In Letter 021 of his newsletter “Letters from Tradition” (Cartas da Tradição), Victor Bruno criticizes Olavo de Carvalho’s text “The Claws of the Sphinx”.
“The Claws of the Sphinx” had argued that Guénon’s writings contain a hidden element that reveals his involvement in an Islamization project for the West. Carvalho questions whether reading Guénon’s works can lead people into a dangerous labyrinth of Islamization. To evaluate this claim, Olavo applies a methodology of textual and documentary analysis, focusing on Guénon’s own testimonies about himself. He also examines whether Guénon fits the criteria of a political agent according to Olavo’s political philosophy. Olavo argues that Guénon’s refusal to acknowledge the esoteric aspect of Christian initiation and his reaction to Frithjof Schuon’s views raise suspicions about his true intentions. However, when examining Guénon’s circumstances and connections, including his association with Shaykh Elīsh el-Kebīr, Olavo’s argument weakens. The lack of direct quotations from Guénon in Olavo’s text further undermines his hypothesis. Overall, Olavo’s claims about Guénon’s involvement in an Islamization project are not convincingly supported.
Bruno also examines the dispute between René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, as presented by Olavo de Carvalho. Olavo characterizes their conflict as a frustrated discussion between friends, but the author argues that this is an inaccurate portrayal. The dispute between Guénon and Schuon was public and took place in the pages of a journal. It began when it was discovered that Schuon had relaxed the observance of his ṭarīqah (Sufi order), leading to a disagreement with Guénon. Guénon published texts addressing the issue, and Schuon responded by discussing the validity of Christian initiations, mentioning Guénon by name. The author points out that if Schuon’s argument were correct, it would undermine a significant part of Guénon’s work. Furthermore, the author highlights how Guénon disregarded the importance of the Catholic Church in his writings. The author also notes that both Guénon and Olavo changed their opinions on the exoterization of Christianity. The text concludes by emphasizing the importance of intellectual debate and the need to engage with the work of great thinkers, as exemplified by Olavo de Carvalho.
Letter 021: Feline Problems: On “The Claws of the Sphinx” by Olavo de Carvalho
“The Claws of the Sphinx” was published in the first two and only issues of the magazine Verbum, aimed at the Catholic and conservative audience in Brazil in 2016. It is probably a crucial text on the reception of René Guénon’s work in our country. And it is probably a very bad text for those who want to understand the thoughts of the Frenchman.
In the text, Olavo de Carvalho demonstrates how Guénon’s work has a “hidden” element, a trapdoor beneath the perceptible layer displayed in his publications. This element is actually quite simple: Guénon’s work represents the general outlines of the project of Islamizing the West.
Because of this, because of what is said in “The Claws of the Sphinx,” part of the Brazilian public believes that Guénon is the most dangerous of authors. And the worst part is that he himself hints at this mystifying and deceptive facet of his work: after all, the sphinx in the title of Olavo’s article is Guénon himself, who often signed many texts in the early years of his career using that name.
However, the question is as follows: Many people have read and still read “The Claws of the Sphinx,” but few have studied it. Was Olavo right in saying that Guénon is part of an Islamization project? Is it possible that, thanks to his power of enchantment, anyone who reads Guénon is entering a dangerous labyrinth, from which they may only emerge shouting "Allahu Akbar!"?
To address this question, I will use a very simple methodology that I consider very effective: I will briefly analyze the arguments presented by Olavo de Carvalho using a criterion of textual and documentary analysis that emphasizes intuition about our object of study (the person of René Guénon) based on Guénon’s own testimonies about himself, in a procedure called the “principle of the qualified witness.”
This principle is from Olavo de Carvalho himself, as given in the text “The problem of method in the human sciences,” a booklet from the Online Philosophy Course (COF).
Alongside this interpretive method—which will assess any desire or inclination towards Islamization in Guénon’s works—I intend to use another evaluative criterion: whether Guénon fits as a political agent according to the criteria of good political philosophy. These criteria are those highlighted by Olavo in his reply in the debate with Aleksandr Dugin.
How Many Claws Does the Sphinx Have?
In “The Claws of the Sphinx,” Olavo states that there are two projects for the universalization of religion. Both are to some extent “syncretic.” One is conducted by the United Nations Organization (UN) under the auspices of the United Religions Initiative (URI). This project, of which we only see a part in public, is that of biogenic ecumenism, a religion without dogmas, in which everything converges into a single manifestation of peace and harmony. Roughly speaking, the URI will be realized when everyone can say they are “spiritual without being religious.”
The second type of ecumenical universalism is an intellectualized type specific to traditionalism and/or perennialism (I will refrain from making a distinction between the two in this text). Olavo states:
In contrast to the syncretic mishmash of the “New Age,” here we have universalism in the strong sense of the word, a comprehensive and organizing vision that not only perceives with extreme acuity the common points between various spiritual worldviews but also provides the reason and foundation for their diversity [...]. From the perspective of the common seeker who, coming from revolutionary, modernist, and atheistic backgrounds, is alerted to the importance of “spiritual” themes and, after a temporary illusion with the “New Age,” becomes disillusioned with its superficiality and seeks more nourishing sustenance, the transition to the traditionalism of Guénon and Schuon is a formidable intellectual upgrade, a deculturating impact, almost an inner transfiguration that will suddenly isolate him from the surrounding mental environment, marked both by the discrediting of religions and the endless vulgarity of omnipresent occultism, and leave him alone, face to face with his own consciousness.
It is precisely this impact and the potential adherence to the intellectual fascination of perennialism that is part of the deadly web drawn by Guénon.
However, this project itself is part of the “revolutionary mentality” that Olavo has spent years denouncing. Because perennialism only takes effect once the West is discredited and its cultural foundation, the Catholic Church, is undermined as an institution in need of renewal. Conveniently, the Church is indeed discredited in Guénon’s thinking as a merely aggregating institution; an exterior ornament, a source of communal bonding without significant intellectual and spiritual meaning.
In this sense, Guénon, in Olavo’s eyes, is an enemy of the West and shares the same goals as the agents of global empires.
Let’s see exactly what Olavo says.
First. Olavo states that Guénon identifies the exoteric and esoteric aspects in the religions of the world. This distinction is most evident in Islam, where there is sharī’ah (the law) and tariqa (the path). In the West, this distinction occurs within Catholicism, which corresponds to the law, exotericism (external teachings), and initiatory societies such as Freemasonry and Companionship.
Second. An opposition arises when Frithjof Schuon directly confronts Guénon, stating that the sacraments of the Catholic Church have an initiatory value, making it a legitimate esoteric organization.
Third. Guénon opposes Schuon’s thesis with unjustified scandal. “[W]hen Schuon’s opinion was published, Guénon reacted with indignation and fury, even breaking off relations with his disciple and continuator.” As part of his indignant response, he proposed the thesis that Catholicism began as an esoteric religion and later deviated, with the transition towards vulgar exotericism completed around the time of the Council of Nicaea (AD 325).
Olavo repeatedly emphasizes that this “stubbornness” in Guénon’s refusal to accept the esoteric aspect of Christian initiation, combined with his disproportionate reaction to Schuon’s text, reveals something dubious. It is important to highlight how strange the proposal of the progressive exoterization of the Church appears to Olavo: “Unable to speak clearly, he resorted to an absurd hypothesis and tried to silence his interlocutor through a display of authority, which Schuon politely rejected.”
And he concludes with this reflection:
What reason would Guénon have had to forcefully fit all traditions into a pair of concepts that did not properly apply to any of them except Islam in particular? Why did this man, so meticulous in all other matters, allow himself such arbitrariness, thereby putting himself in a vulnerable position that was immediately endangered as soon as Schuon raised the issue of sacramental initiations? He almost certainly had reasons that, at least at that moment, could not be openly discussed.
A Close Look at Guénon
According to Olavo de Carvalho’s political philosophy, a political agent, “in addition to trying to produce certain actions through his discourse,” is also “invested with global plans and means of action on an imperial scale.” Of course, at this specific point, Olavo was comparing himself to Aleksandr Dugin, with Olavo working from his estate in Virginia, surviving on his own books and courses, while Dugin was, at the time, a prosperous university professor with connections in the Kremlin.
Guénon’s circumstances are not much different, speaking from his townhouse at 4 Nawwal Street, Dokki, Giza, surviving on his contributions to the magazine Études traditionnelles and royalties from his books. Already, we can dismantle part of the argumentative scaffold that Guénon could be considered a political agent.
Another thing that would be necessary for Guénon would be to be a part of or lead an organization capable of being a historical agent. According to Olavo, historical agents are the major universal religions, initiatory and esoteric organizations, dynasties, revolutionary movements, and spiritual agents.
It is clear that Guénon, being a Sufi and a Muslim, meets two of these conditions. But Olavo and I also meet them, being Catholics. Therefore, adherence to a historical agent is not sufficient to qualify someone as a political agent. It would be necessary to investigate their connections and their function within the functioning of that historical agent.
For this, Olavo offers us the association with Shaykh Elīsh el-Kebīr (1845–1922). Olavo argues that Guénon received instructions from Islamic authorities from a distance, telling him what to do. El-Kebīr would be the main authority among them. In fact, to seal his loyalty to the Islamic project, Guénon is said to have married his daughter.
Here we encounter a methodological problem, where we catch Olavo in apparent contradiction with himself:
If we are studying, for example, the life of a famous person, only the most external data of their biography can be confirmed by public testimony. For more intimate information, we will have to rely on friends or relatives of the person being studied. And about their inner thoughts, we will have no other witness but themselves.
The thing is, we can confirm an external fact, based on public testimony: whom Guénon married. His wife (in this case, his second wife; his first wife had died in January 1928) was named Fatma Hanem, the daughter of Muhammad Ibrahim, a wealthy merchant. It is known that they first met at the Al-Hussein Mosque in the El-Gamaleya district.
If there is any “strange” connection between a long-term project and Guénon, it is that in Cairo, Guénon was integrated into the Shādhiliyya ṭarīqah, the same one that Elīsh El-Kebīr belonged to. However, it would be impossible for El-Kebīr to be directing his actions, except from beyond the grave, as he died in 1922. It is also not possible to say that Guénon went to Cairo under the orders of Islamic authorities because it is also publicly known—an external fact of his biography—how he ended up there: in late 1929, Guénon met Mary Shillito, a wealthy widow who fell in love with the writer. After a stay in Alsace and the Château des Avenières, Shillito decided to start a publishing house to reissue Guénon’s works that were out of print. The endeavor would also translate Arabic material for the French audience. But once they arrived in Cairo, Guénon and Shillito argued, and she abandoned him in Egypt. When André Préau, a friend of Guénon’s, arrived in Cairo, suspecting that the great critic of the modern world was living poorly, he found him undernourished, with less than 100 francs to survive, in a slum whose rent he could barely pay. Guénon even entertained the possibility of returning to France three times: once in September 1930, again on October 15, and once more at the end of winter 1931. In a letter to Patrice Genty, he already shows resignation. Perhaps even satisfaction. “Decidedly, I won’t be able to leave here before winter, unless something unexpected happens; I regret it because I will be prevented from seeing my friends for a long time, but seen in another way, it’s better like this.” (Letter to Patrice Genty, Oct 18, 1930)
So much for “financing means of action.”
Olavo also points out that it is not accurate to say that Guénon converted to Islam in 1930 since he had been a regular member of a ṭarīqah since his twenties, which is enough to show that he had been long prepared for the incredibly difficult mission he would undertake. There is a historical error here: Guénon’s “first” initiation into Islam was in 1912 (when he was twenty-five or twenty-six), by Ivan Aguéli, a muḳaddam (representative) of Elīsh El-Kebīr.
Since I mentioned Aguéli’s name, I have a remark. Aguéli fits much more within Olavo’s parameters of a political agent than Guénon. He was the first European to have a legitimate branch of a ṭarīqah—the Shādhiliyya—founded in the West. He was friends with and patronized by kings and royal families, in addition to having a network of connections that stretched from Barcelona to Turkey, and he coined the term “Islamophobia.” If someone needs to be investigated as an Islamizer, it would make more sense for the target to be him.
So far, I have only mentioned biographical facts, “contingent” ones that Olavo disregards when not simply mistaken. Ideally, we would now cite Guénon’s positions in order to fulfill the condition of intuitive understanding of the agent himself, Guénon, following the processes of the qualified witness, as Olavo recommends in “The Problem of Method in Human Sciences.”
But we cannot do that. Why? Because Olavo does not quote Guénon directly in any part of the text. Not even through paraphrases. In the twenty-nine footnotes of the text, we only find two references to Guénon, but they are merely publication information for Oriente & Ocidente and Symbols of Sacred Science.
Based on what I have shown so far, it is very difficult to believe in good faith the hypothesis that Guénon could have associations similar to the Organization (The Syndicate) to which Olavo refers (and exemplifies) in the debate with Aleksandr Dugin. The thesis fails within Olavo’s own methodology.
Guénon versus Schuon
Although it is not possible to confirm the uses Olavo de Carvalho made of Guénon’s thought because he simply did not make any, it is possible to evaluate how he presents the dispute between Schuon and Guénon.
As seen before, Olavo portrays the conflict between the two as a frustrated discussion between friends due to Guénon’s anger because Schuon unintentionally stumbled upon the former’s secret plans.
It is inexplicable that Olavo can write this seriously because the duel between the two is public, taking place in the pages of Études traditionnelles. It had been developing since the end of World War II when it was discovered that Schuon had relaxed the orthodox observance of his tariqa in Lausanne. The members no longer observed fasting during Ramadan nor performed ablutions before rituals. Gradually, Schuon no longer insisted on the need for conversion to Islam as a prerequisite for joining his organization.
Guénon tried to remedy the situation with some texts: “Nécessité de l’exotérisme traditionnel” and “A propos du rattachement initiatique.” When it became clear that Schuon was playing the role of an absolute spiritual leader, he published another text: “Vraies et faux instructeurs spirituels.”
It is in this atmosphere of dispute that Schuon publishes “Mystères christiques,” discussing the validity of Christian initiations. And he mentions Guénon by name:
Therefore, it is legitimate not to include the Church among the “initiatic organizations” proper that can subsist in the West, such as companionship and Freemasonry, which clearly have no religious characteristics. Their decline is not due to wrong applications or adaptations. As for the Christian rituals, it would not be illegitimate to classify them as esoteric, because they are and have been for a long time; but this exoteric application presupposes that the rituals lend themselves to it by their own nature, but we know that Christianity is essentially a “path of Grace.” René Guénon showed this exceptional characteristic of Christianity – without explaining it – by saying that the “sacraments” have no exact equivalent elsewhere. (Frithjof Schuon, “Mystères christiques,” in Patrick Laude and Jean-Baptiste Aymard, eds., Les Dossiers H. Frithjof Schuon, Lausanne, L’Age d’Homme, 2002, p. 433, note 2)
If this argument in the article were correct, a significant part of Guénon’s work would be undermined. First, in a general aspect, Guénon’s need to find in Christianity organizations equivalent to the turuq in the West would become unnecessary since the religious institution of this global religion would be inherently esoteric, as is the case in the Hindu world. Second, Guénon’s efforts to reconcile Freemasonry with Christianity would be entirely unnecessary. This would also imply the overthrow of another work: that of a Guénonian observance Masonic lodge. Under the guidance of three of Guénon’s students (Marcel Clavelle/Jean Reyor, Roger Maridort, and Denys Roman), the lodge, founded in 1947 and named La Grande Triade in honor of a book by the master published the previous year, aimed to revive the traditional spirit in Freemasonry. To do so, the three initiates sought to affiliate the lodge with the Grand Orient of France (Grande Loge de France) and adopted the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite.
Guénon, therefore, had more than enough reason to protect himself from Schuon’s attacks. I also imagine that he did not want to be held responsible for having circulated Schuon, who was now playing a syncretic role completely contrary to his religious views. Thus, long before being a “display of authority,” Guénon’s reaction is that of an intellectual facing an opponent. And an opponent truly inclined to power. After Guénon severed ties with him, Schuon, “the spiritual master of the entire West,” made it known that Western organizations with which he could have a relationship, notably La Grande Triade, should submit to “his” authority. (Jean Reyor [?], “Affaire Schuon. La ‘Religio perrenis’ [sic] et ses dérives,” n.d., p. 64)
The Exoterization of Christianity
One last topic to be analyzed is the seemingly absurd hypothesis that Guénon proposes in response to Schuon’s text, that Christianity became exoterized.
Olavo is categorical about the impossibility of this being true. After all, Christianity was born public; Jesus preached to the masses, and even his parables were told to everyone, even if their meaning was not understood by the majority of listeners. “[T]here are no traces of any Christian esoteric organization in the first ten centuries of the Church. Second, Our Lord Jesus Christ himself explicitly affirmed: 'I have taught nothing in secret.’”
It is true that Guénon, in his response text, advances this thesis. He says:
It would probably be impossible to give a precise date for the change that made Christianity a religion in the proper sense of the word, a traditional form that addresses everyone indiscriminately. [… M]ore properly esoteric truths, which are by their nature beyond the reach of the majority, can only be presented as ‘mysteries’ in the most common sense of that word. (René Guénon, “Christianisme et Initiation,” in Aperçus sur l’ésoterisme chrétien, Paris, Études Traditionnelles, 1954, pp. 14, 15)
However, this thesis is not new in Guénon’s thought or in world intellectualism.
Initially, Guénon did think that the Church could be revitalized. “Why not content ourselves, without seeking anything further, with giving Catholicism the preeminence it had [in the Middle Ages], and reconstruct in an appropriate manner the old ‘Christendom’?” he asked (Orient & Occident, 1924). This appropriate form is the division between esotericism and exotericism. In fact, Olavo is correct on this point.
But Guénon actually disregards the Church, depriving it of any importance.
What I said in Oriente & Ocidente about the possible role of the Catholic Church (as a representative of a Western traditional form, serving as the basis for certain achievements, such as those that occurred in the Middle Ages), I must say that I never had any illusions about what could actually happen in current circumstances; but I said what I said only so that no one would say that I neglected any possibilities, even if only theoretical, or that I did not take them into account. (Letter to Roger Maridort, April 29, 1930)
And also this:
I am increasingly convinced that the forms of Christianity, as they are currently constituted, are incapable of providing effective support for the restoration of the traditional spirit. Previously, I contemplated this support primarily so that I would not be reproached for neglecting any possibilities.
This second letter was sent to Frithjof Schuon in December 1931.
Now, it was not only Guénon who changed his opinion. Olavo himself also changed. Because the “absurdity” of the hypothesis that Christianity had become exoterized is one of the theoretical postulates of his most comprehensive books: O Jardim das Aflições (1995).
René Guénon, who must always be heard on these matters, explains the phenomenon by saying that Christianity originally did not have the spirit of a religious law, in the Jewish or Islamic sense of a rule for the ordering of the world, but that of an esotericism, of a purely interior path: ‘My kingdom is not of this world’. The exoterization of Christianity, its transformation into a religious law for society as a whole, would have been caused by external circumstances: the decline of the Roman religion and Judaism left the Greco-Roman world practically without any religious law—and Christianity, even reluctantly, even at the cost of partially betraying its inward calling, had to providentially fill a gap that threatened to widen into an abyss and engulf civilization. (Olavo de Carvalho, O Jardim das Aflições: Ensaio sobre o Materialismo e a Religião Civil, 3rd ed., Campinas, VIDE Editorial, 2015, pp. 253–254, emphasis added)
From this, Olavo deduces the origin of the conjunction of spiritual authority with temporal power in the Church over the centuries. With the fall of Rome, the Church becomes orphaned of its armed branch and begins to meddle in worldly, secular, and political affairs. This example will be followed by the powers that will try to create their own spiritual branches while attempting to destroy Catholicism by creating the historical-political version of the conflict between Leviathan and Behemoth.
If Olavo has abandoned this thesis, O Jardim das Aflições loses its theoretical foundation.
And, as I mentioned, the exoterization of Christianity is not a new idea in Guénon’s thought. Ernest Renan, in Histoire des origines du Christianisme (8 vols., 1863–1881), had claimed that Christianity consists of an external social communion. Nietzsche had said that Pauline teaching killed the extremely difficult religion that Jesus had created. Both authors were known to Guénon and had significant circulation in France (Renan was a best-selling author in the strict sense of the word).
In conclusion…
This text turned out to be longer than I expected. I did not write it to ridicule Olavo but to apply an analytical methodology that he himself used and that I learned to clarify his work of a fundamental error.
This is the duty of an intellectual and this is how one deals with the thought of a great thinker. There are many who claim to admire and defend Olavo de Carvalho’s work. If that were true, there would be more texts like the one you just read; if there were truly people interested in debating, expanding, reviewing, correcting, understanding, synthesizing, and interpreting his thought, this topic would perhaps be the subject of a congress with minutes and proceedings produced.
This is how an intellectual community is built. This is another lesson from Olavo. It is disturbing that the editor of VIDE writes that “spending hours ‘denouncing the problem’ as if your criticism were ‘opening people’s eyes’ is only — be honest — feeding resentment.” It is disturbing because (1) Olavo de Carvalho spent three decades denouncing the problem and opening Brazil’s eyes to the scarcity of Brazilian intelligence, and (2) it is an accusation that Dugin makes against him precisely for denouncing his errors. And if there is a VIDE today that needs an editor, it is because Olavo de Carvalho spent three decades denouncing the problem and opening the eyes of others.
I hope that all of this — the part about the errors of “Garras da esfinge” and the part about the need to debate the intellectual work of a great thinker — is useful.
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