In this slim but dense volume, Rene Schwaller discusses symbols, their scope and function, and human proclivity to make use of, invent and interpret symbols. He calls this ability ‘innate intelligence’, or ‘Reason’, or ‘intelligence-of-the-heart’, and this intelligence is of a different order from the ordinary cerebral intelligence that we value today.
The use of the word ‘esoterism’, rather than ‘esotericsim’ throughout the text appears to be a particular form of translation of the original French of the title, ‘Esoterisme et Symbole’ (1960), here by Andre and Goldian Vanden Broeck. Christopher Bamford, in his introduction to Schwaller’s ‘The Study of Numbers’, suggests that one of the reasons for the complexity of Schwaller’s writing is that he thought in German, yet wrote in French (he was from Alsace-Lorraine, on the French/German border), so perhaps there are ‘translation’ issues in his thinking, added to the fact of the complex, organic and dynamic nature of esoteric insights, and that is what makes his writing difficult to grasp. But it is worth making the effort – he is concerned with important issues such as the nature of being and becoming, the relationship between time and matter, self and cosmos. And all the while this provides a critique of contemporary exoteric knowledge with its dualism, and its mechanical, material, relative and transient nature.
There are very few notes and no bibliography for this text.
Di’s star rating ****
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