The secret of René Guénon: A critical review of Guénon's traditionalism

Abstract

This paper aims to present the basic principles of the doctrine of Rene Guenon (1886-1951), a French thinker of broad and comprehensive scope when it comes to Hinduism, Western Occult Tradition, Freemasonry, Taoism, symbolism and certain aspects of metaphysics. His teaching did not leave a mark in the mainstream of philosophy, yet it founded a whole syncretic movement known as Traditionalism or Perennialism. While Guenons doctrine is commonly either ignored or accepted as unquestionably true, a critical approach to it is very rare, especially criticism of the logical coherence of the system itself. Although Guenon was not a transparently systematic thinker, his own beliefs just like any other cannot be self-contradictory. A special attention is given to the contradiction of his doctrine with Islam despite the fact that Guenon was a declared Muslim. In this paper we have particularly shown socio-political implications of Guenons doctrine supporting our attitudes by both Guenons own statements and the statements of his supporters as well as critics ranging from moderate to the most severe ones. We hope we have shown that in his doctrine there is a hidden coherent system that leads to conclusions and objectives that are precisely determined regardless of apparent contradictions.