about westerners who earnestly study them

>anyone who has the modern outlook at least have the courage to admit it (there are so many who glory in it), and not claim support from a tradition that is not his.
This is part of the same run-on sentence, he is just restating the point that occultists and theosophists (who have a modern outlook) should stay away from eastern stuff instead of appropriating it

>>15671955
Buddhism is an interesting middle way in terms of initiation because while there are lineages there is also a concept of sudden awareness. I was gardening a couple of years back and at the time I had been reading through the Pali canon, doubting concepts like samsara, when I saw an oppossum climb my neighbor's shed and make eye contact with me. In observing its deep eyes and little hands I felt it was indeed possible if not plausible that all that is can become other than it now appears to be in the future.

>>15672157
i did consider that but when i read it seemed that he was talking about any western (why does he say "let anyone who is western"?) and he had this ideal of an intellectual elite who would restore western tradition with the help of eastern studies. his main wish in the book was to have an elite that would restore western tradition, not have an elite that would flee for eastern traditions

>>15672169
I suspect that this is what makes Buddhism so attractive for Westerners. There is not a Buddhist initiation per se (except in some esoteric East Asian sects). It's really a matter of right practice and not holding wrong views, and you can learn this by reading about it on the internet. While Hinduism, even in its more Western-friendly forms (Hare Krishna) still hold that you need a guru. There is no such thing as Buddhist guru that I know of. Thing is, not all people want to massage a poo's feet to get initiated.

>>15672169
>hen I saw an oppossum climb my neighbor's shed and make eye contact with me. In observing its deep eyes and little hands I felt it was indeed possible if not plausible that all that is can become other than it now appears to be in the future.
oh no no no

>>15668220
Do it, I would be very interested

>>15672333
In general I think the appeal is the deconstructive element of Buddhism, whether people realize it or not. Many Westerners feel that there is something fake or false about what they live and experience, there is a quest for authenticity, a retreat into irony, sometimes both. At the same time the cultural conditioning which has been retained from Abrahamic religion is that the world is real and created; this gives no answer to confusion at all, how could the world experience be fake if it was made by god? In comes Buddhist phenomenology, telling you that this is all appearance and absent of any essential nature, that all arises in dependence on something else endlessly. Evola notes somewhere in The Doctrine of Awakening that the potential for enlightenment is great in the modern world specifically because of the alienation of mass society and crowded cities, in which one can practice an asceticism simply by being there. So there is an interesting convergence between yuppies and fascism, between East and West after all

>>15672205
If he really did believe that westerners couldn't join eastern traditions, it would be a massive contradiction with many of elements of his life, such as being initiated into both Taoism and Sufism by westerners, and then seeking to integrate into Egyptian Muslim circles as a westerner, plus that he closely associated with many westerners who joined eastern religions and was known to have recommended to some individual westerners who asked him that they should join Islam. Why would he do all that if he thought that honest well-intentioned westerners had no hopes of authentically joining an eastern tradition? It makes no sense.

He is talking about western occultists and theosophists, and then wrote a semi-colon and then continued to talk about them. There is no indication that he is abruptly changing the subject from occultists etc to all westerners. When he writes "let anyone who is western" he immediately adds the qualifier (from the intellectual point of view, we mean) to signal that he is talking about the same intellectually western occultists and theosophists who were trying to appropriate eastern ideas. It seems like he put a lot of thought into his writing and tried to phrase things very carefully and with as much precision as possible. If he really wanted to say westerners couldn't join eastern stuff he would have made it very clear and explained why instead of some ambiguous statement in the context of a discussion about theosophy which could be easily be interpreted otherwise.

>>15666385
Are this one of the "Guenon threads" I've heard about? I'll bite.

As someone who is looking for more structure in their life and would like to explore frameworks for how others have adapted theirs I have a passing interest in this. What's the sales pitch? What's this Guenon guy all about? I like tradition, or at least the word "traditionalist" appeals to me. What is the essence here?

>>15672667
Tradition means "things I like." Guenon likes religions with initiatory lineages, such as Sufism within the Islamic tradition.

>>15672667
It is mainly about classical metaphysics and a societal critique based around religious esoterism. Throw away essentially everything you've heard on this board about Guenon since his actual writings are completely different.

For the good of everyone, don't comment on him until you've read at least his first 3 books. Hindu Doctrines, The Crisis of the Modern World, and The Reign of Quantity
His books are pretty short so just read it. His intro books are not hard.

>>15669117
He definitely had access to LSD though, so it balances out

>>15672693
Prove it

Why do the traditionalists never speak of Orthodox Christianity?

>>15672124
No but if you wait thousands years and they survive maybe someone will want to be a based tradmormon in the future

>>15672951
Schuon write about it in some of his books, and in his book on Christian esoteric Guenon says that EO hesychasm is in alignment with traditional metaphysics etc although its a brief comment and he doesnt go into depth on the manner

>>15672951
In all honesty, I have no idea. Perhaps it makes it so they can't make the same sort of general statements since orthodoxy/eastern catholicism is so culturally spread out.
They write so little about it is quite bizarre.

There are plenty of Orthodox/Catholic Christians in areas of the middle east and western India that are just as "eastern" as any of the varieties of Islam Guenon studied so it is rather odd he never really wrote much.

>>15672933
He moved to Egypt, became a Muslim, his descendants are Muslim. Really he could have just stayed in France.

>>15672951
>>15673043
At the time traditionalists were writing, the flag-bearer country of Orthodox Christianity had been taken over by communists. Clearly it did not function as a bulwark against modernity.

>>15666985
Tantra has always been borderline heterodox so it's par for the course I guess. Abhinavagupta in his writings says that people can initiate themselves through certain mantras and Swami Lakshmanjoo the last holder of the lineages says in his videos that all the videos of him talking can provide an initiation even once he is dead. There types of initiations may not be the same depth of instruction as when done personally by someone who has gauged you and who can answer your questions etc as in Vedanta or Sufism, although I could still them as having spiritual validity.

>>15673079
Ah, you know I didn’t even think about this. That’s a great point.

>>15673150
This is actually an interesting idea, that there could be a simulated initiation, a Zoom ordination as it were

>>15673225
The Tantrist teacher and author Christopher Wallace, who has a youtube channel where he speaks on many things about Hinduism, Tantra etc, says in one of his videos that it has to do with some essential element of initiations being produced by the sounds and vibrations etc from speech which are preserved in videos but not in reading books

>>15673079
>>15673182
Yeah I didn't think about it as well. Good point.

>>15673305
Apparently you mean Christopher WALLIS. Wallace is a famous dead poet

>>15673150
>>15673305
I was just checking out a site about Indian Astrology (by Indian astrologers, not dumb Western whores in Yoga pants) and it said, such a planet in such a house may mean you are liable to black magic or tantric attacks. Lmao that stood out. Tantra was used in this sense in a negative way.

>>15673049
What does that prove

>>15673539
yes that's right, he wrote 'Tantra Illuminated'

>>15673564
Tantra is a really wide set of practices/traditions and encompasses both devotional worship, abstract metaphysics and various forms of magic both harmful and beneficial. Also, which site? I'm curious

>>15667910
>As for why he didn't simply maintain his Catholicism or recreate a traditionalist Catholicism, he would've been condemned as a heretic (in the manner of Meister Eckhart) by the church.
not necessarily. He could have just practiced French folk Catholicism, which was esoteric.

>>15668261
are you a slav? slavs, as a newer convert to the orthodox church, are more legalistic than near eastern or greeks. but sometimes, their legalisticness come to save the day, from time to time, while being too interwoven with politics, as you have said. wonder how orthodoxy "become" in america.

>>15673043
>>15672951
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0227176359/ref=cm_sw_em_r_mt_dp_U_mew8Eb4CWD659

>>15675307
>not necessarily. He could have just practiced French folk Catholicism, which was esoteric
To Guenon Christianity had lost it's traditionalist position so he left for something that had retained traditionalism

>>15675307
>French folk Catholicism, which was esoteric.
source?

>>15672707
I'll check those out anon. So then what authors write about a healthy lifestyle focused more on withstanding a chaotic world? I guess again falling back on the "traditionalist" label but it doesn't seem quite right.

>>15672951
There is James Cutsinger and to some extent David Bentley Hart.

>>15676425
Have you read Cutsinger? Are any of his books really good?