Swedenborg Scientific Association

Publishers of The New Philosophy Journal

Article Type: book reviews

Book Review: Medicine, Mysticism and Mythology: Garth Wilkinson, Swedenborg and Nineteenth-Century Esoteric Culture by Malcolm Peet

Known primarily to most as simply an early translator of Swedenborg’s physiological writings, Peet reveals Garth Wilkinson to be a man who did far more than that to promote Swedenborg’s spiritual-natural paradigm in the nineteenth century. Author of some twenty-five works on a wide range of topics, Wilkinson was a constant seeker of practical applications for the spiritual principles he found in Swedenborg’s works.

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Book Reviews

The Mantle of Maturity. A History of Ideas about Character Developmentby Christie W. Kiefer, Albany, New York: State University of New York Press, 1988, 243 pp., hardcover. (ISBN 088706-821-9 hc)The Words “mature” and “maturity” are often used by parents, educators and mental health specialists with great authority as though everyone knew exactly what is meant by these words. Christie Kiefer’s book The Mantle of Maturity examines the concept of maturity as it has been understood throughout history with particular application to modern times. Kiefer explains the relativistic nature of the idea of maturity and challenges reductionistic interpretations of it.

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Book Reviews– Biblical Ethics: Two Views

Biblical v. Secular Ethics is edited by R. Joseph Hoffman and Gerald A. Larue and is published by Prometheus Books, NY, 1988. The book is composed of papers read at the Second International Symposium of the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion (CSER) in 1986. CSER is a committee associated with Free Inquiry magazine, a secular humanist publication. There are fifteen essays in the book produced under the auspices of CSER’S Biblical Criticism Research Project. The book is edited by Joseph Hoffman, Senior Lecturer in the Division of History of Christianity at La Trobe University (Australia), and Gerald Larue, Professor Emeritus of Archaeology and Biblical History at the University of Southern California and Chairman of CSER.

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