http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
Buy & READ
http://www.amazon.com/Reign-Quantity-Signs-Times/dp/0900588675
THE REIGN OF QUANTITY AND THE SIGN OF THE TIMES by Rene Guenon
Review
Like "The Crisis of the Modern World", a smaller work written years
earlier, "The Reign of Quantity & the Signs of the Times" falls into
that group of Rene Guenon's works which have been called "intellectual
reform and criticism of the modern world." These works evaluate the
principles (or as Guenon would insist the "pseudo-principles") behind
the modern mentality in the light of traditional principles. However,
"Reign" differs from "Crisis" in being a much more metaphysically
challenging exploration of the nature and trajectory of the modern
thing. For that reason, "Crisis" is a better book than "Reign" to
begin your exploration of the country that is Guenon.
Guenon is a metaphysician with a wide but highly integrated vision of
reality. You do not get the fullness of his thought in any one of his
books, although some are more central than others. But because of the
integrity of the whole corpus one book fills out or illuminates the
ideas found in the others. This fact should be kept in mind when
approaching him. Frustrations and perplexities will dissipate with
further reading. For all that, there is no getting around the
demanding nature of Guenon's thought.
Guenon sees modernity, in its materialist stage, as the "reign of
quantity" i.e. a state of affairs in which an attempt is made to
reduce all of reality to that which can be measured by the senses.
This state of affairs is a "sign of the times" in that it tells us
that we are at the end of the "Kali-Yuga" or "time of troubles."
According to tradition, time is cyclical. One of the most significant
of these cycles is the "Manvantara" which is made up of four "Yugas."
The time covered by each of these "Yugas" is qualitatively different.
The first, the "Krita-Yuga", is a time of light and closeness to the
principle while the last, the "Kali-Yuga", is a time of darkness and
distance from the light of the principle.
Guenon's book in made up of forty chapters which can be divided into
three general sections. The first six or seven chapters lay out and
explain the metaphysical principles needed to understand his critique
of the modern world. In the next sixteen chapters he applies these
principles to various aspects of modernity. In the remaining chapters
he delineates the stages of the continuing movement away from the
light of principles.
The first section is the most challenging but is essential for a full
appreciation of the rest of the book. To begin, Guenon distinguishes
two correlative metaphysical principles "Purusha" and "Prakriti."
These are Hindu terms for the what, in the West since Aristotle, has
been known as "act" and "potency." However, although he acknowledges
their equivalence to the Aristotelian "act" and "potency, Guenon
translates these terms as "essence" and "substance." While there are
reasons for this, such a translation opens up much room for confusion.
This is because these terms have been used in a different way for
hundreds of years by Christian Philosophy. This is an involved
subject, but not merely one of terminology. Rather it opens a window
on to two very different, although not diametrically opposed,
metaphysics, one Christian the other (Guenon's) Vedantist. In any
case, the reader should study these first chapters with care in order
to properly grasp Guenon's meaning.
All of what Guenon calls "manifestation" (i.e. the created universe)
is composed of "Purusha" and "Prakriti." On the terrestrial plane
these principles can be spoken of analogically in terms of "quality"
and "quantity." Thus the conditions that limit the earthly world also
participate in the principles of quality and quantity. Among these
conditions are space and time. One of the most significant of Guenon's
points is that while the modern mentality sees only quantitative
aspects of space and time they cannot be so reduced. What Guenon has
to say on this matter is very interesting, but the key point to see,
in order to understand the shape of the book as a whole, is that
symbolically the qualitative aspect of space is "above" and the
quantitative aspect "below" just as in time the qualitative aspect is
"before" and the quantitative aspect "after." As a result, just as
terrestrial manifestation in space is an issuing forth of multiplicity
from unity, so manifestation in time is a cyclic falling away from
paradisal unity into dissolution.
Having set the stage with these principles, Guenon proceeds in the
second section to examine the ways in which the modern life is a
dwelling in these lower regions of time and space. He examines in
depth and, as always, in the light of traditional principles, a series
of modern movements and characteristics: industrialization, the cult
of originality, dependence on statistics, the tendency to
oversimplify, the hatred of secrecy, rationalism, materialism,
mechanism, the love of "ordinary life", the degradation of coinage,
popularization, etc.
In the last section Guenon distinguishes two sub-phases of the final
phase of the "Kali-Yuga": "solidification" and "dissolution."
"Solidification" characterizes the hardcore materialist sub-phase of
the "Kali-Yuga", which is identical to the "reign of quantity" of the
title. There is a kind of stagnate and hopeless "security" that sets
in during this sub-phase because man has cut himself off from all
influences outside the corporeal world. However this "security" is an
unstable illusion and soon "malefic" influences begins to penetrate
his materialist shell. This penetration marks the beginning of the
second sub-phase.
This sub-phase is "dissolution." It is does not exist in air-tight
distinction from "solidification" rather the two overlap, just as
"postmodernism" overlaps "modernism." In "dissolution" the materialist
pseudo-edifice of "solidification" crumbles to dust. "Pseudo-
initiatic", anti-traditional movements such as Theosophy and
Spiritualism embody the "spirit" of the "dissolution" sub-phase. These
clear the ground a much greater danger which comes at the very end of
the "Kali-Yuga", a full-blown "counter-tradition" with a "counter-
initiation." If anti-traditional movements are a "deviation" i.e. a
straying from the traditional way, "counter-traditional" movements
lead their followers down the way opposite tradition i.e. into the
abyss
Post by GAZAMAThttp://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912
Buy & READhttp://www.amazon.com/Reign-Quantity-Signs-Times/dp/0900588675
THE REIGN OF QUANTITY AND THE SIGN OF THE TIMES by Rene Guenon
"The Reign of Quantity [and the Sign of the Times] gives a concise but
comprehensive view of the present state of affairs in the world, as it
appears from the point of view of the 'ancient wisdom', formerly
common both to the East and to the West, but now almost entirely lost
sight of. The author indicates with his fabled clarity and directness
the precise nature of the modern deviation, and devotes special
attention to the development of modern philosophy and science, and to
the part played by them, with their accompanying notions of progress
and evolution, in the formation of the industrial and democratic
society which we now regard as 'normal'. Guénon sees history as a
descent from Form (or Quality) toward Matter (or Quantity); but after
the Reign of Quantity-modern materialism and the 'rise of the masses'-
Guénon predicts a reign of 'inverted quality' just before the end of
the age: the triumph of the 'counter-initiation', the kingdom of
Antichrist. This text is considered the magnum opus among Guénon's
texts of civilizational criticism, as is Symbols of Sacred Science
among his studies on symbols and cosmology, and Man and His Becoming
according to the Vedanta among his more purely metaphysical works."
Post by GAZAMAT'Zeitgeist, The Movie' and 'Zeitgeist: Addendum' were created as Not-
for-Profit expressions to communicate what the author felt were highly
important social understandings which most humans are generally not
aware of. The first film focuses on suppressed historical & modern
information about currently dominant social institutions, while also
exploring what could be in store for humanity if the power structures
at large continue their patterns of self-interest, corruption, and
consolidation. Zeitgeist: Addendum, attempts to locate the root causes
of this pervasive social corruption, while offering a solution. This
solution is not based on politics, morality, laws, or any other
"establishment" notions of human affairs, but rather on a modern, non-
superstitious based understanding of what we are and how we align with
nature, to which we are a part. The work advocates a new social system
which is updated to present day knowledge, highly influenced by the
life long work of Jacque Fresco and The Venus Project.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7065205277695921912