Sacred Web 3
Letters to the Editor
On the place of Love in Schuon’s teachings; On the opposition of Tradition and Modernity; On Descartes’ "Stop". Read more ...
Editorial: Pluralism and the Metaphysics of Morality
By M. Ali Lakhani
How can one reconcile the competing interests of freedom and equality so as to create an ordered society? Underlying the pluralist discourse are fundamental issues about the basis of morality. Arguing from traditional first principles, the Editorial speaks of the illusoriness of freedom and equality as the pillars of modernity and advocates instead a principled pluralism based on a linkage between metaphysics and morality. Read more ...
What is Conservatism?
By Titus Burckhardt
In this article, which is not political in intention, Titus Burckhardt traces the origin and development of conservatism in the history of Europe of the last few centuries, and explains the underlying philosophy that gives it its meaning and its strength. Read more ...
The Well Amid the Waste
By Alvin Moore
Amid the wasteland of the modern world, there is a "fountain of living water" from which man can draw. Alvin Moore examines the nature and value of prayer and its vital role in quenching the thirst of modern man. Read more ...
Psychological Integration and the Religious Outlook
By Rama P. Coomaraswamy
What are the different meanings of the term "self" in religion and in modern psychology? In this lecture, given to The American Orthopsychiatric Association, the author examines the differences and commonalities in traditional and modern approaches to psychotherapy and advocates a traditional basis for psychological counselling. Read more ...
Slouching Toward Bethlehem: Notes on the First Days after the End of Kali Yuga
By William W. Quinn, Jr.
What will culture, religion, and life in general look like in the first days after the end of the Kali Yuga, and thereafter? The question upon which this discussion is predicated is this: what are the recent and present signs, if any, that may serve as indicia or point to answers regarding a post-Millenial culture? Quinn examines the spiritual legacy of the Sixties. Read more ...
"Mystery" and Scriptural Text in the Post-Modern Age
By Lynn C. Bauman
In this post-modern era, what is the relevance of "mystery" to meaning? This article provides an overview of modern and traditional approaches to hermeneutics and stresses the importance of maintaining a "human dialogue with mystery". Read more ...
Art and Isthmus: Esoteric Tradition and Aesthetic Education
By Paul Davies
This is an essay on what is for many a problem: to be at one and the same time an artist, living in a modern world, and engaged in a spiritual path. Modernity means these three realms can come to seem impenetrably fenced off, such that the modern might divide himself from the spiritual; and the esotericist might likewise dismiss the artist as minister (or victim) of chaos and illusion. Here as elsewhere Davies proposes a solution which lies at the kernel of artistic creativity and spiritual development alike. Read more ...
A Traditional Critique of Humanist Art
by José Segura
This essay examines the different outlooks of tradition and modernity in relation to art, and the false premises underlying humanist art from the perspective of the Perennial Philosophy. The author argues for the relevance of metaphysics in relation to art. Read more ...
Conceptions of the Absolute in Mahayana Buddhism and the Pure Land Way
by John Paraskevopoulos
Focussing chiefly on the Mahayana tradition, this paper addresses the question of whether one can meaningfully speak of an Absolute in Buddhism, in what such a reality consists and what its implications are for understanding the highest goal of the Buddhist path. The paper also addresses some of the implications of this discussion for understanding the Pure Land Way - a spiritual path pre-eminently suited to the exigencies of the Decadent Age of the Dharma in which we currently find ourselves. Read more ...
Notes on Contributors
