All this shows that, to say the least, the word "philosopher" in itself has nothing restrictive about it, and that one cannot legitimately impute to this word any of the vexing associations of ideas that it may elicit; usage applies this word to all thinkers, including eminent metaphysicians - some Sufis consider Plato and other Greeks to be prophets - so that one would like to reserve it for sages and simply use the term "rationalists" for profane thinkers. It is nevertheless legitimate to take account of a misuse of language that has become conventional, for unquestionably the terms "philosophy" and "philosopher" have been seriously compromised by ancient and modern reasoners; in fact, the serious inconvenience of these terms is that they conventionally imply that the norm for the mind is reasoning pure and simple, [NA: Naturally the most " advanced" of the modernists seek to demolish the very principles of reasoning, but this is simply fantasy pro domo, for man is condemned to reason as soon as he uses language, unless he wishes to demonstrate nothing at all. In any case, one cannot demonstrate the impossibility of demonstrating anything, if words are still to have any meaning.] in the absence not only of intellection, but also of indispensable objective data. Admittedly one is neither ignorant nor rationalistic just because one is a logician, but one is both if one is a logician and nothing more. [NA: A German author (H. Turck) has proposed the term "misosopher" -" enemy of wisdom"- for those thinkers who undermine the very foundations of truth and intelligence. We will add that misosophy - without mentioning some ancient precedents - begins grosso modo with " criticism" and ends with subjectivisms, relativisms, existentialisms, dynamisms, psychologisms and biologisms of every kind. As for the ancient expression "misology," it designates above all the hatred of the fideist for the use of reason.] sophiaperennis: What is a philosopher?

In the opinion of all profane thinkers, philosophy means to think "freely," as far as possible without presuppositions, which precisely is impossible; on the other hand, gnosis, or philosophy in the proper and primitive sense of the word, is to think in accordance with the immanent Intellect and not by means of reason alone. sophiaperennis: What is a philosopher?

As regards the illegitimacy of any attempt to overstep the limits imposed by the mystery of Isis, it could be objected that metaphysics is also such an attempt. This argument applies to profane philosophy, but not to the scientia sacra by which Isis Herself consents to lift a veil, without however withdrawing it to the point of leaving no mystery. sophiaperennis: Thought and mental cristallizations

The goal of the profane thinkers on the contrary is to propose to the intelligence only what is rationally verifiable and to "free" thought from all transcendence; the intention is to "demystify" the universe by explaining it once and for all; thus rationalistic language wishes to press the knowable to the last drop. Thought is then all that language expresses and nothing more. sophiaperennis: Thought and mental cristallizations

Such propensities hide the distinction between the "lived vision" of the sage and the mental virtuosity of the profane "thinker"; everywhere we see "literature", nothing but "literature", and what is more, literature of such and such a "period". sophiaperennis: Jacques Maritain  

The Sophists inaugurate the era of individualistic rationalism and of unlimited pretensions; thus they open the door to all arbitrary totalitarianisms. It is true that profane philosophy also begins with Aristotle  , but in a rather different sense, since the rationality of the Stagyrite tends upwards and not downwards as does that of Protagoras and his like; in other words, if a dissolving individualism originates with the Sophists - not forgetting allied spirits such as Democritus   and Epicurus   - Aristotle on the other hand opens the era of a rationalism still anchored in metaphysical certitude, but none the less fragile and ambiguous in its very principle, as there has more than once been occasion to point out. sophiaperennis: Modern philosophers

In the opinion of all profane thinkers, philosophy means to think "freely," as far as possible without presuppositions, which precisely is impossible; on the other hand, gnosis, or philosophy in the proper and primitive sense of the word, is to think in accordance with the immanent Intellect and not by means of reason alone. What favors confusion is the fact that in both cases the intelligence operates independently of outward prescriptions, although for diametrically opposed reasons: that the rationalist if need be draws his inspiration from a pre-existing system does not prevent him from thinking in a way that he deems to be "free"- falsely, since true freedom coincides with truth - likewise, mutatis mutandis: that the gnostic - in the orthodox sense of the term - bases himself extrinsically on a given sacred Scripture or on some other gnostic cannot prevent him from thinking in an intrinsically free manner by virtue of the freedom proper to the immanent Truth, or proper to the Essence which by delinition escapes formal constraints. Or again: whether the gnostic "thinks" what he has "seen" with the "eye of the heart," or whether on the contrary he obtains his "vision" thanks to the intervention - preliminary and provisional and in no wise efficient - of a thought which then takes on the role of occasional cause , is a matter of indifference with regard to the truth, or with regard to its almost supernatural springing forth in the spirit. sophiaperennis: Profane "thinkers"

The Sophists inaugurate the era of individualistic rationalism and of unlimited pretensions; thus they open the door to all arbitrary totalitarianisms. It is true that profane philosophy also begins with Aristotle, but in a rather different sense, since the rationality of the Stagyrite tends upwards and not downwards as does that of Protagoras and his like; in other words, if a dissolving individualism originates with the Sophists - not forgetting allied spirits such as Democritus and Epicurus - Aristotle on the other hand opens the era of a rationalism still anchored in metaphysical certitude, but none the less fragile and ambiguous in its very principle, as there has more than once been occasion to point out. sophiaperennis: Protagoras

As for the profane and properly rationalistic philosophy of the Greeks, which is personified especially by Protagoras and of which Aristotle is not completely free, it represents a deviation of the perspective which normally gives rise to gnosis or jnana; when this perspective is cut off from pure intellection, and thus from its reason for existence, it becomes fatally hostile to religion and open to all kinds of hazards; the sages of Greece did not need the Fathers of the Church to know this, and the Fathers of the Church could not prevent the Christian world from falling into this trap. Moreover through the civilizationism which it claims as its own, so as not to lose any glory, the Church paradoxically assumes responsibility for the modern world - described as "Christian civilization" - which nevertheless is nothing other than the excrescence of that human wisdom stigmatized by the Fathers. sophiaperennis: Protagoras

The evolutionist rationalists are of the opinion that Aristotle, being the father of logic, is ipso facto the father of intelligence become at last mature and efficacious; they obviously are unaware that this flowering of a discipline of thought, while having its merits, goes more or less hand in hand with a weakening, or even an atrophy, of intellectual intuition. The angels, it is said, do not possess reason, for they have no need of reasoning; this need presupposes in fact that the spirit, no longer able to see, must "grope." It may be objected that the greatest metaphysicians, hence the greatest intellectual intuitives, made use of reasoning; no doubt, but this was only in their dialectic - intended for others - and not in their intellection as such. It is true that a reservation applies here: since intellectual intuition does not a priori encompass all aspects of the real, reasoning may have the function of indirectly provoking a "vision" of some aspect; but in this case reasoning operates merely as an occasional cause, it is not a constitutive element of the cognition. We will perhaps be told that reasoning may actualize in any thinker a suprarational intuition, which is true in principle, yet in fact it is more likely that such an intuition will not be produced, as there is nothing in the profane mentality that is predisposed thereto, to say the least. sophiaperennis: Aristotle

A certain underlying warrior or chivalric mentality does much to explain both the theological fluctuations and their ensuing disputes [NA: Let us not lose sight of the fact that the same causes produce the same effects in all climates - albeit to very varied extents and that India is no exception; the quarrels of sectarian Vishnuism are a case in point.] - the nature of Christ and the structure of the Trinity having been, in the Christian world, among the chief points at issue - just as it explains such narrownesses as the incomprehension and the intolerance of the ancient theologians towards Hellenism, its metaphysics and its mysteries. It is moreover this same mentality which produced, in the very bosom of the Greek tradition, the divergence of Aristotle with regard to Plato, who personified in essence the brahmana spirit inherent in the Orphic and Pythagorean tradition, [NA: It goes without saying that in the classical period - with its grave intellectual and artistic deviations - and then in its re- emergence at the time of the Renaissance, we have obvious examples of luciferianism of a warrior and chivalric, and therefore, kshatriya type. But it is not deviation proper that we have in mind here, since we are speaking on the contrary of manifestations that are normal and acceptable to Heaven, otherwise there could be no question of voluntarist and emotional upayas.] whereas the Stagirite formulated a metaphysics that was in certain respects centrifugal and dangerously open to the world of phenomena, actions, experiments and adventures. [NA: But let us not make Aristotelianism responsible for the modern world, which is due to the confluence of various factors, such as the abuses - and subsequent reactions - provoked by the unrealistic idealism of Catholicism, or such as the divergent and unreconciled demands of the Latin and Germanic mentalities; all of them converging on Greek scientism and the profane mentality.] sophiaperennis: Comparison between Plato and Aristotle

One must react against the evolutionist prejudice which makes out that the thought of the Greeks "attained" to a certain level or a certain result, that is to say, that the triad Socrates   -Plato -Aristotle represents the summit of an entirely "natural" thought, a summit reached after long periods of effort and groping. The reverse is the truth, in the sense that all the said triad did was to crystallize rather imperfectly a primordial and intrinsically timeless wisdom, actually of Aryan origin and typologically close to the Celtic, Germanic, Mazdean and Brahmanic esoterisms. There is in Aristotelian rationality and even in the Socratic dialectic a sort of "humanism" more or less connected with artistic naturalism and scientific curiosity, and thus with empiricism. But this already too contingent dialectic - and let us not forget that the Socratic dialogues are tinged with spiritual "pedagogy" and have something of the provisional in them - this dialectic must not lead us into attributing a "natural" character to intellections that are "supernatural" by definition, or "naturally supernatural". On the whole, Plato expressed sacred truths in a language that had already become profane - profane because rational and discursive rather than intuitive and symbolist, or because it followed too closely the contingencies and humours of the mirror that is the mind - whereas Aristotle placed truth itself, and not merely its expression, on a profane and "humanistic" plane. The originality of Aristotle and his school resides no doubt in giving to truth a maximum of rational bases, but this cannot be done without diminishing it, and it has no purpose save where there is a withdrawal of intellectual intuition; it is a "two-edged sword" precisely be-cause truth seems thereafter to be at the mercy of syllogisms. The question of knowing whether this constitutes a betrayal or a providential readaptation is of small importance here, and could no doubt be answered in either sense. [NA: With Pythagoras   one is still in the Aryan East; with Socrates-Plato one is no longer wholly in that East - in reality neither "Eastern" nor "Western", that distinction having no meaning for an archaic Europe - but neither is one wholly in the West; whereas with Aristotle Europe begins to become speci fically "Western" in the current and cultural sense of the word. The East - or a particular East - forced an entry with Christianity, but the Aristotelian and Caesarean West finally prevailed, only to escape in the end from both Aristotle and Caesar, but by the downward path. It is opportune to observe here that all modern theological attempts to "surpass" the teaching of Aristotle can only follow the same path, in view of the falsity of their motives, whether implicit or explicit. What is really being sought is a graceful capitulation before evolutionary " scientism", before the machine, before an activist and demagogic socialism, a destructive psychologism, abstract art and surrealism, in short before modernism in all its forms - that modernism which is less and less a "humanism" since it de-humanizes, or that individualism which is ever more infra-individual. The moderns, who are neither Pythagoricians nor Vedantists, are surely the last to have any right to complain of Aristotle.] What is certain is that Aristotle’s teaching, so far as its essential content is concerned, is still much too true to be understood and appreciated by the protagonists of the "dynamic" and relativist or "existentialist" thought of our epoch. This last half plebeian, half demonic kind of thought is in contradiction with itself from its very point of departure, since to say that everything is relative or "dynamic", and therefore "in movement", is to say that there exists no point of view from which that fact can be established; Aristotle had in any case fully foreseen this absurdity. sophiaperennis: About Plato and/or Aristotle

The moderns have reproached the pre-Socratic philosophers - and all the sages of the East as well - with trying to construct a picture of the universe without asking themselves whether our faculties of knowledge are at the height of such an enterprise; the reproach is perfectly vain, for the very fact that we can put such a question proves that our intelligence is in principle adequate to the needs of the case. It is not the dogmatists who are ingenuous, but the sceptics, who have not the smallest idea in the world of what is implicit in the "dogmatism" they oppose. In our days some people go so far as to make out that the goal of philosophy can only be the search for a "type of rationality" adapted to the comprehension of "human realism"; the error is the same, but it is also coarser and meaner, and more insolent as well. How is it that they cannot see that the very idea of inventing an intelligence capable of resolving such problems proves, in the first place, that this intelligence exists already - for it alone could conceive of any such idea - and shows in the second place that the goal aimed at is of an unfathomable absurdity? But the present purpose is not to prolong this subject; it is simply to call attention to the parallelism between the pre-Socratic - or more precisely the Ionian - wisdom and oriental doctrines such as the Vaisheshika and the Sankhya, and to underline, on the one hand, that in all these ancient visions of the Universe the implicit postulate is the innateness of the nature of things in the intellect [NA: In the terminology of the ancient cosmologists one must allow for its symbolism: when Thales saw in "water" the origin of all things, it is as certain as can be that Universal Substance - the Prakriti of the Hindus - is in question and not the sensible element. It is the same with the " air" of Anaximenes of Miletus, or with the " fire" of Heraclitus  .] and not a supposition or other logical operation, and on the other hand, that this notion of innateness furnishes the very definition of that which the sceptics and empiricists think they must disdainfully characterize as "dogmatism"; in this way they demonstrate that they are ignorant, not only of the nature of intellection, but also of the nature of dogmas in the proper sense of the word. The admirable thing about the Platonists is not, to be sure, their "thought", it is the content of their thought, whether it be called "dogmatic" or otherwise. The Sophists inaugurate the era of individualistic rationalism and of unlimited pretensions; thus they open the door to all arbitrary totalitarianisms. It is true that profane philosophy also begins with Aristotle, but in a rather different sense, since the rationality of the Stagyrite tends upwards and not downwards as does that of Protagoras and his like; in other words, if a dissolving individualism originates with the Sophists - not forgetting allied spirits such as Democritus and Epicurus - Aristotle on the other hand opens the era of a rationalism still anchored in metaphysical certitude, but none the less fragile and ambiguous in its very principle, as there has more than once been occasion to point out. sophiaperennis: About Plato and/or Aristotle

Yet even if allowance be made for such a lack of understanding, it seems that any honest man ought to be sensitive, if only indirectly, to the human level of these "dogmatists" - what is evidence in metaphysics becomes "dogma" for those who do not understand it - and here is an extrinsic argument the extent of which cannot be neglected. Whereas the metaphysician intends to come back to the "first word" - the word of primordial Intellection - the modern philosopher on the contrary wishes to have the "last word"; thus Comte imagines that after two inferior stages - namely "theology" and "metaphysics" - finally comes the "positive" or "scientific" stage which gloriously reduces itself to the most outward and coarse experiences; it is the stage of the rise of industry which, in the eyes of the philosopher, marks the summit of progress and of civilization. Like the "criticism" of Kant  , the "positivism  " of Comte starts from a sentimental instinct which wants to destroy everything in order to renew everything in the sense of a desacralized and totally "humanist" and profane world. sophiaperennis: Kantianism

The means of expression of metaphysical knowledge is a dialectic either logical or symbolistic in character, with various degrees of accentuation and combination; this is what distinguishes, for example, Vedantism from Taoism, but this question of dialectic or expression cannot separate them or oppose them from the point of view of pure truth, which is their common content. Most rationalists disdain doctrines symbolical in form, but assign the Vedanta or Neoplatonism to their category of "philosophy," that is to say namely of profane logic, while asserting that these speculations have not succeeded in solving the "great problems" of "the human mind." Other rationalists, on the contrary, deny these same doctrines along with those symbolical in form on the pretext that they are "dogmatisms" unworthy of "philosophy." sophiaperennis: Rationalism

Without wishing to be too systematic, it can be said that with most traditional artists, it is the element "object" that determines the work; with the majority of modern artists on the contrary, it is the element "subject," in the sense that the moderns - individualistic as they are - intend to "create" the work and in creating it, wish to express their altogether profane little personality; whence ambition and the pursuit of originality. To be sure, the non-modern artist also, and by the nature of things, inevitably expresses his personality; but he does so through the object and by his quest of the object. Conversely, the modern artist - we mean "modernistic" - is necessarily preoccupied with the object, but within the framework and in the interest of his subjectivism; [NA : Let us note that originally, the word "subject" was a synonym for "predicate" and also for "substance"; it is only with Kant that the "subject" became the conscious, the knower and the thinker. But as this interpretation has become common in modern language, we follow its usage.] the apprentice artist no longer has to learn to draw, he has to learn to "create"; it is the world turned upside down. sophiaperennis: ART, ITS DUTIES AND ITS RIGHTS

In sacred art, one finds everywhere and of necessity, regularity and mystery. According to a profane conception, that of classicism, it is regularity that produces beauty; but the beauty concerned is devoid of space and depth, because it is without mystery and consequently without any vibration of infinity. It can certainly happen in sacred art that mystery outweighs regularity, or vice versa, but the two elements are always present; it is their equilibrium which creates perfection. sophiaperennis: FOUNDATIONS OF AN INTEGRAL AESTHETICS

Within the framework of a traditional civilization, there is without doubt a distinction to be made between sacred art and profane art. The purpose of the first is to communicate, on the one hand, spiritual truths and, on the other hand, a celestial presence; sacerdotal art has in principle a truly sacramental function. The function of profane art is obviously more modest: it consists in providing what theologians call "sensible consolations", with a view to an equilibrium conducive to the spiritual life, rather in the manner of the flowers and birds in a garden. The purpose of art of every kind - and this includes craftsmanship - is to create a climate and forge a mentality; it thus rejoins, directly or indirectly, the function of interiorizing contemplation, the Hindu darshan: contemplation of a holy man, of a sacred place, of a venerable object, of a Divine image. [NA: When one compares the blustering and heavily carnal paintings of a Rubens with noble, correct and profound works such as the profile of Giovanna Tornabuoni by Ghirlandaio or the screens with plum-trees by Korin, one may wonder whether the term " profane art" can serve as a common denominator for productions that are so fundamentally different. In the case of noble works impregnated with contemplative spirit one would prefer to speak of " extra-liturgical art", without having to specify whether it is profane or not, or to what extent it is. Moreover one must distinguish between normal profane art and a profane art which is deviated and which has thereby ceased to be a term of comparison.] sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART

Sacred art is vertical and ascending, whereas profane art is horizontal and equilibrating. In the beginning, nothing was profane; each tool was a symbol, and even decoration was symbolistic and sacral. With the passage of time, however, the imagination increasingly spread itself on the earthly plane, and man felt the need for an art that was for him and not for Heaven alone; the earth too, which in the beginning was experienced as a prolongation or an image of Heaven, progressively became earth pure and simple, that is to say that the human being increasingly felt himself to possess the right to be merely human. If religion tolerates this art, it is because it nevertheless has its legitimate function in the economy of spiritual means, within the horizontal or earthly dimension, and with the vertical or heavenly dimension in view. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART

Nevertheless, it must be reiterated here that the distinction between a sacred and a profane art is inadequate and too precipitate when one wishes to take account of all artistic possibilities; and it is therefore necessary to have recourse to a supplementary distinction, namely that between a liturgical and an extra-liturgical art: in the first, although in principle it coincides with sacred art, there may be modalities that are more or less profane, just as inversely, extra-liturgical art may comprise some sacred manifestations. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART

The "Greek miracle" is first and foremost an abuse of the intelligence, which could not have occurred if awareness of the sacred had not been depleted in large sections of the ruling class - Orphism and Platonism   notwithstanding - under the pressure of an increasingly profane outlook, that is to say of an exteriorized and exteriorizing intelligence both unstable and adventuresome and infatuated with novelties; in keeping with this mentality, the moderns see in the most exteriorized and most enterprising mind a superior intelligence or even intelligence as such. sophiaperennis: THE DEGREES OF ART

The monks of the eighth century, very different from those religious authorities of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries who betrayed Christian art by abandoning it to the impure passions of worldly men and the ignorant imagination of the profane, were fully conscious of the holiness of every kind of means able to express the Tradition. They stipulated, at the second council of Nicaea, that ’art’ (i.e. ’the perfection of work’) alone belongs to the painter, while ordinance (the choice of the subject) and disposition (the treatment of the subject from the symbolical as well as the technical or material points of view) belongs to the Fathers. (Non est pictoris - ejus enim sola ars est-rerum ordinatio et dispositio Patrum nostrorum.) This amounts to placing all artistic initiative under the direct and active authority of the spiritual leaders of Christianity. Such being the case, how can one explain the fact that during recent centuries, religious circles have for the most part shown such a regret table lack of understanding in respect of all those things which, having an artistic character, are, as they fondly believe, only external matters? First of all, admitting a priori the elimination of every esoteric influence, there is the fact that a religious perspective as such has a tendency to identify itself with the moral point of view, which stresses merit only and believes it is neces sary to ignore the sanctifying quality of intellectual knowledge and, as a result, the value of the supports of such knowledge; now, the perfection of sensible forms is no more ’meritorious in the moral sense than the intellections which those forms reflect and transmit, and it is therefore only logical that symbolic forms, when they are no longer understood, should be relegated to the background, and even forsaken, in order to be replaced by forms which will no longer appeal to the intelligence, but only to a sentimental imagination capable of inspiring the meritorious act - at least such is the belief of the man of limited intelligence. However, this sort of speculative provocation of reactions by resorting to means of a superficial and vulgar nature will, in the last analysis, prove to be illusory, for, in reality, nothing can be better fitted to influence the deeper dispositions of the soul than sacred art. Profane art, on the contrary, even if it be of some psychological value in the case of souls of inferior intelligence, soon exhausts its means, by the very fact of their superficiality and vulgarity, after which it can only provoke reactions of contempt; these are only too common, and may be considered as a ’rebound’ of the contempt in which sacred art was held by profane art, especially in its earlier stages. [NA: In the same way, the hostility of the representatives of exotericism for all that lies beyond their comprehension results in an increasingly ’massive’ exotericism which cannot but suffer from ’rifts’; but the ’spiritual porousness’ of Tradition - that is to say the immanence in the ’substance’ of exotericism of a transcendent ’dimension’ which makes up for its ’massiveness,’- this state of ’porousness’ having been lost, the above-mentioned ’rifts’ could only be produced from below; which means the replacement of the masters of medieval esotericism by the protagonists of modern unbelief.] It has been a matter of current experience that nothing is able to offer to irreligion a more immediately tangible nourishment than the insipid hypocrisy of religious images; that which was meant to stimulate piety in the believer, but serves to confirm unbelievers in their impiety, whereas it must be recognized that genuinely sacred art does not possess this character of a ’two-edged weapon’, for being itself more abstract, it offers less hold to hostile psychological reactions. Now, no matter what may be the theories that attribute to the people the need for unintelligent images, warped in their essence, the elites do exist and certainly require something different; what they demand is an art corresponding to their own spirit and in which their soul can come to rest, finding itself again in order to mount to the Divine. Such an art cannot spring simply from profane taste, nor even from ’genius’, but must proceed essentially out of Tradition; this fact being admitted, the masterpiece must be executed by a sanctified artist or, let us say, by one in a state of grace’. [NA: The icon-painters were monks who, before setting to work, prepared themselves by fasting, prayer, confession and communion; it even happened that the colours were mixed with holy water and the dust from relics, as would not have been possible had the icon not possessed a really sacramental character.] Far from serving only for the more or less superficial instruction and edification of the masses, the icon, as is the case with the Hindu yantra and all other visible symbols, establishes a bridge from the sensible to the spiritual: ’By the visible aspect’, states St. John Damascenus, ’our thoughts must be drawn up in a spiritual flight and rise to the invisible majesty of God.’ sophiaperennis: CONCERNING FORMS IN ART

Ignorant and profane aestheticism, at least in practice, puts the beautiful - or what its sentimental idealism takes to be the beautiful - above the true, and in so doing exposes itself to errors on its own level. But if aestheticism is the unintelligent cult of the beautiful, or more precisely of aesthetic feeling, this in no way implies that a sense of beauty is mere aestheticism. This is not to say that man is limited to a choice between aestheticism and aesthetics, or, in other words, between idolizing of the beautiful and the science of beauty. Love of beauty is a quality which exists apart from its sentimental deviations and its intellectual foundations. Beauty is a reflection of Divine bliss, and since God is Truth, the reflection of His bliss will be that mixture of happiness and truth which is to be found in all beauty. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

Sacred art is made as a vehicle for spiritual presences, it is made at one and the same time for God, for angels and for man; profane art on the other hand exists only for man and by that very fact betrays him. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

’Truth’ in art can by no means be reduced to the subjective veracity of the artist; it resides first and foremost in the objective truth of forms, colours and materials. Thus an ignorant and profane art will be far more ’false’ than a faithful copy of an ancient work, for the copy will at least transmit the objective truth of the original, whereas the invented work will transmit only the psychological ’truth’ - and thus the error - of its author. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

Late Gothic statuary has all the characteristics of a dense and unintelligent bourgeois art; the Renaissance was in a strong position in setting against it the noble and intelligent art of a Donatello or a Cellini. But none the less, taken as a whole, the misdeeds of Gothic art are a small matter beside those of the profane, passionate and pompous art of the Renaissance. No doubt bad taste and incapacity are to be met with everywhere, but tradition neutralizes them and reduces them to a minimum that is always tolerable. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

Blue and white cannot have a maleficent meaning properly so called; blue because its radiation is in a certain sense spherical or circular and so contemplative, and white because it is absolutely neutral, transcendent and primordial. On the other hand, they may have a more or less negative meaning; white is then emptiness and outwardness which is opposed both to the qualitative plenitude of colours and also to the secrecy of black, to spiritual inwardness; in this last case it is the profane aspect of day which is in opposition to the sacred aspect of night. Blue is cold which is opposed to heat, or water (quantity) which is opposed to fire (quality), and so to blood which is also hot and qualitative. sophiaperennis: AESTHETICS AND SYMBOLISM IN ART AND NATURE

All its attempts at explanations regarding things of this order are vitiated basically through a defect of imagination: all things are viewed in function firstly, of empirical "matter" - even if called by some other name and secondly, of the evolutionist hypothesis, instead of primary consideration being given to the principial and "descending" emanation of "ideas" and the progressive coagulation of substances, [NA: Where the perennial philosophy says "Principle, emanation substance" modern science will say "energy, matter, evolution." ...] in conformity with the principle of individuation on the one hand and of demiurgic "solidification" on the other. One tries to explain "horizontally" that which is explainable only "in a vertical sense"; it is as though we were living in a glacial world where water was unknown and where only the Revelations mentioned it, whereas profane science would deny its existence. Such a science is assuredly cut to the measure of modern man who conceived it and who is at the same time its product; like him, it implicitly claims a sort of immunity or "extraterritoriality" in the face of the Absolute; and like him, this science finds itself cut off from any cosmic or eschatological context.[Treasures of Buddhism, p. 43-44. sophiaperennis: Limits of modern science

A science of the finite has need of a wisdom which goes beyond it and controls it, just as the body needs a soul to animate it, and the reason an intellect to illumine it. The "Greek miracle" with its so-called "liberation of the human spirit" is in reality nothing but the beginning of a purely external knowledge, cut off from genuine Sophia. [NA: It is said that Einstein, for example, revolutionized the vision of the world as Galileo or Newton had done before him, and that the usual conceptions which he overturned - those of space, time, light and matter - are "as naive as those of the Middle Ages"; but then there is nothing to guarantee that his theory of relativity will not bejudged naive in its turn, so that, in profane science, it is never possible to escape the vicious circle of "naivety." — Moreover, what could be more naive than to seek to enclose the Universe in a few mathematical formulae, and then to be surprised to find that there always remains an elusive and apparently "irrational" element which evades all attempts to "bring it to heel"? — We shall no doubt be told that not all scientists are atheists, but this is not the question, since atheism is inherent in science itself, in its postulates and its methods. The Einsteinian theories on mass, space and time are of a nature to demonstrate the fissures in the physical universe, but only a metaphysician can profit from them; science unconsciously provides keys, but is incapable of making use of them, because intellectuality cannot be replaced by something outside itself. The theory of relativity illustrates of necessity certain aspects of metaphysics, but does not of itself open up any higher perspective; the way in which Euclidean geometry is improperly relativized goes to prove this. On the one hand the philosophical point of view trespasses on science, and on the other the scientific point of view trespasses on metaphysics. — As for the Einsteinian postulate of a transmathematical absolute, this absolute is not supra-conscious: it is not therefore more than ourselves and could not be the Cause of our intelligence; Einstein’s "God" remains blind just as his relativized universe remains physical: one might as well say that it is nothing. Modern science has nothing it can tell us - and this not by accident but by principle - about the miracle of consciousness and all that is connected with it, from the most minute particles of consciousness to be found in creation up to the pure and trans-personal Intellect.] [Stations of Wisdom, p. 26-27]. sophiaperennis: Science and rationalism

It is said that Einstein, for example, revolutionized the vision of the world as Galileo or Newton had done before him, and that the usual conceptions which he overturned — those of space, time, light and matter — are as "naive as those of the Middle Ages"; but then there is nothing to guarantee that his theory of relativity will not be judged naive in its turn, so that, in profane science, it is never possible to escape the vicious circle of "naivety". sophiaperennis: Einstein

One particular of grace is ecstasy. Here too one must distinguish between the true and the false, the spiritual and the morbid — even the demonic. A very rare and, at the same time, most paradoxical exception is accidental ecstasy, something which, in this context, we cannot pass over in silence. It may happen that someone entirely profane has a real ecstatic experience, without understanding how and why; such an experience is unforgettable and has a more or less profound effect upon the character of the person concerned. This is a matter of a cosmic accident of which the causes lie far distant in the individual’s destiny, or in his karma — merits acquired in the past and before birth — as Hindus and Buddhists would say. But it would be a serious mistake to see in such an experience a spiritual acquisition of a conscious and active character, for such an event can only be a call to an authentic way on which one starts again at the beginning: quaerite et invenietis. sophiaperennis: The Sophia Perennis and Neo-spiritualism

...faith and intelligence can each be conceived at two different levels: faith as a quasi-ontological and premental certitude ranks higher than the discerning and speculative aspects of intelligence, [NA: This higher faith is something altogether different from the irresponsible and arrogant taking of liberties so characteristic of the profane improvisers of Zen or of Jn  âna, who seek to "take a short cut" by stripping themselves of the essential human context of all realization, whereas in the East, and in the normal conditions of ethical and liturgical ambiance, this context is largely supplied in advance. One does not enter the presence of a king by the back door. (Logic and Transcendence, p. 206).] but intelligence as pure Intellection ranks higher that faith which is no more than an adherence of the sentiments; it is this ambivalence which is the source of numerous misunderstandings, but which makes possible at the same time an exo-esoteric language that is both simple and complex... sophiaperennis: The Sophia Perennis and Neo-spiritualism

What we term "psychological imposture" is the tendency to reduce everything to psychological factors and to call in question not only what is intellectual or spiritual — the first being related to truth and the second to life in and by truth — but also the human spirit as such, and therewith its capacity of adequation and, still more evidently, its inward illimitation and transcendence. The same belittling and truly subversive tendency rages in all the domains that ’scientism’ claims to embrace, but its most acute expression is beyond all doubt to be found in psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is at once an endpoint and a cause, as is always the case with profane ideologies, like materialism and evolutionism, of which it is really a logical and fatal ramification and a natural ally. (Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, p. 195 Chapter: The psychological Imposture). sophiaperennis: The Sophia Perennis and Neo-spiritualism

Every religion necessarily integrates the feminine element — the "eternal feminine"(das Ewig Weibliche) if one will — into its system, either directly or indirectly; Christianity in practice deifies the Mother of Christ, despite exoteric reservations, namely the distinction between latria and hyperdulia. Islam for its part, and beginning with the Prophet, has consecrated femininity, on the basis of a metaphysics of deiformity; the secrecy surrounding woman, symbolized in the veil, basically signifies an intention of consecration. In Moslem eyes, woman, beyond her purely biological and social role, incarnate two poles, unitive "extinction" and "generosity", and these constitute from the spiritual point of view two means of overcoming the profane mentality, made as it is of outwardness, dispersion, egoism, hardness and boredom. The nobleness of soul that is or can be gained by this interpretation or utilization of the feminine element, far from being an abstract ideal, is perfectly recognizable in representative Moslems, those still rooted in authentic Islam. [NA: It is always this we have in view, and not so-called "revivals" which monstrously combine a Moslem formalism with modernist ideologies and tendencies.] [In the Face of the Absolute, p. 227-228]. sophiaperennis: Femininity