Religion and Parapsychology Record Type: Review   ID: 1308
Toward Recovery of the Primordial Tradition: Ancient Insights & Modern Discoveries Rossner, John L.
The rationale behind this impressive series of books is that primitive Christianity was rooted in a "Primordial Tradition of psychic intuition and spiritual insight which has been shared with other great religions of the East and West in both ancient and modern times. This background of shared conceptions, enshrined in myths, doctrines, and ritual practices arose out of a common, or universal phenomenology of human psychic and spiritual experience. It was thus rooted in the human psyche and in perennial modes of consciousness and experience which cut across traditional, cultural and religious barriers" (Vol. II, Bk 3, p. vi). In this series, the Reverend Canon Rossner, a professor of religion at Concordia University, shows how recent findings in parapsychology, consciousness studies, and paraphysics, may assist in uncovering the "experiential origins of human religious beliefs in such things as ritual magic, prayer, miraculous healings, post-mortem contacts with the dead, apparitions of angels and saints, revelatory dreams and visions, resurrections and ascensions into heavenly spheres, and psychic identification with archetypical saviours, masters, teachers, or gurus, through initiatory rites" (Vol. II, Bk. 3, p. vi.). Volume I of the series is entitled "Toward a Parapsychology of Religion: The Convergence of Images of Man & the Cosmos from Ancient Religious & Metaphysical Traditions with Insights from Recent Studies in Consciousness." It consists of two books: 1. From Ancient Magic to Future Technology, and 2. From Ancient Religion to Future Science. Volume II: "Essays in the Parapsychology of Religion: The Primordial Tradition in Contemporary Experience—Explorations in Psyche, Sacrament, Spirit," is in three books: 1. Religion, Science, Psyche, 2. Spirits & Cosmic Paradigms, and 3. The Psychic Roots of Ancient Wisdom. The series is designed to serve as a textbook for the use of students and instructors. The chapter bibliographies are extensive and an outline of the contents of each chapter is listed in the beginning. This is certainly the most ambitious attempt yet made to examine the relationship of parapsychology and religion and the religious implications of parapsychology.
Publisher Information:	Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1979-1984. 5 vols. Chapter notes; Chapter references

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