Frithjof Schuon

Frithjof Schuon
Frithjof Schuon, c. 1980
Born	(1907-06-18)18 June 1907 Basel, Switzerland
Died	5 May 1998(1998-05-05) (aged 90) Bloomington, Indiana, U.S.
Nationality	Undetermined (1907 – c. 1920) French (c. 1920 – c. 1950) Swiss (c. 1950 – 1998)
Notable work	The Transcendent Unity of Religions The Eye of the Heart Logic and Transcendence Esoterism as Principle and as Way Form and Substance in the Religions
School	Perennial philosophy Traditionalist School
Main interests	Metaphysics, esoterism, philosophy, spirituality, religion, art
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Frithjof Schuon (/ˈʃuːɒn/ SHOO-on; German: [ˈfʁɪtjɔf ˈʃuːɔn]; 18 June 1907 – 5 May 1998) was a Swiss metaphysician of German descent, belonging to the Traditionalist School of Perennialism. He was the author of more than twenty works in French on metaphysics, spirituality, religion, anthropology and art, which have been translated into English and many other languages. He was also a painter and a poet.

With René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy, Schuon is recognized as one of the major 20th-century representatives of the philosophia perennis. Like them, he affirmed the reality of an absolute Principle – God – from which the universe emanates, and maintained that all divine revelations, despite their differences, possess a common essence: one and the same Truth. He also shared with them the certitude that man is potentially capable of supra-rational knowledge, and undertook a sustained critique of the modern mentality severed, according to him, from its traditional roots. Following Plato, Plotinus, Adi Shankara, Meister Eckhart, Ibn Arabī and other metaphysicians, Schuon sought to affirm the metaphysical unity between the Principle and its manifestation.

Initiated by Sheikh Ahmad al-Alawī into the Sufi Shādhilī order, he founded the Tarīqa Maryamiyya. His writings strongly emphasize the universality of metaphysical doctrine, along with the necessity of practising a religion; he also insists on the importance of the virtues and of beauty.

Schuon cultivated close relationships with a large number of personages of diverse religious and spiritual horizons. He had a particular interest in the traditions of the North American Plains Indians, maintaining firm friendships with a number of their leaders and being adopted into both a Lakota Sioux tribe and the Crow tribe. Having spent a large part of his life in France and Switzerland, at the age of 73 he emigrated to the United States.