The Spiritist Fallacy (Collected Works of Rene Guenon) - Hardcover

Guenon, Rene

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0900588721 ISBN 13: 9780900588723

Publisher: Sophia Perennis et Universalis, 2004

Synopsis

Many readers of Guénon’s doctrinal works have hoped for translations of his detailed exposés of Theosophy and Spiritism. Sophia Perennis is pleased to make available both these important titles as part of the Collected Works of René Guénon. Whereas Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion centers primarily on historical details, The Spiritist Fallacy, though packed also with arcane facts, is unique in revealing how one of the greatest metaphysicians of our age interprets the phenomena, real or alleged, of Spiritism. The doctrinal expositions that accompany his astonishing account offer extraordinarily prescient insight into many deviations and ‘psychological’ afflictions of the modern mind, and will be as valuable to psychological practitioners and spiritual counselors as to historians of esoteric history. It also offers a profound corrective to the many brands of New Age ‘therapy’ that all too unwittingly invoke many of the same elements whose nefarious origins Guénon so clearly described many years ago.

About this title

About the Author

René Guénon (1886–1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization. René Guénon, of whom Jacob Needleman wrote in The Sword of Gnosis that ‘no other modern writer has so effectively communicated the absoluteness of truth,’ is gradually being recognized by deeper thinkers as one of the few who have truly penetrated the seductive veil of the modern age. As an expositor of pure metaphysics and its application to the science of symbols, Guénon is without peer; and his extraordinarily prescient critique of the modern world is attracting more and more attention among cultural commentators. Little known in the English-speaking world till the recent appearance of his Collected Works in translation, Guénon has nevertheless long been recognized as a veritable criterion of truth by a vanguard of remarkable writers who evince that rare combination: intellectuality and spirituality. After a lonely childhood, often interrupted by ill health, Guénon navigated the seductive half-truths of occultism toward a deeper, unified vision offering a way out from the confusion and fragmentation of our time. Regarded by leading scholars as the first truly authentic interpreter of many Eastern doctrines in the West, Guénon never tired, in face of the seemingly inexorable process of dissolution in the twentieth century, of pointing to the transcendent unity of all religious faiths and the abiding Truth that contains them all.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Edition details

• Publisher: Sophia Perennis et Universalis
• Publication date: 2004
• ISBN 10: 0900588721
• ISBN 13: 9780900588723
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 364
• Editor: Wetmore James Richard