The Transcendent Unity of Religions (Frithjof Schuon)
Turgid, Prolix Pontification
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Transcendent Unity of Religions” by Frithjof Schuon.]
I recently reviewed Schuon's "The Essential Frithjof Schuon" (which I gave two stars), and before I did I ordered "The Transcendendent Unity of Religions," which I will now review after suffering through it.
Before I begin reaming this text, I feel obliged to point out its positive side--it is only 155 pages long (compared to the 500 + pages of "The Essential Frithof Schuon"), and since two of the text's nine chapers were extracted from "The Essential Frithof Schuon," I only had to read 123 pages, and I am most grateful for that.
If you appreciate 3-page paragraphs and 100-word sentences that will have you scratching your head, asking yourself "What did he say?" then Schuon could be a spiritual philosopher right up your alley. But because I'm allergic to turgid, prolix pontification, Schuon is hardly my spiritual cup of tea.
Professors of religious studies love Schuon, raving about his unique insights. For example, the renowned Huston Smith, who wrote the introduction to this book, writes: "Superlative... the most powerful statement of the grand, or better, primordial tradition. It is original in incorporating what our age for the first time demands: that religion be treated in global terms." I couldn't disagree more. The "primordial tradition" is pure mysticism, direct, unmediated contact with the Divine, and has nothing to do with the comparative religious studies that professors of religious studies, such as Smith, revel in. Moreover, even though Schuon wasn't an academic, his quasi-academese prose resonates with Ivory Tower professors, most of whom can't think or write clearly.
Schuon is billed as an "esotericist," but I think of him as an exoteric esotericist because the bulk of his discourse focuses on comparative religion rather than on comparative mysticism. I took a couple of sociology of religion classes in college, and Schuon's text would fit right in with the other dry social science texts on religion that one encounters at universities.
The real joke of this book is its name and cover. The book focuses almost entirely on Christianity and Islam and virtually ignores Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The yoga Om symbol and the Taoist Yin-Yang symbol adorn the cover of the book, but there is nothing about yoga or Taoism in this book. Yoga is the tap-root of all true religion, but Schuon, egregiously, never mentions this fact, which, to my mind, should serve as the very basis of any book on the Perennial Philosophy.
Is Schuon the profound thinker that many scholars consider him to be? Not in my opinion. I could deconstruct him until the cows come home, and if someone offers me a large grant, I will gladly do so. I'll provide a couple examples of his "wisdom," and then deconstruct them:
"As we have just seen, the exoteric claim to the exclusive possession of the truth comes up against the axiomatic objection that there is no such thing in existence as a unique fact, for the simple reason that it is simply impossible that such a fact should exist, unicity alone being unique and no fact being unicity."
It is absurd to say there are no unique facts simply because facts aren't unicity. Unicity is itself a mere concept. Only existence exists, and any idea about the existents of existence comprising a unified whole is within the realm of human ideas. Moreover, if there are no unique facts, then Schuon shouldn't have written any books, because that means not a single idea of his could possibly uncover new, or "unique," ground.
Schuon writes, "The ideas that are affirmed in one religious form (as, for example, the idea of the Word or of the Divine Unity) cannot fail to be affirmed, in one way or another, in all other religious forms." This is patently false. It's easy to find major, irreconcilable differences on important ideas amongst the major religions. But because Schuon pushes unicity, he doesn't want to delve into these differences.
A major problem I have with Schuon is his metaphysics. He writes:
"Being Itself which is none other than the Personal God, is in turn surpassed by the Impersonal or Supra-Personal Divinity. Non-Being, of which the Personal God or Being is simply the first determination from which flow all the secondary determinations that make up cosmic Existence. Exotericism cannot, however, admit either this unreality of the world or the exclusive reality of the Divine Principle, or above all, the transcendence of Non-Being relative to Being or God."
Schuon's vision of the Divine is a farce. There is no such thing or "Thing" as Non-Being that is transcendent relative to Being. Schuon should have read Ayn Rand, then he might have realized that he was guilty of the Reification of Zero, attributing ontological status to a Non-Existent. Moreover, Schuon doesn't even know what the word Divine means. It means the Godhead, which consists of two Vines--Consciousness and Spirit-Energy. In other words, the Di-Vine, Consciousness (Siva or Cit)-Energy (Shakti or Ananda) = Being (or Sat). Unbeknownst to Schuon, something cannot come out of Nothing; it is impossible.
Schuon writes: "... the Divine Principle that alone is real." In other words, according to Schuon, the only reality is that Non-Being is senior to Being which derives from"It." This is ridiculous. Again, Being (or Sat) IS the Divine--Siva-Shakti, or Cit-Ananda, and Non-Being is a Non-Existent Nothingness, a Blank or Zero.
Schuon, in contradistinction to mystics such as J. Krishnamurti, argues that, as Huston Smith writes in his Introduction, "even esoterics must, almost without exception, submit to exoteric rites... The esoteric finds the the Absolute within the traditions as poets find poetry in poems." Even though Schuon argues that exoteric religious tradition is a necessary foundation for esoteric spirituality, he also points out that the human mind cannot set aside the cultural and mental conditioning resulting from conventional religion. He writes:
"...it should be observed that the Western mentality, in its positive qualities, is almost entirely of Christian essence. It does not lie within the power of men to rid themselves of of so deep-seated a heredity by their own means, that is to say, by mere ideological expedients; their minds move in age-old grooves even when they invent errors. One cannot set aside this intellectual and mental formation, however weakened it may be."
Putting Schuon's two arguments together--that man needs traditional religion as a foundation for esoteric spirituality, and that traditional religion conditions man's mind in a way he can't set aside--one can only conclude that man must be brainwashed, his mind irreversibly programmed by exoteric religion, before he can be ready for esoteric spirituality.
When I began this review, I planned to give this book two stars, but now, after further contemplating Schuon's ideas, I've changed my mind. One star, and one star too many, for the most overrated perennial philosopher in history.
[My 1-star Amazon review (NDA) of “The Transcendent Unity of Religions” by Frithjof Schuon.]
I recently reviewed Schuon's "The Essential Frithjof Schuon" (which I gave two stars), and before I did I ordered "The Transcendendent Unity of Religions," which I will now review after suffering through it.
Before I begin reaming this text, I feel obliged to point out its positive side--it is only 155 pages long (compared to the 500 + pages of "The Essential Frithof Schuon"), and since two of the text's nine chapers were extracted from "The Essential Frithof Schuon," I only had to read 123 pages, and I am most grateful for that.
If you appreciate 3-page paragraphs and 100-word sentences that will have you scratching your head, asking yourself "What did he say?" then Schuon could be a spiritual philosopher right up your alley. But because I'm allergic to turgid, prolix pontification, Schuon is hardly my spiritual cup of tea.
Professors of religious studies love Schuon, raving about his unique insights. For example, the renowned Huston Smith, who wrote the introduction to this book, writes: "Superlative... the most powerful statement of the grand, or better, primordial tradition. It is original in incorporating what our age for the first time demands: that religion be treated in global terms." I couldn't disagree more. The "primordial tradition" is pure mysticism, direct, unmediated contact with the Divine, and has nothing to do with the comparative religious studies that professors of religious studies, such as Smith, revel in. Moreover, even though Schuon wasn't an academic, his quasi-academese prose resonates with Ivory Tower professors, most of whom can't think or write clearly.
Schuon is billed as an "esotericist," but I think of him as an exoteric esotericist because the bulk of his discourse focuses on comparative religion rather than on comparative mysticism. I took a couple of sociology of religion classes in college, and Schuon's text would fit right in with the other dry social science texts on religion that one encounters at universities.
The real joke of this book is its name and cover. The book focuses almost entirely on Christianity and Islam and virtually ignores Hinduism, Buddhism, and Taoism. The yoga Om symbol and the Taoist Yin-Yang symbol adorn the cover of the book, but there is nothing about yoga or Taoism in this book. Yoga is the tap-root of all true religion, but Schuon, egregiously, never mentions this fact, which, to my mind, should serve as the very basis of any book on the Perennial Philosophy.
Is Schuon the profound thinker that many scholars consider him to be? Not in my opinion. I could deconstruct him until the cows come home, and if someone offers me a large grant, I will gladly do so. I'll provide a couple examples of his "wisdom," and then deconstruct them:
"As we have just seen, the exoteric claim to the exclusive possession of the truth comes up against the axiomatic objection that there is no such thing in existence as a unique fact, for the simple reason that it is simply impossible that such a fact should exist, unicity alone being unique and no fact being unicity."
It is absurd to say there are no unique facts simply because facts aren't unicity. Unicity is itself a mere concept. Only existence exists, and any idea about the existents of existence comprising a unified whole is within the realm of human ideas. Moreover, if there are no unique facts, then Schuon shouldn't have written any books, because that means not a single idea of his could possibly uncover new, or "unique," ground.
Schuon writes, "The ideas that are affirmed in one religious form (as, for example, the idea of the Word or of the Divine Unity) cannot fail to be affirmed, in one way or another, in all other religious forms." This is patently false. It's easy to find major, irreconcilable differences on important ideas amongst the major religions. But because Schuon pushes unicity, he doesn't want to delve into these differences.
A major problem I have with Schuon is his metaphysics. He writes:
"Being Itself which is none other than the Personal God, is in turn surpassed by the Impersonal or Supra-Personal Divinity. Non-Being, of which the Personal God or Being is simply the first determination from which flow all the secondary determinations that make up cosmic Existence. Exotericism cannot, however, admit either this unreality of the world or the exclusive reality of the Divine Principle, or above all, the transcendence of Non-Being relative to Being or God."
Schuon's vision of the Divine is a farce. There is no such thing or "Thing" as Non-Being that is transcendent relative to Being. Schuon should have read Ayn Rand, then he might have realized that he was guilty of the Reification of Zero, attributing ontological status to a Non-Existent. Moreover, Schuon doesn't even know what the word Divine means. It means the Godhead, which consists of two Vines--Consciousness and Spirit-Energy. In other words, the Di-Vine, Consciousness (Siva or Cit)-Energy (Shakti or Ananda) = Being (or Sat). Unbeknownst to Schuon, something cannot come out of Nothing; it is impossible.
Schuon writes: "... the Divine Principle that alone is real." In other words, according to Schuon, the only reality is that Non-Being is senior to Being which derives from"It." This is ridiculous. Again, Being (or Sat) IS the Divine--Siva-Shakti, or Cit-Ananda, and Non-Being is a Non-Existent Nothingness, a Blank or Zero.
Schuon, in contradistinction to mystics such as J. Krishnamurti, argues that, as Huston Smith writes in his Introduction, "even esoterics must, almost without exception, submit to exoteric rites... The esoteric finds the the Absolute within the traditions as poets find poetry in poems." Even though Schuon argues that exoteric religious tradition is a necessary foundation for esoteric spirituality, he also points out that the human mind cannot set aside the cultural and mental conditioning resulting from conventional religion. He writes:
"...it should be observed that the Western mentality, in its positive qualities, is almost entirely of Christian essence. It does not lie within the power of men to rid themselves of of so deep-seated a heredity by their own means, that is to say, by mere ideological expedients; their minds move in age-old grooves even when they invent errors. One cannot set aside this intellectual and mental formation, however weakened it may be."
Putting Schuon's two arguments together--that man needs traditional religion as a foundation for esoteric spirituality, and that traditional religion conditions man's mind in a way he can't set aside--one can only conclude that man must be brainwashed, his mind irreversibly programmed by exoteric religion, before he can be ready for esoteric spirituality.
When I began this review, I planned to give this book two stars, but now, after further contemplating Schuon's ideas, I've changed my mind. One star, and one star too many, for the most overrated perennial philosopher in history.
