Books published by Sophia Perennis et Universalis

René Guénon (1886-1951) is undoubtedly one of the luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of recent philosophies. His oeuvre of 26 volumes is providential for the modern seeker: 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, at the same time it directs the reader 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.The present volume, first published in 1958 by Guénon's friend and collaborator Paul Chacornac, whose bookstore, journal (first called Le Voile d'Isis, later changed to Études Traditionnelles), and publishing venture-Éditions Traditionnelles-were so instrumental in furthering Guénon's work, was the first full-length biography of this extraordinary man to appear, and has served as the foundation for the many later biographies that have appeared in French, as well as the lone biography in English, René Guénon and the Future of the West, by Robin Waterfield. Its translation and publication in conjunction with The Collected Works of René Guénon represents an important step in the effort to bring Guénon's oeuvre before a wider public.

The articles collected in this volume represent some of the most unusual from Guénon's pen. They could be described as fragments of an unknown history, a history reaching back through prehistory to protohistory, for they begin with the Primordial Tradition contemporaneous with the beginnings of present humanity. The text opens with a study on cosmic cycles, taking as point of departure the Hindu doctrine of the Manvantara, though similar doctrines appear in Greco-Roman antiquity, among Jewish Kabbalists, Islamic Sufis and Ismailis, and in the Hopi, Lakota, and Maya nations of the New World. Essential to this doctrine is that earlier ages differed qualitatively from ours, which may explain why our historicism and archaeology have yet to come to grips with 'Hyperborea' and 'Atlantis', despite the many clues embedded throughout mythology, folklore, sacred architecture, etc. That is, our own time's quality cannot simply be projected backwards into past ages. In presenting Hyperborean and Atlantean lore-the cyclical mysteries of the West and the North-as well as material on the Hebrew Kabbalah and Egyptian Hermeticism, Guénon successfully transmits the requisite sense of such 'other' times, which for some may awaken the intuition of higher levels of Being.