The Sword of Roland

Hieros July 10, 2024

The sword of Roland, also known as Durandal, has been stolen from Rocamadour, a village in France, where the sword was embedded in a stone more than thirty feet off the ground. The sword (said to be a replica of the original) was stolen on the night of June 21 to 22, 2024, from Rocamadour. The theft was discovered on July 1, 2024, and an investigation is ongoing.

According to legend, Roland, a legendary knight, wielded the sword, which is said to have magical powers. In various sources, including La Chanson de Roland and folk tradition, Durandal is said to be virtually indestructible, withstanding attempts to break it on rocks; it is said to be capable of cutting through giant boulders with a single strike; it is said to be connected to elemental air magic; and it is said that wounding or killing something with Durandal allows partial access to the memories and experiences of whatever the sword was connected with. In some respects, Durandel is similar in legend to Excalibur in the Arthurian tradition.

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Knowers: A Conversation with James Cowan

James Cowan and I were friends for decades. We were introduced to one another by the British poet and literary critic Kathleen Raine, who told me that there was a remarkable Australian writer whom I should certainly meet. He and I began a correspondence that became the bond of an enduring friendship. We met at various places around the world, he came to visit me in the United States, I came to visit him and his wife in Australia, and throughout all the vicissitudes, joys, and triumphs of life, shared one another’s lives, confided in one another, encouraged each other to grow, did all that friends could do for one another. He lived fully, wholeheartedly. He said that his element was fire. What follows is a lively and thought-provoking conversation with him.

Hieros June 16, 2024

Ian Hamilton Finlay: Remembering a Radical Traditionalist Warrior

by Christopher McIntosh

At a time when much of the world seems to be under “the shadow of a dark wing,” as C. S. Lewis wrote in his prescient novel That Hideous Strength, and when it often feels as though we are living in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, I find myself increasingly reaching out to those, past and present, who uphold the vision or the memory of a saner, nobler, more wholesome, more human and more authentic world. One such person who stands out in my mind is the Scottish poet, the late Ian Hamilton Finlay, who was my friend for 30 years and who had a profound influence on me, above all through his conviction that tradition, far from being a shackle that weighs one down, is an accumulation of lessons from the past that guide and inspire one in the present.

Hieros May 7, 2024

Spirituality and Transdisciplinarity: A Conversation Between Dr. Basarab Nicolescu and Dr. Arthur Versluis

Part One: Spirituality and Transdisciplinarity

AV: I’m sitting here with Basarab Nicolescu and it’s Tuesday afternoon on the day of the American election. I thought we could start by talking about your focus over the years on transdisciplinarity and especially on transdisciplinarity, spirituality and the sacred and how these concepts intertwine to the extent that they do intertwine. Could you start by talking a little bit about transdisciplinarity and how you became and why you became so focused on it, and how you became—essentially an intellectual activist on behalf of transdisciplinarity and what its connections are to concepts like spirituality and the sacred.

Hieros June 17, 2024

Preserving Cultural Memory in the Era of AI

by William Sims Bainbridge In 1999, the National Science Foundation invested $2,883,564 to support the Perseus Digital Library to preserve and analyze literature from the…

Hieros November 14, 2024

The External Gaze of the Global Shadow

The External Gaze of the Global Shadow
by Kingsley Dennis

What has materialized as our so-called ‘modern world’ can no longer be seen or considered as a ‘breakthrough’ but as in a breakdown mode, for the external outreach of globalizing forces and powers has brought humanity to a threshold. It is a threshold – a crisis point – of meaning and future orientation. It is, in other words, a period of existential crisis for the human race. René Guénon, in the above opening citation, refers to this predicament as a ‘gigantic collective hallucination.’ He is right in a general way. And yet, within the human collective, there is no longer a shared hallucination but a fragmentation of hallucinatory visions. The reality construct in which we inhabit has become a fragmentary, splintered landscape.

Hieros June 23, 2024

Beyond Materialism

by Kingsley Dennis

The human being has to become what he thinks himself to be.
Rudolf Steiner

We are having to adapt ourselves to a new loss – the demise of an old reality. Yet we should not mourn it but rather greet the new. There is no need to suffer in this readaptation; nor does it need to be overwhelming. Yet, there will be those needing recovery time. In modern terms, the world is going through an overhaul. When viewed through the metaphysical lens, it is a transfiguration. The human nervous system will be going through a vibrational recalibration; the mind will be rewiring its neuronal pathways; and a new orientation will be arising. Lucidity will come to replace the fog, eventually.

Hieros June 23, 2024

The Materialist Hegemony

by Arthur Versluis

Until now, you might well have never thought about how pervasive is materialism. Really, it’s only when we look at it directly and intently that we begin to see its magnitude. Its assumptions underlie virtually everything in global technological society. But at the same time, it is hidden in plain sight. Our purpose now is to explore that hegemony.

Hieros May 18, 2024

The Hieros Institute Vision

When we founded Hieros as a non-profit 501(c)3 American organization, we had a vision for what it could become. And now, as we launch its new, expanding Hieros Institute online presence, live on July 4, 2024—Independence Day—it’s time for us to articulate more of that vision.

We are all familiar with the sense that so much, culturally, seems to be disintegrating around us. As W. B. Yeats put it, things fall apart, and the center cannot hold. There are many who eloquently articulate critiques of the dominant system in which we find ourselves; and there are a few places where the brave and perceptive analyze exactly how and why social and cultural disintegration is happening. With a little effort, and some courage, you can find out a great deal about what has gone wrong, to whose benefit, and at whose loss. Not everyone has the courage, but those who do, can find their way to the truth. But knowing what’s wrong is not enough.

Hieros July 13, 2024