"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
According to its author, The Reign of Quantity is directed to "...the understanding of some of the darkest enigmas of the modern world, enigmas which the world itself denies because it is incapable of perceiving them although it carries them within itself, and because this denial is an indispensable condition for the maintenance of the special mentality whereby it exists."
From the Inside Flap
"Many of Guénons books, notably The Reign of Quantity, are such potent and detailed metaphysical attacks on the downward drift of Western civilization as to make all other contemporary critiques . . . seem half-hearted by comparison." --Jacob Needleman, The Sword of Gnosis
"The Collected Works of René Guénon 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, author of The Worlds Religions, etc.
"The Reign of Quantity is a brilliantly sustained and excoriating attach on modern civilization. . . . The book is a controlled and dispassionate but devastating razing of the assumptions and values of modern science. At the same time it is an affirmation of the metaphysical and cosmological principles given expression in traditional culture and religions." --Kenneth Oldmeadow, author of Traditionalism
About the Author
René Guénon (1886–1951) was one of the great luminaries of the twentieth century, whose critique of the modern world has stood fast against the shifting sands of intellectual fashion. His extensive writings, now finally available in English, are a providential treasure-trove for the modern seeker: while pointing ceaselessly to the perennial wisdom found in past cultures ranging from the Shamanistic to the Indian and Chinese, the Hellenic and Judaic, the Christian and Islamic, and including also Alchemy, Hermeticism, and other esoteric currents, they direct the reader also to the deepest level of religious praxis, emphasizing the need for affiliation with a revealed tradition even while acknowledging the final identity of all spiritual paths as they approach the summit of spiritual realization. René Guénon, of whom Jacob Needleman wrote in The Sword of Gnosis that ‘no other modern writer has so effectively communicated the absoluteness of truth,’ is gradually being recognized by deeper thinkers as one of the few who have truly penetrated the seductive veil of the modern age. As an expositor of pure metaphysics and its application to the science of symbols, Guénon is without peer; and his extraordinarily prescient critique of the modern world is attracting more and more attention among cultural commentators. Little known in the English-speaking world till the recent appearance of his Collected Works in translation, Guénon has nevertheless long been recognized as a veritable criterion of truth by a vanguard of remarkable writers who evince that rare combination: intellectuality and spirituality. After a lonely childhood, often interrupted by ill health, Guénon navigated the seductive half-truths of occultism toward a deeper, unified vision offering a way out from the confusion and fragmentation of our time. Regarded by leading scholars as the first truly authentic interpreter of many Eastern doctrines in the West, Guénon never tired, in face of the seemingly inexorable process of dissolution in the twentieth century, of pointing to the transcendent unity of all religious faiths and the abiding Truth that contains them all.
