Books like The Perennial Philosophy

01

The Varieties of Religious Experience

William James · Religion & Spirituality

The Varieties of Religious Experience originated as the Gifford Lectures delivered at Edinburgh in 1901–1902 and immediately became one of the most celebrated works in the study of religion.

02

The Bhagavad Gita

Anonymous · Religion & Spirituality

The Bhagavad Gita — the Song of the Lord — is an episode embedded in the Sanskrit epic Mahabharata, composed between the 5th and 2nd centuries BCE.

03

Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

Sam Harris · Religion & Spirituality

Waking Up is Sam Harris' argument that the insights of contemplative traditions — particularly Buddhism's claim that the sense of self is an illusion — can be separated from religious metaphysics and investigated directly through meditation and introspection.

04

The Idea of the Holy

Rudolf Otto · Religion & Spirituality

The Idea of the Holy is Rudolf Otto's analysis of the non-rational dimension of religious experience — the distinctive quality of encounter with what he calls the "numinous," an experience that cannot be reduced to any moral, rational, or aesthetic category but is the core of what religion is actually about.

05

A History of God

Karen Armstrong · Religion & Spirituality

A History of God is Karen Armstrong's account of how the idea of God has changed over four thousand years across Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, with excursions into Hinduism and Buddhism.

06

A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose

Eckhart Tolle · Religion & Spirituality

A New Earth is Eckhart Tolle's follow-up to The Power of Now, applying the same framework of presence and ego-transcendence to a broader account of human dysfunction and its transformation.