Stations of Wisdom (Collected Works of Rene Guenon)

The articles collected in this volume represent some of the most unusual from Guénons pen. They could be described as fragments of an unknown history a history reaching back through prehistory to protohistory for they begin with the Primordial Tradition contemporaneous with the beginnings of present humanity. The text opens with a study on cosmic cycles taking as point of departure the Hindu doctrine of the Manvantara though similar doctrines appear in Greco-Roman antiquity among Jewish Kabbalists Islamic Sufis and Ismailis and in the Hopi Lakota and Maya nations of the New World. Essential to this doctrine is that earlier ages differed qualitatively from ours which may explain why our historicism and archaeology have yet to come to grips with Hyperborea and Atlantis despite the many clues embedded throughout mythology folklore sacred architecture etc. That is our own times quality cannot simply be projected backwards into past ages. In presenting Hyperborean and Atlantean lore-the cyclical mysteries of the West and the North-as well as material on the Hebrew Kabbalah and Egyptian Hermeticism Guénon successfully transmits the requisite sense of such other times which for some may awaken the intuition of higher levels of Being.