I think an interested reader can get a lot of Gravity & Grace (which I recently completed) without much background in philosophy so long as one accepts that they won't understand _everything_ she writes. Given the mystical nature of some of her work, complete understanding is likely impossible anyway, but that doesn't take away from the rewards of studying the work. That being said, the Iliad and Bhagavad Gita seem as important to her work as more recent philosophers like Hume.