The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times

While Guenon is limited in certain ways, and has a few idiosyncratic interpretations of things, he is nonetheless a fantastic source for comparative religion and mythology. This book is his major attack on materialism and the lesser ‘spiritism' of the parapsychological world, which he identifies as a purely psychic, inferior (“infernal”) source of energy, removed as most as can be possible from the true source of spirit, the divine.

He maintains that the materialist scientism inaugurated by Descartes, culminating in the “Reign of Quantity” which can be rather readily described in the world around us today, has already largely run its course, yet a “return to tradition” will not happen. Instead, the development of a false, “counter-tradition” will take place that will set the stage for the final drama of the age, and then in a turn of events that is not comprehensible to us profane, who are trapped within the understanding of things available to us in this age (the Kali Yuga), there will be a final “rectification” and the entire cycle of ages will begin again, complete with its own golden age to start out with.

In some parts Guenon is even accelerationist, describing how this “quantizing” process of modernity will speed up and this will speed up the reckoning of time itself, the tempo of everything will accelerate until a point at which the cycle shifts, and the “quality” of time, seen in the cyclical dance and shifting emotionality of seasons and lunar cycles, reasserts itself. The book is a bit dry and repetitive, but there's still plenty of interesting things in it. I personally think the little esoteric asides and notes are well worth the admission price of the sometimes dreary Traditionalist prose.