Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion (Collected Works of Rene Guenon)

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.

Many readers of René Guénon’s later doctrinal works have longed to hear the tale of his earlier entanglement, and disentanglement, from the luxuriant undergrowth of so-called esoteric societies in late nineteenth-century Paris and elsewhere. Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion documents in excoriating detail Guénon’s findings on what did, and did not, lie behind the founding in 1875 of the Theosophical Society, which became a central force in the movement now known as the New Age and even now plays an important role in the global interfaith movement as well as among the global elites. Here Guénon shows how our popular ideas of karma and reincarnation owe more to Theosophy than to Hinduism or Buddhism, provides a clear picture of the charlatanry that was sometimes a part of the Society’s modus operandi, and gives the early history of the Society’s bid for political power, particularly its role as an agent of British imperialism in India. It is fitting that this work should finally appear in English just at this moment, when the influence of pseudo-esoteric spiritualities on global politics is probably greater than ever before in Western history. Much further information has of course come to light during the century since this book was first published, but it has never been superseded as a record of the path of a master metaphysician through this maze. A particularly unusual feature is its extensive treatment of the Hermetic Brotherhood of Luxor, which has recently attracted the attention of scholars of the occult.

“Guénon established the language of sacred metaphysics with a rigor, breadth, and intrinsic certainty that compel recognition as a standard of comparison for the twentieth century.” —Jean Borella

“Guénon gave proof of a universality of understanding that for centuries had had no parallel in the Western world.” —Frithjof Schuon

“It was Guénon who taught me to seek and love the truth above all else, and to be unsatisfied with anything else.” —Fr Seraphim Rose

“Encountering Guénon’s work is akin to being struck by lightning: a dazzling initiation into a hitherto unknown way of seeing reality that reclaims the original integrity of the human condition.” —Samuel Bendeck Sotillos

“Guénon’s mixture of arcane learning, metaphysics, and scathing cultural commentary is a continent in itself, untouched by the polluted tides of modernity.” —Jocelyn Godwin

“Guénon reaffirmed the values that constitute the only sound basis for living a life with dignity and purpose, or forming of a civilization worthy of the name.” —Philip Sherrard

“Guénon was one of the greatest prophets of our time.” —Huston Smith

“No modern European writer was more significant than René Guénon, who expounded the universal metaphysical tradition that is the indispensable basis for any civilization deserving to be so called.” —A. K. Coomaraswamy

“Guénon’s works are such potent metaphysical attacks on the downward drift of Western civilization as to make all other contemporary critiques seem half-hearted by comparison.” —Jacob Needleman

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. René Guénon, 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 truly penetrated the seductive veil of the modern age. As an expositor of pure metaphysics and its application to the science of symbols, Guénon is without peer; and his extraordinarily prescient critique of the modern world is attracting more and more attention among cultural commentators. Little known in the English-speaking world till the recent appearance of his Collected Works in translation, Guénon has nevertheless long been recognized as a veritable criterion of truth by a vanguard of remarkable writers who evince that rare combination: intellectuality and spirituality. After a lonely childhood, often interrupted by ill health, Guénon navigated the seductive half-truths of occultism toward a deeper, unified vision offering a way out from the confusion and fragmentation of our time. Regarded by leading scholars as the first truly authentic interpreter of many Eastern doctrines in the West, Guénon never tired, in face of the seemingly inexorable process of dissolution in the twentieth century, of pointing to the transcendent unity of all religious faiths and the abiding Truth that contains them all.