The Traditionalist School is a group of 20th and 21st century thinkers concerned with what they considered to be the demise of traditional forms of knowledge, both aesthetic and spiritual, within Western society. The principal thinkers in this tradition are René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Frithjof Schuon. Other important thinkers in this tradition include Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Jean-Louis Michon, Marco Pallis, Huston Smith, Hossein Nasr, Jean Borella, Julius Evola and William Chittick. A central belief of this school is the existence of a perennial wisdom, or perennial philosophy, which says that there are primordial and universal truths which form the source for, and are shared by all the major world religions.
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Ideas
According to the Traditionalists, there are primordial and universal religious truths which are at the foundations of all major world religions. The Traditionalists speak of "absolute Truth and infinite Presence". Absolute Truth is "the perennial wisdom (sophia perennis) that stands as the transcendent source of all the intrinsically orthodox religions of humankind." According to Traditionalists, "the primordial and perennial truth" is manifested in a variety of religious and spiritual traditions. Infinite Presence is "the perennial religion (religio perennis) that lives within the heart of all intrinsically orthodox religions." According to Frithjof Schuon,
The term philosophia perennis, which has been current since the time of the Renaissance and of which neo-scholasticism made much use, signifies the totality of the primordial and universal truths — and therefore of the metaphysical axioms — whose formulation does not belong to any particular system. One could speak in the same sense of a religio perennis, designating by this term the essence of every religion; this means the essence of every form of worship, every form of prayer, and every system of morality, just as the sophia perennis is the essence of all dogmas and all expressions of wisdom.
Although the Traditionalist school is often said to be a "perennial philosophy", its members prefer the term sophia perennis ("perennial wisdom"). According to Frithjof Schuon,
We prefer the term sophia to that of philosophia, for the simple reason that the second term is less direct and because it evokes in addition associations of ideas with a completely profane and all too often aberrant system of thought.
The Traditionalist vision of a perennial wisdom is not based on mystical experiences, but on metaphysical intuitions. It is "intuited directly through divine intellect." This divine intellect is different from reason, and makes it possible to discern "the sacred unity of reality that is attested in all authentic esoteric expressions of tradition"; it is "the presence of divinity within each human waiting to be uncovered." According to Frithjof Schuon,
The key to the eternal sophia is pure intellection or in other words metaphysical discernment. To "discern" is to "separate": to separate the Real and the illusory, the Absolute and the contingent, the Necessary and the possible, Atma and Maya. Accompanying discernment, by way of complement and operatively, is concentration, which unites: this means becoming fully aware — from the starting point of earthly and human Maya — of Atma, which is both absolute and infinite.
Traditionalists discern a transcendent and an immanent dimension, namely the discernment of the Real or Absolute, c.q. that which is permanent; and the intentional "mystical concentration on the Real".
According to the Traditionalists, this truth has been lost in the modern world through the rise of novel secular philosophies stemming from the Enlightenment, and modernity itself is considered as an "anomaly in the history of mankind." Traditionalists see their approach as a justifiable "nostalgia for the past". According to Frithjof Schuon,
... "traditionalism"; like "esoterism" [...] has nothing pejorative about it in itself [...] If to recognize what is true and just is "nostalgia for the past," it is quite clearly a crime or a disgrace not to feel this nostalgia.
Traditionalists insist on the necessity for affiliation to one of the "normal traditions", or great ancient religions of the world. The regular affiliation to the ordinary life of a believer is crucial, since this could give access to the esoterism of that given religious form.
People
The ideas of the Traditionalist School are considered to begin with René Guénon. Other people considered Traditionalists include Titus Burckhardt, Jean Borella, Ananda Coomaraswamy, Martin Lings, Jean-Louis Michon, Marco Pallis, Huston Smith, Hossein Nasr, Frithjof Schuon and Julius Evola.
René Guénon
A major theme in the works of René Guénon (1886-1951) is the contrast between traditional world views and modernity, "which he considered to be an anomaly in the history of mankind." For Guénon, the physical world was a manifestation of metaphysical principles, which are preserved in the perennial teachings of the world religions, but were lost to the modern world. For Guénon, "the malaise of the modern world lies in its relentless denial of the metaphysical realm."
Early on, Guénon was attracted to Sufism, which he saw as a more accessible path of spiritual knowledge. In 1912 Guénon was initiated in the Shadhili order. He started writing after his doctoral dissertation was rejected, and he left academia in 1923. His works center on the return to these traditional world views, trying to reconstruct the Perennial Philosophy.
In his first books and essays he envisaged a restoration of traditional "intellectualité" in the West on the basis of Roman Catholicism and Freemasonry. He gave up early on a purely Christian basis for a traditionalist restoration of the West, searching for other traditions. He denounced the lure of Theosophy and neo-occultism in the form of Spiritism, two influential movements that were flourishing in his lifetime. In 1930 he moved to Egypt, where he lived until his death in 1951.
Influence
Traditionalism had a discrete impact in the field of comparative religion, particularly on the young Mircea Eliade, although he was not himself a member of this school. Contemporary scholars such as Huston Smith, William Chittick, Harry Oldmeadow, James Cutsinger and Hossein Nasr have advocated Perennialism as an alternative to secularist approach to religious phenomena.
Through the close affiliation with Sufism, the traditionalist perspective has been gaining ground in Asia and the Islamic world at large.
Association with far right movements
The Traditionalist School has been associated with some far right movements. Critics of Traditionalism cite its popularity among the European Nouvelle Droite ("New Right"), while Julius Evola's ideas were used by Italian Fascists during the Years of Lead. Mark Sedgwick's Against the Modern World, published in 2004, gives an analysis of the Traditionalist School and its influence.
A number of disenchanted intellectuals responded to Guénon's call with attempts to put theory into practice. Some attempted without success to guide Fascism and Nazism along Traditionalist lines; others later participated in political terror in Italy. Traditionalism finally provided the ideological cement for the alliance of anti-democratic forces in post-Soviet Russia, and at the end of the Twentieth Century began to enter the debate in the Islamic world about the desirable relationship between Islam and modernity.
In his book Guénon ou le renversement des clartés, the French scholar Xavier Accart questions the connection sometimes made between the Traditionalist School and far-right politics. According to Accart, René Guenon was highly critical of Evola's political involvements and was worried about the possible confusion between his own ideas and Evola's. Guénon also clearly denounced the ideology of the fascist regimes in Europe before and during the World War II. Accart finally claims that the assimilation of Guénon with Evola and the confusion between Traditionalism and the New Right can be traced back to Louis Pauwels and Bergier's The Morning of the Magicians (1960).
Alain de Benoist, the founder of the Nouvelle Droite declared in 2013 that the influence of Guénon on his political school was very weak and that he does not consider him as a major author.