True Religion: What Is To Be Believed?
How rediscovering an ancient conversation between the world's great religious traditions can help restore a fractured world
All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you've always known.
—Frank Herbert
Thou Shalt Not Disfigure the Soul
“My Arab friends wonder why it's called science fiction” declared the author Frank Herbert, in a 1984 television interview for PBS. “Dune, they say, is religious commentary. It is Philosophical Fiction, rather than Science Fiction.”
I am inclined to agree with Herbert’s “Arab friends”. As I have touched on already, the spiritual themes found within the pages of Dune are often profound, revealing deep insight into Herbert’s own nuanced understanding of religion.
Consider this passage from the appendices to the third Dune novel:
“The Universe is God’s. It is one thing, a wholeness against which all separations may be identified. Transient life, even that self-aware and reasoning life which we call sentient, holds only fragile trusteeship on any portion of the wholeness.”1
Herbert goes on to contrast this understanding with the varieties of lay religion with which most of us are familiar:
“All men must see that the teaching of religion by rules and rote is largely a hoax. The proper teaching is recognized with ease. You can know it without fail because it awakens within you that sensation which tells you this is something you've always known.”2
Without any formal religious training whatsoever, Herbert has, in this single passage, arrived at something very near the heart of the world’s great religious traditions: the indivisible “oneness” of reality, a wholeness in the face of which all dualisms inevitably dissolve.
In the world of Herbert’s Dune, a socio-religious protocol emerges in response to the religious sectarianism that continues to plague the human race ten thousand years into the future. Following the events of humanity’s great Holy War against artificial intelligence known as the Butlerian Jihad, an interplanetary council consisting of representatives of humanity’s religious traditions meets to develop a sort of meta religion designed to unify the scattered threads of human faith.
Religion appeals to an older instinct in man than do modern notions of freedom, democracy, or sustainability.
What emerges from this council, known as the Commission of Ecumenical Translators, is an all-encompassing religious text known as the Orange Catholic Bible. Like the Holy Roman Empire, which was neither holy, Roman, nor much of an empire, this text is neither Catholic nor Biblical. Rather, it is rather a pluralist attempt to represent fundamental points of agreement between the galaxy’s major religions. Its primary commandment distils the main thrust of all orthodox religious dogma: Thou Shalt Not Disfigure the Soul.
But this is not an essay about Dune, rather, it is about a conversation that I believe Frank Herbert is participating in with Dune. That conversation is, in my opinion, the Great Conversation, a discourse regarding philosophia perennis et universalis–the Perennial Philosophy.
The Perennial Philosophy: Informed Universalism
This will be the first of many reflections on the Perennial Philosophy and my own journey towards a form of religious Universalism which I believe holds the keys to a cultural restoration in which the world’s great religious traditions inform a mode of being that is both harmonious and salvific.
In saving ourselves, we just might save the world. If that seems grandiose, it is deliberate. We are past the need for restraint and modesty in our conversations regarding solutions for the growing crises that beset man and nature alike. Now is the time for bold thought and even bolder action.
After all, religion appeals to an older instinct in man than do modern notions of freedom, democracy, or sustainability. There is a part of us that fears heresy more than it does sin, and if we fail to appeal to that part of the human psyche when making our case for a fairer, freer, and more livable world, we are overlooking a immensely powerful tool that could be employed to achieve one.
The Perennial Philosophy is simply the contention that the world’s great spiritual traditions are but distinct petals of a single flower, the root and core of which is an acknowledgement of the indivisible wholeness of that ultimate Precursor to the universe, the transcendent spiritual Ground of all things.
This is somewhat distinct from a mere metaphysical acknowledgment of the Absolute, as this Ground is both personal and participatory. God, in this sense, is not something remote and wholly other, but rather, in the words of the Bhagavad-gita, “That by which all this world is pervaded.”
Consider this passage from the writings of Meister Eckhart, the 13th Century German Mystic:
Thou must love God as not-God, not-Spirit, not-person, not-image, but as He is, a sheer, pure absolute One, sundered from all two-ness, and in whom we must eternally sink from nothingness to nothingness.
Stripped of some of the mystical mumbo that confounded even Eckhart’s spiritual contemporaries, this quote bears a striking similarity to the Herbert passage with which I began my reflection. Both speak to the root of what every exponent of the Perennial Philosophy has always insisted: all dualisms, all separations are ultimately obstacles to the unitive knowledge of God.
To recognize this reality and submit to it is, for the Perennialist, the heart of true religion. To see with what the Sufi mystics called the Ayn al-Qalb—the Eye of the Heart—and understand that the whole universe simply breathes with the Uncreated Light of God’s essence.
There is a part of us that fears heresy more than it does sin, and if we fail to appeal to that part of the human psyche when making our case for a fairer, freer, and more livable world, we are overlooking a immensely powerful tool that could be employed to achieve one.
Submission to this single Reality is what is properly meant by Islam. The word Muslim denotes the idea of “one who submits himself to the will of Almighty God.” A friend recently joked that I should “commit to the bit and convert to Islam” following a fasting-induced bout of philosophical reflection on Islamic theology I posted to my Instagram stories.
But how can one “convert” to Islam when one already submits himself to this reality? In a very real sense, although I have not taken the Shahada nor follow one or other formal branch of Islam, I am already a Muslim because I am already one who submits himself to the tawhid, the Undivided Reality of God. In the same way, I could describe myself as a Zen Buddhist, an Orthodox Christian, or a Vedantic Hindu.
In making this claim, I do not wish to arbitrarily collapse distinctions which have served as important vantage points for deeper dialogue between the great religious traditions. Those distinctions are important. In fact, what separates the Perennial Philosophy from the sort of vacuous New Age drivel that passes for much of what is considered ‘Universalism’ today is an acknowledgement that the great religious traditions are simultaneously distinct and whole.
If that is distressingly confusing, take comfort in the fact that the solution to this paradox can only be experienced, not merely accepted intellectually. This is part of what the Islamic scholars mean by tawakkul (تَوَكُّل)—the releasing of the reigns. Or put another way, as Herbert does in Dune, “life is not a problem to be solved but a reality to be experienced.”
Huxley the Messenger
While preparing to write this reflection on the Perennial Philosophy, I returned to Aldous Huxley’s book of the same name. Huxley is best known for two books far narrower in their scope and broader in their popularity: Brave New World, that dystopian classic we were all forced to read in English Class, and The Doors of Perception, a firsthand account of Huxley’s psychedelic trip on mescaline, a compound derived from the sacred Peyote cactus of Northern Mexico.
Of these two, the latter is a much better exploration of the themes found in The Perennial Philosophy, but it is mostly remembered as one of the earliest and best trip reports in the English language, and is treasured by psychonauts for these qualities, rather than the profound reflections it contains regarding the unitive nature of being. I have a dizzying variety of opinions regarding the use of entheogenic plants as a means to spiritual insight, but they are beyond the scope of this reflection, so I hope to share them at length in a separate article.
Truth be told, Huxley is more an archivist of the philosophia perennis than a practitioner. He plays the role of the Egyptian Thoth, or the Greek Hermes, communicating messages from the deep wells of reflection that the world’s mystical traditions have filled. Such traditions are more thoroughly explored through the writings of Martin Lings, Frithjof Schuon, Ananda Coomaraswamy, and James Cutsinger. These names—with the possible exception of Lings—are likely unfamiliar to the casual student of comparative religion, but would be instantly recognizable to more serious seekers after the mystical core of the great religious traditions.
More familiar names among the adherents of the Perennial Philosophy include William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, Ken Wilber, Alan Watts, Joseph Campbell, and even King Charles III. Each of these has, like Huxley, made significant contributions to the popularization of the ideas that comprise the Perennial Philosophy, but they are not considered particularly instructive expositors of the more academic foundations of the school.
Nonetheless, Huxley is, in my opinion, the most eloquent and concise messenger of the basic ideas that form the Perennial Philosophy. Consider this passage from his book:
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.3
One would be hard-pressed to find a more approachable summary of the root and core of the Perennialist outlook, with the possible exception of that passage from Dune with which I began this reflection. God—Brahman, the Universe, the Absolute—is One Thing, the single, unitive substrate of all contingent reality. His Revelation is the stone, dropped into the still lake, whence ripples radiate. These ripples are the great religious traditions, as well as the solitary mystical experiences found amongst all peoples in all times. As Huxley concludes, “those who win through to the unitive knowledge of God set out upon their course from the most diverse starting points.”4
The Social Relevance of Perennialism
At this point, the reader might be drumming their fingers, wondering why I have indulged in such an elaborate diversion on the tenets of what is, in reality, a little-known and esoteric branch of religious philosophy. What on earth does any of this have to do with ‘Refusing Dystopia?’ By way of an answer, I would point the reader toward another of Huxley’s novels, one that enjoys less popular appeal than his flagship dystopian fiction. The novel Island, Huxley’s utopian answer to Brave New World, tells the story of a society that has been built according to many of the ideas found in the pages of The Doors of Perception and The Perennial Philosophy. This society is defined by a harmonious coexistence between the spiritual and material. This harmony springs from a social acknowledgment and reverence for the fundamental unity of all life.
Huxley plays the role of the Egyptian Thoth, or the Greek Hermes, communicating messages from the deep wells of reflection that the world’s mystical traditions have filled.
In Island, Huxley presents us with a vision of a utopia where the principles of the Perennial Philosophy are not just personal beliefs to be rejected or assented to intellectually, but are deeply ingrained in every aspect of life. Education, governance, and even economics are all guided by a transformative understanding of the oneness and interconnectedness of all life. As a result, exploitation, greed, pollution, and the will to dominate are minimized, rendered subservient to the demands of compassion, reverence, and stewardship.
The society of Huxley’s Island represents a communal rejection of the dystopian vision presented in Brave New World. In such a society, ‘Refuse Dystopia’ becomes more than simply a personal charge, but rather a social imperative to reject a worldview that emphasizes division and conflict and embrace one grounded in the inherent unity of all existence. Such a society is esoteric yet also deeply pragmatic, emphasizing the importance of personal development alongside that of communal and intergenerational unity. It fosters a sense of responsibility between its inhabitants towards each other and towards the natural world. Put another way, the only overarching commandment of this society could be summarized in Herbert’s refrain Thou Shalt Not Disfigure the Soul.
These themes are the social manifestations of a philosophical outlook that grounds the endless varieties of religious experience within the fundamental unity of all religious truth: Tat Tvam Asi. ‘That Art Thou.’ In other words, you must love your neighbor not only because he is good, but because he is God.
A Hopeful Forebode
In 2007, the philosopher Charles Taylor announced the culmination of centuries of cultural secularization with his groundbreaking book A Secular Age. It was, perhaps, a premature diagnosis. Writing against the backdrop of movements like the New Atheists and the increasing secularization of public spaces, Taylor captures a mood that has greatly shifted in recent years. Nearly two decades since its publication, our world is still dominated by pervasive religiosity.
Fully three quarters of the world’s population still adhere to one of the four major religions of Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Hinduism. Once preeminent secular movements like the New Atheists are so irrelevant to the modern philosophical discourse that they hardly even garner enough attention to attract the attendant ridicule they once invited. Among those who do not follow traditional religious forms, one is more likely to find a host of astrologers, shamans, and New Age evangelists than committed agnostic or atheist secularists. Perhaps that is an overstatement. After all, I am speaking from my experience as a resident of Los Angeles.
In other words, you must love your neighbor not only because he is good, but because he is God.
As I write, the Middle East is once again consumed by vicious bloodletting that stems, at least in part, from differing interpretations of religious truth. This is not to dismiss the important ethnic and national claims at play in the conflict, but rather to emphasize that many of those claims stem, at least in part, from a two thousand year old tension between competing Christian, Jewish, and Muslim dogmas, revelations, and prophecies. If we ever hope for peace in the Middle East, let alone the broader world, emphasizing the unitive core behind differing interpretations of religious truth seems like a good place to start.
The Perennial Philosophy offers us a hopeful signpost, pointing towards the narrow way out of the dystopian narratives that dominate our world and prevent us from imagining a better future, let alone building one. My suspicion is that, by emphasizing a common philosophical substrate, we could work together towards creating societies that embody harmonious and unifying understandings within their very structures. Not accidents tacked on to some secular notion of tolerance, but integrated understandings subject to the higher principle of harmony.
Some might call this utopian thinking. They would be correct. But where there is no vision, the people perish.5 The inverse conclusion to my charge ‘Refuse Dystopia’ is that we must find the courage to demand utopia. Humans are resilient, determined, powerful creatures. We do not lack the will or the ability to save ourselves. We lack the vision to imagine what about us is worth saving. My purpose, in this life and with this project, is to find this vision, and then spread it like a medieval plague. Bold thought, bolder action. We have much to do, and little time to do it. History will declare that our collective inaction in the face of extinction is unforgivable. But as everyone’s favorite friendly neighborhood Spider-Man reminds us, “if you want forgiveness, get religion.”
Suggested Reading:
Aldous Huxley: The Perennial Philosophy
Aldous Huxley: Island
James Cutsinger: Advice to the Serious Seeker: Meditations on the Teaching of Frithjof Schuon
Joseph Campbell: The Hero with a Thousand Faces
Frank Herbert: Children of Dune
Meister Eckhart: Selected Writings.
Herbert, Frank. Children of Dune. New York: Berkley Publishing Group, 1976, 357.
Ibid., 452.
Huxley, Aldous. The Perennial Philosophy. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1945, 1.
Huxley, Aldous. The Perennial Philosophy. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1945, 44.
Proverbs 29:18-19, King James Version (KJV)
Hi Charles, I agree. Recovery, starts with “demanding utopia”. We are not failing because of everything we know, but because of the assumptions we repeatedly make about what we don’t know or can’t understand. I believe as humans we have great difficulty at holding the dialectical tension that exists between the oneness out of which we are born and for which we yearn and the duality imposed by our limited perceptions. It’s 6:59 am here in Beirut and I will take your thoughts and Huxley to my coffee machine right now. Great post and good night to you!