Why Levitation? by Michael Grosso

Wow. Thanks Doug. Extremely interesting!

I actually own The Physical Phenomena of Mysticism but haven't made time to pick it up yet . . . this article somewhat prompts me to do so.

Glad you liked it, Reece. Another book to consider reading is Mysteries Marvels Miracles: In the Lives of the Saints, by Joan Carroll Cruz. It's a huge compendium of psychic experiences of Catholic saints. A possible drawback, however, is that the book was written for Catholics and printed by a Catholic publishing house, so it may not be as objective as people with a scientific interest in parapsychology would like.

Doug
 
I am really excited for Mike Grosso's book on Saint Joseph of Copertino. (Though I liked the original title, Wings of Ecstasy, better.) The book is an outgrowth of the Esalen conferences on survival of consciousness after death. Quite a few of the participants are historians of religion, and they wanted to cull the annals of mysticism for phenomena that offer support for a Myers/James 'filter-theory' of mind. Grosso has command of both Latin and Italian, and started looking into Saint Joseph's canonization material. There are also quite a few documents that attest to his strange abilities beyond the canonization documents themselves. Grosso prepared a translation of all of these, and the introduction to these translations eventually became this book. I hope the translations are included as an appendix, or are published separately. As a historian myself, there is quite a bit we can do to push the field forward, and I applaud Grosso's efforts here.
 
I am really excited for Mike Grosso's book on Saint Joseph of Copertino. (Though I liked the original title, Wings of Ecstasy, better.) The book is an outgrowth of the Esalen conferences on survival of consciousness after death. Quite a few of the participants are historians of religion, and they wanted to cull the annals of mysticism for phenomena that offer support for a Myers/James 'filter-theory' of mind. Grosso has command of both Latin and Italian, and started looking into Saint Joseph's canonization material. There are also quite a few documents that attest to his strange abilities beyond the canonization documents themselves. Grosso prepared a translation of all of these, and the introduction to these translations eventually became this book. I hope the translations are included as an appendix, or are published separately. As a historian myself, there is quite a bit we can do to push the field forward, and I applaud Grosso's efforts here.

Thanks Troy. Do you know when the book will be coming out?

Doug
 
Grosso has...started looking into Saint Joseph's canonization material. There are also quite a few documents that attest to his strange abilities beyond the canonization documents themselves.

Such as?

Grosso prepared a translation of all of these, and the introduction to these translations eventually became this book. I hope the translations are included as an appendix, or are published separately. As a historian myself, there is quite a bit we can do to push the field forward, and I applaud Grosso's efforts here.

I applaud evidence and the preponderance of it.
 
Pardon my skepticism but what real evidence is there that St. Joseph, who is sainted only by the powers-that-were of the RC Church, was levitated by God? Which is what the accounts I read detail. "Levitation" by ectoplasmic rod is a well recorded phenomenon; also by invisible means (ectoplasmic leverage?) but is directly linked to spirit intervention through physical mediumship.

Levitation outside of spirit involvement is psychokinesis unless, of course, we have heavenly intervention but for the life of me, I see no evidence that associates the Christian God with levitating anyone except for the belief that is what happens.

What there is - is - a history of the RC Church and other denominations using claimed supernatural events in an allegorical fashion. Levitation = heaven ascent, if you get my meaning. Maybe that's what's going on here but is that evidence that would drive beatification and canonization? Perhaps it does, I don't make the rules.

Phenomenon including ecstatic flight - does this mean that the flier is so worked up in prayer he flies from the production of an energy force? - does not assure much of anything, certainly not that it is caused by nonphysical intervention from the astral realms.

Without real survival of physical death evidence, I would suggest that it is a serious "reach" for Grosso to associate continuity of consciousness with levitation and to assert that there is something in human consciousness that can bend the laws of physics ( i.e. causing levitation).

I'm left confused and conflated by the whole thing.
 
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