The stats report that 45% of these 250,000 page views were by users in the US, UK and Canada, mostly in the US, as the map indicates. This is not surprising for an English-language blog.The next seven countries, in order, have been France, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Brazil, Ukraine, and Italy. It is hardly surprising to find France and Italy on the list, given the national origins of René Guénon and Julius Evola, or to find Russia and Ukraine on it, given the prominence there of Traditionalism and of Alexander Dugin. The prominence of Germany and Sweden is unexpected, however, as is the prominence of Brazil. The current state of Traditionalism in those countries evidently deserves investigation.
4 comments:
Yes, it does deserve investigation.
Some time ago you mentioned a Brazilian author named Olavo de Carvalho and his public debate with Alexander Dugin. Mr. Carvalho was a member of the Maryamiyya for quite some time, and was his muqqadam in Brazil up until the early 90s.
For the last 15 years, and after leaving the trariqat, he became a very influential political writer and internet activist in the Portuguese speaking world. He is a conservative pro-USA/Israel polemist, harsh critic of what he calls the socialist NWO and also of the aledged islamicization of the West. His current political ideias are made clear in the debate with Dugin.
His past as an astrologer and as a muslim frequently comes up, and nowadays his position towards Perenialism is somewhat ambiguous. But the fact is he made Guénon and Schuon a topic of public discussion in Brazil. His books from the 80s and 90s are all instances of what you call "hard traditionalism". There's a considerable amount of young adults who got involved with traditionalism directly or idirectly because of him.
Dugin himself has been in Brazil more than one occasion (he took part in a Brazilian Evolian meeting in 2014; Alain Soral was there too) and has toured some of the main Brazilian universities giving lectures, including the University of Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.
Olavo de Carvalho is probably the main conservative intellectual in Brazil (Christian Catholic conservative) and has somewhat of a "cult" around his figure. He attacks Perenialism on twitter and Facebook but still refers people to Perenialist authors and to religion courses given by his sons who are clearly Perenialists as well as some institutes founded by his followers. One of his former followers now denounces both Mr. Carvalho and his sons as "satanists" describing bizzare rituals and alledged crimes involving abortion and foetus (! Tantric practices maybe?).Much of Carvalho past has come to light, including his correspondence with Martin Lings and the fact that he practiced polygamy as well as the fact that Schuon tariqa in Brazil expelled him under accusations of voodoo and cat sacrifice (!). It can be read on Schuon dossie as well. Fascinating topic.
It is noteworthy that blogspot is filtered in Iran so some of the traffic you find to come from the US or other countries is actually Iranian wanderers through anonymous surfing software. Your book is rather a hot topic among Iranian scholars and students these days but you won't find a trace of them on your map because they are redirected!!
I'd be delighted if someone would do a blog post about the Iranian debate...
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