INDEX

Alexandrians 13
America(n) 16 n 6, 22, 97, 102
Anglo-Saxon 50, 61, 86, 93, 102
aristocracy 78
Aristotelian 74, 88
Aristotle 37, 44–45
Ashoka 11 n 3
Atlantis/Atlantean 25
atomism 82 n 1
atomists 40
Avatāra(s) 9 n 1, 11 n 3
Babylonian captivity 11
Bergson, Henri 87
Bergsonian 41, 58
Berkeley, George 81
Bernard, Claude 47
Bhagavad-Gītā 37 n 2
Brahmin(s) 35, 37 n 3, 40 n 6, 52 n 7
Buddha 11 n 4
Buddhism 11, 40
Cartesian(ism) 59, 82–84
Catholic church 64–65, 111–114
Catholic(ism) 27, 60, 62–65, 96, 111–112, 114
Catholics 65
Celtic 12, 26
Celtism 26
Celts 25
Charlemagne 15
China 10–11, 101
Chinese 16 n 6, 22
Christ 62–63
Christendom 15, 90
Christian 27, 62, 95–96
Christianity 15, 26–28, 62–63, 95–96, 101
Christian mystics 18 n 7
compulsary education 90
Comte, Auguste 57
Confucianism 11
Dante 77 n 6
democracy 73, 78–79
Descartes, René 41, 57, 59, 84, 86
Druid tradition 26
Eastern churches 64 n 4, 111 n 1
egalitarian(ism) 71, 76 n 5, 78–79, 90, 92, 94
Egypt 10–11
Eleusinian mysteries 18 n 7
Europe 12, 22, 102
European(s) 63, 97, 105
evolution(ism) 40, 58
evolutionists 94
French monarchy 73
Gauls 11 n 4
Greco-Latin 18, 105
Greco-Latin civilization 14–15
Greece/Greek(s) 12, 13–14, 17, 40, 44, 48, 52, 82 n 1
Hellenism 15
Heraclitus 40
Hermes 11 n 2
Hīnayāna 11 n3
Hindu(s) 11 n3, 22, 106
Hindu cosmology 47 n3
Hindu doctrine 7, 10, 52 n7, 76 n5
Hindu tradition 9 n1, 63, 99
Holy Grail 26
humanism 17, 55
humanitarian(ism) 89, 100
Hyperborean 24–25
Hyperborean Apollo 12
India 11, 18, 22, 35, 37 n2, 40, 50 n5, 63, 101
Islam(ic) 22–23
James, William 61
Jews 12, 14
Judeo-Christian tradition 77
Kali-Yuga 7, 9–10, 17, 25, 39–40, 48 n4, 98
Kant, Emmanuel 58, 84
Kshatriya(s) 35, 37 n2 and 3, 40 n6, 52 n7
Lucifer 77 n6
Mahāyāna 11 n4
Manvantara 7, 10
Massis, Henri 100–105
Mazdaism 11
Middle Ages 15–16, 23, 26–27, 35, 41–42, 49, 60, 63 n2, 96, 112
Naturalism 57–58
Orphic tradition 12
Persians 11
Protestant(ism) 60–65
psychology 50, 75

Pythagoras 12
Pythagorean mathematics 50
Pythagorism 12
Reformation 15, 59
Renaissance 15–17, 55, 59
Rome 12
Saint Thomas Aquinas 76 n3
Satan 100 n1
Solomon 40 n5
spiritism, spiritualism (defined) 83 n2
Stoic and Epicurean moralism 15
tamas 76 n5, 100 n1
Taoism 10
Taoist doctrine 13 n6
Theosophists 24, 102
Thoth 11 n2
universal suffrage 90
upaveda 50 n5
Vaishyas 35 n1
Veda 50 n5
Vishnu 9 n2
Vyāsa 11 n3
Zeno of Elea 40
Zoroaster 11
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.

It is no longer news that the Western world is in a crisis, a crisis that has spread far beyond its point of origin and become global in nature. In 1927, René Guénon responded to this crisis with the closest thing he ever wrote to a manifesto and 'call-to-action'. The Crisis of the Modern World was his most direct and complete application of traditional metaphysical principles—particularly that of the 'age of darkness' preceding the end of the present world—to social criticism, surpassed only by The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, his magnum opus. In the present work Guénon ruthlessly exposes the 'Western deviation': its loss of tradition, its exaltation of action over knowledge, its rampant individualism and general social chaos. His response to these conditions was not 'activist', however, but purely intellectual, envisioning the coming together of Western intellectual leaders capable under favorable circumstances of returning the West to its traditional roots, most likely via the Catholic Church, or, under less favorable ones, of at least preserving the 'seeds' of Tradition for the time to come.

The Collected Works of René Guénon brings together the writings of one of the greatest prophets of our time, whose voice is even more important today than when he was alive.

Huston Smith, The World's Religions

SP
SOPHIA PERENNIS