René Guénon

René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (15 November 1886 – 7 January 1951), also known as Abdalwâhid Yahiâ (عبد الـوٰاحد يحيیٰ; ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā), was a French intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from esotericism, "sacred science" and "traditional studies" to symbolism and initiation. In his writings, he claims to hand down eastern religious traditions and adapt them to western readers "while keeping strictly faithful to their spirit". This claim has been challenged by some historians, who situate Guénon within Orientalist discourse. Initiated into Islamic esotericism from as early as 1910 when he was 24, he mainly wrote and published in French, and his works have been translated into more than twenty languages; he also wrote in Arabic an article for the journal Al Marifah. René Guénon was born in 1886 in Blois in central France from Paris. Like most Frenchmen of the time, he was born into a Roman Catholic family, originally from the Angevin, Poitou and Touraine provinces in France; his father was an architect. He was very close to his mother and even more to his aunt Mme Duru, a teacher who taught him to read and write, both devout Catholic women. By 1904, Guénon was living as a student in Paris, where his studies focused on mathematics and philosophy. He was known as a brilliant student, notably in mathematics, in spite of his poor health. In Paris in 1905, due to his health problems he abandoned the preparation for the prestigious École Polytechnique and École normale supérieure admission competitions. Guénon observed and became involved with some students under the supervision of Papus. Guénon soon discovered that the Esoteric Christian Martinist order, also supervised by Papus, was irregular: he wrote later that this occultist milieu had not received any authentic spiritual transmission. He joined the Gnostic Church of France founded by Léonce Fabre des Essarts (Synesius).