SOME years after Guénon had completed his work, he wrote a new ‘Preface’ in which he was to return to some of the themes he had discussed in 1927. As he explained, since the publication first appeared

events have succeeded one another at an ever increasing speed and, while this has not made it necessary to alter a single word of what we wrote at that time, it provides an opportunity for certain additional explanations and for the development of lines of thought that we did not feel called upon to stress in the first instance. (p.1)

Guénon was not so much revising what he had written, therefore, as making an attempt to clarify some of his earlier remarks in light of the disturbing new trends that had since come to light.

Most notably, however, his intention was to explain that there was now a semblance of hope among the masses on account of the growing dissatisfaction with notions of scientific and technological ‘progress’ and the popular belief that Western civilisation is invincible:

Such persons may not see clearly where the danger lies — the fantastic or puerile fears they sometimes express being proof enough that their minds still harbour many errors — but it is already something that they realize there is a danger, even if it is felt rather than understood; and it is also something that they can conceive that this civilization, with which the moderns are so infatuated, holds no privileged position in the history of the world, and may easily encounter the same fate as has befallen many others that have already disappeared at more or less remote periods, some of them having left traces so slight as to be hardly noticeable, let alone recognizable. (p.2)

As far as the title of his book is concerned, Guénon had deliberately employed the term ‘Crisis’ to convey the fact that the world had already entered a state of emergency and yet he now wished to emphasise that the situation was nearing its end. Indeed, whilst

such a state of affairs may doubtless continue for some time longer, but not indefinitely, and, even without being able to assign a definite time-limit, one has the impression that it cannot last very much longer. (p.2)

As noted previously, the Kali-Yuga is comprised of a total of 432,000 years and therefore the Frenchman was not suggesting that it would necessarily come to an end during the course of his own lifetime. Nonetheless, now that we are entering the second quarter of the twenty-first century the writing is on the wall like never before.

The term ‘Crisis’ implies that we have reached a critical period in history and one which, despite raising the morbid spectre of death and destruction, actually proceeds towards a resolution:

All we can undertake at the moment is to contribute, to a certain extent and as far as the means at our disposal allow, toward making those capable of it aware of some of the consequences that seem already fully established. By so doing we shall be preparing the ground, albeit in a partial and rather indirect manner for those who must play their part in the future ‘judgement’, following which a new era will open in the history of mankind. (p.3)

We are not facing a holocaust that is poised to wipe us from the face of the earth and Guénon’s discussion about the movement between one cycle to the next must be viewed in a positive and optimistic way, as though one door is closing and another is about to open.

History is full of gloomy prophets and messianic doom-sayers, each of whom insist that the Day of Judgement is immediately upon us, and much of the rhetoric – scriptural or otherwise – relates to a chosen elite that will manage to weather the coming storm. At the same time, if

the matter is viewed in this way, it becomes easy to see that the preoccupation with the ‘end of the world’ is closely connected with the state of general mental unrest in which we are at present living: the vague foreboding of an end — which in fact is near — works uncontrollably on the imaginations of some people and quite naturally gives rise to wild and for the most part grossly materialized mental images that in their turn assume external form in the extravagances to which we have alluded. (p.4)

If mankind’s belief in cataclysmic upheaval is confined to the psychological sphere, however accurate this belief in the ultimate fragility of civilisation may be, it merely suggests that everything will come to an abrupt end and that nothing will follow in its stead.

In addition, this limited viewpoint fails to take into consideration the metaphysical considerations or ‘cyclic laws’ that govern the entire process. As Guénon suggests, this

is a part of the appointed order of things, for equilibrium is the result of the simultaneous action of two contrary tendencies; if the one or the other could cease to act entirely, equilibrium would never be restored and the world itself would disappear; but this supposition has no possibility of realization, for the two terms of an opposition have no meaning apart from each other, and whatever the appearances may be, one may be sure that all partial and transitory disequilibriums contribute in the end toward realizing the total equilibrium. (p.6)

This fact alone, surely, grants us the security of knowing that we are part of a vast cosmic happening and that as the old world staggers towards its final appointment with destiny we find ourselves standing on the very brink of a new Golden Age.

FURTHER READING

Works by René Guénon

1921 Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines (Introduction générale à l’étude des doctrines hindoues)

1921 Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion (Le Théosophisme – Histoire d’une pseudo-religion)

1923 The Spiritist Fallacy (L’erreur spirite)

1924 East and West (Orient et Occident)

1925 Man and his Becoming According to the Vedanta (L’homme et son devenir selon le Vêdânta)

1925 The Esoterism of Dante (L’ésotérisme de Dante)

1927 The King of the World (Le Roi du Monde)

1927 The Crisis of the Modern World (La crise du monde moderne)

1929 Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power (Authorité Spirituelle et Pouvoir Temporel)

1929 St. Bernard (Saint-Bernard, 1929)

1931 The Symbolism of the Cross (Le symbolisme de la croix)

1932 The Multiple States of the Being (Les états multiples de l’Être)

1939 Oriental Metaphysics (La metaphysique orientale)

1945 The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times (Le règne de la quantité et les signes des temps)

1946 Perspectives on Initiation (Aperçus sur l’initiation)

1946 The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus (Les principes du calcul infinitésimal)

1946 The Great Triad (La Grande Triade)

1952 Initiation and Spiritual Realization (Initiation et réalisation spirituelle)

1954 Insights into Christian Esoterism (Aperçus sur l’ésotérisme chrétien)

1962 Symbols of Sacred Science (Symboles de la Science Sacrée)

1964 Studies in Freemasonry and Compagnonnage (Études sur la Franc-Maçonnerie et le Compagnonnage)

1966 Studies in Hinduism (Études sur l’Hindouisme)

1970 Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles (Formes traditionelles et cycles cosmiques)

1973 Insights into Islamic Esoterism and Taoism (Aperçus sur l’ésotérisme islamique et le Taoïsme)

1973 Reviews (Comptes rendus)

1976 Miscellanea (Mélanges)

Secondary sources

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Evola, Julius; Ride the Tiger: A Survival Manual for the Aristocrats of the Soul (Inner Traditions, 2003).

Evola, Julius; The Path of Cinnabar: An Intellectual Autobiography (Integral Tradition, 2009).

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