Talk:René Guénon/Archive 1

NPOV
This article is mainly a paraphrasing of the first two listed sources (mostly the first). Most of these spend more time praising the man, sharing personal anecdotes about the man, or discussing the accepted details of his philosophies, rather than the person himself, due to their closely interested POV. I tried to exclude the POV stuff, or at least present it NPOVly.

This was a requested-for-one-year article, and I feel that what I put out will at least provide some explanation of the person, if not perfect.

Also, the book list is admittedly incomplete, and I'm at a loss to find dates of writing or publication for all of them (so I just left them out for now).

KeithTyler 00:10, May 29, 2004 (UTC)

Feigned humility
"contrary to popular opinion, he was not the founder of any school of thought" This is just an utterly vacuous and unsupported piece of feigned humility.
 * This is not humility, feigned or not. Guenon never found any school of thought. Some people may acknowledge their intellectual orientation strongly oriented by Guenon's writings, but the fact is that he never found anything close to what is called a "school of thought". TwoHorned 15:30, 23 October 2006 (UTC)

From Sedgwick's book on traditionalism it seems rather obvious that Guénon wanted to found a school, for example, by closely following up & giving instructions to those who turned to him for instruction, as well as by "playing politics" (I can't find a nicer way to put, even if his intentions were noble) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Forward Observer of Death (talk • contribs) 09:20, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * This is in contradiction with many elements found in his correspondance, and Sedgewick positions are strongly challenged by other authors, mainly french. TwoHorned (talk) 17:50, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

False statements corrected
Some false statements corrected:

"It does not seem doubtful that existed then, at some various degrees, some sympathy between Guénon and certain leaders of the Action Francaise. We say: at various degrees since it is quite clear for us that Daudet was, of all these leaders, the most capable of understanding Guénon and of admitting, at least partially, his viewpoints. It is nonetheless as evident that between Guénon and Mauras, the sympathy was mitigated".
 * "During the period of the 1920's, Guénon got marginally involved with the proto-fascist Action Francaise"... Guenon never got involved with Action Francaise, as it is written falsely. As a matter of fact, Guenon never got any connection with a political organization. The only thing is that Guenon commented some books of Leon Daudet. Chacornac's biography reads in fact like this (P.87 of the french edition):


 * The following sentence: "Guénon was increasingly influenced in his intellectual and political outlook by the extreme reactionary French Catholic philosopher and defender of the Inquisition, Joseph de Maistre, whom he often quotes positively in his various tomes" is utterly false. Guenon was never influenced by De Maistre. Guenon quoted him sometimes as a reference to someone who had a status in regular freemasonry, in relation with the 1648 treaty, which marked the terminal rupture between the West and certain esoteric ramifications which were still alive at that time. De Maistre is quite insignificant in Guénon's writings, and he his only quoted in reference to few historical events.


 * Regnabit was not "right-wing Catholical", it was a periodical that represented a mainstream Catholical perspective at that time.


 * "Guénon's writings on traditionalism had a great influence on the Italian fascist occultist Julius Evola" is another misleading sentence. Guenon and Evola exchanged correspondence but Guenon never indulged into Evola's political affiliations, nor he supported them. There is even a correspondence of Guénon in which he gives some indications of the relations between Mussolini's facist forces and a certain "dark masonry of completely irregular nature". Moreover, there was an important divergence between Evola and Guénon about some key doctrinal points.

The previous sentences (which I cancelled) contained quite a malicious intent as presenting Guenon from a political perspective.

TwoHorned 16:58, 4 November 2006 (UTC)

Against hagiography on one part, against slander on the other
The above ‘correction’ is itself political, and one devoid of knowledge about the lineage of reactionary discourse. The claim that – somehow – the link between Guenon and Evola was ephemeral and unimportant is simply incorrect. Both were part of a much wider reaction – yes, reaction – against modernity, development and democracy, and each advocated a return to spiritual values and what they took to be innate forms of hierarchy (in Evola’s case, feudalism). Evola, who wrote an endorsing book about Guenon, profoundly influenced the thinking of the Italian new right. So, where the discourse of the political right is concerned, all this talk of Guenon-was-simply-an-innocent-bystander is quite simply untrue. 9 September 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.142.237.216 (talk) 11:07, 9 September 2007 (UTC)
 * That Guenon-Evola link, as you mention it, is a commonplace refutated by recent studies. TwoHorned 22:12, 11 November 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. What is ‘refutated’? Are we in the simian world of George W. Bush here, where Pakistan is Plakmanistan, and Palestine is Palistan? The Guenon-Evola link is one which Evola himself acknowledged, as is evident from what Evola himself wrote in Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul (Rochester, VT, 2003) and – wait for it – Rene Guenon: A Teacher for Modern Times (Sure Fire Press, 1994). If you reject the ideas of someone, you do not simultaneously characterized that person respectfully, as a ‘teacher’. 30 November 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.30.154 (talk • contribs) 17:40, 30 November 2007
 * 'Refutated': see for instance "Julius Evola contre René Guénon by André Lefranc in Règle d'Abraham N°21" (in french). Evola acknowledged it, ok, but what about Guenon himself about that, dear dear ? TwoHorned 16:38, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

Someone who doesn’t understand English very well seems to have missed the point entirely. Why do such people intervene, when the issue being discussed goes completely over their head? The attempt by simian followers of George W. Bush to deny a link between the rightwing politics of Evola and the rightwing politics of Guenon, in spite of an acknowledgement of just such a link by Evola himself, is ever so slightly pathetic. Or is it merely a case of someone who likes Guenon very much trying to pretend that the latter's politics are not as they are? No amount of denial by apologists for the political right will eradicate the recognition by one of their own - Evola - of where Guenon is to be situated on the political spectrum. 4 December 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.30.154 (talk) 17:48, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

A follow-up to the last entry but one. Having looked at Règle d'Abraham, two things are clear. First, its ‘scholarly’ level is on a par with ‘analyses’ such as Erich von Daniken’s Chariot of the Gods and Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, and for much the same reason: a credulous and uncritical acceptance of the primacy, innateness and veracity of the esoteric. And second, the acceptance there in a 2003 article (Rene Guenon récupéré par l’extrême droit) of precisely the point made by me: the acceptability of Guenon’s views to the far right. Also of passing interest is the presence of an author who shares the same name – Taguieff – as someone prominent in those circles, although there is of course absolutely no inference of a connection between them. 4 December 2007 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.30.154 (talk) 16:40, 5 December 2007 (UTC)
 * 1) Perhaps you should try to read Guenon first. Supporting these allegations by referring to Bush is somehow... weak and quite inapropriate. The divergence between Guenon and Evola was being emphasized by Guenon himself. And Guenon was not engaged in politics, as opposed to Evola. The Evola-Guenon relationship was completely orthogonal to Evola's political affiliations, being substantiated by considerations of a completely different order. 2) Regle d'Abraham, that you haven't read either except by browsing their titles on the web, has nothing to do with Von Daniken and al or Da V C. And the 2003 article of R.A., that you probably haven't read either, states the exact opposite of what you write here. Final point. AlexOriens (talk) 17:03, 6 December 2007 (UTC)

I detect a certain amount of wriggling on a hook, an air of furious desperation on your part that someone has questioned a cherished belief. Unsurprisingly, every single thing you say is wrong. To begin with, you don’t know what I have or have not read, so your assertions about that are simply bluster. I did not say, as you appear to think, that von Daniken and Dan Brown are in some way connected with Règle d'Abraham: what I did say, and you missed, was that the ‘analyses’ of the latter, a coterie of Guenon Groupies (GGs), are on an ‘intellectual’ par with those of the former, not least because epistemologically they both subscribe to a credulous and uncritical acceptance of the primacy, innateness and veracity of the esoteric. Neither is it the case that the 2003 article ‘states the exact opposite’ of what I said it did. That you are wrong about this is because – again – you have misunderstood what I was saying: I did not say, as you also seem to think, that Guenon had somehow endorsed the far right. What I did say was that his views were acceptable to the far right, which is not the same thing at all. Those belonging to the far right would hardly endorse a view that was at odds with their beliefs: hence the political significance of finding in Guenon a kindred spirit. That Guenon was not himself engaged in politics is therefore entirely beside the point, since one doesn’t have to dress up in a Nazi uniform in order influence the thinking of those connected to the far right. No amount of blustering and fury on your part will alter the incontrovertibility of the link I (and others) have made in this regard: Guenon, a deeply reactionary traditionalist, strongly influenced the ultra-right conservative Evola, who in turn not only subscribed to far-right views in the era of Italian fascism, but also himself influence the new Italian right during the post-war era. Whether you like it or not, Guenon is part of this discourse, and the references both to Bush and to his simian qualities are in the circumstances quite appropriate. 6 December 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.30.154 (talk) 20:50, 6 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Well, to say the least and to match common boundaries of usual politeness, I doubt that arguments that put into the balance the whole field of "esoterism", in the sense redefined by Guenon himself, and author like Dan Brown along with his DVC are likely to shake the intellectual foundations of any reader of René Guénon... More seriously, it is true that some rightist movements (and authors like Evola) may pretend some intellectual heritage from "traditionnalism", and they may reclaim Guénon for that. What you forget to mention is that the same is true for far-leftists (à la Monzat), left or right-wing christians, "liberal" or "traditionnalist" political muslim movements, some jewish writers (even Jacques Attali mentions Guénon in his last book -what a farce !-) etc. I'm afraid that you miss the whole colourful scenery of people and movements, be they politically oriented or not, that pretend heritage from Guenon in France and Italy (to take most known examples). These people and movements indulge in referring to Guenon not because Guenon displayed any political or intellectual sympathy that would match their own agenda, but because they believed to find in the doctrine exposed by Guenon some intellectual keys that would substantiate their own beliefs (be they of "conspiracist" nature or anything else). Guenon's positions were strongly thrown out by Action Francaise, who utterly disliked Guenon's admiration for the East and Eastern doctrines. Evola and Guenon share some views in their condamnation of the modern world, but their perspective was not the same at all, and the divergence between them was clearly expressed by Guenon, mostly when the latter wrote some critics of the former's books. The main divergence between Guenon and Evola was about the pre-eminence of contemplation over action, and Guenon firmly condemned the rightist movements that put Mussolini into power (this is mainly documented in french, but not perhaps in english, which could explain, I suppose, your confusions on that matter). Lastly, about R.A., its list of authors contains people as diverse as university researchers, philosophers, directors of research at CNRS etc. TwoHorned (talk) 14:13, 8 December 2007 (UTC)

Oh dear, oh dear, you are still wriggling on a hook, with even more desperation than before. Furthermore, you have changed your tack. Now you admit – finally – that a Guenon-far right epistemological link exists, but try to whitewash this by claiming – implausibly – that Guenon is acceptable as well to those on the left. What this nonsense confirms is two things. First, that – as I suspected – political theory is for you a closed book. And second, that – again as I suspected – your ‘arguments’ are indeed on an intellectual par with Erich von Daniken and Dan Brown. The political lineage to which Guenon belongs is, it seems, clear to everyone except Guenon Groupies. Like Spengler, de Maistre and Barres, Guenon was part of a retreat from all the processes and views – a materialist interpretation of history, modernity, economic progress and political equality – that those on the left espouse. Indeed, this retreat is embodied in his book, The Crisis of the Modern World. That any socialist or Marxist would endorse such views – the traditionalist, anti-materialist views and religious determinism of Guenon – is to put it very mildly an unlikely occurrence. The acceptability of his views is, much rather, to one particular end of the political spectrum: those reactionaries on the far right, such as Action Française and Julius Evola. Even the British New Right cite Guenon approvingly (see Roger Griffin, ed., Fascism, 1995, page 353). To cap it all, your language – when it is not incoherent – gives away the game: why else mention the ethnic origin of an author (‘some jewish writers’)? Shades here, perhaps, of an old discourse: Dreyfus... 10 December 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.139.30.154 (talk) 09:00, 10 December 2007 (UTC)
 * Poor fellow... you finally decided to stake out your intellectual territory. TwoHorned (talk) 22:57, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

Poor old TwoHorned: you’ve been gored – twice – and understandably feel sore. Also, you still can’t spell: the word you want is ‘calumny’, not calomny. You use of the latter term – when corrected – is, moreover, wrong (predictably so). To calumniate someone – shall I go more slowly, so you can follow: c-a-l-u-m-n-i-a-t-e – what is said has to be false: it isn’t. I have simply pointed out the inaccuracies in the claims you make on Guenon’s behalf, maintaining as you do (wrongly) that his views are unconnected with those of the political right, and that anyway are endorsed by those on the left. As I’ve indicated, neither of these statements is true, and – moreover – could only be made by someone for whom political theory is a closed book. 24 December 2007 - (Posted 24 December 2007 by 81.155.186.21 - - Writtenonsand (talk) 11:38, 26 December 2007 (UTC))
 * Quite a small mispelling coming from a word in my mother tongue -french- "calomnie" which should translate as "slander". No surprise you overfocus -in your typical narrow-minded and contrite style- on a small detail to hide the abyssal weakness of your "arguments". At least french language gave me the opportunity to read Guenon in full, in its original version, and all his commentaries, which are not available in english. And, last point, if a Guenon - far right "link" exists supposedly, it is advocated by the far right only, so its epistemological value is dubious. Elementary philosophy seems definitely a closed topic for you. And, I repeat, a similar Guenon - far left link can also be pointed out, so as for the nullity of such concepts w.r.t. Guenon's writing per se. The "political" aspects of some Guenon writings are connected with Guenon's meta-historical perspective and are quite unrelated with these accusations, which are very popular in certain milieux -some of them emanating from these wonderful neocons you pretend depart from a la Victor David Hanson. Go back to your political theory -or to Fox News-. TwoHorned (talk) 17:16, 25 December 2007 (UTC)

I really am beginning to feel very sorry for you, twisting as you are on the hook. Three points are inescapable. First, the kind of ‘arguments’ you make in defence of Guenon make Erich von Daniken and Dan Brown seem towering intellects by comparison. To take just one example: you repeat – yet again – that a Guenon/far-right link is invalid because it is acknowledged by the far right only. This is, I’m afraid to say, quite simply nonsense on stilts. The far right incorporates into its political discourse only such ideas and/or views that are compatible with a far-right belief system. As has been pointed out above, were it the case that Guenon’s philosophy was in some fundamental sense incompatible with the beliefs of the far right, those in the latter category would most certainly not cite it in a supportive manner, let alone invoke Guenon as a validation of their claims. That the far right – in Italy (via Evola) and Britain – has in fact endorsed Guenon as a kindred spirit speaks volumes about where he is to be found on the political spectrum, a fact that no amount of denial on your part will alter. I know you must find this very awkward – an ‘inconvenient truth’, as the saying goes – but sadly for you it is so. Second, and arising from this, your rather odd assumption that a critique of Guenon can only come from neocons is similarly misplaced. Those on the left, who oppose the traditionalist, anti-materialist views and religious determinism of Guenon, are also critical of his views, but for very different reasons. Since you do not understand political theory, and seem to be obtuse, this will necessarily elude you. And third, you ‘defence’ of Guenon in the face of evidence to the contrary underlines what is now a major difficulty with this kind of wikipedia entry. The latter have become spaces colonized by enthusiasts belonging to particular cults – such as that of Guenon – who propagate opinions that are either ill-informed or wrong (usually both). Rather like worshippers guarding a medieval shine, these enthusiasts – flat earthers all – devotedly continue to proclaim their beliefs in a shrill manner (‘the earth is flat, the earth is flat’), and refuse to countenance alternative views, let alone acknowledge that they themselves are wrong. So much for the much-vaunted accuracy of information contained on wikipedia. 26 December 2007. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.155.186.21 (talk) 18:08, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
 * From a strict epistemological perspective, it would be necessary to establish the link you pretend to mention from Guenon's writings themselves, and not from opinions emanating from dubious milieux, be they left or right. That would be quite an unlikely project, for such confirmations do not exist. Let me explain you, if you will, the necessary distinctions to be made in these matters. Guenon's criticism of "democracy" is not an approval of non-democratic systems in the modern sense, both of them being equally anti-traditionnal from Guenon's standpoint (he specifically mentionned that point in his correspondence, a fact that I report for the secund time here and that you blindly eliminate without mention). Guenon opposes modern politics to systems of governance that are legitimated from a traditionnal point of view, his most explicit book on that matter is "Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power". Such "traditionnal systems of governance" may take different forms in the social organization, they can be contemplated, according to Guenon's, only in a truly traditionnal system. For Guenon, all modern political systems, be they democratic or not, are equally antitraditionnal. Besides, the link you try to establish comes from the admiration of some far-right organizations to Evola. It is true that Guenon and Evola exchanged some letters, and that Evola quotes easily Guenon, but you forget to mention the most importing point: there is a fundamental divergence between Guenon and Evola, that was underlined precisely by Guenon himself, and which translates into political matters in the following form: for Evola, Kshatriyas are superior to Brahmanes in hierarchy, for Guenon it is the exact opposite. This fundamental divergence is precisely the starting point of all serious studies -and I pointed one above - that question your unlikely supposition -so far as it is considered today as a commonplace as I stated above-. That  Julius Evola quotes Guenon is not sufficient to establish an epistemological link since Evola silenced all his political and metaphysical divergences with Guenon - we need their correspondence for that-. Evola's admiration for "action" degenerated so far that he finally endorsed, after Guenon's death, Crowlesian's magic, which was viewed by Guenon as charlatanism and abomination -do you see the link with O.T.O. and the far-right, and do you finally understand how Guenon was opposed to that ?-   I am surprised that you read the following sentence of my answer - I repost it here : some of them emanating from these wonderful neocons you pretend depart from- into : "your rather odd assumption that a critique of Guenon can only come from neocons is similarly misplaced". Lastly, your gratuitous accusation that I would be a guardian of Guenon's temple is quite innapropriate, sounds like bluster, and is not adding any proof in favour of your viewpoint. I agree with you that Wikipedia is colonized by blind enthusiasts. But that's probably because many tend to pour in opinions, instead of serious references. TwoHorned (talk) 22:34, 26 December 2007 (UTC

Ah, the guardian of the sacred shrine to Guenon – a faithful and unquestioning Guenon Groupie – remains on permanent duty, proclaiming his erudition (‘the world is flat, the world is flat’) to all who approach. Somewhat predictably, your claims become ever more confused, your ‘answers’ ever more incoherent, and your actions ever more desperate. For someone who thinks of himself as a ‘philosopher’, you do have an unfortunate tendency to keep on contradicting yourself: first, you deny the existence of a Guenon/Evola/far-right link; then you accept that there is one, but try unsuccessfully to maintain that there is also a Guenon/socialist link; and now, once again, you revert to the earlier position and deny that any such link exists. Logic seems to be for you a foreign country. Your desperation is evident from, for example, the attempt to argue that because they disagreed on who was placed where in the traditional hierarchy, this somehow amounts to a vindication of the view that Guenon’s ideas are unconnected with the discourse of the political right. This is rather like saying that the fact that Hitler spoke German and Mussolini Italian is evidence for there being no link whatsoever between Nazi and Fascist ideology! Equally predictable is the fact that you have undermined your argument without realizing it. All rightwing thought has at the centre of its discourse the necessity of protecting tradition, not least because this is the way those who have large amounts of power and property justify such inequality: hence the word ‘conservatism’, which means maintaining what is. This is especially the case when rapid socio-economic change erodes what those on the far right regard as historically immutable components of social existence: culture, nature, hierarchy, family and religion. No wonder that Evola found Guenon’s ideas so congenial: the latter’s view – endorsing tradition, opposing progress and modernity – is the theoretical seedbed from which the political right draws its ideological strength. For Guenon, it seems, the invention of the wheel was a step too far, and his ideas about the importance of tradition and opposition to modernity are in keeping with conservative discourse during the 1920s and 1930s. A case in point is G.K. Chesterton, the Catholic writer who blamed the Reformation for the rise of what he regarded as the subsequent evils: liberalism, capitalism and communism. All the latter were in his view the consequence of materialism, a misplaced desire for progress and a consequent turning away from spiritualism. His cousin, A.K. Chesterton, shared this perception about societal decadence and cultural decline, so much so that he became involved in and remained a central figure of the far right in Britain. Finally, problems with language, which you misinterpret as points-scoring, are actually central to this exchange: what you write, and the way you express yourself, suggest that you really do not seem to understand what is being discussed. Hence the difficulties which surface in the following construction: ‘I am surprised that you read the following sentence of my answer - I repost it here: some of them emanating from these wonderful neocons you pretend depart from- into: "your rather odd assumption that a critique of Guenon can only come from neocons is similarly misplaced".’ The suggestion in the first part – yours – is indeed that my critique comes from the political right; the second part – mine – says precisely this – that you think (wrongly) the critique I make is one coming from the political right. Such flawed understanding shows that you have missed – fundamentally – what is being said, a difficulty compounded by political theory being for you a closed book. Whilst in general I enjoy discussing political theory, I do assume a general level of competence on the part of those with whom I engage in debate. The latter condition, unfortunately, seems to be lacking where your ‘arguments’ are concerned: the impression you give is that a convincing argument consists of repeating something over and over again. It doesn’t. 31 December 2007 -- (Posted 31 December 2007 by 81.155.186.21 -- Writtenonsand (talk) 12:16, 1 January 2008 (UTC))
 * You're loosing it: I was underlining your reading of my "some of them" into your quite strange "can only come". You might understandably assume some level of competence from your counterpart; I'm just assuming, on my side, that my counterpart can read. Not to mention elementary logic. TwoHorned (talk) 20:40, 1 January 2008 (UTC)

Civility
To all Wikipedia contributors: Please familiarize yourself with and follow Civility - at its most basic: " Participate in a respectful and civil way. ... Wikipedians define incivility roughly as personally targeted behavior that causes an atmosphere of greater conflict and stress. " Wikipedia:Civility is an offical policy of Wikipedia (i.e., not optional.) Even conduct listed under "Petty examples" is not acceptable. If you are unable to follow the guidelines in this policy, then you should avoid editing Wikipedia articles or posting to Wikipedia Talk pages. There are many other venues on which your posts will be welcome. Remember: Theoretically, this is an encyclopedia. Let's strive for professionalism. '' "But he started it!" '' is not a valid excuse. -- Writtenonsand (talk) 12:00, 26 December 2007 (UTC)

Evola and Guenon
http://www.gornahoor.net/?p=21

In an interview conducted in the mid 1960s—Julius Evola: A Justified Pessimism—Evola provided a précis of his life's work. He answered all the questions very simply and it demonstrates how little his ideas changed in the preceding 40 years. This is how he answered the question about the influence of Guénon on his work:

Q In your book Il Cammino del Cinabar, where you laid out the genesis of your works, you acknowledged that the principal defender of the traditional worldview, Réné Guénon, exercised a certain influence over you, to the point that you have been called the "Italian Guénon". Is there a perfect correspondence between your thought and Guénon's? And don't you believe, concerning Guénon, that certain circles overrate Oriental philosophy?

A My orientation does not differ from Guénon's insofar as it concerns the value attributed to the World of Tradition. By the World of Tradition, we mean an organic and hierarchical civilisation in which all activities are oriented from above and are based on values that are not simply human values. Like Guénon, I wrote different works on traditional wisdom, studying their sources directly. The first part of my principal work, Revolt against the Modern World, is precisely a morphology of the world of tradition. There is also a correspondence between Guénon and me concerning the radical critique of the modern world. On this point, there are however some divergences between us. Given his "personal equation", in traditional spirituality Guénon assigned knowledge and contemplation ahead of action; he subordinated the royal to the sacerdotal. I, on the other hand, have endeavoured to present and emphasise the traditional legacy from the point of view of the warrior caste and to show the possibilities equally offered by the way of action. A consequence of this different point of view is that, while Guénon employs an intellectual elite as the base for the possible reconstruction of Europe, as far as I'm concerned, I am more inclined to speak of an order. The judgments that Guénon and I give to Catholicism and Freemasonry also diverge. I believe, however, that Guénon's formulation is not situated on the path of Western man, who is, in spite of everything, oriented especially toward action.

--- END ANSWER

This leaves no doubt that there is profound agreement between the two thinkers, both on the nature of Traditional societies and their quarrels with the contemporary world. ---But that's Evola alone--- What is omitted are the Traditional teachings on the primordial tradition, the primordial state, the constitution of man as spirit/soul/body, the four phases of the cosmic cycle, and so on. But a careful reading shows that their "divergences" do not represent an insurmountable opposition, but rather reflect the same thing from a different point of view.

While Guénon holds that the primordial tradition takes different forms in different eras and cultures, he does not account for those differences. Evola goes a step further with his concept of the "race of the spirit", such that a form that is suitable for one race may not be for another race.

The other divergence is related to the castes and the different spiritual stances appropriate to each one. Thus, Guénon describes the contemplative type of spirituality proper to the sacerdotal caste and Evola describes the one proper to the warrior caste. Their only difference, then, is the question of which one should be dominant. Once again, this can be resolved by the "race of the spirit": the Eastern races are dominated by the spirit of contemplation and the Western race by the spirit of action. This is all consonant with cosmic law, and is represented by the teachings of Taoism, which Evola valued highly.

Bear in mind that what Evola means by action is more like the wei-wu-wei of Taoism—action/non-action—and not the frenzied activity of the modern world that was represented by Futurism, an artistic movement that Evola in his youth was associated with, but seems to have left behind. Evola ends his answer on this note:

"Unfortunately, what characterises the modern European world is not action but its falsification, that is, an activism deprived of a foundation that is limited to the domain of purely material productions. They are detached from heaven under the pretext of conquering the earth, to the point of no longer knowing what action truly is." —Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.166.48.146 (talk) 11:48, 8 February 2008 (UTC)


 * Evola talks of convergence only about what he calls "the World of Tradition", by that he seems to mean the general values and social ambiance of traditional societies. This is only quite a small part of Guenon's work, a work that primarily focuses on the metaphysical doctrine. You also forget to mention that Evola's political involvement with fascist forces, probably the most distinctive part of a supposedly Guenon-Evola alliance from a political point of view, was clearly condemned by Guenon. So, what does remain ? A common perspective of the negative aspects of the modern world ? That's for sure, but this is quite insignificant compared to the wideness of Guenon's work, and the subjects he developped. Their divergence about action and contemplation is not an easy one: for Guenon "contemplation" is nothing else than "Knowledge", i.e. the metaphysical doctrine itself. The concept of "race of spirit" has absolutely no meaning in Guenon's perspective. TwoHorned (talk) 12:55, 19 February 2008 (UTC)

You are repeating the same old mantra ‘the world is flat, the world is flat’ that was addressed and disposed of above. What Evola and Guenon share with the political right is their attempt to recuperate tradition. It is really that simple. 6 March 2008 —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.152.117.174 (talk) 11:22, 6 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Guys, what's really simple is this: Guénon rejected modernity in the whole. Everything relating to it. Everything! If we don't understand this, we don't understand about what his conservatism really was. What's included in his rejection? Among other things, both current progressism and current conservatism. Why? Because what a modern day conservative believes is nothing more than what a 19th century progressist believed. It became "conservatism" only because progressists went forward in their denial of tradition, not because the old school progressists recognized they were wrong and went back to more traditional ways. What about the 19th century conservatives then, the defenders of absolute monarchy? Nope, sorry, that's modernity also, since absolute monarchy is nothing more than what the 16th century progressists believed in. For you to find anything in Western history towards which Guénon would give a thumbs up, you'd have to go as far as the 12th or 11th centuries, and even so, for him it'd still be a somewhat degraded political arrangement, as he'd see in them the seeds of later decadence.


 * Regarding Evola, he might have believed he was a full blown traditionalist, I don't know, but the fact is that he subscribed fascism, which is a purely modernistic political belief. To bring back tradition by employing the full set of post-Machiavellian politics? Including revolution? All under the banner of the also modern concept of nation states? Utter nonsense. Guénon would have nothing to do with it. Conservatives and "far-righters" who see themselves as somehow within the scope of tradition are just deceiving themselves. That they don't realize this to be the case, and persevere in pursuing their illusions of restoring a 19th or 18th century-style decadence in place of the 21st century-style one we have is just one more sign of how far into the kaly yuga we are. -- alexgieg (talk) 13:27, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * PS.: Moved down and slightly updated. -- alexgieg (talk) 12:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Project boxes
I've added the Philosophy project box, marking this article as being handled by the Metaphysics, Philosophy of Religion, Philosophers and Contemporary philosophy task forces (of which I'm a member). Contemporary both because Guénon lived in the Contemporary Age, and there's no going around it, but also because, even though he defends tradition against Modernity, he does so from the perspective of someone who passed through it, looked back and didn't like what he saw, thus from a (literal) post-modern outlook.

Still about the Philosophy box, I classed the article as Start level, since there's still a lot to be added to the description of Guénon's (or "the Perennial", as both are valid since a NPOV article cannot prefer one classification over the other) critique of modernity, to "his" Metaphysics, and about his take on Mathematics. Also, since the Sophia Perennis is a very specialized field of both Philosophy and Comparative Religion, not to mention the fact it's meant to be for an intellectual elite only, not for the general public, I've set its priority as Low.

As for the Biography box, I think it has a good overall view of Guénon's life, but a lot must be said yet, thus B class. And since Guénon's influence is widespread, being not only a leading specialist in the field of comparative religion but also influential among lots of other fields, including politics, I set his importance as High.

By the way: as I'm not a member of the France project, I didn't touch its box. But from the project's Assessment page my guess is that the importance would be High, as Guénon would surely appear not only on a France-specific printed encyclopedia, but on a general printed encyclopedia as well. As far as the description of Guénon's relation to French intellectual landscape, though, the article is bare, and I'd class it as Stub. If someone reading this is in the France project and thinks this reasoning is valid, please make the appropriate changes.

As far as the Islam project goes, I also know that Guénon was a very important Sufi master in Egypt, called sheik by everyone who mattered there, with his works being studied in Islamic philosophy courses (I entered one once, and his texts were in the reading list), but that's it. But the article says nothing about this. So, I'd rate it as High and class it as Stub. So, the same I said for the France box applies. If someone apt to edit it agrees with me, please do so. -- alexgieg (talk) 13:42, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Project on René Guénon
is a project intending at presenting a detailed exposition of René Guénon's work and bio. I will start soon, paragraph per paragraph. Any comments are welcome. English is not my mother language so please don't hesitate to correct any bad sentence I could write. Thanks. TwoHorned (talk) 18:05, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I've completed the first sections. TwoHorned (talk) 19:09, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

The question of the adequacy, pertinence, and relevance of the notion referred to as "Traditionnalist school" is now openly debated and criticized in France. This should appear in the article, in the "Criticism" section. Il will put soon all the info about this debate in the article. TwoHorned (talk) 19:07, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Some points:
 * Instead of a Guénon project, a broader Traditionalism one would be better. Over time it could develop into a task force of WikiProject Philosophy, and then into a full fledged portal.
 * It's not appropriate to do a full exposition of each of his books in his biography article itself. Rather, each one of his main books should have a one paragraph description with a linking to an article explaining the book in details.
 * The article, will this much empty stub sections, is hard to follow. I suggest you only add the sections when they're ready.
 * I don't think I agree with the changes you made to the infobox (disclaimer: I'm the one who added it). First, the school entry is mandatory for a philosopher infobox, otherwise it shows it's missing, and Guénon mas in fact a follower of those listed, not to mention the founder of the Traditionalist one. Second, "metaphysics" (in the header) isn't a region. It's either Western philosophy, Eastern philosophy, or both. Third, even though one might not like Evola much, he was one of the major figures influenced by Guénon, so he should appear in the "influenced" section. Fourth, Guénon had many more influences than the three you maintained in the box. Keeping only these three doesn't make justice either to Guénon's works, or to those authors. So, evidently, I suggest we revert the box to the way it was. :-) But I'd like to read your comments before I proceed doing that.
 * That's it, basically. -- alexgieg (talk) 20:50, 25 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Hello alexgieg. I answer you points as they appear:
 * The relation of Guénon to whats is called "Traditionnalist school" is now an openly debated question in some intellectual milieux in France. See for instance Esprit, February 2007, the review done by Daniel Lindenberg. Guenon never mentionned nor promoted any "Traditionnalist school". Even Antoine Faivre is now extremely careful about using the word, mostly because of the political misunderstandings put forth by Sedgwick. So attaching the word to Guenon is debatable.
 * There is no exposition of his books in the bio, instead, four of his books are used to describe the core of the metaphysical doctrine, but not in the bio. I'll put them soon, you'll get a better idea.
 * Ok for the stub sections. I put the titles to trigger any reactions.
 * About the infobox, I didn't agree on its previous state. As a matter of fact, scholarly studies have very few debated about Guénon, because of his firm departure from the university. He main biograph, Paul Chacornac, states firmly that no scholar label applies to him. And, Guenon states firmly that he is not a philosopher. May be we can discuss about that because it's a real issue.
 * About Evola, please have a look of the Esprit article I pointed out.
 * Of course, I'm open to any discussion. Tell me what you think. Thanks. TwoHorned (talk) 21:32, 25 May 2008 (UTC)

I have no access to French sources, much less to the French language (with which I struggle), so unfortunately there's no way I could look at your references. In any case, I can see that it might be difficult to label Guénon as a Traditionalist (in the sense of a school of thought) when he himself didn't explicitly do so, but as far as he said he was "exposing tradition", it could be applied to him in the sense that he was the initiator of the movements (plural) that spread from this exposition, such as Schuon's own Religio Perennis.

As for the infobox and Guénon's status as a philosopher, there's no denying that he was a realist (as in, defender of the traditional metaphysical outlook in opposition to the proto-modern, modern and contemporaneous approaches such as nominalism, rationalism, empiricism, idealism etc.), that he was a neoplatonist (explicitly so, as he defends the concept of hypostatical emanations from the Absolute), that he was a systematic anti-dualist, that he dwelt in the philosophical problems of the infinitesimal calculus, inclusively bringing up the way Leibniz discussed them, that he specifically criticized (in rigorous philosophical fashion) this and that philosophical view while defending a distinct solution, and so on and so forth. Guénon might have despised the academic world of his time, but his books are written in a philosophical mood, and thus are de facto philosophical books, if for no other reason that metaphysics, even of the Neoplatonic kind, is still a field of Philosophy. Thus, the best I can come with is that he spoke of himself as not being a philosopher as meaning he wasn't a philosopher in the same sense that academics from Philosophy departments all around are philosophers. Because it simply isn't possible to take what he wrote and accept his own opinion that it isn't philosophy without, in the same movement, removing from the field everyone who worked on it before the 13th century. If Guénon wasn't a Philosopher, neither were Plato or Plotinus, and this really makes no sense.

About Evola, it's easy: either he was influenced by Guénon's works, even if he later went against them; or he wasn't. If he was influenced, it doesn't matter whether he later went against it, his name still fits in the "influenced" field, much like Aristotle's name fits into Plato's influenced list, Occam's into Aquinas's, Nietzsche's into Schopenhauer's, the Frankfurtians' into Nietzsche's etc. The influenced can go completely against who influenced him that he'll still have been influenced by him. So, if Evola was influenced by Guénon he should be mentioned there. If we only list who was in full or almost full accord with Guénon, it won't be a NPOV list.

By the way: I noticed you removed the entry about Guénon being interested in Occultism. This isn't accurate either. He was a member of Papus' Gnostic Church in his youth, and even though he left occult practices behind pretty early, his first books were thoroughly critical analysis of occult movements, mostly Theosophy, and he remained for all his life interested in Masonry. So, it's no denying he was interested in Occultism, even if mostly as one of its main enemies. -- alexgieg (talk) 22:28, 25 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hello alexgieg. I would see no objection for replacing "metephysics" by "philosophy" in the infobox, but there are many difficulties about this kind of classification in the case of Guenon. Guenon stated firmly that he was not a philosopher (see for instance ITSHD, part II, Man and his becoming..., foreword, etc.) Guenon departed from scholar studies. In return, the university didn't get interested by Guenon very much. One of the few scholars that studied Guenon, J.-P. Laurant from EPHE in Paris, does not mention Guenon as a philosopher.
 * Now on "perenialism", the term was introduced, before 1995, by specialists in comparative religion to make some distinctions about various notions linked to "esoterism" (cf. Antoine Faivre et Karen Claire Voss, Numen 42, 1995, pp. 75-76). However, Faivre recognizes that the word has two distinct significations (cf Western esotericism and the science of religion, Antoine Faivre et Wouter J. Hanegraaf eds. Peeters, p. 9). Wouter J. Hanegraaf (Western esotericism and the science of religion, p. 26) refers in preference to Schuon than Guenon about "perenialism". R. Fabbri notes that the situation has become even more confuse since the works of Sedgwick, who associates the notion to reactionary movements, of which Evola was a representative, but not Guenon. Articles in the english wikipedia are very confuse on these matters.
 * Evola was certainly influenced by Guenon, but not on the political side. Guenon never engaged into politics.
 * I also strongly doubt that we can refer to Guenon about "realism" in the philosophical sense. Guenon was certainly not neither a platonist nor a neo-platonist: he mentionned at many times the limitations of greek thought on questions that go beyond ontology.
 * The question of the "influences" on Guenon is quite complicated and difficult. I can give a few references if you want, to make you understand all the complexities of the subject.
 * About occultism, please read what I wrote in the beginning of the bio. Guenon's entry in the occultist milieux has been commented by himself: ("I've gone in the Gnosis milieux only to destroy them"). It's certainly innacurate to describe Guenon as influenced by Occultism: he himself wrote that he had the intention to write a book entitled "The occultist fallacy", but he finally resigned after having drawn the conclusion that french occultism had completely disappeared. His passage in the occultist milieux is now well documented: Guenon entered the occultist milieux to: 1) draw towards him the best individuals (Barlet, Gaita, Champrenaud, Pouvourville etc. 2) use it as a plateform to begin his publications 3) to gather information about pseudo-initiatic movements. Since the begining, his writings were completely opposite to occultism. TwoHorned (talk) 08:39, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

alexgieg, I've updated the infobox to take into account your remarks. TwoHorned (talk) 12:14, 26 May 2008 (UTC)


 * Hi again! I was in the middle of writing the reply below when I hit "save page" and saw an edit conflict (your update above). I'm posting what I wrote as is. So, sorry if you've already changed the infobox in a way I "argued" about below. :-)


 * So, here we go. By the way: I'm numbering the different subject topics to make things clearer.


 * 1) I guess the problem lies in the following distinction: if we understand "Philosophy" to mean what people in Philosophy departments at recognized universities do, then I'll agree with Guénon that he wasn't a philosopher. If, on the other hand, we understand "Philosophy" as being the huge field of study where philosophers try to reach conclusions about reality through discursive reasoning (more specifically, through dia-logoi), with "Academic Philosophy" being but a subset of it, then Guénon clearly made philosophy, even though his works go beyond it quite frequently.


 * I think what's important here is to distinguish an author terminology from the way the words are used outside his works. Guénon redefines many words. "Philosophy" is one among those. "Intellect", "metaphysics", "tradition" are others. That's why it doesn't help to say of him that he wasn't a "philosopher", that he was an "intellectual", drawing from his own terminology. It isn't the same as everyone else's, so using it doesn't carry meaning to those who don't already know his work.


 * 2) As for the word "traditionalism", I think the reverse reasoning applies. See: I agree that the word "traditionalism" is ambiguous, with very diverging meanings. But so is the word "phenomena", and that didn't prevent the very specific concept of "phenomenology" to develop and this word to hold its ground in front of the diverging meanings of the root word. Since the notions of tradition and sophia perennis are central to Guénon's thinking, it only makes sense to use them as the basis for an umbrella -ism or -logy. Particularly, I favor "perennialism", but what I find around is a consensus forming around "traditionalism". In any case, I can see how things might be more confusing in Europe, where Evola has an actual following, than they are here in Brazil, where he's almost a side note and people speak almost solely about Guénon, Schuon, Guénon and Schuon, and Guénon vs. Schuon. So, I have no problem admitting this perception of mine might not be valid for English-speaking countries.


 * Let's move to a more concrete realm to see if things become clearer. What do "Guénon-only" followers call themselves in USA and UK? What about "Guénon + Schuon" ones? And "Evola + someone else" followers?


 * 3) The "influenced" line in the infobox isn't about politics, but about a more general "intellectual influence" (in the non-guénonian meaning of the word, of course). Evola's involvement with fascism doesn't erase the intellectual influence Guénon had in his works. More, Evola's politics doesn't erase his merits as an intellectual, much like Heidegger's involvement with Nazism. Add both reasons and you'll see how Evola should indeed be mentioned there.


 * 4) Notice that Guénon saying that Greek thought is limited in questions beyond ontology implies that they were quite okay in questions about ontology. Sure, for Guénon you have on one side ontology, which deals with being, meaning with duality and multiplicity, i.e., what we experience through perception and reason; and on the other (or, rather, as the whole in relation to the part), the Above-Being, reachable through non-dual intellection alone. But as far as he does accept ontology, for example when describing the multiple states of being, he's a realist. There's no other name for this set of concepts.


 * 5) I'd be interested in the references on his influences, provided I can access them online. I'm really not on a position to access printed references. :-(


 * 6) The notion that Guénon entered occult circles to wreak havoc on them is quite interesting. If true, it's a very clever strategy. But notice that I didn't say Guénon was influenced by occultism, only that he was interested in it (the entry was in this infobox's field, not in the former). These are very different things. The typical militant atheist, for example, is "interested in" religion, even though in a purely negative fashion. Similarly, Guénon's "interest in" occultism would of the same kind, and thus should be listed there. -- alexgieg (talk) 13:26, 26 May 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) OK. I changed the infobox to reflect that, I think we agree on it now.
 * 2) There are different points here. A word like phenomena does indeed have different meanings, but one first problem with "traditionalism" is that the word designates first some movements that Guenon opposed strongly (see the chapter on traditionalism in "The reign of quantity..."). It's not like different meanings of a same word, it's like opposite significations. "Perennialism" is a word more recently introduced w.r.t. Schuon's views, and which is semantically applied to subjects related to some divergent points between Guenon and Schuon. I think the word is more commonly used in the anglo-saxon world, but there is a real debate on the accuracy and pertinence on this qualification w.r.t. Guenon. Making a statement in an infobox is quite non-neutral. Guenon never used the word "perenialism" nor "sophia perennis" in any of his articles and books. Guenon speaks of the "Primordial Tradition", a subject that is pervasive in some esoteric scriptures from the anciant times, but which has never been clarified in a formal way. And for a good reason: the subject is by itself meta-historical and mythological. In other words, symbolic, as the general notion of "centre" can be. There is no writing of Guenon asserting the fundamental identity between El Din Al Fitrah and the Sanatana Dharma, although any reader of Guenon will suspect a same esoterical meaning. About your concrete question, of course anyone can declare himself "guenonian" as well as "heideggerian" or "marxist" or anything else. The important point is that Guenon stated firmly that he did not create any school of thought. The "perenialism" word is dubious, and I'm not sure it will survive long.
 * 3)OK, but the influence of Guenon on Evola was precisely on the "non political" aspect. For anything else related to "action" and "knowledge", Evola and Guenon diverge firmly. I think I modified the infobox already, so we can say Guenon influenced Evola.
 * 4) Of course not. Denying or ignoring non-manifestation lead to naturalism or pantheism, and Guenon was not in that realm.
 * 5) I included a section in my plan. I'll provide some interesting refs there.
 * 6) This is true indeed, and can be referenced. All the things about OTR are quite enigmatic. Guenon's interest in occultism does not mean an intelectual interest, but something of a more "strategic" nature. Just have a look on his position as an anonymous writer in an anti-masonic journal while asserting the true esoteric nature of free-masonnry: he was there to gather inforamtion about Leo Taxil, among other things. Sedgwick never understood that, but there are many refs on that subject, I'll provide them in the redaction of the article. Best wishes. TwoHorned (talk) 16:41, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Replying:

1) Well, you wrote "metaphysics and philosophies". For the typical reader, it sound like a strange distinction of part and whole, like saying "karate and martial arts". I'd take only philosophies, but for the sake of completeness, how about "philosophies and esotericisms"?

2) Okay, I see your point and I have to agree. Someone following Guénon can call himself simply "guénonian" or take a term from his books and use it for this purpose, but these words cannot apply to he himself.

3) Excellent! Now it's a matter of not forgetting to make the very specific divergences between them clear in the text. :-)

4) But don't you think it's quite extreme to claim that Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, Augustine, Palamas, Dionysius etc., all of them strong ontological realists, were naturalists or pantheists? One thing doesn't contradict the other. You can have a perfectly well established hierarchy of the manifested without this going against the acknowledgment of an unknown and unknowable Source beyond dualistic reason. Even Aquinas recognized this before he died (too bad he didn't manage to write about it). So, I cannot see how your argument applies, neither in Guénon's case, nor in the unintended consequences towards all those other philosophers.

5/6) I'm looking forward to it. It's pretty clear you know much more about Guénon than I do, and for me, that our disagreement is pretty much about matters of expression. :-) -- alexgieg (talk) 17:15, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

Hello alexgieg,
 * 1) I agree. I modified the infobox accordingly.
 * 4) My mistake, I read you too fast in the first place. Of course Plato is not a naturalist nor a pantheist; the point is different here: how obscure was the origin of pre-socratic greek philosophy w.r.t. Indian metaphysics, it is clear that, at least on what we know about it, it does not seem to go beyond the Being, as seen as the principle of manifestation. Classical medieval theology share the same aspect and nobody would call it naturalist or panthesist, you're quite right, but the main point here is that, even if the origin of manifestation is not manifested itself, there is no consideration, in these systems, of the Absolute considered as beyond the principle of manifestation. Said in indian terminology, Paramatma is not considered. This makes quite a difference with the doctrine exposed by Guenon, and it makes even more difficult the assumption that Guenon was inspired by the anciant greeks.
 * 5/6) I'm sure our disagreements are, after analysis, completely inexistant. Thanks again. Be free to go on that discussion on my talk page if you will. TwoHorned (talk) 20:06, 26 May 2008 (UTC)

1) Thanks! I've added a small  for aesthetics. 4/5/6) Or in Christian terminology, Greeks knew the Son (Logos), but not the Father. Or, for Schuon, the Relative Absolute, not the Absolute itself. Yes, I can see your point. Thanks for bringing it up. I don't think there's a need for we to continue the discussion elsewhere. It's all pretty clear now. :-) PS.: I've also "stub'ified" the article so that people know it's a work in progress, and added some additional metadata. When you're finished, please delete the Inuse box I've put at the top, okay? -- alexgieg (talk) 12:55, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * Right. Since it will take me some time to write the article, I've changed the box to "revamp". TwoHorned (talk) 15:53, 27 May 2008 (UTC)
 * I take your point about René Guénon not describing himself as a philosopher, but I think it can be safely said that he is "an influential figure in the domain of philosophy" all the same. Robina Fox (talk) 17:11, 28 May 2008 (UTC)

Non-traditionalists influenced by Guénon
I propose to add references to non-traditionalists influenced or (partly) inspired by Guénon at some points during their careers (but not necessarily traditionalists themselves), such as Réne Daumal or Hakim Bey. Someone removed my addition with the argument that it was an "absurd correlation", but as for both their (early) interest in Guénon is well-documented, I can't see why this would be the case. I'm sure many more could & should be added, even if they later turned away from traditionalims. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Forward Observer of Death (talk • contribs) 09:02, 18 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Many people say they were themselves influenced by an author, but this is not acceptable w.r.t. WP sourcing principles. Links referenced by academic studies (not blogs etc.) must be provided here. In the case of H. Bey, it would also easy to find refs that deny the relationship. TwoHorned (talk) 17:42, 19 February 2010 (UTC)

Plagiarism
The very first sentence I looked at turned out to be plagiarism from here. Articles are supposed to tell us what reliable sources have said about a subject, not be a textbook on the subject. This may mean drastic changes to this article. Dougweller (talk) 12:45, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

well, the article is interesting as an essay, but it is a disaster as an encyclopedia article, as it was quite clearly written by a disciple of Guenon's, even disregarding "plagiarism" issues (it's not plagiarism if the source is given). --dab (𒁳) 19:29, 13 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Where I have found copying, the source was not given, and if the translated books are, as I believe, in copyright, it's copyvio. Dougweller (talk) 21:10, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

Even the original books are in copyright. Yes, we cannot tolerate unattributed copy-paste dumping of text. I understand you have cleaned out the offending material. That's fine with me. Still I am not sure in how far we had actual plagiarism, the "Synthesis on the other hand is carried essentially from within" part you objected to was more like a very close paraphrase of the work under discussion. When you discuss a work by the author, and then "summarize" it by giving verbatim quotes interspresed with "according to Guénon" and the like, you are doing a terrible job as an editor, but you are not strictly speaking plagiarizing text. It would be plagiarism if you took a text about Guénon, by a third author, and presented this as your own work in the article about Guénon without mentioning the author. Purporting to write about Guénon when you are actually just quoting him with the occasional "he said" thrown in is simply bad editing, but you are not ripping off any secondary source. Either way, the article is better off for your removals. --dab (𒁳) 18:09, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

It seems we are discussing mainly the contributions of, added after May 2008. --dab (𒁳) 18:14, 17 May 2010 (UTC)
 * Well, about the "plagiarism" and the example taken from "Synthesis", the context makes it clear that we are expositing Guenon's viewpoint here, and reproducing his sentence. I've not finished the article, and I will properly include the academic views on it (mainly: French EPHE + an american academic). I am doing it slowly, because I don't have time. But the academic perspective and criticism will be put here. Thank you. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  21:07, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Copyvio
A lot of this appears to be copyright violation, eg from where the section that had "so many tabaqāt or 'categories' of terrestrial existence, which coexist and in a way interpenetrate," and much more was copied from. I'm deleting the entire section. Dougweller (talk) 20:33, 14 May 2010 (UTC)
 * And the science of letters is copyvio from . Dougweller (talk) 20:37, 14 May 2010 (UTC)

"Quotefarm"
Yes, an article should not be a quote farm, but, in this case precisely, the motivation is essential to a presentation of the Guenon's works, because of the importance of terminology, as per the author itself. Thanks for not deleting or discussing here. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  19:58, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Man and his Becoming accoring to the Vedanta
The entire section is not copyvio, only a small part needs quotation. It's done now. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  20:51, 19 May 2010 (UTC)

Synthesis ?
"e syncretic new age religions mentioned above to the advent of the psychedelic drug culture and UFO sightings, which as Charles Upton has argued, may sometimes be a descent of demonic forces from the subtle realm." Sounds like it to me. 1Z (talk) 17:07, 20 August 2011 (UTC)

Way too much information
Wikipedia is meant as a resource for general readers, not for providing intricate details about obscure topics for specialist audiences. This article at present goes into too much detail about Guénon's ideas and theories, making the article excessively long. The amount of content also raises concerns about original research, although various sources are provided, and I haven't been through them to check them against the text. But in short, this article is currently not up to Wikipedia standards, and the best way of improving it would be to cut it down to a more reasonable length and remove the excessive detail about his theories. I've added the overdetailed template to the article for this reason. Robofish (talk) 16:28, 14 July 2013 (UTC)
 * Hello. Section "Writings: an overview" is intented to give a brief description of his writings. But it would be not enough for giving a taste of all the thematics encompassed by Guenon. There is no original research in the article. Thanks, - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  20:19, 6 August 2013 (UTC)

All this horseshit overdetailed summarizing of Guenon's boring works. Absolutely no mention whatsoever of the dodgy politics surrounding his thought. Fail. 02:32, 13 March 2014 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.231.228.33 (talk)

Agreed that this article needs a haircut. In pdf form, it's nine whole pages longer than the Isaac Newton article in pdf. Chattanoogan (talk) 18:49, 26 August 2014 (UTC)
 * This entire article is very confusing and too long. Can we boil it down to the brass tacks? What was his philosophy in one paragraph? We don't need his life's works described verbatim. Popish Plot (talk) 21:30, 25 February 2015 (UTC)

Splitting of the article
To make the article lighter, I've moved the "definition of terms" in another article and placed a link to it. Removed the tags accordingly. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  08:04, 23 April 2014 (UTC)

Overly detailed tag
Hello,

I disagree with the presence of this tag after the splitting: for instance Immanuel Kant article does not have it and is 125,213 bytes, i.e. approx. the same as this article. Thanks, - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  14:31, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * The Kant article has 60k of readable prose, this article over 78k. Furthermore, the Kant article, though in need of improvement, is far more appropriately balanced and more consistent in its use of summary style. Nikkimaria (talk) 14:41, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "Summary style" is unrelated to "Overly detail". And 60k is not very far from 78k. So I don't see any of your reasons for this tag here, except your personal evaluation that this article would be not "readable". Of course I admit and respect your opinion, but is it sufficient to put a tag on the article ? - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned   15:50, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * Summary style is "unrelated"? WP:DETAIL is a subsection of SS, which also includes such guidance as "Summary style is accomplished by not overwhelming the reader with too much text up front, by summarizing main points and going into more details on particular points (subtopics) in separate articles....Articles that go above [30k prose] have a burden of proof that extra text is needed to efficiently cover their topics and that the extra reading time is justified". And there is a significant difference between the prose sizes in terms of WP:SIZERULE. Nikkimaria (talk) 23:59, 23 April 2014 (UTC)
 * OK sorry. Then I'm going to apply the method of splitting to this article more systematically. Thanks. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  04:11, 24 April 2014 (UTC)

This article is still much too long and unencyclopedic. I suggest moving parts of the article to book articles or to wikiquote. This article is doing a big disfavour to Gueon, because not one in a 100 readers will have the patience to read this article - and will not pick up any interest in him. This is not Guneon's fault, but of this badly written and much too overlong article. --Calypsomusic (talk) 08:31, 19 May 2014 (UTC)


 * This article is very useful and absolutely encyclopaedic. For readers who "will not have the patience", the "summary" of the article is contained in "Biography" and "Writings".  — One of the readers who have had "the patience to read this article" (sorry for my poor English).95.31.81.226 (talk) 13:47, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

The article could be made shorter by at least removing the duplication of the bibliography (English and French) and by splitting some material into his book articles. What is wrong with that? --Calypsomusic (talk) 15:55, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * The two bibliographies are useful: one for the original texts, the other for english readers, and BTW this does not relate the article understanding. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  10:07, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Influence on fascism
Discussions on this talkpage have been made on Guenon and his influence on fascism (on Evola, but also on other fascists). But the article does not discuss these claims. At least his relations to Evola deserve to be discussed more.

The following sources may be partisan, but include some interesting discussion of this influence.


 * http://textosdeinteresse.blogspot.com/2008/05/spiritual-fascism-of-rene-guenon-and.html


 * Besides supporting Action Francaise, Fedeli claims Guénon wrote for the magazine that supported Mussolini called "Il Regimen Fascist". See Orlando Fedeli’s essay “A Gnose “Tradicionalista” de René Guénon e Olavo de Carvalho” --- If I understand him correctly he says Guenon published “ in this Mussolinian magazine 25 articles since 1934 up to 1940”. I don’t know if this is true or not. As far as I can make out Fedeli is a Traditionalist Catholic or close to it, with a similar sort of bigoted narrow-mindedness that one often encounters in that school of thought.


 * Also during this period in the 1920s Guenon also got involved with “ Action Francaise “, a group which some consider to be the first fascist group to ever exist.


 * I showed in this section here how Guenon and not Evola was the origin of Traditionalism’s rather close, if ambiguous, relation to fascism.


 * But Evola was first and foremost a Guenonian, and a spiritual fascist.
 * Indeed, Evola was merely following the pattern already set out by Guenon when he created spiritual fascism.


 * Umberto Eco lists 14 characteristics of Ur-Fascism. Guenon, Schuon and Evola are guilty of most of them.


 * In Umberto Eco’s definition Guenon, Schuon Evola and Dugin should be called an “Ur-fascist”


 * According to Marie France James who states that René Guénon, knew “Ferdinand Gombault, doctor in scholastic philosophy, during more than 30 years, until his departure for Cairo, these two intellectuals maintained regular contact and both were partisans of the Action Francaise”


 * http://traditionalistblog.blogspot.com/2014/03/traditionalism-and-new-right.html
 * Guénon's writing on Hinduism contributes to the New Right conception of Indo-European paganism, he thinks, but Evola in particular is enlisted to this end.


 * François also discusses what he calls "Nordic Traditionalism," a little known phenomenon that he says draws on Guénon's regard for a supposed original Hyperborean tradition. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calypsomusic (talk • contribs) 16:13, 21 May 2014 (UTC)
 * These refs are blogs, not reliable sources and just personal opinions. The discussion about the relations between Evola and Guenon has been addressed by recent french books, some of them mentioned above, some other not, and all this discussion about "right-wingness" has been dismissed. In fact, it was raised by some far-right milieux who wanted to link Guénon with their opinions. All this non-sense has been clarified and this discussion does not exist anymore (easily sourcable in french, for instance David Gattegno, "Guénon, Qui suis-je? ", or A. Lefranc, "Julius Evola contre René Guénon", La Règle d'Abraham  21, 2006).  Only U. Ecco criticism can be included here, I will include it soon, and it was mainly about the problem of "sourcing" in the works of Guenon. Also, for your information, it is not Guenon, but Evola who wrote the "25 articles..." and the publication in question was precisely "Ur", to which Kremmez also contributed. But Guenon never wrote an article there, nor he wrote anything in any fascist publication... - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned   10:11, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

"Traditionalist school" + "conversion" to Islam.
The term "traditionalist school" was not coined by Evola nor Coomaraswamy, but by F. Schuon and R. Sedgwick long time after Guenon's death. Guenon did not use it, and it is criticized. It must be introduced in the article, but probably not in the lead. The "conversion" to Islam is even more problematic: the subject is fully mentioned in the article; Guenon himself said it never converted, for reasons he explained himself. Moreover he was initiated not only to islamic esoterism, but also to Taoism and to lineage related to Adi Shanka according to his authorized biographers (see for instance P. Sérant's book, among others, or D. Gattegno's). - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  11:56, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Lead
The lead must mention these things:

--Calypsomusic (talk) 11:57, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
 * his relation to Catholicism — Preceding unsigned comment added by Calypsomusic (talk • contribs) 12:15, 23 May 2014 (UTC)
 * his relation to Islam and Sufism
 * his relation to Hinduism, or his influence/role in transmission of Hindu thought in Europe, and to other traditions (Taoism,Buddhism...)
 * his relation to Evola, and claims about influence on fascism
 * his relation to Traditionalism, and claims about influence on fascism
 * his relation to Coomaraswamy
 * influence on Schuon, and on others
 * Calypsomusic I agree with you on the mention of it, some of them are already in the article, but the lead must focus on general ideological orientation of an author, not personal details of his life. For instance the last three points can be developed in the "reception" section, but certainly not in the lead. The first three not: there is no reason to insist on christianity or islam in a lead, given the other elements of his life. These elements are in a section in the article about it. More importantly, these topics are subject of discussions among the primary sources and these sources all consider it to be mostly irrelevant w.r.t. the concepts developed by Guenon, which should be exposed by the lead mainly. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  12:28, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

Aleksander Dugin
René Guénon is one the main influences to many on the New Right like Aleksander Dugin. Reliable sources say this. This article LRA " André Lefranc, « Julius Evola contre René Guénon » is about Evola not Dugin. The other articles is published by LRA. I have doubts that LRA is a reliable source. But what does the article say about Dugin? --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 20:57, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Can you also explain why LRA is a reliable source? --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 20:57, 21 June 2017 (UTC)
 * 1) LRA: one recognized source on free masonnry and traditional studies. 2) "Neo-Vedanta": certainly not, as Guénon wrote a full chapter against it. 3) Fabbri: notable author. 4) New-Right categorization: no, because this affiliation is not recognized by many sources. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  21:55, 22 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm interested to see which chapter in which publication. Regards,  Joshua Jonathan   -  Let's talk!   03:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)


 * I'm starting to think you are trying to sanitize an article with removing all reference to the New Right. There is no consensus yet to remove the sections on Dugin and Evola. Fabbri has no PhD degree, no academic position. He is just a fringe author with a fringe website. How is he notable? --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 06:39, 23 June 2017 (UTC)


 * 1) LRA is not a reliable source because it is not a peer reviewed academic journal. It has zero impact factor. It is not even in the journal rankings. Same is true for Cahiers de l'unite. 2) Guenon is not a source we can use. We need third party sources (not from Guenon himself about himself) 3) Fabbri is a fringe author, he has not even a PHD. 4) It is widely recongnized he is major influence on Evola and New Right. 5) You still not have replied to Johan about his question! --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 15:03, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Categorization
Julius Evola is categorized in New Right due to his works and influence. The same is valid for Guenon. Reliable sources say Guenon has influenced Evola and the New Right. It is still valid even if some dispute it. Get consensus on talk before revert. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 06:53, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Defintion of Neo-Vedanta from wikipedia is: term "to characterize interpretations of Hinduism that developed in the 19th century. Some scholars argue that these modern interpretations incorporate western ideas[4] into traditional Indian religions"
 * Guenon was also interpreting Hinduism in the 19th century incorparting his (Western) ideas into it. You have not replied to Jonathan in which chapter and which publication, but you cannot use Guenon as a source (see the comment in the edit summary from Jonathan about original research). --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 07:18, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

Wrong assertion on Guénon's publications
User:Dekacarandaebonelm has inserted a sentence which says that Guénon has written some of his articles in one Evola's journal. This is utterly false, Guénon never wrote articles in any Evola's paper or journal. The given reference does not say that. So User:Dekacarandaebonelm, give us the list of Guénon articles supposedly written in Evola's paper, with their true ref and publication number. I can tell you such a list does not exist. The truth is quite different: Evola has asked Guénon if he could quote and give excerpts of his already published articles in the "cultural section" of one journal, years 1934 and 1935. On the links between Guénon and Evola, your sources are completely biaised and outdated. A correct academic reference on these is this one among others (in french). Moreover the insertion of category "Neovadanta" is not acceptable, as Guénon publicly criticized this movement in his books and article reviews. Third, you have deleted valuable references of LRA. Lastly, the opinion of Sedgewick is now contested by numerous articles. So you are basically trying to do POV-PUSHING here, using wrong arguments. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  11:41, 23 June 2017 (UTC)

1) Source is: Julius Evola, Ricognizioni: uomini e problemi (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1974). 2) You are only using and proposing sources written by Guenon or his disciples, and published in third rate magazines. 3) You cannot use Guenon as a source for himself. 4) Hedgewick is one of the few reliable sources about Guenon, the ones you propose are not reliable sources. They are either Guenon himself, or his disciples, and unreliable sources. 5) the book by Accart has also been criticized for ignoring Guenons relations to the far right, see Christian Bouchet in Réfléchir et agir, autumn 2007. It is not a reliable source. 6) LRA is not reliable source. It has zero impact factor. It is not even in the journal rankings. same is true for cahiers de l'unite. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 15:08, 23 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Johan and me have agreed that there needs to be written about the influence on the New Right like about Alexander Dugin. Only you are against it. Consensus is now to have it included. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 15:22, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * The refernce about Evola is this : Julius Evola, Ricognizioni: uomini e problemi (Rome: Edizioni Mediterranee, 1974). Evola writes: he consented to having extracts from his writings published with his signature as articles in a special cultural section — unique in its kind — that we edited in the years 1934-1943: “Diorama,” in the Cremona newspaper Regime fascista. In any case, Guénon belongs in essence to the culture of the Right. His work is a radical negation of democracy, socialism, and individualism. He goes even further, into areas barely touched upon by current Right-wing critiques. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 15:34, 23 June 2017 (UTC)
 * So these are only extracts of already published articles, not articles published in Evola's journal, so you were writing something completely erroneous. The articles i have given are totally reliable sources (Geay has a PhD thesis on the subject), and C. Bouchet is definitely not a reliable source on Guénon: he is not an academic, he is into extreme-right politics. So what you are dointg here, is using people from the extreme-right to justify their claims that Guénon influence them. This is not how WP works. I revert, keeping only your acceptable references (as opposed to you, you deleted all the references I gave, which are reliable). Sedgwick's work on Guénon has been highly contested by recent french academics. You revert of User:Megalodon35 is wrong, as is your link with "neovedanta". Lastly, your introduction of defamatory content, used by quoting a neo-facist involved in terrorist actions is totally against the rules of WP: this is just an isolated quotation, whose content has been challenged by many academic sources. Isolated defamatory content is not allowed on WP; unless you find a consensus on this, which is not the case here. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned  14:29, 24 June 2017 (UTC)


 * Extracts from his writings can mean anything, it could also mean articles. Why you delete also rest of the sentences about Evola? I have not seen yet a reliable source that claims that Sedgewick is contested by serious academics. This source from a Guenon critic says that the book is flawed because it goes not far enough in its criticism of Guenon! The book is reliable source published by Oxford University Press.
 * You revert of User:Megalodon35 is wrong, as is your link with "neovedanta".
 * No. Revert of Megalodon35 is correct because User Nikkimara and later also Megalodon35 agreed to this edit. There is a consensus of three people for removing the line from the infobox. And you have not replied to Johans qeustion above.
 * this is just an isolated quotation, whose content has been challenged by many academic sources. Isolated defamatory content is not allowed on WP
 * No, you have not said which sources have challenged this. What do you mean by "isolated content"? Defamotory content is only your interpretation and is allowed in wikipedia (this is not a BLP article).
 * the references I gave, which are reliable
 * No, I have explained above they are not reliable. It is not a reliable source because it is not a peer reviewed academic journal. It has zero impact factor. It is not even in the journal rankings. You can check the journal rankings here . You will see that it is not even indexed! It is as if it does not exist. It is because it is not a recognized academic journal. It is no reliable source.
 * The consensus is now to keep relation to New Right (like Dugin). Johan and me have agreed to keep relation to new right, so you have no consesus.--Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 15:18, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * I have now removed Bouchet, because like your sources from LRA and Cahiers, they are not published in reliable source.--Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 15:33, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * Your edits are based on one or two authors whose thesis have been challenged by numerous academic sources, most of them in french, my native language, this is probably why you don't know them and depict an outdated portray of the subject. For instance S. François, from EPHE institute, writes that the real influence of Guénon was in intellectual and artistic milieux (S. François, a Nouvelle Droite et l’écologie : une écologie néopaïenne ? Revue d'histoire politique 2009/2 (n° 12)), and the claims of right-extremists does not mean something real. The relations between Evola and Guénon on the intellectual side are now completely elucidated, and there is definitely no influence. The refs I have given are well known sources. And let me recall that your first assertion about the publication of Guénon articles in Evola's publication was completely wrong, as proven by the sources. But i see that you persist, by now writing that Guénon published extracts", which is wrong: only Evola took excerpts. So you are clearly trying to impose POV-PUSHING here. - TwoHorned User_talk:TwoHorned   16:02, 24 June 2017 (UTC)
 * S. Francois has not been cited by you in the article, and you are conviently omitting that he says that Guénon has also influenced the traditionalist milieux. The text is saying that Guénon consented to publish these extracts from his writing at the newspaper. It is you who is pov pushing by sanitizing the article from critical matters. You are also deleting that Guenon is part of the Tradionalism and that he influenced Evola, which is mainstream (see Sedgewick). Your view is fringe view and Original research that is unsourced. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 02:06, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Valois+Winter
Hi, Accart does not write that G. Valois was a close collaborator, but only that Guénon seeked his first book for publication. And please give the precise sentence on Winter in your reference: "La réception de l'acupuncture en France: Une biographie revisitée de George Soulié de Morant": on google books, I find neither Valois nor Winter quoted in it. Thanks, Matunga-mumbai (talk) 20:50, 13 July 2017 (UTC)

I have not time this week. But see this comment from Christian Bouchet (Christian Bouchet dans le numéro de Réfléchir et agir de l'automne 2007):


 * Quand Georges Valois rompit avec l’Action française pour créer le Faisceau, le premier parti fasciste français, René Guénon ne fut pas le moins du monde effarouché et il continua à faire confiance comme éditeur à la NLN – puis à la Librairie Valois – pour éditer ses œuvres . C’est sans doute en fréquentant Georges Valois que René Guénon fit la connaissance d’un de ses disciples peu connu bien que fervent : Pierre Winter.


 * C’est là que le mensonge par omission est particulièrement « voyant » pour qui connaît cette période. Il est étrange d’oublier que Valois fut fasciste. De même on reste pantois de constater que si Accart cite Winter près de soixante-dix fois, il oublie soigneusement dans la biographie qu’il en donne de préciser que ce médecin fut un des dirigeants du Faisceau, puis du Parti fasciste révolutionnaire avec Philippe Lamour, que Le Corbusier lui-même milita avec eux dans les premiers groupuscules fascistes et que la revue Plans fut fondée par les anciens dirigeants du PFR quand ils sabordèrent leur parti. De surcroît, Plans, bien qu’étant une revue de réflexion, ne rejeta jamais totalement l’action politique et eut de nombreux contacts avec diverses manifestations du « fascisme de gauche » comme les JONS espagnoles de Ramiro Ledesma Ramos et les nationalistes révolutionnaires allemands d’Otto Strasser et d’Harro Shultze-Boysen. Enfin, l’« ami Lagardelle » de Winter n’est pas non plus une amitié neutre… Il s’agit en effet d’Hubert Lagardelle, un syndicaliste révolutionnaire de premier plan qui adhéra en 1925 au Faisceau, et dont Benito Mussolini disait, en 1932, dans sa Doctrine du fascisme : « Dans le grand fleuve du fascisme, vous trouverez les filons qui remontent (…) à Lagardelle du Mouvement socialiste » . En 1942, il devint ministre du Travail de l'État français dans le gouvernement Pierre Laval (ce qu’Accart nomme pudiquement « travailler pour » !). En 1943, il démissionna du gouvernement et devint rédacteur en chef du journal collaborateur de gauche La France socialiste. Cette collaboration indéniable entraîna, en 1946, sa condamnation à la prison à perpétuité. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 00:10, 14 July 2017 (UTC)

Section on Reception
I am sorry: I have changed the part on "Reception" in a rather chaotic way but this section was a disaster (and should be changed again). It has been written by somebody or several people who have not read Guénon and who just follow a highly controversial article by Daniel Lindenberg on Guénon (and similar sources). I don't know this Lindenberg well, but he seems to be a provocative journalist who wrote several polemical books and articles. I clarify a few points:

- It is totally wrong to say that there is any form of antisemitism and anti-Judaism in Guénon's work. Guénon states clearly that Judaism is a perfectly orthodox spiritual tradition (in "the King of the World" for instance). In particular, he has a very high opinion of Kabbalah. Nowhere, Guénon claims that Judaism is at the origin of the degeneration of the modern world. Only in two sentences in his work, he stresses the influence of some Jews, who lost their own tradition, (like Bergson and Freud) on the development of the modern world but you find much more critics of people with christian (or other religious) roots who lost their tradition in his books. He says that the influence of peoples who lost their religion is different if their tradition comes from a nomadic (like the Jews) or sedentary (like other Europeans) tradition. He never says that Bolshevism is Jewish! There is one sentence in "East and West" where he says that there are a lot of Jews in Bolshevism but in his main work on the subject "Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power" he does not make any link between Bolshevism and Jews.

- Guénon never believed in the Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory. He was himself a Freemason all his life! He explicitly says that Judaism and Freemasonry were both victims of the modern world. He says to his readers not to believe in this theory (there is one famous letter cited by Xavier Accart in "Le renversement des clartés" for instance).

- the relation with the Action française was presented in a completely ridiculous way (just to try to make a link to Fascism). When Guénon had links with the Action française, many Catholics were close to this movement (the third republic was very anticlerical). Most of these Catholics (like Guénon) did not subscribe to the Charles Maurras's thought who was an agnostic. The major Catholic philosopher, Jacques Maritain was a member of the Action française. Guénon was interested in having links with these circles not for political reasons or by antisemitism. His goal was to convince the Catholic Church (through Maritain mainly) to revitalize Christianity through a dialogue with oriental traditions (he explained this explicitly in "East and West"). He wanted also a rapprochement of the Catholic church with the regular Freemasonry. He tried to convince the Catholics (especially Maritain) that the Freemasonry was (at its origin) the esoteric part of Christianity. It was a complete failure and Maritain became one of his worst enemies. In addition, it must be added that Guénon was already Muslim and a Freemason at that time! Obviously, most of his "friends" of the Action française ignored that. When the Vatican condemned the Action française, the Catholics left this movement, which became a purely nationalist movement. Guénon supported the Vatican and wrote "Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power". After this publication, Guénon was completely rejected by the Action française.

- Evola has never been his "main collaborator". They just exchanged some letters (Guénon exchanged letters with hundreds of people). Guénon was highly critical of Evola and his work (there are many articles on this subject by Patrick Geay, Xavier Accart, Jean-Louis Gabin, etc.). The section said that "Guénon consented to having extracts of his writings published in the fascist newspaper Regime fascista, a newspaper curated by Evola", which is true, but anecdotic since Guénon always refused to publish the books and articles of Evola !

- It is true to say that Bergier and Louis Pauwels said that Hitler is Guénon plus the 'Panzerdivisonen' but Louis Pauwels recognized a little bit later that it was a pure nonsense (on the radio when Paul Sérant forced him to admit that there is no link between Hitler and Guénon).

- There is a long part on the "influence" of Guénon on the New right. That's true that some authors of the new right like Dugin cite Guénon but it concerns only authors who are much closer to Evola than to Guénon (Dugin is nationalist, antisemitic and against the Freemasonry: all these points are incompatible with Guénon's thought). Anyway, Alain de Benoist, the founder of the New Right declared in 2013 on the radio that the influence of Guénon on his political school has been very weak and that he does not consider him as a major author.

There were a lot of confusion like this (I did not change everything yet) coming from the article by Lindenberg. The main problem of this article (as all the people who want to make a link with Guénon and the far right) is that they mix      Evola and Guénon. All the points listed above (antisemitism, Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory, influence on the new right) are true for Evola but not for Guénon. All the followers of Guénon have been complaining about this for ages. Paul Sérant called this the "legend of a facist Guénon". Gatti fabien1 (talk) 19:04, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

One last point : for those who think that they find "reliable" sources on internet making a link between Guénon and fascism or New right, please FIRST try to read Guénon a little bit and SECOND try to understand him a little bit. One can find anything on internet to justify anything! Gatti fabien1 (talk) 19:28, 23 July 2017 (UTC)

Gatti, please read WP:VNT. Wikipedia reflects current published debate in reliable sources. Daniel Lindenberg qualifies as a reliable source, but many sources still in the article do not (LRA, R. Fabbri, Patrick Geay...). LRA and like are self-congratulatory or cultish sources, not academic sources from reputable academic journals. Before removing Daniel Lindenberg, these sources should have been removed. I have added back the reception from Evola, Eliade and Schmitt. These are important examples on the reception of Guenon and should be mentioned in the article. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 14:57, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Gatti, you claimed that Guenon and Evola "only" exchanged letters. But Furlong writes: "they continued to correspond, to write for one another's publications and to review one another's books, until Guenon's death in 1951."(Paul Furlong, Social and Political Thought of Julius Evola, 2011, Routledge.) --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 15:19, 19 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Guenon reviewed some of Evola's books (sometimes with a critical undertone) and they exchanged letters. This is documented and that is what D. Gatti explained. What are you trying to accomplish here ? Unamroma (talk) 21:10, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Unamroma's edits
I have reverted Unamroma's edits. They were putting back the massive copyvios in the article. There is no consensus to have copyvios in the article, and they have been removed previously many times by admins and other editors. See this comment from an admin and other places.

Unamroma was also removing well sourced information on Guenon, and removing maintenance tags from the article. They were also removing the same category from the article that TwoHorned was disputing.

I suggest to discuss on talk before making changes, and don't do massive changes at the same time (especially if they are reverts to banned user versions). Curiously so far, each and all of Unamromas edit have reinstated the preferred version of banned user TwoHorned, and he has even shown the same behaviour in his comments too. If an editor behaves exactly like a banned user, he can be blocked as a sock on behavioural evidence. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 10:11, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * Sorry but the massive changes have been done by you, to a point relevant to vandalism. If you want to do some changes, you discuss them here first. Unamroma (talk) 12:32, 22 August 2017 (UTC)


 * The last person who has defended the massive copyvios in this article was TwoHorned. And you have also removed sourced information, like for example the sourced text about Guenon's opium use, without giving a reason for the removal.


 * You have to give an explanation for each of your changes, and don't do large reverts to the preferred versions of banned sockmaster TwoHorned.
 * Please explain the reason for the reintroduction of the copyvios which were previosuly removed by admins (and that were put back into the article by TwoHorned )
 * explain reason for removal of each sourced content --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 19:46, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I didn't see copyvios in the version prior to your vandalism. If there are some, please indicate them one by one. I won't start from your vandalized version. The previous version was stable for a long time and used by students. The opium thing is secundary in comparison and can be adresses later. Unamroma (talk) 20:03, 22 August 2017 (UTC)


 * Ok, let's discuss the issues separately. I will revert your removals of sourced content but keeping the copyvios in the article. Then we can first discuss these content changes. After that, we can discuss about the copyvios.--Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 20:11, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * What is your disagreements with the current version (which does not include the copyvio issue)? If you want to make changes to this version, please discuss on talk first. We can discuss the copyvios later. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 20:22, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * No problem for me about the opium thing, although Sedgewick writes that it is "speculatin" and that he quit both opium and hashish before his first mariage. I disagree with the sentence "tired from..." and with many "primary sources tags. But you said that copyvio was the major issue. Let's start by this. Unamroma (talk) 20:53, 22 August 2017 (UTC)
 * I think we need to get a second opinion from an admin about the copyvios. --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 18:40, 23 August 2017 (UTC)

Sockpuppet investigations/TwoHorned
Please be aware that this article is frequently targeted by a sockmaster who has been investigated at SPI and subsequently blocked: Sockpuppet investigations/TwoHorned/Archive --Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 11:42, 26 August 2017 (UTC)

Section on Reception (following)
I go back to the section on reception where I see again some problems. In particular, the comparison with Mussolini (coming from Evola) is very displaced.

1) The readers must understand that there are some people from the extrme-right that try to hijack René Guénon since it gives them a guarantee of transcendence. On the other hand, there are people from the extreme-left (it is exactly the case of Daniel Lindenberg) who use this to discredit René Guénon. It is not new (it is what Paul Serant called "the legend of the fascist Guénon",  in "René Guénon" by Paul Sérant Le Courrier du Livre, 1977, Paris) but it is very strong nowadays due to the fact that the extreme-right is stronger and stronger in the west.

Guénon repeated on many occasions that he was apolitical and that he rejected in advance any political interpretation of his work. You can find some of his quotations on politics and on Evola on

https://oeuvre-de-rene-guenon.blogspot.fr/2012/06/tentative-de-recuperation-politique-de.html?m=0

In addition, most of his main followers had nothing to do with politics. You can simply have a look at the section on reception on the article on Wikipedia in French and see that the section focuses first on Michel Valsan,  Charles-André Gilis,  Henri Stéphane, Frithjof Schuon, etc. It is well-known that Guénon had a strong (apolitical) influence on three major groups: in the Catholic church, in the Free-masonnery and in Islam (more precisely in Sufism). This should constitue the core of a section on the reception of Guénon's work.

I do not deny that also some people (mainly from the extreme-right and through the influence of Evola) have read Guénon and were influenced politically by his critique of the modern world, but is is secondary since these authors are most of the time much closer to Evola than to Guénon.

It is important to distinguish clearly the work of Guénon from the one of Evola. This article is on Guénon not on Evola. Guénon was afraid of any confusion between these two works (letters cited by X. Accart for instance). Alain de Benoist who is the main figure of the New right in France and historically probably the founder of the New right in the west explained (type on youtube to find the source: "Radio courtoisie David Bisson") that the influence of Guénon on his political school has been globally very weak.

What I want to say is that a section on reception that focuses mainly on politics is very one-sided and suspicious.

2) Dekacarandaebonelm says that Daniel Lindenberg qualifies as a reliable source because he has an academic background and that Patric Geay is not reliable since non-academic and  his review (La Règle d'Abraham) self-congratulatory. This is wrong. I have nothing against academic sources. I am myself professor at the university, but academic is not synonymous of reliable secondary source. If we use only academic sources we cannot cite Guénon (his thesis was rejected and he rejected any academic works) and his main followers (Michel Valsan, Charles-André Gilis,  Henri Stéphane, Frithjof Schuon...) In addition Patric Geay has a PhD on Guénon's work !!! 1995 University of Bourgogne:

http://www.theses.fr/1995DIJOL001

His main book is based on his PhD thesis ("Hermes trahi", Editions L'Harmattan 2011).

In the reference "La Règle d'Abraham, September 2015, Ubik éditions" there is also a long article from Xavier Accart to reject any link between Guénon and the extreme-right and Xavier Accart has also a PhD on the influence of Guénon on artists !!! It is difficult to find more academic sources on the work of Guénon ! It does not mean that what they say is always true of course. Patrick Geay has perhaps the tendency to idolize Guénon and Xavier Accart to underestimate the extreme-right readers of Guénon but they are much more reliable than Lindenberg.

On the other hand, Daniel Lindengerg is a extreme-left author who has never really studied Guénon. He is a partial "tertiary" source who just wants to discredit Guénon by making a confusion of his work with Evola. The main part of the work of Guénon concerns metaphysics, symbolism and Esoterism and it is obvious that Lindenberg did not read it.

Note that Dekacarandaebonelm says that we must use academic sources (to justify the use of Lindenberg) and is bombing the article with purely non-academic sources (Evola, Charcognac).

Note also that combining a extreme-right author (Evola) and a extreme-left author (Lindenberg) to discuss the influence of an author (Guénon) who claimed to be apolitical all his life is very questionable.

3) Dekacarandaebonelm has added the following quotation by Evola:

According to Evola, Guénon belongs in essence to the culture of the Right and his work is a radical negation of democracy, socialism, and individualism.[91] Evola also wrote that Guénon's work has a radical hierarchical, aristocratic, anti-individualist, anti-social and anti-collectivist character and that Guénon's radical traditionalism is the same as Mussolini's ideal of the attainment of a permanent and universal reality.[94]

I have checked: the source [94] is wrong.

This is probably true that Evola wrote this, but putting this in a short section on the reception of Guénon is very strange. I don't know Evola well, but I know that he tried to influence Mussolini's regime during a short time. It was unsuccessful and Evola was very dissappointed. Except Evola, probably nobody read Guénon in fascist Italy (it is what Evola says in "Julius Evola. Rene Guenon a Teacher for Modern Times"). Evola was also very influenced by Plato and Dante. He said during his trial after world war II that if he is sentenced Dante and Plato must be sentenced. It is possible that he made comparisons also between Mussolini and Plato and Dante, but it would be a non-sense to put such a comparison in the section on the reception of Dante and Plato. It is true that Guénon was very anti-democratic but being anti-democratic is not the essence of the right. Evola's sentence refers to a very specific period of the fascist Italy. Nowadays, the right is not anti-democratic and there are only a few people in the extreme-right and the extreme-left who are anti-democratic.

These two sentences say much more about a brief period of Evola's life than about Guénon ! Guénon never mentioned Mussolini and was highly critical of the fascist regimes (he says in a letter to Coomaraswamy that the fascist regimes have no traditional ground).

Adding the sentence "Guénon's radical traditionalism is the same as Mussolini's ideal of the attainment of a permanent and universal reality" makes the contribution of Dekacarandaebonelm to this article very very suspicious.

Wikipedia is not a place to express political opinions and to try to orientate a work which is mainly apolitical to a very specific and partial political interpretation.

4) It is interesting to compare what Evola said with what Alain de Benoist said about Guénon.

The only "academic" work on the political influence of Guénon is the PhD thesis by David Bisson and his book " Une politique de l'esprit" Pierre-Guillaume de Roux Editions (19 avril 2013).

David Bisson said that the link between Guénon and Evola is problematic and recognized that he hesitated a lot before writing a chapter on the influence of Guénon on the New Right. After the publication of the work of David Bisson, "Radio courtoisie" (type Radio courtoisie and David Bisson on youtube to find the recording) invited him and Alain de Benoist. What Alain de Benoist said was much more interesting and more balanced than what Evola said : he said that the critique of the modern world by Guénon may interest right-winged people but he said that many people from the left, who do not believe in progress any more, may be also interested in Guénon. He stressed the fact that Guénon was a Muslim and a Freemason and that the centre of his thought is linked to Esotericism, all these points being in contradiction with most of the ideas of right. At the end, he said that the influence of Guénon on his political school has been globally very weak (this is true at least in France. The situation may different in Italy where the influence of Evola is much stronger).

We don't have to hide the influence of Guénon on authors such as Evola, Carl Schmitt and that he (at least his critique of the modern world) is read by people of the New Right, but trying to build a section on reception making Guénon an extreme-right author is not only wrong it is also very suspicious (see what I said at the beginning).

I have changed the citation of Evola. I put :

Guénon's deductions assume a radical character: hierarchical, aristocratic, anti-individualist, anti-social and anti-collectivist.

with a correct reference.

since it is globally accepted by everybody (and not the fact that "Guénon belongs in essence to the culture of the Right" and the ridiculous and contextual comparison with Mussolini's regime).

I keep the reference to Robert Horvath since it is true that Guénon rejected the principle of equality, democratism, liberalism, and socialism.

To conclude, this section should be improved a lot by adding a more important part on the "spiritual" influence of Guénon and also on his influence on artists before going to the political influence.Gatti fabien1 (talk) 12:50, 3 September 2017 (UTC)


 * Gatti, I have already added text on reception by French artists. It can be expanded. You can add more on the "spiritual" influence of Guénon and also on his influence on artists.
 * Evola is quoted because obviously he is important in this context. It does not imply that Evola's opinion on Guénon is "correct", but it is factual and noteworthy. See also WP:VNT.
 * Fabbri, LRA, etc are not reliable, academic sources. Fabbri has no PhD, Geay is not an academic professor, LRA is not a peer reviewed academic journal. It has zero impact factor. It is not even in the journal rankings. You can check the journal rankings here . And you are correct that we should not cite Guénon (see WP:PRIMARY). Also Accart's work has been criticized for being apologist work on Guénon's politics (see Robert Horvath review, Daniel Lindenberg...) There are also many cultish and self-congratulory authors and sources on Guénon that try to dissociate Guénon from politics completetly, which is also wrong.--Dekacarandaebonelm (talk) 11:25, 12 September 2017 (UTC)

I have gathered some important documents that should conclude the discussion. In particular, I have the proof that Daniel Lindenberg (invoked by Dekacarandaebonelm as an "academic" source) has completely changed his opinion about Guénon! He has recognized (implicitly) that what he wrote about Guénon in "Lindenberg Daniel. René Guénon ou la réaction intégrale. In: Mil neuf cent, n°9, 1991. Les pensées réactionnaires. pp. 69-79" is wrong.

A collection of articles edited by Philippe Faure, who is associate professor at the University of Orleans, has been published recently: "René Guénon, l'appel de la sagesse primordiale" Philippe Faure Ed. Cerf Patrimoines Paris 2016.

The first article is by Xavier Accart already mentioned who has a PhD on the reception of Guénon. Accard says (p. 44) that Lindenberg had synthesized all the prejudices against Guénon (i.e. the interpretation of Guénon as a reactionary author linked to far right). Accart however recognizes that, more recently, Lindenberg with the "deepest intellectual honesty" has recognized that any amalgam between Guénon and far-right movements is not possible. Lindenberg wrote this in his review of Xavier Accart's book: "René Guénon ou le renversement des clartés.

If you can read French you can obtain the review on the website of the French journal Esprit of February 2007 p. 218-222.

In the review Lindenberg says that Xavier Accart's book proves that

1) An amalgam between Guénon and extreme right is not possible and that one can not "extrapolate" anything from his short period with the Action française. ("Evoquer ces débats conduit naturellement à traiter du rapport du guénonisme avec les mouvements d'extrême droite, sujet sensible. [...] c'est un des apports de cet ouvrage que de le démontrer, l'amalgame n'est pas possible, de même qu'on ne saurait extrapoler à partir du bout de chemin que [Guénon] a fait avec l'Action française" p. 220).

2) Guénon has never accepted any political hijacking by the neo-monarchists or by the totalitarian movements. ("cet homme aux tendances conservatrices indiscutables n'a jamais accepté de "récupération" politique, que ce soit par les néomonarchistes ou par les mouvements totalitaires se réclamant des glorieux Ancêtres", p. 220)

3) Guénon is not a political but a metapolitical author. He is against any form of racism and nationalism. ("L'oeuvre de réaction au sens premier du mot, à laquelle il invite, passe par la constitution d'une élite qui dépasse les frontières étatiques et idéologiques. D'où son opposition au nationalisme et au racisme [...] Même la croisade pour l'Europe qu'une certaine droite européenne (Gonzague de Reynold, Julius Evola [...] Paul Véléry et bien d'autres...) mène dans les années 1920 n'est pas la sienne, car il ne croit pas, et cela est un clivage fondamental, à une césure Orient/Occident. M. Accart touche l'essentiel lorsqu'il établit de façon définitive que la visée de Guénon est métapolitique. Il ne s'agit pas de rectifier la grande "Déviation" en collaborant avec tel ou tel régime politique. La constitution d'une "élite" est une entreprise d'ordre purement spirituel, quasiment hors du monde, comme le prouve la retraite de Guénon en Egypte", p. 220).

4) He says that the definition given by Pauwels and Bergier of Hitler as "Guénon plus panzerdivisionen" is empty of meaning. Lindenberg even says that Evola is the counterexample of what Guénon wanted (as many of Guénon's followers)! ("il juge sévèrement les dictatures totalitaires, surtout lorsqu'elles semblent caricaturer l'enseignement traditionnel. On peut donc considérer que la définition bien connue du nazisme par Pauwels et Bergier - selon laquelle le nazisme, c'est "Guénon et les Panzerdivisionen" - n'a pas plus de valeur qu'un mot d'auteur, et entache gravement la mémoire de [Guénon]. Julius Evola est le contre-exemple, qui s'engagera à fond derrière Mussolini et prononcera des conférences devant le gratin SS. Mais ce sera justement en donnant à la violence un rôle salvateur que Guénon n'avalisera jamais, quelle qu'ait pu être leur proximité intellectuelle par ailleurs", p. 221).

In addition, Lindenberg says that Guénon can be considered as a support for the third world and recalls that he was a strong supporter of a dialog with Islam (p. 221).

I repeat that Lindenberg comes form the far left!

As a conclusion, It seems that there is a complete change in the academic interpretation of Guénon as testified by the publication of the book edited by Philippe Faure and the PhD works of Xavier Accart and David Bisson who both describe Guénon as a metapolitical author (but not political).

Dekacarandaebonelm says that "There are also many cultish and self-congratulory authors and sources on Guénon that try to dissociate Guénon from politics completetly, which is also wrong". This is true to some extent (but Accart proved that Guénon had also a lot of influence on anarchists and marxists not only on people from the far right!). Jean-Pierre Laurant, who is a purely academic source (he taught at the École pratique des hautes études), wrote that all the readers of Guénon agree only on one point, i.e. the fact any political hijacking of Guénon's work is illegitimate: "L'illégitimité de toute appropriation politique de son oeuvre est même le seul point sur lequel ceux qui connaissent ses livres sont d'accord", Jean-Pierre Laurant, "Le sens caché selon René Guénon", l'âge d'homme, 1975, p. 255.

Thus, as it is written the section on reception is (still) not only one-sighted but also wrong according to the most academic sources (including even Lindenberg now!). I will definitively change the article on Guénon but first in French.Gatti fabien1 (talk) 18:17, 5 October 2017 (UTC)