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Hardcover
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Guenon's The Great Triad was the last book to appear during his lifetime. Even for his regular readers, this book contained largely new material, as did his The Metaphysical Principles of the Infinitesimal Calculus, published the same year. The author here refers especially to the Chinese tradition, principally in its Taoist form (though touching on Confucianism as well), in which the `Great Triad' is defined as Heaven-Man-Earth. It is as much a cosmological as a metaphysical doctrine that is implied in this ternary of the `three worlds'. In spite of its Taoist title, however, the work draws heavily on Hermetic teachings, Hindu and Buddhist metaphysics, and Masonic symbolism, not to mention doctrines from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. It is also Guenon's most comprehensive exposition of the science of Alchemy.
The Collected Works of Rene Guenon brings together the writings of one of the greatest prophets of our time, whose voice is even more important today than when he was alive. Huston Smith, The World's Religions
Guenon is an unsurpassed master of the science of symbolism. Martin Lings, The Eleventh Hour
Rene Guenon was the chief influence in the formation of my own intellectual outlook.... It was Rene Guenon who taught me to seek and love the truth above all else, and to be unsatisfied with anything else. Fr. Seraphim Rose, Not of This World
The classical Triad of the Chinese tradition is Heaven-Man-Earth. Rene Guenon places this ternary in the context of universal metaphysics by identifying Heaven with Essence and Earth with Substance, the mediator between them being Man, whose cosmic function is to embody spirit (Heaven) while simultaneously spiritualizing matter (Earth). Exploring Chinese cosmology further, Guenon sheds light on such archetypal polarities as Heaven and Earth, Yin and Yang, Solve et Coagula, Celestial and Terrestrial Numbers, the Square and the Compasses, the Double Spiral, and the Being and the Environment, while pointing to their synthetic unity in terms of ternaries, such as the Three Worlds, Triple Time, Spiritus, Anima, and Corpus, Sulfur, Mercury and Salt, and God, Man, and Nature. Perhaps more completely than in any other work, Guenon demonstrates in The Great Triad how any integral tradition is both a mirror reflecting universal themes found in all other intact traditions and an entire conceptual cosmos unto itself, unique and incomparable.
If during the last century or so there has been even some slight revival of awareness in the Western world of what is meant by metaphysics and metaphysical tradition, the credit for it must go above all to Guenon. At a time when the confusion into which modern Western thought had fallen was such that it threatened to obliterate the few remaining traces of genuine spiritual knowledge from the minds and hearts of his contemporaries, Guenon, virtually single-handed, took it upon himself to reaffirm the values and principles which, he recognized, constitute the only sound basis for the living of a human life with dignity and purpose or for the formation of a civilization worthy of the name. Philip Sherrard, Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition
ISBN: 9780900588402
ISBN-10: 0900588403
Series: Works
Published: 22nd May 2004
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Number of Pages: 180
Audience: General Adult
Publisher: Sophia Perennis
Country of Publication: GB
Edition Number: 2
Dimensions (cm): 23.1 x 16.1 x 2.0
Weight (kg): 0.43
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