3 ms·

PKD posited 50AD. The perennial philosophy posits there is only one moment. Hence, the quote included in my comment. The quote explains the connection. PKD gra

PKD posited 50AD. The perennial philosophy posits there is only one moment. Hence, the quote included in my comment. The quote explains the connection. PKD grazed the truth but fell short, and this is alright.

pmoriarty 6y ago
Ironically, there are actually many different perennial philosophies, each of which believe different things. The thing they have in common is that they believe all religions or philosophies are getting at the same thing or have their root in the same thing or experience.. but what that thing is differs from one perennial philosophy to another. You seem to have cited one such belief -- that there is only one moment -- but I'm not sure what the origin of your belief is. Which version of perennial philosophy are you referring to?
- perfmode 6y ago
  can you provide evidence of the existence (in common discourse) of “multiple versions of Perennial philosophy?”
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    Just take a look at the Wikipedia article you linked to. In it there are versions by: Huxley, Philo of Alexandria, Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, Agostino Steuco, Emerson, Blavatsky, Huston Smith, and a bunch of others. Take a closer look at what these people believed and you'll see they believed different things (except that, again, they believed that there was a common source or experience that different religions stemmed from or were getting at). For example, from the article, "the Egyptian god Osiris and the Greek god Dionysus had been equated as Osiris-Dionysus by the historian Herodotus as early as the 5th century BC", while "The mystic Ramakrishna's spiritual ecstasies included experiencing the sameness of Christ, Mohammed and his own Hindu deity". Not really the same, is it? "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." Again, not the same as the other two. "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." So now the peak is supposedly Plato, not Osirus, Christ, Mohammed, or a Hindu diety. Then there's Steuco who believed "that philosophy works in harmony with religion and should lead to knowledge of God", but that's different from Emerson, who thought "an individual's intuition of truth was taken as the criterion for truth". Etc, etc, etc... By the way, in none of the above (or anywhere else in this Wikipedia article) is there any mention of what you said perennial philosophy (and, according to you, PKD) were getting at: that "there is only one moment". Where did you get that?
    - perfmode 6y ago
      Perhaps a better umbrella for what I am referring to would be non-dualism. i’m referring to Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism, and Esoteric Christianity. key figures would then be Patanjali, Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, Jesus Christ (Gospel of Thomas), St. Theresa of Avila, The Desert Fathers especially Anthony The Great, Shankaracharya, Rumi, and Hafez. Patanjali in the non-dual Hindu tradition. Buddha in the Buddhist tradition. Jesus (as expressed in the Gospel of Thomas) representing Christianity. Shankaracharya for advaita vedanta. Ramana for Self-Enquiry. Rumi, Hafez for Sufism. also Somananda for Kashmir Shaivism. Apologies if there was confusion in terms. It seems we were coming at it from different angles.
- nsajko 6y ago
  > origin of your belief I guess it's from that movie he quoted, "Waking life", here's the script: https://wakinglifemovie.net/transcript/chapter/18/ https://wakinglifemovie.net/transcript/chapter/18/
  - pmoriarty 6y ago
    Well, that's that movie, then.. nothing to do with perennial philosophy, from what I can see.
    - prophesi 6y ago
      I'm not sure how it being from a movie discounts it as a theory of perennialism.
      - pmoriarty 6y ago
        If it is, please provide some evidence of it.
        perfmode 6y ago
        I'll meet you on your terms. Let's look at Huxley. According to his research and the works he chose to survey, what is it that one might conclude he sees as being "the single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy

pmoriarty 6y ago

Ironically, there are actually many different perennial philosophies, each of which believe different things. The thing they have in common is that they believe all religions or philosophies are getting at the same thing or have their root in the same thing or experience.. but what that thing is differs from one perennial philosophy to another. You seem to have cited one such belief -- that there is only one moment -- but I'm not sure what the origin of your belief is. Which version of perennial philosophy are you referring to?

perfmode 6y ago
can you provide evidence of the existence (in common discourse) of “multiple versions of Perennial philosophy?”
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  Just take a look at the Wikipedia article you linked to. In it there are versions by: Huxley, Philo of Alexandria, Ficino and Pico della Mirandola, Agostino Steuco, Emerson, Blavatsky, Huston Smith, and a bunch of others. Take a closer look at what these people believed and you'll see they believed different things (except that, again, they believed that there was a common source or experience that different religions stemmed from or were getting at). For example, from the article, "the Egyptian god Osiris and the Greek god Dionysus had been equated as Osiris-Dionysus by the historian Herodotus as early as the 5th century BC", while "The mystic Ramakrishna's spiritual ecstasies included experiencing the sameness of Christ, Mohammed and his own Hindu deity". Not really the same, is it? "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." Again, not the same as the other two. "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." So now the peak is supposedly Plato, not Osirus, Christ, Mohammed, or a Hindu diety. Then there's Steuco who believed "that philosophy works in harmony with religion and should lead to knowledge of God", but that's different from Emerson, who thought "an individual's intuition of truth was taken as the criterion for truth". Etc, etc, etc... By the way, in none of the above (or anywhere else in this Wikipedia article) is there any mention of what you said perennial philosophy (and, according to you, PKD) were getting at: that "there is only one moment". Where did you get that?
  - perfmode 6y ago
    Perhaps a better umbrella for what I am referring to would be non-dualism. i’m referring to Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism, and Esoteric Christianity. key figures would then be Patanjali, Buddha, Ramana Maharshi, Jesus Christ (Gospel of Thomas), St. Theresa of Avila, The Desert Fathers especially Anthony The Great, Shankaracharya, Rumi, and Hafez. Patanjali in the non-dual Hindu tradition. Buddha in the Buddhist tradition. Jesus (as expressed in the Gospel of Thomas) representing Christianity. Shankaracharya for advaita vedanta. Ramana for Self-Enquiry. Rumi, Hafez for Sufism. also Somananda for Kashmir Shaivism. Apologies if there was confusion in terms. It seems we were coming at it from different angles.
nsajko 6y ago
> origin of your belief I guess it's from that movie he quoted, "Waking life", here's the script: https://wakinglifemovie.net/transcript/chapter/18/ https://wakinglifemovie.net/transcript/chapter/18/
- pmoriarty 6y ago
  Well, that's that movie, then.. nothing to do with perennial philosophy, from what I can see.
  - prophesi 6y ago
    I'm not sure how it being from a movie discounts it as a theory of perennialism.
    - pmoriarty 6y ago
      If it is, please provide some evidence of it.
      - perfmode 6y ago
        I'll meet you on your terms. Let's look at Huxley. According to his research and the works he chose to survey, what is it that one might conclude he sees as being "the single, metaphysical truth or origin from which all esoteric and exoteric knowledge and doctrine has grown?" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Perennial_Philosophy