Thursday, May 15, 2008

Palestina?

Palestina ... alguém sabe ...

1) Quando e quem fundou a Palestina ?

2) Quais eram suas fronteiras ?

3) Qual era a sua capital ?

4) Quais eram suas grandes cidades ?

5) Qual era a base de sua economia ?

6) Qual era a sua forma de governo ?

7) Vcs podem citar um lider palestino antes de Arafat ?

8) A Palestina foi reconhecida por algum país cuja existência, em algum tempo, não deixe margem para más interpretações ?

9) Qual era a lingua falada ?

10) Qual a religião que prevalecia ?

11) Qual era o nome da sua moeda ?

Escolha uma data qualquer e responda qual era a taxa de câmbio da moeda palestina frente ao dólar, yen, franco etc. ?

Desde que tal país não existe hoje, explique por que deixou de existir ?

Se vc se lamenta pelo destino da pobre Palestina, responda em que época este país foi orgulhoso e independente ?

Se o povo que vc, por engano, chama de palestinos, é algo além de uma coleção de gente saída dos países árabes, e se eles têm realmente uma identidade étnica definida que lhes asseguram o direito da autodeterminação, por que eles não trataram de ser um país árabe independente até a derrota devastadora na guerra dos Seis Dias ?

Por que desdenharam a oportunidade de estabelecer um Estado Palestino, baseado então na Resolução das Nações Unidas em 1947, que estabeleceu simultaneamente o direito do povo judeu a ter seu próprio Estado que, atualmente, é o Estado de Israel ?

Espero que vcs não confundam palestinos com filisteus. Trocar etnologia por história não funciona.

É curioso que os palestinos querem hoje o que recusaram em 1947, e continuam em insistir na eliminação de Israel, legitimamente criado pelas Nações Unidas e da qual é membro integral.

----

Geopolitically speaking, we should support Israel because it is the only true democracy in the Middle East. The tiny democracy of Israel is surrounded by feudal states and brutal dictatorships that control vast regions of land and oil resources. The presence of the Israeli Defense Forces brings stability to that part of the world.

The current conflict in the Middle East is not just about land; it's about Israel's right to exist as a nation. The land has never belonged to the people who now call themselves Palestinians. The area was named Palestine by the Romans, but there has never been a nation called Palestine, and there is no Palestinian language. Before 1948 these people were Egyptians, Syrians, Jordanians, Iraqis, and citizens of other Arab nations who had moved to the region. They were displaced by the war of 1948, but Israel is not occupying their territory.

Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority clearly do not want peace. During the Clinton Administration they were offered a Palestinian State with part of Jerusalem as its capital, along with control of 97 percent of the West Bank-everything their own negotiators had said was requisite for peace. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak agreed to the deal, but Yasser Arafat turned it down flat. He walked away from peace, sending a tacit message to the terrorists, who continue their slaughter of innocent lives in their pursuit of destruction of the Jewish State.
---
Geopoliticamente falando, nós devemos apoiar Israel, porque é a única e verdadeira democracia no Oriente Médio. A minúscula democracia de Israel é cercada por Estados feudais e ditaduras brutais que controlam vastas regiões de terra e dos recursos petrolíferos. A presença das Forças Armadas de Israel traz a estabilidade para essa parte do mundo.

O atual conflito no Oriente Médio não é apenas acerca de terras: é sobre o direito de Israel existir como uma nação. A terra nunca pertenceu ao povo que agora se diz 'palestino'. A área foi nomeada Palestina pelos romanos, mas nunca houve um povo chamado Palestina, e não há qualquer idioma palestino. Antes de 1948 essas pessoas eram os egípcios, sírios, jordanenses, iraquianos e os cidadãos de outras nações árabes que tinham se deslocado para a região. Elas foram deslocadas pela guerra de 1948, mas Israel não está ocupando o seu território.

Yasser Arafat e a Autoridade Palestina claramente não querem (queriam) a paz. Durante a administração Clinton foi oferecido um Estado palestino, com parte de Jerusalém como sua capital, juntamente com o controle de 97% da Cisjordânia. Seus próprios negociadores haviam dito que isso era necessário para a paz. O Primeiro-Ministro israelense Ehud Barak concordou com o negócio, mas Yasser Arafat não. Ele caminhou longe da paz, enviando uma mensagem tácita para os terroristas, os quais continuam a abater vidas inocentes em busca da destruição do Estado judaico.


Yogis and Jewboys - Traditionalism

March 9

old boy network: yogis and jewboys

let's all get up and dance to a song
that was a hit before your mother was born
and though she was born a long, long time ago
your mother should know...
your mother should know...

~ beatles

Settle back, strap in. Roll up for the mystery tour...

This quote is from an article on vedanta.org titled Vedanta in America: Where We've Been and Where We Are. The author is Pravrajika Vrajaprana, a nun of the Sarada Convent at the Vedanta Society of Southern California in Santa Barbara. The article originally appeared in the February, 2000 issue of Prabuddha Bharata.

"A distinguished literary work" is how Time magazine characterized the Prabhavananda-Isherwood Bhagavad-Gita which has sold over one million copies since its 1944 publication. It is the only Prabhavananda-Isherwood title still available in the mass-market edition; today the book is still widely used as a college text and -- unlike most other Vedanta books -- remains available in general-audience bookstores.
The full article contains more background on the adoption of Vedanta in the United States via the mediation of Henry Miller (in The Air-Conditioned Nightmare) as well as through various works by Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood and Gerald Heard. The Wikipedia page on Heard, who has been largely forgotten today, informs us that...
Heard is also responsible for introducing the then unknown Huston Smith to Huxley. Smith became one of the preeminent religious studies scholars in the United States. His book The World's Religions is a classic in the field, sold over two million copies and is considered a particularly useful introduction to comparative religion. The meeting with Huxley led eventually to Smith's connection to Timothy Leary.
Huston Smith's Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions (1976) updates the same sort of ideas Aldous Huxley presented in The Perennial Philosophy (1945). These ideas about sophia perennis -- the purported perennial wisdom -- overlap considerably with those that emerged under the rubric of capital-T Traditionalism, as presented by Réne Guénon, Frithjof Schuon, and Ananda Coomaraswamy. The best book on the subject to date is Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century by Mark Sedgwick. Here's a wonderfully contextualizing clip, which -- though its density may confound more than enlighten -- is definitely well worth its weight in Transcendentalists.
[Ralph Waldo] Emerson also subscribed to a form of perennialism, writing in his diary in 1839 that for him "Bible" meant "the Ethical Revelations considered generally, including, that is, the Vedas, the Sacred Writings of every nation, and not of the Hebrews alone." In this, and in his emphasis on the East as a source of wisdom ("Europe has always owed to oriental genius it's divine impulses," as he said in 1838 in his celebrated address to the Harvard Divinity School). Emerson prefigures Olcott [Madame Blavatsky's sidekick], and so also Encausse and Guénon. Perennialism as understood by Emerson and Cousin continued independently during the twentieth century, perhaps most famously in Aldous Huxley's The Perennial Philosophy.
Not incidentally or inconsequentially, Traditionalism also included among its major professors and promoters the "esotericist" and outrageous capital-F Fascist, Julius Evola.

But back to Huston "World Religions" Smith, who recounts his acid trip with Tim Leary in his considerably less-bestselling Cleansing the Doors of Perception: The Religious Significance of Entheogenic Plants and Chemicals. The nod to Huxley's Doors of Perception is of course no accident. Heard, Huxley, Isherwood, Huston Smith and Leary were all doing psychedelics together in various combinations at one time or another in the '50s and early '60s.

And further back yet to Christopher Isherwood, who, among other things, was a voluminous diarist. In the published versions, he writes quite a bit about his devotion to Vedanta. But it's not those bits I quote below. The two clips immediately following are from Lost Years: A Memoir 1945-1951, the first on page 220:

...and they started what was to be an on-and-off but longish affair. Michael was then about eighteen; a Jewboy with thinning hair, a high forehead, spectacles (his sight was very poor), a cute cheerful face (resembling Anne Francis...
And so on. To understand the next part (p. 262), you need to know that Isherwood often wrote about himself in the third person (who knows why), so this is in fact him making the following observations...
That first evening in bed together, Barry said, "How extraordinary this is! Here am I, a Russian Jew, making love with Christopher Isherwood!" His remark jarred on Christopher; it seemed indecent, masochistic, sexually off-putting. But, as Christopher got to know Barry better, he found a different significance in it. When Barry thus called attention to his Jewishness, he wasn't really demeaning himself. He wasn't at all a humble person. Indeed, he had that Jewish tactlessness, argumentativeness and aggressiveness which always aroused Christopher's anti-Semitic feelings. Only, in Barry's case, Christopher's anti-Semitism quickly became erotic. It made him hot to mate Barry's aggressiveness with his own, in wrestling duels which were both sexual and racial, Briton against Jew. Barry's aggressiveness became beautiful and lovable when it was expressed physically by his strong lithe body grappling naked with Christopher's. As they struggled, Christopher loved him because he was a pushy arrogant Jewboy. But he never talked to Barry about his feelings. They were too private.*
Note that Isherwood's first take is that Barry Taxman's identifying himself as a Jew would necessarily be self-demeaning. That asterisk at the end has a corresponding note at the bottom of the page stating:
Taxman finds this passage to be apocryphal and extremely offensive and distasteful to him.
Isherwood clearly had these reactions in hand before the book went to press, but didn't see fit to modify or remove the passage.

The following is from isherwood's Diaries: Volume 1, 1939-1960, June 2, 1958 (p. 756):

Waiting to get the Sunbeam-Talbot fixed the other day, I was accosted by a round-faced little Jewboy of about twenty. "Gee, Mr. Isherwood," he said. "I hope when I'm your age I'll be as famous as you..."
Three days and as many paragraphs later, Isherwood notes on the same page:
I feel a great urge to pull myself together, stop being fat and sedentary, and get on with the Ramakrishna book...

The Jung-Eliade School - Traditionalism

Friday, October 14

the jung-eliade school

The historian of religions is in a better position than anyone to promote the knowledge of symbols... It is in the history of religions that we meet with the "archetypes," of which only approximate variants are dealt with by psychologists and literary critics.

~ Mircea Eliade
quoted in Religion after Religion

In the opening pages of the book quoted above, the author begins to unpack what he refers to as the "Jung-Eliade school of thought." He refers to "an 'illuminist' sense of scholarship as theosophy" that characterizes the work of Gershom Sholem (Judaic studies), Henry Corbin (Islamic studies), and our old pal Mircea Eliade (covering the entire mythic waterfront). Immediately following that, the author writes...
This radical approach to the academy was (literally) underwritten by a Yale graduate, the philanthropist Paul Mellon.

Now, isn't that interesting!

Because yeah, we're talking the Paul Mellon of Carnegie-Mellon fame, who was also a major benefactor of Carl Jung. I just knew I was going to be able to work a couple of Robber Barons in here! Well, that's one. And we've already had* Henry Ford, in a slightly different (but is it, really?) context. [*Or soon will have, if I can extract the salient bits from my previous insanity in posts like stereoarchetypes of the collective unconscience and Henry Ford goes to Atlantis.]

But why is it interesting -- maybe even important -- that Jung and Eliade form a "school of thought"? Because it is on this base that the brave new world of NewAge++ has been quietly, while we were sleeping, built. And it's a special world. For special people. In a word: elites. And why is that interesting? Allow me to quote from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders:

  • believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions).

And why is that interesting? Because it's one of the criteria for Narcissistic Personality Disorder -- a special affliction of the spiritually arrogant and politically intolerant precursors and founders of the twisted NewAge++ madness that -- far from being hidden in little pockets of cute and harmless weirdness here and there -- is being broadcast via cable, movies, newspapers, bookstores, you name it, all over the planet. The New Colonialism. The New Manifest Destiny.

Mircea Eliade -- the darling of sensitive New Age religiosity everywhere; and it is everywhere; look around -- was a Fascist. Not in a manner of speaking; with a capital F.

The Poles' resistance in Warsaw is a Jewish resistance. Only yids are capable of the blackmail of putting women and children in the front line, to take advantage of the Germans' sense of scruple. The Germans have no interest in the destruction of Romania. Only a pro-German government can save us.... What is happening on the frontier with Bukovina is a scandal, because new waves of Jews are flooding into the country. Rather than a Romania again invaded by kikes, it would be better to have a German protectorate.

~ Mircea Eliade
from a 1939 conversation recorded by Mihail Sebastian
in his Journal 1935-1944: The Fascist Years (p. 238)

Also openly Fascist was Julius Evola, one of Eliade's lifelong friends. Together with René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, this group constitutes the core of another little known but highly influential school of thought: Traditionalism (see Follow Your Shiny Bliss, right under the picture of the band, Oswald and the Decline of the Westettes). Here's another picture. Recognize either of these dudes? No, probably not. Chances are excellent that you've never even heard of Guénon or Schuon. Lucky you. But that doesn't mean you've escaped their surprisingly pervasive influence. Ever heard of Aldous Huxley? The Perennial Philosophy? Getting warmer. Here Huxley defines the philosophia perennis as...

the metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical with, divine Reality; the ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the immanent and transcendent Ground of all being -- the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the Perennial Philosophy may be found among the traditionary lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions.

~ Aldous Huxley
The Perennial Philosophy, 1945

But it goes back further than Huxley...
...the teachings, however fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither to the Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion, neither to Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original element, out of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialised.

~ H. P. Blavatsky
The Secret Doctrine:
The Synthesis of Science, Religion, and Philosophy
I, viii

[NOTE: Both the above quotes are cited in "The Perennial Philosophy" by W.T.S. Thackara, Sunrise magazine, April/May 1984, Theosophical University Press]

from the back cover of The Betrayal of Tradition: Essays on the Spiritual Crisis of Modernity
(Library of Perennial Philosophy)

To hazard an off-the-cuff answer to that last question, above, oh I dunno... freedom from irrational fear and superstition, the boot heel of spiritually rationalized entitlement, elitism and religious terrorism? Just guesses.

Sound a bit too extreme? Let me introduce you to Harry Oldmeadow, a writer who has done much to promote awareness of Traditionalism. He's a major proponent, not a detractor, so the following passage carries a lot more weight than if someone like oh say myself were saying the same things (which, nota bene, I am)...

Orientalism, Racial Theory and the Allure of Fascism

Let us assemble a few now well-known facts, each of which, in isolation, may seem of little significance but which cumulatively suggest a problematic requiring the attention of anyone interested in our general subject. W.B. Yeats, Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot (and, to confuse the mix, Richard Wagner and Madame Blavatsky) were not only keen students of the Orient but were all anti-Semitic while Pound, notoriously, espoused the ideology of fascism. Mircea Eliade, Joseph Campbell and Georges Dumézil, the doyen of Indo-European studies, were also anti-Semitic and were susceptible to the anti-modern appeal of extreme right wing political ideologies. A more overt and virulent form of "spiritualized" fascism can be found in the person and work of the Italian orientalist Julius Evola. Martin Heidegger publicly and theatrically aligned himself with the Nazi regime in the early 30s, and became an unabashed propagandist for Hitler's domestic and foreign policies. He was a Nazi informer and betrayed several Jewish friends and colleagues. Carl Jung evinced some enthusiasm for Nazism in its early years, discerning in it a hope of spiritual regeneration of Europe; there are also more than a few traces of anti-Semitism in his writings. (Unlike Heidegger, Jung was later implacably opposed to Nazism.) As George Steiner has observed, the "alpine priesthood" of Eranos was susceptible to a kind of conservative-romantic mysticism which was at least tinged with "Führer-politics." (p. 375)

links added, emphasis in original

After naming several more names today associated with New Age "spirituality," Oldmeadow continues...
Let us consider two of these figures, Evola and Eliade, in a little more detail. Julius Evola, painter, philosopher, "disciple" of René Guénon, colleague of Mircea Eliade, orientalist and fascist ideologue, translated into Italian The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a poisonous anti-Semitic work whose authors included the racial ideologue of Nazism, Alfred Rosenberg. Evola claimed that this document, whether true or not, fitted the facts. (p. 376)

~ Harry Oldmeadow
Journeys East:
20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious Traditions

(The Library of Perennial Philosophy)

So OK, forget Schuon and Guénon for now. Chances are a lot better that you have heard of a guy named Huston Smith, whose book The World's Religions: Our Great Wisdom Traditions has sold well over two and a half million copies. Note the nod to Tradition there. It's no accident. In a sort of sequel titled Forgotten Truth: The Common Vision of the World's Religions, Smith rails against science and related modern evils including "Darwinism."

In Rational Mysticism, author John Horgan begins the book with a chapter on "Huston Smith's Perennial Philosophy."

In April 1999, I traveled to Albuquerque, New Mexico, to attend a meeting named, misleadingly, "Science and Consciousness." Held in a hotel modeled after a Mayan pyramid, the five-day conference was actually a New Age bazaar, serving up diverse products for boosting physical, mental, and spiritual energy.... I came to this meeting in part to steep myself in mysticism, New Age style. But a more important goal was meeting Huston Smith... a walking, talking embodiment of the perennial philosophy. (p.15)

A few pages later, Horgan writes:

...Smith clearly cherishes his entheogenic experiences. His first took place on New Year's Day, 1961, in Newton, Massachusetts, at the home of Timothy Leary, then a Harvard psychology professor just beginning to investigate psychedelics. Leary gave Smith two capsules of mescaline. A few hours later Smith felt he was witnessing the reality described in the ancient Hindu Vedas and other mystical texts. He was seeing through the mundane reality around him to the ground of being, the clear light of the void underlying all things.

No, he was stoned. He was tripping, dude. Now, let me be clear on this, as Nixon would say. In answer to Hendrix's quintessential queries -- are you experienced? have you ever been experienced? -- I can safely answer with a resounding yes. More times than I can count. It's been well over 20 years since I dropped, but I was there, yeah. I know what it feels like to be one of the beautiful people. And without taking anything away from that experience, without any attempt to reduce or belittle it, I can also say with some confidence that it is not something fundamentally removed from "mundane reality." The inherently gnostic aversion to "this world" is what brought these motherfuckers down. It was their way of making the psychedelic experience conceptually safe, colonizing it with "oriental" conceptualizations that tamed it, domesticated it, "spiritualized" it. My objection to these perennialist ex-hippie faux filosofers is not that they did drugs -- oh yeah, how shocking! -- but that, after doing all those drugs, they missed the boat.

The perennialists hold that religious traditions differ only in their outer doctrinal, legal, liturgical, and institutional manifestations, which constitute the mere surface levels of religious and ethical experience. Hence, they maximize the similarities between the mystical and ethical cores of the world's religions. As a corollary, they minimize the importance of the differences and historical-cultural specificities of particular religious traditions.

HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion
p. 836, emphasis mine

For instance, Horgan writes (in Rational Mysticism p. 46) that "some perennialists have been dismissive or even hostile to Judaism. Joseph Campbell, the celebrated mythologist, is a case in point." And Oldmeadow (in Journeys to the East p. 111) goes into far more detail on America's favorite PBS myth monger, preceding his remarks with this quote from Religion after Religion (p. 142):

It is not an accident that a certain sort of post-Christianity, so-called New Age Religion, emerged during the Cold War. Religious intellectuals like the Historians of Religions [Eliade, Gershom Sholem, Henry Corbin] spearheaded a notion of religion that seemed to transcend denominational boundaries even as it presumed some kind of transcendent unity to world religions. The geopolitical antagonism of the Cold War, seemingly so constitutive of the age, stimulated at the same time what seemed like a planetary ecumenicism. This Eranos kind of public gnosis, popularized by Jung, Campbell, and Eliade, could espouse its identity, seriatim, with alchemy, shamanism, yoga, Templarism. Such a secularized esoterism, of course, is now familiar in its subsequent popularized forms as (tellingly) New Age Religion. Their characteristically promiscuous application of correspondences, often claimed as a Hermetic principle, underwrote a riot of analogies.
Immediately following this quote, Oldmeadow writes -- and you might want to strap on your seat-belt for this last bit of today's ride:
There is much in Campbell's work which is unattractive: a deep-seated animus towards and dismissal of the great Occidental monotheisms and more generally a hostility to institutionalized religion which is often treated in simplistic terms and in strident tone; a facile and tedious diffusionism often asserted with little or no scholarly support; a tendency to surrender to glib dichotomies which did little to mask his own prejudices; an inability to understand the ways in which his own American background limited his intellectual horizons; a sometimes sentimental and psychologistic reading of Vedantic monism (a common failing amongst self-styled American Vedantins!); an appropriation of mythic materials which, from one vantage point, might be seen as a form of cultural imperialism; an oscillation between the extremes of Orientalist romanticism and a recoil into Western prejudices (most clearly evidenced in his wildly fluctuating perceptions of Indian society -- his stereotypical misunderstanding of the caste system, for instance); the reduction of metaphysics to a purely psychic realm (a reduction more severe and more facile than we find in Jung, Zimmer or Eliade); a covert strain of anti-Semitism (more openly expressed in his personal life). One can see something of Campbell's simultaneous insight and myopia in a characteristic claim such as "religion is a misinterpretation of mythology." Then, too, there is something offensive in Campbell's collusion in the popular perception of him as a jnanin -- and here one is reminded of another highly talented popularizer who was all too often mistaken for a sage, Alan Watts.
Other than that, one could argue in Campbell's favor that, well, at least Bill Moyers liked him.


NOTE: I'm carving off the the still unfinished extra 2000+ words of this for a follow-on post. Otherwise it feels as if I'll never be done with this monster that I've been whittling away at for a month now. The second half will mostly be concerned with Carl Jung. Stay tuned...



Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Every man should be able to save his own life

"Every man should be able to save his own life. He should be able to swim far enough, run fast and long enough to save his life in case of emergency and necessity."
- Earle E. Liederman, fitness pioneer

He wrote that everyone should:
- Be able to swim at least half a mile or more;
- Be able to run at top speed two hundred yards or more;
- Be able to jump over obstacles higher than your waist;
- Be in condition to pull your body upward by the strength of your arms, until your chin touches your hands, at least 15 to 20 times;
- Be able to dip between parallel bars or between two chairs at least 25 times or more.

"If a man can accomplish these things," Liederman said, "he need have no fear concerning the safety of his life should he be forced into an emergency from which he alone may be able to save himself."

Source: Matt Furey's newsletter

Jean Borella - Breve y necesaria aclaración acerca deLa Gnosis

Gnosis


Con el permiso, y bajo el riesgo, de Lord Tollers, publico su traducción de la entrevista a Borella sobre la Gnosis.

Viene bien para tranquilizar las conciencias de todos aquellos a quienes, alguna vez, nos llamaron gnósticos. Y viene bien también para noticia de aquellos que creen que la fe es un silogismo, que los hay, y muchos.



Breve y necesaria aclaración acerca deLa Gnosis

por Jean Borella.



La palabra “gnosis” está tan cargada de negatividad, tanto en los ambientes de izquierda como en los de derecha, que resulta imposible usarla sin suscitar un incoercible movimiento de sospecha y de condenación. Y este rechazo no cesa de amplificarse. Se califica de gnosis a todo: basta con pronunciar la palabra para tachar de infamia a un libro, a una tesis, a un pensamiento. Hay una excepción: el Padre Louis Bouyer, que ha escrito un excelente libro intitulado Gnosis. Mas no todo el mundo tiene el coraje y el saber del Padre Bouyer. En cuanto a mí, me he encontrado como blanco de críticas tanto de parte de los guenonianos de estricta obediencia cuanto de parte de los católicos barrulianos [referencia al Monasterio Benedictino de Le Barroux). Me habría gustado que ambos afinasen sus violines. Pero esto parece poco probable.

Con todo -y es un hecho incontestable- San Pablo con toda certeza, y tal vez San Lucas, han recurrido al uso de la palabra gnosis en un sentido muy preciso, y la tradición patrística los ha seguido. Resulta más fácil ignorar este dato y repartir virtuosas invectivas que refutarlo y extraer las consecuencias. Es que de otro modo, la Encarnación no sería plena ni total y se caería en el docetismo. O bien el mundo, el cosmos, es lisa y llanamente aquello que nos dice el científico materialista y entonces los milagros de la vida de Cristo son imposibles (la Ascensión, por ejemplo); o bien, por el contrario, hay que admitir que en la naturaleza misma del cosmos existe una potencia sacral actualizada por la venida de Cristo. Es cierto que uno puede contentarse con afirmar que aquellos milagros son efecto exclusivo de la potencia divina -lo que resulta incontestable; pero con eso no podemos sino ir a parar a un sobrenaturalismo que se nutre de fideismo. Más tarde o más temprano, estas actitudes conducen a la negación de la Encarnación - cosa que se ve en ciertas sectas del luteranismo. Tal el primer interés que tiene este asunto, teológico, de un conocimiento de las diversas manifestaciones de los sagrado.

El segundo interés estriba en lo relativo a la liturgia, o, dicho de otro modo, al arte sacro. Admitir que el cosmos posee una objetiva potencialidad sagrada equivale a afirmar que existen en el mundo, en los seres, ciertas relaciones, ciertas cualidades cósmicas más apropiadas que otras para incorporar al proceso de sacralización -y por tanto más apropiados para expresar las realidades divinas y comunicar su virtud mientras que otros resultan menos apropiados para eso, cuando no por completo inadecuados. El arte sacro (del cual la liturgia es el centro), esto es, la reglamentación con recurso a los elementos del mundo de las realidades supra-formales y supra-mundanas, en una palabra, “sobrenaturales”, el arte sacro, digo, implica por tanto la posesión de una ciencia objetiva, perfectamente rigurosa, que debería llamarse la ciencia sagrada del simbolismo. No existe hoy en día una ciencia más desconocida. Todo el mundo está persuadido de que las formas litúrgicas son cuestión de sensibilidad y talento. Nada más falso. En realidad, la producción de formas litúrgicas obedece a leyes rigurosas cuyo conocimiento parece haberse perdido. Basta con comparar una catedral gótica o un aleluya gregoriano a una iglesia moderna (incluso una “genial”), o a un alelulya moderno, incluso uno mozartiano, para darse cuenta. En el lenguaje neo-testamentario y en la patrística, la gnosis designa un modo particular de conocimiento, aquel en el que la fe se profundiza, comienza a convertirse en una intelectualidad sagrada, una fruición mística, y por tanto otra cosa que no una simple especulación racional. Consiste- por lo menos en ciertos aspectos -en una cualidad contemplativa de la intelección teológica, esto es, en una capacidad que tiene la inteligencia vivificada por el amor para contemplar los conceptos teológicos que nos traen al espíritu Realidades trascendentales y superinteligibles. Puesto que son símbolos, estos conceptos también deben ser superados y así la gnosis positiva debe convertirse en gnosis negativa, “nesciencia”: ahora bien, incluso esta superación ha de hacerse bajo la guía del símbolo conceptual.
La palabra “gnosis” puede también entenderse no en sentido activo, sino pasivo u objetivo: aquello que se conoce. Por tanto puede designar a la ciencia o doctrina que contiene los objetos más o menos misteriosos que la gnosis alcanza en acto. De tal modo que se podría dar el caso de hablar de aquello que en realidad se ignora: he allí la “gnosis que infla” y que no significa nada al lado de la mirada de la caridad. Y ha sido el caso, por fin, de muchos soberbios y herejes, que fascinados por el aura misterioso que rodeaba este modo de conocimiento, llegaron a usurpar su uso y se llamaron a sí mismo “gnósticos”. En efecto, he demostrado en un estudio sobre “La gnosis verdadera” que este adjetivo jamás ha calificado a una secta, un movimiento, o una escuela, si no que refiere a un estado espiritual que se pretende poseer y en nombre del cual se pretende una dispensación de las reglas morales y la ley común. Resultaba sin duda imprudente emplear un término tan comprometedor cuanto comprometido.

Pero no me arrepiento. No soy yo, es toda la Tradición cristiana que ha designado con el término gnosis a la inteligencia de la fe, particularmente a aquella que mana, bajo la gracia del Espíritu Santo, de la lectura de las Escrituras. Y antes que nadie San Pablo que todo lo tiene por nada “comparado con la suprema gnosis de Jesucristo, mi Señor” (Fil. II:8). Hará falta pues que este conocimiento sea algo más que un conocimiento común; y el hecho de que sea distinto no sólo en lo que se refiere a su objeto, lo que resulta evidente, sino también en su modo, esto es, en cuanto conocimiento. De otro modo, cuando hacen teología, no habría ninguna diferencia intrínseca entre la inteligencia de un ateo y la de un creyente. El cristiano moderno ignora esta distinción de modos. Dice bien que la fe es un conocimiento, mas, aunque se profese tradicionalista de hecho es un luterano y en el fondo no cree en esta dimensión cognitiva de la fe, del acto propio del intelecto en la fe. En el fondo, concibe a la fe como alimentándose exclusivamente de la voluntad y de la gracia, no de la inteligencia- y así la palabra “conocimiento” no tiene, en tal contexto, más que una dimensión metafórica. La fe nos revela la existencia de realidades sobrenaturales que aceptamos (o rechazamos si la fe desfallece)- mas en este caso no hay ninguna experiencia cognitiva. Semejante preconcepto implícito de la fe no se corresponde con la verdad de las cosas, sino que refleja los hábitos epistemológicos del mundo moderno para el cual no hay más conocimiento que el empírico y el científico. En tal concepción de las cosas, lo que excede esto equivale a ingresar en los resbalosos dominios de las creencias. No es éste el parecer de San Pablo, de los Padres y de los Doctores. Más allá del conocimiento empírico y científico hay lugar para un conocimiento metafísico, y más arriba todavía, para un conocimiento sacral o místico. Esta posibilidad de un conocimiento sobrenatural no se actualiza más que cuando actúa la gracia de la recepción del objeto de la fe. Por tanto es negada por aquellos que rechazan este objeto. Por lo demás, la concepción epistemológica moderna- la concepción dominante- en realidad equivale a una verdadera mutilación de la posibilidad cognitiva. Aquí tocamos un punto fundamental, el de la capacidad naturalmente sobrenatural de la inteligencia, y esto ha hecho correr ríos de tinta. Me contentaré pues con hacer tres muy breves observaciones. Solamente diré que la inteligencia, en su esencia pura, supera el orden de la naturaleza, por más que en el acto cognitivo ordinario dependa de la experiencia de las creaturas. Pero la inteligencia está, en sí misma, ordenada a lo Trascendente; está hecha para horizontes divinos e infinitos toda vez que en sí misma, en tanto desprovista de forma, es capaz de recibirlas todas porque es incircunscriptible. Ninguna creatura podría actualizar la potencia propia del intelecto. Sólo el conocimiento de la fe está en condiciones de actualizar su capacidad sobrenatural, o, por lo menos, de conducir a la inteligencia hacia la producción de un acto cognitivo que empiece a revelarle a la propia inteligencia su propia naturaleza deiforme. Un conocimiento tal es un conocimiento intermedio entre el conocimiento natural y el conocimiento beatífico del intelecto deificado. En relación con el conocimiento natural, al principio éste parece oscuro y tenebroso y da la impresión de que se nutre más bien del amor y de la voluntad y no de una clara visión. Y sin embargo se trata de un verdadero conocimiento dotado de una verdadera inteligibilidad a poco que esta inteligencia se habitúe a vivir, por la oración, los sacramentos y la lectura de las Escrituras, en el universo de las realidades reveladas. Y esto no puede carecer de relación con aquello que se ha dado en llamar “contemplación adquirida”. Porque ocurre que la verdadera gnosis, este conocimiento en la fe, no debe ser concebido como una infusión de una gracia particular, como un acontecimiento místico extraordinario y que sólo el alma podría realmente recibir. Fuera así y no se podría hablar de “conocimiento” en el sentido propio y activo del término. No es por súbita y efímera “iluminación”- aunque la gnosis puede incluir relámpagos intelectuales- de ese tenor, ya que el Espíritu sopla cuando y donde quiere. Mas aquellos relámpagos no constituyen “visiones”, sino que son como “rendiciones ante la evidencia”, “comprensiones”, “tomas de conciencia”. Seguramente que comparado con el conocimiento beatífico la “gnosis en la fe” no es más que oscuridad e ignorancia. Y sin embargo, desde otro punto de vista, bien puede decirse que en la fe se nos otorga el Cielo entero, aunque no lo sepamos.

Hoy en día la idea misma de gnosis, de conocimiento sagrado, resulta completamente ignorado o violentamente combatido. Y sin género de duda es combatido por razón de una ignorancia acerca de su verdadera naturaleza. No pensaban así- y de allí que usaban otro lenguaje- los Apóstoles, los Padres y los Doctores. Ninguna historiador serio y objetivo puede negar que la Tradición cristiana reservó la palabra “gnosis” para designar este conocimiento específico, obra del Espíritu que, por el “don de la gnosis” (o “don de ciencia”) realiza el “don de la inteligencia”, esto es, que al otorgar la gnosis, rinde la inteligencia a sí misma, para que la actualiza y por tanto la revela su propia capacidad sobrenatural. En mi libro, “La Profanación de la Caridad” he dado en llamar esta operación como “la neumatización del intelecto”. San Pablo le pedía a sus discípulos que se llenaran de este conocimiento (Rom. XV:14) y el mismísimo Cristo le reprocha a los Doctores de la Ley haber robado “la llave de la gnosis”:

“¡Ay de vosotros!, hombres de la Ley, porque vosotros os habéis apoderado de la llave del conocimiento; vosotros mismos no entrasteis, y a los que iban a entrar, vosotros se lo habéis impedido” (Lc. XI:52).

Reconocer a la gnosis, suministrar la llave de la gnosis, consiste antes que nada en creer en su existencia y creer en la inteligencia y su capacidad sobrenatural. Reducir la gnosis a una exclusiva designación de herejía como se hace hoy en día equivale a ratificar la victoria del diablo sobre la más alta posibilidad del espíritu humano; equivale a darle la razón a los falsificadores e impostores del conocimiento sacral. La respuesta a la proliferación de sectas puede reducirse a dos palabras: restaurar el orden litúrgico y la belleza de su misterio; y reabrir, en la inteligencia de la fe, la puerta de la gnosis.




Traducción de Jack Tollers de la última parte de una entrevista
concedida a Jean Borella, cuyo original se hallará en
http://jean.borella.neuf.fr/intelligencesets.htm.

7 comentarios:

  1. Jact Tollers dijo...

    Estimado Wanderer, gracias por la publicación de lo de Borella. Con todo, me veo urgido a corregir un error que descubrí luego. Los católicos "barruliens" a los que se refiere el A. no son los del Monasterio Le Barroux como erróneamente supuse. Refiere a los "Cahiers Barrulien", una revista fundada por Jean Vaquié y (el gran tonto de) Etienne Couvertes para "denunciar la infiltración de los gnósticos en los medios católicos". Y arrancaron con un sesudo ataque a "La Charité Profanée", el libro de Borella sobre Vaticano II.

    Saludos,

    J.T.

  2. Luis dijo...

    Estimado Jack Tollers:

    Los "Cahiers" son los "Cahiers Barruel", en honor del Abbé Barruel, padre de la historiografía conspiracionista con su "Memoires pour servir à l'histoire du Jacobinisme" y publicados por el
    "Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur la penetration et le developpement de la Revolution dans l'Église Chirstianisme" con sede en Lyon.

    La polémica sobre la gnosis alcanzó altos grados de temperatura en el 2006-2007 dentro de la FSSPX.

    En la red se pueden encontrar muchos textos de esa polémica, con intervenciones del Abbé de Tänouarn, del Abbé Cellier, de los monjes de Avrillé y así...

    Si bien comparto la opinión crítica que subyace en la mención al "gran tonto" de Couvert, autor que simplifica demasiado las cosas, no es menos verdadero que la vía borelliana tiene sus aristas complejas.


    Un abrazo

  3. Anónimo dijo...

    Me parece mal llamar a Etienne Couvert "el gran tonto" porque no esté de acuerdo con lo que dice.
    En buena lógica eso es una falacia

  4. Anónimo dijo...

    Estimado anónimo de las 12:16: Suponiendo la buena fe del autoerigido inquisidor Couvert, ¿cómo llamaría Ud. a uno que desecha como "Gnósticos" a Clemente de Alejandría, Orígenes y a Dionisio Seudoareopagita? Contra toda la Tradición de la Iglesia que pretende custodiar!! Sin entrar en el fondo de su alma, que no se nos alcanza, ¿no es un poco tonto?
    El anónimo normando

  5. Anónimo dijo...

    Estimado Wanderer y amigos

    En relación con la primera parte del texto, que menciona que el cosmos excede aquello que nos dice el científico materialista, lamento que el autor no se haya explayado un poco más. Solamente remata diciendo que este asunto es de interés en torno a un conocimiento teológico de las diversas manifestaciones de lo sagrado. Interin se menciona en este texto que los milagros, por ejemplo, tal vez no ocurrirían por la sola potencia Divina (cosa que no se pretende poner en duda, por supuesto) sino que se da a entender que también son por alguna otra propiedad del cosmos (la llama "potencia sacral actualizada por la venida de Cristo") en sintonía con la Encarnación.
    Siempre me quedó este tema en el tintero desde que, tiempo atrás, leí en el catecismo de San Cirilo de Jerusalém cosas asombrosas como, por ejemplo, que el eclipse que tuvo lugar cuando Cristo moría en la Cruz fue porque el Sol no podía contemplar a Dios en agonía. También dijo en otra parte que la roca que sellaba el Santo Sepulcro, que fue removida por ángeles -según las escrituras-, dice San Cirilo de Jerusalém que en realidad esta roca saltó (como consecuencia del sobresalto que les causó la resurrección de Cristo). En el contexto, ninguna de estas expresiones parecía ser figurada ni literaria sino literal.
    ¿Alguien se anima a ayudarme con este tema?

  6. Luis dijo...

    En mi comentario a JT se deslizó un error. El nombre del "Centro" es "Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches sur la penetration et le developpement de la Revolution dans le Chirstianisme".

    Quien quiera bajar los números 1 a 26 de los Cahiers lo puede hacer en el sitio de Louis-Hubert Remy:

    http://www.a-c-r-f.com/

    Sobre Couvert se pueden decir muchas cosas. He leído los tres volúmenes - irregulares - sobre la Gnosis y a mi entender si bien peca de simplista, hay elementos intersantes para comenzar estudios más serios, como ser el caso de los temas "Gnosis y Tradición", donde trata las influencias gnósticas en los autores ultramontanos, y el titulado "Gnosis y pensamiento ruso", donde hace una aproximación al desarrollo de la teología en Rusia.

    No son textos definitivos, acabados, pero pueden ser útiles como punto de partida.

    Saludos

  7. Anónimo dijo...

    Para los "no iniciados", hay un articulo de divulgación escrito por Lucas F. Mateo Seco, con la diferencia entre gnosis ortodoxa y heterodoxa en http://www.encuentra.com/documento.php?f_doc=5211&f_tipo_doc=9.

    Con alguna reserva, me parece que vale la pena leerlo

    Xavier de Bouillon

Frithjof Schuon: Child molestation and Obstruction of Justice

Frithjof Schuon: Child molestation and Obstruction of Justice


I have changed my mind and decided to put some of the evidence about the Schuon cult on the Internet. I have hesitated out of fear of the fact that the cult has maliciously prosecuted many of their critics in an effort to intimidate and silence freedom of speech. But I think it is important this information be made public at last. What follows are selections from research conducted by me over a seven year period, 1991-98. I quote materials that are copyrighted within the guidelines of US law which states that one may quote copyrighted material for "criticism", "comment" and as part of "research". The following is the result of research, and to criticize and comment. Much of the research was done by me during projects involved with getting my Master's Thesis in history completed. The following information was also gathered as part of an effort to build a legal case against members of the Schuon cult. I am not seeking now to pursue a legal remedy. I would much prefer a non-legal solution be found. The copyrights of the cult members do not supersede the right of the truth to be known, since the truth involves an obstruction of justice and the corruption of minors. Copyright law cannot be used to silence those with information about felony crimes and misdemeanors. Nor do copyrights of members of the cult constitute sufficient legal ground to stop public access to information germane to proving criminal and civil wrong doing. Everything I have written here is true to the best of my knowledge. If anyone can show me that what I have written is factually untrue, and their case seems reasonable and uninspired by the cults tendency to lie, fabricate and falsify I will accommodate what they say and change my text. Frithjof Schuon was the head of a religious cult centered in Bloomington, Indiana. He died on May 5th 1998. Some of Schuon's more well known disciples are Huston Smith, the author of The World's Religions; Joseph Epes Brown, the author of The Sacred Pipe, Hossein Nasr, Martin Lings and Rama Coomaraswamy. Schuon has, or had, four wives. There names are Catherine Schuon, Barbara Perry, Sharlyn Romaine and Maude Murray. The latter, apparently, was "spiritually divorced" from Schuon and has been thrown out of the cult, as of 1995.

On October 11th 1991, Frithjof Schuon, the leader of an international religious order, was indicted on the felony charge of child molestation. committed under "cult pressure and influence". The indictment, passed down by a five member Grand Jury, headed by Lucy Cherbas, stated:

"that Frithjof Schuon... did perform fondling or touching [on three girls] 15 years of age, 14 years of age and 13 years of age, respectively, with the intent to arouse or satisfy sexual desires of Frithjof Schuon, in violation of I.C. 35-42 43. [And that] said persons were compelled to submit to touching by force or imminent threat of force, to wit: by undue cult influences and cult pressures, in violation of 35-42-4-8."

The case was mysteriously dropped, and the assistant prosecutor who handled the case, David Hunter, was fired. This despite the unanimous indictment of the Grand Jury. The Grand Jury tried to reconvene and investigate the head prosecutor, Robert Miller, because they suspected him of corruption on various grounds. Lucy Cherbas told me she hoped to reopen the case against Schuon: she was sure he was guilty. David Hunter claimed to me repeatedly that they case had been dropped for "political" reasons, and he said he suspected that the cult had engineered this behind the scenes, possibly through bribery. But let me make this clear. My effort was to expose Schuon as a fraud not to put him in jail. I was led to the child molestation charge by the prosecutor, the police Sargeant Richardson, Rama Coomaraswamy, Wolfgang Smith, Scott Whittaker, Mary Ann Danner, my mother among others. . Please notice that the Grand Jury thought there was enough to convict Schuon in 1991. That is not nothing... There is a lot more evidence now that there was in 1991. Schuon would be convicted of the crime were a case brought now and he were still alive. But again, to convict him was not my aim. I was concerned to expose a fraud. It is enough that he is known as a polygamous pretender and a man who abused his power, did harm to children and was not at all what he claimed to be. When I helped bring the case in 1991 I knew that the cult people would all lie in court. I knew I would probably lose. But I felt it was essential that Schuon be exposed and a court was the best way to do it. I knew the cult would attack me viciously and try to destroy my credibility. But I thought that by exposing this man I would help many people see through the lie of his claim to holiness. Many people did indeed leave the cult and Schuon is largely discredited now except among a shrinking circle of fanatical followers.

New evidence has been forthcoming since 1991. There is now enough evidence not only to prove that Schuon is guilty of the felony crime of child molestation but also that Michael Fitzgerald, Sharlyn Romaine, Michael Pollock, among others conspired to obstruct justice on Schuon's behalf and with Schuon's advice and encouragement.. The purpose af airing this evidence is not to convict a dead man. But merely to supply history with a record of true events.

Molestation was not my main concern. Telling the truth was my main concern. This is reflected in the documents I have gathered. Yes there were young girls molested by Schuon. As I show below, it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Frithjof Schuon did molest or fondle inappropriately, a number of young women at Primordial Gatherings in 1991. What Schuon did was not a horrible thing in the sense that there was no penetration: he did not rape or murder anyone. Unable to get erections at age 84 he felt a need to press his penis against 30 or 40 women all of whom gave him their bodes in an act of worship and veneration for a man who had serious delusions of grandeur, delusions, moreover partly create and sustained by the very women who embraced him. It was a pathetic event, more than a terrible one. It is true that there was not sufficient evidence to convict him in 1991, but it is clear now that there were young girls who were molested in a cult environment, under cult pressure, and in order to fulfill the megalomaniac needs of a cult leader. My concern was to be a witness about this. I was not out for revenge or motivated by malice, greed or any of the low and base motives attributed to me.

What follows is a small selection of some of the evidence for this case.

I recorded in a privately distributed book called "the Account", in 1991 the following description of the Primordial Gatherings, which are the private events or ceremonies in which the molestation of young girls occurred. I wrote:

"In the basement of Sharlyn Romaine's house there were] Indian singers singing Indian songs; Schuon, with genitals exposed, goes into the center of the Indian Lodge. The women circle around him clockwise, shoulder to shoulder. From the center towards the periphery', Schuon goes up to each woman in turn and gives them a kind of embrace, pressing his chest and stomach against the breasts and abdomen of the women. In another dance, he puts his hands around their hips and backsides. In yet another dance, he sits on his bench to the side of the lodge and as the women circle the lodge, each woman, as she approaches a few feet from Schuon, directly in front of him, stops and does a 360 degree turn, giving him an opportunity to look each woman up and down, back and front".

Some of the people present at this event besides Schuon and his "wives", were Keith Arbogast and his wife, Stanley Jones, Roger Gaetani, Mr and Mrs, Fluri, Hernan Cadavid and his wife, Jeffery Willsey and his wife, Mr and Mrs. Reyonolds, Mr and Mrs Patrick Casey, Mark Perry and his wife, Michael Pollack and family, Barry and Rebecca MacDonald and many others, nearly all of whom live in Bloomington Indiana and are disciples of Schuon and memebers of his cult. You can see the compound where most of the cult resides by looking up the folllowing address

http://maps.yahoo.com/

Plug in Schuon's address: 3700 Inverness Farms Road, Bloomington, Indiana. Most of these houses are McMansions, built by Michael Fitzgerald and others. The large house next to Schuon's house is that of Stanley Jones where many of the gatherings occurred. But there were also gatherings at Fitzgerald's house, with is next to Jones house and at the McDonald's house, which is next to the Schuon's house on the opposite side. Sharlyn Romaine's house is next to Fitzgerald's house and that is where I saw Primordial Gatherings.

Regarding Primordial Gatherings: Stephen Lambert, at the request of Aldo Vidali, wrote the following affidavit describing these Primordial Gatherings on October 9, 1992:

"In June or July of 1991 while visiting Bloomington, Indiana, I was invited to several "Primordial" occasions initiated by Mr. Frithjof Schuon of Inverness Farms, in which the following was observed. In these gatherings both women and men appear semi-nude and dance alternately, although occasionally in mixed mode, to Plains Indians chants and drumming. The participants assume the configuration of a circle at the center of which stands Mr. Schuon in a semi-nude state crowned with a feathered war bonnet or a horned headdress of one kind or another."

"During the women's dance, Mr. Schuon invariably embraces each woman in turn encircling their upper bodies with his arms, momentarily pressing them to himself while the women's husbands (a minority of the women and of the men were unmarried) stood in an outer circle as spectators to this enactment. At no time during the occasion did Mr. Schuon extend his attention in any specific act or gesture of presumed "blessing" that may have been appropriate for the men's culture."

"In one small gathering of four couples which I attended, the women were completely nude and performed dances which were approximations of various Far and Middle Eastern dance forms. Then to popular East Indian devotional songs, Mr. Schuon -- standing as above described, but without American Indian vestimentary, rather in the presumed regalia of an East Indian "rajah" -- embraced each woman in turn, pressing them to himself in full body contact by first clasping them about the upper torso and then about the buttocks."

Mr. Lambert also writes, in "my concrete experience in these occasions amounted to no more than a man indulging his taste for and preoccupation with women". He concludes, "I claim the right to make these judgments as one who has been closely and intimately associated with the group for more than twelve years, even at its upper echelons, and who has since severed all relations exactly because of the evidence of its spiritual bankruptcy and the consequent machinations that result to obscure this fact". Lambert and I have never spoken of these matters in any way, so our accounts and independent and corroborate eachother.

Indirectly corroborating both Lambert's and my accounts of Primordial Gatherings, is the account of Sharlyn Romaine, Schuon's forth "wife".. In her Text "Veneration of the Shaykh", she states that in considering Schuon "one is faced with an Avataric phenomenon... with a prophetic figure with a spiritual manifestation of major import". After stating that members of the cult have an "obligation" to venerate Schuon she continues:

"What could be more natural and fitting than that this understanding and therefore veneration, be expressed in a manner corresponding to the eminence in question: and moreover, than that heaven itself would aid us in determining the manner of this darshan, as it has, in the beautiful and manifestly inspired ceremonies which are an aid in effectively conveying the guru's barakah, which is a marvelous gift of the spirit to his faithful disciples, infusing them with something of his very being, transmitted to the disciple in a manner more intimate and direct than words.

Romaine is using the word "darshan", which is a Hindu word that refers to the contemplation of a saint, in a way specifically adapted to the needs of the Schuon cult. When she says that Schuon's 'blessing' or "barakah... "is transmitted to the disciple in a manner more intimate and direct than words", she is describing what happens at the Primordial Gatherings, confirming the descriptions of Lambert and myself. She is also describing the spiritual power which Schuon claims he derives from the Virgin Mary. Romaine used similar language in her Text, co-authored by Schuon, "The Message of the Icons", where she describes that "beginning with her adoption of our Shaykh... the Blessed Virgin has chosen a most intimate way of revealing herself. One could even say that she is her revelation... one is irresistibly attracted to her and she in return enters into one's heart, the viewer and the image are one". Schuon's body is supposed to be his revelation just as the nude virgin's body in Schuon's paintings of her is supposed to be her revelation. Schuon unites with the women at Primordial Gatherings, just as the virgin united with him in his vision. This is implicitly an admission and description, phrased in the coded language of the cult, of the sexual nature of the Primordial Gatherings. Maude Murray, Schuon's third wife has written about these gatherings. She is describing "secret" gatherings, which are more restricted than those I attended, at which 40 people were present. She writes as as follows:

"at secret primordial Gatherings, no one was present but Schuon, Catherine Schuon, Sharlyn Romaine , Rebecca and Barry Macdonald, John Murray, Mr. and Mrs. Garcia Varela and Barbara Perry" [the 2nd 'wife']. The women were naked... the men wore loincloths, except for Schuon, who wore a 'free' loincloth, that is one... could often see him naked... Sharlyn did some lovely Hindu.. American Indian or Balinese [dances]. Rebecca would do a more static kind of belly dancing. emphasizing hips and stomach and breasts... Schuon would do the Primordial Dance... The only real objection anyone could make to these gatherings in my opinion, is that Sharlyn [Romaine] would sit for long periods with her legs apart and in front of the Shaykh who would meditate on this position with the rest of us present. Rebecca did this somewhat... too.

Jesus Garcia Varela, a high ranking inner circle member of the cult, had been investigated by the Louisville Police in 1991 for nude photos of his 2 young daughters. He escaped prosecution of this episode by claiming that it was a common practice in Spain to visually record a girl's puberty. This is an unlikely story and not why the photographs were taken. They were taken to accord with the fashion and imperatives of Schuon's doctrine of Sacred Nudity which was then reigning in the cult. Srg. Richardson told me that he felt that the Varela's daughters had been couched to lie to the police in Louisville. They also had been couched to lie to the Press Murray admitted to me that the Varela's lied to the Police. The same girls were couched to lie to the Press and on T.V. about their involvement in Primordial gatherings. All three of the girls, and some 20 or so cult members who testified before the Grand Jury for Schuon had been couched by Fitzgerald, Romaine and others to lie. Maude Murray writes in a letter to me that the entire group "were told to lie" to the Grand Jury. It 's standard procedure in the cult to cover up facts compromising to the "hierarchy" of the cult. and to lie to outsiders and "profane" people about the nature of the cult and its activities There are many documents where Schuon counsels cult members to dissemble and obscure their group affiliation. In Schuon's Memoirs he states that the "habit" of "dissimulation" developed early in his life.

On Dec. 4th, 1991, Dr. Ronald and Sarah Bodmer made out an affidavit in which they stated that they attended a gathering at the Schuon residence in the fall of 1989. "during which certain followers wore little costumes showing the inferior part of the women's sex and the superior part of the penis and scrotum of the men. The dance took place while Frithjof Schuon was watching. A thirteen to fourteen year old boy [the son of Michael Fitzgerald] was watching and so was little Mary Elizabeth Casey [then aged 3 or 4]" Bodmer claimed he had watched a Gathering at Jeffrey Willsey's house at which there was nudity and young children present. I wrote in my "Account" that Michael Fitzgerald's son was present at the Gatherings. Why didn't the Grand Jury take action on this fact? The boy, then perhaps 14, had been made to watch his mother and her sister, Jennifer Casey, dance nude for Schuon at one of the Gatherings . Bodmer's evidence is direct evidence of the involvement of children in the Gatherings, as is my own.

Not only was the son of Michael Fitzgerald present at some of he gatherings, but the daughter of Roger Gaetani was also present. She was then 15 or 16. But Maude Murray has corroborated my evidence that she was present and must have embraced Schuon. Murray writes that at a Primordial Gathering: "I saw [Roger Gaetani's daughter] in the dance circle around the Shaykh... I do not recall seeing her hug him but she must have done so as all the women in the circle always did".

Aldo Vidali reports the following about this girl: "On March 4, 1989, I visited Frithjof Schuon... at his house at 3700 Inverness Farms Road Bloomington Indiana. I was received in the study upstairs. As we were talking there was the sudden entrance of [Gaetani's daughter], a fifteen year old daughter of members of the Schuon cult. She was completely nude."

There were other under-aged girls that at the gatherings and embraced and fondled by Schuon. I testified in Court in 1991, that I saw Schuon embrace the daughters of Mr and Mrs. Jesus Garcia Varela, and the daughter of Mr and Mrs. William Wroth. Schuon embraced these girls in the same manner he did the older women, about the torso and buttocks and in full body contact, pulling their bodies against his own. They were part of a circle that included 15-20 nude and semi-nude women. Schuon was wearing what has been called a "free" loin cloth, which exposes Schuon's genitals when he moves. These events occurred on two separate occasions. I said in 1991 that I was sure that one of the occasions was May 17th 1991, the other was earlier in the year, March 27th. But I told the police that I was unsure of the earlier date. There were other alternative dates at which these girls might have been present. Murray writes me that my dates may have been mistaken. One of them may have been and i said so at the time. Murray writes me that on a different date, the events I described "certainly did" happen. In any case, I was not trying to prove the dates were correct, but that these events did indeed occur.

On the subject of the parents giving permission for the children to indulge Schuon's sexual interests Maude Murray has provided new evidence. She reports that another inner circle member of the cult, Michael Pollock, allowed his daughter, to be used by Schuon for visual and sexual amusement. She writes that Pollack's daughter danced for Schuon "stark naked... when she was technically underaged". Murray writes that Pollack's daughter "was a charming, round little girl who loved dancing and nudity and wanted to play at being a dancing girl" She "did want to dance for the Shaykh [Schuon]... [and] asked to do that, in her parents house and with their permission" . Murray justifies this on the grounds that "there must be millions of men in the U.S. who've seen girls underage dance stark naked -- without even thinking of whether it is illegal or not. Is it illegal?" Murray is reaching in this passage to try to justify the involvement of girls in Schuon's primordial enactments. She is naive of the law, but she is also blaming the victim here. She is trying to blame the children, who supposedly "asked" to be involved. But even if this is true, the crime remains. The parents had no doubt encouraged the girls to wish to do this. And the parents themselves can only have wanted it because they knew Schuon wanted it. The ultimate responsibility for this is with Schuon and the Pollocks, not with their daughter, who was being used and manipulated. The girls were forced to participate in Schuon's sexual obsessions because of cult pressure. The Wroths, Varelas, Gaetanis Pollocks and Fitzgeralds, all of whose children were enlisted in service of Schuon's fantasies are probably guilty of the corruption of minors.

Murray admits that the young girls were involved in the gatherings but says a number of times that they wanted to do it and did it of their own volition. She concludes that Schuon is not responsible therefore. She writes for instance, in a complete admission of the involvement of children, that "no one of us ever thought of [what] the legal age of a child is... Some of [Schuon's] disciples were apparently under this age and were present at [Primordial Gatherings] and wanted to hug him... it was their choice and their age was an accident". She blames it on the child by saying that "it was their choice" and excuses Schuon. This is typical of cults to blame their victims for harms actually committed by the cult leader. She goes on to explain that :

"when I was less than nine years old a friend of mine took me home and we children played naked in a shower with the naked father. I'd never seen a man stark naked and.... Now, if I had a mean soul, I could very well have gotten that man accused of child abuse. It is very likely that he hugged me when he was completely naked -- but no one ever dreamt of protecting oneself from child abuse in a situation like that. This is very analogous to the Indian Day [Primordial Gatherings] in that all disciples and children of disciples are like the children of a spiritual master [Schuon]".

This is another direct admission of the involvement of children in the Primordial Gatherings. But Primordial gatherings are not the same thing as giving a child a bath or shower. Schuon's motive in these gatherings was power and self exaltation and he was using children to achieve this. The crime that Schuon committed against children was to subject them to his delusional spiritual-sexual fantasies within a system of mind control and cult pressure that enlisted the parents of the children in the abuse. the crime is primarily a crime of exploitation and power, which used sex as a pretext. The primordial Gatherings were not about sex, primarily, but about serving the power needs of Schuon. It is a crime, in other words that is not only about sexuality but about Schuon whole philosophy and the cult he has created to embody his beliefs. Schuon's guilt of this crime, in other words, brings into question his entire philosophy, his 'system', and his cult. In another letter, Murray is somewhat more hesitant about admitting that the young girls embraced Schuon. She writes

"maybe, (I'm not sure) the Shaykh pressed some girl/women just below adult age -- to his bare chest. If he did (it is quite possible) then it was because many women wanted to be close to him and went up to him for this in a kind of dance. It is normal for women to want something like this in respect of a saint -- just as it is normal for girl children to hug a grown man. Even if I scour my conscience, I cannot attribute any blame to the Shaykh for this, no matter what the facts were

If one reads this passage carefully, she begins with uncertainty as to whether or not Schuon did anything with underage girls. But by the end of the passage she not only implies that underage girls were involved, but that she cannot blame Schuon for it. These are important admissions of the involvement of underage girls in the gatherings, which, taken together supply direct evidence that corroborates mine, Bodmer's and Lambert's evidence. Murray admits that the that the cult lied uniformly to the Grand Jury about the charges against Schuon to cover up for Schuon. She writes: "The main disciples of Frithjof Schuon had to lie to protect him. Fine. But then they had to lie again -- and again... until finally everyone knew they were lying and no one could trust anyone to tell the truth" She goes on in the same letter to say that "some disciples of Frithjof Schuon -- having common sense -- lied a few times for good reason... there were lies in Court under oath and on T.V." It is clear she believes that the lies to the Grand Jury were justified. She writes that she does not blame the members of the cult for lying to "protect a saint". She reproaches them for continuing to lie after the initial lie. In any case, Murray's admission that they all lied in Court under oath is implicitly an admission of Schuon's guilt, but at the same time she cannot bring herself to question the righteousness of her cult leader, even though he has had many people lie under oath to protect him from prosecution for his crime. This is not usual that members of cults are unable to see the leaders culpability and wrongdoing even when it stares them in the face. Typically cult members who have been thrown out of a cult blame themselves and deny the depravity of the cult leader, even though it is obvious.

Murray also admits lying about Schuon's marriages: "there were many lies about these marriages... Everyone began to lie to freely about [the marriages] and also about little things- that I became quite alarmed. Also the disciples broke promises and made illegal financial deals such that I became more and more aware of the moral and spiritual degeneration of this group". She also tried to confront Schuon about his lies and complains that Schuon "refuses any comment about all the lying under oath and all of the illegal and inhuman things his disciples have been doing". She also admits:

"We lied in the hearing about polygamy and broke many legal rules to protect Mr. Schuon. Our lawyers cost us hundreds of thousands of dollars and we lied to them to... I had been told to lie as we all had".

In another letter Murray further admits, "there were lies under oath and on T.V. ...I lied too. The Jury knew we were lying -- they even knew we would lie before we got into the court room". Over twenty people were forced under cult influence, to lie to Grand jury under oath, to protect Schuon. Murray indicates that Michael Fitzgerald and Sharlyn Romaine orchestrated this conspiracy to obstruct and subvert justice. Murray gives evidence that helps to show that Schuon must also be implicated in this conspiracy to subvert justice. Murray claims that Schuon lied on TV and elsewhere. She writes that Schuon "lied pretty easily". "The Shaykh's idea was that telling the truth to shysters was stupid, unrealistic and moralistic". Schuon wrote a letter to a French nun in 1991 which according to Murray "was full of lies... [and] was read and approved by the Shaykh in my presence".. She repeats what she said in an earlier letter to me that "the Shaykh lies and has others lie quite easily". Murray admits that "Michael Fitzgerald... lied in court under oath, lied to his lawyers and led a spiritual community in a very expensive lawsuit that was won, but with a substrata of lies". Murray reveals that Michael Fitzgerald "took charge" of the cult in 1991, and on Schuon's behalf, orchestrated a conspiracy to subvert justice. In a film she made for Schuon called "Colors of Light", she reports that Michael Fitzgerald, "took charge" and "led the entire group to lie in court under oath,,,and to our lawyers" to protect Schuon against the charge of child molestation. She also claims that Schuon's 4th wife, Sharlyn Romaine, assisted Fitzgerald in the obstruction of justice. She writes that Romaine "engineered this thing... which was for lying to the court". Murray says of Romaine, who is Schuon's 4th wife that "I actually think she would murder someone if he [Schuon] gave the slightest reason for it". In 1991 the case against Schuon was mysteriously dropped because justice had been obstructed, against the will of the Grand Jury, who correctly tried to oppose the dropping of the charges. It is now clear and can be proven, I believe, that Schuon, Fitzgerald and Romaine and perhaps others led the cult in a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Murray claims that evidence was "fabricated" by Fitzgerald and others in order to get Schuon off the hook.. Murray writes that Fitzgerald, who has been the principle mind behind the obstruction of justice, claims to be a lawyer, but, she also claims he "was disbarred in Colorado for trickery and income tax evasion". Schuon is dead now and so cannot be prosecuted, but Fitzgerald, Romaine and perhaps Pollock, as well as the parents of the children involved could be charged with the conspiracy to obstruct Justice. If this is not possible or desirable, then at the very least the truth should be disseminated about this cult. Acting on Schuon's behalf, Fitzgerald, Romaine and Pollock are ultimately responsible.

Beginning in 1992 Fitzgerald, Romaine, Pollock and other members of the inner circle of the cult initiated lawsuits that extended the effort to subvert justice by actively seeking to legally persecute, maliciously and without cause. those who have tried to tell the truth about Schuon. They tried, and failed to initiate lawsuits against me for copyright infringement. In 1992 they began a series of 3 malicious lawsuits against Aldo Vidali clearly intended to bankrupt and ruin him. Vidali writes that the cult spent over $250,000 to maliciously him. The three cases were brought simultaneously after Aldo threatened to expose his knowledge of Schuon's sexual excesses. Aldo was trying to get his son and daughter in law out of the cult. The cult, led by Fitzgerald, Romaine and Pollock, Willsey, Jones and others, applied pressure on Aldo's son to sue his own father in a bogus legal case, involving a boat that the son was claiming, falsely, belonged to him. The entire case, was funded and advised by the cult. There were two other cases brought against Aldo at the same time. As a result of these cases, Vidali lost his son to the cult, was pushed toward bankruptcy, and was forced to defend himself alone in court, since he couldn't afford a lawyer. Both he and his family suffered hardship during the three years of malicious prosecution. It was a blatant case of malicious prosecution. Both the malicious prosecution and the dividing of families are tactics cults often use against members who leave the organization. The cult owes Vidali damages for malicious prosecution. They also owe damages to David Hunter and Jim Richardson, two men who tried to investigate the cult and who suffered dearly for their efforts.

The cult has sued most of the people that have sought to provide evidence of their corruption. Maude Murray was sued by the cult on various pretexts as well. They forced her to sign confidentiality agreements to prevent her from using their names in public, denying her freedom of speech. They also sued and muzzled Rama Coomarawamy for sending nude pictures of Schuon around, as well as nude photos of Schuon about to have sexual union with the nude Virgin Mary. As guilty parties, they are paranoid of any mention of their names in public. . The new evidence indicates that members of the Schuon cult conspired to subvert and obstruct justice on Schuon's behalf. What subverted justice in 1991 was ability of Michael Fitzgerald and other members of Schuon's dangerous organization to use their considerable financial and legal resources to harass, subvert justice and maliciously prosecute anyone who questions the cult leader or his representatives. The cult has lied about these events and promoted Schuon under false pretences for years. This needs to be widely known. It needs to be known that now there is enough evidence to show that Schuon was guilty, his writing and art hide corruption behind it, and his cult was a dangerous organization that should be avoided at all costs.

There were many victims of this cult, but all those who have been hurt can take solace in the fact that the truth about this man will become known. Many people helped me to put all this information together. To them go the praise and thanks

Note in 2007
I wrote the above in 1998. It was put up on a French web site for 7 or 8 years. My essays were taken off this site a year or two ago, at my request. In any case, after nine years no one has ever successfully disputed any of the the evidence presented here. It is true and represents many witnesses besides myself, all of whom recorded their testimony independently of the others. The Schuon cult tries to paint the picture of an elaborate conspiracy against them. Actually those against them have merely told the truth about them, separately and without conspiracy. Their paranoia comes from they constant need to lie and dissimulate. They merely accuse others of that which they are guilty.

Mark Sedgwick published a book in 2004, Against the Modern World , which advanced the thesis, partly derived from my work and conversations with me, that traditionalism is a a far right movement with some relation to post World War II fascism, but that it is not a fascist movement per se, but a far right form of spirituality--- a sort of "spiritual fascism". I write about this in this essay
http://www.naturesrights.com/knowledge%20power%20book/guenon.asp

Sedgwick wrote me in 2004 that both he and his publisher, Oxford, were threatened by the Schuon cult with legal harassment. Rather than face the mafioso tactics thrown at him by the Schuon cult, Sedgwick's backed down and published a rather weak assessment of Schuon's, polygamous activities, criminal actions, visions of nude Virgins and delusions of grandeur. But despite that the book has some merit as an expose of the reactionary spirituality of the traditionalists. You can see reviews of Mark's book here

http://www.aucegypt.edu/faculty/sedgwick/against.html



Evidence 2 :

Primordial Gatherings and Schuon's books:

Schuon's Vision of the Virgin is one source, and perhaps the most important source, of his belief that he is a manifestation of the Logos or a prophet, avatara or a man "not like other men". It took me about a year to find out about this vision. It was consistently portrayed to me as an important mystery, the deepest secret of the brotherhood, and I wanted to know what the vision actually portrayed. My interest was not in the sexual content of the vision, but rather to know what this man, Schuon, who was supposed to be my spiritual master, was really about. Other people in the cult, had filled my head with all kinds of superlatives about Schuon's alleged greatness. As I grew more skeptical I needed to know the truth about this man. Maude Murray, Schuon's third wife offered explanations. Schuon does not define the actual content of his vision in his Memoirs. He only says that the Virgin Mary "approached me inwardly in a feminine form" and that the "consolation [was] streaming forth from the primordial femininity". He concludes by saying that "to say more would not become me". There are many other references to this vision in his writings which I have recorded elsewhere. But the actual vision is most clearly understood if one can gain access to Schuon's paintings, which picture him with the nude virgin Mary behind him, with her genitals shaved, about to give him her sex. The result of this vision is described by Schuon in his Memoirs as follows:

"On my way to Morocco in 1965, when I was suffering from asthma and feeling ill to the point of death - owing to causes of a moral order - there occurred on the ship...a blessed contact with the Heavenly Virgin. And this had as its immediate result the almost irresistible urge to be naked like her little child; from this event onwards I went naked as mush as possible, indeed, most of he time...it was as if the contact with the Virgin had sanctified my body...A few years later - in the summer of 1973 - this mystery came upon me once again, and it did so in connection with the irresistible awareness that I am not a man like other men...one must distinguish, in the sanctified man, between the teachings of the Truth and a radiance that emanates from the body; and this applies to all degrees of participation in the Logos. (From Schuon's essay "Sacred Nudity" which is part of his memoirs)"

Schuon's need to be nude as much as possible was the basis of his creating the Primordial Gatherings, in which he tried to get the members of his cult to imitate him and confirm him in his delusion of his transcendent significance. It might be useful to complement the evidence about Primordial Gatherings supplied by others with some of the evidence from Schuon's own writings about them. I cannot be exhaustive here, so what follows represents only a selection.

Schuon said that if one wants to know if he is guilty or not guilty of the crimes for which he is accused, one should read his books. In 1991, at the time that Lambert and I witnessed the events described, Schuon wrote articles which describe his view of Primordial Gatherings. In the writings from 1990-91 Schuon describes himself and his role in the Primordial Gatherings, in slightly veiled prose, as the "deified man, who thus is central......with regard to the multitude of ordinary men. The 'believers' are like the gopis dancing around Krishna and uniting themselves to him; whereas he-- the 'motionless mover'-- plays his saving flute". The sexual symbolism of the 'saving flute' isn't too hard to figure out, nor is the reference to Aristotle definition of god as the "motionless mover". The gopis are described as "uniting' with Krishna, and this is a reference to what Schuon does with the women at Primordial Gatherings. I was aware on a regular basis of Schuon's conversations in 1991 and he worked out these analogies to Primordial Gatherings with his wives, especially Murray and Romaine. In this same essay, in a footnote, Schuon compares the Primordial Gatherings, implicitly, with the circumambulations of the pilgrims around the Kaaba in Mecca, which, he claims, was originally done nude. He goes on to multiply the analogies, as if to exhaust all the possibilities that might exalt himself and his Primordial ritual even further.

"The movement is circular like the revolution of the planets: another example is the Sun Dance around a tree representing the axis 'heaven-earth'; the movement is alternatively centripetal and centrifugal like the phases of respiration, which takes us back to the dance of the gopis with its two modes of circumambulation and union, precisely. (The Play of Masks pg. 42)"

As will be noticed, Schuon is here describing in his usual abstract and coded language the circling of the women and his "union" with them in the Gatherings. The "union" Schuon describes here is described by Romaine as "more intimate than words". In the same book, Schuon observes that "sexuality is determined by the which constitutes man's prerogative as is attested by the theomorphic form of his body."(Ibid. pg 49) He continues in the same passage that the "human body itself, not in some diminished form--is a symbol-sacrament because it is made in the image of God: that is why it is the object of love par excellence. The body invites to adoration by its very theomorphic form, and that is why it can be a vehicle of a celestial presence that in principle is salvific".(Ibid pg 89) Schuon is here setting up a hierarchical notion of bodies, his body, of course, being a superior "vehicle of a celestial presence", and not a body "in some diminished form". In the Primordial Gatherings Schuon thinks he is providing salvation to the women by embracing them with his 'theomorphic body". All this seems quite logical to Schuon and the members of the cult, who somehow convince themselves that this old man really is the "Center as such", like Krishna, the Kaaba, the sun in the middle of the solar system, the Sun dance Tree and other superlatives. Schuon's style of writing hides his personal life behind loaded abstractions and sparkling generalities. I know that the above passages refer to specific developments in the history of Primordial Gatherings because I was on the scene, and discussed these matters with his wives. I was told Primordial Gatherings go back to the 1950's in rudimentary form, but earlier references to Primordial Gatherings are obscure for lack of personal references. Earlier references to Primordial Gatherings are less grandiose though tending towards the delusional grandiosity of more recent years. One can recognize the familiar rationalizations for 'primordial sexuality' in the following quote, written in the 1970's:

"Woman is unveiled - in certain rights or certain ritual dances - with the aim of operating a kind of magic by analogy, the unveiling of beauty with an erotic vibration evoking, in the manner of a catalyst, the revelation of the liberating and beatific essence."

In a footnote to this passage, Schuon speaks of the unveiling of the Queen of Sheba and of the Virgin Mary. The virgin's veil "opens because of mercy".(Esoterism as principle and Way, pg 61-62) This is an obvious reference to Schuon's vision of the virgin. In another book Schuon points out the Arabic word for "mercy" has its root in the word 'rahim' "which means womb, and this corroborates the interpretation of Rahmah [mercy] as Divine Femininity." This relates back again to Schuon's vision of the Virgin mercifully comforting him with her sexual parts. But it also relates to the Primordial Gatherings. Schuon speaks elsewhere of "the Divine Beauty manifested in earthly beauties". The essence of the 'prophet' has a feature, which , Schuon writes, "could be called 'Solomonian' or 'Krishnaite'". The Prophet, that is Schuon himself, has the ability to find

"concretely in woman all aspects of the Divine Femininity...The sensorial experience that produces in the ordinary man an inflation of the ego, actualizes in the 'deified' Man extinction in the Divine Self. (In the Face of the Absolute pg. 221)"

In other words, women are merely symbols and sexual desire leads a man like Schuon to god-symbols, since Schuon's desire is not like other men's desires since he is, "not a man like other men" (Memoirs). So too, when he desires a woman, it is not an ordinary act since he is not an ordinary man, but a "deified man". Schuon's sexuality proves to him his own transcendent importance. He is beyond all laws and the chosen vessel of god on earth. Therefore, Schuon can press his naked, or near naked body, against under-aged girls in the Primordial Gatherings because Schuon's desire is god's desire and he is Primordially innocent, even if he breaks the law. Schuon can do this, he thinks, because the women are not women, but examples of Divine Femininity. Their individuality, and thus their human rights, are dissolved in abstraction or essentializations. They are reduced merely to archetypes or symbols. Schuon exploits real women by ignoring their reality and seeing them only as symbols. This is a pathology of of a remorseless psychopath.

The purpose of the Primordial Gatherings is to join Schuon, who is the Logos and the Holy Spirit to the 'Divine Feminine'. All of this is supposed to result in "healing" and "salvation" for those who embrace Schuon. In the words of one of the cult's songs. Schuon is the "All - Holy" and the "All Holy is a healing for the wombs". In the words of the second wife, Barbara Perry this means that, "the radiation of the Avataric body (i.e. Schuon's body) heals the wombs", and she interprets the word "wombs" to mean "souls". This peculiar hierarchical and demeaning attitude towards women as being merely manifestations of "archetypes" and thus only secondarily individuals with rights, is explained by Schuon as follows:

"A distinction should be made between a polygamy in which several women keep their personality, and a princely 'pantogamy' on which a multitude of women represent femininity in a quasi impersonal manner; the latter would be an affront to the dignity of human persons if it were not founded on the idea that a given bridegroom is situated at the summit of human kind. Pantogamy is possible because Krishna is Vishnu, because David and Soloman are prophets...It could also be said that innumerable and anonymous harem has a function analogous to that of an imperial throne adorned with precious stones; A function that is analogous, but not identical, for the throne made of human substance - the harem, that is - indicates in an eminently more direct and concrete manner the real of borrowed divinity of the monarch.(Esoterism. pg 133} (emphasis mine)"

In other words, in Schuon's mind the Primordial Gatherings in which he treats the women as a harem is "not an affront to the dignity of persons" because he is "situated at the summit of human kind". The women in the gatherings are like a "throne made of human substance", an especially disgusting image, recalling Nazi lampshades made of human skin. Schuon is a "monarch" as he claims in other documents and the harem of dehumanized women is suppose to prove his divinity. He reduces women to the image of "a throne made of human substance" in order to exalt himself. He claims to be the "summit of the human species" and arrogate himself the rights of a tyrant who can turn people into objects to glorify himself. Schuon continues the above passage by saying that his own preferences are not indicated by what he has written, but this is merely an evasion or the result of what he calls in his Memoirs, his "inevitable and habitual dissimulation" which he was forced to practice from an early age. Memoirs, pg 50) In other words, its the world's fault that Schuon lies, since he is the last great prophet. Being perfect, "in every respect", any blame attached to him must belong to someone else. Anyone who criticizes him is therefore and axiomatically guilty. "The Fuehrer is always right", it was said of Hitler. Schuon claims to be infallible on almost everything too. For Schuon, there are no real women, there are only symbols of women, and women in fact are embodiments of Schuon himself, in disguise. As he says, "the opposite sex is only a symbol, the true center is hidden in ourselves, in the heart intellect".(Essential Writings pg.394) Schuon's theory of sexuality is hierarchical. The deified man has sexual rights the "ordinary man" does not have. Schuon has four wives and a harem in Primordial Gatherings and he can do this because he is a monarch and an Avatara. I am dwelling on this because to prove the legal case against Schuon, it must be proven that he pressed himself against young girls to satisfy his desires. To prove this, one must enter into the fantasy world where Schuon's desires cannot be like other men's because he is "not a man like other men".

Schuon has publicly denied that he has had any desires. He said, in a public relations video, made by inner circle members, Michael Pollock and Michel Fitzgerald, that "it is psychologically impossible that a man like me could have a passionate pleasure", and he says soon thereafter, "to ask if I am guilty or not is a waste of time... read my books, look at my books to see if I am guilty or not". Yes. Read Schuon's books carefully and you will see that this is a man with serious delusions of grandeur. Schuon's sexuality was closely connected to his delusions of his own magnificence. It is this that made him able to violate the human rights women and young girls and this that enabled him to counsel members of his cult to obstruct justice and lie to a Grand Jury.

This is exactly the point: Schuon's books indicate he is guilty.

*******************************

French Translation of the above essay

Les Assemblées Primordiales et les Ecrits de Frithjof Schuon.

La Vision de la Vierge de Schuon est une source, et peut-être la plus

importante, de sa croyance qu'il est une manifestation du Logos ou un

prophète, avatara, ou encore un homme "différent des autres hommes".

Cela m'a pris plus d'un an avant qu'on ne me parle de cette vision.

On me la présentait systématiquement comme un mystère important,

le secret le plus profond de la fraternité, et je voulais savoir ce

qu'était vraiment cette vision. Mon intérêt ne se portait pas vers le

contenu sexuel de cette vision, mais plutôt vers ce que cet homme, Schuon,

qui devait être mon maître spirituel, était réellement. D'autres membres

de la secte m'avaient rempli la tête avec des superlatifs concernant la

grandeur de Schuon. En devenant plus sceptique, je voulais apprendre la

vérité concernant cet homme. Maude Murray, troisième épouse de Schuon,

m'a donné des explications. Schuon ne définit pas le contenu précis de

sa vision dans ses Mémoires. Il dit seulement que la Vierge Marie l'a

"approché intérieurement sous une forme féminine" et que "la consolation

jaillissait de la féminité primordiale". Il conclut en disant "qu'il ne

serait pas décent d'en dire plus". Il y a beaucoup d'autres références

à cette vision dans ses écrits, je les ai consignées ailleurs. Mais la

vision elle-même est comprise le plus clairement si l'on a accès aux

tableaux de Schuon qui le représentent avec la Vierge Marie nue derrière

lui, les poils de son pubis rasés, prête à lui offrir son sexe. Le

résultat de cette vision est décrit par Schuon dans ses Mémoires de la

façon suivante: "En route vers le Maroc en 1965, souffrant d'asthme

et malade à en mourir - ceci par certaines causes d'ordre moral - il

y eut à bord du navire... un contact béni avec la Céleste Vierge. Et

ceci eut pour résultat immédiat le besoin presque irrésistible d'être

nu comme son petit enfant; depuis cet événement je marchais nu tant que

possible, en fait, presque tout le temps... c'était comme si le contact

avec la Vierge avait sanctifié mon corps... Quelques années plus tard -

pendant l'été de 1973 - ce mystère me visita encore une fois, et cela

en connexion avec la conscience irrésistible que je n'étais pas un être

humain comme les autres... il faut distinguer, dans l'homme sanctifié,

les enseignements de la Vérité et une radiation qui émane du corps;

et ceci est applicable à tous les degrés de participation au Logos."

(Extrait de l'essai "La Nudité sacrée" qui fait partie de ses Mémoires.)

Le besoin de Schuon d'être nu le plus souvent possible est à la base de

sa création des Assemblées Primordiales, pendant lesquelles il essayait

d'amener les membres de sa secte à l'imiter et à le confirmer dans sa

folie de son importance transcendante. Il serait utile d'ajouter aux

preuves concernant les Assemblées Primordiales des preuves issues des

écrits de Schuon lui-même à leur sujet. Je ne peux pas être exhaustif ici,

donc je ne présente qu'une sélection.

Schuon a dit que si l'on voulait savoir s'il était coupable ou non

des crimes dont on l'a accusé, il fallait lire ses livres. En 1991,

lorsque Lambert et moi étaient témoins des événements décrits, Schuon

écrivait des articles qui décrivent son opinion concernant les Assemblées

Primordiales. Dans ses écrits de 1990-1991 Schuon se décrit lui-même

et son rôle dans les Assemblées Primordiales, en prose à peine voilée,

comme "l'homme déifié, qui se trouve donc au centre... par rapport à la

multitude des hommes ordinaires. Les 'croyants' sont comme les gopis

dansant autour de Krishna et s'unissant à lui, pendant que lui, le

'moteur immobile', joue de sa flûte salvatrice." Le symbolisme sexuel

de la 'flûte salvatrice' n'est pas très difficile à reconnaître, ni

la référence à la définition Aritotélicienne de Dieu comme 'moteur

immobile'. Il dit que les gopis s'unissent à Krishna, et c'est une

référence à ce que Schuon fait avec les femmes lors des Assemblées

Primordiales. J'entendais régulièrement la conversation de Schuon en

1991 et il élaborait ces analogies des Assemblées Primordiales avec ses

épouses, en particulier avec Murray et Romaine. Dans le même essai, dans

une note, Schuon compare les Assemblées Primordiales implicitement avec

les circumambulations des pèlerins autour de la Kaaba à la Mecque, qui,

prétend-il, s'effectuaient originellement nu. Ils continue en multipliant

les analogies, comme pour épuiser toutes les possibilités de s'exalter

lui-même et son rituel Primordial au-delà de toute limite.

"Le mouvement est circulaire comme l'est la trajectoire des planètes; un

autre exemple est la Danse du Soleil autour d'un arbre représentant l'axe

entre le Ciel et la Terre; le mouvement est alternativement centripète

et centrifuge comme les phases de la respiration, qui nous ramènent à

la danse des gopis, avec ses deux modes de circumambulation et d'union,

précisément." (Le Jeu des Masques, p. 42.)

On remarquera que Schuon décrit ici dans le langage abstrait et codé

qui lui est habituel, le cercle des femmes et son "union" avec elles

lors des Assemblées. Cette "union" décrite ici par Schuon est décrite

par Romaine comme étant "intime au-delà de toute description verbale".

Dans le même livre, Schuon remarque que "la sexualité est déterminée

par le [un mot manque] qui constitue la prérogative masculine comme

l'atteste la forme théomorphe de son corps." (Ibid. p. 49). Il continue,

dans le même passage, en disant que "le corps humain lui-même, non

sous quelque forme diminuée, est un symbole-sacrement parce qu'il est

fait à l'image de Dieu: c'est pourquoi il est l'objet par excellence de

l'amour. Le corps invite à l'adoration par sa forme théomorphe elle-même,

et voilà pourquoi il peut être le véhicule d'une présence céleste qui

est salvatrice en principe." (Ibid. p. 89.) Schuon établit ici une

notion hiérarchique des corps, le sien, bien sûr, étant un "véhicule"

supérieur "d'une présence céleste", et non un corps "sous une forme

diminuée". Lors des Assemblées Primordiales Schuon croit qu'il offre

le salut aux femmes en les embrassant avec son "corps théomorphe". Tout

ceci semble très logique à Schuon et aux membres de la secte, qui d'une

façon ou d'une autre se convainquent que cet homme âgé est réellement le

"Centre en tant que tel", comme Krishna, la Kaaba, le soleil au milieu du

système solaire, l'arbre de la Danse du Soleil et d'autres superlatifs.

Le style de l'écriture de Schuon cache sa vie personnelle derrière des

abstractions chargées et des généralités étincelantes. Je sais que les

passages cités se rapportent à des développements spécifiques pendant

l'histoire des Assemblées Primordiales parce que j'étais là-bas, et

parce que j'ai discuté de ces choses avec ses épouses. On m'a dit que les

Assemblées Primordiales remontent aux années 1950 pour leur forme la plus

rudimentaire, mais les références antérieures aux Assemblées Primordiales

sont obscurcies par manque de références personnelles. Les références

antérieures aux Assemblées Primordiales sont moins grandioses quoiqu'elles

tendent déjà à la grandeur délirante des années plus récentes. On peut

reconnaître les rationalisations habituelles de la "sexualité primordiale"

dans l'extrait suivant, écrit pendant les années 1970:

"La Femme est dévoilée - dans certains droits ou dans certaines danses

rituelles - avec le but d'opérer une sorte de magie analogique, le

dévoilement de la beauté par une vibration érotique évoquant, comme un

catalyseur, la révélation de l'essence libératrice et béatifique."

Dans une note auprès de ce passage, Schuon parle du dévoilement

de la Reine de Saba et de la Vierge Marie. Le voile de la vierge

"s'ouvre par compassion". (L'Ésotérisme comme principe et comme voie",

p. 61-62.) ceci est une référence évidente à la vision de la Vierge

de Schuon. Dans un autre livre Schuon remarque que le mot Arabe pour

"compassion" a pour racine le mot "rahim", "qui signifie utérus, ce

qui confirme l'interprétation de Rahmah [compassion] comme Féminité

Divine." Ceci se rapporte encore à la vision de Schuon de la Vierge qui

le réconforte par compassion en employant ses organes sexuels. Mais cela

se rapporte aussi aux Assemblées Primordiales. Schuon parle ailleurs de

"la Beauté Divine manifestée dans les beautés terrestres." L'essence du

"prophète" est une propriété qui, dit Schuon, "pourrait être qualifiée

de 'Salomonienne' ou de 'Krishaïte'." Le Prophète, c'est-à-dire Schuon

lui-même, a le pouvoir de trouver i "concrètement dans la femme tous

les aspects de la Divinité Féminine... l'expérience sensorielle qui,

chez l'homme ordinaire, produit un gonflement de l'égo, actualise, chez

l'homme 'déifié', l'extinction dans le Soi Divin. (En face de l'Absolu,

p. 221.)"

En d'autres mots, les femmes ne sont que des symboles et le désir

sexuel mène un homme comme Schuon aux symboles de dieu, puisque le désir

de Schuon n'est pas comme le désir des autres hommes, puisqu'il n'est

"pas un homme comme les autres." (Mémoires.) De même, lorsqu'il désire

une femme, ce n'est pas un acte ordinaire puisqu'il n'est pas un homme

ordinaire, mais un "homme déifié". La sexualité de Schuon prouve à

lui-même son importance transcendante. Il est au-delà de toutes les lois,

et est le vaisseau élu de Dieu sur terre. Donc, Schuon peut presser son

corps nu, ou presque nu, contre des filles mineures lors des Assemblées

Primordiales parce que le désir de Schuon est le désir de Dieu et qu'il

est primordialement innocent, même s'il désobéit aux lois. Schuon peut

faire ceci, pense-t-il, parce que les femmes ne sont pas des femmes,

mais des exemples de la Féminité Divine. Leur individualité, et donc

leurs droits humains, se trouvent dissous dans l'abstraction et dans les

essentialisations. Elles se trouvent réduites à de simples archétypes ou

symboles. Schuon exploite des femmes réelles en ignorant leur réalité

et en ne les voyant que comme des symboles. Le but des Assemblées

Primordiales est de joindre Schuon, qui est le Logos et le Saint-Esprit,

à la "Féminité Divine". Tout ceci devrait produire la "guérison" et le

"salut". En citant les paroles d'un des chants de la secte, Schuon est

le "Tout-Saint", et le "Tout-Saint est une guérison pour les utérus"

[a healing for the wombs]. En empruntant les mots de sa deuxième épouse,

Barbara Perry, ceci signifie que "la radiation du corps Avatarique

(c-a-d celui de Schuon) guérit les utérus" et elle interprète le mot

"utérus" par "âmes". Cette attitude spécifiquement hiérarchique et

méprisante envers les femmes, assimilées à de simples manifestations

d'"archétypes" et donc seulement accessoirement des individus avec des

droits, est expliquée par Schuon de la façon suivante:

"Il faut distinguer entre la polygamie où plusieurs femmes gardent leur

personnalité, et une "pantogamie" princière où une multitude de femmes

représentent la féminité de façon quasiment impersonnelle; celle-ci

serait un affront à la dignité humaine si elle n'était pas fondée sur

l'idée qu'un mari donné est situé au sommet de l'espèce humaine. La

pantogamie est possible parce que Krishna est Vishnu, parce que David

et Salomon sont des prophètes... On pourrait aussi dire que le harem

innombrable et anonymes a une fonction semblable à celle d'un trône

impérial décoré de pierres précieuses; une fonction qui est analogue,

mais non identique, car le trône de chair humaine, le harem, indique

d'une façon éminemment plus directe et plus concrète la divinité réelle

ou empruntée du monarque. (Ésotérisme, p. 133.)

En d'autres termes, dans l'esprit de Schuon les Assemblées Primordiales où

il emploie des femmes comme un harem ne sont pas "un affront à la dignité

humaine" parce qu'il est "situé au sommet de l'espèce humaine." Les

femmes dans les Assemblées sont comme un "trône de chair humaine," une

métaphore particulièrement dégoûtante, qui rappelle les abat-jours de

peau humaine des Nazis. Schuon est un "monarque", comme il le prétend

dans d'autres documents, et le harem de femmes déshumanisées doit

prouver sa divinité. Il réduit les femmes à ne servir que de "trône

de chair humaine" afin de s'exalter lui-même. Il prétend être "le

sommet de l'espèce humaine" et s'arroge des droits tyranniques qui

peuvent transformer des gens en objets et qui doivent le glorifier

lui-même. Schuon continue le passage cité en disant que ses écrits

n'indiquent pas ses propres préférences, mais ceci n'est qu'évasion,

ou le résultat de ce qu'il appelle dans ses Mémoires sa "dissimulation

inévitable et habituelle", qu'il a été forcé de pratiquer dès son plus

jeune âge. (Mémoires, p. 50.) En d'autres termes, c'est la faute du monde

que Schuon ment, parce qu'il est le dernier grand prophète. Étant parfait,

"à tout point", toute faute doit nécessairement appartenir à quelqu'un

d'autre. Toute personne qui le critique est donc axiomatiquement coupable.

"Le Führer a toujours raison" disait-on d'Hitler. Schuon aussi prétend à

l'infaillibilité dans presque tous les domaines. Pour Schuon, il n'y a

pas de vraies femmes, il n'y a que des symboles de femmes; et les femmes

sont en fait des incarnations de Schuon lui-même, en déguisement. Il it

que "le sexe opposé n'est qu'un symbole, le centre véritable est caché

en nous-mêmes, dans le coeur intellect." (Écrits essentiels, p. 394.)

La théorie sexuelle de Schuon est hiérarchique. L'homme déifié a des

droits sexuels dont l'"homme ordinaire" ne jouit pas. Schuon a quatre

femmes et un harem dans les Assemblées Primordiales, et il peut faire

tout ça parce qu'il est monarque et un Avatara. Je souligne ceci parce

que pour établir un dossier légal contre Schuon il faut prouver qu'il

s'est pressé contre de très jeunes filles pour satisfaire ses désirs. Pour

prouver ceci, il faut entrer dans le monde fantasmatique où les désirs de

Schuon ne peuvent être comme ceux des autres hommes parce qu'il n'est pas

"un homme comme les autres".

Schuon a nié publiquement d'avoir eu des désirs quelconques. Il a

dit, dans une vidéo de relations publiques tournée par des membres du

cercle intérieur, Michael Pollock et Michel Fitzgerald, qu'"il était

psychologiquement impossible qu'un homme comme moi pût avoir un plaisir

passionnel", et il dit peu après "c'est une perte de temps que de me

demander si je suis coupable ou non... lisez mes livres, regardez mes

livres pour voir si je suis coupable ou non." Oui. Lisez soigneusement

les livres de Schuon et vous verrez que c'est un homme souffrant de

folie des grandeurs. Voilà ce qui l'a fait violer les droits humains de

femmes et de jeunes filles, et voilà ce qui lui a permis de conseiller

aux membres de sa secte de faire obstruction à la justice et de mentir

à un Grand Jury.

Voilà exactement où j'en voulais venir: les livres de Schuon indiquent

qu'il est coupable.