René Guénon

René-Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥyá, al-Mālikī, al-Ḥāmidī ash-Shādhilī)
Guénon aged 38 (1925 studio photo).
Born	(1886-11-15)November 15, 1886 Blois, Loir-et-Cher, France
Died	January 7, 1951(1951-01-07) (aged 64) Cairo, Egypt
Era	20th-century philosophy
Region	Western philosophy Eastern philosophy Esotericism
School	Advaita Vedanta Sufism Nondualism Platonism
Main interests	Metaphysics Esoterism Initiation Symbolism Mythology Gnosis Gnosticism Religious texts History Freemasonry Mathematics Society Social criticism Comparative religion
Notable ideas	Critique of modernity from the perspective of ancient wisdom traditions Refounding Western esotericism using Eastern ideas
Influences Adi Shankara Ibn Arabi Lao Tse (Laozi) Plato Martinez de Pasqually Papus
Influenced Mircea Eliade Frithjof Schuon Michel Valsan Marco Pallis Julius Evola Huston Smith Ananda Coomaraswamy Seraphim Rose

René-Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon (November 15, 1886 – January 7, 1951), also known as ʿAbd al-Wāḥid Yaḥyá [al-Mālikī, al-Ḥāmidī ash-Shādhilī], was a French author and intellectual who remains an influential figure in the domain of metaphysics, having written on topics ranging from metaphysics, "sacred science" and traditional studies to symbolism and initiation.

In his writings, he proposes either "to expose directly some aspects of Eastern metaphysical doctrines", these doctrines being defined by him as of "universal character", or "to adapt these same doctrines for Western readers while keeping strictly faithful to their spirit"; he only endorsed the act of "handing down" these Eastern doctrines, while reiterating their "non-individual character".

He wrote and published in French and his works have been translated into more than twenty languages.

René Guénon was born in Blois, a city in central France approximately 160 km (100 mi) from Paris. Guénon, like most Frenchmen of the time, was born into a Roman Catholic family. Little is known of his family, although it appears that his father was an architect. 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.

As a young student in Paris, Guénon observed and became involved with some students who were, at that time, under the supervision of Gérard Encausse, alias Papus. Guénon soon discovered that the Martinist order supervised by Papus was irregular. He joined the Gnostic Church founded by Fabre des Essarts-Synesius. Under the name "Tau Palingenius" Guénon became the founder and main contributor of a periodical review, La Gnose ("Gnosis"), writing articles for it until 1922. From his incursions into the French occultist and pseudo-masonic orders, he despaired of the possibility of ever gathering these diverse and often ill-assorted doctrines into a "stable edifice". In his book The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times he also pointed out what he saw as the intellectual vacuity of the French occultist movement, which, he wrote, was utterly insignificant, and more importantly, had been compromised by the infiltration of certain individuals of questionable motives and integrity. Following his desire to join a regular masonic obedience, he became a member of the Thebah Lodge of the Grande Loge de France following the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite