Ebook: Splendor of the True: A Frithjof Schuon Reader

A new anthology of the work of Frithjof Schuon that includes philosophical writings along with a selection of his poems, artworks, and unpublished pieces from his personal papers.

Frithjof Schuon (1907–1998), the leading figure in the perennialist school of comparative religious thought, remains one of the most provocative voices on religion. Bridging the divide between seeker and scholar, Schuon challenges the prevailing notion that religion should be studied with agnostic neutrality. He speaks to those who are looking for greater interfaith understanding and a deeper penetration to the esoteric heart of specific traditions, while turning the tables on an increasingly noisy chorus of skeptics.

In Splendor of the True, James S. Cutsinger selects essential writings that reflect the full range of Schuon’s thought on religion and tradition, metaphysics and epistemology, human nature and destiny, sacred art and symbolism, and spirituality and contemplative method. In addition to Schuon’s essays, the book includes a number of poems, artworks, and previously unpublished materials drawn from his letters, personal memoirs, and private texts for disciples. An introductory chapter provides a careful examination of Schuon as perennial philosopher, Sufi shaykh, and teacher of gnosis.

 “Professor Cutsinger’s reader provides a comprehensive introduction to the teaching of Frithjof Schuon, one of the most wide-ranging and lastingly influential religious thinkers of the past century. Of particular interest is the close attention to essays revealing Schuon’s extraordinary sensitivity to aesthetic, devotional, and other key aspects of practical spiritual realization. His illuminating observations in these widely shared areas of religious experience are communicated with remarkable clarity and cogency, clearly drawing on his own lifelong activity as both artist and spiritual guide. — James Winston Morris, translator of Ostad Elahi’s Knowing the Spirit

“The vision of the universal metaphysician, shaykh, and poet Frithjof Schuon is finally accessible to the English-speaking reader in this outstanding collection of his writings. The foremost thinker of the perennialist school, Schuon insisted on the unity of God, arguing that this divine Absolute reveals itself perfectly in the orthodox form of each of the world’s great religions. His uncompromising rejection of relativism has made him a cult figure for some and a pariah for others, including many in the academic study of religion.

“Splendor of the True offers a thoroughgoing rehabilitation of this primordial twentieth-century thinker by a courageous scholar, our generation’s leading Schuon expert. James Cutsinger draws on decades of communion with his subject’s many dimensions in order to reveal their essence. Carefully selected across a wide range of topics, insightfully translated from the French and German, and elegantly curated, Schuon’s writings now make their case with unprecedented clarity. Cutsinger is sensitive to Schuon’s ongoing role as lightning-rod; with judicious balance, he shows why this has been the case; why it may well be unfair; and how Schuon’s philosophy was born out of the gnosis of lifelong, deep spiritual practice, marrying heart and intellect. Cutsinger is able to interpret Frithjof Schuon to skeptics as well as to seekers—unafraid, like Schuon himself, to be provocative in the service of the True.” — Kimberley C. Patton, Harvard Divinity School