Metaphysical thought essentially presupposes intellection, or let us say intellectual intuition; the latter is not a matter of sentiment, of course, but of pure intelligence. Without this intuition, metaphysical speculation is reduced either to an opaque dogmatism or to an imprecise ratiocination; and quite evidently, speculative thought deprived of its intuitive foundation would be unable to prepare the ground for Gnosis: for direct, concrete and plenary Knowledge. Let us specify that the eventual gaps in the human mind are due, not to fortuitous causes, but to the very conditions of the “dark age,” the kali-yuga, which has as an effect — among other modes of decadence — a progressive weakening of pure intellection and of the ascending tendencies of soul; whence the necessity of the religious Revelations, and whence also the problematical PHENOMENON of gratuitous and divergent philosophies. But man always remains man “made in the image of God”; nothing could prevent — even in these millennia of darkness–the flowering of wisdoms pertaining to the Sophia Perennis: such as the Upanishads, the Brahma-Sûtras and the Advaita-Vedânta. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
A fact that seems to justify the sentimental intuitionists in question — but the real bearing of which they hardly suspect — is the following, and it is incontestable: a PHENOMENON of beauty can be more suddenly and more profoundly convincing than a logical explanation, whence this maxim: “The Buddhas save not by their preaching alone, but also by their superhuman beauty.” Also, the Platonic opinion that “Beauty is the splendor of the True” expresses without equivocation the profound, intimate, ontological relationship between the Real and the Beautiful, or between Being and Harmony; a relationship that implies — as we have just said — that Beauty is sometimes a more striking and transforming argument than a discursive proof; not logically more adequate, but humanly more miraculous. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
It may be remarked, perhaps, that in gnosis as well as in Gnosticism, “illumination” plays a preponderant role; but this is to confuse “illumination” with intellection, or the latter with the former; whereas in reality intellection is active, and illumination, passive, whatever the level of experiences involved. This is not to say that the PHENOMENON of illumination does not arise in the climate of gnosis; it does so necessarily, but not by way of method or as a point of reference. An analogous remark could be made regarding hermeneutics, that is, the interpretation of sacred scriptures; no doubt commentary on the scriptures is practiced in the climate of gnosis – for example, it goes without saying that the Upanishads have been explicated – but this is quite different from the far-removed and unverifiable interpretation of scriptural formulas whose literal meanings do not at all indicate what the mystical exegetes try to draw from them – with the aid of “illumination,” precisely. (NA: We do not contest that a word or an image in a sacred text may have a meaning that cannot be divined at a first reading; but in such cases this meaning cannot be contrary to the literal meaning nor incompatible with the context.) sophiaperennis: Gnosis
It is true that the word “illumination” can have a superior meaning, in which case it no longer designates a passive PHENOMENON; unitive and liberating illumination is beyond the distinction between passivity and activity. Or more exactly, illumination is the Divine Activity in us, but for that very reason it also possesses an aspect of supreme Passivity in the sense that it coincides with the “extinction” of the passional and dark elements separating man from his immanent Divine Essence; this extinction constitutes receptivity to the Influx of Heaven – without losing sight of the fact that the Divine Order comprises a “Passive Perfection” as well as an “Active Perfection,” and that the human spirit must in the final analysis participate in both mysteries. sophiaperennis: Gnosis
It may be objected that our preceding considerations on the human PHENOMENON are not an exposition of anthropology properly so called, since we offer no information on the “natural history” of man nor a fortiori on his biological origin, and so on. Now such is not our intention; we do not wish to deal with factors that escape our experience, and we are very far from accepting the “stopgap” theory of transformist evolutionism. Original man was not a simian being barely capable of speaking and standing upright; he was a quasi-immaterial being enclosed in an aura still celestial, but deposited on earth; an aura similar to the “chariot of fire” of Elijah or the “cloud” that enveloped Christ’s ascension. That is to say, our conception of the origin of mankind is based on the doctrine of the projection of the archetypes ab intra; thus our position is that of classical emanationism – in the Neoplatonic or gnostic sense of the term – which avoids the pitfall of anthropomorphism while agreeing with the theological conception of creatio ex nihilo. Evolutionism is the very negation of the archetypes and consequently of the divine Intellect; it is therefore the negation of an entire dimension of the real, namely that of form, of the static, of the immutable; concretely speaking, it is as if one wished to make a fabric of the wefts only, omitting the warps. sophiaperennis: Sophia Perennis and the theory of evolution and progress
One point that certain physicists do not seem to understand is that the mechanism of the world can be neither purely deterministic nor a fortiori purely arbitrary. In reality, the universe is a veil woven of necessity and freedom, of mathematical rigor and musical play; every PHENOMENON participates in these two principles, which amounts to saying that everything is situated in two apparently divergent but at bottom concordant dimensions, exactly as the dimensions of space are concordant while giving rise to divergent appearances that are irreconcilable from the standpoint of a planimetric view of objects. (NA: Let us take the example of the human body: its principial form, which cannot be other than what it is, stems from the Absolute and from necessity, whereas its actual form – a particular body, and not the body as such which gives rise to innumerable variations, stems from the Infinite and from freedom. Its principial form is as it were mathematical, it is measurable; on the contrary, its actual form is as it were musical, its beauty is unfathomable. Anatomy has its limits, beauty does not; but beauty can be relative, whereas anatomy cannot.) sophiaperennis: Sophia Perennis and the theory of evolution and progress
Another point that moderns do not grasp, is that there is no reason for necessarily seeking the cause of a PHENOMENON on the plane where it is produced, and that on the contrary one has to consider the possibility of a non-material cause, above all when it is a question of a PHENOMENON whose beginning is unknown a priori, and unknowable materially, as is the origin of living beings. Transformist evolutionism is the classical example of the bias that invents “horizontal” causes because one does not wish to admit a “vertical” dimension: one seeks to extort from the physical plane a cause that it cannot furnish and that is necessarily situated above matter. sophiaperennis: Sophia Perennis and the theory of evolution and progress
It will be objected that there is no proof of this, to which we reply – aside from the PHENOMENON of subjectivity which precisely comprises this proof, leaving aside other possible intellectual proofs, not needed by Intellection – to which we reply then, that there are infinitely fewer proofs for this inconceivable absurdity, evolutionism, which has the miracle of consciousness springing from a heap of earth or pebbles, metaphorically speaking. (From the Divine to the Human, p. 5-6). sophiaperennis: Sophia Perennis and the theory of evolution and progress
If the evolutionists are right, the human PHENOMENON is inexplicable and human life is not worth living. Moreover it is to theses conclusions that they arrive in the end, whence their axiom of the absurdity of existence; this is to say that they attribute to the object, which is inaccessible to them, the absurdity of the subject, which they have deliberately chosen by following the propensity towards not innocent, but human, animality. (From the Divine to the Human, p. 17). sophiaperennis: Sophia Perennis and the theory of evolution and progress
In short: we reject rationalism not because of its possibly plausible criticisms of humanized religion, but because of its negation of the divine kernel of the PHENOMENON of religion; a negation that essentially implies the negation of intellectual intuition, thus of that immanent Divine Presence which is the Intellect. The basic error of systematized rationality – by the way, it is wrong to attribute this ideology to the great Greeks – is to put fallible reasoning in place of infallible intellection; as if the rational faculty were the whole of Intelligence and even the only Intelligence. sophiaperennis: Extenuating circumstances for rationalism
On the whole, modern philosophy is the codification of an acquired infirmity: the intellectual atrophy of man marked by the “fall” entails a hypertrophy of practical intelligence, whence in the final analysis the explosion of the physical sciences and the appearance of pseudo-sciences such as psychology and sociology. (NA In the nineteenth century, the desire to reconcile faith and reason, or the religious spirit and science, appeared in the form of occultism: a hybrid PHENOMENON that despite its phantasmagoria had some merits, if only by its opposition to materialism and to confessional superficiality. ) sophiaperennis: Modern definition of Philosophy
If Plato maintains that the philosophos should think independently of common opinions, he refers to intellection and not to logic alone; whereas a Descartes, who did everything to restrict and compromise the notion of philosophy, means it while starting from systematic doubt, so much so that for him philosophy is synonymous not only with rationalism, but also with skepticism. This is a first suicide of the intelligence, inaugurated moreover by Pyrrho and others, by way of a reaction against what was believed to be metaphysical “dogmatism.” The “Greek miracle” is in fact the substitution of the reason for the Intellect, of the fact for the Principle, of the PHENOMENON for the Idea, of the accident for the Substance, of the form for the Essence, of man for God; and this applies to art as well as to thought. The true Greek miracle, if miracle there be – and in this case it would be related to the “Hindu miracle” – is doctrinal metaphysics and methodic logic, providentially utilized by the monotheistic Semites. sophiaperennis: Difference between Philosophy, theology and gnosis
While those errors tending to deny objective and intrinsic intelligence destroy themselves by postulating a thesis which is disproved by the very existence of the postulate itself, the fact that errors exist does not in itself amount to a proof that the intelligence suffers from an inevitable fallibility, for error does not derive from intelligence as such. On the contrary, error is a privative PHENOMENON causing the activity of the intelligence to deviate through the intervention of an element of passion or blindness, without however being able to invalidate the nature of the cognitive faculty itself. A patent example of the classical contradiction here in question, one which largely affects all modern thinking, is provided by existentialism, which postulates a definition of the world that is impossible if existentialism itself is possible. We have to take our choice between two things: either objective knowledge, absolute therefore in its own order, is possible, proving thereby that existentialism is false; or else existentialism is true, but then its own promulgation is impossible, since in the existentialist universe there is no room for any intellection that is objective and stable. sophiaperennis: Existentialism
Mention has already been made of the passage from objectivity to reflexive subjectivity – a PHENOMENON pointed out by Maritain – and at the same time the ambiguous character of this development has been emphasized. sophiaperennis: Jacques Maritain
The paradoxical PHENOMENON of even a “brilliant” intelligence being the vehicle of error is explained first of all by the possibility of a mental operation that is exclusively “horizontal,” hence lacking all awareness of “vertical” relationships; however, the definition “intelligence” still applies, because there is still a discernment between something essential and something secondary, or between a cause and an effect. sophiaperennis: Mental effort and Philosophy
A decisive factor in the PHENOMENON of “intelligent error” is plainly the intervention of an extra-intellectual element, such as sentimentality or passion; the exclusivism of “horizontality” creates a void that the irrational necessarily comes to fill. sophiaperennis: Mental effort and Philosophy
By “phenomenology” we simply mean the study of a category of phenomena, and not a particular philosophy which claims to resolve everything by observing or exploring in its fashion the phenomena that present themselves to one’s attention, without being able to account for the central and ungraspable PHENOMENON that is the mystery of subjectivity… sophiaperennis: Phenomenology
If Plato maintains that the philosophos should think independently of common opinions, he refers to intellection and not to logic alone; whereas a Descartes, who did everything to restrict and compromise the notion of philosophy, means it while starting from systematic doubt, so much so that for him philosophy is synonymous not only with rationalism, but also with skepticism. This is a first suicide of the intelligence, inaugurated moreover by Pyrrho and others, by way of a reaction against what was believed to be metaphysical “dogmatism.” The “Greek miracle” is in fact the substitution of the reason for the Intellect, of the fact for the Principle, of the PHENOMENON for the Idea, of the accident for the Substance, of the form for the Essence, of man for God; and this applies to art as well as to thought. The true Greek miracle, if miracle there be – and in this case it would be related to the “Hindu miracle” – is doctrinal metaphysics and methodic logic, providentially utilized by the monotheistic Semites. sophiaperennis: Plato
If Plato maintains that the philosophos should think independently of common opinions, he refers to intellection and not to logic alone; whereas a Descartes, who did everything to restrict and compromise the notion of philosophy, means it while starting from systematic doubt, so much so that for him philosophy is synonymous not only with rationalism, but also with skepticism. This is a first suicide of the intelligence, inaugurated moreover by Pyrrho and others, by way of a reaction against what was believed to be metaphysical “dogmatism.” The “Greek miracle” is in fact the substitution of the reason for the Intellect, of the fact for the Principle, of the PHENOMENON for the Idea, of the accident for the Substance, of the form for the Essence, of man for God; and this applies to art as well as to thought. The true Greek miracle, if miracle there be – and in this case it would be related to the “Hindu miracle” – is doctrinal metaphysics and methodic logic, providentially utilized by the monotheistic Semites. sophiaperennis: Descartes and the Cogito
By “phenomenology” we simply mean the study of a category of phenomena, and not a particular philosophy which claims to resolve everything by observing or exploring in its fashion the phenomena that present themselves to one’s attention, without being able to account for the central and ungraspable PHENOMENON that is the mystery of subjectivity… sophiaperennis: Heidegger
In principle, and in the absence of opposing factors capable of neutralizing this effect, the aesthetic PHENOMENON is a receptacle that attracts a spiritual presence; if this applies in the most direct way possible to sacred symbols, where this quality is superimposed on sacramental magic, it likewise holds good, though in a more diffuse manner, for all elements of harmony, that is to say truth in sensible form. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
A perfect equilibrium between a noble naturalness and an interiorizing and essentializing stylization is a precarious, but always possible PHENOMENON. It goes without saying that essentiality or the “idea” takes precedence over observation and the imitation of nature. To each thing its rights, according to its place. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
In saying this, we know only too well that visual criteria are devoid of significance for the “man of our time”, who is nevertheless a visual type by curiosity as well as from an incapacity to think, or through lack of imagination and also through passivity: in other words he is a visual type in fact but not by right. The modern world, slipping hopelessly down the slope of an irremediable ugliness, has furiously abolished both the notion of beauty and the criteriology of forms; this is, from our point of view, yet another reason for using the present argument, which is like the complementary outward pole of metaphysical orthodoxy, for, as we have mentioned elsewhere in this connection, “extremes meet”. There can be no question, for us, of reducing cultural forms, or forms as such, objectively to hazards and subjectively to tastes; “beauty is the splendour of truth”; it is an objective reality which we may or may not understand. (NA: What is admirable in the Orthodox Church is that all its forms, from the iconostases to the vestments of the priests, immediately suggest the ambience of Christ and the Apostles, whereas in what might be called the post-Gothic Catholic Church too many forms are expressions of ambiguous civilizationism or bear its imprint, that is, the imprint of this sort of parallel pseudo-religion which is “Civilization” with a capital C: the presence of Christ then becomes largely abstract. The argument that ” only the spirit matters” is hypocrisy, for it is not by chance that a Christian priest wears neither the toga of a Siamese bonze nor the loin-cloth of a Hindu ascetic. No doubt the ” cloth does not make the monk”; but it expresses, manifests and asserts him!) One may wonder what would have become of Latin Christianity if the Renaissance had not stabbed it. Doubtless it would have undergone the same fate as the Eastern civilizations: it would have fallen asleep on top of its treasures, becoming in part corrupt and remaining in part intact. It would have produced, not “reformers” in the conventional sense of the word – which is without any interest to say the least – but “renewers” in the form of a few great sages and a few great saints. Moreover, the growing old of civilizations is a human PHENOMENON, and to find fault with it is to find fault with man as such. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
As for the modern world, it represents a possibility of disequilibrium which could not fail to be manifested when its time was ripe; the metaphysical inevitability of a PHENOMENON should not prevent us from declaring what it is in itself, nor does it authorize us to take it for what it is not, especially since the truth is by definition constructive, either directly or indirectly. Even what seems to be the most hopelessly ineffective truth, though it cannot change the world, will always help us in some way or other to remain, or to become, what we ought to be in the face of God. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART
In reality the “planimetric” recording of perceptions and the elimination of the apparently contradictory only too often give the measure of a given ignorance, even of a given stupidity; the pedants of “exact science” are moreover incapable of evaluating what is implied by the existential paradoxes in which we live, beginning with the PHENOMENON, contradictory in practice, of subjectivity. sophiaperennis: Science and logic
… it is normal for humanity to live in a symbol, which is a pointer towards heaven, an opening towards the Infinite. As for modem science it has pierced the protecting frontiers of this symbol and by so doing destroyed the symbol itself; it has thus abolished this pointer, this opening, even as the modem world in general breaks through the space-symbols constituted by traditional civilizations; what it terms ‘stagnation’ and ‘sterility’ is really the homogeneity and continuity of the symbol. (NA: Neither India nor the Pythagoreans practiced modern science, and to isolate where they are concerned the elements of rational technique reminiscent of our science from the metaphysical elements which bear no resemblance to it is an arbitrary and violent operation contrary to real objectivity. When Plato is decanted in this way he retains no more than an anecdotal interest, whereas his whole doctrine aims at installing man in the supra-temporal and supradiscursive life of thought of which both mathematics and the sensory world can be symbols. If, then, peoples have been able to do without our autonomous science for thousands of years and in every climate, it is because this science is not necessary; if it has appeared as a PHENOMENON of civilization suddenly and in a single place, that is to show its essentially contingent nature.’ (Fernand Brunner: Science et Réalité, Paris, 1954-)) (Understanding Islam, p. 30-31). sophiaperennis: Science and Tradition
Moreover it must not be forgotten that the ego, as a natural factor, has a positive side like any other PHENOMENON of nature; the injunction “love thy neighbor as thyself” implies that it is permissible and even necessary – and in any case inevitable – to love oneself; it would be the height of hypocrisy for social theorists to deny the existence of this self-love. This complex of attitudes, so easily reducible to the absurd, is left behind only in Nirvana, where there is no self left to love, nor indeed any “neighbor”; it was in this sense that Sri Ramana Maharshi was able to say: “Is the dreamer, when he awakens, supposed to wake all those of whom he was dreaming?” sophiaperennis: Ramana Maharshi
There has been much speculation on the question of knowing how the sage — the “gnostic” (NA: This word, here and elsewhere, is used in its etymological sense, and has nothing to do with anything that may historically be called “Gnosticism”. It is gnosis itself that is in question and not its pseudoreligious deviations.) or the “jnani” — “sees” the world of PHENOMENON, and occultists of all sorts have not refrained from putting forward the most fantastic theories on “clairvoyance” and the “third eye”; but in reality the difference between ordinary vision and that enjoyed by the sage or the Gnostic is quite clearly not of the sensorial order. The sage see things in their total context, therefore in their relativity and at the same time in their metaphysical transparency; he does not see them as if they were physically diaphanous or endowed with a mystical sonority or a visible aura, even though his vision may sometimes be described by means of such images…. The “third eye” is the faculty of seeing phenomena sub specie aeternitatis and therefore in a sort of simultaneity; to it are often added, in the nature of things, intuitions concerning modalities that are in the ordinary way imperceptible. sophiaperennis: The Sophia Perennis and Neo-spiritualism