Symbolic versus Literal Perspectives on the Paranormal/Spiritual with Charles Upton

Charles Upton's first books of poetry were published in 1968 and 1969 by Lawrence Ferlinghetti of City Light Books in San Francisco. He was then considered the youngest member of the "beat generation" as he was still in high school. He has subsequently written many books associated with the traditionalist school of spirituality including The Science of the Greater Jihad, Folk Metaphysics, Alien Disclosure Deception: The Metaphysics of Social Engineering, Day and Night on the Sufi Path, Dugin Against Dugin: A Traditionalist Critique of the Fourth Political Theory, System of the Antichrist and Vectors of the Counter-Initiation. His website is https://charles-upton.com/.

Note: There is a GoFundMe page for Charles Upton who is dealing with colon cancer. See https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-charl...

Here, Upton observes that there is a prejudice against looking at spiritual claims as literal, factual truths. This is a prejudice that is shared by both atheistic deniers of the spiritual and enthusiasts of symbolic interpretations of spiritual truths. Both groups tend to believe literal interpretations are somehow primitive. Upton offers some solutions to this impasse.

00:00:00 Introduction
00:03:02 The Peterson/Dawkins debate
00:17:32 The paranormal as taboo
00:30:23 Truth value of religious claims
00:37:28 Traditionalist view of the paranormal
00:43:29 The paranormal and theology
00:51:17 The paranormal and spirituality
01:03:40 How to symbols and facts fit with each other?
01:10:24 Conclusion

New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. Between 1986 and 2002 he hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is the recipient of the only doctoral diploma in "parapsychology" ever awarded by an accredited university (University of California, Berkeley, 1980). He is also the Grand Prize winner of the 2021 Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding the best evidence for survival of human consciousness after permanent bodily death. He serves as Co-Director for Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science.

(Recorded on November 29, 2024)

For a short video on How to Get the Most From New Thinking Allowed, go to    • InPresence 0253: How to Get the Most ...  

For a complete, updated list with links to all of our videos, see https://newthinkingallowed.com/Listin....

Check out the New Thinking Allowed Foundation website at http://www.newthinkingallowed.org. There you will find our incredible, searchable database as well as opportunities to shop and to support our video productions – plus, this is where people can subscribe to our FREE, weekly Newsletter and can download a FREE .pdf copy of our quarterly magazine.

To order high-quality, printed copies of our quarterly magazine: NTA-Magazine.MagCloud.com

If you would like to join our team of volunteers, helping to promote the New Thinking Allowed YouTube channel on social media, editing and translating videos, creating short video trailers based on our interviews, helping to upgrade our website, or contributing in other ways (we may not even have thought of), please send an email to [email protected].

To join the NTA Psi Experience Community on Facebook, see   / 1953031791426543  

To download and listen to audio versions of the New Thinking Allowed videos, please visit our new podcast at https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/n....

You can help support our video productions while enjoying a good book. (As an Amazon Associate we earn from qualifying purchases.) To order a copy of New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: Is There Life After Death? click on https://amzn.to/3LzLA7Y

To order New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: Russell Targ – Ninety Years of ESP, Remote Viewing, and Timeless Awareness, go to https://amzn.to/4aw2iyr

To order New Thinking Allowed Dialogues: UFOs and UAP – Are We Really Alone?, go to https://amzn.to/3xJ6iy0

To order Dugin Against Dugin: A Traditionalist Critique of the Fourth Political Theory by Charles Upton, click here: https://amzn.to/3jv2bOl

To order System of the Antichrist by Charles Upton, go to https://amzn.to/3nmIyud

To order Day and Night on the Sufi Path by Charles Upton, see https://amzn.to/3Lviovi

To order Vectors of the Counter-Initiation by Charles Upton, see https://amzn.to/3h34MuE

To order Alien Disclosure Deception: The Metaphysics of Social Engineering by Charles Upton, see https://amzn.to/3IgxjrU.