Wow, wow, wow. Only about 1/5 of the way through, and absolutely amazed. I haven't had this much trouble since I read "Les Miserables" in French, and yet, I simply cannot stop reading it. I think I google something on every page. This is the first book that I've read that has specifically addressed the uniformity and connectivity in world religions, and I am really, really enjoying it.

Huxley is quite the thinker, and he's gathered together a lot of great excerpts from the work of various religious and spiritual writers. Yet, aside from being oddly boring for all the intelligence on display, his Perennial Philosophy seems a bit confused. His take is very religious--it's all about the search for capital G God--but he's not at all keen on organized religion...only then also, he kind of is. The search is within and the trappings of religion distract--unless they don't. Or something. Also, his take on evolution is terribly wonky. Something about animals having chosen the easy way out by not growing sentient like us. It's a very 'humans are the BEST!' kind of attitude. Of course the final takeaway is that one should think about stuff deeply, dispel the self, and become one with the universe. Not a bad philosophy.

Aldous Huxley clearly illustrates in this fascinating intellectual piece that man, by and large, is too complicated and too self consumed to truly understand and connect to the nature that is God in His entirety. Too often is man concerned with little things that surround him, or the little things within him, to see that his journey to understand and accept God is never as he sees it and is often misguided as soon as he feels he has a grasp on it.

This is such a fantastic work by a lay theologian. It's premise is the unity of the mystical experience across religions. He draws on Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, and Taoist sources primarily. This volume launched a trend in the secular study of religion that has lasted down to today. Huston Smith, who has written one of the most often used textbooks on religion, credits this book with changing his life, inspiring him to become a student of religion rather than philosophy.