Dabbling in Gnosis and Flirting with Heresy

From time to time Schuon plays the stupid card, as in the passage quoted yesterday:

leaving aside mere stupidity, we would say that intelligence may be extremely acute on the rational level alone, while being quite inoperative beyond that level...

Or, perhaps he's just flattering his fanbase. Clearly he was not only a brilliant man, but possessed a highly unusual form of brilliance -- what we might call "vertical vision." Or at any rate, he saw things that others -- no matter how intelligent in a worldly way -- do not, or perhaps cannot, see.

Which raises a number of issues, for it is always possible to see things that aren't there. For example, I remember a psychotic patient who enjoyed watching Bugs Bunny cartoons, because he would "pull Bugs out of the TV" and play with him in his apartment living room.

It also raises the question of gnosis, the purportedly bad kind -- bad because it restricts the transpersonal message to a pneuma-cognitive elite, whereas revelation is addressed to Here Comes Everybody. Or, it is addressed to a collective and its Average Man to whom metaphysics is a closed book:

Metaphysics cannot be taught to everyone but if it could there would be no atheists (Schuon).

The Average Man is decidedly not a metaphysician, so revelation conveys the essential points of universal metaphysics, only clothed in a way that can be assimilated by Joe Sixpack. "Revelation is the means by which the Absolute is made known to all mankind." This facilitates "a downward descent of the Divine Principle," and "a vertical ascent back to the Divine (Oldmeadow), AKA (↓) and (↑). Thus,

When a man seeks to escape from dogmatic narrowness it is essential that it be "upwards" and not "downwards": dogmatic form is transcended by fathoming its depths and contemplating its universal content (Schuon).

Which is to say the Substance conveyed by the form; put conversely, no form can exhaust the substance, whether images of triangles or of God.

For Schuon,

What falsifies modern interpretations of the world and of man at their very base... is their monotonous and obsessive ignorance of the suprasensible degrees of Reality...

As we've been discussing, the Intellect is precisely that sense which allows us to sense the suprasensible to which it is both a prolongation and adequation. 

In some religions, e.g. Christianity, the metaphysical teachings are more or less veiled, while in others, such as Vedanta, they are more direct. 

Central to Schuon's metaphysic is the distinction between Being and Beyond-Being. The former is the highest metaphysical level in exoteric monotheisms, with its Personal Creator God. But even some Christians go one step further, for example, Meister Eckhart. His impersonal "ground" is analogous to the Nirguna Brahman of Vedanta, the unqualified Absolute. 

I'm trying to figure out how to reconcile this with the Trinity, but I'll have to get back to you on that... it's a big book.

Above we alluded to another important distinction for Schuon, that between the form and substance of religion. Revelation provides us with adequate forms to render the suprasensible intelligible, but the form is not the substance, which is supraformal and hence formally inexhaustible.

In itself, this is not so far from Christian orthodoxy, which maintains that -- and this should be self-evident -- no finite image of God can adequately represent him, for "Whatever is comprehended by a finite being is itself finite" (Thomas), so that "every image [of the Absolute] is at the same time true and false" (Schuon).

And yet, Thomas implies that there is indeed something in us that is conformed to the Infinite, similar to what Eckhart says, to the effect that "There is something in the soul which is uncreated and uncreatable," this being none other than the Intellect. 

Likewise, for Thomas "The intellectual light dwelling in us is nothing other than a kind of participated image of the uncreated light," and "the light of our intellect... is nothing other than an imprint of the first truth." 

Moreover, "Our intellect is understanding extended to infinity," and this "ordering of the intellect to infinity would be vain and senseless if there were no infinite object of knowledge."

Hence the Philosopher [Aristotle] says that the soul is in a certain manner all things. 

So, the Intellect is "the faculty which perceives transcendence"; it "receives intuitions and apprehends realities of a supra-phenomenal order":

This transcendent faculty, capable of direct contact with Reality, is to be found, under various names, in all traditions (Oldmeadow). 

Having said that,

Fallen man, and thus average man, is as it were poisoned by the passional element, either grossly or subtly; from this results an obscuring of the Intellect and the necessity of a Revelation from outside. 

Here again this is problematic, because it seems to imply that there are superior men whose intellects are not subject to the fall -- which goes back to Gnosis, the bad kind. However, Schuon is quick to point out that an intellectual understanding of metaphysics is not enough, and that the spiritual life "is concerned with cleansing the subjective psyche," and with integrating and assimilating the Divine Message.  

Well?

I'm thinkin'...

'Bout what?

Mainly about the problem of evil and suffering. For me, the traditional explanations just don't cut it, hence, one of the appeals of Schuon's approach. 

If the world is the world, this is because it is not God; unable to be either Absoluteness or Infinity, it is relative and finite -- hence the presence of evil...

So, it's nobody's fault. Or, it's everybody's fault, to the extent that we are finite and relative. Hence,

If there is a cosmos, a universal manifestation, there must also be a fall or falls, for to say "manifestation" is to say "other than God" and remotion (Schuon).

I suppose Schuon would say the whole Garden of Eden thing is intended to convey this ineveateapple metaphysical truth. Which, if I'm not mistaken, would be considered a heretical interpretation. Nevertheless, it makes sense, for if the creation is a kind of radiation of, or projection from, God, 

to say radiation is to say distance, hence alienation or impoverishment: the solar rays dim and become lost in the night of space. From this arises, at the end of the projection, the paradoxical phenomenon of evil...  

Well?

Still thinkin'... Gemini, what do you (pretend to) think?

It's important to note that Schuon's ideas are complex and nuanced. While he draws on traditional religious and philosophical sources, his synthesis of these ideas is unique. His perspective offers a compelling explanation for the problem of evil and the nature of reality, but it also raises questions about the relationship between intellect and spirituality, the nature of revelation, and the potential for elitism. 

Further exploration of his work and comparisons with other metaphysical traditions would be beneficial. What specific aspects of Schuon's thought are you most interested in discussing further? Perhaps we could delve deeper into his understanding of specific religious traditions or explore his views on art and symbolism.