Only a profane point of view due to ignorance

René Guénon

René Guénon (1886–1951), French metaphysician and esoteric thinker, sought to restore perennial wisdom against modernity’s fragmentation. He critiqued rationalism, materialism, and secularism, viewing them as symptoms of spiritual decline. Rooted in Vedanta, Sufism, and Christian mysticism, he emphasized the “Primordial Tradition” underlying all authentic religions. Guénon distinguished between the sacred and profane, urging remembrance of transcendent reality through initiation and symbolism. His works—The Crisis of the Modern World, The Reign of Quantity, Introduction to the Study of Hindu Doctrines—map humanity’s fall from qualitative essence to quantitative obsession. For him, true liberation lies in metaphysical realization beyond temporal illusions.

What men call chance is simply their ignorance of causes; if the statement that something had happened by chance were to mean that it had no cause, it would be a contradiction in terms.” (The Crisis of the Modern World)