AT a time when globalisation has become part and parcel of our daily experience, it is fascinating to travel back through time and read what Guénon had to say about the debilitating effects of Western influence a century ago.

Although Europeans had been interfering in African and Asian countries for many centuries, constructing their powerful empires on the back of conquest, slavery and stolen booty, in the wake of the First World War the two-fold strategy of imperialism and colonialism took a far more insidious turn. As Guénon explains, there

are Easterners who are more or less completely ‘Westernized’, who have forsaken their tradition and adopted all the aberrations of the modern outlook, and these denatured elements— led astray by the teachings of European and American universities— have become a cause of trouble and agitation in their own countries. (p.97)

It has been the case for some considerable time that these ‘modernist’ elements, as the author describes them, gravitate to the very forefront of political, social and economic life and therefore act as important pawns in the struggle for Western global domination. As a result of this infiltration, the Traditional strongholds that we ordinarily associate with Eastern spirituality are in a state of decline and this is another irrefutable sign of the advanced stages of Kali-Yuga.

Ironically, whilst those responsible for importing anti-Traditional values to their respective Eastern countries may be said to harbour a Western mentality, the

same individuals who become the auxiliaries of ‘Westernism’ from an intellectual point of view — or, more exactly, in opposition to all real intellectuality — sometimes come to the fore as the opponents of the West in the field of politics. But there is nothing surprising in this, for it is they who strive to introduce the idea of ‘nation’ in the East, and all nationalism is essentially opposed to the traditional outlook; they may wish to resist foreign domination, but in order to do so they make use of Western methods, such as are used by the various Western peoples when fighting among themselves; and it may be that in this fact lies the justification for their existence. (p.98)

The number of prominent liberal and left-wing activists who sought to overthrow the British Raj during the 1940s, for example, is staggering and many Indian leaders had been educated in the hallowed colleges of Oxford and Cambridge. After all, what better way to launch a systematic attack on Tradition than to re-educate a number of Eastern fifth columnists who will happily go on to sow the seeds of discord within their own countries of origin?

One example of the way in which Western influence is having a pronounced effect on Eastern values is through the form of Hindi cinema known as Bollywood. Not only is this term an obvious modification of the word ‘Hollywood,’ itself responsible for hastening the demise of Tradition through American propaganda and mass brainwashing, but a new blend of traditional Indian culture and Western methods of interaction and choreography have acted as a back door through which the globalists have surreptitiously managed to enter with the intention of undermining the cohesiveness and identity of Asia itself.

Guénon, meanwhile, asks whether

the East, as a result of modern influence, [will] have to undergo a merely transitory and super-ficial crisis, or will the West involve the whole of mankind in its own downfall? (p.99)

Those of us living in the twenty-first century do not have to look far to find the answer, for the unprecedented impact of globalisation is busy dragging the entirety of the world into its calamitous orbit and the fact that all major economies are now shackled to an internationalist system means that when the financial structure finally crashes to the ground both East and West will collapse at the same time.

Writing in the 1920s, of course, the Frenchman was optimistic that the East would be able to keep the perennial flame burning and that

the spiritual power inherent in tradition, of which its adversaries know nothing, may triumph over the material power when this has played its part, and disperse it as light disperses the shadows; we may even say that it must triumph sooner or later, but it is possible that there will be a period of complete darkness before this happens. The traditional spirit cannot die, being in its essence above death and change; but it can withdraw completely from the outward world, and then there would really be the end of a world’. (p.99)

We can perhaps be thankful that Guénon is no longer around to see the full effects of Western encroachment or arrive at the stark reality that Eastern Tradition is now in a more perilous and unpredictable condition than ever before. On the other hand, given the clear and unequivocal prophecies left to us by the ancients none of this is really ‘unpredictable’ at all and

one may conclude that such an eventuality in the not far distant future is by no means unlikely; and, in the confusion that has arisen in the West and that is at present over-flowing into the East, we may see the ‘beginning of the end’, the preliminary sign of the moment when, according to the Hindu tradition, the whole of the sacred doctrine is to be shut in a conch-shell, from which it will once more come forth intact at the dawn of the new world. (p.99)

Speculation apart, Guénon was aware that the West had long before set into motion the wheels of international catastrophe and that it was a direct consequence of its own material conquests abroad. This, however, was only the beginning and

Westerners, always animated by that need for proselytism which is so exclusively theirs, have succeeded to a certain extent in introducing their own anti-traditional and materialistic outlook among other peoples; and whereas the first form of invasion only affected men’s bodies, this newer form poisons their minds and kills all spirituality. In point of fact, it was the first kind of invasion that made the second one possible, so that it is ultimately only by brute force that the West has succeeded in imposing itself upon the rest of the world, as, indeed, must necessarily be the case, since in this sphere alone lies the superiority of its civilization, so inferior from every other point of view. (p.99)

Behind all the affected morality and humanitarianism, therefore, one finds a naked materialism that infects everything it comes into contact with. For Guénon, it amounts to nothing more than Satanism and this he defines as the role of the adversary who ‘turns things upside down’.

One particular source that Guénon attributes to an example of the modern Western mentality – in this case, from the world of French literature – is Défense de l’Occident. Written by the allegedly ‘conservative’ essayist, Henri Massis (1886-1970), the book had appeared just as Guénon was completing The Crisis of the Modern World and he describes it thus:

It is a book full of confusion and contradiction, and shows once more to what extent most of those who seek to react against the modern disorder are incapable of doing so in a really effective way, since they are not even very clear as to what they are fighting against. The author at times disclaims the intention of attacking the real East; and if he had in fact confined himself to a criticism of ‘pseudo-oriental’ fantasies, that is to say of purely Western theories that are being spread abroad under deceptive names and that are merely one of the many products of the present disequilibrium, this could only meet with our full approval, especially since we ourselves have drawn attention to the real danger of this sort of thing, as well as to its inanity from an intellectual point of view. (p.100)

Unfortunately, Massis – who wrote from a Christian perspective – launched a scathing criticism of Indian and Chinese spirituality on the basis of a few spurious accounts that had been produced by Westerners and Guénon responds by asking whether his counterpart ‘really considers it advisable to attack tradition abroad while striving to restore it at home’. Massis, in his eyes, was adopting a purely political stance when matters of this kind require the application of a ‘pure intellectuality’.

We can see echoes of this narrow-minded approach among today’s ‘nationalist’ Islamophobes, most of whom ignore the possibility that Muslims living in the West might share some of their own Traditional values:

Massis attacks what he calls ‘Eastern prop-agandists’, an expression which is itself a contradiction in terms, since, as we have said often enough, the mania for propaganda is a purely Western thing; and this alone shows that there is some misunderstanding. (pp.101-102)

Similarly, when those who criticise Islam point to the example of extremist groups such as the Islamic State (Daesh) – which, on the surface, appear to be promoting ideas that are antithetical to the West – few realise that terrorist organisations of this kind come into existence as a result of Occidental influence. If they are not directly established by Westernised Muslims, they spring into life as a consequence of Western-led Zionism. The ‘Eastern prop-aganda’ of which Massis spoke, therefore, is decidedly manufactured and second-hand.

Guénon also makes the excellent point that

if they hated the West so violently, would be to guard their doctrines jealously for their own exclusive use, and that all their efforts would be toward denying Westerners access to them; indeed, this is a reproach that has sometimes been levelled against Easterners, and with more appearance of justification. (p.104)

We may apply this logic to the twenty-first century hysteria that surrounds Shari’a Law, a non-existent ‘threat’ that is designed to provoke a shallow political response to what is clearly the far more complex problem of importing mass immigration for cheap labour.

As Guénon continues, if any genuine hatred for the West exists among the devotees of Eastern spirituality then should

one blame the elite, who, given over to intellectual contemplation, hold themselves strictly aloof from all outward agitation, or is it not rather the fault of Westerners themselves, who have done everything to make their presence odious and intolerable? As soon as the question is put thus, as it should be, the answer becomes clear to everybody, and even if one admits that Easterners, who have hitherto given evidence of incredible patience, show at last a desire to be masters in their own home, who can bring himself honestly to blame them? (p.104)

The point has been made, however controversial, that public apathy towards the aggressive policies of their own Western governments has somehow provoked the behaviour of Islamic terrorists. This view does not justify the actions of either a bigot or a murderer, whatever his or her religious beliefs happen to be, but it is certainly worth taking into consideration.

Summarising his negative attitude towards Massis’ work in general, Guénon re-emphasises that his so-called ‘defence’ of the West has done considerably more harm than good:

How can this low-grade and to a large extent artificial traditionalism, with its narrow horizons and lack of understanding, offer any real and effective resistance to an outlook, so many of whose prejudices it shares? Both outlooks imply much the same ignorance of true principles: there is the same biased denial of everything that transcends a certain limit, the same inability to understand the existence of different civilizations, and the same superstition of Greco-Latin classicism. (p.105)

Thankfully, the author’s refusal to descend into the cheap semantics offered by certain other commentators who find themselves alarmed by the decline of the modern world has given us a deep insight into his steadfast commitment to maintaining truth and honesty at all times.