Frithjof Schuon

Frithjof Schuon ( ; ; 18 June 1907 – 5 May 1998) was a Swiss philosopher and spiritual leader, 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. He was also a painter and a poet.

With René Guénon and Ananda Coomaraswamy, Schuon was 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.

Life and work

Basel, Switzerland (1907–1920)

Frithjof Schuon was born in Basel, in the German-speaking part of Switzerland, on 18 June 1907. He was the younger of the two sons of Paul Schuon and Margarete Boehler, both of whom were of German origin (the former from Swabia and the latter from Alsace). His father, an amiable and distinguished man, was a concert violinist, and the household was one in which not only music but literary and spiritual culture were present. The Schuons, themselves raised as Catholics, brought their sons up as Protestants, though not in hostility to the Catholic Church.

At primary school, Schuon met the future metaphysician and art specialist Titus Burckhardt, who remained a lifelong friend. From the age of ten, he began to read the Bible, the ''Upanishads'', the ''Bhagavad-Gītā'' and the ''Quran'', as well as Plato, Emerson, Goethe and Schiller. Schuon would later say that in his early youth four things had always moved him most profoundly: "the holy, the great, the beautiful, the childlike."

France (1920–1940)

In 1920, Schuon's father died and his mother decided to return with her young sons to her family in nearby Mulhouse, France, where Schuon became a French citizen, consequent upon the Treaty of Versailles.Pierre-Marie Sigaud, ''Dossiers H : René Guénon'', L’Âge d’Homme, 1984, p. 32

/ref> One year later, when he was 14, he was baptized as a Catholic. In 1923 his brother entered a Trappists, Trappist monastery, and Schuon left school in order to provide for the family, finding work as a textile designer.Jean-Baptiste Aymard, ''Frithjof Schuon: Life and Teachings'', SUNY, 2002, p. 10

He then immersed himself in the world of the ''Bhagavad-Gītā'' and the ''Vedānta''; this call of Hinduism sustained him for ten years, though he was perfectly aware that he could not become Hindu himself. In 1924, while still living in Mulhouse, he discovered the works of the French philosopher René Guénon, which served to confirm his intellectual intuitions and provided support for the metaphysical principles he had begun to discover.Barbara Perry, "Introduction" in Frithjof Schuon, ''Art from the Sacred to the Profane'', World Wisdom, 2007, p. ''xiv'' Schuon would later say of Guénon that he was "the profound and powerful theoretician of all that he loved".

In 1930, after 18 months in Besançon on military service in the French army, Schuon settled in Paris. There he resumed his profession as a textile designer, and began to study Arabic in the local mosque school. Living in Paris also gave him the opportunity to be exposed to various forms of traditional art to a much greater degree than before, especially the arts of Asia with which he had had a deep affinity since his youth.

At the end of 1932 he completed his first book, ''Leitgedanken zur Urbesinnung'', which would be published in 1935 and later translated into English under the title ''Primordial Meditation: Contemplating the Real''. His desire to leave the West, whose modern values were so contrary to his nature, combined with his growing interest in Islam, prompted him to go to Marseille, the great port of departure for the East. There he made the acquaintance of two key personages, both of them disciples of Sheikh Ahmad al-Alawī, a Sufi in Mostaganem, Algeria. Schuon saw the sign of his destiny in these encounters, and embarked for Algeria. In Mostaganem he entered Islam, and spent nearly four months in the Sheikh's ''zāwiya''. The Sheikh gave him initiation and named him `Īsā Nūr ad-Dīn. However, Schuon was soon forced to return to Europe under pressure from the French colonial authorities.

Schuon did not consider his affiliation to Islam as a conversion, since he did not disavow Christianity; in each revelation he saw the expression of one and the same truth, in different forms. But for him, in the Guenonian perspective that he held at the time, Western Christianity no longer seemed to offer the possibility of following a "path of knowledge" under the guidance of a spiritual master, whereas such a path was still open within the framework of Sufism, Islamic esoterism.

Schuon reported that one night in July 1934, while immersed in reading the ''Bhagavad-Gītā'', he experienced an extraordinary spiritual event. He said that the divine Name ''Allāh'' took possession of his being, and that for three days he could do nothing but invoke it ceaselessly. Shortly afterwards, he learned that his Sheikh had died on the same day.

In 1935 he returned to the ''zāwiya'' of Mostaganem, where Sheikh Adda ben Tounes, Sheikh al-Alawī's successor, conferred on him the function of ''muqaddam'', thus authorizing him to initiate aspirants into the Alawī brotherhood. Returning to Europe, Schuon founded a ''zāwiya'' in Basel, another in Lausanne and a third in Amiens. He resumed his profession as a textile designer in Alsace for the next four years.

One night towards the end of 1936, after a spiritual experience, Schuon sensed, without a shadow of a doubt, that he had been invested with the function of spiritual master, of sheikh. This was confirmed, he later related, by visionary dreams that several of his disciples reported having had the same night. The differences of perspective between Schuon and the Mostaganem ''zāwiya'' gradually led to Schuon's assuming independence, supported by Guénon.

In 1938, Schuon traveled to Egypt, where he met Guénon, with whom he had been in correspondence for 7 years. In 1939, he embarked for India with two disciples, making a long stopover in Cairo, where he saw Guénon again. Shortly after his arrival in Bombay, World War II broke out, forcing him to return to Europe. Serving in the French army, he was interned by the Nazis, who were planning to incorporate all soldiers of Alsatian origin into the German army to fight on the Russian front. Schuon escaped to Switzerland, which was to be his home for forty years.

Lausanne, Switzerland (1941–1980)

He settled in Lausanne, where he continued contributing to the Guénonian journal ''Études Traditionnelles'', as he had done since 1933. In 1947, after reading ''Black Elk Speaks'' by John G. Neihardt, Schuon, who had always been deeply interested in the North American Indians, was convinced that Black Elk knew much more about Sioux tradition than was contained in the book. He asked his American friends to seek out the old chief. Following this initiative, the ethnologist Joseph E. Brown collected from Black Elk the description of the seven Sioux rites which would form the content of ''The Sacred Pipe''.

In 1948 Schuon published his first book in French, ''De l'Unité transcendante des religions''. Of this book, T. S. Eliot wrote: "I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion." All his subsequent works – more than twenty – would be written in French, apart from a major reworking in German of the text of ''The Transcendent Unity of Religions'' (''Von der Inneren Einheit der Religionen''), published in 1982.

In 1949 Schuon married Catherine Feer, a German Swiss with a French education who, besides being deeply interested in religion and metaphysics, was also a gifted painter. He received Swiss citizenship shortly after his marriage. While always continuing to write, Schuon and his wife travelled widely. Between 1950 and 1975, the couple visited Morocco about ten times, as well as numerous European countries, including Greece and Turkey, where they visited the house near Ephesus presumed to be the last home of the Virgin Mary.

In the winter of 1953, Schuon and his wife travelled to Paris to attend performances organized by a group of Crow dancers. They formed a friendship with Thomas Yellowtail, the future medicine man and Sun Dance Chief. Five years later, the Schuons visited the Brussels World's Fair, where 60 Sioux were giving performances on the theme of the Wild West. New friendships were made on this occasion also. Thus it was that in 1959 and again in 1963, at the invitation of their Indian friends, the Schuons journeyed to the American West, where they visited various Plains tribes and had the opportunity to witness many aspects of their sacred traditions. During the first of these visits, Schuon and his wife were adopted into the Sioux family of Chief James Red Cloud, grandson of Chief Red Cloud, and a few weeks later, at an Indian festival in Sheridan, Wyoming, they were officially received into the Sioux tribe.Barbara Perry, "Introduction" in Frithjof Schuon, ''Art from the Sacred to the Profane'', World Wisdom, 2007, p. ''xv'' Schuon's writings on the central rites of Native American religion and his paintings of their way of life attest to his particular affinity with their spiritual universe.

The 1970s saw the publication of three works considered as particularly important by his biographers composed of articles previously published in the French journal ''Études Traditionnelles''. These works have been translated under the titles ''Logic and Transcendence'', ''Form and Substance in the Religions'', and ''Esoterism as Principle and as Way''.

Throughout his life, Schuon had great respect for and devotion to the Virgin Mary, and expressed this in his writings. As a result, his teachings and paintings are imbued with a particular Marian presence. His reverence for the Virgin Mary has been studied in detail by American professor James Cutsinger, who relates the two episodes in 1965 when Schuon experienced an especial Marian grace. Hence the name ''Maryamiyya'' ("Marian" in Arabic) of the Sufi ''tarīqa'' he founded as a branch of the ''Alawiyyah''- ''Darqawiyyah''- ''Shadhiliyyah'' order.

United States (1980–1998)

In 1980, Schuon and his wife emigrated to the United States, settling in Bloomington, Indiana, where there was already a large community of disciples. The first years in Bloomington saw the publication of a number of important works including ''From the Divine to the Human'', ''To Have a Center'', ''Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism'', and ''Roots of the Human Condition''.

According to Patrick Laude, Schuon became known, through his many books, articles and letters, "as the principal spokesman of the intellectual current sometimes referred to in English speaking countries as perennialism", or the Traditionalist School. During his years in Lausanne and Bloomington he regularly received visits from "practitioners and representatives of diverse religions".

Thomas Yellowtail remained Schuon's intimate friend until his death in 1993, visiting him every year and adopting him into the Crow tribe in 1984. During these sojourns, Schuon and some of his followers organized what they called "Indian Days", in which Native American dances were performed, leading some to accuse him of practising ritual nudity. These gatherings were understood by disciples as a sharing in Schuon's personal insights and realization, not as part of the initiatic method he transmitted, centered on Islamic prayer and the ''dhikr''.

In 1991, following an allegation by a former follower, Schuon was indicted for "sexual battery and child molestation.”Urban, Hugh
"A Dance of Masks: The Esoteric Ethics of Frithjof Schuon"
In ''Crossing Boundaries: Ethics in the History of Mysticism'', edited by G. William Barnard and Jeffrey J. Kripal (New York: Seven Bridges Press), 2002. Page 440. However, a few weeks later the case was dropped. The prosecutor stated that there was “not one shred of evidence” aside from the follower's testimony and that “Insofar as chuonhas been labeled, a miscarriage has occurred.” Despite the dismissal, the incident negatively affected Schuon’s reputation within some Traditionalist and Sufi circles and he largely retired from public life afterwards.

Schuon continued to receive visitors and maintain a correspondence with followers, scholars and readers. At the very end of his life, he wrote a major collection of over three thousand lyrical "teaching-poems" (''Lehrgedichte''), which combine metaphysics and spiritual counsel, as well as reminiscences of his life. Like the poems of his youth, these were written in his native German, following a series in Arabic and another in English. They are a poetic synthesis of his philosophical and spiritual message, which is articulated around four key elements: "truth, prayer, virtue and beauty". Less than two months before his death on 5 May 1998 at the age of 90, Frithjof Schuon wrote his last poem:
''Ich wollte dieses Buch schon lang beschließen –''
''Ich konnte nicht; ich musste weiter dichten.''
''Doch diesmal legt sich meine Feder nieder,''
''Denn es gibt andres Sinnen, andre Pflichten;''
''Wie dem auch sei, was wir auch mögen tun:''
''Lasst uns dem Ruf des Höchsten Folge leisten –''
''Lasst uns in Gottes tiefem Frieden ruhn.''
Das Weltrad VII, CXXX
I have for long wished to end this book —
I could not do so; I had to write more poems.
But this time my pen lies down of itself,
For there are other preoccupations, other duties;
Be that as it may, whatever we may wish to do:
Let us follow the call of the Most High —
Let us repose in God's deep Peace.
''World Wheel VII, CXXX''

Views based on his written works

For Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Schuon is at once " metaphysician, theologian, traditional philosopher and logician", versed in "comparative religion", in "traditional art and civilization", as well as in "the science of man and society"; he is also known as "a critic of the modern world in not only its practical but also its philosophical and scientific aspects".
In his writings, Schuon's principal themes are "essential and hence universal metaphysics with its cosmological and anthropological ramifications, spirituality in the broadest sense, intrinsic morals and aesthetics, traditional principles and phenomena", religions and their esotericisms, sacred art.

Doctrinal foundation

Perennialism

The traditionalist or perennialist spiritual perspective was initially enunciated in the 1920s by René Guénon and in the 1930s by Frithjof Schuon. The metaphysicians and art specialists Ananda Coomaraswamy and Titus Burckhardt also became prominent advocates of this intellectual current. According to the perennialist writer William Stoddart, "the central idea of the perennial philosophy is that Divine Truth is one, timeless and universal, and that the different religions are but different languages expressing that one Truth" – hence the title given by Schuon to his first book in French, ''De l'unité transcendante des religions''. For Patrick Laude, a perennialist author is "one who claims the universality and primordiality of fundamental metaphysical principles and the perennity of the wisdom that actualizes these principles in man, as expressed in all great revelations and major teachings of sages and saints throughout the ages". Schuon writes that primordial wisdom is expressed in the work of Adi Shankara, Pythagoras, Plato, Plotinus and several other representatives of quintessential esoterism.

In ''Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism'', Schuon comments on the three notions of perennial philosophy (''philosophia''), perennial wisdom (''sophia'') and perennial religion (''religio'') to show both their concordance and their particularities:

The term ''philosophia perennis'', which appeared as early as the Renaissance and was used extensively by neo-scholasticism, designates the science of the fundamental and universal ontological principles; a science that is immutable like these principles themselves, and primordial by the very fact of its universality and infallibility. We would readily use the term ''sophia perennis'' to indicate that this is not a matter of "philosophy" in the standard and approximative meaning of the word – suggesting mere mental constructions springing from ignorance, doubt, and conjectures, indeed from the taste for novelty and originality – or we could also use the term ''religio perennis'' when referring to the operative side of this wisdom, thus its mystical or initiatic aspect.

For Laude, it is not the notion of the "transcendental unity of religions" that primarily characterizes Schuon's teaching, but rather "a reformulation of the ''sophia perennis'', or ''religio perennis'', conceived as the conjunction of a metaphysical doctrine and a means of spiritual realization".

Metaphysics

Schuon characterizes "pure" metaphysics as 1) "essential", i.e. "independent of all religious formulation"; 2) "primordial", namely "the truth that existed before all dogmatic formalism"; and 3) "universal", in that it "encompasses all intrinsically orthodox symbolism" and "can therefore be combined with any religious language". For him, pure metaphysics can be summarized by the following vedantic statement: (Brahman is real, the world is illusory, the individual soul is not different from Brahman).

The metaphysics expounded by Schuon is based on the doctrine of what the Hindu ''Advaita Vedānta'' refers to as ''Ātmā'' and ''Māyā''. ''Ātmā'' (''Ātman'') is the Self, both transcendent and immanent; in correlation with ''Māyā'', ''Ātmā'' designates the Real, the Absolute, the Principle, Beyond Being, ''Brahma'' (''Brahman''); and ''Māyā'' the illusory, the relative, manifestation. Schuon develops this metaphysical principle, notably in ''Form and Substance in the Religions'', basing himself on the Sufi doctrine of the degrees of reality, known as "The Five Divine Presences":Harry Oldmeadow, ''Frithjof Schuon and the Perennial Philosophy'', World Wisdom, 2010, p. 52-54.

* ''Degrees 1 and 2, taken together, correspond to God, the Principle, the Absolute'':

1. ''Ātmā'': Beyond-Being, Impersonal Divinity, Supreme Principle, Absolute Reality, Essence, ''nirguna Brahman''.

* ''Degrees 2 to 5 correspond to'' Māyā:

2. ''Māyā in divinis'' (the "relative Absolute", "''Ātmā'' as ''Māyā''"): Being, Personal God, creating Principle, uncreated Spirit, ''saguna Brahman'', ''Īshvara''.

* ''Degrees 3 to 5 correspond to manifestation, the cosmos, creation:''

3. Supra-formal manifestation: created Spirit (Intellect, ''Logos'', ''Buddhi''), paradise, angels.

* ''Degrees 4 and 5 correspond to formal manifestation:''

4. Subtle or animic manifestation: the world of the soul and the "spirits" (jinns, sylphs, salamanders, gnomes, etc.).

5. Gross or material manifestation: the visible world.

In the human being (the microcosm) the five degrees, ordered inversely, correspond to the body and the sensorial, mortal soul (5); the supra-sensorial, immortal soul (4); the created spirit (or intellect) (3); the uncreated spirit (or intellect) (2); the absolute and infinite Self (1). The presence of the three superior degrees in man "made in the image of God" confers upon him the possibility of a knowledge that transcends the limitations of subjectivity, thus in principle allowing him to "see things as they are", that is, objectively: this is gnosis.

As did Plato in ancient Greece, Adi Shankara in Hinduism, Meister Eckhardt and St Gregory Palamas in Christianity and Ibn Arabī in Islam – to name some examples –, Schuon attests that the essential discernment in metaphysics is that between the Real and the non-real (the illusory), ''Ātmā'' and ''Māyā''. He emphasizes that the Real, or Beyond Being, which is absolute and infinite, is the essence of all good (the Sovereign Good). As St Augustine reminds us, it is in the nature of the Good (''Agathôn'') to radiate,Harry Oldmeadow, ''Frithjof Schuon and the Perennial Philosophy'', World Wisdom, 2010, p. 62. hence the projection of ''Māyā'', which is simultaneously divine (''Īshvara''), celestial (''Buddhi'' and ''Svarga'') and "earthly", the latter including the domain of transmigration ( ''samsâra''). Every good offered by the world comes from the radiation of the Sovereign Good, every evil comes from Its remoteness. ''Mâyâ'' both veils and reveals God, the Absolute.

Quintessential esoterism

Most religions comprise an exoteric