Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles

<p><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>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 </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>praxis</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> 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.</span></p><p></p><p><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> is a wide-ranging collection of articles that delve into traces of ancient indeed protohistoric traditions. 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 book opens with a study on cosmic cycles taking as its point of departure the Hindu doctrine of the </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>Manvantara</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> although 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 </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>qualitatively</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> 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 time's </span><em style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)>quality</em><span style=color: rgba(0 0 0 1)> cannot simply be projected backwards into past ages. In presenting Hyperborean and Atlantean lore-the cyclical mysteries of the North and the West-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.</span></p>