Considering that both Evola and Guenon regarded
Blavatsky as a dangerous fraud, surely neither one
derived any of their beliefs from her. The idea of the
polar origins of Indo-European man was an idea that
was considered by many people in the 19th century -
most important was probably the Hindu nationalist Bal
Tilak, who wrote a number of books which cited textual
(astronomical) evidence in the Vedas which supports
the idea that they were composed by people living at
the pole rather than in the region of India. I know
that Tilak was cited by Evola, and I believe I've come
across his name in Guenon's writings as well. In the
case of Guenon, it is also worth mentioning that, as
he was a practicing Muslim, the idea of the poles is
very important in Sufi cosmology, and a polar origin
to mankind is posited in several classical Islamic
texts.
Race is definitely not as important to Guenon as it
was to Evola (particularly indicated by the fact that
Guenon chose to practice Islam, a Semitic religion,
something which it would be difficult to imagine Evola
advocating) - however, I wouldn't go so far as to say
that Guenon did not take race into account at all. For
example, in his essay on Guenon in the journal Sophia,
Martin Lings (Guenon's assistant in his final years)
mentioned, in the course of explaining Guenon's
interest in Hinduism as the living tradition which is
closest to the primordial tradition, the following:
"Another point which makes the terms of Hinduism so
right for giving Europeans the message [of Tradition]
is that they have as Aryans an affinity with
Hinduism..." So, clearly, race was not completely
unimportant in Guenon's view of things.
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com