 First United Kingdom edition, 1946 | |
| Author | Aldous Huxley |
|---|---|
| Subject | Mysticism, theology |
| Published | Harper & Brothers, 1945 |
| Publication place | United States, United Kingdom |
The Perennial Philosophy is a comparative study of mysticism by the British writer and novelist Aldous Huxley. Its title derives from the theological tradition of perennial philosophy .
The Perennial Philosophy was published in 1945 immediately after the Second World War by Harper & Brothers in the United States (1946 by Chatto & Windus in the United Kingdom). The jacket text of the British first edition explains: [1]
The Perennial Philosophy is an attempt to present this Highest Common Factor of all theologies by assembling passages from the writings of those saints and prophets who have approached a direct spiritual knowledge of the Divine... [1]
The book offers readers, who are assumed to be familiar with the Christian religion and the Bible, a fresh approach employing Eastern and Western mysticism:
Mr. Huxley quotes from the Chinese Taoist philosophers, from followers of Buddha and Mohammed, from the Brahmin scriptures and from Christian mystics ranging from St John of the Cross to William Law, giving preference to those whose writings, often illuminated by genius, are unfamiliar to the modern reader. [1]
The final paragraph of the jacket text states:
In this profoundly important work, Mr. Huxley has made no attempt to 'found a new religion'; but in analyzing the Natural Theology of the Saints, as he has described it, he provides us with an absolute standard of faith by which we can judge both our moral depravity as individuals and the insane and often criminal behaviour of the national societies we have created. [1]
In the words of poet and anthologist John Robert Colombo:
The Perennial Philosophy is essentially an anthology of short passages taken from traditional Eastern texts and the writings of Western mystics, organised by subject and topic, with short connecting commentaries. No specific sources are given. Paging through the index gives the reader (or non-reader) an idea of who and what Huxley has taken seriously. Here are the entries in the index that warrant two lines of page references or more: [2]
Aquinas, Augustine, St. Bernard, Bhagavad-Gita, Buddha, Jean Pierre Camus, St. Catherine, Christ, Chuang Tzu, "Cloud of Unknowing", Contemplation, Deliverance, Desire, Eckhart (five lines, the most quoted person), Eternity, Fénelon, François de Sales, Godhead, Humility, Idolatry, St. John of the Cross, Knowledge, Lankavatara Sutra, William Law (another four lines), Logos, Love, Mahayana, Mind, Mortification, Nirvana, Perennial Philosophy (six lines, a total of 40 entries in all), Prayer, Rumi, Ruysbroeck, Self, Shankara, Soul, Spirit, "Theologia Germanica," Truth, Upanishads (six different ones are quoted), Will, Words. [2]
Huxley chose less well-known quotations because "familiarity with traditionally hallowed writings tends to breed, not indeed contempt, but ... a kind of reverential insensibility, ... an inward deafness to the meaning of the sacred words." [3] So, for example, Chapter 5 on "Charity" takes just one quotation from the Bible, combining it with less familiar sources:
Huxley then explains: "We can only love what we know, and we can never know completely what we do not love. Love is a mode of knowledge ..." [4]
Huxley is quite vague with his references: "No specific sources are given." [2]
The book's structure consists of:
The Perennial Philosophy was widely reviewed when first published in 1945, with articles appearing in Book Week, Booklist , The Christian Century , The Nation , The New Republic , The New Yorker , Saturday Review of Literature , Springfield Republican , New York Herald Tribune , and the Wilson Bulletin . [5]
The New York Times wrote that, "Perhaps Mr. Huxley, in The Perennial Philosophy has, at this time, written the most needed book in the world." [6] The Times described the book as an:
... anthology [that] is above all a masterpiece of discrimination.... Leibniz gave the name of the Perennial Philosophy to this theme. Mr. Huxley has systematised, and dealt with, its many-branching problems, perils and beatitudes. [6]
The Times also stated that, "It is important to say that even an agnostic, even a behaviorist-materialist ... can read this book with joy. It is the masterpiece of all anthologies." [6]
Similarly, forty years later Huston Smith, a religious scholar, wrote that, in The Perennial Philosophy:
Huxley provides us with the most systematic statement of his mature outlook. Its running commentary deals with many of the social implications of Huxley's metaphysics. [7]
Not all the reception was so positive. Chad Walsh, writing in the Journal of Bible and Religion [8] in 1948, spoke of Huxley's distinguished family background, only to continue:
The only startling fact, and the one that could not have been predicted by the most discerning sociologist or psychologist, is that in his mid-forties he was destined to turn also to mysticism, and that since his conversion he was to be one of a small group in California busily writing books to win as many people as possible over to the "perennial philosophy" as a way of life. [8]
In the United Kingdom, contemporary reviewers admired the comprehensiveness of Huxley's survey but questioned his other-worldliness and were hostile to his belief in the paranormal.
C. E. M. Joad wrote in New Statesman and Society that, although the book was a mine of learning and Huxley's commentary was profound, readers would be surprised to find that he had adopted a series of peculiar beliefs such as the curative power of relics and spiritual presences incarnated in sacramental objects. Joad stated that, if the argument of the book is correct, only those who have undergone the religious experiences upon which it is based are properly able to assess its worth. Further, he found that the book was dogmatic and intolerant, "in which pretty well everything we want to do is wrong". Finally, Joad asserted that Huxley's mistake was in his "intellectual whole-hoggery" and that he was led by ideas untempered by ordinary human experience. [9]
In the journal Philosophy , the Anglican priest Rev. W. R. Inge remarked on the book's well chosen quotations and called it "probably the most important treatise we have had on mysticism for many years". He saw it as evidence that Huxley was now a mystical philosopher, which he regarded as an encouraging sign. Inge pointed out conflicts between religions and within religion and agreed that a rapprochement must be through mystical religion. However, he wondered if the book, with its transcendence of the personality and detachment from worldly concerns, might not be more Buddhist than Christian. He concluded his review by calling into question Huxley's belief in psychical phenomena. [10]
The Canadian author John Robert Colombo wrote that as a young man he, like many others in the 1950s, was swept away with enthusiasm for "the coveted volume":
Everyone interested in consciousness studies has heard of his study called The Perennial Philosophy. It bears such a prescient and memorable title. His use of the title has preempted its use by any other author, neuropsychologist, Traditionalist, or enthusiast for the New Age. The book so nobly named did much to romanticise the notion of "perennialism" and to cast into the shade such long-established timid Christian notions of “ecumenicism” (Protestants dialoguing with Catholics, etc.) or "inter-faith" meetings (Christians encountering non-Christians, etc.). Who would care about the beliefs of Baptists when one could care about the practices of Tibetans? [2]
Colombo also stated that:
Painfully absent from these pages are Huxley's mordant wit and insights into human nature. It is as if his quicksilverish intelligence has been put on hold or has found itself in a deep freeze of his own making. When it comes to selecting short and sometimes long quotations, he is no compiler like John Bartlett of quotation fame, but he does find time to make a few deft personal observations. [2]
Erwin Schrodinger, in his What is Life? The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell, described the book as "very appropriately" titled and "beautiful". He compared the contents of Huxley's book with what he had written in the chapter On Determinism and Free Will. [11]
Huxley's Introduction to The Perennial Philosophy begins:
The metaphysic that recognises 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 with, 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 traditionary 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. A version of this Highest Common Factor in all preceding and subsequent theologies was first committed to writing more than twenty-five centuries ago, and since that time the inexhaustible theme has been treated again and again, from the standpoint of every religious tradition and in all the principal languages of Asia and Europe. [12]
In the next paragraph, Huxley summarises the problem more succinctly, saying: "Knowledge is a function of being." [12] In other words, if you are not suited to knowing something, you do not know it. This makes knowing the Ground of All Being difficult, in Huxley's view. Therefore, he concludes his Introduction with:
If one is not oneself a sage or saint, the best thing one can do, in the field of metaphysics, is to study the works of those who were, and who, because they had modified their merely human mode of being, were capable of a more than merely human kind and amount of knowledge. [13]
Aldous Leonard Huxley was an English writer and philosopher. His bibliography spans nearly 50 books, including non-fiction works, as well as essays, narratives, and poems.
The Doors of Perception is an autobiographical book written by Aldous Huxley. Published in 1954, it elaborates on his psychedelic experience under the influence of mescaline in May 1953. Huxley recalls the insights he experienced, ranging from the "purely aesthetic" to "sacramental vision", and reflects on their philosophical and psychological implications. In 1956, he published Heaven and Hell, another essay which elaborates these reflections further. The two works have since often been published together as one book; the title of both comes from William Blake's 1793 book The Marriage of Heaven and Hell.
Brave New World is a dystopian novel by English author Aldous Huxley, written in 1931 and published in 1932. Largely set in a futuristic World State, whose citizens are environmentally engineered into an intelligence-based social hierarchy, the novel anticipates huge scientific advancements in reproductive technology, sleep-learning, psychological manipulation and classical conditioning that are combined to make a dystopian society which is challenged by the story's protagonist. Huxley followed this book with a reassessment in essay form, Brave New World Revisited (1958), and with his final novel, Island (1962), the utopian counterpart. This novel is often compared as an inversion counterpart to George Orwell's 1984 (1949).
The perennial philosophy, also referred to as perennialism and perennial wisdom, is a school of thought in philosophy and spirituality that posits that the recurrence of common themes across world religions illuminates universal truths about the nature of reality, humanity, ethics, and consciousness. Some perennialists emphasize common themes in religious experiences and mystical traditions across time and cultures; others argue that religious traditions share a single metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine have developed.
William Ralph Inge was an English author, Anglican priest, professor of divinity at Cambridge, and dean of St Paul's Cathedral. Although as an author he used W. R. Inge, and he was personally known as Ralph, he was widely known by his title as Dean Inge. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature three times.
Island is a 1962 utopian manifesto and novel by English writer Aldous Huxley, the author's final work before his death in 1963. Although it has a plot, the plot largely serves to further conceptual explorations rather than setting up and resolving conventional narrative tension.
William Law was a Church of England priest who lost his position at Emmanuel College, Cambridge, when his conscience would not allow him to take the required oath of allegiance to the first Hanoverian monarch, King George I. Previously, William Law had given his allegiance to the House of Stuart and is sometimes considered a second-generation non-juror. Thereafter, Law continued as a simple priest (curate), and when that too became impossible without the required oath, Law taught privately and wrote extensively. His personal integrity, as well as his mystic and theological writing, greatly influenced the evangelistic movement of his day, as well as Enlightenment thinkers such as the writer Samuel Johnson and the historian Edward Gibbon. In 1784, William Wilberforce (1759–1833), the politician, philanthropist, and leader of the movement to stop the slave trade, was deeply touched by reading William Law's book A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life (1729). Law's spiritual writings remain in print today.
Rudolf Otto was a German Lutheran theologian, philosopher, and comparative religionist. He is regarded as one of the most influential scholars of religion in the early twentieth century and is best known for his concept of the numinous, a profound emotional experience he argued was at the heart of the world's religions. While his work started in the domain of liberal Christian theology, its main thrust was always apologetical, seeking to defend religion against naturalist critiques. Otto eventually came to conceive of his work as part of a science of religion, which was divided into the philosophy of religion, the history of religion, and the psychology of religion.
Swami Prabhavananda was an Indian philosopher, monk of the Ramakrishna Order, and religious teacher. He moved to America in 1923 to take up the role of assistant minister in the San Francisco Vedanta Society. In 1928 he was the minister of a small group in Portland, OR, but in 1930 he founded the Vedanta Society of Southern California. The Swami spent the rest of his life there, writing and collaborating with some of the most distinguished authors and intellectuals of the time, including Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, and Gerald Heard.
Cyril Edwin Mitchinson Joad was an English philosopher, author, teacher and broadcasting personality. He appeared on The Brains Trust, a BBC Radio wartime discussion programme. He popularised philosophy and became a celebrity, before his downfall in a scandal over an unpaid train fare in 1948.
Huston Cummings Smith was a scholar of religious studies in the United States, He authored at least thirteen books on world's religions and philosophy, and his book about comparative religion, The World's Religions sold over three million copies as of 2017.
Richard Maurice Bucke, often called Maurice Bucke, was a Canadian psychiatrist in the late 19th century. An adventurer during his youth, Bucke later studied medicine. Eventually, as a psychiatrist, he headed the provincial Asylum for the Insane in London, Ontario. Bucke was a friend of several noted men of letters in Canada, the United States, and England. Besides publishing professional articles, Bucke wrote three non-fiction books: Man's Moral Nature, Walt Whitman, and Cosmic Consciousness: A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, which is his best-known work.
Scholarly approaches to mysticism include typologies of mysticism and the explanation of mystical states. Since the 19th century, mystical experience has evolved as a distinctive concept. It is closely related to mysticism but lays sole emphasis on the experiential aspect, be it spontaneous or induced by human behavior, whereas mysticism encompasses a broad range of practices aiming at a transformation of the person, not just inducing mystical experiences.
Walter Terence Stace was an English civil servant, educator, public philosopher and epistemologist, who wrote on Hegel, mysticism, and moral relativism. He worked with the Ceylon Civil Service from 1910 to 1932, and from 1932 to 1955 he was employed by Princeton University in the Department of Philosophy. He is most renowned for his work in the philosophy of mysticism, and for books like Mysticism and Philosophy (1960) and Teachings of the Mystics (1960). These works have been influential in the study of mysticism, but they have also been severely criticised for their lack of methodological rigor and their perennialist pre-assumptions.
Dana Sawyer is professor emeritus of religious studies and world religions at the Maine College of Art & Design and an adjunct professor in Asian Religions at the Chaplaincy Institute of Maine. He is the author of numerous published papers and books, including Aldous Huxley: A Biography, which Laura Huxley described as, "Out of all the biographies written about Aldous, this is the only one he would have actually liked."
Vedanta Press is the publishing wing of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, founded in 1930 by Swami Prabhavananda. It publishes a number of important books in Indian philosophy and the Vedanta tradition, both original works and translations of Sanskrit scriptures. Vedanta Press published collaborations, original articles, and books by leading intellectuals of the 1940s to the present, including Aldous Huxley, Christopher Isherwood, Fredrick Manchester, among others.
Time Must Have a Stop is a novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1944 by Chatto & Windus. It follows the story of Sebastian Barnack, a young poet who holidays with his hedonistic uncle in Florence. Many of the philosophical themes discussed in the novel are explored further in Huxley's 1945 work The Perennial Philosophy.
Behold the Spirit: A Study in the Necessity of Mystical Religion, a book by Alan Watts (1915–1973), was first published in 1947 by John Murray Publishers (London). This book is a reworking of Watts' Episcopal divinity degree thesis. Its importance lies partly in its exposition of Watts' earliest attempt to reconcile traditional Anglican theology with a mystical, Buddhist based approach, but also as a personal expression of the mystical experience.
The following bibliography of Aldous Huxley provides a chronological list of the published works of English writer Aldous Huxley (1894–1963). It includes his fiction and non-fiction, both published during his lifetime and posthumously.
Bhagavad Gita: The Song of God is the title of the Swami Prabhavananda and Christopher Isherwood's translation of the Bhagavad Gītā, an important Hindu scripture. It was first published in 1944 with an Introduction by Aldous Huxley. This translation is unusual in that it is a collaboration between a world-renowned English language author and an adept in Vedanta Philosophy and Hindu scripture. With this translation, "...the very purpose of life in Hindu terms becomes luminously clear." The 2023 edition includes the standardized verse markings that were left out from the original, published in 1944.
