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
The point of departure of the Path is the Doctrine; the origin of which is Revelation; man accepts Revelation through intellectual INTUITION or by that feeling for the True — or the Real — which is called faith. There is little likelihood of a man being born with knowledge of the integral Doctrine; but it is possible — very exceptionally — that he possess from birth the certitude of the Essential. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
Intelligence, by which we comprehend the Doctrine, is either the intellect or reason; reason is the instrument of the intellect, it is through reason that man comprehends the natural phenomena around him and within himself, and it is through it that he is able to describe supernatural things — parallel to the means of expression offered by symbolism by transposing intuitive knowledge into the order of language. The function of the rational faculty can be to provoke — by means of a given concept — a spiritual INTUITION; reason is then the flint which makes the spark spring forth. The limit of the Inexpressible varies according to mental structures: what is beyond all expression for some, may be easily expressible for others. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
The modes are not always intelligible at first sight; for example, one might wonder what the relevance is of a discipline such as the Tea Ceremony, which combines ascesis with art, while being materially based on manipulations that seem a priori unimportant, but are ennobled by their sacralization. First of all, one must take into account the fact that in the Far Easterner, sensorial INTUITION is more developed than the speculative gift; also, that the practical sense and the aesthetic sense, as well as the taste for symbolism are at the basis of his spiritual temperament. In the Tea Ceremony, the symbolic and morally correct act — the “profound” act if one will — is supposed to bring about a sort of Platonic anamnesis or a unitive consciousness, whereas with the white man of the East and the West it is the Idea that is supposed to lead to correct and virtuous acts. The man of the yellow race goes from sensorial experience to intellection, roughly speaking, whereas with the white man, it is the converse that takes place: in starting out from concepts, or from habitual mental images, he understands and classifies phenomena, without, however, feeling the need to consciously integrate them into his spiritual life, except incidentally or when it is a question of traditionally accepted symbols. Essays Norms and Paradoxes in Spiritual Alchemy
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
Dogmatism as such does not consist in the mere enunciation of an idea, that is to say in the fact of giving form to a spiritual INTUITION, but rather in an interpretation which, instead of rejoining the formless and total Truth after taking as its starting point one of the forms of that Truth, results in a sort of paralysis of this form by denying its intellectual potentialities and by attributing to it an absoluteness which only the formless and total Truth itself can possess. sophiaperennis: What is dogmatism?
At all events, no infallibility exists which a priori encompasses all possible contingent domains; omniscience is not a human possibility. No one can be infallible with regard to unknown, or insufficiently known, phenomena; one may have an INTUITION for pure principles without having one for a given phenomenal order, that is to say, without being able to apply the principles spontaneously in such and such a domain. The importance of this possible incapacity diminishes to the extent that the phenomenal domain envisaged is secondary and, on the contrary, that the principles infallibly enunciated are essential. One must forgive small errors on the part of one who offers great truths – and it is the latter that determine how small or how great the errors are – whereas it would obviously be perverse to forgive great errors when they are accompanied by many small truths. (NA: There is certainly no reason to admire a science which counts insects and atoms but is ignorant of God; which makes an avowal of not knowing Him and yet claims omniscience by principle. It should be noted that the scientist, like every other rationalist, does not base himself on reason in itself; he calls ” reason” his lack of imagination and knowledge, and his ignorances are for him the ” data” of reason. 2 . Always respect ful of this form, the Holy Spirit will not teach a Moslem theologian the subtleties of trinitarian theology nor those of Vedanta; from another angle, it will not change a raci al or ethnic mentality; neither that of the Romans in view of Catholicism, nor that of the Arabs in view of Islam. Humanity must not only have its history, but also its stories.) sophiaperennis: The notion of philosophy
It should be noted that “horizontality” is not always the negation of the supernatural; it may also be the case of a believer whose intellectual INTUITION remains latent, this being precisely what constitutes the “obscure merit of faith”; in such a case one may, without absurdity, speak of devotional and moral “verticality.” sophiaperennis: Mental effort and Philosophy
In other words, intellectual knowledge also transcends the specifically religious point of view, which is itself incomparably superior to the philosophic point of view, since, like metaphysical knowledge, it emanates from God and not from man; but whereas metaphysic proceeds wholly from intellectual INTUITION, religion proceeds from revelation. sophiaperennis: Difference between Metaphysics and Philosophy
The latter is the Word of God spoken to His creatures, whereas intellectual INTUITION is a direct and active participation in divine Knowledge and not an indirect and passive participation, as is faith. In other words, in the case of intellectual INTUITION, knowledge is not possessed by the individual in so far as he is an individual, but in so far as in his innermost essence he is not distinct from his divine Principle. sophiaperennis: Difference between Metaphysics and Philosophy
In order to get a firm grasp of the dominant tendencies of contemporary philosophy it is important to note the following: everything which does not derive either from intellectual INTUITION or from revelation is of necessity a form of “rationalism,” because man disposes of no other resource outside the intellect. sophiaperennis: Modern philosophers
In other words, rationalism does not present itself as a possible – and necessarily relative – development of a traditional and sapiential point of view, but it usurps the function of pure intellectuality. But there are degrees to be observed here, as for example with Aristotle: his fundamental ideas – like those of “form” and “matter” (hylomorphism) – really flow from a metaphysical knowledge, and so from supra-mental INTUITION; they carry in themselves all the universal significance of symbols and become rational – and therefore “abstract” – only to the extent that they become encrusted in a more or less artificial system. sophiaperennis: Modern philosophers
It should be possible to restore to the word “philosophy” its original meaning: philosophy – the “love of wisdom” – is the science of all the fundamental principles; this science operates with INTUITION, which “perceives,” and not with reason alone, which “concludes.” Subjectively speaking, the essence of philosophy is certitude; for the moderns, on the contrary, the essence of philosophy is doubt: philosophy is supposed to reason without any premise (voraussetzungsloses Denken), as if this condition were not itself a preconceived idea; this is the classical contradiction of all relativism. Everything is doubted except for doubt. (NA: For Kant, intellectual INTUITION – of which he does not understand the first word – is a fraudulent manipulation (Erschleichung), which throws a moral discredit onto all authentic intellectuality.) sophiaperennis: Original meaning of the word Philosophy
There are no metaphysical or cosmological reasons why, in exceptional cases, direct intellection should not occur in men who have no link at all with revealed wisdom, but an exception, if it proves the rule, assuredly cannot constitute it. For instance, an INTUITION as just as that which forms the basis of German ‘phenomenology’, inevitably remains, for lack of objective intellectual principles, fragmentary, problematical and inoperative. An accident does not take the place of a principle, nor does a philosophical adventure replace real wisdom. No one has, in fact, been able to extract anything from this ‘phenomenology’ from the point of view of effective and integral knowledge – the knowledge that works on the soul and transforms it. A true INTUITION, even if it were fundamental, could not assume a definitive function in a mode of thought as anarchical as modern philosophy; it must always be condemned to remain merely an ineffectual glimmer in the history of an entirely human system of thought which, precisely, does not know that real knowledge has no history. sophiaperennis: Phenomenology
It is the sophists, with Protagoras at their head, who are the true precursors of modern thought; they are the “thinkers” properly so called, in the sense that they limited themselves to reasoning and were hardly concerned with “perceiving” and taking into account that which “is.” And it is a mistake to see in Socrates, Plato and Aristotle the fathers of rationalism, or even of modern thought generally; no doubt they reasoned – Shankara and Ramanuja did so as well – but they never said that reasoning is the alpha and omega of intelligence and of truth, nor a fortiori that our experiences or our tastes determine thought and have priority over intellectual INTUITION and logic, quod absit. sophiaperennis: Protagoras
Taking into account the fact that according to a – rightly or wrongly – universally recognized terminology, the word “philosophy” designates all that extrinsically pertains to thought, we would say that there is a philosophy according to the “spirit,” which is founded on pure intellection – possibly actualized by a particular sacred Text – and a philosophy according to the “flesh,” which is founded on individual reasoning in the absence of sufficient data and of any supernatural INTUITION; the first being the philosophia perennis, and the second, the ancient Protagorism as well as the rationalist thought of the moderns. (NA: Even if it resists being rationalism, which is of no importance and which evokes this line of Shakespeare: “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it.”) sophiaperennis: Protagoras
Reflection, like intellection, is an activity of the intelligence, with the difference that in the second case this activity springs from that immanent divine spark that is the Intellect, whereas in the first case the activity starts from the reason, which is capable only of logic and not of intellective INTUITION. The conditio sine qua non of reflection is that man reason on the basis of data that are both necessary and sufficient and with a view to a conclusion, (NA: It is precisely the absence of such data that makes modern science aberrant from the speculative point of view, and hypertrophied from the practical point of view; likewise for philosophy: criticism, existentialism, evolutionism, have their respective points of departure in the absence of a datum which in itself is as obvious as it is essential.) the latter being the reason for the existence of the mental operation. sophiaperennis: Reason and Intellection
To illustrate the three modes of thought we have been considering (metaphysics, philosophy, theology) let us apply them to the idea of God. The philosophical point of view, when it does not purely and simply deny God even if only by ascribing to the word a meaning it does not possess, tries to ‘prove’ God by all kinds of argument; in other words, this point of view tries to ‘prove’ either the ‘existence’ or the ‘nonexistence ‘of God, as though reason, which is only an intermediary and in no wise a source of transcendent knowledge, could ‘prove’ anything one wished to prove. Moreover this pretension of reason to autonomy in realms where only intellectual INTUITION on the one hand and revelation on the other can communicate knowledge, is characteristic of the philosophical point of view and shows up all its inadequacy. The religious point of view does not, for its part, trouble itself about proving God – it is even prepared to admit that such proof is impossible – but bases itself on belief. It must be added here that ‘faith’ cannot be reduced to a simple matter of belief; otherwise Christ would not have spoken of the ‘faith which moves mountains’, for it goes without saying that ordinary religious belief has no such power. Finally, from the metaphysical standpoint, there is no longer any question either of ‘proof’ or of ‘belief’ but solely of direct evidence, of intellectual evidence that implies absolute certainty; but in the present state of humanity such evidence is only accessible to a spiritual elite which becomes ever more restricted in number. It may be added that religion, by its very nature and independently of any wish of its representatives, who may be unaware of the fact, contains and transmits this purely intellectual Knowledge beneath the veil of its dogmatic and ritual symbols, as we have already seen. sophiaperennis: Reason and Intellection
It is not possible to emphasize too strongly that philosophy, in its humanistic and rationalizing and therefore current sense, consists primarily of logic; this definition of Guénon’s correctly situates philosophical thought in making clear its distinction from “intellectual INTUITION,” which is direct perception of truth. But another distinction must also be established on the rational plane itself: logic can either operate in accordance with an intellection or on the contrary put itself at the disposal of an error, so that philosophy can become the vehicle of just about anything; it may be an Aristotelianism conveying ontological knowledge, just as it may degenerate into an existentialism in which logic is no more than a blind, unreal activity, and which can rightly be described as an “esoterism of stupidity.” When unintelligence – and what we mean by this is in no way incompatible with “worldly” intelligence – joins with passion to prostitute logic, it is impossible to escape a mental satanism which destroys the very basis of intelligence and truth. sophiaperennis: Reason and Intellection
The fact that the philosophic mode of thought is centered on logic and not directly on INTUITION implies that INTUITION is left at the mercy of logic’s needs: in Scholastic disputations it was a question of avoiding certain truths which, given the general level of mentality, might have given rise to certain dangerous conclusions. sophiaperennis: Scholasticism
In Plotinus the essence of Platonism reveals itself without any reserves. Here one passes from the passion-centered body to the virtuous soul and from the soul to the cognizant Spirit, then from and through the Spirit to the suprarational and unitive vision of the ineffable One, which is the source of all that exists; in the One the thinking subject and the object of thought coincide. The One projects the Spirit as the sun projects light and heat: that is to say, the Spirit, Nous, emanates eternally from the One and contemplates It. By this contemplation the Spirit actualizes in itself the world of the archetypes or ideas – the sum of essential or fundamental possibilities – and thereafter produces the animic world; the latter in its turn engenders the material world – this dead end where the reflections of the possibilities coagulate and combine. The human soul, brought forth by the One from the world of the archetypes, recognizes these in their earthly reflections, and it tends by its own nature toward its celestial origin. With Aristotle, we are much closer to the earth, though not yet so close as to find ourselves cut off from heaven. If by rationalism is meant the reduction of the intelligence to logic alone and hence the negation of intellectual INTUITION (which in reality has no need of mental supports even though they may have to be used for communicating perceptions of a supramental order), then it will be seen that Aristotelianism is a rationalism in principle but not absolutely so in fact, since its theism and hylomorphism depend on Intellection and not on reasoning alone. (NA: Hylomorphism is a plausible thesis, but what is much less plausible is the philosopher’s opposition of this thesis to the Platonic Ideas, of which it is really only a prolongation, one that tends to exteriorize things to a dangerous degree just because of the absence of those Ideas.) And this is true of every philosophy that conveys metaphysical truths since an unmitigated rationalism is possible only where these truths or intellections are absent. (NA: Kantian theism does not benefit from this positive reservation; for Kant, God is only a “postulate of practical reason,” which takes us infinitely far away from the real and transcendent God of Aristotle.) sophiaperennis: Plato
The evolutionist rationalists are of the opinion that Aristotle, being the father of logic, is ipso facto the father of intelligence become at last mature and efficacious; they obviously are unaware that this flowering of a discipline of thought, while having its merits, goes more or less hand in hand with a weakening, or even an atrophy, of intellectual INTUITION. The angels, it is said, do not possess reason, for they have no need of reasoning; this need presupposes in fact that the spirit, no longer able to see, must “grope.” It may be objected that the greatest metaphysicians, hence the greatest intellectual intuitives, made use of reasoning; no doubt, but this was only in their dialectic – intended for others – and not in their intellection as such. It is true that a reservation applies here: since intellectual INTUITION does not a priori encompass all aspects of the real, reasoning may have the function of indirectly provoking a “vision” of some aspect; but in this case reasoning operates merely as an occasional cause, it is not a constitutive element of the cognition. We will perhaps be told that reasoning may actualize in any thinker a suprarational INTUITION, which is true in principle, yet in fact it is more likely that such an INTUITION will not be produced, as there is nothing in the profane mentality that is predisposed thereto, to say the least. sophiaperennis: Aristotle
As for Aristotelianism, we can limit ourselves here to the following consideration: on the one hand the Stagirite teaches the art of thinking correctly, but on the other hand he also induces one to think too much, to the detriment of INTUITION. Assuredly, the syllogism is useful, but on the express condition that it be necessary; that it not be superimposed as a systematic luxury upon a cognitive capacity which it smothers and the impossibility of which it seems to postulate implicitly. It is as if, through groping continually, one no longer knew how to see, or as if the possession of an art compelled its being used, even abusively; or again, as if thought were there for logic, rather than logic for thought. sophiaperennis: Comparison between Plato and Aristotle
It is a mistake to see in Socrates, Plato and Aristotle the fathers of rationalism, or even of modern thought generally; no doubt they reasoned – Shankara and Ramanuja did so as well – but they never said that reasoning is the alpha and omega of intelligence and of truth, nor a fortiori that our experiences or our tastes determine thought and have priority over intellectual INTUITION and logic, quod absit. sophiaperennis: About Plato and/or Aristotle
One must react against the evolutionist prejudice which makes out that the thought of the Greeks “attained” to a certain level or a certain result, that is to say, that the triad Socrates -Plato -Aristotle represents the summit of an entirely “natural” thought, a summit reached after long periods of effort and groping. The reverse is the truth, in the sense that all the said triad did was to crystallize rather imperfectly a primordial and intrinsically timeless wisdom, actually of Aryan origin and typologically close to the Celtic, Germanic, Mazdean and Brahmanic esoterisms. There is in Aristotelian rationality and even in the Socratic dialectic a sort of “humanism” more or less connected with artistic naturalism and scientific curiosity, and thus with empiricism. But this already too contingent dialectic – and let us not forget that the Socratic dialogues are tinged with spiritual “pedagogy” and have something of the provisional in them – this dialectic must not lead us into attributing a “natural” character to intellections that are “supernatural” by definition, or “naturally supernatural”. On the whole, Plato expressed sacred truths in a language that had already become profane – profane because rational and discursive rather than intuitive and symbolist, or because it followed too closely the contingencies and humours of the mirror that is the mind – whereas Aristotle placed truth itself, and not merely its expression, on a profane and “humanistic” plane. The originality of Aristotle and his school resides no doubt in giving to truth a maximum of rational bases, but this cannot be done without diminishing it, and it has no purpose save where there is a withdrawal of intellectual INTUITION; it is a “two-edged sword” precisely be-cause truth seems thereafter to be at the mercy of syllogisms. The question of knowing whether this constitutes a betrayal or a providential readaptation is of small importance here, and could no doubt be answered in either sense. (NA: With Pythagoras one is still in the Aryan East; with Socrates-Plato one is no longer wholly in that East – in reality neither “Eastern” nor “Western”, that distinction having no meaning for an archaic Europe – but neither is one wholly in the West; whereas with Aristotle Europe begins to become speci fically “Western” in the current and cultural sense of the word. The East – or a particular East – forced an entry with Christianity, but the Aristotelian and Caesarean West finally prevailed, only to escape in the end from both Aristotle and Caesar, but by the downward path. It is opportune to observe here that all modern theological attempts to “surpass” the teaching of Aristotle can only follow the same path, in view of the falsity of their motives, whether implicit or explicit. What is really being sought is a graceful capitulation before evolutionary ” scientism”, before the machine, before an activist and demagogic socialism, a destructive psychologism, abstract art and surrealism, in short before modernism in all its forms – that modernism which is less and less a “humanism” since it de-humanizes, or that individualism which is ever more infra-individual. The moderns, who are neither Pythagoricians nor Vedantists, are surely the last to have any right to complain of Aristotle.) What is certain is that Aristotle’s teaching, so far as its essential content is concerned, is still much too true to be understood and appreciated by the protagonists of the “dynamic” and relativist or “existentialist” thought of our epoch. This last half plebeian, half demonic kind of thought is in contradiction with itself from its very point of departure, since to say that everything is relative or “dynamic”, and therefore “in movement”, is to say that there exists no point of view from which that fact can be established; Aristotle had in any case fully foreseen this absurdity. sophiaperennis: About Plato and/or Aristotle
For Kant, intellectual INTUITION – of which he does not understand the first word – is a fraudulent manipulation (Erschleichung), which throws a moral discredit onto all authentic intellectuality. sophiaperennis: Kantianism
There are no metaphysical or cosmological reasons why, in exceptional cases, direct intellection should not occur in men who have no link at all with revealed wisdom, but an exception, if it proves the rule, assuredly cannot constitute it. For instance, an INTUITION as just as that which forms the basis of German ‘phenomenology’, inevitably remains, for lack of objective intellectual principles, fragmentary, problematical and inoperative. An accident does not take the place of a principle, nor does a philosophical adventure replace real wisdom. No one has, in fact, been able to extract anything from this ‘phenomenology’ from the point of view of effective and integral knowledge – the knowledge that works on the soul and transforms it. A true INTUITION, even if it were fundamental, could not assume a definitive function in a mode of thought as anarchical as modern philosophy; it must always be condemned to remain merely an ineffectual glimmer in the history of an entirely human system of thought which, precisely, does not know that real knowledge has no history. sophiaperennis: Heidegger
In connection with this question of intellectual INTUITION, it would be useful to reply here to a difficulty raised by Pascal: “One cannot undertake to define being without falling into absurdity: for a word cannot be defined without beginning with the words it is, whether they are expressed or implied. Therefore in order to define being it would be necessary to say it is, and so to use the word to be defined in formulating its own definition” (Pensées et Opuscules).9 It is in fact impossible, in European languages, to give a definition without using the word “is”; if in other languages, in Arabic for example, a definition can be made without the help of this word or of some other copulative, that is exactly for the same reason, namely that all is immersed in Being and that Being therefore has an a priori evidentness; if Being cannot be defined outside itself, any more than can Knowledge, it is because this “outside” does not exist; the separation necessary for every definition thus actually lies within the thing to be defined, and in fact although we are “within Being” we are not Being. The copulative “it is” indicates a determination or an attribute according to the circumstances, and this shows the meaning of the word: we will define Being in itself as the universal determination, that is to say as the supreme Principle “insofar as It determines itself,” to use Guénon’s expression; if we start from the ternary Beyond-Being, Being and Manifestation, we see that Being is “Principle” in relation to the world but “determination” in relation to Beyond-Being. Now, given that Being is determination in relation to Beyond-Being and the source of every attribute in relation to the world, every determination and every attribute can be expressed by means of the verb “to be,” hence by “it is,” so that Pascal’s difficulty can be resolved thus: “being” manifests (or “is” the manifestation of) an aspect of its own inner limitlessness, thus a possibility, an attribute. When we say: “The tree is green,” this is, by analogy, like saying: “Being comprises such and such an aspect,” or again in the deepest sense: “Beyond-Being determines itself as Being”; the thing to be defined – or determined – serves analogically as “Being,” and the definition – the determination – serves as “divine attribute.” Instead of speaking of “Being” and of “attribute of Being,” we could refer to the first distinction: Beyond-Being and Being. When the verb “to be” designates an existence, it has no complement; on the other hand, when it has a complement it does not designate an existence as such, but an attribute; to say that a certain thing “is,” signifies that it is not non-existent; to say that the tree “is green” signifies that it has this attribute and not some other. In consequence, the verb “to be” always expresses either an “existence” or a “character of existence,” in the same way as God on the one hand “is” and on the other “is thus,” that is to say Light, Love, Power and so forth. Saint Thomas expresses this well by saying that if Being and the first principles which flow from it are incapable of proof, it is because they have no need of proof; to prove them is at once useless and impossible, “not through a lack, but through a superabundance of light.” sophiaperennis: Pascal
It is worth pausing over this question of doctrinal proofs a little longer: firstly, a distinction must be made between rational or logical proof and intellectual or symbolic proof; the first is fallible to the extent that the propositions of the syllogism may be false, and the likelihood of this will increase with the loftiness of the order of reality; the second on the contrary depends on premises which cannot but be exact, since they identify with the very nature of things, or, to put it more clearly, since they are not other than the realities whose “proof” will be like a reflection and which therefore can reveal their evidence, precisely. The spiritual or symbolic proof– which we may also term “ontological” so as to distinguish it from the simply “logical” proof–thus depends on a direct knowledge which, as such, is exact by definition, and it serves not to conclude from the known to the unknown, but to become aware of the unknown with the help of the known: consequently the link between the two will not be a rational operation, but intellectual INTUITION, even though reasoning, being natural to man, may obviously play a role of provisional support of occasional cause. sophiaperennis: Rationalism
There is something in our intelligence which wants to live in repose, something in which the conscious and the unconscious meet in a kind of passive activity, and it is to this element that the lofty and easy language of art addresses itself. The language is lofty because of the spiritual symbolism of its forms and the nobility of its style; it is easy because of the aesthetic mode of assimilation. When this function of our spirit, this INTUITION which stands between the natural and the supernatural and produces incalculable vibrations, is systematically violated and led into error, the consequences will be extremely serious, if not for the individual, at all events for the civilization concerned. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE
The common illusion of an “absolutely real” within relativity breeds philosophical sophistries and in particular an empiricist and experimental science wishing to unveil the metaphysical mystery of Existence (NA: With the aid of giant telescopes and electronic microscopes, if need be. Goethe, when he refuses to look through a microscope because he did not wish to wrench from Nature what she is unwilling to offer to our human senses, displayed a most just INTUITION of the limits of all natural science, and at the same time the limits of what is human.); those who seek to enclose the Universe within their shortsighted logic fail to be aware, at least in principle, that the sum of possible phenomenal knowledge is inexhaustible and that, consequently, present “scientific” information represents a naught beside our ignorance – in short that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Shakespeare) and that in order to extend our means of investigation to fit the scale of the total cosmos, we would have to begin by multiplying our human senses in mathematical progression, which brings us back to the unlimited, therefore to the inaccessible and the unknowable. (Treasures of Buddhism, p. 41-42). sophiaperennis: Limits of modern science
The common illusion of an “absolutely real” within relativity breeds philosophical sophistries and in particular an empiricist and experimental science wishing to unveil the metaphysical mystery of Existence (NA: With the aid of giant telescopes and electronic microscopes, if need be. Goethe, when he refuses to look through a microscope because he did not wish to wrench from Nature what she is unwilling to offer to our human senses, displayed a most just INTUITION of the limits of all natural science, and at the same time the limits of what is human.); those who seek to enclose the Universe within their shortsighted logic fail to be aware, at least in principle, that the sum of possible phenomenal knowledge is inexhaustible and that, consequently, present “scientific” information represents a naught beside our ignorance – in short that “there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy” (Shakespeare) and that in order to extend our means of investigation to fit the scale of the total cosmos, we would have to begin by multiplying our human senses in mathematical progression, which brings us back to the unlimited, therefore to the inaccessible and the unknowable. (Treasures of Buddhism, p. 41-42). sophiaperennis: Science and mystery
According to the observations of experimental science, the blue sky which stretches above us is not a world of bliss, but an optical illusion due to the refraction of light by the atmosphere, and from this point of view, it is obviously right to maintain that the home of the blessed does not lie up there. Nevertheless it would be a great mistake to assert that the association of ideas between the visible heaven and celestial Paradise does not arise from the nature of things, but rather from ignorance and ingenuousness mixed with imagination and sentimentality; for the blue sky is a direct and therefore adequate symbol of the higher and supra-sensory degrees of Existence; it is indeed a distant reverberation of those degrees, and it is necessarily so since it is truly a symbol, consecrated by the sacred Scriptures and by the unanimous INTUITION of peoples. sophiaperennis: Science and Revelations
For the same reasons it also denies Revelation, which alone rebuilds the bridge broken by the fall. According to the observations of experimental science, the blue sky which stretches above us is not a world of bliss, but an optical illusion due to the refraction of light by the atmosphere, and from this point of view, it is obviously right to maintain that the home of the blessed does not lie up there. Nevertheless it would be a great mistake to assert that the association of ideas between the visible heaven and celestial Paradise does not arise from the nature of things, but rather from ignorance and ingenuousness, mixed with imagination and sentimentality; for the blue sky is a direct and therefore adequate symbol of the higher and supra-sensory degrees of Existence; it is indeed a distant reverberation of those degrees, and it is necessarily so since it is truly a symbol, consecrated by the sacred Scriptures and by the unanimous INTUITION of peoples. (NA: The word “symbol” implies “participation” or “aspect”, whatever the difference of level may be involved.) sophiaperennis: Science and negation of Transcendence
(In Hindu shaktism) … femininity is what surpasses the formal, the finite, the outward; it is synonymous with indetermination, illimitation, mystery, and thus evokes the “Spirit which giveth life” in relation to the “letter which killeth.” That is to say that femininity in the superior sense comprises a liquefying, interiorizing, liberating power: it liberates from sterile hardnesses, from the dispersing outwardness of limiting and compressing forms. On the one hand, one can oppose feminine sentimentality to masculine rationality — on the whole and without forgetting the relativity of things — but on the other hand, one also opposes to the reasoning of men the INTUITION of women; now it is this gift of INTUITION, in superior women above all, that explains and justifies in large part the mystical promotion of the feminine element; it is consequently in this sense that Haqiqah, esoteric Knowledge, may appear as feminine. (Roots of the Human Condition, p. 40-41) sophiaperennis: Femininity