Guenon, bishop of the Gnostic church
by Athos A. Altomonte
© copyright by Esonet.it - Esonet.com

I will quote hereafter some extracts from an article written by a Giuseppe Cosco, which has been submitted to me as a ‘condemnation' (!) and which I will use as a starting point to express some thoughts on the figure of René Guenon.

I think that the article in question oozes with apocalyptic catastrophism, which reminds us of the ‘Jehovah's witnesses' who predict the end of the world; although we must admit that after eight mistaken dates, their ‘prophets' have stopped announcing it.

To be honest, I am surprised that there still is an ‘audience' for such confused heaps of nonsense. It's like reading beach-magazines full of endless gossip.

The ‘world conspiracy', sometimes communist, others Zionist, Masonic, and so on, is still in fashion among the ‘reporters' unable to fill a newspaper page ‘with intelligence'.

As far as the ‘notorious' ‘Skull and Bones' is concerned, to which many ‘ unsuspected VIPs ' (!) belong, sailors know that that is the ‘goliardic' symbol (which reminds of the flag of pirates) of an American ‘sailing' group among the most exclusive. This ‘flag' is the distinctive sign (I'd say very Hollywood-like) of a club for very rich sailors, in other words for luxury boat racers. Therefore, it takes some doing to mistake an exclusive club for a den of world conspirators.

The fact that clubs are ‘also' places where interesting meetings or even business happen is a known fact and that is true in the smallest Golf Club or Rotary Club.

Unless we want to think that bankers and industrialists think about ‘Common Welfare'. And this would indeed be huge nonsense. Especially with a pirate flag fluttering in the wind…!

It is well known that ‘the Power' thinks only about itself; if it thinks about the health of ‘its sheep' is only to shear them again.

I would say: Let he who is without sin cast the first stone. Come on, here as well politicians of the ‘banana republic' try, in their small world, to adjust laws and trials ‘in their own likenesses'.

Mister Cosco doesn't say that, though! Perhaps because of the Lilliputian proportion of our swindles.

We can safely say that it's the same the whole world over. Then, if as it is written in the text: "The world is divided into three categories of people…", Totó (1898-1967 - Italian actor, writer and songwriter ) said that already!

The reason for this short essay, though, is not to comment a passage of ‘fantasy-politics' written by a clever reporter; its purpose is to highlight, as I have done in the past, the many contradictions of the ‘man' Guenon, a genius as well as a paradox.

I quote the words in the text: ‘…René Guenon himself, who was a 33 rd degree of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite and a 90 th degree of the Egyptian Rite of Memphis-Misraim,…' .

Guenon was never accepted in the official Freemasonry, but only in the Grand Lodge of Andorra, which is still today considered spurious and irregular. Therefore, since he wasn't able to join the Blue Freemasonry (the first three degrees of the Order), it is even less likely that he could belong to the Rite (from the 4 th to the 33 rd Degree).

We must say that the reason for his rejection was the fact that he belonged to the ‘Gnostic church' of Papus (Mr. Encausse), who consecrated himself ‘bishop' and which Guenon wanted to be the successor of, against the will of Encausse's son who, eventually, won.

This ‘defeat' led Guenon to the decision of leaving France to work as a teacher in North Africa , in the French colonial territories, where he married the daughter etc. etc. and therefore he became a Muslim.

Genius and scoundrel, then. But the true paradox is still to come, as we can read below.

‘...René Guenon informs us, in his article ‘ Réflexions à popos du pouvoir occulte' published with the pseudonym ‘Le Sphinx' on the issue of the 11 th June 1914 of the catholic magazine ‘France Antimaconnique', page 277…'

Indeed, whilst he belonged to the Freemasonry (although it was the spurious one), Guenon earned money by writing against it, as we can read in the previous extract, paid for by the anti-Masonic magazine published by the Jesuits.

For years I have seen the stereotype of Guenon represented as a great initiate. By studying his life carefully, we can see the big gap between the man's choices and the thinker's work.

Therefore is it possible that his intellectual ability (of reason) is being mistaken for his initiatory ability (of the heart)? By doing so aren't we in danger of raising the ‘ratio' (the little candle of the Chamber of Reflection) to the role of initiatory summa? The choice of positivism is clear and acceptable, but it poses a question: finding gratification in the development of reason is a simpler and ‘more certain' goal than the uncertain illumination that we ‘might' reach by overcoming the narrow passage of intuition. Therefore we must distinguish initiation from Initiation.

In conclusion, commenting this statement:

'As far as occult powers, I presume that they exist today like they did in the past. Surely the people who have the political and economical power try to hold on to it with all possible means, lawful and often unlawful…'.

I would like to say that this is true, the power uses every means to keep its domination, but at least it saves us from ‘stakes' in the squares. Therefore I think that each of us can contribute to limit the abuse of power of potentates, but definitely not by following the ‘notes' played by the many magic pipers that are about.