On the early history of the perennial philosophy

An old but excellent article on the early history of the perennial philosophy of which I have just become aware is Charles B. Schmitt, "Perrenial Philosophy: From Agostino Steuco to Leibniz," Journal of the History of Ideas 27 (1966), pp. 505-532.

Schmitt traces uses and development of the term from Marsilio Ficino (1433-99) and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463-94) to Agostino Steuco (1497-1548), and finally to Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz (1646-1716), passing along the way Symphorien Champier (c. 1472-c. 1539), Francesco Giorgio (1460-1540), Nicholas of Cusa (1401-64), and Guillaume Postel (1510-81). Among the moderns, he mentions briefly Jacques Maritain, Erwin J. Auweiler, Paolo Rotta, Aldous Huxley, Roberto Ardigo, Cornelius Kruse, Otto Willmann, Maurice de Wulf, and S. Radhakrishnan.

On Leibniz, he concludes:

Although it is more fashionable today to see Leibniz as a "precursor of modern logic and mathematics" or as a brilliant metaphysician, his affinity to the tradition of perennial philosophy as envisioned by Steuco is most clear. Leibniz's whole philosophy of harmony is very similar to that expressed by Steuco and the others we have discussed, although in Leibniz the metaphysical foundations of such a Harmonistik are much more carefully worked out, recalling in some ways Cusanus' attempt to give a metaphysical basis to a "philosophy of concord" . . . In a sense, Leibniz is the most eminent defender of the tradition called by Steuco philosophia perennis. Moreover, Leibniz's attempts to bring about religious unity-in a century not reputed for its ecumenical spirit-hark back to Cusanus, as well as to Ficino and Pico.

For more on Leibniz and the perennial philosophy, see

• H. J. De Vleeschauwer, “Perennis quaedam Philosophia,” Studia Leibnitiana supplementa I (1968), pp. 102-22.
• R Meyer, “Leibniz und die Philosophia perennis,“ in Tradition und Kritik, Festschrift für Rudolf Zocher zum 80. Geburtstag (Stuttgart: Frommann-Holzboog, 1967) pp. 223-54.

These suggestions are from Renato Cristin, Heidegger and Leibniz: Reason and the Path (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 1998, p. 83.

My thanks to Anders Klostergaard Petersen for bringing the Leibniz connection to my attention in the first place.

Eliade esoterico

A recent book on Eliade I have just noticed: Marcello De Martino, Mircea Eliade esoterico. Ion Petr Culianu e i “non detti.” Rome: Edizioni Settimo Sigillo, 2008. 524 pp. €29.50.

To judge from reviews and an interview with the author, De Martino looks into Eliade's early thought. He argues that Eliade first encountered the philosophia perennis through nineteenth-century sources such as Papus before encountering the work of Guénon. He also looks at Eliade's early views on magic, which seem very much  influenced by Evola.

Traditionalism and the French "New Right"

For those who read French... A new paper on Traditionalism and the French "New Right:" Stéphane François, "Contre le monde moderne: la Nouvelle Droite et la 'Tradition'" (Religioscope, études et analyses n° 21, July 2009).

François traces the Traditionalist current within the French New Right (notably, the GRECE of Alain de Benoist) from its origins in the 1970s through its growing importance during the 1980s to the current day. He argues that Traditionalism has been important to the New Right in providing a basis for the reconstruction of Indo-European paganism as well as for its contribution to the New Right's anti-modern discourse, but that difficulties have arisen over Islam.

Traditionalists in the French New Right have differed over whether to welcome Islam, following Guénon, or to reject monotheism, following Evola. Those who have welcomed Islam and monotheism have, according to François, often ended up leaving the New Right proper, ending up in more regular conservatism, if of a somewhat extreme variety.

Dugin's Neo-Eurasianism

For those who read Russian, eight articles on Dugin's Neo-Eurasianism are to be found in the web-journal Forum noveishei vostochnoevropeiskoi istorii i kul'tury vol. 6, no. 1, 2009.

Guénon on Egyptian television

Guénon has finally appeared in an Egyptian soap opera!

Hatsuki Aishima, a scholar working on Abd al-Halim Mahmud (1910-78), a celebrated rector of the Azhar in the 1970s, found Guénon in a multipart Ramadan soap opera devoted to the life of Abd al-Halim Mahmud.

Of course, one has to simplify a bit for television. Guénon was not the only Frenchman who Abd al-Halim Mahmud knew. The other was Louis Massignon, the celebrated scholar of Islam who taught him at the Sorbonne. So Guénon and Massignon, who did not think highly of each other, are combined uncomfortably into one person, Frédéric.

In the soap, Guénon-Massignon converts to Islam in Paris after reading the Quran with Abd al-Halim Mahmud, and then moves to Cairo, where he lives as a pious recluse in a villa in Dokki, working on ancient Islamic manuscripts. Well, sort of.

The soap not only manages to introduce Guénon to Egyptian television viewers without referring to Traditionalism, but even manages to deal with Sufism without referring to Sufism--reducing it simply to generic piety, ignoring altogether anything that might seem controversial today. That's modernity for you!

Source: Hatsuki Aishima, "Producing a National Icon through the Mass Mediated Hagiography: al-`Arif billah al-Imam `Abd al-Halim Mahmud and Sufism in the Egyptian TV Serials," paper given at a conference on "Islamic Resurgence in the Age of Globalization: Myth, Memory, Emotion," held at the NTNU, Trondheim, September 4-6, 2009.