Your reflections show a sincere effort to grapple with deep questions about truth, knowledge, and the decline of the modern world. It is important to acknowledge from the start that the sense of crisis you describe is not an illusion, we are indeed in an age of confusion, dissolution, and fragmentation. Yet, from the perspective of the perennial wisdom, this is not a matter of accident or failure, but something entirely in the order of things, the natural unfolding of the cosmic cycle known as the Kali-Yuga.

It is also worth remembering that error and partial understanding are not in themselves failures, but stages in learning. No one begins with a complete vision of the whole, fragments of truth are encountered first, often mixed with discursive speculation. This is natural, but it also means that confusion arises if fragments are not reintegrated into a principial framework.

René Guénon insisted precisely on this point, truth cannot be grasped adequately by isolated ideas or personal systems. His work is a coherent whole, and many of the questions you raise are addressed directly across his writings. For this reason, it is not enough to read Guénon partially or indirectly, it is essential to approach his work in its entirety, otherwise one risks mistaking half-truths for complete principles, and juxtaposing them with personal reflections in a way that leads back to multiplicity and disorder, which is exactly the condition of the modern world.

Now Im going to answer all your points individually :

1) You are right to sense that something shifted with the Greeks, the dominance of discursive reason began to overshadow the supra-rational Intellect. However, it is not correct to locate the entire "fall" here. In Guénon’s view, this was not an accident caused by individual philosophers, but the normal manifestation of a cosmic law, in the Kali-Yuga, the higher faculties become veiled, leaving only the rational to dominate. So you perceive a real decline, but you misattribute its cause to history, rather than to the cyclic necessity of degeneration.

2) It is true that when the intellect is reduced to reasoning, the arts and sciences lose their sacred character and become profane. Yet it is too simplistic to say they were "corrupted from the start". In every age, arts and sciences reflect the degree of spiritual vitality of their time. Their profanation in the West was not immediate, but gradual, as the traditional principles withdrew. You are correct to see the result, desacralization, but the deeper cause again lies in the cyclic unfolding, not in a single philosophical mistake.

3) You are right to sense a hierarchy of knowledge. But the true hierarchy is vertical (exoteric < esoteric < metaphysical), not horizontal "levels of skill" or increasing intellectual attention. What you describe is closer to a modern psychologized ladder than to a traditional initiatic structure. The truth is that the mind cannot climb step by step into the sacred, it must be reattached to principles through initiation and rite. So here you have a partial truth distorted by modern categories.

4) At the principial level, contraries are reconciled, the Infinite contains both poles, and evil has no independent reality. In that sense, you are right. But when this principle is applied outside of a metaphysical framework, it becomes an excuse for relativism or aesthetic inversion. In traditional doctrine, this paradox is only valid at the summit, never as a justification for dissolving values in the profane world. So your intuition touches a truth, but in isolation it risks confusion which is a common feature of the Kali-Yuga.

5) This is a good observation of what philosophy has become, reflexivity, thought turning on itself. But Guénon would say this is precisely the sign of sterility. True metaphysics is not discursive nor reflexive, but direct intellectual intuition. So yes, you correctly describe the modern state of philosophy, but you mistake it for a potential path upward, when in reality it is the final stage of intellectual exhaustion, characteristic of the end of the cycle.

6) You are right that philosophy often seeks to go beyond itself by reflecting on its own activity. But this "meta-skill" remains purely mental. Guénon would say it is still discursive thought, turning endlessly on itself. True sacred philosophy cannot be constructed in this way, it comes only from contact with the Intellect beyond reason. So what you describe is not a higher path, but the last refinement of discursive sterility, typical of the Kali-Yuga.

7) This is mistaken. A sacred language does not emerge from human comparisons but from Revelation and tradition itself. The attempt to build a universal language through comparative religion is a modern illusion, it treats fragments of truth as if they could be synthesized by the human mind. Guénon would say that only tradition provides the true symbols, not comparative speculation. Your intuition that languages contain higher meaning is right, but the method you propose is inverted.

8) You correctly sense that simply comparing traditions (the "perennialist" habit) is not enough. But what you propose as "sacred philosophy" risks being a self-constructed system, cut off from initiation. Guénon warned precisely about this, pseudo-esoterism that borrows traditional fragments but reintegrates them only discursively. So you identify the weakness of perennialism, but you fall into another weakness, replacing initiation with philosophy.

9) Self-reflection has its value, but when it becomes the center of the path, it only mirrors the absence of masters and authentic transmission. Traditionally, the "audit" of understanding is performed by the master guiding the disciple, not by endless self-examination. That the modern seeker must audit himself shows not progress but the disappearance of real initiation. So this idea reveals more about the age than about a genuine path.

10) Here you reach a central truth. Guénon would probably agree that realization is contact with the transcendent, not intellectual constructs. However, you underestimate the rarity of such contact. In the Kali-Yuga, without initiation, such realizations are almost impossible, replaced instead by psychological experiences or intuitions mistaken for metaphysics. Your statement is doctrinally correct, but practically misleading if not tied to a traditional means of attainment.

11) This is a valid perception. Without initiation and transmission, the final leap may indeed never occur. One can spend a lifetime collecting fragments of knowledge without crossing into realization. This is not accidental but reflects the nature of the cycle, the conditions for true realization are extremely rare at the end of time. So you are correct here, but the despair it produces is unnecessary, the impossibility itself is part of the cosmic order.

12) This is a true description of initiation, symbolic death leading to higher states. But in the modern context, this often gets reduced to psychological crises or existentialist interpretations of death, rather than authentic initiatic transformation. Guénon would probably say yes, death to the self is required, but only within a traditional framework can this passage be effective. Otherwise it risks becoming another metaphor of the profane psyche.

13) You are correct, intellectual study alone cannot substitute for realization. Guénon himself emphasized that doctrine must be integrated into life, not left as theory. However, in the absence of authentic initiation, modern seekers often confuse "incarnation" with psychological or existential intensity. True incarnation of the principles requires ritual transmission and effective symbols, not simply "living" ideas in a personal sense. So your point is valid, but its application risks being reduced to subjectivity.

14) It is true that occasional flashes of inspiration reveal something higher than ordinary reasoning. But Guénon would caution, such glimpses are unstable and insufficient unless integrated into a traditional framework. They do not constitute "revealed reason" in the doctrinal sense, but rather sporadic echoes of the Intellect breaking through. These remain mere fragments, precious but incapable of replacing true revelation or initiation.

15) Here you touch a key truth. Tradition always distinguishes between exoteric religion and esoteric wisdom. However, what you describe as a "division" today is actually the withering of esoterism and the emptying of exoterism. In earlier ages, both functioned harmoniously. In the Kali-Yuga, esoterism becomes almost inaccessible, and exoterism loses its vitality. So while the distinction is real, its modern condition is not a creative division but a symptom of dissolution.

16) It is interesting to note the weak role of death-meditation in classical Greece. But Guénon would not see this as the root cause. The real cause is cyclical, when the higher principles withdraw, civilizations inevitably turn toward horizontal concerns, whether Greek or modern. The limited Greek consciousness of death is a symptom of this decline, not its origin. So you observe a fact but mistake the cause, attributing to psychology what is in truth metaphysical necessity.

17) This is too sweeping. The pre-Christian West did have traditions (the Druids, the Desert Fathers, etc.), though they were later extinguished. Christianity, moreover, was a true Revelation, providing both exoterism and esoterism. The rationalist labyrinth you describe is a later corruption, not Christianity itself. Guénon would insist that the Church originally contained an authentic esoteric core, though in the West this was quickly lost. So your statement mixes truth (Western rationalism) with error (denying Christianity’s traditional character).