Biography
Bibliography
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Bibliography: Frithjof Schuon's complete Bibliography
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Frithjof Schuon is best known as the foremost spokesman of the religio perennis and as a philosopher in the metaphysical current of Shankara and Plato. Over the past 50 years, he has written more than 20 books on metaphysical, spiritual and ethnic themes as well as having been a regular contributor to journals on comparative religion in both Europe and America. Schuon's writings have been consistently featured and reviewed in a wide range of scholarly and philosophical publications around the world, respected by both scholars and spiritual authorities.
Schuon was born in 1907 in Basle, Switzerland, of German parents. As a youth, he went to Paris, where he studied for a few years before undertaking a number of trips to North Africa, the Near East and India in order to contact spiritual authorities and witness traditional cultures. Following World War II, he accepted an invitation to travel to the American West, where he lived for several months among the Plains Indians, in whom he has always had a deep interest. Having received his education in France, Schuon has written all his major works in French, which began to appear in English translation in 1953. Of his first book, The Transcendent Unity of Religions (London, Faber & Faber) T.S. Eliot wrote: "I have met with no more impressive work in the comparative study of Oriental and Occidental religion."
The traditionalist or "perennialist" perspective began to be enunciated in the West at the beginning of the twentieth century by the French philosopher Rene Guenon and by the Orientalist and Harvard professor Ananda Coomaraswamy. Fundamentally, this doctrine is the Sanatana Dharma--the "eternal religion"--of Hindu Vedantists. It was formulated in the West, in particular, by Plato, by Meister Eckhart in the Christian world, and is also to be found in Islam with Sufism. Every religion has, besides its literal meaning, an esoteric dimension, which is essential, primordial and universal. This intellectual universality is one of the hallmarks of Schuon's works, and it gives rise to many fascinating insights into not only the various spiritual traditions, but also history, science and art.
The dominant theme or principle of Schuon's writings was foreshadowed in his early encounter with a Black marabout who had accompanied some members of his Senegalese village to Switzerland in order to demonstrate their culture. When the young Schuon talked with him, the venerable old man drew a circle with radii on the ground and explained: "God is in the center, all paths lead to Him."
"He feeds my soul ... as does no other living religious writer."--Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions
PublicationsThe Transcendent Unity of Religions, 1953
Revised Edition, 1975, 1984, The Theosophical Publishing House, 1993
Spiritual Perspectives and Human Facts, 1954, 1969
New Translation, Perennial Books, 1987
Gnosis: Divine Wisdom, 1959, 1978, Perennial Books 1990
Language of the Self, 1959
Revised Edition, World Wisdom Books, 1999
Stations of Wisdom, 1961, 1980
Revised Translation, World Wisdom Books, 1995
Understanding Islam, 1963, 1965, 1972, 1976, 1979, 1981, 1986, 1989
Revised Translation, World Wisdom Books, 1994, 1998
Light on the Ancient Worlds, 1966, World Wisdom Books, 1984
In the Tracks of Buddhism, 1968, 1989
New Translation, Treasures of Buddhism, World Wisdom Books, 1993
Logic and Transcendence, 1975, Perennial Books, 1984
Esoterism as Principle and as Way, Perennial Books, 1981, 1990
Castes and Races, Perennial Books, 1959, 1982
Sufism: Veil and Quintessence, World Wisdom Books, 1981
From the Divine to the Human, World Wisdom Books, 1982
Christianity/Islam, World Wisdom Books, 1985
The Essential Writings of Frithjof Schuon (S.H. Nasr, Ed.) , 1986, Element, 1991
Survey of Metaphysics and Esoterism, World Wisdom Books, 1986, 2000
In the Face of the Absolute, World Wisdom Books, 1989, 1994
The Feathered Sun: Plain Indians in Art & Philosophy, World Wisdom Books, 1990
To Have a Center, World Wisdom Books, 1990
Roots of the Human Condition, World Wisdom Books, 1991
Images of Primordial & Mystic Beauty: Paintings by Frithjof Schuon,Abodes, 1992
Echoes of Perennial Wisdom, World Wisdom Books, 1992
The Play of Masks, World Wisdom Books, 1992
Road to the Heart, World Wisdom Books, 1995
The Transfiguration of Man, World Wisdom Books, 1995
The Eye of the Heart, World Wisdom Books, 1997