Insights into Christian Esoterism

Author: Rene Guenon
Publisher: Sophia Perennis
Year: 2004
Pages: 115
Printed: USA
ISBN: 0-900588-33-0
Binding: Soft Cover
Book Condition: New
Weight: 213gr.
Description: The present volume consists of articles collected and published posthumously, to which has been added Guenon’s separate study Saint Bernard. When first published as an article, ‘Christianity and Initiation’ (second chapter here), gave rise to some controversy because Guenon here reaffirmed against certain other traditionalist writers and various Christian intellectuals his denial of the efficacy of the Christian sacraments as rites of initiation, a point he had made in other books. Some closely related articles can be found in the companion volume The Esoterism of Dante. Apart from this and his monograph on St Bernard, Guénon devoted no single work to Christianity. His reserve in this respect is closely related to the role he assigns, in East and West and The Crisis of the Modern World, to the Western elite. It was incumbent on the spiritual elite of the Christian West, Guénon believed, to show that the intellectual and spiritual degeneracy of the West was not total and irremediable. It was only natural therefore that Guénon restricted himself to providing certain ‘keys’ and pointers for further research, as far as the Christian tradition is concerned.