Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Scientology, scripture, and sacred tradition
- 2 “He may be lying but what he says is true”: the sacred tradition of don Juan as reported by Carlos Castaneda, anthropologist, trickster, guru, allegorist
- 3 The invention of sacred tradition: Mormonism
- 4 Antisemitism, conspiracy culture, Christianity, and Islam: the history and contemporary religious significance of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
- 5 The invention of a counter-tradition: the case of the North American anti-cult movement
- 6 “Heavenly deception”? Sun Myung Moon and Divine Principle
- 7 “Forgery” in the New Testament
- 8 Three phases of inventing Rosicrucian tradition in the seventeenth century
- 9 A name for all and no one: Zoroaster as a figure of authorization and a screen of ascription
- 10 The peculiar sleep: receiving The Urantia Book
- 11 Ontology of the past and its materialization in Tibetan treasures
- 12 Pseudo-Dionysius: the mediation of sacred traditions
- 13 Spurious attribution in the Hebrew Bible
- 14 Inventing Paganisms: making nature
- Index
- References
10 - The peculiar sleep: receiving The Urantia Book
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- Notes on contributors
- Introduction
- 1 Scientology, scripture, and sacred tradition
- 2 “He may be lying but what he says is true”: the sacred tradition of don Juan as reported by Carlos Castaneda, anthropologist, trickster, guru, allegorist
- 3 The invention of sacred tradition: Mormonism
- 4 Antisemitism, conspiracy culture, Christianity, and Islam: the history and contemporary religious significance of the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion
- 5 The invention of a counter-tradition: the case of the North American anti-cult movement
- 6 “Heavenly deception”? Sun Myung Moon and Divine Principle
- 7 “Forgery” in the New Testament
- 8 Three phases of inventing Rosicrucian tradition in the seventeenth century
- 9 A name for all and no one: Zoroaster as a figure of authorization and a screen of ascription
- 10 The peculiar sleep: receiving The Urantia Book
- 11 Ontology of the past and its materialization in Tibetan treasures
- 12 Pseudo-Dionysius: the mediation of sacred traditions
- 13 Spurious attribution in the Hebrew Bible
- 14 Inventing Paganisms: making nature
- Index
- References
Summary
I am utterly convinced that, circa 1906–1955, non-material beings of super-human intelligence and maturity interfaced regularly with a group of (eventually) six mortals for the purpose of providing a religious revelation of epochal significance.
The Urantia Papers, later published as The Urantia Book, were received by a small group of people in Chicago through an unnamed person, known as the “sleeping subject” or “contact personality,” distinguished by his “peculiar sleep.”
The way the Urantia revelation is said to have emerged is quite unlike that found within most other traditions. There is no belief that the message is a reemergence of a previously lost tradition, nor is there any claim that the material emerged from any great figure from history. Instead, The Urantia Book is claimed to have been divulged by higher beings, through a human being, through an unknown method, and relatively recently.
All that is told of the person chosen by the “student visitors” or “celestial beings” to be the “vehicle” through which these revelations would emerge is that it was a male patient of Dr. William Sadler (a psychiatrist and former Seventh-Day Adventist), and those who witnessed the events insist that the “sleeping subject” was not a medium, nor did he “channel” or “automatically write” the Urantia Papers. There is a great desire to present as innovative not just the content of the Papers but also the way in which they were received.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Invention of Sacred Tradition , pp. 199 - 212Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007
References
- 1
- Cited by