Social and Political Context
The Perennial Philosophy was first published in 1945 by Harper & Brothers in the USA (1946 by Chatto & Windus in the UK) immediately after the Second World War and the defeat of National Socialism. The cover text of the British first edition (see illustration) explains:
- "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..."
The book offered readers, assumed to be familiar with the Christian religion and the Bible, a fresh approach, such as 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."
The final paragraph of the cover text is revealing:
- "In this profoundly important work, Mr. Huxley ... 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."
Read more about this topic: The Perennial Philosophy
Famous quotes containing the words social and, social, political and/or context:
“As the saffron tints and crimson flushes of morn herald the coming day, so the social and political advancement which woman has already gained bears the promise of the rising of the full-orbed sun of emancipation. The result will be not to make home less happy, but society more holy.”
—Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (1825–1911)
“You may cut off the heads of every rich man now living—of every statesman—every literary, and every scientific authority, without in the least changing the social situation. Artists, of course, disappeared long ago as social forces. So did the church. Corporations are not elevators, but levellers, as I see them.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)
“Genocide begins, however improbably, in the conviction that classes of biological distinction indisputably sanction social and political discrimination.”
—Andrea Dworkin (b. 1946)
“The hippie is the scion of surplus value. The dropout can only claim sanctity in a society which offers something to be dropped out of—career, ambition, conspicuous consumption. The effects of hippie sanctimony can only be felt in the context of others who plunder his lifestyle for what they find good or profitable, a process known as rip-off by the hippie, who will not see how savagely he has pillaged intricate and demanding civilizations for his own parodic lifestyle.”
—Germaine Greer (b. 1939)