In the Dark Places of Wisdom by Peter Kingsley

He implies that the blame lies with the invention of a new definition of philosophy, in Athens, under Plato. It's just that it has been covered over by what may be described as 'a conspiracy of silence' (230). 'But,' he says, 'that's not the case.' In fact, this knowledge was once at the heart of western culture - and may indeed lie at the heart of its greatest ancient achievements. Kingsley at one point as 'the peace of utter stillness' (36), and of course we can never find this by rushing after it, searching for it everywhere - but ironically there is a way in which it is accessible to every one of us, at all times.Īccording to his thesis, the knowledge of how to access 'the peace of utter stillness' still exists in places outside of western culture, and because of this many moderns have assumed that such knowledge 'never took root in the West' (115). It has lost the power even to know what needs to be delivered, so it offers substitutes instead' (35). 34-35.īecause of what has been stolen in antiquity, he argues, western culture has become 'a past master at the art of substitution,' but 'It offers and never delivers because it can't. We keep wanting something else, needing some other need to keep us going. So we try to substitute this and that, but nothing lasts.

In the Dark Places of Wisdom describes the problem: And here's a great secret: we all have that vast missingness deep inside us the more we feel that nothingness inside us, the more we feel the need to fill the void. Kingsley's discovery that something has been stolen from the culture that we today know as 'the West' - something so essential, that it is in fact the very thing which we each long for in our lives, and which we can wear ourselves out in pursuing and never reaching. The momentousness of the implications comes from Dr. Kingsley's four books, In the Dark Places of Wisdom (1999), which can accurately be described as 'momentous in its implications' (in the words one prominent author has used to describe Dr. Special thanks to a reader who recently introduced me to the work of Peter Kingsley, with whom I had previously been unfamiliar. Image: Ruins of the temple of Asclepius, Elea.

In the Dark Places of Wisdom by Peter Kingsley