René Guénon
Chapter 2

PRELIMINARY REMARK

Sophia Perennis et Universalis is pleased to present this limited edition reprint of René Guénon’s Symbolism of the Cross as part of its Perennial Wisdom Series. Guénon, the extraordinary French metaphysician 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 penetrated the cloying veil of the modern age. As an expositor of pure metaphysic and of its application in the science of symbols (or of cosmology, taken in the widest sense), Guénon is also without peer.[1] Still virtually unknown in the English-speaking world (though in print in English off and on since 1928), Guénon has nevertheless been long recognized as a critère de vérité by a vanguard of remarkable writers who evince that rare combination: intellectuality and spirituality.[2]

The genres of Guénon’s work may be loosely classified as civilizational criticism, metaphysic, and symbology. This division is of course artifical in the end, but the primary thrust of the present work is clearly metaphysical, though contemporary incomprehension of the subject does not pass unnoticed and various symbols are necessarily pressed into service as reference points—how else could the mind be led up the ladder of analogy to pure intellection? Symbolism of the Cross is in fact best considered as a companion volume to Guénon’s more general Multiple States of Being, which resumes the exposition at a point where the support of symbols has been largely left behind. Guénon’s most ‘concrete’ metaphysical work (if such an expression be permitted), and undoubtedly his magnum opus in this genre[3], is Man and His Becoming According to the Vedanta: ‘concrete’ in the sense that it takes the human state as its starting point.

Readers who resonate to Guénon’s writing, and detect traces of many an ‘overtone’ as they read, may be interested to know that the new editions of his The Reign of Quantity and East and West each include extensive biographical information, and that Sophia Perennis et Universalis will be publishing shortly a full-length biography by Paul Chacornac (who knew Guénon well), entitled The Simple Life of René Guénon. Guénon was the first chef d’école of what has come to be called the ‘perennialist’ or ‘traditionalist’ school: those who wish to know more about this perspective are invited to contact the publisher for a list of all currently available books on the subject.

Footnotes

[1]Guénon’s work was later complemented by Frithjof Schuon, whose expositions unfold at the same vertiginous height, but add an emphasis on the virtues, beauty, and spiritual realization that Guénon devoted less attention to in print—he having had first to clear the ground and lay the indispensable foundation upon which others could later build.
[2]Among them Titus Burckhardt, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Marco Pallis, S.H. Nasr, Martin Lings, Huston Smith, and Joseph Epes Brown. Less well-known, or influenced more indirectly, are Philip Sherrard, Gai Eaton, Whitall Perry, William Stoddart, E.P. Schumacher, Mircea Eliade, Elémire Zolla, Thomas Merton, and Jacob Needleman.
[3]Guénon’s magnum opus in the genre of civilizational criticism in undoubtedly The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times (related works are East and West and The Crisis of the Modern World); and in that of symbology (cosmology), the recently published Fundamental Symbols [The Universal Language of Sacred Science]. Other books by Guénon available in English are: Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines, Lord of the World, Studies in Hinduism, The Great Triad, The Esoterism of Dante, Insights into Christian Esoterism, and The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus (latter three in press).
PreviousCh. 1: CONTENTS
NextCh. 3: PREFACE