Journeys East:
20th Century Western Encounters with Eastern Religious Traditions
Harry Oldmeadow, PhD.
World Wisdom, Inc. 2004
BL 410 043 2004
ISBN 0-941532-57-7
Paperback, 505 pages
Tradition Rocks!
The title, cover art and much of the content of this book serve as masks for a more profound intention. After I read Professor Oldmeadow’s fascinating historical study I was left with the impression of both reverence and caution for what lies behind the masks. Journeys East with a forward by Huston Smith performs as a survey of “Western encounters with Eastern religion” yet it serves as a seeker’s manual. The cover art, an image from a painting of Tibet by Nicholas Roerich (1874-1947), brought out a smile when I first saw the book. Oldmeadow mentions Roerich only in passing on p 142 and as a footnote. Roerich’s fine paintings remain an attractive if not always noted contribution to the religious art of the 20th century, so I completely understand why Oldmeadow chose that cover image. In context on page 193, Roerich receives “scorn” among “dreams and vagaries of the Theosophists, which are nothing but a tissue of gross errors, made still worse by methods of the lowest charlatanism.” Oldmeadow quotes René Guénon whose withering critiques of modern occultism (New Age spirituality), materialistic progress, and hard line scientism attracted my attention in the early 1980s.
Guénon’s “Traditional” philosophy (and as represented by Coomaraswamy, Schuon and others) is at the core of Oldmeadow’s purpose for writing this book. We learn that there is no rejection of science as science in Traditionalist views but there is a firm conviction that all religion, science, philosophy and art participate in an absolute reality. In as much we deny or misrepresent this “ground of being,” we are at peril of losing our identity as human beings if not our very existence. That is what I sense is behind the mask of this book. The journeys east described by Oldmeadow are not all equal or successful in this endeavor to find the holy grail of seekers described as the perennial philosophy by Huston Smith and others.
Whether the reader accepts the Traditional message or not, this book remains a valuable resource for its mention of a host of intriguing, often brilliant characters that have moved the West to find itself in the East and, I dare say, the East to find itself in the West, for better or for worse.
I give this effort five stars with no reservations.