W

Amélie Boudet was a French teacher and artist, and wife of Allan Kardec, the founder of Spiritism. After his death, she became the world's leading authority on Spiritism.

W

Pierre Chaignon, S.J. (1791–1883) was a French Jesuit priest and spiritual writer.

W

François Marie Gabriel Delanne was a notable French spiritist, psychical researcher, writer, and electrical engineer. He is best known for his book, "Le Phénomène spirite".

W

Léon Denis was a notable spiritist philosopher, and, with Gabriel Delanne and Camille Flammarion, one of the principal exponents of spiritism after the death of Allan Kardec. Denis lectured throughout Europe at international conferences of spiritism and spiritualism, promoting the idea of survival of the soul after death and the implications of this for human relations. He is known as the apostle of French spiritism.

W

Jeanne-Marie Bouvier de la Motte-Guyon was a French mystic and was accused of advocating Quietism, although she never called herself a Quietist. Quietism was considered heretical by the Roman Catholic Church, and she was imprisoned from 1695 to 1703 after publishing the book A Short and Very Easy Method of Prayer.

W

Allan Kardec is the nom de plume of the French educator, translator and author Hippolyte Léon Denizard Rivail. He is the author of the five books known as the Spiritist Codification, and is the founder of Spiritism.

W

Jean Klein was a French author, spiritual teacher and philosopher of Advaita Vedanta (Nondualism). According to Jean Klein, it is only in a "spontaneous state of interior silence that we can open ourselves to our true nature: the 'I Am' of pure consciousness."

W

Marie-Eugene de L'Enfant-Jésus - born Henri Grialou - was a French Roman Catholic priest and a professed member of the Discalced Carmelites of which he was a member of since just after his ordination. Grialou held several positions of leadership within his congregation and was an extensive traveler as a manager of a range of different Carmelite convents and monasteries across the world. He was the founder of the Secular Institute of Notre-Dame de Vie. Grialou was also a noted spiritual writer and wrote at great length on the Carmelite charism as well as on a range of Carmelite luminaries.

W

Matthieu Ricard is a French writer, photographer, translator and Buddhist monk who resides at Shechen Tennyi Dargyeling Monastery in Nepal.