Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century

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Summary: The Traditionalist Movement.
Review: _Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century_ is a biography of Rene Guenon and an overview of several other prominent Traditionalists and their radical views regarding the modern world. It also details their attempts to influence various movements: Fascism, the SS, postwar Italian domestic terrorism, Islamism in the Middle East, Russian radical politics and even the academic study of religions in the Western world. Most of the focus in this book is on European converts to Islam and Sufi (Islamic mystics) groups in particular. Traditionalism was bound up with the discovery of previously unfamiliar Muslim, Hindu and Buddhist spiritual writings during the nineteenth century and the general disenchantment with both modern material progressivism and Christianity among European intellectuals. The central principles of Traditionalism, also known as Perennialism, actually first surface during the Renaissance in the work of a Ficino, a Catholic scholar. Ficino postulated that Christianity, Judaism and the philosophy of ancient Greece all shared the same common primordial origin that has been obscured and hidden by the passage of time. Rene Guenon was a French mathematician who turned his attention to the study of Hindu texts and Masonry where he attempted to reconstruct a view of religions along these lines. His work was not taken seriously by mainstream French academia, but it nevertheless spread into many different countries and attracted a considerable following. Guenon's most popular books, among which are _The Crisis of the Modern World_ (1927) and _The Reign of Quantity and the Sign of the Times_, build a philosophical and metaphysical case against the modern world exemplified in the West's fascination with science and technology at the expense of traditional religious values. Guenon's frustration with Western society was such that he vanished from France during the 1930s and later reemerged in Egypt and converted to Islam in order to live in a religious, traditional, conservative society. Traditionalism was merged with radical Right-wing politics in the works and career of Baron Julius Evola. Evola's publications in the Italian press attempted to spread Traditionalist and pagan ideas in support of Mussolini's Fascist regime. He was unsuccessful in this attempt, but briefly curried favor in some circles of Nazi Germany and the SS, and hoped his beliefs regarding race and an elite Order of occult initiates would be adopted. Evola lived until 1974 and his books were popular with Right-wing Italian terrorists. Traditionalism was bound up with the emergence of Sufi groups led by Western converts to Islam like Schuon's Maryamiyya group (so named because of Schuon's visions he claimed to have of the Virgin Mary, named Maryam in Arabic). The Maryamiyya, as Sedgwick relates, certainly did not adhere to a strictly orthodox form of Islam as Sufis are supposed to, but Schuon instead engaged in strange syncretistic ceremonies mixing a variety of religious practices, some even involving nudity and exotic dancing. The foremost Muslim promoter of Traditionalism was the MIT educated Iranian Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Nasr published extensively on Islam and was a major figure in Iranian academia before the Islamic Revolution toppled the Shah's government. In fact, Nasr's scholarship may have in fact inadvertently given some steam to the Revolution because of his emphasis on traditional historical religious values within the Islamic tradition. American and European religious studies were influenced by the extensive work of Mircea Eliade, a Romanian scholar and intellectual who was heavily involved in Romania's Right-wing, anti-Jewish Legion of the Archangel Michael, a movement which sympathized with Nazism during World War II. Eliade was caught outside of Romania on a diplomatic mission when Romania joined the Axis, and later taught and published extensive scholarly works on religion in Western Europe and America. Traditionalism surfaced more recently in the early 1990s during Russia's post-communist radical political scene, where some of its principles have provided and impetus for a "Red-Brown" alliance (Communist and fascist/nationalist) against Russia's adoption of a Western political and economic structure. Traditionalism has already had its heyday, and it definitely seems to be much more entrenched in Europe than it is in the United States. I personally have not met anyone in the flesh who has even heard of Guenon, let alone can (or would even be interested in) discussing his ideas. Many individuals who have encountered Traditionalism have used its principles as a springboard into other religious traditions. A noted case being that of Fr. Seraphim Rose who studied Guenon's works and eventually converted into the Russian Orthodox Church and founded the St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood in Platina, California during the 1960s. In all, _Against the Modern World_ is an excellent academic history and analysis. Traditionalism carries some negative connotations, especially among liberals (the dust-jacket illustration features a shady silhouette of a man dressed in a trench coat carrying a briefcase-most likely with a bomb inside). However, Traditionalism, especially in its "softer" variety as espoused by Eliade, Theosophy and the New Age, is deeply ingrained in liberal spiritual consciousness because of the widespread belief that all religions are essentially the same. One criticism I have is that while it provides plenty of information about the actual history and lives of prominent Traditionalists, it does not provide a very detailed summary of their major works and the religious beliefs themselves (besides Sufism) that inspired them.

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Summary: Traditionalism Against Modernity.
Review: _Against the Modern World_ by Mark Sedgwick is one of the few books available which fully traces out the history and development of the Tradionalist movement of such figures as Rene Guenon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon, and Julius Evola among others, which remains firmly opposed to modernity. As a philosophy/theology, Traditionalism has its origins in several diverse sources all existing at the end of the Nineteenth century, which were contextualized and synthesized by Rene Guenon and later others. One central tenet of Traditionalism is that all of the world's traditions issue from the same source (a divine source) and can be found to be universally present across all ancient cultures, a philosophical view termed perennialism. The origins of perennialism can be traced to ancient times; however, perennialism witnessed a revival and codification during the Rennaissance period in which the wisdom of the ancient Greeks and the classical world was revived and combined with traditional religions (Christianity or Islam) under such figures as the Roman Catholic priest Marsilio Ficino. The origins of Traditionalism proper can be traced to various occult circles (around such figures as Papus, for example) and systems of Eastern wisdom and tradition. Indeed, for Traditionalists (and in particular for the early Guenon) the East represented an important and viable traditionalist alternative to the decadent modernist West which had been overcome by materialism and scientism. Rene Guenon (perhaps the founder and central figure of this movement) remains an enigmatic individual, crossing the spectrum from occult studies and freemasonic lodges, to traditionalist Roman Catholicism, and eventually making his home with the Islamic religion (in particular its Sufi tradition). However, Guenon also wrote about Hinduism (his earliest works being studies of Hindu doctrines and the Vedanta philosophy) and Taoism (under the influence of his friend Albert de Pouvourville). Guenon came to regard religious practice as an essential component of his worldview, causing him to emphasize initiation into a given tradition (either masonic or Sufi Islam, preferably), and eventually his conversion to Islam (although his apparent orthodoxy remains somewhat questionable). Certain followers of Guenon would also try to set up a system of initiation within Christianity (possibly to avoid conversion to Islam) under the Roman Catholic antiquarian Louis Charbonneau-Lassay who headed an order referred to as the Knights of the Divine Paraclete. Guenon, who was born a Frenchman, would eventually come to make his home in Cairo, where he lived as a devout Muslim until his death. Towards the end of his life, Guenon came to fear what he believed to be "counter-initiatic forces" which he had argued against in his writings. Other figures who took off from Guenon but remained steadfast to the Traditionalist movement include Ananda Coomaraswamy and Frithjof Schuon. Coomaraswamy served as a museum curator who incorporated the perennial philosophy into his studies dealing with traditionalist Hinduism and Buddhism and their artforms. Frithjof Schuon became a second convert to Islam, inaugurating his own Sufi sect the Maryamiyya, under the inspiration of the Virgin Mary. Schuon came to advocate a universalist view of religion (calling for a Transcendent Unity of religious traditions, at an esoteric level), eventually moving to America and adopting practices of the Native Americans in his ritual. Schuon's Maryamiyya Sufi order drew the attention of many notables including such figures as the Roman Catholic monk Thomas Merton, the religious scholar Huston Smith, and the Islamicist and Traditionalist Seyyed Hossein Nasr. Nasr, who was a student at MIT when he became acquainted with Traditionalism, came to reject the scientistic worldview prevalent there and embrace Islam. Nasr later moved back to his native country of Iran where he founded an Imperial Academy under the Shah, which was to survive until after the Khomeinian revolution, for the study of traditional Islam. Other figures involved with the Marayamiyyas of Schuon include Titus Burckhardt and Martin Lings, both of whom wrote extensively on Islam and Traditionalism. Traditionalism came to take on a political bent in the Italian counter-revolutionary rightist Baron Julius Evola. Evola's most famous work _Revolt Against the Modern World_ argued for complete reaction against modernity. Evola would later come to tentatively support Mussolini as well as writing on racialism and Hitler's SS. During the postwar period, Evola would come to advocate an abandonment of political activism proper in what he termed apolitea. Many of his followers in postwar Italy on the extreme right and left came to embrace terrorism against the subsequent bourgeois state. An interesting figure who played some role in the formation of the early Nazi party is that of Rudolf von Sebottendorf. Sebottendorf was influenced by occultism and the Kabbalah as well as Sufi Islam and came to play a principal role in the Germanen-Orden which became the NSDAP (subsequently seized by Hitler and his cronies). Evola's writings also influenced the young Romanian religious scholar Mircea Eliade, who would come to play such an important role in the modern academic compartmentalization of religious studies despite his youthful dabblings in Romanian fascism. Another political Traditionalist influenced by Evola is the Russian pan-Eurasian National Bolshevik Alexander Dugin. Other aspects of this book focus on the role of Traditionalism within Russia and the Islamic world in particular. The author seems to focus particularly on Islam, as opposed to Catholicism and Christianity, perhaps because this is the area of his specialty. The author also examines other figures who he terms "soft" Traditionalists who though influenced by Traditionalism would not come to fully embrace this philosophy. In sum, this book serves as a very good introduction to the subject of Traditionalism, is expertly footnoted, and is sure to serve as a stepping stone for further research.