In December 1931, as the magazine celebrated its first decade, Crainic summed up Gândirea's guidelines, stressing that its commitment to Orthodoxy, the Romanian monarchy and nationalism:
"[...] set apart a person from our generation from a thousand others — [these] are nothing other than absolutely necessary conditions which make possible the true spiritual life. [...]
This is what our precursors cannot comprehend, [being] a sad generation liquidating a culture that was not theirs and through this was not even cultural."

The Viaţa Românească columnist George Călinescu was skeptical of Crainic's politics, and noted his alternation between various nationalist camps.
Commenting on Gândirea's choice to support Carol II at the time when he replaced his son Mihai I as king (1930), he likened Crainic to Judas Iscariot:
"[Crainic is] a person incapable of any privation, seeker of pieces of silver and worldly pleasures, great seeker of noisy shindings where pistols are being fired, a cajoler and a careerist, outrageously dedicating Gândirea today to HRM Mihai, tomorrow to HRM Carol II, the day after tomorrow to the great apostle of the nation Nicolae Iorga, at any moment when the homage could be tied to the pursuit of a personal interest."

At the time, Gândirism owed inspiration to Russian émigré authors, both Orthodox traditionalists such as Nikolai Berdyaev and several advocates of the nationalist and mystical Eurasianist trend (Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Pyotr Savitsky, Pyotr Alexeyev, and Ivan Ilyin).
Around 1934, Crainic reflected upon the connection his magazine had with other traditionalist cultural institutions, and concluded that his group was fulfilling the legacy of the more secular but equally traditionalist magazine Sămănătorul ("Over the land that we have learned to love from Sămănătorul we see arching itself the azure tarpaulin of the Orthodox Church.
We see this substance of this Church blending in with the ethnic substance.")


More than a decade later, Călinescu argued that an enduring trait of Gândirism (to which he referred as Orthodoxism) had been a manifest belief in miracles.
He believed to have noticed this in the works of Gândirea contributors such as Mircea Vulcănescu (in his homage to the deceased painter Sabin Popp, whom he allegedly regarded as "a saint"), Vasile Ciocâlteu ("who asks from God, in one of his poems, the favor to hold hot coals in his hands") and the Athonite pilgrim Sandu Tudor (who believed in "the workings of a mysterious miracle" as explanations for various events).

In his later columns for Gândirea, Crainic focused on explaining his ideal of ethnocracy in connection with the magazine's overall goals.
This involved the denunciation of "foreign elements" and "minority islands", with a specific focus on the Jewish-Romanian community ("Jews make use of an indolent hospitality in order to deprive our kin of its ancient patrimony") and its alleged connections with the political establishment ("In statements, in speeches and in acts of government our democrats have always declared themselves on the side of intruders and the allogeneous").
According to Călinescu, Crainic, unlike the regime in Nazi Germany, was not condoning racism as much as religious antisemitism:
"For reasons of churchly policy, the race factor is averted and [Crainic] takes a stand against [racism in Nazi Germany] and those nationalists who advocate the elimination of Christianized Jews and deny them baptism. '
The Church is open to all'.
Although it is not said outright, it is understood that a baptized Jew becomes a Romanian, Nation and Religion being correlated notions. [...]
Gândirea has thus received plenty of rallied, that is to say Orthodoxized, Jews."

In parallel, around 1931, the magazine's approach to philosophy was criticized by the Personalist thinker Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, who deemed it "belletristic"; the traditionalist philosopher Mircea Vulcănescu, although himself only occasionally associated with Gândirea, defended Crainic's influence in front of the pragmatic conservative Junimist tradition arguably repres
In December 1931, as the magazine celebrated its first decade, Crainic summed up Gândirea's guidelines, stressing that its commitment to Orthodoxy, the Romanian monarchy and nationalism:
"[...] set apart a person from our generation from a thousand others — [these] are nothing other than absolutely necessary conditions which make possible the true spiritual life. [...] This is what our precursors cannot comprehend, [being] a sad generation liquidating a culture that was not theirs and through this was not even cultural."
The Viaţa Românească columnist George Călinescu was skeptical of Crainic's politics, and noted his alternation between various nationalist camps. Commenting on Gândirea's choice to support Carol II at the time when he replaced his son Mihai I as king (1930), he likened Crainic to Judas Iscariot:
"[Crainic is] a person incapable of any privation, seeker of pieces of silver and worldly pleasures, great seeker of noisy shindings where pistols are being fired, a cajoler and a careerist, outrageously dedicating Gândirea today to HRM Mihai, tomorrow to HRM Carol II, the day after tomorrow to the great apostle of the nation Nicolae Iorga, at any moment when the homage could be tied to the pursuit of a personal interest."
At the time, Gândirism owed inspiration to Russian émigré authors, both Orthodox traditionalists such as Nikolai Berdyaev and several advocates of the nationalist and mystical Eurasianist trend (Nikolai Trubetzkoy, Pyotr Savitsky, Pyotr Alexeyev, and Ivan Ilyin). Around 1934, Crainic reflected upon the connection his magazine had with other traditionalist cultural institutions, and concluded that his group was fulfilling the legacy of the more secular but equally traditionalist magazine Sămănătorul ("Over the land that we have learned to love from Sămănătorul we see arching itself the azure tarpaulin of the Orthodox Church. We see this substance of this Church blending in with the ethnic substance.")

More than a decade later, Călinescu argued that an enduring trait of Gândirism (to which he referred as Orthodoxism) had been a manifest belief in miracles. He believed to have noticed this in the works of Gândirea contributors such as Mircea Vulcănescu (in his homage to the deceased painter Sabin Popp, whom he allegedly regarded as "a saint"), Vasile Ciocâlteu ("who asks from God, in one of his poems, the favor to hold hot coals in his hands") and the Athonite pilgrim Sandu Tudor (who believed in "the workings of a mysterious miracle" as explanations for various events).
In his later columns for Gândirea, Crainic focused on explaining his ideal of ethnocracy in connection with the magazine's overall goals. This involved the denunciation of "foreign elements" and "minority islands", with a specific focus on the Jewish-Romanian community ("Jews make use of an indolent hospitality in order to deprive our kin of its ancient patrimony") and its alleged connections with the political establishment ("In statements, in speeches and in acts of government our democrats have always declared themselves on the side of intruders and the allogeneous"). According to Călinescu, Crainic, unlike the regime in Nazi Germany, was not condoning racism as much as religious antisemitism:
"For reasons of churchly policy, the race factor is averted and [Crainic] takes a stand against [racism in Nazi Germany] and those nationalists who advocate the elimination of Christianized Jews and deny them baptism. 'The Church is open to all'. Although it is not said outright, it is understood that a baptized Jew becomes a Romanian, Nation and Religion being correlated notions. [...] Gândirea has thus received plenty of rallied, that is to say Orthodoxized, Jews."
In parallel, around 1931, the magazine's approach to philosophy was criticized by the Personalist thinker Constantin Rădulescu-Motru, who deemed it "belletristic"; the traditionalist philosopher Mircea Vulcănescu, although himself only occasionally associated with Gândirea, defended Crainic's influence in front of the pragmatic conservative Junimist tradition arguably repres
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