The perennial philosophy

The perennial philosophy (philosophia perennis) is the idea that a single, timeless wisdom underlies the world’s religions, and is most clearly expressed by their mystics. The phrase was used by the Renaissance scholar Agostino Steuco in 1540, and later by Leibniz; Aldous Huxley’s anthology The Perennial Philosophy (1945) made it widely known.

Huxley summarized it as a metaphysics that recognizes a divine reality underlying the world, a psychology that finds in the soul something akin to that reality, and an ethic that places the human goal in knowledge of it. The “traditionalist” school of René Guénon, Ananda Coomaraswamy and Frithjof Schuon developed a related view, of a primordial tradition expressed in the different religions.

From the 1970s, scholars of mysticism, notably Steven Katz, argued against it that there is no unmediated experience: mystics’ experiences are shaped by their traditions, and the apparent agreement of mystics is produced by the comparisons. Others replied that some experiences, such as states of contentless awareness, may be common across traditions. The debate remains open.