Satanus,
Interesting link.
While I certainly agree that the phenomenon and subjective experience of mysticism can be identified in many epochs and cultures, I am more wary about the further conversion of this phenomenon/experience into another kind of objective truth, or knowledge. I feel the author crosses (or actually reverts from) the limit inherent to mystic experience when he writes what I highlight in red:
Not only have mystics been found in all ages, in all parts of the world and in all religious systems, but also mysticism has manifested itself in similar or identical forms wherever the mystical consciousness has been present. Because of this it has sometimes been called the Perennial Philosophy. Out of their experience and their reflection on it have come the following assertions:Btw, the "wisdom" sayings I was referring to were not the "Gnostic" ones (as mostly illustrated in the Gospel of John, the Odes of Solomon or the Gospel of Thomas), which also imply a sort of objective, transcendental truth, but the more modest teachings traditionally ascribed to the Q-source (and found mostly in Matthew, Luke or the early layers of Thomas). Those simple aphorisms (e.g. do not judge and you won't be judged) do not rely on any appeal to transcendantal authority, they stand by themselves. They have been shown (Downing, Mack) to be very similar to the Greek Cynic school of thought -- in one word closer to agnosticism than gnosticism.1. This phenomenal world of matter and individual consciousness is only a partial reality and is the manifestation of a Divine Ground in which all partial realities have their being.
2. It is of the nature of man that not only can he have knowledge of this Divine Ground by inference, but also he can realize it by direct intuition, superior to discursive reason, in which the knower is in some way united with the known.
3. The nature of man is not a single but a dual one. He has not one but two selves, the phenomenal ego, of which he is chiefly conscious and which he tends to regard as his true self, and a non-phenomenal, eternal self, an inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within him, which is his true self. It is possible for a man, if he so desires and is prepared to make the necessary effort, to identify himself with his true self and so with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature.
4. It is the chief end of man's earthly existence to discover and identify himself with his true self. By doing so, he will come to an intuitive knowledge of the Divine Ground and so apprehend Truth as it really is, and not as to our limited human perceptions it appears to be. Not only that, he will enter into a state of being which has been given different names, eternal life, salvation, enlightenment, etc.
Further, the Perennial Philosophy rests on two fundamental convictions:
1. Though it may be to a great extent atrophied and exist only potentially in most men, men possess an organ or faculty which is capable of discerning spiritual truth, and, in its own spheres, this faculty is as much to be relied on as are other organs of sensation in theirs.
2. In order to be able to discern spiritual truth men must in their essential nature be spiritual; in order to know That which they call God, they must be, in some way, partakers of the divine nature; potentially at least there must be some kinship between God and the human soul. Man is not a creature set over against God. He participates in the divine life; he is, in a real sense, 'united' with God in his essential nature,