This is a commemorative volume containing the four issues from 1971 of the British journal Studies in Comparative Religion. It features a broad spectrum of essays from many of the most important European and American writers on spiritual Traditionalism or the Perennial Philosophy. Studies in Comparative Religion was founded in Britain in 1963 by Francis Clive-Ross (1921–1981) and is the first and most comprehensive English-language journal of traditional studies. The journal was published under the name Tomorrow until 1967, when it was changed to its present name. Four quarterly issues per year, containing over 1,200 articles in total, were published during the first 25 years of Studies in Comparative Religion’s existence, before its publication was interrupted in 1987.
About the Author(s)
Francis Clive-Ross
F. Clive-Ross was the founder, publisher and editor of the journal Studies in Comparative Religion and its predecessor Tomorrow. For nearly 20 years under Clive-Ross’ guidance, Studies was one of the predominant platforms for discussion of all issues to pertaining to comparative religious studies. Clive-Ross also founded the publishing house, Perennial Books Ltd, and was a trustee of the “World of Islam Festival”. He died in 1981.World Wisdom has proudly sponsored a new beginning for Studies. All of the original issues are being placed on the Studies in Comparative Religion website. Mr. Clive-Ross's editorials appear in the compilations of Studies in Comparative Religion issues published by World Wisdom.
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Reviews
- One of the most interesting intellectual developments of the 1960s was the publication in England of a periodical called Studies in Comparative Religion. When it first came across my desk, it had seemed to me merely another gray scholarly journal — an impression that was only strengthened by its stated pur pose of presenting essays concerning ‘traditional studies.’ Like many Americans, I was put off by the very word ‘tradition.’ But I pressed on because I had heard that this journal contained some of the most serious thinking of the twentieth century.… And in fact I quickly saw that its contributors were not interested in the hypothesizing and the marshaling of piecemeal evidence that characterizes the work of most academicians. On close reading, I felt an extraordinary intellectual force radiating through their intricate prose. These men were out for the kill. For them, the study of spiritual traditions was a sword with which to destroy the illusions of contemporary man…. All I could have said definitely was that they seemed to take metaphysical ideas more seriously than one might have thought possible. It was as though for them such ideas were the most real things in the world. They conformed their thought to these ideas in the way the rest of us tend to conform our thought to material things. Perhaps it was this aspect that gave their essays a flavor that was both slightly archaic and astonishingly fresh at the same time…. That these writings bring something that has been entirely lacking in Western religious thought is therefore not open to question. But that is not the court at which their work deserves to be judged, nor would they wish it so. Something much more serious is at stake than merely renewing the comparative study of religion throughout the land….
Jacob Needleman, San Francisco State College, Editor for The Penguin Metaphysical Library
