Wisdom Tradition is a term that is sometimes given to the inner core or mystic aspects of a religious or spiritual tradition, without the trappings, doctrinal literalism, sectarianism, and power structures that are associated with institutionalised religion. The Wisdom Tradition provides a conceptual framework for the development of the inner self, living a spiritual life, and the realisation of Enlightenment or of Union with God.
Ken Wilber frequently uses the term in the plural in his own books, shadowing the theologian Huston Smith who popularized the usage. In this context it can be considered synonymous with Esotericism, but does not have the faintly Western/Middle Eastern/Theosophical nuances that are sometimes associated with the latter term.
In Christianity and in the Hebrew Bible, the term is used to describe female images of the divine in the Book of Wisdom. It is one of the seven Sapiential or wisdom books of the Septuagint Old Testament, which includes Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of Solomon (Song of Songs), and Sirach.
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Famous quotes containing the words wisdom and/or tradition:
“Perhaps in His wisdom the Almighty is trying to show us that a leader may chart the way, may point out the road to lasting peace, but that many leaders and many peoples must do the building.”
—Eleanor Roosevelt (1884–1962)
“The instincts of merry England lingered on here with exceptional vitality, and the symbolic customs which tradition has attached to each season of the year were yet a reality on Egdon. Indeed, the impulses of all such outlandish hamlets are pagan still: in these spots homage to nature, self-adoration, frantic gaieties, fragments of Teutonic rites to divinities whose names are forgotten, seem in some way or other to have survived mediaeval doctrine.”
—Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)