Frithjof Schuon Archive
A Resource on Frithjof Schuon’s Life and Teachings
This site is the most comprehensive repository of information pertaining to the life and work of Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998); materials include published articles, personal correspondence, private papers, poems, photographs, and works of art.
Frithjof Schuon is the preeminent spokesman of a school of thought that focuses on the expression and explanation of the Perennial Philosophy. This philosophy expresses the timeless metaphysical truths underlying the diverse religions; its written sources include the revealed Scriptures as well as the writings of the great spiritual masters. Because these truths are permanent and universal, the point of view may thus be called “Perennialist.” The Perennial Philosophy is an important perspective that can inform the study of Comparative Religion, Anthropology, Art, Literature, and many related areas.
Schuon was a philosopher in the tradition of Plato, Shankara, and Eckhart, and he wrote over two dozen books on religion, metaphysics, sacred art, and the spiritual path. Describing Schuon’s first book, The Transcendent Unity of Religions, Nobel laureate T. S. Eliot wrote, “I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion”, and world-renowned religion scholar Huston Smith said of Schuon, “The man is a living wonder; intellectually apropos religion, equally in depth and breadth, the paragon of our time”. Schuon’s books have been translated into over a dozen languages and are respected by academic and religious authorities alike. Schuon’s writings remain unequaled in setting forth the principles of perennialist thought as well as their applications on the spiritual, aesthetic, and other related levels.
Besides his accomplishments as an author, Frithjof Schuon was also a gifted artist and poet. His art and his poetry flowed naturally from his awareness of God’s Presence in creation. Catalogue notes from a museum display of Schuon’s art explain that “springing as they do from his rich and unique personality, Schuon’s paintings…have a rare value, not only as regards artistic merit but above all because of their gift for manifesting the human soul at its noblest and most beautiful—hence, as a vehicle for Truth.” The sense of the sacred figures as much in Schuon’s art and poetry as in his philosophical writings.
The story of Schuon’s life presented in these pages demonstrates how his own intellect, personality, and actions reflected the elevated metaphysics, spiritual insights, and artistic creations that comprised his body of work.
This online resource brings together, through a survey of his many-faceted dimensions, Frithjof Schuon’s important contributions to the manifestations of the timeless Truth.
Featured Books
Esoterik als Grundsatz und als Weg
The content includes a profound metaphysical reflection on the double face of the world based on the concept of the veil, insights into cosmology faithful to tradition based on a doctrine of numbers, and fundamental and practical essays on anthropology: virtues, sexuality, love of God and love of neighbor.
Featured Poems
Adastra and Stella Maris: Poems by Frithjof Schuon-Symbol
What is a symbol? There are two kinds:A symbol may be arbitrary, artificially conceived;Or else: its inner meaning one may see —Its message is what strikes the eye.In the first case, the symbol is a writing;In the second, it is not a mere outward sign,But something of...
Adastra and Stella Maris: Poems by Frithjof Schuon-Doubt
Thou hast never been in the better Hereafter; Just like us, thou may’st be far from certitude —So saying, the doubters mock. I am a man of this earth —But how can they know where I have been?
Adastra and Stella Maris: Poems by Frithjof Schuon-It is Thus
To live with many things, to be oneself a thing,And nonetheless to be alone in solemn silence,For God is One — such is the circleOf the human condition; Unity wished to show diversity,Flowing forth and coming back again.What else can I say? Truth is the Eden ever...
Adastra and Stella Maris: Poems by Frithjof Schuon-Home-coming
Apokatastasis: return of all values,Of all good beings and good thingsInto the Lap of God, where everything was and will beEternally, so that their songs of praise resound.What God created cannot become eternalOutside of Him. He does not wish to destroy it;Within His...
Featured Articles
Schuon as Poet and Artist
Editor Seyyed Hossein Nasr discusses the artistic side of Frithjof Schuon’s body of work, namely his poetry and paintings, and the aesthetic sensibility reflected throughout Schuon’s writings. It should be noted that this was written some years before Schuon’s many volumes of later poetry was published. The piece was excerpted from Dr. Nasr’s “Introducing the Writings of Frithjof Schuon” (the ‘Introduction’) in The Essential Frithjof Schuon.
Perspectives
Whitall Perry recounts his own spiritual journey which brought him to meet the greatest thinkers of the Perennial Philosophy of the 20th century: Ananda K. Coomaraswamy, René Guénon, and Frithjof Schuon. Focusing on the later, Perry gives the reader a glimpse into the life of the remarkable writer, poet, and painter who, to many, represented in himself, and in his writings, the epitome of the traditional man.
A Schuon Sentence
A. K. Saran’s article appeared in the journal Sophia as part of an issue dedicated to the life and thought of the late Frithjof Schuon. It is a wide-ranging view of some key Schuonian, and thus “Perennialist,” concepts, as Saran focuses on Schuon’s book The Eye of the Heart. A. K. Saran also incorporates much traditional Hindu thought and the words of A. K. Coomaraswamy throughout this exploration of some aspects of Schuon’s thought.