The present volume consists of articles collected and published posthumously, to which has been added Guenon’s separate study Saint Bernard. When first published as an article, ‘Christianity and Initiation’ (second chapter here), gave rise to some controversy because Guenon here reaffirmed against certain other traditionalist writers and various Christian intellectuals his denial of the efficacy of the Christian sacraments as rites of initiation, a point he had made in other books. Some closely related articles can be found in the companion volume The Esoterism of Dante. Apart from this and his monograph on St Bernard, Guénon devoted no single work to Christianity. His reserve in this respect is closely related to the role he assigns, in East and West and The Crisis of the Modern World, to the Western elite. It was incumbent on the spiritual elite of the Christian West, Guénon believed, to show that the intellectual and spiritual degeneracy of the West was not total and irremediable. It was only natural therefore that Guénon restricted himself to providing certain ‘keys’ and pointers for further research, as far as the Christian tradition is concerned.

"The very significant writings of René Guénon on Christian esoterism and initiation have evoked a great deal of discussion over the years in Christian circles as well as among traditionalists. This volume collects under a single cover a number of seminal essays dealing with the subject and also with certain concrete manifestations of Christian esoterism in the medieval period. It is therefore bound to arouse the interest of all who have followed the subject over the past few decades and are interested in seeing Guénon’s views on the subject in their original form, here made available for the first time in the English language. This collection also contains valuable traditional interpretations of many important figures and organizations of medieval Christianity and should be of great interest not only to those interested in traditional studies, but also to medievalists and students of the inner dimension of Christianity."

Seyyed Hossein Nasr, author of Knowledge and the Sacred

Table of Contents

Structure and Characteristics of the Christian Tradition
1 Concerning Sacred Languages
2 Christianity and Initiation
Some Christian Initiatic Organizations
3 The Guardians of the Holy Land
4 The Secret Language of Dante and the ‘Fedeli d’ Amore’ I
5 The Secret Language of Dante and the ‘Fedeli d’ Amore’ II
6 New Insights into the Secret Language of Dante
7 ‘Fedeli d’Amore’ and ‘Courts of Love’
8 The Holy Grail
9 The Sacred Heart and The Legend of the Holy Grail
10 Saint Bernard

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