Happy twentieth birthday, blog!

Hard to believe, but this blog is now twenty years old. The first post was dated June 14, 2006, and explained that it was time for the addenda I had been publishing on the companion website to Against the Modern World to take a new form. June 15, 2026 saw the first real post: a book announcement, welcoming Jean-Pierre Laurant’s René Guénon, les enjeux d'une lecture. Since then there have been 536 more posts, an average of about two a month, and 1,209 comments.

The blog has become more popular over time. It took nine years to reach 250,000 page views (in 2015), two more years to reach 500,000 page views (in 2017), six years to add a further 500,000 page views and reach 1,000,000 (in 2023), and finally three years to reach 2,000,000 (in 2026). This reflects both increased interest and the fact that as the years have passed there have been ever more pages for an interested visitor to view.

Over these twenty years, the blog’s audience has become more global. From 2006 to 2015, 45% of visits came from the US, UK and Canada, and from 2006 to 2017, 59% from the US alone. By 2023 the US share had fallen to 38%, and to 37% by 2026. Non-US interest came initially from the UK, France, Germany, Russia, Sweden, and Brazil, then (by 2017) especially from the UK and Russia, a pattern little changed in 2023. By 2026, Singapore came in second place after the US, followed by the UK, Brazil, Hong Kong, France, Germany, and Russia. Why the new interest in Singapore and Hong Kong? If you know, please leave a comment.

Traditional Studies in Contemporary Iran

Conference report by Youna Eskandari

An international conference entitled "René Guénon and the Revival of the Primordial Tradition" was held on February 17–18, 2026 at the Iranian Institute of Philosophy (IRIP) in Tehran. Originally founded by Seyyed Hossein Nasr in 1974, the institute still hosts enthusiastic readers of René Guénon, notably Babak Alikhani, the scientific secretary of the conference, who leads an annual seminar on Guénon for Iranian students, and Dr. Esmaeil Radpour, co-organiser of the conference and scholar of Chinese esoteric traditions.

Over two days, the papers explored a remarkable range of themes: the desacralisation of psychology, the symbolism of the Companions of the Cave, orientalism and orientality, counter‑tradition, Traditionalist political theory, initiation and socratic education, the symbolism of theatre, Iranian primordial tradition and Shi'a gnosis, the doctrinal function of Michel Valsan, Chinese esotericism, and even the symbolism of the traditional Iranian instrument, the santur. The full programme is available here.

What struck me most was not the thematic diversity but the epistemological attitude towards Guénon himself. In the Western academic world, any discussion on Guénon is typically marked by external critique, historical contextualisation, or outright dismissal. Scholars feel compelled to distance themselves from his "Traditionalist" positions, to deconstruct his claims, or to reduce him to a footnote of esoteric eccentricity. In Tehran, by contrast, Guénon was not studied externally or critically; his thought was accepted a priori, as a valid framework to be applied, developed, or revived.

As the organisers explicitly stated in the description of the conference published online: "Organizing a conference aimed at clarifying the contributions of the French metaphysician René Guénon is not born out of amusement, but of a deep sense of urgency and necessity." The intent was to "awaken and revitalize… the Iranian civilization by restoring its rightful stature among the diverse civilizations." This objective, they say, can only be realized through the revivification, commentary and elucidation of the works of René Guénon, described as a "great sage of our era." This is no small matter, for this exercise took place in Iran, the land where, as the organisers remind us, Suhrawardî, the master of illuminative metaphysics, expressed in his own terms the idea of the primordial tradition: al-khamîrah al-azaliyyah (the eternal leaven). As the conference organisers wrote: "It does not seem difficult to understand that the oriental metaphysics referred to by René Guénon is fundamentally one with the oriental metaphysics (al-hikmat al-mashriqiyya) of Avicenna—and especially with the illuminative metaphysics (ḥikmat al-ishrâq) of Suhrawardî." One could even say that this redeems the university, or rather elevates it to the true worth of its name, for universitas means "whole, totality, universe." In its very etymology, the university carries the ideal of universality. In Tehran, that ideal was realised, the university fulfilled its finality by being an echo of the primordial Tradition, that Knowledge which embraces the totality of all knowledges in their common principle.

One could thus say this was a profoundly "Oriental" conference, in Guénon's own sense of the word, meaning traditional, and it was accomplished in the Islamic Republic of Iran. The proceedings of the conference are to be published in 2027 in the Institute’s journal, aptly titled Sophia Perennis, additional proof, if any were needed, that Guénon’s thought remains alive in Iran.

Dugin as viewed from the American Left

Bruce Lerro, an adjunct college professor of psychology who describes himself as a libertarian communist, has written a long article on Alexander Dugin’s concept of the ethnos, which you can read here.  It is entitled “From Shaman to Heroes, From Prophets to Traders: Alexander Dugin’s A Russian Eurasian Perspective on Ethnogenesis.” Interestingly, it was published on a website called Socialist Planning Beyond Capitalism.

Lerro asks the question “Why Should You Care?” and answers: 

For socialists, a knowledge of the history of human societies is vital to understand the dynamics of why societies arise and break down. As historical beings we train ourselves to accept the torch of existing social conditions and pass the torch to the next generation to help plant better social conditions. The Atlanticist world of the West is falling apart. The Asian world is rising. While Western anthropology and macrosociology has made some important contributions it has been relatively neglectful of steppe people and has generally looked skeptically on the value of ethnicity and other forms of attachment. This is because capitalist societies need individuals, not groups to be the lowest unit for its economic advertising. Dugin’s work, as shown in this article, supports both ancient forms of attachment and the place of steppe people in social evolution. In the extent to which socialists wish to be Eurasian polarists, we owe it to the world and ourselves understanding of their picture of how societies evolved.

In principle Dugin sees himself as neither left or right, but in generally his reception in the West has very much been on the right, and Lerro's article was republished on Countercurrents (here), which is generally described as alt right. What is interesting is to see the American left taking an interest.

Australian Traditionalism and Architecture

A new article examines the activities of the Australian Traditionalist architect Adrian Snodgrass (1931–2025), see photo (from about 1957). It is Amit Srivastava, Peter Scriver, Cole Roskam and Anna Dearnley, “Beyond Sydney School: Australian Architects and the Encounter with Asia (1950s–1980s),” Architectural Theory Review (2026), available here (open access).  

Snodgrass was a member of a small Traditionalist group led by Harold Stewart (1916–1995), a poet, that met in a Sydney bookshop in the 1950s, mentioned in an earlier post here and discussed in Peter Kelly, Buddha in a Bookshop (2007), for which see post here. 

The article identifies Snodgrass as a Traditionalist, but does not investigate his Traditionalism beyond noting that his “exposure to these [Traditionalist] theorists provided an intellectual framework that his contemporaries, including [Alan] Gilbert and [Peter] Muller, would encounter through their friendship with him.” Gilbert and Muller, both architects, are also discussed in the article; it is not clear to what extent they were also Traditionalists. The article focuses on the travels of the three men and on their architecture.

Snodgrass traveled to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1957 together with Barry Windsor (1930–1994), another Australian who was in contact with the Sydney group, and was presumably to some extent also a Traditionalist, at least in 1957. They found their way to Kataragama, a pilgrimage site for Buddhists as well as Hindus, where they joined a small Hindu group known as Kutti Kuttam (the Council of Cubs) because all its members were given animal names. Snodgrass became Punaikutti Swami (kitten) and Windsor became Narikutti Swami (young jackal). Kutti Kuttam followed Yogaswami (1872–1964), a Jaffna-born guru who had been inspired in his youth by Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902). Most of its six members were Westerners.

Windsor remained in Ceylon for the rest of his life, but Snodgrass traveled to Japan with Stewart in 1963 and joined a Pure Land Buddhist group in Kyoto connected to Bando Shojun (1932–2004), a professor at Otani University, where he was ordained a priest. He then returned to Australia in 1975, completed a PhD, and spent the rest of his life as an architect, lecturer in architecture and religious studies at the University of Sydney, and writer on Asian art. His best known book was The Symbolism of the Stupa (1985), which starts with a reference to “the traditional Indian view,” footnoted to René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and Mircea Eliade. He remained a Traditionalist, then. Together with Gilbert and Muller he established Regional Design and Research, which “represented the practical application of principles that Snodgrass had explored philosophically, Gilbert had developed ethnographically, and Muller had implemented through site-specific practice.” Gilbert worked on hotel design in Hong Kong, Japan, India, Indonesia, and the Philippines, as well as in mainland China. Muller's sites included the Bali Oberoi and the award-winning Amandari Resort in Bali. What these all had in common was that they provided international standards of comfort combined with distinctive local character.

The article concludes that 

What began as individual journeys of discovery by emerging architects seeking alternatives to modernist orthodoxy through sustained Asian engagement evolved into a collective reconsideration of possible alternative cultural and philosophical approaches to contemporary architectural design in what was already becoming an increasingly transnational world of practice.

What evolved into this reconsideration and various architectural projects also began as Traditionalism, and passed through Hindu and Buddhist practice on the way.

This post draws also on 

• Glen Hill, “Vale Adrian Snodgrass 1931–2025,” Architecture, Au 23 April 2025, available here
• Ramana Hridayam, “Swami Narikutti or Barry Owen Windsor (1930-1994),” available here  
• The swamis of the Saiva Siddhanta Yoga Order, The Guru Chronicles, The Making of the First American Satguru (Kapaa, Hawaii: Himalayan Academy, 2011)

Hermetic Traditionalism in Spain

A new article: Mark Sedgwick, “Hermetic Traditionalism in Spain,” Aries (2026), available here. 

According to the abstract,

Traditionalism, usually associated with Sufism following the examples of René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, took an unusual Hermetic form in Spain under the leadership of Federico González Frías (1933–2014). González, originally from Argentina, established the Barcelona-based Center for the Study of Symbology during Spain’s democratic Transition, when interest in spiritual alternatives flourished. Rejecting both Sufism and Schuon’s Maryamiyya, González developed a distinctive “Hermetic” Traditionalism that emphasized symbolism, alchemy, Kabbalah, and Western esoteric traditions. His teachings, consolidated in the Agartha Program, combined perennialist philosophy with Hermetic practice and were extended through Freemasonry, publications,  and initiatic theater. This article explores the origins, development, and reception of González’s movement, situating it as the only known case of Hermetic Traditionalism and assessing its relationship to Guénonian orthodoxy and Spain’s historical context.