Schuon in an Indonesian doctoral dissertation

Dinar Dewi Kania of the Institute for the Study of Islamic Thought and Civilizations (INSISTS) in Indonesia has just successfully defended a doctoral dissertation entitled Studi Komparatif Pemikiran Epistimologi Frithjof Schuon dan Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas (A Comparative Study of Epistemological Thought of Frithjof Schuon and Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas) at the UIKA Bogor.

Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas is a venerable and celebrated neo-traditionalist philosopher in neighboring Malaysia, and thus in some ways close to Traditionalism, but not a Traditionalist. In her differtation, Dinar Dewi Kania compares the epistemology of Schuon with that of al-Attas, and finds some common ground: both affirm the position of metaphysical knowledge (gnosis) or ma’rifa as the highest knowledge to achieve the absolute reality that is God, and both also criticize the notion that separates the ratio from the intellect, stating that the intellect is a factor that will illuminate the ratio through intuition. The difference between them, she argues, is that they include their own conceptions in understanding reality, truth and intellect, resulting in a significant difference in the object of knowledge, sources of knowledge and the process of knowing.

According to Dinar Dewi Kania, Schuon defined things that may be known to humans as objects of knowledge, including the substance or essence of God, while al-Attas rejected this view and stated that the object of knowledge is limited to a permanent natural archetype in the form of the names and attributes of God. Schuon sees religious dogma as representing a relative truth, while the total truth obtained through esoteric gnosis that comes from the heart (intellect) is named subjective revelation. Perennialist epistemology is thus fundamentally different from Islamic epistemology, because it  affirms the spiritual union between the substances of man and God and thus is a form of monism or pantheism. Schuon’s epistemology also places religious sciences that are derived from revelation in a lower position than metaphysical knowledge obtained by way of meditation, whereas in the view of al-Attas, an authentic revelation (the Quran and the sunna of the Prophet) is the highest source of knowledge which has absolute value to be used for guiding empirical and rational science. Al-Attas's epistemological thought is thus in accordance with Islamic epistemology, constructed by the worldview of Islam.

Études Traditionnelles 1960-85 seeks new home

A complete set of Études Traditionnelles, 1960-85, is looking for a new home.

The volumes are currently in Stockholm, and are available to anyone who will look after them. The new home is to reimburse the cost of postage, but otherwise no payment is expected.

Please send expressions of interest to me (mjs at teo.au.dk) and I will forward your emails to the donor.

Il Barone in fiction

A fictional Italian baron with considerable expertise in the occult is one of the subjects of a new novel by Joscelyn Godwin and Guido Mina di Sospiro, The Forbidden Book (The Disinformation Company, 2012).

The "forbidden book" in The Forbidden Book is non-fictional, Il mondo magico de gli heroi of Cesare della Riviera, an alchemical text printed in 1605, with a revised edition in 1932 by a non-fictional Italian baron, Julius Evola. According to the afterword to The Forbidden Book, Evola is the direct inspiration for a central lecture on transcendence and the castes, and the "general philosophy of magic" found in the book is based on the writings of the Gruppo di Ur.

So, a novel of interest to those interested in Evola--and also a novel of  interest to those who like novels that deal with "sex, death, love, religion, politics, magic, and all that," as one review has described The Forbidden Book.
 
Currently only a kindle; those who want paper must either read it in Spanish, Russian, Danish, Greek, Polish, Rumanian or Bulgarian (translations into these languages preceded the English publication) or wait: I'm told an English non-kindle version is on its way early next spring, from Red Wheel/Weiser.

This is a revised and corrected version of an earlier post with the same title.

"Modern Anti-Modern Discourse"

An unusual course is being offered this Fall, by Thomas F. Bertonneau, who teaches at SUNY Oswego (Oswego, NY). It is entitled "Modern Anti-Modern Discourse: The Critique of Pure Modernity from 1920 to 2001."

Unusually, Bertonneau has published an article about his forthcoming course: "'I Told You So': The Critique of Pure Modernity from 1920 to 2001," Academic Questions online first, July 13, 2012. The authors chosen for the course are Nicolas Berdyaev (author of The Fate of Man in the Modern World, 1935), T. S. Eliot, René Girard (for I See Satan Fall Like Lightning, 2001), René Guénon, José Ortega y Gasset, and Eric Voegelin. It seems from the article that Voegelin was Bertonneau's own point of introduction to anti-modernism.

As well as teaching at  SUNY Oswego, Bertonneau has a blog at the conservative Brussels Journal and an amusing list of extracts from student essays at Taki's Magazine.

Evola poised to enter Greek parliament?

As Greece's economic and political crises worsen, a previously marginal neo-Nazi group, Golden Dawn, is becoming ever more prominent, and is currently expected to win some seats in the Greek parliament in the forthcoming general election. And the first book on the "books" section of the Golden Dawn's website is their Greek translation of Julius Evola, Essays on Tradition and the Modern World (shown right).

The label "neo-Nazi" is often used in polemic rather than analytic fashion, but in the case of the Golden Dawn its use is justified. The Golden Dawn's party emblem (shown below, left) resembles the swastika, party members use the fascist salute, and Joseph Goebbels is also to be found in the books section of their website, along with many of the works of Nikolaos Michaloliakos, the Golden Dawn's leader and a member of the Athens City Council since the municipal elections of November 2010, in which the Golden Dawn received 5% of the vote, a significant increase on the 0.29% they received in the 2009 general election.

It may be assumed that what is proving most attractive to some Greeks in the Golden Dawn's platform is its forthright objections to Greece's subjugation by EU memorandum, as a result of the intersection of the  activities of irresponsible and corrupt Greek politicians with the global financial markets. One does not have to be a neo-Nazi to see some truth in that analysis. Added to this is the firm anti-immigrant position that is common to neo-nationalist parties across Europe, and has proved popular from France to Denmark. A third element is nationalistic, standing against America and Greece's familiar local enemies, Turkey and those who attach the name "Macedonia" to what is now officially called the "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia."

These are the positions that emerge most clearly from a review of the Golden Dawn's website. However, the influence of Evola can also be found, though not so prominently. He is, as has been said, on the book list. Condemnation of modernity and of "the modern world" appears in the archive of "ideological texts," and the penultimate (11th) point to which members commit themselves is to "honor and respect Tradition." They also accept that "nationalism is the only absolute and real revolution because it seeks the birth of new ethical, spiritual, social and psychic values." We learn that the Golden Dawn's Youth Movement "is not a simple political formation, and requires of members a particular way of life based on honor, morality and virtue."

Evola, then, seems to be of importance to the Golden Dawn, if not to the platform that may be about to bring it into the Greek parliament. And Evola is also read elsewhere in Greece: although Essays on Tradition and the Modern World is the only book of Evola published by the Golden Dawn, Greek translations have been published elsewhere of The Aryan Doctrine of Battle and Victory (1985), The Metaphysics of Sex (2006), Revolt against the Modern World (2009), The Doctrine of Awakening (2010), and Orientamenti (2011).

My thanks to the Russian blogger Evolist for bringing this to my attention.