“Our present situation, [Perennialists] contend, is analogous to that of the prisoners in Plato’s Cave. In The Republic, Plato relates an allegory of slaves who are chained in a dimly lit cave, forced to watch shadows play across the wall in front of them. Since they are chained and unable to turn around, they can’t see who is making the shadows, nor do they recognize the shadows as shadows. They think the shadow world in front of them is the whole story of reality. Plato argued that we are like those prisoners, bound by our assumptions into mistaking what we currently see and comprehend for all that it’s possible to see and comprehend. Extending his allegory to our own situation, we assume that our minds and our five senses are showing us all of what’s really going on, though, in Plato’s opinion, we are complacently satisfying ourselves with a partial and misleading view.
“Perennialists, as well as the majority of mystics from the past, believe there’s another world to live in outside Plato’s Cave, an illuminated landscape that is pregnant with purpose, meaning, and value. That is what’s really going on while we content ourselves with a partial view. And though apprehending this bigger world (actually an expanded vision of our world) may transcend our current state of mind, the noetic awakening that brings it into focus does not contradict the laws of science (which is an important point for most Perennialists, as we’ll discuss in Part III). But how do we access this world of light beyond Plato’s Cave? That is the subject of our next chapter.”
