The Perennial Tradition

The Perennial Tradition, By Norman D. Livergood, is a book available for free viewing online. It is about the current through history of spiritual developement.

I have not read the whole thing: that will take a while. But I will post the link here for anyone who wishes to take a look. Go here to see the names of all the chapters, and to access the links. Contents

The book seems to deal with the idea of schools or at least a historical current (the perennial tradition of the title) that teach enlightenment.

It is implied that there are more or less set experiences or initiations that provide a specific spiritual growth experience. This is something that has always interested me though I know little about it.

What comes to mind is the various "degree" rituals of the masons. Occultists such as Aleister Crowley mention various grades or degree also that seem to correspond to specific experiences.

The idea is attractive to me in that it seems to impose some structure on a subject (spiritual advancement) that is otherwise so vague. Every religion has its own system of beliefs. The author attempts to trace the elements of the perennial tradition through history and disparate philosophies and demonstrate that there is one unifying process of spiritual growth that underlies them all.

This, to me, gives the hope that to some extent the subject can be demystified and examined scientifically, although the author suggests that you can not really understand "the next step" until you achieve the initiation leading up to it. What I would really like to see is a description of the specific steps, if that is possible. Not that that would automatically give me the corresponding insights, but at least it would provide a framework for understanding the process. From what I've read so far (not that much) the book doesn't quite go that far, but it does provide a fascinating glimpse in that direction.


If you dive into a chapter and find it rather dry, try a different chapter. It is large print, illustrated, and easy to skim for the interesting parts. Trust me, there are some interesting parts.

I look forward to discussing the PROCESS of spiritual developement.



[edit on 4-10-2004 by kinglizard]

[edit on 4-10-2004 by cimmerius]

Originally posted by cimmerius
I am not promoting anything here. I make the sales link available as a courtesy to the author for making the material available for FREE in first link.

You didn't discuss any of the material in that site, which I've had bookmarked for a long time and enjoy reading. You also posted a link to the sales page, which is simply nonsense, irregardless of this 'as a courtesy to the author' jibberish. The guy has a webapage, he's not doing anyone a favour by having a webpage. The entire post reads as an obvious push/advertisement for livergood's site. Do you have any affiliation with it? There is so much on that site, I find it bizzare that you couldn't post anything specific about it or from it.

cimmerius,

Do you have anything you want to discuss on that site? If not I will need to close this thread.

[edit on 4-10-2004 by kinglizard]

I would also ask this question: If there really is one fairly definite path of spiritual developement whith discrete steps that are the same cross-culturally--Why is that?

Is it psychologically based? The idea being that human psychology is similar enough cross-culturally that we all travel the same path?

Or could it be biologically based, where the steps of initiation are based on activating parts of the brain or energy chakras that are the same for all humans?

I would almost have to vote for option 2. Humans are just too culturally diverse across civilizations and across history.

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