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This late work of Frithjof Schuon represents a general survey of his metaphysical perspective, which is that of the Sophia perennis, or “perennial wisdom” found at the heart of the world’s religions. This new edition of The Play of Masks features a fully revised translation from the French original as well as over 50 pages of new material, including previously unpublished selections from the author’s letters and other private writings. Also included is an editor’s preface, extensive editor’s notes, a glossary of foreign terms and phrases, an index, and biographical notes. Composed of short independent treatises, this book presents readers with fundamental keys for understanding the nature of God, the world, and the human situation. Throughout his writings, Schuon emphasizes the centrality of three elements: Truth, Way, and Virtue. The Truth is what we must know; the Way is what we must do; Virtue is what we must love, become, and be.
The Play of Masks: A New Translation with Selected Letters was awarded a Silver Medal in the Midwest Independent Publishers Association 2025 Book Awards, as a finalist in the Nonfiction – Inspiration category.
About the Author(s)
Frithjof Schuon
Frithjof Schuon (1907-1998) is best known as the foremost spokesman of the “Traditionalist” or “Perennialist” school and as a philosopher in the metaphysical current of Shankara and Plato. He wrote more than two dozen books on metaphysical, spiritual, artistic, and ethnic themes and was a regular contributor to journals on comparative religion in both Europe and America. Schuon’s writings have been consistently featured and reviewed in a wide range of scholarly and philosophical publications around the world, respected by both scholars and spiritual authorities. Besides his prose writings, Schuon was also a prolific poet and a gifted painter of images that always portrayed the beauty and power of the divine, and the nobility and virtue of primordial humanity.
World Wisdom features a series titled “The Writings of Frithjof Schuon”, which includes many new editions of classic books by Schuon in new translations and with additional materials. Our online Library contains many articles and poems written by Frithjof Schuon, allowing readers to see a representative sample of his remarkable body of work.
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Harry Oldmeadow
Harry Oldmeadow was coordinator of Philosophy and Religious Studies at La Trobe University in Australia and author of the acclaimed Traditionalism: Religion in the Light of the Perennial Philosophy (2000), an authoritative introduction to the perspective of Perennialism. Prof. Oldmeadow's contributions to World Wisdom books & DVDs include:
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Reviews
- The title of this book refers, in its most general sense, both to its metaphysical theme and to its dialectics. It most fundamentally expresses the multiplicity of the aspects of Mâyâ, the Universal Relativity, as they mask — both to veil and to reveal — the Supreme and Only Subject, the Divine “I”, Atmâ. Dialectically speaking, this title suggests the variety of ways in which Schuon proposes to approach the Ultimate Reality and its spiritual correlates. The diversity of approaches is motivated by a desire for clarity and integrality. In this work, maybe more emphatically than in others, Schuon deals with the human condition both in the “cosmogonic projection,” as manifestation of Atmâ through Mâyâ, and in relation to the spiritually liberating doors — truth, prayer and beauty — which give to human existence its meaning and its prerogatives. Transcendence and objectivity are the fundamental prerogatives of the human on the levels of intelligence, will and love. Objectivity is understood by Schuon as an integral conformity to the nature of things through which man reaches his “celestial potentiality.” That potentiality is in a sense already included in the mystery of Manifestation which sees Atmâ become Mâyâ so that Mâyâ may become Atmâ: the Divine Whole Possibility entails that of being known “from outside,” that is by a being who is “illusorily” different from God while being actively participant in the Divine Intellect. The intellective faculty is the very center of man and it can be identified as such with the “inner man”, by contrast with the “outer man” who lives on the periphery of being. In that sense, the “outer man” is the “mask” of the “inner man.” Only the Sage is fully aware of the relationship between these two dimensions because he identifies perfectly with the “inner man,” which allows him to objectify his human “mask.”
Man must be a witness of Necessary Being in the world of contingency, and he does so, first by remembering the Absolute — in prayer — through the “liberating passage” of the Divine Symbol — the sacramental vehicle of the Divine Presence — , and secondly by “bringing back” the positive contents of Mâyâ — inner and outer beauty — to their roots in God. When unfaithful to this vocation, man remains “exteriorized” and “horizontal.” These two vices characterize and manifest the Fall, or Original Sin, to which Schuon devotes an enlightening chapter. Dealing with the necessary spiritual and moral climate of man’s return to God in two chapters on “intention” and “charity,” Schuon dispels a series of modern prejudices which eliminate or vitiate the spiritual meaning of veracity and compassion by reducing them to psychological or political categories. The object of this book is, once again, to provide contemporary seekers with fundamental keys to help them rediscover their true nature: the awareness of the Real with their whole intelligence, will and soul.Patrick Laude, Georgetown University, and author of Singing the Way: Insights in Poetry and Spiritual Transformation
