Leo Schaya

Leo Schaya was born in Switzerland, where he received a traditional Jewish upbringing. From his early youth he devoted himself to the study of the great metaphysical doctrines of East and West, particularly the works of neo-Platonism, Sufism and Advaita Vedanta.Along with some other writers in the Traditionalist/Perennialist school, Schaya is noted for his grasp of sometimes difficult metaphysical concepts and his ability to summarize and interpret the writings of ancient and medieval sages for current readers.He published several articles on the metaphysical and esoteric wisdom of the Jewish Kabbalah, as well as a perspicacious book on the subject entitled The Universal Meaning of the Kabbalah (1958), which remains one of the most often quoted books on the subject. He also wrote a book on the Sufi doctrine of unity. In addition, World Wisdom has published a collection of Schaya’s seminal work on his central theme, titled Universal Aspects of the Kabbalah and Judaism (2014), which includes some previously unpublished material.Leo Schaya’s essay “Creation, the Image of God” is one of the articles collected in the anthology Seeing God Everywhere: Essays on Nature and the Sacred . Another essay, “On the Name “Allah” is included in Sufism: Love and Wisdom .To read Leo Schaya’s essay “The Eliatic Function” (about the esoteric function of the prophet Elijah), which appeared in the important traditionalist journal Studies in Comparative Religion, click here.