Category: Spirituality

Arthur Versluis: Perennial Philosophy

New Cultures Press, 2015

Amazon

Blurbs:

“In this lucid explanation of perennial philosophy, Arthur Versluis reveals this tradition – so often described as esoteric and inaccessible – to be closer to our interests and experience than many of us have realized. Versluis has distilled an immense amount of scholarship into this small volume, but its brevity is deceiving. Like the culmination to any alchemical work, Perennial Philosophy is a powerful tincture that – once imbibed – transports receptive readers to a world in which they are part of a spiritual hierarchy that links heaven to earth. Arthur Versluis has distilled an immense amount of scholarship to produce a disarmingly accessible, lucid, and deeply penetrating study of the great philosophic traditions that underlie Western culture. Versluis concisely explains what perennial philosophy is and what it isn’t. The clarity of his prose makes this deep book a pleasure to read. A remarkable achievement!”

Gregory Shaw, author of Theurgy and the Soul: The Neoplatonism of Iamblichus

“This brilliant little book, written with stunning clarity, offers an entirely new perspective on what “perennial philosophy” actually means and entails. This is a return to the real philosophical quest, almost entirely forgotten by the academic world: a going beyond the limited self, to experience our kinship with the greater world and the deepest levels of reality, which results in a transformation of the self and a realization of our human nature.

For anyone interested in the roots of our philosophical tradition, or what a living philosophy could look like today and in the future – a philosophy that actually inspires and fertilizes culture, art, and human experience – this book is indispensable.”

David Fideler, author of Restoring the Soul of the World and other books and essays

“This book is about transcendence: self-transcendence. It traces a pathway to such self-transcendence from Plato (Pythagoras and the Orphic mysteries), through Plotinus, Damascius, Meister Eckhart and Emerson. Perennial Philosophy unveils a contemplative way often referred to as ‘mysticism’ that leads to a selfless, compassionate caring for all existence, from the animate to the inanimate, since all that exists expresses divine creation. The book has no footnotes and yet is scholarly. It records a perennial way of being-in-the-world that contrasts sharply with the way most of us live and see, and is about a past that offers glimpses of a better future. To read it is to question the contemporary understanding of who we are, and what we are capable of becoming. It is medicine for difficult times.”

Robert E. Carter, Trent University, author of Encounter with Enlightenment, The Kyoto School, and many other books.

“This book is colloquial and conversational. It presents an overview of Platonism from the master himself to Emerson in the context of contemporary debates. The author is a devoted Platonist, and his presentation of their doctrines is perfectly orthodox, above all in the absolute priority he gives to intellectual vision, the Vision of the Good. This emphasis alone is a huge achievement. The book is remarkable also for its generosity of tone. To the enlightened eye, no doubt, everything is full of Being. But it is difficult to maintain at all times that warm dispassion which takes the whole world under its wing. The author achieves this simply through the quality of his discriminations. So sharp and apt are the distinctions he makes between competing contemporary doctrines the book is continually illuminating and never tendentious. This reader was forever saying ‘Ah!'”

Roger Sworder, LaTrobe University, author of Mathematical Plato and Science and Religion in Archaic Greece as well as A Contrary History of the West

About the Author:

Wikipedia

The Enlightenment of the Whole Body

Den bok genom vilken jag 1979 upptäckte Jones.

Akademibokhandelns nyöppnade första butik, den på Mäster Samuelsgatan, hade tagit in den.

(Jag kan minnas fel, men tror att de i början även hade en skivavdelning, och att jag vid mitt första besök våren 1978, strax efter öppnandet, köpte Enos Before and After Science där; om jag minns fel köpte jag den i alla fall samma dag, någon annan, närbelägen stans.)

Franklin Jones: The Enlightenment of the Whole Body

Abrahamismens exoteriska gudskonstruktion

Justin Sledge, som jag tror mig minnas samarbetar med Filip Holm, har de senaste åren på sin YouTube-kanal Esoterica gjort flera viktiga avsnitt där han, i ljuset av nyare forskning, diskuterar den komplexa historiska utvecklingen av abrahamismens exogud. Här är ‘Who is Yahweh – How a Warrior-Storm God became the God of the Israelites and World Monotheism’, med 3,4 miljoner visningar, och ‘How did Yahweh Become God? The Origins of Monotheism’, med 1,4 miljoner visningar:

Liksom Holm arbetar Sledge inom en rent akademisk ram, i betydelsen det moderna forskningsuniversitetets, och skiljer sig därigenom radikalt från den – som jag hoppas tillräckligt noggrant definierade – inomtraditionella som är min primära. Men vad som framkommer inom den förblir givetvis ofta av stor vikt.

Mycket finns att tillägga om hur den aktuella gudsuppfattningen, unikt långt driven i abrahamismen, uppkommer ur och på en specifik nivå av det mänskliga subjektiva medvetandets och psykologins utveckling, och såtillvida måste förstås i sammanhanget av en större, traditionalistisk andligt-fenomenologisk typologi.

Men den allmänna sanningen i en sådan analys måste givetvis förenas med den av Sledge tillhandahållna specifika historiska bakgrunden, med alla dess oavgjorda och kontroversiella punkter. Betonas måste också hur det var denna utveckling och dess resultat som tillsammans med den grekiska filosofin kom att driva västerlandets allmänna differentieringsprocess och med kristianismens ortodogmatik bestämma dess under senantiken och medeltiden etablerade identitet och andligt-kulturella nivå.

Da Free John: The Bodily Sacrifice of Attention

Introductory Talks on Radical Understanding and the Life of Divine Ignorance

The Dawn Horse Press, 1981

Publisher’s Description:

The usual man or woman thinks that Enlightenment is the having of a vision. Enlightenment is the most subtle, or tacit, unspeakable understanding. It is the Bodhicitta, the ultimate Realization of Being, the ultimate Wisdom. On its basis, all kinds of radiant transformation may develop, but the Realization itself is so fundamental, so tacit, so simple, so direct, so obvious, so transcendental, that it is not identified with any phenomenon of experience or knowledge. The means of the transmission of this Realization is an awakened individual, the Spiritual Master, but the Realization is most tacit, perfect, simple, direct, and obvious. When you come to the point of acknowledging the Divine Identity and Condition of manifest existence, then you are Enlightened.

JOB’s Comment:

As I have pointed out before, the titles of Jones’s books are not always – indeed not even normally – easily comprehensible without at least some familiarity with his teachings.

PhilosophiCat om Evola

PhilosophiCat är en amerikansk aktivist som blev känd i samband med den på problematiskt sätt radikaliserade althögerrörelsen för omkring 10 år sedan. Dock tillhörde hon väl knappast de mer extrema, och sedan dess tycks hon ha fokuserat på mer disciplinerad framställning och diskussion av traditionalistisk-perennialistiska ståndpunkter i främst Evolas form.

Nu beskriver hon sin YouTube-kanal så här: “Exploring philosophy and spirituality from a perennialist perspective. Home of the 40-episode series on Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World. Occasionally my cat chimes in, too.” Neema Parvini gjorde för fyra år sedan en intervju med henne, som bl.a. behandlar denna Evolaserie.

Såvitt jag kan se återfinns på kanalen dock bara 13 delar; jag länkar till dem nedan. Men det är inte illa – det är ett mycket ambitiöst projekt; de återstående 27 har tydligen ännu inte producerats. Jag får återkomma med dem när de är tillgängliga. De avsnitt jag nu hittar gjordes för 5-6 år sedan. Det första, en introduktion, har nyligen omarbetats, och den nya versionen presenteras som “the Extended Director’s Cut version of the original, with an additional 10 minutes of new content, more polished editing, and includes narration audio-dubbed in 12 languages and captions in 30 languages”. Vi får bl.a. se och höra en AI-inkarnation av Evola. På Facebook signalerar hon att även de följande avsnitten kommer bearbetas på motsvarande sätt.

Så här beskriver hon serien:

“Our aim with this series is much the same as Evola’s aim in writing the book: we wish to lay down a testimony in order to preserve this ancient wisdom for future generations. We remain connected to the World of Tradition by only the most fragile, frayed thread and it is imperative to preserve as much of it as possible as we move through this dark age of history. In this episode, we explore the foreword of the book, covering some concepts that will be essential to understand before moving ahead in our journey to understand what it means to revolt against the modern world. While it is not necessary to read the book in order to enjoy this series, we do highly recommend it, as it is a great book! ‘Revolt Against the Modern World’ can be found as a free pdf in various places online, or can be purchased from most major booksellers. This series is intended to be both an introduction for those new to Evola and as a companion to the book.”

Althögerns överdrivet romantisk-dramatiska estetik präglar fortfarande serien (visuellt såväl som ifråga om den ständiga musiken i bakgrunden), men när man märker hur utomordentligt väl och initierat PhilosophiCat formulerar sig är det faktiskt lätt att fokusera enbart på det.

Introduction

The Beginning

Regality

Polar Symbolism; the Lord of Peace and Justice

The Law, the State, the Empire

The Mystery of the Rite

On the Primordial Nature of the Patriciate

Spiritual Virility

The Two Paths in the Afterlife

Life and Death of Civilizations

Initiation and Consecration

Hierarchy of Royalty and Priesthood

Universality and Centralism

Utöver denna oavslutade serie finns också en lång rad andra videos om Evola och perennialism på kanalen. PhilosophiCat har också en substack, som tyvärr, liksom alla sådana, är tekniskt primitiv och därför svåröverskådlig. Hon har också många följare på X. Bland traditionalisterna måste hon entydigt räknas till hårdingarna, om vilket mycket finns att säga. Men det gäller ju också Evola själv, och YouTube-serien vittnar i alla fall om mycket grundligt studium av honom.