Perennial philosophy
He proposed a harmony between the thought of Plato and Aristotle and saw aspects of the prisca theologia in Averroes (Ibn Rushd), the Quran, Kabbalah, and other sources.
Drawing upon the same Renaissance foundations, in the 20th century the mystical universalist interpretation popularised by Aldous Huxley, and the metaphysical approach of the Traditionalist School became particularly influential.
"[5] Aldous Huxley, author of the popular book The Perennial Philosophy, propagated a universalist interpretation of the world religions, inspired by Vivekananda's neo-Vedanta and his own use of psychedelic drugs.
[6] According to Huxley: 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.
[8]For the Traditionalist Seyyed Hossein Nasr, the perennial philosophy is rooted in the concept of Tradition, which he defines as: ...truths or principles of a divine origin revealed or unveiled to mankind and, in fact, a whole cosmic sector through various figures envisaged as messengers, prophets, avataras, the Logos or other transmitting agencies, along with all the ramifications and applications of these principles in different realms including law and social structure, art, symbolism, the sciences, and embracing of course Supreme Knowledge along with the means for its attainment.
[12] 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."
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.
Marsilio Ficino (1433–1499) believed that Hermes Trismegistos, the supposed author of the Corpus Hermeticum, was a contemporary of Moses and the teacher of Pythagoras, and the source of both Greek and Christian thought.
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.
[web 3] The Transcendentalists were largely inspired by Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881), whose Critical and Miscellaneous Essays popularised German Romanticism in English and whose Sartor Resartus (1833–34) was a pioneer work of Western perennialism.
Many perennialist thinkers (including Armstrong, Gerald Heard, Aldous Huxley, Huston Smith and Joseph Campbell) are influenced by Hindu mystics Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda,[24] who themselves have taken over western notions of universalism.
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.
[25] The Traditionalist School is a group of 20th- and 21st-century thinkers concerned with what they consider to be the demise of traditional forms of knowledge, both aesthetic and spiritual, within Western society.
Other important thinkers in this tradition include Titus Burckhardt, Martin Lings, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Jean-Louis Michon, Marco Pallis, Huston Smith, Jean Borella, and Elémire Zolla.
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 René Guénon in his 1945 book The Reign of Quantity and the Signs of the Times, one of the founding works of the Traditionalist School.
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.
[32] In his 1945 book The Perennial Philosophy he defined the perennial philosophy as: ... 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.
[33]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.
[7]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.
Its central precepts have been described as "drawing on both Eastern and Western spiritual and metaphysical traditions and infusing them with influences from self-help and motivational psychology, holistic health, parapsychology, consciousness research and quantum physics".
[45][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.
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.
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.
[citation needed] Cognitive archeology such as analysis of cave paintings and other pre-historic art and customs suggests that a form of perennial philosophy or Shamanic metaphysics may stretch back to the birth of behavioral modernity, all around the world.
[55]Sufi Inayat Khan, who lived in the 20th century, explained Sufism to the masses with its universal aspect and stated that it repeated the same common message with the mystical branches of other religions, and frequently made references to different religious/mystical traditions in his speeches and writings.
Academic critiques include the contention that perennialists make ontological claims about Divinity, God(s), and supernatural powers that cannot be verified in practice; and that they take an ahistorical or transhistorical view, overemphasizing similarities and downplaying differences between religions.
[66] 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".
[67] Renaud Fabbri, a Traditionalist scholar, argues that "certain figures such as Mircea Eliade (1907–1986), Henry Corbin (1903–1978) and Julius Evola (1898–1974) cannot be considered as members of the Perennialist school, despite the fact that they have been influenced at some levels by Perennialism and may have used some of their ideas to support their own views.
