Theos-Talk Archives (June 2005 Message tt00469)

Cass quotes a piece from J. Allen about science; thanks, Cass. I want to 
respond to some of the things J. Allen wrote.

First, I'm a scientist and a student of theosophy and similar things, and 
see a synthesis of them as entirely possible.

< The scientific view of the world is diometrically opposed to the occult 
worldview (here the Theosophist). Science is about empirically verified 
facts, tested and varified by numerous individuals. The occult method is
spouting words, quoting some ancient mystics whose musings can't be verified. >

J. Allen demonstrates half an understanding of science, and no 
understanding of occult methods. Science is every bit as much about 
uncertainty and the exploration of what is initially unknown, on their way 
to becoming what we fondly call facts but are more like pattern matching 
with fuzzy edges. Scientific knowledge is often just a theory subject to 
further testing and possible falsification. Sometimes information is 
gathered first, other times a theory is conceived first, in an alternating 
motion that can be likened to walking on two feet. The development of 
theories is very much a function of intuition, imagination and creativity, 
not just observation and logic.

As for occultism, J. Allen seems to be working from a definition that is 
just the dregs of the outworkings of minds that have second or third hand 
knowledge about it. It is incongruent, too, to refer to "the" scientific 
view of the world, and "the" occult method. There is a saying about setting 
up a straw man that is relevant here.

< All there is about a human, our body *and* intelligence is materialistic.>

It certainly all has material aspects, but to see it as only materialistic 
is like the quaint belief in Victorian times that science had discovered 
almost everything of importance. The discoveries of X-rays, radioactivity 
and photons etc eventually blew their "scientific" view of reality out of 
the water, in an upheaval that we're still sorting out.

Interestingly, Blavatsky wrote that "between this time and 1897 there will 
be a large rent made in the Veil of Nature, and materialistic science will 
receive a deathblow". That's in The Secret Doctrine, Vol I, part 3, XV 
(page 612 depending on the edition). X-rays were subsequently discovered in 
1895 by Wilhelm Röntgen, radioactivity in 1896 by Henri Becquerel, the 
electron by Thomson in 1897, then photons round about 1900, in a shattering 
of old paradigms.

It's fascinating, though, that the materialistic view has survived the huge 
refinement in the understanding of matter that emerged these discoveries. 
This shift was basically from atoms as mechanistic hard little balls to 
energy fields and probability distributions. Oddly, psychologists and 
biologists have a materialistic viewpoint more often than physicists.

It seems that some minds just want to insist on seeing matter/energy as the 
only fundamental reality. Maybe it feels like a safe comfort zone, but a 
view of reality will always be incomplete if consciousness is relegated to 
being a byproduct of the workings of matter/energy, instead of a co-equal 
fundamental with it.

You can't have a balanced view of a system as complex as a human being if 
you insist on viewing it from just one aspect of reality or one level of 
complexity. It's a bit like insisting on understanding and describing the 
operation of word processor software in terms of the voltages on integrated 
circuit pins; you can do it, but you miss the big picture and the 
intentional dimensions. It gets very messy.

Blavatsky actually described occult research in terms that made it sound 
very like the scientific method of today, thus:
That it is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of 
Seers whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify the 
traditions passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of 
higher and exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. .... 
How did they [learn]? It is answered: by checking, testing, and verifying 
in every department of nature the traditions of old by the independent 
visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and perfected their 
physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the utmost 
possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked 
and confirmed by the visions—so obtained as to stand as independent 
evidence—of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences.
The Secret Doctrine, Vol I, part 1, Summing Up (pp 272-273)

Of course, if you don't accept the possibility of such development and 
refinement of senses, that's your choice, and you'll be able to keep on 
making a powerful (and empty) rhetorical case against the basic claim. It's 
not hard to open one's mind to the possibility of consciousness and 
research using other than the 5 physical senses. A lot of research is 
pointing that way already.

Finally, we have to acknowledge that those who do not have the development 
of subtler senses, are necessarily placed in a position of having to go by 
the word of those who claim to, and it will always look like just a claim 
to them. This asks for an open-mindedness and the suspension of final 
judgement that many of us fail to reach, particularly, it seems, J. Allen. 
When these are missing, the phenomena of organised religion like 
superstition and cruelty, the defending of vested positions of belief, too 
often and sadly, follow. But the history of science is also littered with a 
lot of the same small ugliness. I've seen some so-called scientists say 
that if they can't understand how something can happen, then it just can't 
happen. If these guys ever wanted to be a scientist when they grew up, they 
had better hurry and grow up.

< They won't talk to the scientifically minded because all they have are 
opinions without facts. >

And that's all that any new science has; a bunch of theories. It takes 
courage to enter the pioneering ground where the unknown starts to be 
revealed, and to gradually turn it into what we like to think of as certain 
knowledge, but which so often never is.

Don't shoot at those willing to explore beyond themselves. By doing this, 
you are shooting at the very growth process of science itself. "Occult" 
means originally and primarily that which is hidden. Obviously, it has not 
progressed to being publicly recognised knowledge, because that's its 
definition.

The foibles of religionists and aspiring "occultists" have been too often 
shared by so-called "scientists" for there to be any high moral ground 
there. Try a more balanced and understanding point of view.

Murray