genuine knowledge is knowledge of the Whole, or the One in Neoplatonic terms, or the Absolute, the Infinite, or the Tao. This form of knowledge is Gnosis and is superior to Reason. Continue reading
The Development of Mind
Development of the Will
A person desires not only material existence, which is provided by economic society, and not only lawful existence, which is given to him by political society, but he desires as well an absolute existence, one that is complete and eternal. Continue reading
Prelude to Development
Guenon lists two works, Dante’s Divine Comedy and the Romance of the Rose, that describe the esoteric process quite openly. With that in mind, serious men will choose to study those works assiduously rather than indulge in fantasies. Guenon also points to Saint Bernard as an antidote to the poison of modernity. Continue reading
Law of Development
Solovyov wants to go beyond the personal to the general and asks about the goal of human existence in general. Since man is always in community, Solovyov claims that “the dignity of the personal and immediate goals of a human life can define itself only by its relationship to that common and final goal for which it serves as the means.” Continue reading
Order and Progress
Positivists will always acknowledge the close relation between their own system and the memorable effort of medieval Catholicism. In offering for the acceptance of Humanity a new organization of life, we would not dissociate it with all that has gone before. On the contrary, it is our boast that we are but proposing for her maturity the accomplishment of the noble effort of her youth, an effort made when intellectual and social conditions precluded the possibility of success. Continue reading
Francis Bacon and the Creation of Modernity
It is our contention that great events in world history are deliberately planned; nothing happens at random, and things happen for a reason. To understand such reasons is the very definition of intelligence. Continue reading
I had too much to Dream last Night
I had a dream last night that has left me bemused. Without going into what happened before, most of which I have immediately forgotten, the dream ended with a brief conversation with a friend at a café. I was explaining to her that she had two ways to look at the world. Continue reading
The Acting Person
The soul-body relation is intuitively given in the experience of man as a real being. In this respect the subordination of the system of integration of the human person to the transcendence of the person in the action is revelatory. Continue reading
Catching our Breath
The fool does more harm by his ignorance than the wicked man by his wickedness. ~ Al-Ghazali It is time for a recap what has been accomplished thus far in our project to determine the lineament of the Western Tradition, which we claim is as real and as important as … Continue reading