Anonymous, René Guénon – short biography

René (Jean-Marie-Joseph) Guénon was born in 1886 in Blois, France. He obtained degrees in Mathematics and Philosophy, taught for some years in Paris and, during the war, in Algeria. Early in his life, he dominated the Greek, Latin, English, Italian, German, Spanish, Sanscrit, Hebraic, Arabic and later, Chinese languages. Surprising European and Orientals, he mantained conversation with his interlocutors in their own languages, mastering both the language and the spirit of distant civilizations.

Undoubtedly, it was most decisive in his formation that he obtained his doctrinal knowledge orally and directly from representatives of Hinduism (School of Shankara), of Islamism (tariqah of Sheikh Elish El Kebir, of the Alkbariana line), of Taoism (through the spiritual son of Tong I am Luat, eminent Taoist master).

Very early in his life, at age 22, his writings had the strength of authority in their explanation and articulation of issues until then ignored by "official" orientalism. Guénon exposed conclusively dozens of impostors, from the coarse ones to the more refined, thus bringing on himself, in one hand, the thankful surprise and gratitude of those that looked for the authentic east and, in the other hand, the hate and persecutions of an immense majority exposed in their false bases and tricks.

The most eminent recognition of value came from oriental authorities. Marco Pallis tells us of the perfect orthodoxy of of Guénons explanations verified by tibetans priests; Ramana Maharshi named Guénon " The Great Sufi "; the true Taoists masters in unison designated Guénon as the only Westerner in the last centuries that was able to capture and to transmit the true spirit of the Taoism.

But, what does Guénon himself have to say? "The whole merit of this work is in the authentic oriental doctrine it contains; my work is just to transmit it in the clearest and exact way that I can".

René Guénon (his Muslim name was Shaykh ' Abd al-Wâhid Yahyâ) died in 1951, in Cairo, where he lived since 1930, without never returning to Europe.