Light on the Ancient Worlds: A New Translation with Selected Letters

Better than any other, this book makes the case that mankind is not evolving into anything higher, but is rather consistently degenerating into something lower. Progress is an illusion. Through a series of falls Western civilization has succeeded in moving farther and farther from the Absolute. Seeing that humankind's one great purpose is to Know the Absolute, then one must conclude that we are growing less and less human in any meaningful sense. Yes, there is Promethean progress in science and material matters, but this is merely an inadequate compensation for the much greater loss. The majority sees scientific knowledge and material wealth and power as the totality of human purpose. This results in degenerate creatures with not only the ability to destroy the planet, but with the total separation from their Creator that makes them so totally unbalanced as to actually do so.

In addition, the essay showing that there was no fundamental irreconcilable gulf between Hellenism and Christianity was enlightening. Moreover, the Hellenist is shown to have been essentially monotheistic and not pantheistic in its views. At least the sages understood this to be so. Philosophers like the Platonists emphasized the faculty to directly Know the absolute through intuitive Intellect. The Christian insisted upon the supernatural phenomenon of Grace. The former possessed the ability and will to swim towards God, while the latter waited for a pole to be extended for him…

This book also has an excellent section on shamanism as practiced by the Native Americans. It is shown to be the primordial tradition from Siberia, to Tibet, to China and Japan. It is the pure root and as such in conformity with the Religio Perennis.

Also, the essay on Maya explains the nature of the universal illusion that obscures the true nature of this world.

The essay on naivety is a well-needed slap in the face. He who seeks to gain all things by his own cleverness ends by losing all in blindness and ineffectuality.

Then again the essay on the universality of monasticism provides hope. While modern civilization considers the hermit no better than a savage, he is in realty the earthly witness of Heaven. The monk or hermit lives as if he is already in the antechamber of heaven. Monasticism aims to restore to man his primordial solitude before the throne of God. Indeed, a perfect society would be a society of hermits.

The human race is moving away from the divine Center and not towards it during this fallen age. Yet, there are still sages being raised among us with the Intuitive faculty- by the Grace of God.