Science often likes to posit itself as a discipline that is completely neutral and is somehow beyond the influence of social factors. As a method, science is pure, but unfortunately, scientists, and people who subscribe to a materialist worldview, are just as fallible as the rest of humanity when it comes to their belief structures.
In this article, I will discuss how “scientism” leads to dogma and how a new science is emerging that supports a post-materialist worldview.
Science and Materialism
There seems to be a schism between spirituality and science. The modern scientific worldview is based on assumptions that are associated with classical physics.
One of these core assumptions is materialism – the idea that matter is the only thing that is real. Another core assumption is reductionism – this implies that complex “wholes” can be understood by reducing them into smaller and smaller parts.
These core assumptions have come to form a kind of dogma where many people believe that scientific materialism represents the only rational view of the world. As a method, science is wonderful and has caused huge breakthroughs in all fields of human society. However, the rise of “scientism”; of science as an ideology that places itself in opposition to anything deemed spiritual, is hugely detrimental to the progress of human development.
Western Medicine
In the eyes of reductionist science, both the universe and the body can be viewed as a kind of machine. Modern medicine uses chemical drugs to try to create the correct balance within the body as if it were a car that just needs oil and water topping up at the right times.
The placebo effect is an astounding proof of the power of consciousness over the operations of the human body. Somebody can eat a sugar pill, but if they believe that it will heal them, then it will. This revelation of the power of belief systems to heal the body seems to be largely ignored in the current paradigm of medicine that doesn’t acknowledge the role of consciousness in well-being.
Add to this the fact that most pharmaceutical medicines have a list of side effects as long as your arm and that they are the third biggest cause of death in the USA and Europe. We don’t need to negate the many wonderful advances in medicine provided to us by modern science. However, by reducing the body to a mere “machine” we lose the holistic view of good health being composed of mind, body, and spirit being in optimum balance.
Particle Physics
Particle physics has shown that at the subatomic level, none of the laws of classical physics apply. Atoms and subatomic particles are not solid objects. They do not exist with certainty at certain locations and times.
Despite these discoveries in particle physics, many of them nearly 100 years old, this has not dented the materialist worldview of the majority of the scientific community. It is as if particle physics gets compartmentalized from other sciences as the mechanics are too strange and inconvenient.
The infamous “double split” experiment shows us that the act of observation completely changes the behavior of electrons, as they collapse from the wave function into solid particles. This could suggest that the consciousness of the observer has a primary role in shaping events in the physical world. This would correlate with many ancient scriptures which view consciousness as primary.
The Modern World
Christianity shaped the Western world and for a long time, the church was intertwined with the state. The impulse of Jesus Christ, who taught love and forgiveness, somehow became lost in an institution that was trying to maintain social order through rigidity. There was also a gradual debunking of much of the Old Testament as being literal and historical events.
The modern-day lack of faith in these religious institutions seems to have led many to completely reject any kind of spirituality as mere superstition. There is a kind of swing to the other extremity, which in my opinion, is a great shame for the state of the human soul.
Many of us now live in urban environments. People leave their houses, get in their cars, sit in the office, and have no real connection to the natural world. Sleeping under the stars every night and being in constant communion with the immensity of nature helps to provoke a sense of awe and religiosity.
For most of human history, we lived in a world that was alive with nature spirits, with our ancestors, with the elemental beings, etc. It seems incredibly arrogant of anybody to assume that until the last 200 years, every human being was living in a state of blind superstition. Perhaps we have lost connection to a world that they could palpably feel and relate to.
NDEs, OBEs, and Psi
There are now thousands upon thousands of reports of NDEs (Near Death Experiences) and OBEs (Out of Body Experiences). People who are clinically dead report floating above their bodies. Many people having these experiences are able to relay in great detail the events that were happening around them while they were dead. Some people having these experiences are able to convey in great detail events happening many miles away from their physical bodies.
Those experiencing NDEs report a profound spiritual feeling. This can include seeing great beings of light, having a kind of “review” of the events of their life, or feeling pulled towards a bright white light. People having these experiences report feeling a renewed sense of meaning in their lives when they return to their bodies.
Psi research shows that people can mentally influence – at a distance – both physical devices and living beings (including other people). Psi phenomena indicate that we can receive information without the use of ordinary senses in ways that transcend ordinary constraints of time and space.
The Old Science
These kinds of phenomena may seem like they belong to the realm of science fiction. That is only because we are mired in a materialist worldview, where the scientific community refuses to seriously study psychic events that cannot be explained by materialism.
Modern-day science also has no answer to the “problem of consciousness”. Consciousness cannot be explained. It also cannot be localized anywhere, in any brain region, or in any physical function. Modern science views consciousness as an anomaly arising within a dead, inert universe.
The ancient scriptures tell us that consciousness does not evolve out of endless dead, meaningless space, but that the physical universe is alive and arises out of consciousness.
Mystical experiences have been recorded in all cultures and in all times. People having mystical experiences report that they feel one thousand times more “real” than their habitual state of consciousness. These mystical experiences lead to a profound sense of unity with all that is, as if we were all one consciousness subjectively experiencing itself. These mystical experiences are usually life-changing and provide a sense of depth and meaning to life.
In Conclusion
We don’t need to reject science. It has given us so many amazing breakthroughs and fundamentally changed the landscape of the world. However, we should always reject rigid dogma, whether it is coming from a religious institution or from the scientific community.
A new science that embraces the possibility of non-physical phenomena will lead us forward to ever greater understanding and new horizons as a species. I foresee a time when the “languages” of science and spirituality are synonymous and are both pointing toward each other. The age of a post-materialist science is coming.
This article was written by Charlie Wilson.