Frithjof Schuon, Swiss-American metaphysicist, philosopher, and author (d. 1998)
Frithjof Schuon (frit-JOF SHOO-on, , German: [ˈfʁɪtjɔf ˈʃuːɔn]; 18 June 1907 – 5 May 1998) was a Swiss metaphysician of German descent, belonging to the Perennialist or Traditionalist School of thought. He was the author of more than twenty works in French on metaphysics, spirituality, the religious phenomenon, 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 from its traditional roots. Following Plato, Plotinus, Adi Shankara, Meister Eckhardt, Ibn Arabī and other metaphysicians, Schuon affirmed 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 teaching strongly emphasizes the universality of metaphysical doctrine, along with the necessity of practising one religion, and one alone; 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.