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and Life In The Other Worlds vol.3 of Old & New Evidence on the Meaning of Life The Mystical World-View and Inner Conflict J.H.M.Whiteman
In the third and final volume of The Meaning of Life, Professor Whiteman, a mathematician and mystic (who will be celebrating his 100th birthday in November 2006) has completed the mammoth task he set himself, namely to incorporate his own mystical experiences into a world view. As he writes in the Preface, ‘What we are to consider here is the experience of the divine Reason (Logos) in everything of life, always working for the advancement of the good. The experience which gives or leads to this is today described as mystical. So here we study what has been said or depicted regarding the mystical, also the way to proceed for its attainment and development, and what the most notable teachers in the past have seen fit to declare. ‘This third volume on the “meaning of life” deals accordingly with the fruits of spiritual development in three chief ways. Firstly, every conclusion reached is based on and in accord with the mystical and psychical experience granted to me over the course of about eighty years (some even earlier). . . . Secondly, there is need an intensive study of ancient scriptures, which I have felt obliged to study in the original languages: Vedic, Sanskrit, Pali, Hebrew and Greek [as] translations of these scriptures have almost invariably been made by scholars lacking mystical experience. . . . Knowledge of quite another kind is also needed, philosophical and indeed mathematical in character, if the consistent rational development of objective phenomena in other-world states of life (and even in the physical world) is to be understood. . . . In the Historical Survey, Part III, I have restricted the enquiry to writings reasonably taken to refer to first-hand mystical experience in history up to about 120 C.E. . . . there is good reason to believe that, after that date, the earlier and genuine accounts of mystical experience have been built on by theologians and others who had not been granted that experience.’
Professor J.H.M.Whiteman
(who also writes as Michael Whiteman) has published more than fifty
contributions relating to spiritual development, psychological,
mystical, or otherwise scientific matters. He taught in the
Department of Applied Mathematics at the University of Cape Town for
twenty-nine years (principally Relativity, Quantum Theory, and
related subjects). He has conducted classes in Sanskrit at various
times, served as Editor of The South African Music Teacher
for over fifty-five years, and has appeared as an expert witness in
court or as a consultant on psychological or other scientific
matters. His previous books – The Mystical Life (1961),
Philosophy of Space and Time (1967), The Meaning of Life,
Vol.1 (1986) and Vol.2 (2000), and Aphorisms on Spiritual Method
(1993) – have all been highly praised. CONTENTS Preface List of Diagrams and Charts Abbreviation Code Acknowledgements Prologue: The ‘World Illusion’ (Māyā), Universal Reason, Consciousness, and Individual Life PART I introductory studies 1. The Scientific Validation and Reality Rating of Reports of Non-Physical Experience 2. The Fallacies of Modern Materialism and the Correction 3. Survival of Death: A Clarification of Ideas, on the Basis of Evidence 4. The Angelic Choirs PART II an outlining of universal theology, with first-hand evidence 5. Part I: Divinity, Creation, and the Purpose of Suffering 6. Part II: Individual, Society, and the System of the Worlds PART III a selected historical survey 7. Mystical Religion in the Late Bronze Age 8. Mystical Teachings in the Rig Veda: Four Hymns in New Translation 9. Two Classical Upanishads in New Translation, with Commentary 10. The Psychical and Mystical Experience of Gotama Buddha 11. The Mystical Experience and Teachings of the First Isaiah 12. Four ‘Messianic’ Psalms, in New Translation, with Commentary 13. Mystical Teachings of St Paul 14. Mystical Evidence in the Johannine Gospel and Letters PART IV life in the other worlds 15. ‘Naturalistic’ Experiences ‘Out of the Physical Body’ 16. Meetings after Death 17. The Intermediate world 18. The Clothing of the Spiritual Body 19. The Higher Worlds 20. The Lower Worlds, and their Inhabitants SUPPLEMENTS A. The Mystical Derivation of Quantum Theory and Physical Laws in General A. Six Parables A. The Transliteration System used her for Biblical Hebrew References Names Index Subject Index ISBN 0-86140-463-7 £40.00 Please click here for a obituary by JOHN POYNTON 20/02/2008 |
