Kenneth Oldmeadow's book is a very readable and well researched survey of the Traditionalist school. The positions of its three main luminaries, Guénon, Coomarswamy and Schuon, are explored in the chapters devoted to each one of these thinkers, and some interesting biographical information is also provided. There is also a survey of some of the other traditionalists, as well as assessments, in the light of traditionalist thought, of some of the various characters and religious movements which have impacted on the modern sense of the sacred. Oldmeadow also pays close attention to the traditionalist critique of modern science. This book is an important intellectual history of a movement that has been unduly neglected by the academic world.

What does it mean for a person to be "transfigured'? Schuon answers this question by a series of essays that describe human nature in all its dimensions, both 'vertical' and 'horizontal.' For most of us, it is the horizontal dimension that is realest: the thoughts, tendencies and feelings of our experiential ego and the images of the world around us. Almost every aspect of life today conspires to make us believe there is nothing else.

But Schuon's point of departure is that Reality has its origin, its center and its ultimate end in the vertical dimension, which is the realm of the sacred. To know this, to know it with certitude, is to be transfigured. 'A man's personality is derived essentially from an idea, or more exactly from a set of ideas grouped around a central or determining idea.' The key here is that 'knowing an idea' is far more than a mental exercise which commits us to nothing. For Schuon, 'knowing' and 'being' converge, as in the Sanskrit triad Being, Consciousness, Beatitude.

The essays here are not lengthy, but they make some demands upon the reader. They require that we step outside the modern 'axiom of doubt' and consider things under their aspect of eternal values. 'To accept sincerely the transcendent truth'whose nature is to annihilate our illusions'is to die a little, but it is also to be reborn and to live, beyond all that the earthly ego could ever imagine.' This collection offers both full-length chapters and some brief excerpts from correspondence. All are deeply thought-provoking in a way that makes the effort more than worthwhile.

Frithjof Schuon was perhaps the most prominent metaphysician of the twentieth century. He wrote extensively on the inner significance of religion, and religions, from Christianity to Lakota spirituality, but it is probably fair to say that he had more to say about Islam than any other system of belief. This book is a collection of essays, grouped into three sections - "Christianity", "Intermediary Problems", and "Islam".

In a sense the most interesting ones are the ones on Christianity, since Schuon seldom deals with the Christian perspective on its own, without relevance to other religions. The essays there deal with various things, such as the use of liturgical languages, Francis of Assisi, and the Evangelical (i.e., Lutheran) tradition.

The essays on Islam are a bit more obscure to the general reader, and require some familiarity with early Islamic history and the divergences between Sunni and Shiite doctrine. Indeed, the essay entitled "The Problems of Scholasticism" - Islamic Scholasticism, that is - is abstruse indeed and requires a level of familiarity with Islamic theology that borders on the specialist. The Islamic essays also tend to be more broad brush in topic than the ones on Christianity, but nonetheless they are rewarding reading for a better understanding of Islam and its demands on the believer. The "Intermediary Problems" are attempts to correlate Christian and Islamic thought, and consequently raise issues that are very close to Schuon's heart; he is certainly at his best in this section.

Note that the book is a collection of essays, and at best the relationship between them is thematic. Bearing this in mind, if you find Schuon's writings rewarding in general you will be happy with this book.

Schuon's approach to both Christianity and Islam takes the reader to new and unexpected levels of understanding, where their outward differences are seen not as irreconcilable alternatives but as necessarily different crystallizations of a unique sacred Reality which itself is above all forms. Schuon writes with a certitude--and without the usual scholarly references--that readers often find either shocking or, just the opposite, absolutely refreshing and clear. His erudition verges on the encyclopedic, but even more important is his insight into the "inward intention" of so many traditional beliefs and practices that, while perhaps challenging the conventional mentality of the modern world, are meant to deliver a kind of "spiritual shock" which opens the soul to what transcends its limitations. The following excerpts from reviews show that Schuon certainly deserves the attention of serious readers.

I sought Frithjof Schuon because I had heard he produced some of the most severe and serious religious writing of the twentieth-century. This is true; he has no equal (in the twentieth-century). However - Even though my seriousness and sensibilites found kinship with his thoughts, after time, they burned me out. For me, in America, I could not adapt to a standard of living that brought me as close to God, or an Absolute, as I felt I should have been; I have since gone on to other things. On another hand, he feeds my intellect in ways that are unexplainable, and for that, I am grateful. Anyone, of any religion, can work to understand this book.

The book is a good introduction to Schuon, providing a fairly detailed overview of the Swiss thinker's central ideas. Nasr, through his introduction, paves the way for the reader to better understand Schuon's extremely dense yet rich style. This is a great help on Nasr's part, since Schuon's unique style renders his writings difficult to break into. But once this apparent impenetrability is overcome, the reader will be dumbfounded by the depth and profundidty of Schuon's brilliant insights. Like any great thinker, this man has his deficencies, and sometimes they are blaring. But who said profundidity must be accompanied by infalibility?

I have been an admirer of Schuon's work since I first encountered "Understanding Islam" in 1973. His interpretation of Islam, and also his views on esotericism and its place in humanity's approach to Ultimate Reality has had a profound effect on my own spiritual life. Over the years I have snapped up anything that I encountered by Schuon - a not altogether easy enterprise, since most of his work was out of print for quite a few years and I generally found his books only at used book sales and the like.

Several years ago Schuon's work started coming out in newly edited versions, including this book. It is only recently, however, that I got around to reading this volume of essays - which is rather odd, since my interest in Buddhism goes back even further than my interest in Schuon, and I have practiced Buddhist meditation for many years. I was excited to see what Schuon had to say on the subject.

Much to my surprise, I found that the Buddhism that Schuon describes seems to bear little resemblence to Buddhism as I know it. Schuon's opening thesis - that Buddhism is a message built around renunciation and mercy - is at odds with what it has always meant to me. True, mercy is a part of the Buddhist message, but only in a derivative way. As for renunciation, I feel this can easily be misunderstood within the Buddhist perspective. Buddhism, as I always understood it, is primarily about enlightenment, which is brought about by mindfulness - it is a form of meditation both at rest and in action, and its goal is the tearing down of the curtain of discursive thought so that true reality can be perceived.

I can't say that I rejected everything that Schuon had to say. His comments about the similarities between Buddhism and Christianity were very much on the mark, for example. But his comments on the two essays regarding Zen seemed to me to be a rather futile attempt, largely overthinking the subject.

On the whole, I walked away from the book with the unpleasant suspicion that Schuon's approach to the philosophia perrenis was the wrong tool to use when attempting to dissect Buddhism - "unpleasant" because I have had the utmost respect for Schuon's metaphysical approach, at least up to now.

I am told that the original version of the story of the blind men and the elephant was a Buddhist tale. If so, it would make sense that there is room for wildly varying, totally contradictory interpretations of the Buddha's ultimate message. In any case, I would never discourage the seeker of metaphysical truth from reading Schuon. But in this case I think he was off the mark.