glossary of terms used by frithjof schuon - Sophia Perennis

Prophet: The Prophet is the human norm in respect both of his individual and of his
collective functions, or again in respect of his spiritual and earthly functions.
Essentially he is equilibrium and extinction: equilibrium from the human point of view
and extinction in relation to God. [UI, The Prophet]
As a spiritual principle, the Prophet is not only the Totality of which we are separate parts
or fragments, he is also the Origin in relation to which we are so many deviations; in
other words, the Prophet as Norm is not only the “Whole Man” (al-Insan al-Kamil) but
also the “Ancient Man” (al-Insan al-Qadim). [UI, The Prophet]
Psychoanalysis: Psychoanalysis first of all eliminates those transcendent factors that
make the essence of man and then replaces the complexes of inferiority or frustration by
complexes of complacency and egotism; it allows one to sin calmly and with assurance,
and to damn oneself serenely. [LT, The Contradiction of Relativism]
Psychoanalysis doubly deserves to be classed as an imposture, firstly because it pretends
to have discovered facts which have always been known and could never have been
otherwise than known, and secondly and chiefly because it arrogates to itself functions
that in reality are spiritual, and thus poses practically as a religion . . . What is new in
psychoanalysis, and what gives it its sinister originality, is its determination to attribute
every reflex and every disposition of the soul to mean causes and to exclude spiritual
factors; hence its notorious tendency to see health in what is commonplace and vulgar,
and neurosis in what is noble and profound. [SME, The Psychological Imposture]
Psychological Imposture: What we term “psychological imposture” is the tendency to
reduce everything to psychological factors and to call into question not only what is
intellectual or spiritual – the first being related to truth and the second to life in and by
truth – but also the human spirit as such, and therewith its capacity of adequation and,
still more evidently, its inward illimitation and transcendence. The same belittling and
truly subversive tendency rages in all the domains that “scientism” claims to embrace, but
its most acute expression is beyond all doubt to be found in psychoanalysis. [SME, The
Psychological Imposture]
Rahmah / Ananda: “Benevolence” (Rahmah) . . . The term Rahmah also contains the
ideas of Mercy and Beauty, and then that of Love, and coincides in the final analysis with
the Ananda of Brahmanism, radiant “Beatitude.” [THC, Degrees and Scope of Theism]
Rahmah – a term that is most often translated as “Clemency” – implies more profoundly,
as does the Sanskrit term Ananda, all the aspects of Harmony:* Goodness, Beauty and
Beatitude; and Rahmah is integrated into the Divine Essence itself, inasmuch as it is
fundamentally none other than the radiating Infinitude of the Principle; an identity that
the Koran expresses by saying: “Call upon Allah or call upon Ar-Rahman, to Him belong
the most beautiful Names” . . .
For one cannot appeal to the One without Mercy responding.
(* Sat referring to the Absolute, and Chit to the Consciousness that Atma has of its
inexhaustible Perfection, hence its Qualities.) [SVQ, Hypostatic Dimensions of Unity]
Rahman / Rahim: The divine Names Rahman and Rahim, both derived from the word
Rahmah (“Mercy”), mean, the former the intrinsic Mercy of God and the latter His
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