Friday, December 03, 2004
POSTING HAS BEEN LIGHT FOR A FEW DAYS, I KNOW...
Between trying to get stuff done for Christmas, while also trying to read through a large stack of books, there seems to be little time left over for web activity.
I'm currently reading Charles Upton's _The System of Antichrist: Truth & Falsehood In Postmodernism & The New Age_. But more about the contents when I've finished it. This is a book recommended by Lee Penn. It is published by Sophia Perennis, Ghent, NY according to the title page. The editor is James R. Wetmore, copyright 2001, and the address of Sophia Perennis is 343 Rte 21C, Ghent, NY 12075
As the regulars here will remember, Charles Upton is the publisher of William H. Kennedy's book _Lucifer's Lodge_ (with a Reviviscimus imprint, South Egremont, MA) and potentially the upcoming publisher of Lee's book. Upton edits books for Sophia Perennis.
According to an email exchange with Upton, he says of his press, "We are a 2-man operation -- apart from some intermittent volunteer help -- both living from hand-to-mouth until I sold my little house in Marin County, California and bought a bigger one in Kentucky. Now I'm out of debt and have something to live on while we try to make an economic go of Sophia Perennis." I got the impression from this that Sophia Perennis was in the early stages of publishing.
Does Sophia Perennis have another imprint in addition to Reviviscimus? The reason I'm wondering is that Sophia Perennis Et Universalis seems to publish the same books that Sophia Perennis publishes. You can see what Sophia Perennis publishes by clicking the name of the author here.
Now go to Amazon.com and look at the books published by Sophia Perennis Et Universalis. Here in the list you will find _The System of Antichrist_ by Upton, _Gurdjieff in the Light of Tradition_ Perry, _Cinderella's Gold Slipper_ by Fohr and _The Order of the Ages_ by Bolton, _Yuga: An Anatomy of Our Fate_ by Glass. All of these books appear on both lists. _Eastern Light in Western Eyes_ by Glass, a book on the Sophia Perennis list, does not appear on the Sophia Perennis et Universalis list. Lee Penn's Upcoming book, _False Dawn: The United Religions Initiative, Globalism, and the Quest for a One-World Religion_ also appears on the Sophia Perennis et Universalis list.
Another interesting bit of observation is the number of names appearing on the Amazon list that are not on the Sophia Perennis list, including Paul Chacornac, Jean Borella, Titus Burkhardt, Alvin Moore, Jr., Cecil Bethell, Herbert Schiff, Rohini Schiff, Cynthia MacGregor, Henry D. Fohr, Martin Lings, Charles Le Gai Eaton, and John Herlihy. Sophia Perennis publishes Rene Guenon as does Sophia Perennis Et Universalis. Only the latter publishes Frithjof Schuon.
With so many authors to its credit, Sophia Perennis Et Universalis looks fairly well established. Sophia Perennis, on the other hand, does not, judging by the website and Charles Upton's comment to me in email.
This all comes down to one question -- are Sophia Perennis and Sophia Perennis Et Universalis one and the same publishing house?
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While I'm on the subject of Sufi Traditionalism, one of the voices that speaks for this subject is Mark Sedgwick, American University in Cairo. He delivered a paper at The fourth Nordic conference on Middle Eastern Studies: The Middle East in globalizing world, Oslo, 13-16 August, 1998. In that paper he gives the history of Traditionalism, mentioning as he does both the Masonic Lodge and Archbishop Marcel Lefabvre. He also mentions the Church of the Theotokos and the Ukranian Autochephalous Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Diocese of Berkeley.
