René Jean-Marie-Joseph Guénon, also known as Abdalwahid Yahia, was a French-Egyptian 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.
Portrait from 1925
Title page of an English translation of Introduction générale à l'étude des doctrines hindoues
Ganesha, "Lord of meditation and mantras", "Lord of Knowledge", and "Lord of Categories", would be displayed in the front page cover of the Symbolism of the Cross's original edition
Han dynasty coin, with the square hole in the center, in application to analogy symbolism (see text)
Sufism is a mystic body of religious practice found within Islam which is characterized by a focus on Islamic purification, spirituality, ritualism, asceticism, and esotericism.
Six Sufi masters, c. 1760
Dancing dervishes, by Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād (c. 1480–1490)
A Sufi in Ecstasy in a Landscape. Isfahan, Safavid Persia (c. 1650–1660), LACMA.
A Mughal miniature dated from the early 1620s depicting the Mughal emperor Jahangir (d. 1627) preferring an audience with Sufi saint to his contemporaries, the Ottoman Sultan and the King of England James I (d. 1625); the picture is inscribed in Persian: "Though outwardly shahs stand before him, he fixes his gazes on dervishes."
