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René Guénon

French intellectual (1886–1951)

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In his writings, Guénon proposes to hand down eastern metaphysics and traditions, these doctrines being defined by him as of "universal character", and adapt them to western readers "while keeping strictly faithful to their spirit".

Initiated into Islamic esotericism from as early as 1910 when he was 24, Guénon 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.

Biography

René Guénon was born in 1886 in Blois in central France 160 km (100 mi) 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). While he did not take this Gnostic church seriously either, it enabled him to become the founder and main contributor of a periodical review, La Gnose ("Gnosis"), writing under the pen-name "Tau Palingenius" until 1922, and focusing on oriental spiritual traditions (Taoism, Hinduism and Sufism).

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.

When Guénon first adopted Islam in 1912, he insisted on recalling that the purely religious concept of an immediate conversion did not apply to his case, indicating he had previous acquaintance with the Islamic faith. According to P. Chacornac, Guénon thought that Islam was one of the only real traditions accessible to Westerners, while retaining authentic possibilities in the initiative domain. Guénon married Berthe Loury, his aunt's assistant, in 1912, in a church wedding. His aunt and niece, Françoise Bélile, came to live with them, and, as the couple had no children of their own, they raised Françoise as their own. As his aunt and wife were very pious, Guénon kept his Sufi and Freemason ties secret from them. Berthe later fell ill, dying in 1928, which affected Guénon deeply.

Guénon went on to be discharged from his military service due to his severe health problems; he took this opportunity to study philosophy at the Sorbonne during World War I. In 1917, Guénon began a one-year stay at Sétif, Algeria, teaching philosophy to college students. After World War I, he left teaching to dedicate himself to writing; his first book, Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines, was published in 1921. From 1925 Guénon became a contributor to a review edited by P. Chacornac, Le Voile d'Isis ("The Veil of Isis"), which after 1935, because of Guénon's influence, became known as Les Études Traditionnelles ("Traditional Studies").

According to indications reproduced by his biographer Paul Chacornac and some of his close friends or collaborators such as Jean Reyor, André Préau and Frans Vreede, it is possible that René Guénon became acquainted with the initiatic lineage of Shankaracharya, and with Taoism, due to his friendship with Georges-Albert Puyou de Pouvourville, known under the pen-name Matgioi. Pouvourville was initiated into Taoism in Tonkin, Vietnam (circa 1887–1891) by a village chief: the Tong-Song-Luat (the 'Master of Sentences'). Paul Chacornac hypothesized that Guénon would also have received a direct transmission of Taoism via the younger son of the Master of Sentences, Nguyen Van Cang, who came to France with Pouvourville and stayed for a while in Paris. Most biographers recognize that the encounter which marked his life and his work the most is that with Hindus, with at least one of whom having played the role of instructor if not of spiritual teacher. This meeting took place very early during the period of 1904–1909, possibly upon his exact arrival in the occultist world, if not before.

Although the exposition of Hindu doctrines to European audiences had already been attempted in piecemeal fashion at that time by some orientalists, Guénon's Introduction to the Study of the Hindu Doctrines advanced its subject in a uniquely insightful manner, by referring to the concepts of metaphysics and Tradition in their most general sense, which Guénon precisely defined, along with the necessary distinctions and definitions of seemingly unambiguous terms such as religion, tradition, exoterism, esoterism and theology. Guénon explained that his purpose was not to describe all aspects of Hinduism, but to give the necessary intellectual foundation for a proper understanding of its spirit. The book also stands as a harsh condemnation of works presented by certain other European writers about Hinduism and Tradition in general; according to Guénon, such writers had lacked any profound understanding of their subject matter and of its implications. The book also contains a critical analysis of the political intrusions of the British Empire into the subject of Hinduism (and India itself) through Madame Blavatsky's Theosophy. The publication of this book earned him rapid recognition in Parisian circles. René Grousset in his "History of Eastern Philosophy" (1923) already referred to Guénon's work as a "classic". André Malraux would say much later that it was, "At its date, a book capital". On the other hand, Guénon was very disappointed by the reaction of his neo-Thomist friends, his erstwhile supporter Jacques Maritain argued that Guénon's views were "radically irreconcilable with the [Catholic] faith"; he called them a "Hinduist restoration of ancient Gnosis, mother of heresies". After World War II, when Maritain became French Ambassador to the Vatican, he asked for Guénon's work to be listed under the Catholic Index of Prohibited Books, a request which had no effect due to the refusal of Pius XII and the support of Cardinal Eugène Tisserant.

In September 1920, Père Peillaube asked Guénon to write a book against the Theosophical Society. In 1921, Guénon debuted a series of articles in the French Revue de Philosophie, which, along with some supplements, led to the book Theosophy: History of a Pseudo-Religion. His critique of Theosophy was received positively by conservative Catholics. However, his later book Orient et Occident distanced him from his Catholic supporters. During the decade 1920–1930, Guénon began to acquire a broader public reputation, and his work was noted by various major intellectual and artistic figures both within and outside of Paris. Also at this time were published some of his books explaining the "intellectual divide" between the East and West, and the peculiar nature, according to him, of modern civilization: Crisis of the Modern World, and East and West. In 1927 was published the second major doctrinal book of his works: Man and His Becoming according to the Vedânta, and in 1929, Spiritual Authority and Temporal Power. The last book listed offers a general explanation of what Guénon saw as the fundamental differences between "sacerdotal" (priestly or sacred) and "royal" (governmental) powers, along with the negative consequences arising from the usurpation of the prerogatives of the latter with regard to the former. From these considerations, René Guénon traces to its source the origin of the modern deviation, which, according to him, is to be found in the destruction of the Templar order in 1314.

Urged on by some of his friends and collaborators, Guénon agreed to establish a new Masonic Lodge in France founded upon his "Traditional ideals", purified of what he saw as the inauthentic accretions which so bedeviled other lodges he had encountered during his early years in Paris. This lodge was called La Grande Triade ("The Great Triad"), a name inspired by the title of one of Guénon's books. The first founders of the lodge, however, separated a few years after its inception. Nevertheless, this lodge, belonging to the Grande Loge de France, remains active today.

In 1930, Guénon left Paris for Cairo, where he met with Abdalhaqq-Léon Champrenaud, and Abdalhadi Alaqhili, formerly known as John-Gustaf Aguéli, to be initiated into a Sufi order of Islam. When he arrived, his outward behaviour had changed and he had completely immersed himself in the popular Islamic milieu of the city. Guénon went on to be initiated into the Shadhili order by Aguéli, receiving the name "Abd al-Wāḥid Yaḥiā" (“John, Servant of the One”). Agueli and Champrenaud on the other hand had been initiated by Sheikh Abderrahman Elish Elkebir: Guénon sought to meet Sheikh Elkebir himself, him having been the master of the Sufi spiritual lineage with which he was affiliated, but unfortunately he had just died, hence he chose to make dhikr at his gravesite instead. Guénon went on to meet Sheikh Salama Radi, the succeeding Qutb, the highest authority of the Shadhilite branch to which Guénon belonged, after the death of Sheikh Abderrahman Elkebir. Several testimonies certify that he became Guénon's final teacher. He lived for seven years in the medieval-style Islamic quarters around the Khan el-Khalili and often attended al-Azhar University, an intellectual center of Sunni Muslim scholarship.

One morning, at dawn, while praying at the Seyidna el Hussein mosque, in front of the mausoleum housing the remains of Husayn ibn Ali, he met Sheikh Mohammad Ibrahim, an elderly lawyer with whom he became very close. Guénon married Ibrahim's youngest daughter in 1934, with whom he had four children. In 1937, thanks to the generosity of an English admirer of Guénon's called John Levy, the couple became owners of a small villa, the "Villa Fatima" named after Guénon's wife, in the modern district of Duqqi, west of Cairo, at the foot of the pyramids. Guénon hardly ever went out and often refused Western visitors; his address remained a secret. He spent most of his time working in his office, praying in his oratory, and talking to close friends.

In 1949, Guénon obtained Egyptian citizenship. Sedgwick wrote about Guénon's life in Egypt, that while he continued to be interested in Hinduism and other religions, Guénon's own practice was purely Islamic.

René Guénon died on Sunday, 7 January 1951 at the age of 64: his final word was "Allah".

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