Customer Reviews

Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century

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When I first saw the book I was delighted to see that an important school of thought in the twentieth century has finally found the attention it deserved. But my delight was changed to disappointment after reading through the chapters of the book.
First of all, one may call many thinkers with very divergent ideas "traditionalists," but one cannot make blanket statements and judgments about all of them based on the thoughts and deeds of some. It is as if one condemned Sartre as being a Nazi, because he was an Existentialist philosopher like Heideger, and Heideger, in some point, agreed with Hitler! There is a huge difference between a Rene Guenon and a Mircea Eliade, between an Evola and a Schuon, and one can put them all in one category only in some very superficial way, as exactly it is done in this book. The difference in the outlook and philosophy of these thinkers is sometimes as enormous as possible. Their political thought was even more divergent: the author has not been able to give even one example of any endorsement of Nazism, Fascism, or any totalitarian system by Guenon, Schuon, or Coomaraswami, whom he regards as the most influential among the traditionalists and as "hard" traditionalists (there is no example indeed; actually these people and their loyal followers always opposed and condemned that kind of regimes), yet he cleverly asserts Eliade (his "soft" traditionalist) and Evola's approval of fascism in a way to convince the reader of the whole party's guilt.
Secondly, when reading a book about some philosophy, one expects the critical examination of the philosophy in itself, and not some here and there told stories, whether factual or fictional, coupled with some not very important aspects of the philosophy in question. A reader who does not know much about traditionalists finishes the book without achieving any in-depth information about any of the personage covered in this book.
Thirdly, some very influential traditionalists are absent: As a traditionalist philosopher and thinker, Titus Burckhardt, for example, was far more important than Evola, yet it seems that the author, in order to achieve his purpose, had to leave some space for a fascist Evola. (Interesting to notice that, Burckhardt wrote an article against Evola's views).
And finally, the book is has a lot of misinformation: if you interview only somebody's enemies, you will most probably end up with the wrong information. To write impartially needs hearing both sides of a story.

Frankly, until reading Against the Modern World, I knew nothing about Traditionalism nor about the Perennial Philosophy which René Guénon (1886-1951) formulated, based on the basic truths of the world's great religions. I found Sedgwick's book so interesting because it offers answers to questions such as these:

1. How does Sedgwick define "modern"?
2. Why was Guénon so opposed to it?
3. Why has Traditionalism attracted such a wide, deep, and diverse following worldwide?
4. What is the relationship between Traditionalism and Orientalism?
5. What are the most relevant historical "streams and counterstreams"? Why?
6. What have been the nature and extent of cultural displacement?
7. What role has the tactic of (in italics) entrisme (end italics) played during the development of Traditionalism?
8. What is Frithjof Schuon's significance?
9. Why have various religious leaders rejected Traditionalism?
10. What are Traditionalism's sub-denominations and how do they differ from each other?

During the Religioscope interview (5 June 2004), Sedgwick explains that "the real reason that I became interested in Traditionalism as a subject for research was growing astonishment at the extent and importance of the movement. I remember spending an evening, shortly after the Internet had reached Egypt, looking through the various editions and translations of Guénon's works in European library catalogs-I couldn't believe it. And the more I looked, the more I found, and the more convinced I became that here was a story worth the telling." According to Sedgwick, advocates of Guénonian Traditionalism share a conviction that "the modern world is not the result of progress out of darkness but of descent into darkness, that this - the time we live in - is a last age, a pretty low point of a last age at that. What has been lost - and what needs to be recovered, reinstated even - is `tradition.' And tradition can be fairly precisely defined, as the truths that should have been handed down from time immemorial, approximately the perennial philosophy, the original [in italics] Ur-religion [end italics] of humanity."

Sedgwick goes on to suggest that "Traditionalists are those who want to recover what has been lost, and who also recognize the `true' nature of modernity. And recognize that one of the most important aspects of modernity is inversion - that the world sees the valuable as worthless and the worthless as valuable, the good as bad and bad as good. Guénon never saw a punk, but it would have made a lot of sense to him. And with that comes `counter-initiation' - religious movements that are actually irreligious, that actually lead away from what religion is meant to lead to. Again, Guénon would have nodded knowingly at certain recent developments in the Catholic Church. Against counter-initiation, the only thing left is real, genuine initiation - into traditional esoterism."

I have included these brief excerpts from the Religioscope interview because I think they help to indicate what Sedgwick's objectives were when he set out to examine Guénonian Traditionalism. In my opinion, he achieves all of them but it remains for others far better qualified than I am to comment on the validity of his assumptions and conclusions re the questions listed earlier. I do wish to reiterate that I am grateful for what I have learned about "Traditionalism and the secret intellectual history of the twentieth century."

It is ironic that this book, which purports to expose the "secret intellectual history of the twentieth century" provides an excellent justification for the Traditionalist antipathy toward the profane character of contemporary Western society. The thinly veiled attitude of hostility to Traditionalism, and the patronizing contempt for its insights, with which the text is permeated, reveals far more about the author than about his subject matter. Masquerading as a work of scholarship, the book is little more than a collection of ad hominem attacks on some of the greatest intellectual and spiritual minds of the past hundred years, without any attempt to evaluate objectively the profound ideas developed by these individuals. It is more usual to find material of this sort - much of it based on gossip, rumor, and innuendo - in a supermarket tabloid than in a publication by Oxford University Press.

It is quite difficult to write a serious review of a book that contains nothing serious except pretensions. Despite its scholarly facade (69 pages of notes and an 8-page bibliography), the work is essentially form without substance. A few comments would perhaps be useful, however:

A large amount of space in Sedgwick's book is devoted to Frithjof Schuon and some of his closest associates, e.g., Titus Burckhardt, Leo Schaya, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings, and Whitall Perry. A glance at the book's bibliography will indicate the extent of the author's research into their writings: Of the more than twenty books by Frithjof Schuon, only three appear there (in addition to the limited circulation autobiography with which Sedgwick is so preoccupied); Burckhardt's "Fez, City of Islam" is listed, but not his "Introduction to Sufism," or his "Alchemy: Science of the Cosmos, Science of the Soul," or any of his translations of Arabic texts; Schaya's "The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah" is absent, as are Lings's "Book of Certainty" and Perry's monumental "Treasury of Traditional Wisdom," to name just a few of some of the most important contributions to Traditionalist literature. Although Sedgwick writes at length about "Etudes Traditionelles," he does not even mention "Studies in Comparative Religion," the most significant English-language Traditionalist journal, in which articles that were to become classics of Traditionalist thought were published.

It is amusing to see that, in the spirit of "the reign of quantity and the signs of the times," Sedgwick appears to equate the value of a book with its sales record. He says, in speaking of the 220 books by "Schuon and 23 other identified followers" published between 1950 and 1999, that "none [had] sales as impressive as Merton's 'Seven Storey Mountain' or Smith's 'Religions of Man.' " In the next paragraph, he notes that "only a few" of what he calls "hard" Traditionalist books "achieved significant sales" (p. 167). Sedgwick thus betrays his fundamental ignorance of the fact that Traditionalism is not and has never been a spiritual perspective intended for the "broad masses."

It would be possible quite easily to expose the cover-to-cover ignorance and trivialization of great ideas that Sedgwick so blatantly reveals in this book, but it would require far more space than Amazon permits for a review. From the standpoint of purely external appearance, though, it should be said that this book was appallingly edited and proofread. Indeed, it is difficult to believe that a publisher of such eminence as Oxford would permit the work to be printed as it was. There are typographical errors, incorrect diacritics (especially in Romanian), solecisms, questionable translations, omitted and duplicated words, misspelled names, and other inexcusable mistakes.

Mr. Sedgwick seems to be critical of the Traditionalist tendency to see beyond the forms of exoteric religion to the underlying divine truth present in the nucleus of those forms. The greatest mystics of all religions, however, have also been "guilty" of this:

Meister Eckhart says: "We shall find God in everything alike, and find God always alike in everything." And Ibn al-`Arabi writes: "My heart has opened unto every form: it is a pasture for gazelles, a cloister for Christian monks, a temple for idols, the Ka`ba of the pilgrim, the tables of the Torah, and the book of the Qur'an. I practice the religion of Love; in whatsoever directions its caravans advance, the religion of Love shall be my religion and my faith."

A lot of the reviewers, who are clearly sympathetic to the perennial philosophy and/or Traditionalism, seem to have missed the point of this book. The book was only meant to be a historical survey, not an evaluation or critique of Traditionalism. I have no idea why so many reviewers are overlooking this. While the perennial philosophy has many admirable things about it, it is important to ask how Evola, Dugin, and others wound up being proto-fascists, and how they distorted the perennial philosophy and spiritual traditions to support their ideologies. (Evola especially has written one of the worst distortions and misinterpretations of Tantra I've ever read in my life, and was a clear-cut misogynist and racist any way you look at it.)

In summary, in my opinion, Sedgwick did a fairly even-handed job of telling readers who the key individuals in the Traditionalist movement were, and what their involvement was in the politics of the time (if any, whether directly or indirectly). He's also very clear about those individuals who were basically apolitical, such as Schuon, so he is not out to demonize every single Traditionalist as so many other reviews imply. All in all, it's a good introduction to a movement that arose in the 20th century in reaction to modernity, and should be read along with Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke's books.

Against the Modern World presents a new conceptual framework for understanding Traditionalism that is a significant departure from existing understandings. To evaluate this new conceptual framework it is important to understand some of the author's new definitions of existing terms and his newly coined terminology. He starts by defining the Perennial Philosophy as ". . . 'primal truth' [which] is more commonly known as the Perennial Philosophy, and belief in the existence of the Perennial Philosophy-a belief I will call 'Perennialism'-is one of the three central elements in the Traditionalist philosophy Guénon developed." ....This new definition of Traditionalist philosophy differs from the definitions in common use... It overemphasizes the importance of certain ideas found in Guénon and it ignores the contributions of other acknowledged founders of the Perennialist School, which though being based on the doctrinal principles that Guénon identified, went much further in forming a fully developed school of thought.
(Sedgwick)...defines a Traditionalist as a "person forming part of the movement deriving from René Guénon, or of a movement deriving from that movement [emphasis added]." The author's definition of a Traditionalist allows him to create a "List of Main Characters"... that lists "The Seven Most Important Traditionalists". Many readers will be very surprised to see the names of Julius Evola, Mircea Eliade and Alexander Dugin on this list, because many aspects of each of their writings deviate significantly from the other men's writings and from the central ideas of the Perennialist School. This is undoubtedly the first time that these three names have been included in a list of the seven most important Traditionalists....
A substantial part of Against the Modern World is devoted to the newly coined concept of "political Traditionalism", which includes the alleged political actions of men influenced to some extent by Guénon. However, the author acknowledges that Guénon's writings led to "spiritual activity" and that none of these political actions can be traced directly to Guénon. ...Sedgwick acknowledges that Evola "made the most dramatic modifications to Guénonian Traditionalism, which was essentially apolitical." ...(He) also acknowledges that Evola is typically not associated with Guénon because of his divergence from Guénon's point of view. In this section of the book Sedgwick frequently summarizes Guénon's point of view as "anti-modernist", but without sufficiently exploring either what characterizes "modernity" for Guénon or other Traditionalist philosophers or why and in what ways they may disagree with it. Nowhere does the book mention that many Perennialists actively resisted both Fascism and Nazism during World War II, that Guénon strongly disapproved of Fascism and Nazism and that Evola was an outspoken critic of both Fascism and Nazism...Sedgwick is the first author to link Traditionalism to these political movements and to coin the term "political Traditionalism". Let us hope that he is also the last to do so, since this alleged link to Traditionalism is sufficiently irrelevant to, and incompatible with, the common core principles identified with this school of thought that it does not merit further discussion.
The discussion of political Traditionalism highlights the confusion that results from the different ways that Sedgwick uses variations on the word "tradition". First, the author is not consistent in the way he uses his newly coined terminology and he often fails to provide sufficient definition. For example, he says, "the 'tradition' to which 'Traditionalism' refers is, in essence, the perennial religion." The use of these terms among established Traditionalist authors appears to be substantially different from Sedgwick's new definitions. The book also coins the terms "Guénonian Traditionalism" and "Traditionalist Perennialism", without definition. And...many of the so-called "Important Traditionalists" do not subscribe to elements in the book's definition of Traditionalist philosophy. To say the least then, the line of "political Traditionalists" that leads to Dugin bears no resemblance to the Perennialist School; the author's definition of Traditionalism is thus so expansive as to include entire movements that do not agree on central ideas. This reviewer concludes that Sedgwick has attempted to stretch the definition of a Traditionalist in unprecedented and inappropriate ways, while inaccurately narrowing the correct definition of Traditionalist philosophy. Such flaws in the conceptual framework of Sedgwick's scholarship cause it to fail by any measure.
The (book)... is written from an "omniscient" point of view that presents only those facts that support (Sedgwick's)... conclusions. The aspirations of true scholarship towards balance, accuracy of factual data, and objectivity are sacrificed to other, more "entertaining" goals. In addition, the author presents his opinions in absolute terms, without even considering the need either for verification or a discussion of alternative interpretations. Readers, however, will be inclined to question the author's impartiality when many of his generalizations and observations go beyond the selectively chosen facts and allegations in the book.
A large portion of Against the Modern World focuses on conflict among Guénon and several inheritors of his intellectual legacy insofar as these inheritors allegedly challenge Guénon, and then each other, for supremacy within the Traditionalist movement... The author summarily disregards their shared beliefs and instead accentuates only their alleged disagreements, all against the background of a list of supposed character flaws of almost every person profiled in the book...Because there are almost no references to, or analysis of, the writings or opinions of prominent Traditionalist authors, the uninformed reader is also left to wonder whether key Traditionalists would agree with the book's assertions. Readers already familiar with Traditionalism will have different questions because they will recognize that the author's opinions are contrary to the writings of leading Perennialists. The book therefore has many attributes not of a scholarly research work but of a historical novel because of its focus on conflict in personal relationships, its shallow and often confusing presentation of underlying concepts and its failure to present any substantive analysis.

I agree with a previous reviewer that the reviews of this book seem to fall into 2 camps, either traditionalists (Who all give the book 1 star but fail to give any substance as to why) And opponents who give it 5 starts (But again, largely lack content as to why give the book such praise) Hopefully as neither a traditionalist or an opponent my review can be a little more balanced.

First of all many of the critics of the book seem to refer to an online review of the book by a Christian traditionalist (You can find it cut and paste in a few of the below reviews) So I will base a large part of my review around that. The main criticism of the reviewer concerning this book is that in his opinion Sedgwick has 1. A hidden agenda against traditionalist which he was not honest about when writing the book. 2. He is only a recent convert to Islam (This being back in the 90s) And so has little knowledge of Islam (One could as how a Christian priest came to such a remarkable conclusion but thats another matter) and 3. That Sedgwick follows a narrow interpretation of Islam (Based on his recent conversion and his bad experience with Sufism)

Addressing the first point this seems to have come about from the author confronting Martin Lings about a spiritual crisis he suffered on joining the Haqqani Naqshbandi order regarding "Love for a Sheikh" Lings is reported to have replied that love of the Sheikh is a must (Presumably the answer he was not looking for) And this has resulted in a grudge against all traditionalists (Something I find very hard to believe) The second and third points seem to stem from Sedgwick pointing out the rather lax practice of Islam amongst the followers particularly of Schoun in France both during and after WW2. For example their lack of prayer, fasting etc which the author sees as both a departure from Islamic practice itself and in particual from the Alawi Sufi order to which the said they belonged. The critic of Sedgwick quotes from the book a passage regarding a Sheikh who was fasting while in the desert and being enticed to drink water by a voice from above refuses claiming this is the devil trying to tempt him and God would never allow him to do what is forbidden. The critic seems to believe that this is proof of the authors narrow view of Islam without presumably realising that the story of the Shaikh is none other that the Sufi Shaikh Abdul Qadr Jilani! Again this idea that anyone who is critical of traditionalism has some narrow fundamentalist interpretation of Islam is something of a red herring. Nuh Ha Mim Keller a Sufi Shaikh of the Shadhili order has been a vocal critic of the group (See his book "Reliance of the traveller") He has pointed out how traditionalists such as Chittick and others have deliberately miss quoted the books of ibn Arabi and Abdul Qadir Jaziri to fit their needs. Martin Lings was criticised because in the early editions of his biography of Muhammad he narrated that Muhammad put a protective hand over an image of Abraham in the Kaba when all other idols and images were removed (Based upon one very weak narration, a story that contradicts all traditional understanding of Islam) In another words, it becomes clear that far from traditionalism being the authentic expression of Islam and Sufism its something of a western extension of it that has drifted on its own way.

Sedgwick begins his study with Guenon and the meaning of traditionalism. In this he is not entirely clear in his explanation however his biography of Guenon is of some interest. It would seem that Guenon in particularly on his settlement in Egypt did indeed live out the rest of his life as a practicing Muslim though interestingly enough one who did not know classical Arabic and one who it would seem had not read a great deal of classical Islamic literature. It is also of interest that Sheikh Abdul Halim Mahmud, a man who is often quoted in traditionalist circles seems to have never read a book of traditionalism and his endorsement of it stems from nothing more than support of practicing western Muslims both in his native Egypt and Europe. Schoun is something different and Sedgwick is quite right in that its almost unheard of that a Sufi order should take an entirely differnet direction as the Alawi order in Europe did. His biography of Schoun is intriguing and it would be no surprise that traditionalists are so critical of the book seeing as much of their hidden belief and practice is now exposed for public view.

Where I think Sedgwick fails however is his link between traditionalism and Fascism. The links between Guenon and Evola is weak to say the least. In fact the link seems to be nothing more than Evola happened to have read a few books by him. It would be like finding the books of Kipling amongst Stalins books and claiming a link between Kipling and Stalin! Another point is if Sedgwick was trying to claim that there was some traditionalist attempt at world domination through our universities and schools then he failed quite badly in this book. Traditionalist are almost unheard of amongst Christians and Muslims alike. He even points out himself that while Merton may be popular or while some Sufis who became Butichichi's after reading Guenons books its highly unlikely that traditionalism influenced that order or those readers to any great extent. What traditionalism and Sedgwick seem to forget is you cant implant a 50 odd year old tradition on a 1400 year old religion and expect to have much success.

All in all in interesting read. As one quote on the back of the book says "You will never see the allusion to the "Trancendental unity of religions" in quite the same light again"

There are some aspects of Mark Sedgwick's book Against the Modern World that are strong and helpful, such as his documentation of the various individuals and groups associated with Traditionalism in the contemporary period. He also seems to sense the importance and influence of many of the scholars studied. Unfortunately, most of the information in the book is heavily skewed to give his readers an almost exclusively negative impression of some of the most eminent traditionalists. In places the book reads like tabloid material, complete with the most sensational elements in the lives of the figures being studied, but given a façade of respectability through citations (many of which are anonymous). His evidence is often from disaffected traditionalists and amounts to exaggerations, hearsay, and calumny. Moreover these accounts are stacked to one side, with very few sources or supporters from the inside. It is like reading about the Prophet of Islam from mediaeval or Orientalist Christian sources only, or from those modernized Arabs who have left Islam. A more balanced academic approach would take into account the views of supporters and detractors alike. A careful reader will note that there are very few favorable reports of key traditionalists such as René Guénon or Frithjof Schuon, despite the abundance of these that can be found by authorities in religious studies and other fields. Why does Sedgwick omit these?

In my estimation the book's greatest weakness is its failure to engage any of the ideas and principles espoused by the traditionalists. According to a saying of Imam `Ali, "Consider not who said [something], rather, look at what he said." Sedgwick does just the opposite by ignoring what it said and focusing almost entirely on who said it (and then only a limited or at times inaccurate picture of that person). When the teachings of the traditionalists are engaged, they are seen as being exclusively determined by the individuals in question and their historical and social contexts. There is no sense of trans-historical realities or influences that are of course beyond the purview of the average modern academic. He is also unable to acknowledge the existence of any of the esoteric doctrines they espouse in pre-modern traditional societies. We are basically asked to believe that the traditionalists invented their knowledge and created an amalgam of sorts from the world's religions. To be fair, Sedgwick is probably not up to the task of dealing with or even reading esoteric and philosophical work at the level at which René Guénon or Frithjof Schuon wrote. Sedgwick has written a good introduction to Sufism, but nowhere has he demonstrated that he can adequately comprehend the vision and principles of a Sufi such as Ibn 'Arabi, a Hindu such as Shankara, or a philosopher such as Plato. In my mind, this disqualifies someone from writing an informed and penetrating appraisal of the traditionalists, as their essential function was to express esoteric and metaphysical truths.

In general, one would expect a serious academic study of traditionalists or "Traditionalism" (for lack of a better word) to also take into account the many contributions and insights sages such as René Guénon, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Frithjof Schuon, Titus Burckhardt, Seyyed Hossein Nasr and others left us with. These scholars have been enthusiastically accepted by some of the leading academic scholars in comparative religion and Islamic studies, written inspired books on tradition, metaphysics, cosmology, anthropology, art and nature. Guénon's The Crisis of the Modern World is among the most important critiques of modernity to date, while Nasr's Man and Nature is an almost prophetic appraisal of the underlying causes of the environmental crisis. T.S. Elliot writes of Schuon's The Transcendent Unity of Religions, "I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion." One might also describe A.K. Coomaraswamy and Titus Burckhardt's books on sacred and traditional art as the most penetrating books to appear on the subject in the contemporary period.

The inability of Sedgwick to take cognizance of any of these achievements, as well as others, proves that his book is one-sided at best and an outright attack by a hostile opponent at worst. Perhaps it is somewhere in between? Be that as it may, one can gain some information from his book that may be of value to some when read alongside the writings of the traditionalists themselves, as well as more accurate and sympathetic biographies. In my opinion, a better place to start for knowledge on this subject is The Underlying Religion: An Introduction to the Perennial Philosophy edited by Martin Lings and Clinton Minnaar or Traditionalism: Religion in the light of the Perennial Philosophy by Kenneth Oldmeadow.

One would think, judging from the negative reviews here, that this book was a hatchet job on its subject: the individuals who have promulgated the philosophy (and ideology) of Traditionalism in the 20th and 21st centuries. The book didn't read as that to me. Rather, it struck me as a reasonably detached, thoroughly engaging history of an influential esoteric movement whose participants have previously remained opaque and cipher-like to the world at large.

But more than that, it is a bracing antidote to the lionizing of Guenon and Schuon (and others) by their followers. Do the Traditionalists have perspectives worth considering? Certainly, and they've influenced my own outlook considerably. But Traditionalism also comes with a lot of baggage (ranging from Guenon's "mild paranoia" as Sedgwick puts it, to Schuon's near deification by his cultish inner circle). _Against the Modern World_ includes that baggage as part of the bigger picture and this is of great benefit for the reader.

If you've ever read any of the Traditionalists' works, you owe it to yourself to read this book in order to gain a sense of the context in which those works arose.

(Despite some typos and minor errors in the book, I give it 5 stars in recognition of its significance in the fields of esoteric, spiritual, and religious studies. The book is not perfect, but it is extremely valuable.)

Skim the reviews and you can see that two kinds of people read this book: Traditionalists, and others.

Most of the Traditionalists could not be more upset. Someone has taken a glance behind the curtain, cleared the smoke and taken down the mirrors. Traditionalism is just another religious tradition, as fascinating and diverse and imperfect as any other. Although Rene Guenon, the central saint of Traditionalism, comes of looking like a good, sincere and intelligent man, Sedgwick presents him not as a prophet, but as someone other people (not Sedgwick) think of as a prophet. That is not good enough for some people. Schuon seems more suspicious here, and most people who don't follow him would consider that appropriate. He often seems to fit the stereotyope of the modern guru (see Storr's "Feet of Clay"). Most of the minor figures in Traditionalism are also presented favorably, if not as favorably as Traditionalists would like. That disquieting folks such as Evola are included understandably upsets Traditionalists who reject fascism, but it is a fact that they are inseparable from at least the early history of Traditionalism.

The others, who are not Traditionalists, could not be more enchanted with this fascinating information. Essentially esoteric fundamentalism, Traditionalism shows up everywhere, along with its more laid-back cousin Perennialism. You cannot study religion academically today without encountering works by Traditionalists, often essentially polemics for their religion, labeled as if they were secular studies, and often enough even accepted as such. The examples might surprise you: Eliade, Nasr, Corbin. Nasr, I think, is particularly egregious at times; for instance, the "Islam" volumes in Crossroad's "World Spirituality" series, which he edited, ought to be labeled "Traditionalist Sufism." The announced title is not covered at all; it is at least a distortion, if not a deception.

Sedgwick has written the first outside, neutral account of Traditionalism. And--contrary to some assertions here--this book is neutral. It is written for a non-Traditionalist audience, and the author reminds us not to judge them differently than we would any other religious tradition. He is, I think, as sympathetic as an outsider can be to another religious tradition. Anyway, an academic historian should not present any tradition as the fulfilment of human spirituality.

All in all, a very high quality, reliable and fascinating study. That is to be expected from Sedgwick, a highly respected veteran scholar of Islam.

Let me recommend a few other books to consider along with this one. For entertainment and another fascinating glimpse into the unexpectedly dramatic world of religious studies, see Ted Anton's "Eros, Magic, and the Murder of Professor Culianu." For a more in depth look at the founding of comparative religion, and an account of how a worldviews like Traditionalism came to dominate it (until very recently), see "Religion after Religion." If you want to read a more mainstream history of religious studies, see Sharpe's "Comparative Religion: A History."

If you want to read a sympathetic history of Traditionalism, I recommend Oldmeadow's "Journeys East," also an excellent example of Traditionalist expostulation disguised as neutral scholarship. The classic presentation of Traditionalism, the place you must begin, is Guenon's "The Crisis of the Modern World." For a recent presentation, try Quinn's "The Only Tradition."

A useful read for those who want to investigate this current.

As a past reviewer noted, it is amusing to read the reviews of those that seem to be enthralled with the traditionalist authors/expositors/charismatics. This book is a journalistic and historical narrative as much as a brief exposition to the traditionalist movement.

Many of these traditionalist 'loyalists' I have come across are sincere individuals - unfortunately they often conflate real spiritual attainment with charisma, or with a talent for writing, translating, explaining, or using elegant discourse/ metaphor. This is one reason why some of the 'embarassing' or sobering facts about the icons of the alleged movement are met with such irrational sentiments.

According to some I have spoken with - the author was generous in holding back details of conflicts, problems, frank misbehavior and poor decision-making that reveal psycho-spiritual pathos and/or immaturity. This is stuff that continued beyond Schuon and is often overlooked and justified under the rubric of 'esoteric dispensation,' by those subject to an obvious cult psycho-dynamic - a dynamic authentic spiritual practice and guidance, if present, protects against.

Faiz Khan MD