Friday, December 3, 2021

Gee, I think Guénon underestimates "modern" languages

I've been reading some René Guénon essays, including one on the meaning of the Masonic letter G. He begins by dismissing the idea that the Roman letterform itself could have any special meaning, since unlike Hebrew and Greek, "modern languages" (like Latin!) are devoid of sacred significance.

He then proceeds to analyze G only as a stand-in for other letters from other languages -- "sacred" ones, unlike Latin, English, and his own native French. For example, a newly initiated Mason is at first told that G stands for geometry. Geometry is from the Greek γεωμετρία, and so the G represents Γ -- the Masonic square!

Well, why didn't those learned Masons, who apparently knew enough Greek to know that G = Γ = a square, just use a gamma in their symbol? And why would that symbol consist of a square, a compass, and in the center -- another representation of the square? You'd think someone whose own name begins with la lettre maçonnique would have tried a little harder than that.

Well, let's take a look at the Masonic G -- not mentally substituting some other letter, but seeing it as itself. 


Isn't it obvious? Of what does the letter G consist but a right angle (such as is made with a square) combined with an arc (such as one uses a compass to draw)? It's not just a redundant second square in a symbol which already explicitly includes a square; it symbolizes the unity of the square and the compass, with all that implies (squaring the circle, heaven and earth, etc.) Furthermore, the angles of the square and compass suggest a square (the polygon) and an equilateral triangle, respectively. The combination of the two is 4 + 3 = 7, and G (unlike gamma) is the 7th letter of the alphabet.

Guénon also connects G with the Hebrew letter yodh -- and this is where he really should have started to question his assumption that certain "sacred languages" were divinely inspired whereas all the rest, I s'pect they jes' growed. G corresponds to yodh because it is the initial letter of God, just as yodh is the initial letter of the Tetragrammaton -- and, he notes, the word God itself strongly suggests yodh.

But if God resembles Yodh -- God's initial -- is that just a meaningless coincidence, or is it evidence that "modern" languages do have sacred significance? Éliphas Lévi made much of the fact that the Bacchic exclamation Io! Evoe! resembles a spelled-out Tetragrammaton, Yodh He-vau-he -- which I guess is kosher because Greek is a certified "sacred language." When similar parallels are found in "modern" languages (among which Latin is for some reason included), they are dismissed. The similarity of Jove to Jehovah is just a coincidence, as is that of God to Yodh.

Besides its resemblance to Yodh, God also represents the Tetragrammaton itself by way of gematria. In Hebrew numerals, yodh he vau he = 10 + 5 + 6 + 5 = 26. In English ordinal gematria, God = 7 + 15 + 4 = 26. This should make 26 the most sacred of numbers -- and guess which language's alphabet is based on that number? It ain't Hebrew or Greek.

Guénon should have known all this. I mean, in interpreting a symbol consisting of a square, a compass, and a letter representing geometry, how could he possibly have overlooked the importance of the language of the Angles?

5 comments:

Bruce Charlton said...

The attitude described reminds me of Heidegger's assertion that 'authenticity' (or something) was only possible in Ancient Greek, and (modern) German.

I would now regard this (following Steiner and Barfield) as an aspect of the (deep, existential) nationalism that followed (and, to some extent, compensated for) the early collapse of Christianity into secularism - removal of Christian-driven reasoning from pubic discourse.

Also, it is part of the related change away from the partially spiritualized and participative view of the middle ages into the modern condition of being cut-off (in our own subjectivity) from a lifeless/ mechanical universe.

Heidegger (and many others) responded by trying to get back to the old sense of (mostly-unconscious and spontaneous) participation in reality - by means of some meaning-and-purpose generating intermediary; such as language. Others proposed a (partly) spiritualized politics - such as German National Socialism - and Heidegger was a significant philosopher (and university leader) of the Nazis (and sought an even more central role as the official philosopher).

In other words, this modern focus on making spiritualized symbols, of enriching and deepening what is otherwise mundane - and thereby going against the mundane, functional, dead understanding of e.g. letters - strikes me as a part of that same movement of thought in which Heidegger participated (at both a high level of abstraction, and a practical level of administration).

Like Steiner/ Barfield, I believe the strategy cannot ever work well enough to satisfy, nor to achieve more than a very partial degree of success - and then only at the cost of being cut off from mainstream... Because Man's mind is qualitatively different now than 500 years ago' and because that is not what God wants of us.

Jb said...

"'modern languages' (like Latin!)"

Now I've seen everything.

Kristor said...

The Chapel of Kings College at Cambridge is an architectural riff on the number 26.

Ben Pratt said...

The ending tickled my funny bone.

Poul Anderson, call your office.

Wm Jas Tychonievich said...

"Poul Anderson, call your office."

I was trying to think of a properly "uncleftish" substitute for the Latinate word office, but every Germanic language seems to use Latin/French borrowings for this concept. I guess I would go with writeroom, after Icelandic skrifstofa (itself tainted by Latin scribo).

Skeletor, hieroglyphic-bearing arthropods, and the Judgement

Some unmanned untethered free association here. It's a constitutional right, after all. My last post, " Eclipse skull and crossbone...