In The Discipline of the Cave, John Niemeyer Findlay commences the project which will carry him over two series of Gifford Lectures: to argue that all descriptions of the human condition which fail to take into account the mystical and transcendental are necessarily incomplete and misleading. In this first series of lectures, Findlay sketches the methodological program he intends to follow, and then proceeds to examine the realms of physical reality and cognitive functioning in order to demonstrate the truth of his central thesis.