Not just gargoyles

"The Esoterism of Dante" is a short book by Traditionalist author René Guénon.

The book claims that Dante Alighieri was a member of a secret society connected to the Knights Templar, and that both Rosicrucians and Scottish Freemasons have access to the same esoteric knowledge as Dante himself. Guénon further claims that "The Divine Comedy" contains a secret message similar to Hermetism, Sufism and certain forms of Hinduism. Or, as the author prefers to put it, "paths of Initiation".

I'm not particularly familiar with this theory, but apparently it was relatively common during the 19th century, but later fell in disrepute. In other words, modern Dante experts tend to think that the esoteric angle is so much bunk. Not being a Dante scholar, I cannot really judge the issue. Why is Bernard de Clairvaux the final guide of Dante in Paradise? Who are the mysterious figures clad in white dresses? And why is the bloody cross of Jesus mentioned in this context? The Knights Templar had white dresses with a red cross, and their founder was...well, Bernard de Clairvaux.

Interesting.

Still, I admit that the whole idea of an unbroken string of "initiatic societies" of the kind envisioned by Guénon strikes me as very unlikely indeed, especially since there isn't any proof that the Templars were heretics. For all we know, they were exactly what they claimed they were: a militarized, Catholic order of warrior monks who *killed* heretics and infidels. They were smashed by the French state for political reasons. Centuries later, the Templar legend was taken up by Masons and Rosicrucians, groups that wanted to show an ancient pedigree they simply didn't possess.

But then, who knows? ;-)

Similar ideas do have a tendency to emerge in vastly different religious traditions. Also, there are all kinds of channels for diffusion, some more obscure than others. Perhaps Dante did believe in a kind of Hermetic message, or at the very least adapted such imagery for his own purposes. Guénon references a work by Miguel Asin Palacios, which claims that there are innumerable parallels between "The Divine Comedy" and various Muslim sources, including Muhammad's famous night journey to Jerusalem. Asin's work, known in English as "Islam and the Divine Comedy", is also referenced in serious scholarly sources.

Perhaps there is more to Dante than the gargoyles of Gustave Doré...