ABSTRACT
This chapter is concerned with the perennialist understanding of "gnosis." Gnosis, properly understood, is "intellective knowledge of the Absolute", a "supra-rational, and thus purely intellective, knowledge of metacosmic realities". The perennialist metaphysician is concerned neither with rational argument nor with faith/belief but with an Intellectual Evidence which brings an absolute certitude, while theology focuses on beliefs and moralities, and metaphysics is the outward expression of gnosis. The relationship of theology to metaphysics is that of exotericism to esotericism. "Metaphysics" is one of those words, like "dogma" or "mystical," which has been so sullied by careless and ignorant usage that the word itself has accumulated pejorative associations. Metaphysics is the attempt to articulate gnosis, to bring within our purview a state of knowing which may hitherto be unspoken, unheard, invisible as it were; metaphysics brings gnosis into the realm of human discourse.
