EDITORIAL NOTE

THE PAST CENTURY HAS WITNESSED an erosion of earlier cultural values as well as a blurring of the distinctive characteristics of the world's traditional civilizations, giving rise to philosophic and moral relativism, multiculturalism, and dangerous fundamentalist reactions. As early as the 1920s, the French metaphysician René Guénon (1886–1951) had diagnosed these tendencies and presented what he believed to be the only possible reconciliation of the legitimate, although apparently conflicting, demands of outward religious forms, ‘exoterisms’, with their essential core, ‘esoterism’. His works are characterized by a foundational critique of the modern world coupled with a call for intellectual reform; a renewed examination of metaphysics, the traditional sciences, and symbolism, with special reference to the ultimate unanimity of all spiritual traditions; and finally, a call to the work of spiritual realization. Despite their wide influence, translation of Guénon’s works into English has so far been piecemeal. The _Sophia Perennis_ edition is intended to fill the urgent need to present them in a more authoritative and systematic form. A complete list of Guénon’s works, given in the order of their original publication in French, follows this note.

Though first published in 1927, _The Crisis of the Modern World_ bears reprinting unaltered and unannotated at the beginning of this new millennium, for it rests upon principles that stand outside—indeed determine—the conditions of time and space. What few particular illustrative points may be ‘dated’ will be readily identified and put in perspective by those readers for whom Guénon intended the book. In this very important book, which has become a classic, René Guénon analyzes the crisis of our times from the metaphysical point of view. That is, it is diagnosed not as a degradation of morals, which is a perversion of the will, but as the degradation of knowledge, that is, a perversion of the intellect. Such intellectual analysis of present disorders is not merely a legitimate supplement to the moral approach with which we are more familiar: it is fundamentally necessary and it has been carried out in this book with profundity and penetration. Guénon often uses words or expressions set off in ‘scare quotes’. To avoid clutter, single quotation marks have been used throughout. As for transliterations, Guénon was more concerned with phonetic fidelity than academic usage. The system adopted here reflects the views of scholars familiar both with the languages and Guénon’s writings. Brackets indicate editorial insertions, or, within citations, Guénon’s additions. Wherever possible, references have been up-dated, and English editions substituted.

Two previous translations of _The Crisis of the Modern World_ were consulted in the preparation of this edition, that of Arthur Osborne, first published in 1942, and that of Marco Pallis and Richard C. Nicholson, which included some revisions and deletions, and first appeared in 1962. The entire text was then restored and checked for accuracy and further revised by William Stoddart. For other assistance thanks go to Benjamin Hardman, Allan Dewar, and John Ahmed Herlihy. A special debt of thanks is owed to Cecil Bethell, who revised and proofread the text at several stages and provided the index. Cover design by Michael Buchino and Gray Henry, based on a drawing of a _chimaera_ by Guénon’s friend and collaborator Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.