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What do the composer John Tavener, political strategist Steve Bannon and psychologist-cum-guru Jordan Peterson have in common? All have been influenced by Traditionalism: the idea that nature, human societies and individual lives are all grounded in a primordial order beyond the visible world, to which esoteric teachings passed down across centuries afford access for the initiated. It emerged in the first half of the 20th century through the writing of Ren Gunon, a French intellectual who regarded Sufism, Taoism and Indias Advaita Vedanta school of philosophy as amongst the most valuable carriers of this precious wisdom. Public, communal exoteric religion, by contrast Confucianism; Christianity, especially in its modern Protestant forms had little or nothing to recommend it, thought Gunon, unless one was able to penetrate to the esoteric core.

One of Traditionalisms great attractions, across the 20th century and into the 21st, has been the contrast that it draws between what Mark Sedgwick, in this new survey, describes as sacred order and modern disorder. The latter, for Gunon, is the result of societies seeking truth in all the wrong places since the Renaissance: individualism, sentimentality, a reflexive and destructive scepticism, and a fascination with action and material gain. All this, combined with a vision of reality in which nothing that is inaccessible to the sciences is held (or even permitted) to exist, has meant that Western progress is really a steady drift away from truth.

As Sedgwick points out, this critique of modernity is hardly unique to Traditionalism. What Traditionalism offers, however, is a combination of critique and an alternative way of understanding reality. This, he thinks, has contributed to its unexpected resurgence in recent years. Twenty years ago, Sedgwick regarded Traditionalism as being in decline. Now that it has made a come-back in politics not least in Russia, where Aleksandr Dugin (Putins brain) is a fan it is time, he says, to offer a general introduction.

Sedgwick brings an admirable clarity to the task. His prose is economical and he provides mini-summaries as he goes along. Following a section on foundations, he introduces the three major concerns (or core projects) of Traditionalism: self-realisation, religion and politics. He looks, too, at this loose-knit movements interest in art, gender, nature and inter-faith dialogue, before moving on to its connections with the contemporary radical Right. Along the way, we encounter major contributors to Traditionalist thought: the Italian philosopher Julius Evola, controversial for his links to Mussolini and Nazism; the Swiss philosopher and scholar of religion Frithjof Schuon; and the Ceylonese-American philosopher of art Ananda Coomaraswamy, whose work was driven by Traditionalisms concern with Platonic forms and its faith in the revelatory power of symbols.

The blending, in Traditionalism, of romance, nostalgic longing, hierarchy and elitism undoubtedly merits careful handling all the more so since political thinkers from Bannon and Dugin to counterparts in France and Hungary began to show an interest in it, and in Evola in particular. Plus, as Sedgwick points out, previous introductions to Traditionalism have been marred by an attempt to recruit people to [the] cause. Still, his caution, while laudable, is occasionally frustrating. There is less showcasing of the major ideas than one might hope. What exactly are these metaphysical realities in which Traditionalism places such great store? What forms might initiation take? When we arrive at political applications of Traditionalism, sustained exploration loses out to catch-all use of the term problematic in its euphemistic contemporary sense of something wrong or unpleasant.

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The unfashionable idea that links Jordan Peterson and 'Putin's brain' - The Telegraph