The Sophia Perennis and Feminity

 

"The contemplation of God in women is the most intense and the most perfect". (Ibn Arabî, Fuçuç al-hikam, p. 202)

"Woman synthesizing virgin nature, the sanctuary and spiritual company, is for man what is most lovable; in a certain respect she represents the projection of merciful Inwardness in barren outwardness, and in this regard she assumes a sacramental or quasi-Divine function."
(Frithjof Schuon, Logic and Transcendence, p.194).

The Sophia Perennis (Perennial Wisdom), as Frithjof Schuon has formulated it, does not exclude any positive manifestation of the Divine. Religious exoterism on the other hand, given its focus on the spiritual capacities of the majority of men, that are necessarily uneven, justifiably tends to consider anything dealing with femininity, sexuality and the human body from the exclusive standpoint of an opportunity for sin. In contrast to this limited and expedient perspective, the Sophia Perennis aims at restoring the deepest value of these aspects of human existence, while being aware of the ambiguity and danger that are inherent to its esoteric and primordial perspective. The short quotations given below will allow the reader to reach an initial understanding of the ways in which an objective and existential contemplation of femininity in its various dimensions and modes (the archetypes and their sensible manifestations) satisfies one of the most profound needs of integral human nature, and how intellective discernment and the sanctifying assimilation that is brought about by the methodical use of sacred means of grace can transmute the love for woman and feminine beauty into a very profound and powerful support of spiritual realization.