Science is the modern religion of the masses, one of the many opiates that have replaced traditional faiths and serve to discourage the general population from pursuing spiritual /magical paths of self-discovery. Science keeps the world asleep because certain fundamental principles on which it operates have infiltrated the collective mind, the shared belief systems that hold society together, even though science’s own greatest thinkers did not buy into them. Unfortunately these particular beliefs separate us from each other, from nature and from our own true selves.
But there is change afoot, I just wonder how far it is reaching. In the Scientific American blog in 2019, in an article about a conference at Esalen Institute called ‘Physics, Experience and Metaphysics’, John Horgan pointed out the emperor’s new clothes:
“…some scientific materialists are insufferably arrogant. They claim they can explain everything, and yet they cannot account for consciousness, the origin of the universe or the origin of life.”
This group came together to consider “Are we matter, which just happens to give rise to mind? Or could mind be the basis of reality, as many sages have insisted?”. Being held at the legendary New Age centre on the Californian coast it was probably unlikely there would be much dispute about the answer, but perhaps a bit of posturing about who understood it best!
Biologist Rupert Sheldrake in The Science Delusion identifies the beliefs which underlie so much scientific research and have become accepted as true by the majority of the western world, as…
- Everything is essentially mechanical
- All matter is unconscious
- The total amount of matter and energy is always the same
- The laws of nature are fixed – nature and evolution are purposeless
- Minds are inside heads and are nothing but the activities of brains.
I invite you to look at the beliefs you hold on these points. Have you been deluded by science? And if not, have you fully shaken off the residue that these beliefs, if you ever held them (and we almost did, because of the education we received at school), have left in your subconscious?
Isaac Newton is hailed by scientists as their great ancestor, but by the latter part of his life he had decided that scientific research was too limited and dedicated himself to mystical research. John Maynard Keynes said “Newton was not the first of the age of reason, he was the last of the magicians.“
Isaac himself said, “Atheism is so senseless. When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance.”
Great scientist Albert Einstein‘s profound mystical statements often appear as internet memes:
“Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind.”
“I want to know God’s thoughts; the rest are details.”
- “I am convinced that He (God) does not play dice.”
“All religions, arts, and sciences are branches of the same tree.”
- “True religion is real living; living with all one’s soul, with all one’s goodness and righteousness.”
“My religion consists of a humble admiration of the illimitable superior spirit who reveals himself in the slight details we are able to perceive with our frail and feeble mind.”
Neurosurgeon Eben Alexander (born 1953) had a Near Death Experience in 2008 which revealed to him that consciousness exists outside of the body. His book Proof of Heaven was on the New York Times bestseller list for 97 weeks. Eben has predicted that science will one day work out for itself that the brain does not give rise to consciousness, that consciousness does not end with physical death.
2020: We are in a global pandemic. Presented to us as science vs nature.
The governments of the world well know that their efforts to control the spread of the virus only serve to slow it’s progress down, they will not eradicate it. If we were to look at the virus through the mystic’s eyes as well as the scientists we could form a very different interpretation of what is happening. Humanity is so cut off from its core connection to the mystical truth of existence, from experience and understanding of that core reality, that the virus is seen as an enemy, to be defeated at all costs. Fear spreads round the planet, basic liberties are curtailed. But this virus can serve a divine purpose, as it forces us to slow down and take stock, both in how we are treating our planet home, and in our own lives.
The governments of the world want us to ‘trust the science’, which to me sounds a terrifying mantra that could have come from George Orwell or Aldous Huxley. It tells me we are definitely not in a brave new world, but stuck in a spiritually blind, materialistic one, where the old cry to put our Faith in the Lord in replaced by a call to Trust the new religion, Science.
A health crisis – AIDS in the 1990s – pushed me to the edge of life and led to me asking profound questions that transformed my experience and understanding of it. My health crisis showed me that the science based belief system I had adopted as a teenager was teaching me nothing about who I am and the deeper story of human life on earth.
It is time the whole world shook off the chains of the rational, materialist, death-fearing, secular, scientific paradigm and let in the connection, mystery, magic, light and love of the soul’s deeper nature. Through this pandemic the world could wake up to the understanding that a health crisis of any kind can be a doorway to deeper engagement with life, expanded awareness of self and sense of purpose.
rainbow messenger 