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A Definition of the Perennial Philosophy
Interview with Frithjof Schuon - on Primordiality
Who was Charles Eastman (Ohiyesa)?
Treasures of the World's Religions
The Writings of Frithjof Schuon
The Universal Spirit of Islam: Keys for Interfaith Understanding
Noble Faces, Strong Voices: Exploring "The Spirit of Indian Women"
Paul Goble's World: Native Americans' relationship to all created beings
Books on Hinduism
The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity
Slideshows
  Every Branch in Me — Who are we as "human" beings? Back to the List of Slideshows
    
slide 6 of 19

What is the result of convincing ourselves—or of our society convincing us—that the ‘branches within us’ that seek a Divine Light are mere delusion? And what brings this about? The Swedish writer, Tage Lindbom, in his essay “Lucifer" (1), equates the progressive fall of mankind with a tendency to no longer look outside itself, namely to the Divine, for reference points but instead to imagine itself as ‘divine’:


Draped in the shining garment of idealism and humanism, the West has accomplished a manipulation whereby the deepest meaning of the Fall of man is concealed. In the name of idealism and humanism, secularization is legitimized. More and more, Western man is living in a world in which he listens only to his own voice, which begins as the voice of rationalism; and listening to this voice, he is able to refer continuously to the “legitimation” that he believes the idealist and humanist pseudo-spirituality confers on him. In this world, secularization progresses because man can be represented as a higher being, carrying “the eternal” in his breast, conquering all creation, and at last proclaiming himself as universal sovereign. .



(1) Taken from page 74 of Every Branch in Me, this chapter is also found in Lindbom’s book The Myth of Democracy (1996).
Tage Lindbom
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