Westerners, including even those who were true metaphysicians up to a certain point, have never known metaphysic in its entirety… Westerners have little natural aptitude for metaphysics

Here Rene Guenon shows a uncharacteristic sort of racist thought, since that is hardly a metaphysical proposition, but rather an empirical assertion with little evidence. Guenon never anticipated how quickly the once traditional civilisations of China and India devolved. The former became radically materialist and Marxist, while the latter is rapidly being Westernized and liberalised.

Guenon does concede that the West did have metaphysical knowledge in neo-Platonism and in the theology of the Egyptian fathers. Rather, the West couched metaphysical principles in theological and philosophical language. Furthermore, in his later writings Guenon reversed himself, admitting the evidence of metaphysical knowledge among the circle of Dante and even Masonry. A fundamentalist reading of Guenon would lead to despair about recovering tradition in the West, yet on metaphysical principles, such an empirical assertion is unprovable.

Nevertheless there may have been individual exceptions [among Westerners], for nothing in principle precludes the existence, at any period or in any country, of men capable of attaining to complete metaphysical knowledge; and this would even be possible in the present Western world

In order to grasp the significance of this passage, it is necessary to distinguish between principle and practice. As a matter of principle, nothing contingent, accidental, empirical, or historical can prevent a Western man from attaining to complete metaphysical knowledge. Specifically, that means that belonging to one of the “approved” traditions is not necessary, nor is study under a guru nor a “valid” initiation (as though anyone without understanding would even be capable of making that distinction). Now, as a matter of practice, a body of tradition, a spiritual guide, and an initiation may be immensely helpful and the more common path; nevertheless, as a matter of principle, they are neither necessary nor sufficient.

A further point that must be made is that, from a metaphysical perspective, time has no meaning. In particular, time can never be a causative agent. Thus, whether a man is enlightened in an instant, over the course of a long period of study and practice, or even through multiple lifetimes in different states of being, is of no import in principle. However, in practice, efforts are usually necessary. Guenon explicitly admits such possibilities:

it is only right to point out that if such exceptions ever did exist, no written evidence has been found to prove it, nor do the generally known facts reveal traces of their influence; this absence of direct evidence however proves nothing in a negative sens, not should it occasion any surprise, for if cases of this sort did in fact occur, it can only have been thanks to very special circumstances of a nature that we cannot profitably discuss here.

A major fault of Westerners is a competitive nature, which spills over into areas where it does not belong. Thus, we see some readers trying to be the “king of the Traditional hill”; I can assure them it is not worth the trouble, since it is a small hill indeed. Gornahoor has no interest in a mindless repetition of texts, nor in historical research of the comparative religion type, which is infecting the study of Tradition. Rather, we are aiming for a restatement of Tradition in contemporary terms, which is really the only demonstration of understanding. The purpose is to awaken in young men the desire to recover Tradition, in a new way, not as a blind devotion to the past, and most certainly not as a call to follow the traditions of Asians. In our present situation, it is up to each man to find his own way. As Guenon writes:

It is for each man to try and conceive it according to the extent of his own intellectual powers, making good, in proportion to his success, the unavoidable deficiencies of formal and limited expression.

All quotes from Rene Guenon, Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines