Can we experience something bigger than ourselves in the midst of busy, humdrum lives?
Some philosophers find inspiration in mountains, such as Nietzsche, and some in caves, like Plato. Clare Carlisle found hers in a cave halfway up a mountain.
It happened 20 years ago: walking on a Himalayan path, she met a holy man who lived in a cave nearby. Not your stereotypical sadhu, he didn’t have matted hair and wasn’t semi-naked but wore nice trousers and an acrylic pullover. Nor did he have any obvious wisdom to impart; at the last of their three meetings, he and Carlisle mainly got stoned and giggled about the chicken-like patterns on a cushion she had brought him as a gift. Yet, after leaving, she felt a “yearning” for something that they had shared: a sense that there could be a more “noble” way of living, or that we could experience “transcendence”, a higher perspective on life.
Carlisle went on to have an eminent career as a philosophy professor and the acclaimed biographer of Søren Kierkegaard and George Eliot. The holy man receded from her mind until she was invited to give the 2024 Gifford Lectures, a venerable series dedicated to the theme of “natural theology”. She decided to make the encounter her starting point for the six talks, and now for these six interlinked essays based on them.
