PARAPSYCHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, AND SPIRITUALITY: A POSTMODERN EXPLORATION.

GAFFNEY, JAMES

PARAPSYCHOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY, AND SPIRITUALITY: A POSTMODERN EXPLORATION. By David Ray Griffin. SUNY Series in Constructive Postmodern Thought. Albany: State University of New York, 1997. Pp. xiv + 339. $19.95.

Griffin edits the series to which this volume belongs, and has edited or co-edited eight other volumes in the same series. In introducing the series he repudiates what he calls "deconstructive postmodernism" for its "antiworldview." Sounding for the moment not unlike John Paul II's latest encyclical, G. denounces philosophy which "deconstructs or eliminates the ingredients necessary for a worldview, such as god, self, purpose, meaning, a real world, and truth as correspondence." "Constructive postmodernism," on the contrary, "wishes to salvage a positive meaning not only for the notions of the human self, historical meaning, and truth as correspondence, which were central to modernity, but also for premodern notions of a divine reality, cosmic meaning, and an enchanted nature." Thus the presumption is that the history of (Western, at least) thought is a record of intellectual and spiritual progress, which can be preserved and further advanced by adopting resources hitherto deliberately excluded--such as parapsychology.

G. equates "parapsychology" with "psychical research" but understands it to include more than laboratory-controlled study of the "paranormal." The subject matter includes the traditional three categories of alleged phenomena: extrasensory perception, psychokinesis (psychically caused mechanical effects), and out-of-body conditions (usually communications with the dead or "near-death" experiences). The book tries to disarm prejudice about its subject matter by citing an impressive number of thoroughly scientific authorities who viewed it with the utmost seriousness, and recalling the impeccable methodology of certain experimental programs in this field. The opening of my own mind to parapsychology was occasioned by reading accounts of the scrupulously controlled experiments on extrasensory perception carried out over many years by Rhine at Duke University.

G. discusses at some length why much of the public mind seems closed to parapsychology. Mostly he blames it on a modern scientific worldview that excludes causality without contact, maintaining that even scientific findings which appear to conflict with that restriction tend to be reformulated into conformity with it. More originally, he also blames a Christian interpretation of miracles that would appear to allow only supernatural explanations of paranormal phenomena. He wishes to make room for understanding "miracle workers" as, at least sometimes, competent practitioners of telepathy and telekinesis. Although this offers a reasonable objection to certain kinds of miracle validation, mainly associated with Catholic canonizations, theological support for such procedures is clearly waning as miracles are reinterpreted in ways that have little to do with suspending any "laws of nature." At the same time, the desupernaturalization of paranormal phenomena might render them simply irrelevant as evidence of special divine (or, for that matter, diabolical) intervention.

Having already described credibly reported recurrent paranormal occurrences, and cited reputable scholars who credited them, G. devotes about half the book to five distinct categories pertinent to spirituality: mediumistic messages supposedly from the dead; "possession" phenomena in which subjects' memories, dispositions and skills seem to be replaced by other, very different ones; suggestions of reincarnation by remembering past lives; "apparitions"; and "out-of-body" experiences. Examples are chosen for their adequacy and reliability. Rival explanations are carefully criticized. G. argues that the best evidence supports belief in life after death and the effective separability of mind from body.

What all this has to do with spirituality becomes explicit, but not altogether clear, in the final chapter. G. notes that spirituality is sometimes contrasted with religion, sometimes favorably and sometimes unfavorably, depending on which term connotes dogmatic or ideological rigidity, of which he clearly disapproves. He does not say precisely what he means by it in a favorable sense, but does outline the philosophy underlying his own spirituality. It involves a rejection of religious "supernaturalism" in favor of religious "naturalism." The god of this religion is not "utterly other," nor personally and omnipotently intervening in a universe he created, nor a bestower of post-mortem rewards and punishments. G. identifies his system as "panentheism" and invokes a number of Whiteheadian premises in it support. It is not identifiable with any specific religious tradition, but is obviously more at home in a Buddhist or Hindu mental environment than in that of Western monotheisms. Its rejection of any radical disjunction between matter and spirit is consistent with G.'s interpretation of paranormal phenomena. His system is not, however, in any rigorous sense implied by that interpretation, and the capacity of Christian theology to accommodate angelology and demonology suggests its capacity to accommodate the paranormal if persuaded of its validity. The reader is left to conclude that, if one fancies the same sort of spirituality as G., G.'s account of the paranormal is very congenial. But one cannot conclude that accepting G.'s well-argued account of the paranormal leads compellingly to adopting his spirituality. G. expresses, passionately but tersely, his personal conviction that prevailing worldviews, and notably that of traditional Christian eschatology, hold ominous consequences for humanity's future, and that his own worldview with its spirituality offers the best alternative. But, he concludes, "I have only stated my belief; an argument for all this will have to wait for a subsequent book." So it will. Meanwhile, reading this book may dispel some prejudices and counteract some misinformation about parapsychology, and draw attention to its bearing on "postmodern" spirituality. It may also encourage some reappraisal of efforts, like those of the Jesuit Herbert Thurston, to find a home for paranormal phenomena within traditional Christian orthodoxy.

JAMES GAFFNEY University of Iowa, Iowa City