The
Perennial philosophy (
Latin:
philosophia perennis),
[note 1] also referred to as
perennialism and
perennial wisdom, is a perspective in spirituality that views all of the world's religious traditions as sharing a single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown.
Perennialism has its roots in the Renaissance interest in
neo-Platonism and its
idea of
the One, from which all existence emanates.
Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) sought to integrate
Hermeticism with Greek and Jewish-Christian thought, discerning a
Prisca theologia which could be found in all ages.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94) suggested that truth could be found in many, rather than just two, traditions. He proposed a harmony between the thought of Plato and Aristotle, and saw aspects of the
Prisca theologia in
Averroes (Ibn Rushd), the
Quran, the
Kabbalah and other sources.
Agostino Steuco (1497–1548) coined the term
philosophia perennis.
A more popular interpretation argues for
universalism, the idea that all religions, underneath seeming differences, point to the same Truth. In the early 19th century the
Transcendentalists propagated the idea of a metaphysical Truth and universalism, which inspired the
Unitarians, who proselytized among
Indian elites. Towards the end of the 19th century, the
Theosophical Society further popularized universalism, not only in the western world, but also in western colonies. In the 20th century universalism was further popularized in the English-speaking world through the
neo-Vedanta inspired Traditionalist School, which argued for a metaphysical, single origin of the orthodox religions, and by
Aldous Huxley and his book
The Perennial Philosophy, which was inspired by neo-Vedanta and the Traditionalist School.
Definition[edit]
Renaissance[edit]
The idea of a perennial philosophy originated with a number of
Renaissance theologians who took inspiration from
neo-Platonism and from the
theory of Forms.
Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) argued that there is an underlying unity to the world, the soul or love, which has a counterpart in the
realm of ideas. According to
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–1494), a student of Ficino, truth could be found in many, rather than just two, traditions. According to
Agostino Steuco (1497–1548) there is "one principle of all things, of which there has always been one and the same knowledge among all peoples."
Traditionalist School[edit]
The contemporary, scholarly oriented
Traditionalist School continues this metaphysical orientation. According to the Traditionalist School, the perennial philosophy is "absolute Truth and infinite Presence." Absolute Truth is "the perennial wisdom (
sophia perennis) that stands as the transcendent source of all the intrinsically orthodox religions of humankind." Infinite Presence is "the perennial religion (
religio perennis) that lives within the heart of all intrinsically orthodox religions." The Traditionalist School discerns a transcendent and an immanent dimension, namely the discernment of the Real or
Absolute, c.q. that which is permanent; and the intentional "mystical concentration on the Real."
According to Soares de Azevedo, the perennialist philosophy states that the universal truth is the same within each of the world's orthodox religious traditions, and is the foundation of their religious knowledge and doctrine. Each world religion is an interpretation of this universal truth, adapted to cater for the psychological, intellectual, and social needs of a given culture of a given period of history. This perennial truth has been rediscovered in each epoch by
mystics of all kinds who have revived already existing religions, when they had fallen into empty platitudes and hollow ceremonialism.
[page needed]
Shipley further notes that the Traditionalist School is oriented on orthodox traditions, and rejects modern syncretism and universalism, which creates new religions from older religions and compromise the standing traditions.
Aldous Huxley and mystical universalism[edit]
One such universalist was Aldous Huxley, who propagated a universalist interpretation of the world religions, inspired by Vivekananda's
neo-Vedanta and his own use of psychedelic drugs. According to Aldous Huxley, who popularized the idea of a perennial philosophy with a larger audience,
The Perennial Philosophy is expressed most succinctly in the Sanskrit formula,
tat tvam asi ('That thou art'); the Atman, or immanent eternal Self, is one with Brahman, the Absolute Principle of all existence; and the last end of every human being, is to discover the fact for himself, to find out who he really is.
In Huxley's 1944 essay in Vedanta and the West, he describes The Minimum Working Hypothesis; the basic outline of the perennial philosophy found in all the mystic branches of the religions of the world:
That there is a Godhead or Ground, which is the unmanifested principle of all manifestation.
That the Ground is transcendent and immanent.
That it is possible for human beings to love, know and, from virtually, to become actually identified with the Ground.
That to achieve this unitive knowledge, to realize this supreme identity, is the final end and purpose of human existence.
That there is a Law or Dharma, which must be obeyed, a Tao or Way, which must be followed, if men are to achieve their final end.
Origins[edit]
The perennial philosophy originates from a blending of neo-Platonism and
Christianity. Neo-Platonism itself has diverse origins in the syncretic culture of the
Hellenistic period, and was an influential philosophy throughout the Middle Ages.
Classical world[edit]
Hellenistic period: religious syncretism[edit]
Roman world: Philo of Alexandria[edit]
Philo of Alexandria (c.25 BCE – c.50 CE) attempted to reconcile Greek Rationalism with the Torah, which helped pave the way for Christianity with
Neo-Platonism, and the adoption of the Old Testament with Christianity, as opposed to Gnostic Marcion roots of Christianity.
[citation needed] Philo translated
Judaism into terms of
Stoic,
Platonic and
Neopythagorean elements, and held that God is "supra rational" and can be reached only through "ecstasy." He also held that the
oracles of God supply the material of moral and religious knowledge.
Neo-Platonism[edit]
Neoplatonism arose in the 3rd century CE and persisted until shortly after the closing of the
Platonic Academy in Athens in AD 529 by
Justinian I. Neoplatonists were heavily influenced by
Plato, but also by the Platonic tradition that thrived during the six centuries which separated the first of the Neoplatonists from Plato. The work of Neoplatonic philosophy involved describing the derivation of the whole of reality from a single principle, "the One." It was founded by
Plotinus,
[web 1] and has been very influential throughout history. In the
Middle Ages, Neoplatonic ideas were integrated into the philosophical and theological works of many of the most important medieval Islamic, Christian, and Jewish thinkers.
Renaissance[edit]
Ficino and Pico della Mirandola[edit]
Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) believed that
Hermes Trismegistos, the supposed author of the
Corpus Hermeticum, was a contemporary of Mozes and the teacher of
Pythagoras, and the source of both Greek and Jewish-Christian thought. He argued that there is an underlying unity to the world, the soul or love, which has a counterpart in the realm of ideas. Platonic Philosophy and Christian theology both embody this truth. Ficino was influenced by a variety of philosophers including Aristotelian
Scholasticism and various pseudonymous and mystical writings. Ficino saw his thought as part of a long development of philosophical truth, of ancient pre-Platonic philosophers (including
Zoroaster,
Hermes Trismegistus,
Orpheus, Aglaophemus and
Pythagoras) who reached their peak in Plato. The
Prisca theologia, or venerable and ancient theology, which embodied the truth and could be found in all ages, was a vitally important idea for Ficino.
Giovanni Pico della Mirandola (1463–94), a student of Ficino, went further than his teacher by suggesting that truth could be found in many, rather than just two, traditions. This proposed a harmony between the thought of Plato and Aristotle, and saw aspects of the
Prisca theologia in
Averroes, the
Koran, the
Cabala among other sources. After the deaths of Pico and Ficino this line of thought expanded, and included
Symphorien Champier, and
Francesco Giorgio.
De perenni philosophia libri X[edit]
The term
perenni philosophia was first used by
Agostino Steuco (1497–1548) who used it to title a treatise,
De perenni philosophia libri X, published in 1540.
De perenni philosophia was the most sustained attempt at philosophical synthesis and harmony. Steuco represents the liberal wing of 16th-century Biblical scholarship and theology, although he rejected Luther and Calvin.
De perenni philosophia, is a complex work which only contains the term philosophia perennis twice. It states that there is "one principle of all things, of which there has always been one and the same knowledge among all peoples."
[15] This single knowledge (or sapientia) is the key element in his philosophy. In that he emphasises continuity over progress, Steuco's idea of philosophy is not one conventionally associated with the
Renaissance. Indeed, he tends to believe that the truth is lost over time and is only preserved in the
prisci theologica. Steuco preferred Plato to Aristotle and saw greater congruence between the former and Christianity than the latter philosopher. He held that philosophy works in harmony with religion and should lead to knowledge of God, and that truth flows from a single source, more ancient than the Greeks. Steuco was strongly influenced by
Iamblichus's statement that knowledge of God is innate in all,
[16] and also gave great importance to Hermes Trismegistus.
Influence[edit]
Steuco's perennial philosophy was highly regarded by some scholars for the two centuries after its publication, then largely forgotten until it was rediscovered by Otto Willmann in the late part of the 19th century. Overall,
De perenni philosophia wasn't particularly influential, and largely confined to those with a similar orientation to himself. The work was not put on the
Index of works banned by the Roman Catholic Church, although his
Cosmopoeia which expressed similar ideas was. Religious criticisms tended to the conservative view that held Christian teachings should be understood as unique, rather than seeing them as perfect expressions of truths that are found everywhere. More generally, this philosophical
syncretism was set out at the expense of some of the doctrines included within it, and it is possible that Steuco's critical faculties were not up to the task he had set himself. Further, placing so much confidence in the prisca theologia, turned out to be a shortcoming as many of the texts used in this school of thought later turned out to be bogus. In the following two centuries the most favourable responses were largely Protestant and often in England.
Gottfried Leibniz later picked up on Steuco's term. The German philosopher stands in the tradition of this concordistic philosophy; his
philosophy of harmony especially had affinity with Steuco's ideas. Leibniz knew about Steuco's work by 1687, but thought that
De la vérité de la religion chrétienne by
Huguenot philosopher
Phillippe du Plessis-Mornay expressed the same truth better. Steuco's influence can be found throughout Leibniz's works, but the German was the first philosopher to refer to the perennial philosophy without mentioning the Italian.
Popularisation[edit]
Transcendentalism and Unitarian Universalism[edit]
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) was a pioneer of the idea of spirituality as a distinct field.
[20] He was one of the major figures in
Transcendentalism, which was rooted in English and German
Romanticism, the Biblical criticism of
Herder and
Schleiermacher, and the
skepticism of
Hume.
[web 2] The Transcendentalists emphasised an intuitive, experiential approach of religion.
[web 3] Following Schleiermacher, an individual's intuition of truth was taken as the criterion for truth.
[web 3] In the late 18th and early 19th century, the first translations of Hindu texts appeared, which were also read by the Transcendentalists, and influenced their thinking.
[web 3] They also endorsed
universalist and
Unitarianist ideas, leading to
Unitarian Universalism, the idea that there must be truth in other religions as well, since a loving God would redeem all living beings, not just Christians.
[web 3][web 4]
Theosophical Society[edit]
By the end of the 19th century, the idea of a perennial philosophy was popularized by leaders of the Theosophical Society such as
H. P. Blavatsky and
Annie Besant, under the name of "Wisdom-Religion" or "Ancient Wisdom".
[22] The Theosophical Society took an active interest in Asian religions, subsequently not only bringing those religions under the attention of a western audience but also influencing Hinduism and Buddhism in Sri Lanka and Japan.
Neo-Vedanta[edit]
Many perennialist thinkers (including Armstrong, Huston Smith and
Joseph Campbell) are influenced by Hindu reformer
Ram Mohan Roy and Hindu mystics
Ramakrishna and
Swami Vivekananda,
[23] who themselves have taken over western notions of universalism.They regarded Hinduism to be a token of this perennial philosophy. This notion has influenced thinkers who have proposed versions of the perennial philosophy in the 20th century.
The unity of all religions was a central impulse among Hindu reformers in the 19th century, who in turn influenced many 20th-century perennial philosophy-type thinkers. Key figures in this reforming movement included two Bengali Brahmins.
Ram Mohan Roy, a philosopher and the founder of the modernising
Brahmo Samaj religious organisation, reasoned that the divine was beyond description and thus that no religion could claim a monopoly in their understanding of it.
The mystic
Ramakrishna's spiritual ecstasies included experiencing the sameness of Christ, Mohammed and his own Hindu deity. Ramakrishna's most famous disciple,
Swami Vivekananda, travelled to the United States in the 1890s where he formed the
Vedanta Society.
Roy, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda were all influenced by the Hindu school of
Advaita Vedanta,
[25] which they saw as the exemplification of a Universalist Hindu religiosity.
Traditionalist School[edit]
The Traditionalist School is a group of 20th and 21st century thinkers concerned with what they considered to be the demise of traditional forms of knowledge, both aesthetic and spiritual, within Western society. The principal thinkers in this tradition are
René Guénon,
Ananda Coomaraswamy and
Frithjof Schuon. Other important thinkers in this tradition include
Titus Burckhardt,
Martin Lings,
Jean-Louis Michon,
Marco Pallis,
Huston Smith,
Hossein Nasr,
Jean Borella,
Elémire Zolla and
Julius Evola.
[note 2] [note 3] According to the Traditionalist School, orthodox religions are based on a singular metaphysical origin. According to the Traditionalist School, the "philosophia perennis" designates a worldview that is opposed to the
scientism of modern
secular societies and which promotes the rediscovery of the wisdom traditions of the pre-secular
developed world.
[citation needed] This view is exemplified by
Rene Guenon in
The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, one of the founding works of the
traditionalist school.
It has been said more than once that total Truth is inscribed in an eternal script in the very substance of our spirit; what the different Revelations do is to "crystallize" and "actualize", in different degrees according to the case, a nucleus of certitudes which not only abides forever in the divine Omniscience, but also sleeps by refraction in the "naturally supernatural" kernel of the individual, as well as in that of each ethnic or historical collectivity or of the human species as a whole.
[26]
Aldous Huxley[edit]
... the
metaphysic that recognizes a divine Reality substantial to the world of things and lives and minds; the
psychology that finds in the soul something similar to, or even identical to, divine Reality; the
ethic that places man's final end in the knowledge of the
immanent and
transcendent Ground of all being; the thing is immemorial and universal. Rudiments of the perennial philosophy may be found among the traditional lore of primitive peoples in every region of the world, and in its fully developed forms it has a place in every one of the higher religions.
In contrast to the Traditionalist school, Huxley emphasized
mystical experience over metaphysics:
The Buddha declined to make any statement in regard to the ultimate divine Reality. All he would talk about was Nirvana, which is the name of the
experience that comes to the totally selfless and one-pointed [...] Maintaining, in this matter, the attitude of a strict operationalist, the Buddha would speak only of the spiritual experience, not of the metaphysical entity presumed by the theologians of other religions, as also of later Buddhism, to be the object and (since in contemplation the knower, the known and the knowledge are all one) at the same time the subject and substance of that experience.
According to Aldous Huxley, in order to apprehend the divine reality, one must choose to fulfill certain conditions: "making themselves loving, pure in heart and poor in spirit."
[29] Huxley argues that very few people can achieve this state. Those who have fulfilled these conditions, grasped the universal truth and interpreted it have generally been given the name of saint, prophet, sage or enlightened one.
[30] Huxley argues that those who have, "modified their merely human mode of being," and have thus been able to comprehend "more than merely human kind and amount of knowledge" have also achieved this enlightened state.
[31]
New Age[edit]
The New Age aims to create "a spirituality without borders or confining dogmas" that is inclusive and
pluralistic. It holds to "a holistic worldview", emphasising that the
Mind, Body and Spirit are interrelated
[web 5] and that there is a form of
monism and unity throughout the universe.
[35] It attempts to create "a worldview that includes both science and spirituality" and embraces a number of forms of
mainstream science as well as other forms of science that are considered
fringe.
Academic discussions[edit]
Mystical experience[edit]
The idea of a perennial philosophy, sometimes called perennialism, is a key area of debate in the academic discussion of mystical experience. Huston Smith notes that the Traditionalist School's vision of a perennial philosophy is not based on mystical experiences, but on metaphysical intuitions. The discussion of mystical experience has shifted the emphasis in the perennial philosophy from these metaphysical intuitions to religious experience and the notion of
nonduality or
altered state of consciousness.
William James popularized the use of the term "religious experience" in his
The Varieties of Religious Experience. It has also influenced the understanding of mysticism as a distinctive experience which supplies knowledge.
[web 6] Writers such as
WT Stace,
Huston Smith, and
Robert Forman argue that there are core similarities to mystical experience across religions, cultures and eras.
[39] For Stace the universality of this core experience is a necessary, although not sufficient, condition for one to be able to trust the cognitive content of any religious experience.
[verification needed]
Wayne Proudfoot traces the roots of the notion of "religious experience" further back to the German theologian
Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834), who argued that religion is based on a feeling of the infinite. The notion of "religious experience" was used by Schleiermacher to defend religion against the growing scientific and secular critique. It was adopted by many scholars of religion, of which William James was the most influential.
Critics point out that the emphasis on "experience" favours the atomic individual, instead of the community. It also fails to distinguish between episodic experience, and mysticism as a process, embedded in a total religious matrix of liturgy, scripture, worship, virtues, theology, rituals and practices. Richard King also points to disjunction between "mystical experience" and social justice:
The privatisation of mysticism - that is, the increasing tendency to locate the mystical in the psychological realm of personal experiences - serves to exclude it from political issues such as social justice. Mysticism thus comes to be seen as a personal matter of cultivating inner states of tranquility and equanimity, which, rather than serving to transform the world, reconcile the individual to the status quo by alleviating anxiety and stress.
Religious pluralism[edit]
Religious pluralism holds that various world religions are limited by their distinctive historical and cultural contexts and thus there is no single, true religion. There are only many equally valid religions. Each religion is a direct result of humanity's attempt to grasp and understand the incomprehensible divine reality. Therefore, each religion has an authentic but ultimately inadequate perception of divine reality, producing a partial understanding of the universal truth, which requires syncretism to achieve a complete understanding as well as a path towards salvation or spiritual enlightenment.
[44]
Although perennial philosophy also holds that there is no single true religion, it differs when discussing divine reality. Perennial philosophy states that the divine reality is what allows the universal truth to be understood.
[45] Each religion provides its own interpretation of the universal truth, based on its historical and cultural context. Therefore, each religion provides everything required to observe the divine reality and achieve a state in which one will be able to confirm the universal truth and achieve salvation or spiritual enlightenment.
See also[edit]
- ^ more fully, philosophia perennis et universalis; sometimes shortened to sophia perennis or religio perennis
- ^ Renaud Fabbri argues that Evola should not be considered a member of the Perennialist School. See the section Julius Evola and the Perennialist School in Fabbri's Introduction to the Perennialist School.
- ^ Paul Furlong argues that ‘Evola’s initial writings in the inter-war period were from an ideological position close to the Fascist regime in Italy, though not identical to it.’ Over his active years, Furlong writes, he ‘synthesized’ spiritual bearings of writers like Guenon with his political concerns of the ‘European authoritarian Right’. Evola tried to develop a tradition different from that of Guénon and thus attempted to develop a ‘strategy of active revolt as a counterpart to the spiritual withdrawal favoured by Guénon.’ Evola, as Farlong puts it, wanted to have political influence both in Fascist and Nazi regime, something which he failed to achieve. See Furlong, Paul: Authoritarian Conservatism After The War Julius Evola and Europe, 2003.
References[edit]
- ^ De perenni philosophia Bk 1, Ch 1; folio 1 in Schmitt (1966) P.517
- ^ Jamblichi De mysteriis liber, ed. Gustavus Parthey (Berlin), I, 3; 7-10
- ^ Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Restless Souls : The Making of American Spirituality. San Francisco: Harper, 2005. ISBN 0-06-054566-6
- ^ Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna (1889). The Key to Theosophy. Mumbai, India: Theosophy Company (published 1997). p. 7.
- ^ Prothero p.166
- ^ Prothero, Stephen (2010) God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World—and Why Their Differences Matter, p. 165-6, HarperOne, ISBN 0-06-157127-X
- ^ The Essential Writings of Frithjof Schuon, Suhayl Academy, Lahore, 2001, p.67.
- ^ Huxley, Aldous. The perennial philosophy . [1st ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1945. p.2
- ^ Huxley, Aldous. The perennial philosophy . [1st ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1945. p.3
- ^ Huxley, Aldous. The perennial philosophy . [1st ed. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1945. p.6
- ^ Michael D. Langone, Ph.D. Cult Observer, 1993, Volume 10, No. 1. What Is "New Age"?, retrieved 2006-07
- ^ Wildman, Wesley J. (2010) Religious Philosophy as Multidisciplinary Comparative Inquiry: Envisioning a Future for the Philosophy of Religion, p. 49, SUNY Press, ISBN 1-4384-3235-6
- ^ Livingston, James. "Religious Pluralism and the Question of Religious Truth in Wilfred C. Smith." The Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory 4, no. 3 (2003): pp.58-65.
- ^ Bowden, John Stephen. "Perennial Philosophy and Christianity." In Christianity: the complete guide . London: Continuum, 2005. pp.1-5.
Sources[edit]
Printed sources[edit]
- Soares de Azevedo, Mateus (2005), Ye Shall Know the Truth: Christianity and the Perennial Philosophy, World Wisdom, ISBN 0-941532-69-0
- Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna (1997), The Key to Theosophy, Mumbai, India: Theosophy Company
- James S. Cutsinger, The Fullness of God: Frithjof Schuon on Christianity, Bloomington, Indiana: World Wisdom, 2004
- Drury, Nevill (2004), The New Age: Searching for the Spiritual Self, London, England, UK: Thames and Hudson, ISBN 0-500-28516-0
- Durant; Durant (1966), Will Durant, The Story of Civilization. Volume 2: The Life of Greece, Simon and Schuster
- Ranjit Fernando (ed.) (1991), The Unanimous Tradition, Essays on the essential unity of all religions. Sri Lanka Institute of Traditional Studies, 1991 ISBN 955-9028-01-4
- Hori, Victor Sogen (1999), Translating the Zen Phrase Book. In: Nanzan Bulletin 23 (1999) (PDF)
- Huxley, Aldous (1945), The perennial philosophy (1st ed.), New York: Harper & Brothers
- Huxley, Aldous (1990), The Perennial Philosophy (Harper Perennial 1990 ed.), Harper & Row, ISBN 0-06-090191-8
- Huxley, Aldous (2004), The Perennial Philosophy (Harper Modern Classics 2004 ed.), Harper & Row, ISBN 0-06-057058-X
- John Holman (2008), The Return of the Perennial Philosophy: The Supreme Vision of Western Esotericism. Watkins Publishing, ISBN 1-905857-46-2
- Jacobs, Alan (2004), Advaita and Western Neo-Advaita. In: The Mountain Path Journal, autumn 2004, pages 81-88, Ramanasramam, archived from the original on 2015-05-18
- Perennial Philosophy, Brenda Jackson, Ronald L McDonald, Penguin Group (USA) ISBN 0-452-00144-7
- King, Richard (2002), Orientalism and Religion: Post-Colonial Theory, India and "The Mystic East", Routledge
- Lings, Martin; Minnaar, Clinton (2007), The Underlying Religion: An Introduction to the Perennial Philosophy, World Wisdom, ISBN 9781933316437
- The other perennial philosophy: a metaphysical dialectic, Author Alan M. Laibelman, University Press of America, (2000), ISBN 0-7618-1827-8
- McMahan, David L. (2008), The Making of Buddhist Modernism, Oxford University Press, ISBN 9780195183276
- "The Mystery of the Two Natures", in Barry McDonald (ed.), Every Branch in Me: Essays on the Meaning of Man, Bloomington, Indiana: World Wisdom, 2002
- McEvilley, Thomas (2002), The Shape of Ancient Thought
- Frithjof Schuon and the Perennial Philosophy, Authors Harry Oldmeadow and William Stoddart, Contributor William Stoddart, Publisher World Wisdom, Inc, (2010) ISBN 1-935493-09-4
- Parsons, William B. (2011), Teaching Mysticism, Oxford University Press
- Whitall N. Perry, A Treasury of Traditional Wisdom, Louisville, Kentucky: Fons Vitae, 2001
- Prothero, Stephen (2010), God is Not One: The Eight Rival Religions That Run the World--and Why Their Differences Matter, HarperOne, ISBN 978-0-06-157127-5
- Roy, Sumita (2003), Aldous Huxley And Indian Thought, Sterling Publishers Pvt. Ltd
- Schmitt, Charles (1966), "Perennial Philosophy: From Agostino Steuco to Leibniz", Journal of the History of Ideas, 27 (1): 505–532), doi:10.2307/2708338, JSTOR 2708338
- Sharf, Robert H. (2000), "The Rhetoric of Experience and the Study of Religion" (PDF), Journal of Consciousness Studies, 7 (11–12): 267–87
- Shear, Jonathan (1994), "On Mystical Experiences as Support for the Perennial Philosophy", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 62 (2): 319–342, JSTOR 1465269
- Sherrard, Philip (1998), "Christianity and Other Sacred Traditions", Christianity: Lineaments of a Sacred Tradition, Brookline, Massachusetts: Holy Cross Orthodox Press
- Shipley, Morgan (2015), Psychedelic Mysticism: Transforming Consciousness, Religious Experiences, and Voluntary Peasants in Postwar America, Lexington Books
- Slavenburg; Glaudemans (1994), Nag Hammadi Geschriften I, Ankh-Hermes
- Smith, Huston (1987), "Is There a Perennial Philosophy?", Journal of the American Academy of Religion, 55 (3): 553–566, JSTOR 1464070
- Soares de Azevedo, Mateus, ed. (2005), Ye Shall Know the Truth: Christianity and the Perennial Philosophy, World Wisdom
Web-sources[edit]
Further reading[edit]
- Traditionalist School
- Martin Lings, The Underlying Religion: An Introduction to the Perennial Philosophy, ISBN 1933316438
- William W. Quinn, junior. The Only Tradition, in S.U.N.Y. Series in Western Esoteric Traditions. Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1997. xix, 384 p. ISBN 0-7914-3214-9 pbk
- Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion (Bloomington, IN: World Wisdom, 2013). ISBN 978-1-936597-20-8
- Aldous Huxley
- Huxley, Aldous (2004), The Perennial Philosophy (Harper Modern Classics 2004 ed.), Harper & Row, ISBN 0-06-057058-X
- Shipley, Morgan (2015), Psychedelic Mysticism: Transforming Consciousness, Religious Experiences, and Voluntary Peasants in Postwar America, Lexington Books
External links[edit]
