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Traditionalism, also sometimes known as Perennialism, posits the existence of a perennial wisdom or perennial philosophy, primordial and universal truths which form the source for, and are shared by, all the major world religions. Historian Mark Sedgwick identifies René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Julius Evola, Mircea Eliade, Frithjof Schuon, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and Alexandr Dugin to be the seven most prominent Traditionalists.[1]
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According to representatives of Traditionalism, all major world religions are founded upon common primordial and universal metaphysical truths. The perspective of its authors is often referred to as philosophia perennis (perennial philosophy), which is both "absolute Truth and infinite Presence".[2] Absolute Truth is "the perennial wisdom (sophia perennis) that stands as the transcendent source of all the intrinsically orthodox religions of humankind". Infinite Presence is "the perennial religion (religio perennis) that lives within the heart of all intrinsically orthodox religions."[3] According to Frithjof Schuon,
The term philosophia perennis, which has been current since the time of the Renaissance and of which neo-scholasticism made much use, signifies the totality of the primordial and universal truths — and therefore of the metaphysical axioms — whose formulation does not belong to any particular system. One could speak in the same sense of a religio perennis, designating by this term the essence of every religion; this means the essence of every form of worship, every form of prayer, and every system of morality, just as the sophia perennis is the essence of all dogmas and all expressions of wisdom. We prefer the term sophia to that of philosophia, for the simple reason that the second term is less direct and because it evokes in addition associations of ideas with a completely profane and all too often aberrant system of thought.[4]
The Traditionalist vision of a perennial wisdom is not based on mystical experiences, but on metaphysical intuitions.[5][4] It is "intuited directly through divine intellect".[6] This divine intellect is different from reason, and makes it possible to discern "the sacred unity of reality that is attested in all authentic esoteric expressions of tradition";[6] it is "the presence of divinity within each human waiting to be uncovered".[6] According to Schuon:
The key to the eternal sophia is pure intellection or in other words metaphysical discernment. To "discern" is to "separate": to separate the Real and the illusory, the Absolute and the contingent, the Necessary and the possible, Atma and Maya. Accompanying discernment, by way of complement and operatively, is concentration, which unites: this means becoming fully aware — from the starting point of earthly and human Maya — of Atma, which is both absolute and infinite.[7]
For the Traditionalists, perennial philosophy has a transcendent dimension – Truth or Wisdom – and an immanent dimension – infinite Presence or Union. Thus, on the one hand, "discernment between the Real and the unreal, or the Absolute and the relative", and on the other hand, "mystical concentration on the Real".[8]
According to the Traditionalists, this truth has been lost in the modern world through the rise of novel secular philosophies stemming from the Enlightenment,[9] and modernism itself is considered an abnormality.[10] Traditionalists see their approach as a justifiable longing for the past; in Schuon's words: "If to recognize what is true and just is "nostalgia for the past", it is quite clearly a crime or a disgrace not to feel this nostalgia".[11][note 1]
Traditionalists insist on the necessity for affiliation to one of the great religions of the world, without which no esoteric path is possible.[12][note 2]
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The ideas of Traditionalism are considered to begin with René Guénon. Other representatives of this school of thought include Ananda Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Hossein Nasr, William Stoddart, Jean-Louis Michon, Marco Pallis, Lord Northbourne, Huston Smith, Awadh Kishore Saran, Harry Oldmeadow, Reza Shah-Kazemi and Patrick Laude. Some academics include Julius Evola in this school, although Evola presents many differences in relation to those mentioned.[13] Another author linked to perennialism is Mircea Eliade, although Eliade's link is nuanced and often contested.[14]
René Guénon
A major theme in the works of René Guénon (1886–1951) is the contrast between traditional world views and modernism, "which he considered to be an anomaly in the history of mankind".[10] For Guénon, the world is a manifestation of metaphysical principles, which are preserved in the perennial teachings of the world religions, but were lost to the modern world.[15] For Guénon, "the malaise of the modern world lies in its relentless denial of the metaphysical realm".[15][note 3]
Early on, Guénon was attracted to Sufism, and in 1912 he was initiated in the Shadhili order. He started writing after his doctoral dissertation was rejected, and he left academia in 1923.[10] His works center on the return to these traditional world views,[15] trying to reconstruct the Perennial Philosophy.[web 2]
In his first books and essays, he envisaged a restoration of traditional "intellectualité" in the West on the basis of Roman Catholicism and Freemasonry.[note 4] He gave up early on a purely Christian basis for a Traditionalist restoration of the West, searching for other traditions. He denounced the lure of Theosophy and neo-occultism in the form of Spiritism,[note 5] two influential movements that were flourishing in his lifetime.[citation needed] In 1930, he moved to Egypt, where he lived until his death in 1951.[10]
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In the East
Through its close affiliation with Sufism, the Guénonian Traditionalist perspective has been gaining ground in Asia and the Islamic world at large.[note 6]
Iran
In Iran, it was introduced by Hossein Nasr as well as, earlier, by Ali Shariati, the intellectual considered the ideologue of the Iranian Revolution who recommended Guénon to his students. While it never acquired a mass following, its influence on the elite can be measured by the fact that when Ayatollah Khomeini organized the Supreme Council of the Cultural Revolution, out of the seven members designed to serve it, three were acquainted with Traditionalist ideas, namely Abdolkarim Soroush, Reza Davari Ardakani, and Nasrullah Pourjavady.[19]
Pakistan
Hasan Askari, an important writer and literary critic, was directly influenced by Guénon, and, through him, Muhammad Shafi Deobandi and his son Muhammad Taqi Usmani, some of the country's most influential Islamic scholars, integrated Guénon's works in the curriculum of the Darul Uloom Karachi, one of the most important madrassa or religious seminaries in the country.[20]
Other important figures of Pakistan influenced by Traditionalism include A. K. Brohi, who was seen as close to General Zia-ul-Haq and psychologist Muhammad Ajmal.
Morocco
The Budshishiyya order of Sufism, based in Morocco, is known to have strands influenced by Traditionalism.[21]
In the West
United Kingdom
According to Mark Sedgwick, King Charles III, then Prince of Wales, was "more of an anti-modernist than a Traditionalist, though [...] Traditionalist influences [were] increasingly visible in some of his speeches".[22]
Far-right movements
Julius Evola was an Italian Traditionalist influenced by Guénon but from whom he departed on many points, which did not allow him to be assimilated to Guénonian Traditionalism.[23][note 7] The ideas of Evola have been associated with some far-right movements, such as the European Nouvelle Droite ("New Right"),[24] and Italian Fascists during the Years of Lead.[note 8]
Similarly, the Romanian Traditionalist Mircea Eliade had been a supporter of the Romanian Orthodox fascist Iron Guard.[25]
According to Benjamin Teitelbaum, Savitri Devi, the founder of Esoteric Hitlerism, was influenced by both Guénon and Evola.[26]
Mark Sedgwick's Against the Modern World, published in 2004, gives an analysis of political traditionalism:
A number of disenchanted intellectuals responded to Guénon's call [to form an intellectual elite] with attempts to put theory into practice. Some attempted without success to guide Fascism and Nazism along Traditionalist lines; others later participated in political terror in Italy. Traditionalism finally provided the ideological cement for the alliance of anti-democratic forces in post-Soviet Russia, and at the end of the Twentieth Century began to enter the debate in the Islamic world about the desirable relationship between Islam and modernity.[web 2]
Various influential figures in twenty-first century far-right populist movements have affiliated with Traditionalism, often with Evola in particular. According to Benjamin R. Teitelbaum: Steve Bannon, former Donald Trump adviser, Aleksandr Dugin, informal adviser to Vladimir Putin, Brazilian writer Olavo de Carvalho, as well as Tibor Baranyi, the one time adviser to the Hungarian Jobbik conservative political party, all have associated with Traditionalism and have interacted with each other based on those interests.[27] Carvalho denies this association.[28]
Alain de Benoist, the founder of the French Nouvelle Droite, declared in 2013 that the influence of Guénon on his political school was very weak and that he does not consider him a major author for his work.[note 9]
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- Ivan Aguéli
- Kurt Almqvist
- William Chittick
- James Cutsinger
- Michael Oren Fitzgerald
- Jean Hani
- Walter James, 4th Baron Northbourne
- Patrick Laude
- Tage Lindbom
- Jean-Louis Michon
- Seyyed Hossein Nasr
- Harry Oldmeadow
- Marco Pallis
- Whitall Perry
- A. K. Saran
- Leo Schaya
- Reza Shah-Kazemi
- Philip Sherrard
- Huston Smith
- Wolfgang Smith
- William Stoddart
- Michel Valsan
- Elémire Zolla
- See Titus Burckhardt, "A Letter on Spiritual Method" in Mirror of the Intellect, Cambridge (UK), Quinta Essentia, 1987 (ISBN 0-946621-08-X)
- According to Wouter Hanegraaf, "modernity itself is in fact intertwined with the history of esotericism".[16] Western esotericism had a profound influence on Hindu and Buddhist modernisers, whose modernisations in turn had a deep impact on modern western spirituality. See: Michelis, Elizabeth De (2005). A History of Modern Yoga: Patanjali and Western Esotericism. A&C Black. ISBN 978-0-8264-8772-8.[17][18]
- Cf. among others his Aperçus sur l'ésotérisme chrétien (Éditions Traditionnelles, Paris, 1954) and Études sur la Franc-maçonnerie et le Compagnonnage (2 vols, Éditions Traditionnelles, Paris, 1964–65) which include many of his articles for the Catholic journal Regnabit.
- Cf. his Le Théosophisme, histoire d'une pseudo-religion, Paris, Nouvelle Librairie Nationale, 1921, and L'Erreur spirite, Paris, Marcel Rivière, 1923. Both books exist in English translation.
- Witness the works by Mahmoud Bina at the Isfahan University of Technology, the Malay scholar Osman Bakar, and the Ceylonese Ranjit Fernando. This is probably also related to the expansion of the Maryamiyya branch of the Shadhili Sufi order, as studied by Sedgwick, Against the Modern World, always within the pale of Sunni Islam. Cf. also a review by Carl W. Ernst: "Traditionalism, the Perennial Philosophy, and Islamic Studies", Middle East Studies Association Bulletin, vol. 28, no. 2 (December 1994), pp. 176-81.
- Renaud Fabbri argues that Evola should not be considered a member of the Perennialist School. See the section Julius Evola and the Perennialist School in Fabbri's Introduction to the Perennialist School.
- Paul Furlong argues that 'Evola's initial writings in the inter-war period were from an ideological position close to the Fascist regime in Italy, though not identical to it.' Over his active years, Furlong writes, he 'synthesized' spiritual bearings of writers like Guénon with his political concerns of the 'European authoritarian Right'. Evola tried to develop a tradition different from that of Guénon and thus attempted to develop a 'strategy of active revolt as a counterpart to the spiritual withdrawal favoured by Guénon.' Evola, as Farlong puts it, wanted to have political influence both in the Fascist and Nazi regimes, something which he failed to achieve. See Furlong, Paul: Authoritarian Conservatism After The War Julius Evola and Europe, 2003.
- On Radio Courtoisie (20 May 2013), during the programme Le Libre Journal de la resistance française presented by Emmanuel Ratier and Pascal Lassalle.
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