Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times [Paperback]

Rene Guenon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1, 2000

Reign of Quantity is a atrans. of a major work by Guenon, on nature of modern civilization, comparisons of west with the Orient. a classic

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From the Publisher

"The works of René Guénon (1886-1951), all but unknown to the English-reading public, are nevertheless regarded by many significant thinkers as among this century's most powerful and effective remedies for the anti-traditional spirit and virulent relativism of modernism. As for `post-modernism', we confess ignorance of its exact meaning (if it has one), but do know that, without the rigor of metaphysical principles as reconstituted for the West especially by Guénon, it will soon decay into yet another academic specialty.

Titus Burckhardt, Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, Marco Pallis, S.H. Nasr, Martin Lings, Huston Smith, William Chittick, and Joseph Epes Brown are among the better known writers who have been inspired by Guénon; less well-known, or influenced less directly, are Philip Sherrard, Gai Eaton, Whitall Perry, William Stoddart, E.F. Schumacher, Mircea Eliade, Elemire Zolla, Julius Évola, and Jacob Needleman. Without doubt, however, the best-known and most profound author whose works stand in direct relation to Guénon's is Frithjof Schuon, whose many books, spanning more than half a century, are considered by many to represent the most complete exposition of the `transcendent unity' of religions--both from a doctrinal and methodological point of view--ever presented.

Guénon's many works have remained uninterruptedly in print in French since their initial publication, but the case has been quite otherwise in English: only a few have been translated, and these few have never been in print for long, and been very scarce on the used-book market. No doubt this can be explained in part by the nature of Guénon's writing, for he places extraordinary demands on his readers, and makes no concession to popularism. And yet, at no time has such a critique of civilization and exposition of traditional metaphysical principles as he provides been more necessary than now. Guénon's works are an indispensable corrective that will be recognized--`on impact' one might almost say--by those who have begun to recognize the pernicious influences at large in the contemporary world, but who lack the formation to draw all the necessary conclusions unaided. In an ecumenic age, Guénon formulates the only possible reconciliation of the legitimate--but apparently conflicting--demands of external religious forms (exoterism) with the essential core of these forms (esoterism), a reconciliation that has no truck with the sentimental and `politically-correct' ecumenicism that has come to typify our age, offering a table of random traditional dishes to be sampled at one's pleasure, with no spiritual committment, to say the least.

Sophia Perennis et Universalis has undertaken to make Guénon's works available again, as well as new translations and works by related authors. Guénon never doubted that his books would eventually reach those few for whom they were intended, despite the difficulties entailed in publishing them; and this is the position we also adopt, trusting that support will be forthcoming for further editions as more and more readers recognize their significance. We hope that this simple limited edition reprint of The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, one of Guénon's masterpieces, will be a first step toward a larger-scale publishing program in the future, and take this opportunity to thank Guénon's heirs and their agent, Mr. Gouverneur, as well as the original French publishers, for their cooperation in making this edition possible. To the many individuals who have supported this effort over the past few years we express our gratitude, and invite you, new reader, to join us as well." --James Wetmore --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 363 pages
• Publisher: Munshiram Manoharlal; 2 edition (January 1, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 8121509777
• ISBN-13: 978-8121509770
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,498,535 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best Book Money Can Buy, October 23, 2003

By 

drew hempel (Minneapolis, MN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Reign of Quantity (Paperback)

It's extremely unfortunate that this book, "The Reign of Quantity" is out of print since it's the only book that presents a successful structural critique of "evolutionary" spirituality -- the cutting-edge of western propaganda.

Guenon's insights from the 1940s are even more relevant today since he described so well the nascent New Age scene and it's ability to lure potentially level-headed people into a cloud of deception.

Apparently Ramana Maharshi, the guru and sage promoter of Advaita Vedanta through self-enquiry, called R. Guenon, "the Great Sufi" and Guenon's associates visited Ramana Maharshi.

According to the website www.realization.org Ramana Maharshi stated, "There is no evolution."

Guenon argues this case in the context of the spiritual cycles of space-time based on the ratios 1:2:3:4.

Guenon's degree thesis in France was on the calculus and transcendental values.

"The Reign of Quantity" is the only book that develops the logic that western math, starting with the squaring of the circle, is inherently unjust, disharmonic and representative of the Kali Yuga.

This is the only book that cuts through the b.s. and gives the reader a clear view of current times but at the same time a clear vision of how to cut through these times.

Guenon gives great detail to the disharmonic forces that even call themselves "traditionalists" based on his writing yet are not accurate representatives of his work.

This inaccuracy proved to be the case with the two other so-called "traditionalist" founders -- Schuon and Evola.

Unfortunately Guenon's work has been dismissed by those who have not read him and Guenon's work has been ignored since it is too radical.

Hopefully, after Oxford University Press's forthcoming book on traditionalism, there will be a reprint of "the Reign of Quantity"

drew hempel

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A radical critique of our age, June 5, 1999

By 

"aspiringsufi" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Gurdjieff in the Light of Tradition (Paperback)

Perhaps Guenon's greatest work, this book analyses the metaphysical roots of the crisis of this age, explaining the causes of the present condition to lie in modern civilization's rebellion against tradition -- not just one tradition, but the recurring and perennial tradition of every premodern civilization. The author's penetrating insight into modern science and the results of its monopoly over our age is fascinating. His critique of modernity is grounded in the traditional religious view which views human temporal existence not as an evolution, but a degression culminating in the "signs of the hour" and the emergence of the dajjal or the anti-christ. Guenon's radical critique of the 20th Century will no doubt be unpalatable for those to whom the wisdom of the ancients is ignorance relative to the quantum physics of today; but Guenon was well aware of the intellectual totalitarianism of the modern world-view. His objective was not a mass conversion to tradition. He sought rather to help open the eyes of a small number of people to the realities of the modern world and the illusion of progress. And this he did. A good number of prominent intellectuals were influenced by his works; among them: Huston Smith, Martin Lings, Gai Eaton, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, James Cutsinger, Toshiko Izutsu and host of others. Guenon died in the late 50's in Cairo, Egypt where he lived for almost twenty years as an adeherent of the Muslim faith. His last words were "Allah, Allah".

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Masterpiece for the Elect; an Enigma for Others, December 4, 2007

By 

J.P.F. (Bay Area, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times (Hardcover)

The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times is a masterpiece by the enlightened perennial intellectual René Guénon, and is considered by many of those who can comprehend it to be his magnum opus. That having been said, beware of reading this for the wrong reasons, or with the wrong grounding.

I cannot stress the latter point any further than it has been, but I must say this: If you have never read René Guénon before, do not read this book! To those without proper grounding in Guénon's other works, such as 'East and West' or 'The Crisis of the Modern World', this book will seem full of strange enigmas and asides, and things that may not, on the surface, appear to be related to the topic at hand. However, for those who have read and properly comprehended one or both of those, particularly 'Crisis', what is said here will make far more sense, a great many enigmas will be cleared up, and many things that may have seemed to be off-topic and/or useless information will be put in their proper place in the reader's mind.

I can say little that hasn't been said by other reviewers (or that Guénon didn't say himself!), so instead I would like to devote a few moments to do what they didn't, and clear up any doubts that may've been put in your mind by the two reviewers who didn't recommend 'The Reign of Quantity'.

To answer the one-star review, one person's inability to comprehend something does not make it a waste of your time and money if you can, and no, Guénon's references to the Indian and other revealed traditions are not at all out of place; he points to one unified Truth through all of them (and if you wonder how, when there are so many apparent contradictions between them, keep reading; they're not as contradictory as you might think), and understanding them all in this light is the key to everything Guénon teaches (one might leave it at 'the key to everything'), for he relates everything, as it should be related, back to the one universal Truth that guides all things. In fact, to have omitted the references he made to those revealed traditions would have been irresponsible: The real confusion would come by separating those revealed traditions which point to the Truth from the very Truth by which he makes his arguments; they are all interconnected, and must all be understood.

And as for the three-star review, René Guénon is not relentlessly negative. As other reviewers have stated, he is purely intellectual and not the least bit sentimental, and he is also describing the crisis and downfall of the modern world; the end of a Manvantara. The former may not sit well with many modern readers, since sentimentalism is so prevalent, but as another reviewer stated, "sentimentalism is nothing more than a transpose of a catatonic and truculent rationalism in which the Western man has been drowning since the tide of senility began in 14th century under the guise of 'Renaissance'", and to do the latter, that is, describe the downfall of the modern world, one can do little not to sound 'negative', although he actually does that very well: He describes it in a purely intellectual light, which may come out sounding 'negative' to some, but in the end stresses that the end of the cycle and the very 'malefic' influences he speaks of are nonetheless part of the universal Order.

As for his 'tortured prose', yes, his style of writing is rather unorthodox and can be difficult to get one's head around, but as a reviewer of 'Crisis' put it: "Guenon is probably one of the few authors who uses semicolons and colons more frequently than periods in his ultra-dense prose. His train of thought is difficult to follow but once concentrated upon closely it is apparent how insightful Guenon is explaining his subject." I would add first that part, but by no means all, of it has something to do with the translation. Even with that said, I must say that it is actually, while unorthodox, a wonderful style of writing that has influenced my own greatly. While there are many asides and the basic 'gist' may be made harder to grasp, his preference for stating things in full over 'cutting corners' to reduce wordiness help to explain his point with crystal clarity; to put it another way, he does not sacrifice content or meaning to simplicity (remember his words when he says that he's not trying to make his work accessible to the majority of readers, but to the Elect, and he compromises nothing in that regard; also, to those who've read 'Reign', recall his comments about simplification and modernity).

Also, his 'meaningless' asides are not so at all, unless you lack, as I've said before, a proper understanding of Guénon (read 'Crisis' first!). They serve to give a greater, fuller understanding of the subject, as opposed to the narrow, metaphysically-deprived critique that it would be without them. They also 'connect the dots', if you will, between his various works (in fact, many of them can be seen as a preparation for reading his other works, so if you don't plan to do that, yes, I suppose those of them are literally meaningless for you), and at any rate they enlighten those of us who care to understand his work beyond the topic at hand; they are, to those who understand him, actually a vast treasure-trove of information. His asides are by no means reduced in worth simply because one person cannot understand the author's reason for putting them there, and I hope that new readers of his don't take that comment about them to heart during their reading experience.

And with that, I end this review with an iteration of my dismay that I couldn't give this work 10+/5 stars for the author's brilliant insight and critique of the modern age that has stood fast against the quickly-changing tide of the modern world. René Guénon is quite possibly the most enlightened man to have lived since at least the dawn of the 'modern age' (by his reckoning; c. 1400), alongside other great thinkers such as A. K. Coomaraswamy, and his works shall until the end of our present Manvantara be a bonanza of wonderful information and metaphysics that have their base in the revealed traditional doctrines which, as Guénon spent his life doing, all point to the one universal Truth.