Knowledge and the Sacred:

...Instead, one is troubled by whiffs in neo-traditionalism of the sort of bookish, hothouse spirituality which disdains such worldly cares, and is usually accompanied by a mood of romantic conservatism...

...And it would be fatuous to deny the ecstatic element in the seeing of such men as Wittgenstein or Heidegger...

...Nasr presents that position with intellectual brilliance and depth, making a cogent case for its contemporary relevance...

...we should be its servant priests...

...Instead we have tried to be Prometheus, thief of its power-secrets...

...But "modern" uses of the mind, like modern scholarly approaches to religion (and anything else) tend to direct one away from rather than toward wisdom...

...While the modern reality may not always be given a label reading "The Sacred," as neo-traditionalists would wish, is not a main point of mystical philosophy to teach us that names are not the same as things, above all with respect to the Ultimate which is unnama-ble...

...Knowledge of this knowledge is enshrined in the traditional religions, transmitted particularly in their spiritualities and expressed in their sacred art...

...It is not to be confused with Catholic traditionalism or any other traditionalism specific to a particular religion or culture, for it disputes both their exclusivism and the "temporal exclusivism" of modernity with its conceit of progress...

...The sapiential tradition is concerned with the true, and therefore sacred, reality of mind and cosmos...

...Too often neo-traditionalism seems more ready to accuse than to engage in dialogue, or to perceive how modern thinkers may after all be essaying in their own way the same tasks as the philosophic saints of yesteryear...

...Yet some readers will be disturbed by a partisan flavor in the utterances of neo-traditionalism which even as wide-minded a book as Nasr's does not entirely avoid...

...The intellect, as an aspect of ultimate, sacred reality, illumines reality when fully charged by ecstatic contemplation...

...Indeed, the very presence of intellect,, rightly comprehended, teaches us the spiritual nature of the cosmos...

...One could do no better than recommend the book under review to the serious inquirer...

...However, his position will doubtless be a continuing focus of debate, for it eloquently represents an emerging movement which radically challenges most contemporary science, philosophy, and religion...

...Instead, neo-traditionalism postulates a "sapiential tradition" embedded in all religions, but today in great danger of being lost...

...It is difficult to summarize adequately in short space a position as profound and complex as neo-traditionalism...

...That position may be called neo-traditionalism...

...In this universe our role should be '' pontifical...

...Certainly the neo-traditionalist stance says a great deal that all concerned with spiritual values will agree is important, however one interpret the idea of a sapiential tradition...

...Yet the objectifying, rationalizing nature of modern thought stifles that deeper mode of knowing...

...For having brought us to the present pass, historical progress is not to be deified, for much of this was better understood in earlier times...

...In its animus against everything having to do with "the modern mind," neo-traditionalism seems unable to perceive the extent to which the agenda of twentieth century "mainstream" philosophy, whether phenomenology, existentialism, or linguistic analysis, has not really been so different from that of such ancient sapients as Plotinus, Shankara, or Chuang-tzu: to clear away the human graffiti from the unspeakable mystery of Reality itself...

...The mind now becomes, not a lamp illuminating inner meanings, but a flashlight catching the surface shape of a few things in a dark universe...

...that quest is its supreme expressions such as the Upanishads, the Toote-Ching, or the Neoplatonism which undergirds so much of Jewish, Christian, and Islamic mystical thought...

...While it has obvious affinities with other "universal mysticisms," such as Aldous Huxley's Vedantic "perennial philosophy," the intellectual lineage of this outlook is distinctive, and some of its spokesmen have turned less to Vedanta than to the mystical philosophy of Islam, on which Nasr is an eminent authority and which is clearly his spiritual heartland...

...I read Nasr's book with deep appreciation, yet warning flags went up in my mind as I marked the hagiographic terms in which neo-traditionalism's heroes, Guenon, Coomaraswamy, and Schuon, are lauded, and the flurry of negative rhetoric which not seldom accompanies the word "modern," or worse, "modernism...

...An innate knowledge of true reality dwells in the depths of everyone's consciousness, usually only latently, though it can be aroused by ecstatic, contemplative awareness...

...For the universe is a hierophany, a mandala, with octaves of meaning not reducible to the methods of present science...

...The school is based on the thought of Rene Guenon, Frithjof Schuon, and Ananda Coomaraswamy...

...The first Muslim, and indeed the first non-Westerner, to deliver that highly distinguished series, S. H. Nasr, formerly professor of the history of science and philosophy at the University of Tehran in his native Iran and now professor of religion at Temple University, only enhances their prestige by his immense learning in both Eastern and Western thought, and his skillfully crafted arguments...

...Neo-traditionalism must therefore present itself to the contemporary world in dialogue marked by the openness and generosity of spirit that makes any dialogue fruitful.ny dialogue fruitful...

...Robert S. Ellwood KNOWLEDGE AND THE SACRED is based on the University of Edinburgh's Gifford Lectures of 1981...

...Gandhi, D. Bonhoeffer, or John XXIII, who not only show that spirituality and wisdom have their robust exemplars in this century, but also that they can be conjoined with social concern...

...But here are a few of its salient ideas, according to Nasr...

...His is unquestionably a mind of the highest caliber...

...Their laments are full of Guenon and Schuon, but give scant notice to such better-known moderns as M.K...

...It would be tragic if neo-traditionalism should allow itself to become a mere intellectual cult, for what it has to say, as the bulk of Nasr's splendid book demonstrates, is desperately important and far larger than the school's cultic aspects...

...All those means can serve to awaken within one the innate knowledge, which best happens within an authentic community of faith...

...A clear danger exists that the neo-traditionalists will become another sect of those knights of the true faith who retire into their citadels of medievalism, classicism, or whatever, taking potshots at whatever appears in their sights as "the modern world," but never emerging from the castle's warmth to engage the foe in single combat, much less look into his eyes to see whether, ideology aside, he may not be a man of like passions as himself...

...Further, the neo-traditionalists appear totally uninterested in those areas in which modern religion has undoubtedly done a better job than traditional, such as practical involvement in issues of social justice...

...its exponents in America, besides Nasr, include Huston Smith and Jacob Needleman...

...However, certain trends in recent physics are well regarded, though secular evolutionism is attacked...