Rene Guenon (1886-1951) is undoubtedly one of the luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of recent philosophies. His oeuvre of 26 volumes is providential for the modern seeker: pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, at the same time it directs the reader to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization. Traditional Forms and Cosmic Cycles is a wide-ranging collection of articles that could just as well have been called Fragments of an Unknown History. Although they must remain fragments, as Guenon did not return to many of these themes again, it would have been regrettable to leave such fascinating articles buried in old journals, and so this posthumous collection is now offered to Anglophone readers for the first time. by two pieces on Atlantis and Hyperborea. Two sections follow, concerned respectively with the Hebrew Tradition and the Egyptian Tradition. The former comprises five articles concerned primarily with the Kabbalah and the Science of Numbers, and the latter includes three articles on Hermes and the Hermetic Tradition. Book reviews are inserted at relevant points. To lend the collection coherence, no other spiritual Traditions are here represented. A list of the Collected Writings of Rene Guenon has been provided for those who wish to investigate Guenon's metaphysical expositions on such topics as Christianity, Islam, the Greco-Latin Traditions, Celtism, etc.

Study of the ontological hierarchy of the states of being as taught in the traditional metaphyscial doctrines of East and West.

The present volume discusses Christian initiation and various esoteric organizations, with special reference to Dante, as well as a study of St Bernard.

Deals with the normal relationship between the spiritual and the temporal powers implied in a healthy traditional civilization, that is, the supremacy of knowledge over action, of the sacerdotal over the royal caste. Touching first on India and the medieval West, Guenon then illustrates his point by citing quarrels over investiture and disputes of certain French kingswith the papacy as evidence of a deviation in Christianity.