The Cave and the Light: Quaker Journeys with Plato

Our typical image of early Friends is that of a straightlaced group of Bible-centred anti-intellectuals. However, For the first decades of its existence, Quakers were a radically fluid spiritual community shaped by a variety of philosophical and theological sources.

In this course we will be introduced to an unfamiliar facet of early Quaker history. In their engagement with key dimensions of the Platonic tradition, many first and second-generation Friends revealed themselves as daring experimenters in domains of theology and speculative philosophy.

In the first week, Ann Conway Jones will take learners on a journey to the heart of the Platonic vision of God via Plato’s famous allegory of the cave and the light. Drawing on the riches of the Alexandrian tradition of Christian speculation, Anne shows how Plato’s understanding of the divine, the soul, and the body helped to shape early Christian spirituality in the early centuries.

In the second week, Ben Wood picks up the story in the fire and fury of seventeenth-century England. In an era of dangerous sectarianism and spiritual confusion, Ben shows how daring religious figures including George Keith, Anne Conway, Robert Barclay, Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, drew on ancient Platonic traditions to create radical forms of Quaker Christianity which pushed the bounds of religious acceptability.

In the final week, learners will have the space to explore with Anne and Ben what these experiments in radical religion might teach us today as Friends and spiritual seekers. This course will particularly appeal to Friends who want to explore neglected aspects of Quaker history, theology, and spirituality. It may also be resonant with learners who want to discover more about alternative forms of Christian theology and community.

There will be some material to look at before the first session. We will email you around one week prior to the course with information about accessing the course, including this material, on our online learning platform (Moodle).