The Richest Vein: The Eastern Tradition & Modern Thought (Perennial Wisdom Series)

Le Gai Eaton, Charles

Religion & Spirituality

Perennial Books Ltd

The Reign of Quantity gives a concise but comprehensive view of the present state of affairs in the world, as it appears from the point of view of the ‘ancient wisdom’, formerly common both to the East and to the West, but now almost entirely lost sight of. The author indicates with his fabled clarity and directness the precise nature of the modern deviation, and devotes special attention to the development of modern philosophy and science, and to the part played by them, with their accompanying notions of progress and evolution, in the formation of the industrial and democratic society which we now regard as ‘normal’. Guénon sees history as a descent from Form (or Quality) toward Matter (or Quantity); but after the Reign of Quantity—modern materialism and the ‘rise of the masses’—Guénon predicts a reign of ‘inverted quality’ just before the end of the age: the triumph of the ‘counter-initiation’, the kingdom of Antichrist. This text is considered the magnum opus among Guénon’s texts of civilizational criticism, as is Symbols of Sacred Science among his studies on symbols and cosmology, and Man and His Becoming according to the Vedanta among his more purely metaphysical works.

The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times

Politics & Social Sciences

Perry. Whitall N.

Philosophy

East and West, first published in 1924, was the fourth of a series of books that cleared the ground for Guénon’s later writings. His first book, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines (1921), was an exposition of metaphysics as transmitted in the Hindu tradition, and served to establish his specific use of important terms such as ‘esoterism’, ‘tradition’, and ‘orthodoxy’. He next set about writing two extensive volumes critiquing what he called ‘pseudo-esoteric’ groups. The first of these, Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion (1921), is an exposé of Madame Blavatsky’s Theosophical Society; the second, The Spiritist Fallacy (1923), examines the current of nineteenth-century spiritism that set the stage for many occult movements that appeared toward the end of that century. Guénon’s application of traditional metaphysics to the special case of pseudo-esoteric groups was then broadened in the present book to the general question of East and West as conservators and transmitters of traditional wisdom in the modern age. The titles of its two parts, ‘Western Illusions’ and ‘How the Differences Might be Bridged’, describe perfectly the book’s intention. Later books, especially The Crisis of the Modern World and its magisterial sequel, The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, further extended Guénon’s penetrating critique of the modern world.

East and West

GUÉNON, RENÉ

Politics & Government

Transformist Illusion

Dewar, Douglas

Health, Fitness & Dieting

See the best price to sell, buy or rent books by the Perennial Books Ltd publisher. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Perennial Books Ltd