Victor Danner was born on October 22, 1926, in Mexico to Mexican and American parents, though he was raised and educated in the United States.
He taught Arabic language and literature, Sufism, Eastern religions, and comparative mysticism at Indiana University from 1967 to 1990.
He was head of the Department of Near Eastern Languages and Cultures at the university, where he is remembered as a distinguished and erudite professor, a pioneer in these fields at the institution, which owed him much for his many contributions.
[2] Danner was influenced by perennial philosophy, as expounded by the French metaphysician René Guénon and his Swiss follower Frithjof Schuon, who both stressed "a transcendent unity of religions, esotericism, and a condemnation of the modern desacralization of the world".
[4] According to Hugh Urban, an outspoken critic of Schuon, this development took an eclectic orientation, incorporating elements of indigenous and European philosophies and an apocalyptic imagery.