Sad that he starts out with the ad hominem fallacy, and then goes even more soy by saying Guenon and Schuon were 'not real scholars' and had 'bad politics' (in fact they had nothing to do with politics and discouraged people from getting involved in politics). He doesn't give any substantive reasoning whatsoever as to why Schuon and Guenon were in error. He then goes on to essentially paraphrase the perennial philosophy as what he 'endorses', while saying he rejects the perennial philosophy. I question if he's ever even read Schuon, Guenon, Lings, Cutsinger, Nasr.

Basically, while decrying the term, he describes his own view as approximating that of Huston Smith. Personally, I find both terms -- "perennialism" and "syncretism" -- when not taken as "systems," usable and congenial. The distinction between them has to do with intentionality; "perennialism" tends merely to "recognize" commonalities, while "syncretism" tends to be a conscious combining of similar religious perspectives within a larger framework. In fact, though, I think it's often in practice a distinction without a difference.

It is also disappointing that Hart fails to recall the roots of the perennial philosophy in authors like Marsilio Ficino or Pico della Mirandola (and arguably implicitly in Meister Eckhart or Nicholas of Cusa) though he invokes their term prisca theologia in books and essays as if they could not be subjected to similar critiques, or severer ones, than the "Traditional School." They did not see themselves as syncretists but were committed to retrieval of the esoteric wisdom they held was taught by the ancients and passed down by Pythagoras, Moses, Zoroaster, the Neoplatonists, and others to every major world tradition, positing a transmision thesis leaning on the Corpus Hermeticum. The Mosaic origin of pagan wisdom was also a truism in Jewish philosophical and Kabbalistic circles, found in such thinkers as Leone Ebreo and Yohanan Alemanno who exercised a formative influence on Renaissance and early modern perennialism in the Christian context.

Hart has, unfortunately, propagated a string of factual inaccuracies here. Guénon was antimodern but quietist in politics, sympathetic as he was to the largely irrelevant monarchist camp in France. He explicitly distances himself from any activism in politics, which is true of most of those who adhere to his perspective. Schuon moved to Indiana, not Ohio, not during the height of the Civil Rights movement but in the 1980s. He had been adopted by members of the Lakota Sioux and Crow tribes, whom he invited to share certain practices with openminded Sufi practitioners in the context of the Boomer generation's hippie/New Age enthusiasm for world religions, including Sun Dance chief and medicine man Thomas Yellowtail. The romanticization of indigenous spirituality that Schuon and Yellowtail taught is of a type typical among Native American authors and scholarly interpreters of a certain vintage. The two brief essays of Schuon reflecting on race and caste are not hidden away but have been available continuously in English since 1959 in the book Language of the Self; the Castes and Races standalone edition is out of print but extant (with text identical to what is printed in the Language of the Self). The essays are best characterized as impressionistic appreciations of ethnic difference that sometimes seem awkward or cliché by contemporary standards but were anything but racist for a book written by a European in the 1950s. As to "bad scholarship," Hart fails to read all of these figures against the relevant contexts of Orientalist condescension and occultist legerdemain (e.g. that of Blavatskian theosophy, etc.) into which their work was an intervention. They got plenty of details wrong but were more rigorous than other popular spiritual writers affirming the universality of wisdom traditions and less prone to gloss over differences than authors Hart prefers and thus declines to criticize like Aldous Huxley or Swami Vivekananda, whose Ramakrishna Vivekananda Society set an influential standard for the intellectually unserious perennialism of Advaita, Neo-Vedanta, and spirituality circles worldwide.

Hart accuses perennialists of poor scholarship, and then goes on to make a host of basic errors in under five minutes. - Schuon didn't live in Ohio - Schuon moved to the US in the 80s - Meaning of Races has been translated into English - It is not racist - Guenon never supported fascism, but had plenty of criticisms of nationalism (i.e. the doctrinal heart of fascism)

One does not need to be specifically a Guénonist-Schuonist to be a perennialist any more than one needs to be a Marxist-Leninist to be a socialist. The latter concepts are prior to the former.

Mr. Hart didn't mention Perennialist scholars - Eknath Easwaran, Karen Armstrong, Huston Smith & Joseph Campbell.

The Orthodox scholar James Cutsinger was convinced that Martin Lings was a saintly figure. I thought I would set that as a counterpoint to what D B Hart said, although he's doubtless right about Schuon and Guenon. I have no dog in the fight as I am not a Perennialist.

Sorry to say, but he accuses Perennialist authors of being bad scholars, and says that Schuon book on races has not been translated and published, suposedly in English. I have this book, not only in English, but in French, in Portuguese, Spanish, and Italian. It is a clarifying book, not racist at all. David Hart did not do his homework, he is speaking of things he does not know, or knows insuficiently. It is a shame.

What content can we give to _religio_ as a virtue as opposed to a closed system of beliefs? What are the virtues associated with _religio_ or what is the virtue of _religio_ ? Clearly, the different religions have similar yet different virtues.

Christ is the Way, the Truth and the Life. All truth found in any number of religious traditions or philosophies will ultimately lead back to Him. All truth is God’s truth.

DBH has some interesting things to say about religion, unfortunately it seems his political views tend trump his religious views. He frequently resorts to ad hominems and other low-tier pseudo-intellectual tricks. He relies on sophistry to hide the fact that he's written people off simply because they aren't socialists. I guess he missed Jesus's frequent critiques of ideological prisons and dogmatism.

Its not exactly a tribute to Harts fairmindedness to hear him reject all insights of the perennialists because he doesn't like their politics. None of these people even actively participated in politics. Does Hart reject Islam in toto because of its politics, so similar to that of Guenon and Schuon?

I'd love to listen to the full interview, do you know where it's available?

Well I personally like the traditionalist school of perennialism and perennial philosophers like Ananda Kumaraswami, his ideas aren't really racist at all. He tried to say that Buddhism and Hinduism in Sri Lanka comes from the same core and share simillar concepts. Today his ideas are mostly forgotten in Sri Lanka and these differences in 'religion' creates a massive divide almost akin to racism. What could have been 2 philoosphical systems with the same core thar can actually even be practiced together has become 2 monolithic religions. It just depends on the context what people are really talking about and I think perennialism is a great school of thought. Syncratism really destroys the two ideas sometimes while perennialism preserves differences and teaches common origins and thought. So I do really disagree on what this video says and sounds it really eurocentric to me.

OK, he's a syncretist... now I understand his hate.

"Guenon was a fascist" Bro what?

Interesting take. How does the seeming a la carte selection btw religions and even within the varied streams within a particular religion relate to one's embeddedness or initiation to these religions? Does that make sense? I'm sure David would have a good answer to this. But, I guess, I'm wondering how is this not just individualism vs the dogmatic closed systems of a closed traditionalism or confessionalism.

Schuon moved to Indiana (not Ohio) in the early 80s. He did *not*, as DBH claims, "[live] in [the US] during the heights of the civil rights movement and never once [speak] in its favour" - while David Bentley Hart himself is now living through the period of the Israeli genocide of Gazan Palestinians and has barely said a word against it in over eight months. (There are other factual errors besides in this unseemly tirade, as others in the comments have pointed out.)

Since Hart discusses a lot of perennialist themes in his books, such as apokatastasis, is he having a case of Harold Bloom's anxiety of influence?

If I had half the IQ of David Bentley Hart. Then I would have an IQ of 200

How many languages did these perennials each know ? These poor scholars! No hesitation pointing fingers on ethical things are you a saint? Wants i. Your closet

David Bently Hart -Hartily Dislikes Perennialism

Guenon was a fascist? Hard to take anything Hart said after that seriously. By his own confession, Guenon was quite apolitical.

He's right about Perennialism. That aside, though, Hart stopped being truly, intentionally Orthodox a long time ago. Syncretism completely and utterly undermines the uniqueness of the salvific realty of the life, death, and resurrection of Christ.

I agree with Hart on this one. Perennialism needs to force every tradition under one contained truth, while disregarding all the special aspects they contain as cultural artifacts. It has a certain authoritarian element, annihilating everything that makes traditions unique to build one singular metanarrative over it. To be very inflammatory, it is similar to fascism. Every difference, be it race, sexual orientation, gender or religion has to be annihilated in favor of a single Identity, the nation, which makes individuals nothing more than cogs in a machine. It is the opposite of the christian way. The diversity of the world and its traditions reflect God in unique ways. Syncretism allows to be respectful towards other narratives and reaches the higher truth through the telling of your own story. Perennialism in the broader sense doesn't have those issues tho necessarily. If it manifests itself only in the way of being open towards the knowledge of other narratives, it isn't problematic, but i would argue this being closer to syncretism in reality

So basically he'd sign up for a one world religion under the AC is how this sounds.

Guenon was a fascist? He literally despised all the politics of this world, that is obvious if you read at least one of his books. What seems obvious: Bentley Hart has no interest in TRUTH, all he cares about is the agendas he puts in his pocket. Guenon could have made mistakes, but to take away all of his merit of recovering the sense of sacred intellectuality and symbolism is utter blindness. I had bought a book of Hart and I'm not going to read it because of this nonsense. If you want to speak badly of an author, do them justice, this is completely one-sided, Hart has admitted in his books that he is one-sided.

I’m going to try to explain my viewpoint on this, although I’m not sure under which category you would place it. In every nation, people are born, through no fault of their own, into the religious beliefs and traditions of that nation, being indoctrinated from a young age into their respective belief systems. I believe that those who follow the benevolent and loving aspects of those religions at least demonstrate to God, that they at least have the desire for God, and if not chosen in this age to know Jesus Christ, they will without hesitation believe in him when he reveals himself to them in the purification process of the lake of fire. They may very well be the first ones to get out.

Namo Buddhaya

@joachim847, it's unfortunate that your devotion to Donald Trump compromises your faith as well as your ability to enjoy Hart's well informed problem with an obvious monster.

DBH is so bold - he calls out what needs to be called out and proclaims what should be adopted

I find the politics of DBH to be distasteful. His long Trump Derangement Syndrome has besmirched several of his otherwise excellent books.

Hart makes several mistakes about schuon and guenon. first of all, syncretism is an error, rather what is relevant is synthesis. syncretism is what the new age does. secondly, regarding the charges against schuon, charges were dropped. moreover, i do not see the relevance of ad hominem arguments. it is true the cult of schuon, but not of guenon. etc.