APPARENT AND HIDDEN MEANING -Insights into Christian Esoterism “This collection contains valuable traditional interpretations of many important figures and organizations of medieval Christianity and should be of great interest not only to those interested in traditional studies, but also to medievalists and students of the inner dimension of Christianity.” —S. H. Nasr *** This volume collects under a single cover a number of seminal essays dealing with the subject and also with certain concrete manifestations of Christian esoterism in the medieval period. Without pretending to be thorough on so inexhaustible a subject, this important work of Guenon casts an unexpected light onto a specifically esoteric and initiatic aspect of Dante’s work, and above all of his Divine Comedy. Dante was without doubt far more than a literary genius, and one is justified in thinking that many treasures remain to be discovered in what Guenon calls ‘the spiritual testament of the Middle Ages.’ The author undertakes to establish that the three divisions of The Divine Comedy represent stages of initiatic realization and testify to Dante’s knowledge of traditional sciences unknown to the moderns: the science of numbers, of cosmic cycles, and of sacred astrology. He also touches on the all-important question of medieval esoterism, and corrects the errors of earlier scholars who had only glimpsed the deeper meaning of Dante’s work— providing an entirely new explanation of numerous points not previously elucidated.
