According to the author, the word “esotericism” designates a priori doctrines and methods that are more or less secret because they are supposed to surpass the limited capacities of ordinary people. In this book, while starting from the idea that it is authentic esotericism, he explains why this perspective is possible and even necessary, and how it applies to the various planes of human existence. But it is not so much historical esotericism – such as Pythagoreanism, Shiviite Vedanta, Zen – as the esotericism itself – sophia perennis – that interests the author, being itself independent of particular forms since it is their essence. For Schuon, only esoteric theses can satisfy the imperative need for causality that the philosophical and scientific positions of the modern world give rise to; only esotericism, unlike religious theses, can give answers that are neither fragmentary nor compromised in advance by a confessional bias.
This book, if it contains the necessary elements to enable us to situate esotericism in the most general sense of the term, is not however a systematic treatise on this subject. Esotericism is not only in the choice of ideas but also in the way of considering things.
Christentum – Islam: Ausblicke auf eine esoterisch Ökumene (e-Book)
In this work, Frithjof Schuon compares Christianity and Islam and also looks at confessions within these world religions: Protestantism, Orthodoxy, and Shiism.