Secular Fundamentalism and Perennialism as Barriers to Spiritual Pluralism

A serious post-postmodern spiritual pluralism faces two structurally symmetrical barriers that are rarely examined together. The first is secular fundamentalism — the assertive physicalism of figures like Harris, Dennett, and Dawkins, whose metaphysical commitments to causal closure, epiphenomenal consciousness, and the elimination of objective meaning are presented not as philosophical positions but as deliverances of science itself. As David Bentley Hart and others have argued, these are scientistic claims rather than scientific ones, carrying the cultural authority of empirical inquiry while operating as unfalsifiable metaphysical dogma. The effect on pluralistic discourse is devastating: if every contact with transcendence is by definition delusional, no spiritual tradition can enter the conversation as anything other than a specimen to be diagnosed.

The second barrier is perennialism, particularly as developed by Frithjof Schuon and adopted within integral and progressive spiritual circles. The perennialist thesis — that all religions share a single esoteric core beneath their exoteric differences — presents itself as maximally inclusive. But as Steve McIntosh contends, it functions as dogma rather than discovery. Jorge Ferrer's participatory research demonstrates that cross-traditional mystical reports diverge significantly when examined without interpretive overlay, and that apparent convergence often reflects a tacit privileging of non-dual Vedanta. Perennialism thus becomes a form of belief system imperialism: it ranks traditions against a single hidden standard while claiming to honor them all equally.

Recognizing secular fundamentalism and perennialism as parallel pathologies — one dismissing transcendence entirely, the other colonizing it under a single framework — is identified here as a prerequisite for any spiritually pluralistic agreement that can survive genuine intellectual scrutiny.