{"id":7093,"date":"2014-01-24T00:12:40","date_gmt":"2014-01-24T05:12:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.gornahoor.net\/?p=7093"},"modified":"2022-01-24T00:24:41","modified_gmt":"2022-01-24T05:24:41","slug":"initiation-and-the-state-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/?p=7093","title":{"rendered":"Initiation and the State of War"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rene Guenon<\/strong> wrote nothing, as far as I can recall, about his personal spiritual practice. Because he relocated to Egypt, the assumption is that he lived as a Muslim, following all the precepts of Sharia law. This is made clear in a letter written from Cairo to \u201cL. C.\u201d on May 17, 1935:<\/p>\n

The question of the difficulty of practicing Islamic rites in the countries of Europe is often discussed. The prevalent opinion, which in any case seems most justified to me by the very principles of sharia, is that there can indeed be some exceptions for persons living in non-Islamic countries, their condition being likened to a transitional state or state of war. But it is necessary to add that this concerns only those who remain only at the exoteric point of view. For a realization of an esoteric order, on the contrary, it is necessary not to forget that the observance of rites constitutes the necessary base. Moreover, it is clear that those who want the most must, first of all, and as the preliminary condition, do the least (i.e., observe the rites common to all).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

We see that Guenon insists that the esoterist must participate in all the exoteric rites that the ordinary faithful are expected to follow. To be concrete, Tradition is not simply a system of thought. A man cannot be a \u201ctraditionalist\u201d by believing certain metaphysical doctrines or holding particular political opinions. On the contrary, he must actually follow a tradition. That requires societal support to be able to observe the rites common to all.<\/p>\n

A day in Islam is structured by calls to prayer, ablutions, avoiding unclean things or activities, and so on. Hence, in 1935 it would have been difficult to do all that in Europe, although I don\u2019t know if that is still true in the Europe of today. That was the reason behind Guenon\u2019s relocation.<\/p>\n

For those left behind in the West, the man of Tradition needs to consider the same issue. For 1500 years the life of a European was also structured by a Tradition. The year involved a complete liturgical cycle, with various celebrations, holidays, festivals, and parades. The day was divided into certain periods of prayer. The rites of the sacraments defined a person\u2019s entire life; although ablution was not physical, but spiritual through Penance.<\/p>\n

In effect, men of Tradition in the West today are in a \u201cstate of war\u201d or a state of transition, as Guenon put it, since there is the memory of a recent Tradition yet no way to fully embrace it. Obviously men at war, who are on a journey, may not be able to fully practice the exoteric rites. The question, then, is whether such a transitional state can lead to something. That would require that remnant communities form today so that exoteric rites can be practiced in tandem with the esoteric. Although Guenon eventually became dubious about that prospect, that was a personal opinion not based on any metaphysical principle. In his earliest books, he did think it possible.<\/p>\n

However, when Guenon says that the recovery of paganism is no longer possible, that is actually based on metaphysical principles. Early in the Greek cities or in the Roman Kingdom, daily life was indeed fully structured. There were rites involving the hearth, which each home had to have. There were also many rules distinguishing the clean and the unclean. There were ceremonies for various purposes, and so on. Neo-pagan revivals have no way to recover those and artificial reconstructions do not count, since the original religious rites were considered to be divinely ordained. Quoting Nietzsche, psychologizing the gods and goddesses, and creating lists of \u201cvirtues\u201d may be great fun, but it is hardly what Guenon is describing. Only a new divine revelation can make this a viable option.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

men of Tradition in the West today are in a \u201cstate of war\u201d or a state of transition, since there is the memory of a recent Tradition yet no way to fully embrace it. Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14401,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7093","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guenon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7093"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15632,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7093\/revisions\/15632"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14401"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gornahoor.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}