How should you go about determining whether this group you've been looking into, the Orthodox-Catholic Church of America, has valid sacraments? Is it, you ask, primarily a matter of lineage? There are doubtless other factors to consider, but this is certainly a good...

No, I wouldn't change, and here's why: 1. Every sacred formula, Christian or Muslim or otherwise, can begin to seem hollow or empty of meaning in the spiritual work; times of dryness are to be expected. 2. The Name ALLAH is of course, as you say, a perfectly...

Tolkien was certainly a "traditionalist", if by that term we mean a defender of things primordial, and therefore timeless, and hence a critic of the modern world—its philosophy, art, and politics. This is implicit in The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings,...

Not having read his Hermeneutics of the Subject, I was unaware of the way in which Foucault uses the terms metanoia and epistroph?. I assume he must be piggy-backing on Pierre Hadot's excellent work (see my posts for 12 September and 15 September 2007). Foucault, you...

I have a few inchoate ideas, but rather than attempting any sort of peremptory answer I'm going to put your query to the other readers of Anamnēsis. Perhaps an interesting observation or two will emerge, and then we can all compare notes. To be sure, it's a...

Warmest wishes for the New Year to you as well. Yes, I'm finally back, and grateful for your patience. December was a whirlwind of activity, and I'm afraid I ended up unconscionably behind on my email correspondence, and hence with nothing new to post here on...

A traditional school, or darshana, cannot be "intrinsically heterodox", though Vedantin that you are I can see what leads you to this question in regard to Mīmāṃsā. The denial of a deity—or rather the suspension of judgment as to whether there is a God or not—is...

You pose a number of questions concerning the Orthodox form. First, how does a catechumen discern his patron saint? As far as I know there is no single, formulaic answer to this question. Patrons are normally chosen (or are given the opportunity, if you prefer, to...

I was most intrigued by your fascinating account of the special exhibition of Moghul miniatures at the Metropolitan Museum, particularly the "exquisitely rendered" portrait of the divine Plato—one of four illustrations, you say, for a poetic "Life of Alexander"...

On the subject of salvation and the posthumous states, a distinction is sometimes made among traditionalist authorities between (1) salvation as such and (2) deification, the second being equivalent to the Hindu moksha, that is, to the realization of our...