Possamai is professor in sociology and the Deputy Dean (research and international) in the School of Social Sciences and Psychology at Western Sydney University, New South Wales, Australia.
[1] He is the former Director of the Religion and Society Research Centre (RSRC)[2] He is married to Alphia Possamai-Inesedy,[3] and lives in the south-western suburbs of Sydney with his family.
Possamai's undergraduate studies in sociology were undertaken at the University of Leuven, Belgium, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Social Sciences (Hons).
[10] A large portion of Possamai's published work is premised on a neo-Weberian approach to the sociology of religion and popular culture.
[31] He detects a synergy between various stories and icons of popular culture and the role of the individual to create a new religious message.
It follows that by culturally consuming selected practices, myths, and teachings from pre-modern times, and then reframing them for the contemporary scene, seekers aspire to personal transformation and perhaps resolving global woes.
At the heart of this conceptualisation of reality lies a commitment to what Possamai has dubbed "perennism", the notion that a holistic understanding of truth is accessible in esoteric wisdom or gnosis that is unfettered by the dogmas of the world's religions.