Great essay. If it was written especially for us TWS daftlads? That would be the coolest thing in the world.
It's a very alluring idea, isn't it, that elements of all the really contemplative religions could be smushed together into progressive whole. I like that idea. Christianity (it seems to me) is definitely the most intellectual religion, and Buddhism can go suck it, but what it all means is anyone's guess. I used to dote on 'The Perennial Philosophy' by Aldous Huxley, and, yes, Teilhard DeChardin is The Man (I like that his books are as much scientific textbooks as religious treatese). But really? As I've got older, the most obvious statement that can be made about the religious world is that we're in some kind of claustrophobic, gnostic, worst-case-scenario, and you can be as intellectual or as stupid as you like, and everything will be the same.
