The Primordial Tradition

by Gwendolyn Toynton

“Remember that I have remembered / and pass on the tradition”

Ezra Pound, Cantos

The Primordial Tradition is an obscure and widely misunderstood term and although used repeatedly in the works of René Guénon and Frithjof Schuon, it still remains largely undefined. Perhaps the clearest description of the Primordial Tradition can be found in a more recent author, Houston Smith, a professor of comparative religion who was the first to utilize the Primordial Tradition as a substitute term for perennial philosophy. Smith attempts to justify his replacement of perennial philosophy with the new title of ‘The Primordial Tradition’ at the start of his major work Forgotten Truth: The Primordial Tradition in the introduction.

‘The reader will recognize the affinity of this thesis with what has been called “the perennial philosophy.” I am not unhappy with that phrase, but to bring out the fact that this particular philosophy nowhere originated, nor has it succeeded in maintaining itself operatively, save in a cultic context – a context that works to transform lives as well as minds – I prefer the less exclusively intellectual designation “the primordial tradition” (primordial: existing…from the beginning; fundamental.” (Oxford English Dictionary)

Smith’s motivation in adopting this premise is all too easily comprehendible – from it’s current standpoint of existing purely as a school of philosophy, the perennial philosophy sets itself apart from mundane daily existence, instead manifesting as purely intellectual phenomenon – the adaptation of the designated phrase to the Primordial Tradition provides this school of thought with a worldly and tangible presence, no longer purely existent in a cerebral content; Tradition as espoused by Houston Smith becomes accessible to the mainstream. Though the above quotation from Smith immediately explains that the Primordial Tradition is a substitute name for perennial philosophy, if we were to ask the common man on the street if he could explain to us the meaning of perennial philosophy, we would most likely receive a garrulous ‘no’ as a response, accompanied by a blank stare. Therefore, to discover the meaning of the Primordial Tradition, we must as point of necessity, first explain the nature of perennial philosophy.

Perennial Philosophy, also known as ‘philosophia perennis’ (Latin: Eternal Philosophy) was utilized by Gottfried Leibniz to designate the common, eternal philosophy hat underlies all religions, and in particular the mystical or esoteric components – in this way it is also similar to the Hindu idea of Sanatana Dharma. As such, the philosophia perennis is an intellectual transmission of gnosis, based on the study of the religions, not in isolation from each other, but rather in a conjunction wherein the underlying ideas converge, independent of the concept of communitas (as defined by Victor Turner as the social aspect in religion). Normally, because of the cultural boundaries exerted by the principle of communitas ‘religions are cut off from one another by barriers of mutual incomprehension’. Schuon elaborates on the nature of this cultural barrier further by stating that “There is no metaphysical or spiritual difference between a truth manifested by temporal facts and a truth expressed by other symbols, under a mythological form for example; the modes of manifestation correspond to the mental requirements of the different groups of humanity.” Here we see expressed the notion that the symbols found in religion have been equated as truth values – what lies at the root of mutual miscomprehension and mistranslations between cultures is not that some religions are inherently wrong or different to others, but rather that the principle of communitas, the social and communal mode of religious behaviour actually serves to distort and hide the essence of the symbols themselves. The same ties of communal religious behaviour that serve to bind a community together as a distinct cultural group, can also hinder the process of understanding different religious traditions.

This is quite similar to Kant’s interpretations of how religious solidarity is defined; it is not the universal meaning of the symbol (on in this case the Primordial Tradition) but rather how symbols are interpreted and applied to social behaviour within a specific community or culture.

As Kant sees it, genuine religious solidarity does not rest on the confession of a uniform symbol or creed anyway; Kant suspects such creedal formulas of contributing more to a spirit of hypocrisy within people and between them than to anything else. What unites believers in rational religion is not the content of their beliefs but the morality of their dispositions and their propensity to associate their moral vocation with the thought of God.

According to Schuon the link that connects the many different cultural strands of religious thought, is gnosis, or the philosophia perennis (which has already been explained as homologous with the Primordial Tradition). Therefore, to fully ascertain how there can be a ‘fluid’ transmission of gnosis occurring between different communities and social groups, and to fully understand what the Primordial Tradition actually is requires, as an a priori, a lucid and working definition of how gnosis is to be understood in this context. Returning again to the writings of Schuon, it is an important aspect of his philosophy that he draws a distinction between gnosis and sacred scripture, the latter of which Schuon regards as static and permanent.

The mode of manifestation of gnosis is ‘vertical’ and more or less ‘discontinuous’; it is like fire and not water, in the sense that fire arises from the invisible and can disappear into it again, whereas water has a continuous existence; but the sacred Scriptures remain the necessary and unchanging basis, the source of inspiration and criterion of all gnosis.

What is immediately apparent in this extract is that Schuon is ascribing to gnosis an intangible and erratic character, by comparing its qualities to fire. Though teaching and scripture provide fuel and sustenance for gnosis, ultimately the driving power and modus operandi of gnosis is the philosophia perennis and the Primordial Tradition which is the language of the symbol, which is contained in the interpretation of both scripture and sacred art. Symbols, images, semiotics – despite the wealth and plethora of the records of the exploration of man’s inner world through the medium of myth and legend, the science of the sub-conscious has long fallen into disregard, only being revitalized in comparatively recent times through the work of Carl Gustav Jung (Analytical Psychology), James Hillman (Archetypal Psychology) and Mircea Eliade (History of Religions). It has taken science almost 2,000 years to reclaim the knowledge and potency inherent in the discourse of myth – an almost irrefutable proof that empirical methods cannot quantify the core of any religious belief; namely wisdom. To quote René Guénon -

Truths which were formerly within reach of all have become more and more hidden and inaccessible; those who possess them grow fewer and fewer, and although the treasure of ‘nonhuman’ (that is, supra-human) wisdom that was prior to all the ages can never be lost, it nevertheless becomes enveloped in more and more impenetrable veils, which hide it from men’s sight and make it extremely difficult to discover. This is why we find everywhere, under various symbols, the same something which has been lost – at least to all appearances and as far as the outer world is concerned – and that those who aspire to true knowledge must rediscover.

Lost to consumerism, the oblivious masses, the meaning of the symbol, the interpretation of gnosis itself, isnow obfuscated – the exoteric shell remains, binding teachings together, but the inner heart, the esoteric tradition that veiled the highest mysteries in the tapestry and garlands of symbol have dissolved, crumbling from within to leave behind only the exterior corpus of teachings. To know, to understand – this is the core of gnosis, and it is the loss of this elusive element of religion that causes René Guénon to despair. The Modern World is truly one where God is Dead – yet curiously, this famous catch phrase ofNietzsche’s is not as atheistic as many would claim it to be. When Zarathustra uttered his grand proclamation, Nietzsche knew well its consequences. The phrase is itself an inversion of the value tables of the society of his day – it is the devaluation of the highest value. Nietzsche knew the void this would create in the spiritual life of man, and it is here that it becomes paramount that he must be recognized as an important thinker on religion as well as philosophy, for he postulated a number of concepts which are far from being purely atheistic in sentiment. His rejections and attitudes to religion are a reactionto the Christian doctrine of his day – to which ends it is no mere coincidence that he chose Dionysus as the adversary of the ‘Crucified’. Even without considering Nietzsche’s fondness for Pagan Greece, a number of his thoughts are of deep significance to our understanding of the Primordial Tradition, such as the “Ur-Eine.”

The Ur-Eine – the primal oneness of things […] Later the Ur-Eine is another kind of phenomenal world, one which is not knowable to us.” But whatever is interpretational of different stages of Nietzsche’s development may be, the Ur-Eine represents his tortured longing to reach the deeper dimensions of being “which are not known to us”.

The concept of the Ur-Eine is also similar to the vast and great Collective Unconscious, as was theorised by Carl Jung, a past pioneer in the then emerging field of psychology. In terms of Jung’s hypothesis concerning the Unconscious and the influence of dreams and symbols upon man’s waking life, it is well known thatJung drew heavily upon mythological sources, applying cross-cultural interpretations to phenomenaoccurring within the psyche, such as the archetypes. The archetypes are a type of universal (in a similar manner to that which espoused by Plato in his own interpretation of Universals), which on the one hand can be said to contain a purely abstract truth, and yet on the other one can also infer that as an absolute occurrence of a tautological value, the archetypes in question are also possessed of a metaphysical existence. Jung himself was quite aware of the fact that his theory placed archetypes in a very liminal boundary region between the material and immaterial, and himself referred to the archetypesas ‘psychoids’.

The archetypes seemed close enough to the patterns he saw emerging in the theories and experiments of twentieth-century physics for him to conclude that archetypes are psychoids. By this he meant that they shape matter (nature) as well as the mind (psyche). They transcend the split between these two and are neutral toward it favouring neither one side nor the other.

The archetypes, functioning as what Jung terms as psychoids, are in fact operating also on the level of ‘God-Forms’ in that they themselves are symbols and/or representations of the respective deities. Elaborating on this in relation to his own system of belief, Jung expresses the following train of thought.

We know that God-images play a great role in psychology, but we cannot prove the [actual] existence of God. As a responsible scientist, I am not going to preach my personal and subjective convictions which I cannot prove…To me, personally speaking, the question whether God exists at all or not is futile. I am sufficiently convinced of the effects man has always attributed to a divine being. If I should express a belief beyond that…it would show that I am not basing my opinion on facts. When people say they believe in the existence of God, it has never impressed me in the least. Either I know a thing and then don’t need to believe it; or I believe it because I’m not sure that I know it. I am well satisfied with the fact that I know experiences which I cannot avoid calling numinous or divine.

From this passage it is amply illustrated that Jung did not base any of his theories on the archetypes or psychoids from a belief in the divine; his ideas were, at least to Jung’s line of reasoning, based on verifiable facts that he knows to exist. In this regard, the current dogmatic line of argument drawn between science and religion crumbles – for the study of religion as archetypes and symbols provides empirical evidence of recurrent ideas outside the regions of that which would be expected through the medium of normal cross-cultural contact. Therefore, the symbols of religion and myth are transformed from mere metaphor to a system of universal truths that will occur within all genuine religious traditions. The symbol then, becomes much more than a pictorial representation of an incident or ‘god-form’; rather it is lesser manifestation of the subject/object represented, and this is the core foundation to the understanding of all sacred art. In the words of Frithjof Schuon, “the understanding of some symbol it is enough to consider the nature of its form, secondly its doctrinal, and so traditional, definition, and finally the metaphysical and spiritual realities of which the symbol is the expression.” It is precisely for this reason, that religion and art will always be linked in ways which to many appear inexplicable. It is extremely common in both the philosophy of art and in the philosophy of religion, to explain both topics in terms of lacking a definable sense of purpose – hence the age old question, “What is art?” or “What is religious experience?” Science and logic will always fail to explain both art and religious belief, for both lie outside of the sphere of scientific evidence and mathematical truths. It is commonly accepted by academics studying the philosophy of religion today that a purely empirical attitude to explaining religious belief will always meet with failure.

Bernard Williams, perhaps the most distinguished analytic moral philosopher writing as the turn of the twentieth century, once speculated that there might be something about ethical understanding that makes it inherently unsuited to be explored through the methods and techniques of analytic philosophy alone. If that is true, the point may apply a fortiori to religion, in so far as religious attitudes, even more than moral ones, often seem to encompass elements that are resistant to logical analysis.

Neither the value of art nor the value of religion can be explained by recourse to logic and empirical systems of thought alone. Rather, the two subjects, sharing a common origin in the Primordial Consciousness, are more kindred than they are in opposition. The function of art and the function of the religion both operate on a level of subliminal aesthetics – a successful piece of art captures the same experience as a successful experience of the divine – it raises the mental state to what I will now refer to as a state of pathos or an appeal to emotion that strives to recapture the original state of either the artist or priest. It is this altered state of emotive pathos which is replicated in the observer though the transmission of a meme or the medium of thought that determines the success of failure of a both a piece of art and a sacred or ritual act. This is what the Tantric philosopher Abhinavagupta also sought to express in his theory of aesthetics, and correlates to his rasa theory. Notably we can also find the importance of the “flavour” expressed in the art theory of the Western philosopher David Hume. Similarly, Nietzsche also noted the similarity between aesthetic and religious experience, concluding the current path of religion (meaning that which is derived from the relatively modern Judeo-Christian current) was only one form which spirituality could have taken, for Nietzsche says that “Art and not morality is the true metaphysical activity of man.” John Cottingham elaborates further on the links between moral and aesthetic experience in his work the Spiritual Dimension.

Our religious (and moral and aesthetic) experience involves transformative ways of perceiving reality. And this points, incidentally, to something of a paradigm shift when we look, for example, at some of what have been considered traditional arguments for God’s existence. Every standard textbook in the philosophy of religion mentions the arguments ‘from religious experience’, or ‘from moral [aesthetic] experience’, as if what was involved was a kind of inference from one sort of act – roughly a fact about a certain kind of subjective occurrence – to a conclusion about a supposed objective correlate or external cause for the relevant experience.

The topic of the connection between the art of symbols and religious expression is also dealt with at length by Frithjof Schuon.

In speculations about formal elements it would be a handicap to lack this aesthetic function of intellect. A religion is revealed, not only by its doctrine, but also by its general form, and this has its own characteristic beauty, which is reflected in its every aspect from its “mythology’ to its art. Sacred art expresses Reality in relation to a particular spiritual vision. And aesthetic intelligence sees the manifestations of the Spirit even as the eye sees flowers or playthings.

This study of symbols is by no means a simple topic – to Schuon it is a precise science. Nor is it limited purely to symbolism – Schuon, like others authors before him, is connecting the mystic experience of the sacred to aesthetics, which he is defining as unique type of intelligence, distinct from the more earthly and aspects of cognition. When attempting to explain the science of symbols, Schuon’s definition is likewise complex; the interpretation of a symbol as a singular object is not deemed sufficient to understand its inherent qualities – rather what must be dwelt upon by the translators of religious semiotics is the relation of the symbol to other qualities, properties, objects and individual contexts.

The science of symbols – not simply a knowledge of traditional symbols –proceeds from the qualitative significances of substances, forms, spatial directions, numbers, natural phenomena, positions, relationships, movements, colours and other properties or states of things; we are not dealing here with subjective appreciations, for the cosmic qualities are ordered in relation to Being and according to a hierarchy which is more real than the individual; they are, then, independent of our tastes, or rather they determine them to the extent that we are ourselves conformable to Being; we assent to the qualities to the extent we ourselves are ‘qualitative.”

What defines the Primordial Tradition as a potential major current in religious belief and philosophy lies in its use of the symbol and its advocacy of the aesthetic experience – belief in the potency of any specific symbol relies upon the most basic human aspect of belief. Belief in a sentient god or creator is not even required, and by this explanation of religious belief and symbolism it is possible for even the most ardent ‘atheist’ to be a believer in the Primordial Tradition. In such regards, it is similar to the thoughts once espoused by Kant on Deism:

Essential to any deism is the view that there is such a thing as rational or natural religion, religion based on natural reason and not on supernatural revelation […] Kant is emphatic that there need not be any special duties to God in order for there to be religion; he also denies that theoretical cognition of God’s existence is required for religion – naturally enough he thinks that no such cognition is available to us. [..]this faith needs merely the idea of God…only the minimum cognition (it is possible that there is a God) has to be subjectively sufficient”

A symbol is of course, only a picture to those who cannot ascertain a deeper meaning. To those who are capable of learning this difficult code, it is reasonable to apply the following quotation: ex magna luce in intellectu sequitur magna propensio in voluntate (‘from a great light in the intellect there follows a great inclination in the will).It is not satisfactory to develop a rudimentary knowledge of the numinous – this alone is not sufficient to produce gnosis, which in its full manifestation must be grasped at both the level of the theoretical and the practical; the Primordial Tradition being composed of absolute ideals from different traditions and pathways, does not advocate a strict system of practice, but rather takes a philosophical stance in regards to practice that can be applied by any religious tradition. What is advocated in regards to the practical element is similar to that which is found in the Stoic school of thought. There were many Stoic treatises entitled ‘On Exercises’, and the central notion of askesis, found for example in Epictetus, implied not so much ‘asceticism’ in the modern sense as a practical program of training, concerned with the ‘art of living’. The primacy of praxis, the vital importance that is placed on the individual’s embarking on a path of practical self-transformation, rather than (say) simply engaging in an intellectual debate or philosophical analysis.

The general aim of such programmes was not merely intellectual enlightenment, or the imparting of abstract theory, but a transformation of the whole person, including our patterns of emotional response. Metanoia, a fundamental conversion or change of heart, is the Greek term; in the Roman Stoic Seneca it appears as a ‘shift in one’s mentality’ (translatio animi) or a ‘changing’ (mutatio) of the self. ‘I feel, my dear Lucilius,’ says Seneca, ‘that I am being not only reformed but transformed (non tantum emendari sed transfigurari).

The relevance here is of course part of the problem Houston Smith grasped earlier in his work The Forgotten Truth – perennial philosophy, in the forms which it had existed previously, was in danger of becoming over intellectualized, to the point where it was in peril of divulging from the point of being a system of religion to existing as a philosophy alone. Thus his purpose by recommending that perennial philosophy be renamed as The Primordial Tradition, was an attempt to revitalize what he saw as a failing system of ideology – the time of the great Traditionalists such as Julius Evola and René Guénon was over, and Houston Smith realized that a new tactic needed to be deployed in order for the philosophy to extend beyond the reach of an intellectual elite into the main stream culture. In a sense, he elected to effect a change within the nature and the delivery of Tradition itself. Here, we must also bear heed to Guénon’s warnings that Traditions can disappear:

It is evident that all traditional forms do not proceed directly from the primordial tradition and that other forms must have sometimes played the role of intermediaries; but the latter are most often traditions that have entirely disappeared, and those transmissions in general go back to epochs far too distant for ordinary history – whose field of investigation is really very limited – to be capable of the slightest knowledge of them, not counting the fact that the means by which they were effected are not among those accessible to its methods of research.

This passage also exemplifies the interpretation of the Primordial Tradition even further – it is not a single specific Tradition, but rather an underlying layer of universal truth which acts as a foundation for Traditions to evolve from, and at times dissolve back into. It is the substratum of human conscious itself and defines the nature of epochs and direction of history, whether man professes to believe in its existence or not. Thus far, interest in religion is on swift decline – it stands at the apex of a descent and interior degeneration that has been unparalleled in history; aided by the concurrent deterioration in the academic quality of the arts and the humanities, the material sciences have ascended to point of total domination. Under such an aegis, religion, the science of the spirit needs to be rethought, reshaped, and reconstructed from the very foundations of thought itself to survive in this era. As such, the Primordial Tradition delivers what should rightly be termed a sui generis argument for religion and spirituality from which there is no defense short of an outright denial of the fundamental concepts of the social sciences as we know them today – it applies the study of the translation of symbols as a logical argument, and manifests itself as a rational system of human belief, as opposed to the more traditional arguments from a religious perspective, such as the teleological model or the more commonly resorted to argument from religious experience which occur frequently in philosophical discourse on religion. From this perspective, it should be apparent that the concept of the Primordial Tradition has far more in common with the comparative mythology of Georges Dumézil or the study of the History of Religions as espoused by the author Mircea Eliade than it has with the currently accepted philosophical models for religious debate. In general, however the study of religion at an academic level is rapid decline, which is echoed throughout the modern world – religion, the science of the soul, is facing oblivion. As it stands religion and spirituality must either take a stand or face total extinction as modernity further encroaches into man’s private world of the spirit; the only methodology by which to promote any religious or spiritual thought in this age, is to restructure it, to change people’s most basic and rudimentary understanding of what religion is. To quote Houston Smith there is but one way left to achieve this in the current sociological and political climate, “Short of a historical breakdown which would render routine ineffectual and force us to attend again to things which matter most, we wait for art: for metaphysicians, who imbued with that species of truth that is beauty in its mental mode, are (like Plato) concomitantly poets”.

(Footnotes omitted)

RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

When we speak of religious beliefs we mean its theological tenets. Christianity and Islam share common ideas and beliefs having their roots in a common source–Judaism. This religion in turn derived many of its doctrines and beliefs from the Persians, Egyptians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, and the Sumerians. Perhaps it would be true to say that almost every religion is syncretic, though they may try very hard to cover this up.

Eastern religions such as Buddhism and Taoism are more mystical in nature and differ greatly from the Semitic religions in many basic principles; Hinduism comprising of many philosophical schools of thought, embraces various theological ideas. Some schools of Buddhism teaches that there is no permanent entity called the soul; that what is thought to be the soul is simply a collection of karmic tendencies transmittable from one incarnation to another. Their extreme views are nilhilistic in nature; however, it is doubtful whether this was implied in the teachings of the Buddha. For instance, if there is no Self, then there is also no Gautama Buddha in existence; and yet, prayers are still being directed by the faithful to this exalted being. Fundamentally, although these religions have diverse concepts regarding the soul they all point or refer to the One where all sentient beings originate. All have their own particular name or names for this Source, and all have their personal ideas regarding this Divine Essence.

Theological precepts are often tainted with the frailties of the human ego and intellect and thus offer a poor basis for the study of true religion and its revelations concerning the soul. Nevertheless, we will strive to present its beliefs with as little bias on our part as possible. This section will be brief, for to do justice to the subject would require many pages and go beyond the scope of this work.

In Christian theology it is believed that the soul prior to birth is devoid of any individuality or personality. It is only when God breathes through the nostrils of man that the soul acquires self-consciousness, and is a “living” being–and this condition of being alive is believed to remain with the soul after death. In the Book of Genesis it is recorded that,

“God made man out of the dust of the earth, breathed the breath of life into his nostrils, and made man a living soul.” (Gen 2:7)

The phrase “living soul” is equated to the state of being self-conscious. According to this notion unless there is an awareness of the existence of an ego, or a self, a person or being does not truly have a soul. Such a creature is “soulless.” A person may be alive imbued with the soul-essence, the life-force, and yet remain soulless, in the sense that it is not self-aware. Some states of insanity may represent beings who are “soulless.” While the living soul is associated with the awareness of the ego, immortality is associated with the awareness of the superego, the Higher Self. This idea, though, falls in the province of metaphysical thought.

Basically, theology consider the soul to be a substance implanted in man. It is believed to be an entity divinely created and bestowed upon man when man takes his first breath. Christian theology formulated the idea that man is a divine creation, the highest of all beings, and that the whole universe was created for man alone in support of his existence.

In Christianity the terms “lost souls” or “degraded souls” are often expressed. The moral quality of a person’s life is believed to be able to affect the soul. However, from the metaphysical point of view soul-essence is immaculate, perfect, immutable and divine. What may be affected is not its essence but its conscious expression. The consciousness arising from soul essence is that which evolves and strives to reflect the image, archetype or blueprint that God created for man. This is stated emphatically in Genesis; however the statement is often interpreted literally. This blueprint is the image or divine qualities of God. It does not refer to form but to the inner nature of the life-essence.

The Hindus, generally speaking, believe the soul to be an entity that resides in the physical body and is subjected to reincarnation in accord with its karma. The Upanishads says that, “The Supreme Person, of the size of the thumb, dwells forever in the heart of all human beings.” Its esoteric wisdom, moreover, tells us that the immaterial man is constituted of various principles each having their own particular function. The highest principle within the microcosm of man is the Atma, or according to others, the Paratman.

In the Bhagavad Gita, the microcosm is represented by Krishna, Arjuna, the carriage, and the horses. Krishna is the Spirit, the highest aspect of man; Arjuna the evolving soul; the carriage the mind; and the horses the senses. Graphically five horses are often represented. They represent the senses of man through which the vital force escapes and runs uncontrolled. In yoga and esoteric practices the senses are subdued so that the vital force may be directed within to awaken the sluggish Arjuna. Krishna is the guide that assists Arjuna in this project.

ANCIENT BELIEFS

As we mentioned before, the belief in the survival of the soul after death goes way back to the earliest development of humankind. Primitive Neanderthal tribes, for instance, would bury food, tools, and weapons along with the corpses of their departed in order to provide them with the bare necessities in the afterlife. This custom still survive in some cultures and is a clear indication that not only is soul survival believed in but that the afterlife as a continuation of the sort of life lived in the physical world is likewise presumed.

Animism was the prevailing belief among prehistoric man. Everything was considered alive and pervaded with a soul-force that even gave inanimate objects a consciousness and an intelligence of some kind. Stars in particular were believed to be souls long dead and living in heaven. To the primitive mind, the sky or firmaments were considered to be heaven, just as hell was thought to lie beneath the earth.

That the soul “resided” and functioned in the physical body, a location was sought for its residence. Some believed the heart to be the organ of the soul, others pointed to the head. Some primitive cultures thought that the blood was the vehicle of the soul–that the blood carried soul-substances to every part of the body. The demon Mephistopheles in a play written by Goethe (1749-1832) declares the blood to be a “curious thing.” The belief that the blood is the vehicle of the soul is not without foundation, however. If the soul in this context is considered to be the life-force, prana, chi, or even oxygen, one can only surmise how the primitive mind intuited this scientific fact. Scientifically, it has been noticed that blood-transfusion often causes a temporary change in character in the person receiving the donor’s blood. Could it be that blood is impregnated with one’s soul-characteristics? As the blood was associated with the soul, many primitive tribes such as the Scythians evolved the custom of drinking the blood of their enemies or victims in order to absorb their courage, strength, power, and abilities. The custom of forming blood-brothers is also based upon the belief in the importance of the blood as related to the soul, and its transcendence over fleshly ties. Members forming blood-brothers would drink the blood of fellow members thus forming a soul-bond overriding the normal flesh-and-blood relationships.

The ancients often depicted the soul as a bird often human headed, perhaps referring to its ability to fly. The Aztecs, ancient Greeks and Egyptians among the many ancient races, for instance, often portrayed the souls of their dead in murals and pottery as a winged bird taking flight from its lifeless corpse. Eagles, hawks, doves, peacocks and phoenixes were often used to represent the soul.

Not only the head, heart, and blood were believed to be the seat of the soul, but likewise the breath. Believing that the breath is associated with the soul and life, the aborigines of Papua New Guinea would breathe through tubes into effigies of their forefathers in order to confer a certain vitality to their departed souls. This is a magical practice based on the law of similarity. Many tribal cultures practiced the placement of obstructions in the nostrils of their dying ones as a last effort to saving their lives. This they believe would effectively prevent the soul from escaping and causing the death of the body.

It is believed among ancient and savage people that the soul being associated with the life force, illnesses or feebleness of the physical body are caused by the escape of the soul from the gross form. In extreme cases the soul force was “captured” by some evil spirit and it was the task of the shaman, the tribal witch-doctor to recapture the soul and restore it to the corporeal body. The ability of the shaman to dissociate his incorporeal aspect from the gross form supposedly facilitated this sort of work.

The Ancients’ concept of the soul has evolved throughout the ages, and even now our scientific understanding is constantly in a state of change. Our conceptions regarding the soul is associated with our various notions regarding God. As man evolves so does his awareness of the soul and his Source. Man has formed many ideas regarding the nature of his creator. In this context it can be seen that the phrase, “God creates man, and man creates God” has a basis in truth.

Among the ancient cultures, the Egyptians and Hindus were the most advanced in their understanding of the soul. We in particular refer to their mystics, hierophants, and sages. They regarded man as a microcosm with many aspects, both material and incorporeal, with each aspect having its own function to play in the life and destiny of the soul. Their many teachings live on today in contemporary metaphysico-occult philosophy. The ancient Greek philosophers and sages such as Thales, Plato and Pythagoras derived much of their occult knowledge from these wise priests of the Orient.

SCIENTIFIC VIEWS

Along the scientific vein, certain schools of thought believe the self or ego to be a by-product of a brain function, and yet what gives rise to this function is not known, and only given an educational guess. The section of the brain that “causes” a sense of self is likewise not yet discovered. This concept of the “brain causes consciousness” is fundamentally the viewpoint of the mechanists that sees man as merely a machine. The above concept is flawed, however, because portions of the brain have been known to be destroyed and yet the presence of a sense of self still remained. In the condition known as hydrocephalus, for instance, large sections of the cerebral cortex may be destroyed or missing, being filled instead with cerebro-spinal fluid, and yet individuals suffering from such a condition may lead normal lives without suspecting their blight. They may even have an I.Q. above average.

The mechanists, Freud (1856-1939) among them, claim that our behavioral actions are automatic responses to external stimuli, and that life is a result of the right combination of chemicals derived from food and oxygen. That an animating force exists to vitalize the organism they may concede but this force is looked upon as a physical energy akin to electricity. The mechanistic theory describes how perception takes place through the stimulation of the senses that creates nerve impulses, and how these nerve impulses travel to the sections of the brain related to the senses, and how they form sensations; but the theory does not consider the real perceiver that tries to make sense of the sensations. To mechanists, the perceiver is thought to be one of the functions of the cerebral cortex. In short, the mechanistic concept leaves no room for the existence of the soul. To a mechanist the purported existence of the soul is considered as an absurdity.

If the eminent neuropsychologist Karl Lashley (1890-1958), author of Brain Mechanisms and Intelligence, after years of research could not discover the seat of memory in the brain, how much more difficult would it be to discover the seat of the self or soul–not withstanding Descartes’ (1596-1650) assertion that the pineal gland is its locus. This French philosopher and mathematician also declared, “cogito, ergo sum,” or “I think, therefore I am” thus implying that the Self arises into existence as a result of thought, or as a function of the mind. Nevertheless, mystics have proved to themselves the possibility of transcending thoughts and yet remaining in existence, and possessing an exalted sense of Self, unified with the Cosmos. The mystic’s standpoint is supported by Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), French philosopher and writer. To Sartre, existence does not depend on the functions of the mind, that a being does not exist simply because it thinks. According to Sartre, existence precedes the mind–or thinking.

Rene Descartes’ statement is therefore erroneous, or perhaps our interpretation of his statement is wrong. “I think, because I am” would be closer to the truth. In spite of this, Descartes was somewhat accurate in believing that the pineal gland plays an important role in man’s occult physiology as we shall see later when we discuss the metaphysical purview.

Mainstream science may disavow the existence of the soul on the pretext of its immateriality, undetected by their instruments; and yet, matter in its actual state in similarly immaterial. This was the proposition of Leibniz (1646-1716), the German philosopher, who considered matter as a manifestation of Mind–”a stupid variety of mind.” To explain this graphically, for instance, what we call concrete matter is actually made up of moving molecules. Molecules in turn are made up of whirling atoms, and these are composed of even smaller particles. Should these sub-atomic particles be magnified “nothing” would be found. Matter, is therefore, made up of “emptiness.” We may call this void “energy,” “mind,” or “spirit,” but whatever we call it, the fact remains that matter is actually as insubstantial as the soul. If the reality of one is accepted why not the other? The many particles composing matter are filled with this “nothing,” or space. Another curious fact is that if we were to remove the space inherent within a human body, for instance, and all the “particles” united, the total compaction would result in a piece of matter no larger than a mite of dust. Leibniz’s theory is also paralleled by the thoughts of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), the American Trancendentalist. According to Emerson matter is “a phenomenon, not a substance.” He also considered the material world to be,

“a divine dream, from which we may presently awake to the glories and certainties of day.”

Science informs us that nothing is destroyed. That matter is just energy possessing a certain structure and magnetic-field. It is acknowledged that everything in existence is made up of energy. Now as the existence of consciousness and a sense of self are undeniable, they should be thought of as indestructible as well, for Science has already implied the idea in its equations. So why then does Science not accept the possible existence of disembodied consciousness–the soul?–because it cannot be perceived? Quiet an absurdity, really–even while embodied the Self cannot be seen. Can you see your Self?

From whence does the sense of self-identity come? It seems that mainstream science is still a long way in finding this one out. However, new paradigms are being formulated by open-minded scientists who are now considering the world-view of eastern mystics in conjunction with the new developments and discoveries in the field of physics and psychology. The theories of quantum physics and transpersonal psychology are closing the gap between essential religion and conventional science. Regarding the mystery of the Self in relation to the brain we are reminded of the words of the researcher and scientist George Buletza who said in the Rosicrucian Digest (Sept. 1983) that,

“Rather than the brain producing Self, it is the other way around. The brain is a product of Self, of Being ever striving to be. The brain is the incredibly fine instrument created by Self in the process of expressing its own nature . . .”

It has been observed in many laboratory experiments all over the world that human consciousness reveals an ability to extend itself beyond the boundaries of the brain and body, that somehow it may perceive or influence events at distant places. Such mental activities suggests to some scientific observers that consciousness may exist independent of the corporeal form.

Many branches of science such as physics, psychology, astrophysics, and biology, are investigating the soul, and each has their own particular methods of inquiry. Perhaps the most important branch of science that has been developed in recent times, relatively speaking, is parapsychology.

Parapsychology

Parapsychology is that branch of science that studies the nature of psychic or paranormal phenomena. Its scope of investigation covers a wide range of subjects: for instance, ESP, hauntings, poltergeist activity, Near-Death Experience, Out-of-the-Body Experience, UFOs, Strange Creatures, Weird Phenomena, etc. There are now many institutes investigating, studying, and teaching this branch of science. The word “parapsychologist” is often misunderstood. Many people seem to think that being a parapsychologist is synonymous to being psychic. This is erroneous. A psychic may not be a parapsychologist, and vice versa. A psychic is someone who perceives impressions through higher senses not ordinarily registered by the physical senses. Psychics may not generally understand the impressions that they register, and may simply believe and be fooled by illusions and appearances. A parapsychologist seeks to understand unusual phenomena through scientific analysis, and by using empirical methods with the aid of carefully devised instruments. A mystically inclined metaphysician, on the other-hand, basically strives to understand phenomena with the aid of his intellect, intuition, and other higher faculties. The parapsychologist’s basic methods are three-dimensional, the psychic’s four-dimensional, and the mystic-metaphysician’s, five-dimensional, or even higher.

To illustrate the difference between a paranormal and a metaphysician’s understanding of phenomena, we will just illustrate one out of many. As an example, supposing a psychic were to receive impressions of an impending disaster, he would consider it to be truth and proclaim it to others. He would make all sorts of predictions anent the impressions that was registered in his mind. He would consider it as a revelation of God.

The metaphysician on the other hand, knowing Cosmic and natural laws, understands the impressions received to possibly be thought-forms-mind creations of fearful beings. Man radiates thoughts, and these thoughts, perhaps without a basis of truth, are received by psychics. The unfortunate thing in all of this is that thoughts are creative. What we habitually think about with intense emotion have a tendency to materialize. So dire predictions often come true; however it does not have to be. We have to learn to eliminate fear. When psychics make predictions they are instilling and intensifying fear among the masses. Now this is a vicious cycle. When people are made fearful by psychics they begin to imagine more catastrophic horrors and these thoughts radiate out again to susceptible psychics who repeat the whole procedure over again. The momentum eventually grows until it manifests physically.

However, let us not digress too far and return to our subject: Parapsychology has established various avenues of research for determining the reality of the soul and the survival of personal consciousness. Although the results of their research are inconclusive by the standards of mainstream science, parapsychologists have been successful in acquiring evidence and vital knowledge that when analyzed seemingly validates the age-old belief in the existence of the soul and its survival of bodily death. Nevertheless, parapsychologists have formulated various theories as to their findings, not all of which aligns with the traditional view of the soul. It is also important to note that the term “soul” is rarely used in mainstream science or parapsychology. The terms “mind,” “consciousness,” and “personality” are often used instead.

Copyright © 2006 Luxamore

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Since ancient times, many people have utilized the Tarot for divination, fortune telling, and metaphysical applications of all sorts. The practitioners of the mystical have used the Tarot as a metaphysical toolbox with various uses.

For some individuals, who are only “lightly” into the more superficial practices of the occult, the Tarot is treated almost like a game. Gatherings of these pseudo occult enthusiasts may gather on weekends and “deal the tarot” in places and settings as innocuous as coffee shops and slumber parties. This is, it would seem, what the Tarot means to many high school age girls and certain hipster twenty-something’s.

Other individuals, who have invested more of their spiritual time and energy into the occult and the practice of metaphysics use the Tarot as a tool for reflections into one’s personal and “inner life” as well as an aid for meditation and contemplation. When used in the former respect, the Tarot serves as the diviner’s symbolic language structure for communicating with the invisible intelligence(s) on the metaphysical plane. When utilized in the latter respect, the Tarot’s symbolism is utilized in less direct ways, instead lending it’s symbolism to abstract thought processes and as a catalyst for the state of mind sought after by those who have experienced the transcendental mind states of self induced hypnotic and meditative trance.

If you would like to learn more about the Tarot and what it has meant to many different cultures, religions and pseudo religions, you should look into Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot literature, as they present a lucid yet metaphysical introduction into the spiritual world that is explored and manipulated using the Tarot card deck as the catalyst or gateway. There are also numerous websites on the internet that go into greater detail into the explanation and description of the workings of the Tarot system.

There are significant turning points in the history of mankind. We are now living in one of them. Some call it globalization and some say that this is the genesis of the “information age.” These are true, but there is yet a more important concept than these. Although some are unaware of it, great advances have been made in science and philosophy in the last 20-25 years. Atheism, which has held sway over the world of science and philosophy since the 19th century is now collapsing in an inevitable way.

Of course, atheism, the idea of rejecting God’s existence, has always existed from ancient times. But the rise of this idea actually began in the 18th century in Europe with the spread and political effect of the philosophy of some anti-religious thinkers. Materialists such as Diderot and Baron d’Holbach proposed that the universe was a conglomeration of matter that had existed forever and that nothing else existed besides matter. In the 19th century, atheism spread even farther. Thinkers such as Marx, Engels, Nietsche, Durkheim or Freud applied atheist thinking to different fields of science and philosophy.

The greatest support for atheism came from Charles Darwin who rejected the idea of creation and proposed the theory of evolution to counter it. Darwinism gave a supposedly scientific answer to the question that had baffled atheists for centuries: “How did human beings and living things come to be?” This theory convinced a great many people of its claim that there was a mechanism in nature that animated lifeless matter and produced millions of different living species from it.

Towards the end of the 19th century, atheists formulated a world view that they thought explained everything; they denied that the universe was created saying that it had no beginning but had existed forever. They claimed that the universe had no purpose but that its order and balance were the result of chance; they believed that the question of how human beings and other living things came into being was answered by Darwinism. They believed that Marx or Durkheim had explained history and sociology, and that Freud had explained psychology on the basis of atheist assumptions.

However, these views were later invalidated in the 20th century by scientific, political and social developments. Many and various discoveries in the fields of astronomy, biology, psychology and social sciences have nullified the bases of all atheist suppositions.

In his book, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World, the American scholar Patrick Glynn from the George Washington University writes:

The past two decades of research have overturned nearly all the important assumptions and predictions of an earlier generation of modern secular and atheist thinkers relating to the issue of God. Modern thinkers assumed that science would reveal the universe to be ever more random and mechanical; instead it has discovered unexpected new layers of intricate order that bespeak an almost unimaginably vast master design. Modern psychologists predicted that religion would be exposed as a neurosis and outgrown; instead, religious commitment has been shown empirically to be a vital component of basic mental health…

Few people seem to realize this, but by now it should be clear: Over the course of a century in the great debate between science and faith, the tables have completely turned. In the wake of Darwin, atheists and agnostics like Huxley and Russell could point to what appeared to be a solid body of testable theory purportedly showing life to be accidental and the universe radically contingent. Many scientists and intellectuals continue to cleave to this worldview. But they are increasingly pressed to almost absurd lengths to defend it. Today the concrete data point strongly in the direction of the God hypothesis.1

Science, which has been presented as the pillar of atheist/materialist philosophy, turns out to be the opposite. As another writer puts it, “The strict materialism that excludes all purpose, choice and spirituality from the world simply cannot account for the data pour in from labs and observatories.”2

In this article, we will briefly analyze the conclusions arrived at by different branches of science on this issue and examine what the forthcoming “post-atheist” period will bring to humanity.

Cosmology: The Collapse of the Concept of An Eternal Universe And the Discovery of Creation

The first blow to atheism from science in the 20th century was in the field of cosmology. The idea that the universe had existed forever was discounted and it was discovered that it had a beginning; in other words, it was scientifically proved that it was created from nothing.

This idea of an eternal universe came to the Western world along with materialist philosophy. This philosophy, developed in ancient Greece, stated that nothing else exists besides matter and that the universe comes from eternity and goes to eternity. In the Middle Ages when the Church dominated Western thought, materialism was forgotten. However in the modern period, Western scientists and philosophers became consumed by a curiosity about these ancient Greek origins and revived an interest in materialism.

Immanuel Kant: Proposed the idea of a universe without a beginning or an end. He was terribly wrong.

The first person in the modern age to propose a materialist understanding of the universe was the renowned German philosopher Immanuel Kant—even though he has not a materialist in the philosophical sense of the word. Kant proposed that the universe was eternal and that every possibility could be realized only within this eternity. With the coming of the 19th century, it became widely accepted that the universe had no beginning, and that there was no moment of creation. Then, this idea, adopted passionately by dialectical materialists such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, came into the 20th century.

This idea has always been compatible with atheism. This is because to accept that the universe had a beginning would mean that God created it and the only way to counter this idea was to claim that the universe was eternal, even though this claim had no basis on science. A dogged proponent of this claim was Georges Politzer who became widely known as a supporter of materialism and Marxism in the first half of the 20th century through his book Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie (The Fundamental Principles of Philosophy). Assuming the validity of the model of an eternal universe, Politzer opposed the idea of a creation:

The universe was not a created object, if it were, then it would have to be created instantaneously by God and brought into existence from nothing. To admit creation, one has to admit, in the first place, the existence of a moment when the universe did not exist, and that something came out of nothingness. This is something to which science can not accede.3

By supporting the idea of an eternal universe against that of creation, Politzer thought that science was on his side. However, very soon, the fact that Politzer alluded to by his words, “if it is so, we must accept the existence of a creator”, that is, that the universe had a beginning, was proven.

This proof came as a result of the “Big Bang” theory, perhaps the most important concept of 20th century astronomy.

The Big Bang theory was formulated after a series of discoveries. In 1929, the American astronomer, Edwin Hubble, noticed that the galaxies of the universe were continually moving away from one another and that the universe was expanding. If the flow of time in an expanding universe were reversed, then it emerged that the whole universe must have come from a single point. Astronomers assessing the validity of Hubble’s discovery were faced with the fact that this single point was a “metaphysical” state of reality in which there was an infinite gravitational attraction with no mass. Matter and time came into being by the explosion of this mass-less point. In other words, the universe was created from nothing.

John Maddox: His prophecy about the Big Bang utterly failed.

On the one hand, those astronomers who are determined to cling to materialist philosophy with its basic idea of an eternal universe, have attempted to hold out against the Big Bang theory and maintain the idea of an eternal universe. The reason for this effort can be seen in the words of Arthur Eddington, a renowned materialist physicist, who said, “Philosophically, the notion of an abrupt beginning to the present order of Nature is repugnant to me”.4 But despite the fact that the Big Bang theory is repugnant to materialists, this theory has continued to be corroborated by concrete scientific discoveries. In their observations made in the 1960’s, two scientists, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson, detected the radioactive remains of the explosion (cosmic background radiation). These observations were verified in the 1990’s by the COBE (Cosmic Background Explorer) satellite.

In the face of all these facts, atheists have been squeezed into a corner. Anthony Flew, an atheist professor of philosophy at the University of Reading and the author of Atheistic Humanism, makes this interesting confession:

Notoriously, confession is good for the soul. I will therefore begin by confessing that the Stratonician atheist has to be embarrassed by the contemporary cosmological consensus. For it seems that the cosmologists are providing a scientific proof of what St. Thomas contended could not be proved philosophically; namely, that the universe had a beginning. So long as the universe can be comfortably thought of as being not only without end but also without beginning, it remains easy to urge that its brute existence, and whatever are found to be its most fundamental features, should be accepted as the explanatory ultimates. Although I believe that it remains still correct, it certainly is neither easy nor comfortable to maintain this position in the face of the Big Bang story 5

An example of the atheist reaction to the Big Bang theory can be seen in an article written in 1989 by John Maddox, editor of Nature, one of the best-known materialist-scientific journals.

In that article, called “Down With the Big Bang,” Maddox wrote that the Big Bang is “philosophically unacceptable,” because “creationists and those of similar persuasions… have ample justification in the doctrine of the Big Bang.” He also predicted that the Big Bang “is unlikely to survive the decade ahead.” 6 However, despite Maddox’ hopes, Big Bang has gained credence and many discoveries have been made that prove the creation of the universe.

Some materialists have a relatively logical view of this matter. For example, the English materialist physicist, H.P. Lipson, unwillingly accepts the scientific fact of creation. He writes:

I think …that we must…admit that the only acceptable explanation is creation. I know that this is anathema to physicists, as indeed it is to me, but we must not reject that we do not like if the experimental evidence supports it. 7

Thus, the fact arrived at finally by modern astronomy is this: time and matter were brought into being by an eternally powerful Creator independent of both of them. The eternal power that created the universe in which we live is God who is the possessor of infinite might, knowledge and wisdom.

Physics and Astronomy: The Collapse of the Idea of a Random Universe and

The Discovery of the Anthropic Principle

A second atheist dogma rendered invalid in the 20th century by discoveries in astronomy is the idea of a random universe. The view that the matter in the universe, the heavenly bodies and the laws that determine the relationships among them has no purpose but is the result of chance, has been dramatically discounted.

For the first time since the 1970’s, scientists have begun to recognize the fact that the whole physical balance of the universe is adjusted delicately in favor of human life. With the advance of research, it has been discovered that the physical, chemical and biological laws of the universe, basic forces such as gravity and electro-magnetism, the structure of atoms and elements are all ordered exactly as they have to be for human life. Western scientists have called this extraordinary design the “anthropic principle”. That is, every aspect of the universe is designed with a view to human life.

We may summarize the basics of the anthropic principle as follows:

The speed of the first expansion of the universe (the force of the Big Bang explosion) was exactly the velocity that it had to be. According to scientists’ calculations, if the expansion rate had differed from its actual value by more than one part in a billion billion, then the universe would either have recollapsed before it ever reached its present size or else have splattered in every direction in a way never to unite again. To put it another way, even at the first moment of the universe’s existence there was a fine calculation of the accuracy of a billion billionth.

The four physical forces in the universe (gravitational force, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, and electromagnetic force) are all at the necessary levels for an ordered universe to emerge and for life to exist. Even the tiniest variations in these forces (for example, one in 1039, or one in 1028; that is—crudely calculated—one in a billion billion billion billion), the universe would either be composed only of radiation or of no other element besides hydrogen.

There are many other delicate adjustments that make the earth ideal for human life: the size of the sun, its distance from the earth, the unique physical and chemical properties of water, the wavelength of the sun’s rays, the way that the earth’s atmosphere contains the gases necessary to allow respiration, or the Earth’s magnetic field being ideally suited to human life. (For more information on this topic, see Harun Yahya, The Creation of the Universe, Al-Attique Publishers, 2001)

This delicate balance is one of the most striking discoveries of modern astrophysics. The wellknown astronomer, Paul Davies, writes in the last paragraph of his book The Cosmic Blueprint, “The impression of Design is overwhelming.”8

In an article in the journal Nature, the astrophysicist W. Press writes, “there is a grand design in the Universe that favors the development of intelligent life.”9

The interesting thing about this is that the majority of the scientists that have made these discoveries were of the materialist point of view and came to this conclusion unwillingly. They did not undertake their scientific investigations hoping to find a proof for God’s existence. But most of them, if not all of them, despite their unwillingness, arrived at this conclusion as the only explanation for the extraordinary design of the universe.

In his book, The Symbiotic Universe the American astronomer, George Greenstein, acknowledges this fact:

How could this possibly have come to pass [that the laws of physics conform themselves to life]? …As we survey all the evidence, the thought insistently arises that some supernatural agency—or, rather Agency—must be involved. Is it possible that suddenly, without intending to, we have stumbled upon scientific proof of the existence of a Supreme Being? Was it God who stepped in and so providentially crafted the cosmos for our benefit?10

By beginning his question with “Is it possible”, Greenstein, an atheist, tries to ignore that plain fact that has confronted him. But many scientists who have approached the question without prejudice acknowledge that the universe has been created especially for human life. Materialism is now being viewed as an erroneous belief outside the realm of science. The American geneticist, Robert Griffiths, acknowledges this fact when he says, “If we need an atheist for a debate, I go to the philosophy department. The physics department isn’t much use.”11

In his book Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, which examines how physical, chemical and biological laws are amazingly calculated in an “ideal” way with a view to the requirements of human life, the well-known molecular biologist, Michael Denton writes:

The new picture that has emerged in twentieth-century astronomy presents a dramatic challenge to the presumption which has been prevalent within scientific circles during most of the past four centuries: that life is a peripheral and purely contingent phenomenon in the cosmic scheme.12

In short, the idea of a random universe, perhaps atheism’s most basic pillar, has been proved invalid. Scientists now openly speak of the collapse of materialism.13 The supposition whose falsity God reveals in the Qur’an, “We did not create heaven and earth and everything between them to no purpose. That is the opinion of those who disbelieve…” (Qur’an, 38: 27) was shown to be invalid by science in the 1970’s.

Quantum Physics and the Discovery of the Divine Wisdom

When scientists have gone deeper into the atom, they found it shockingly “empty”.

One of the areas of science that shatters the materialist myth and gives positive evidence for theism is quantum physics.

Quantum physics deals with the tiniest particles of matter, what is called the sub-atomic realm. In school everyone learns that matter is composed of atoms. Atoms are made up of a nucleus and several electrons spinning around it. One strange fact is that all these particles take up only some 0.0001 percent of the atoms. In other words, an atom is something that is 99.9999 percent “empty.”

An even more interesting fact is that when the nuclei and electrons are further examined, it has been realized that these are made up of much smaller particles called “quarks,” and that these quarks are not particles in the physical sense, but simply energy. This discovery has broken the classical distinction between matter and energy. It now appears that in the material universe, only energy exists. What we call matter is just “frozen energy.”

There is a still more intriguing fact: The quarks, those energy packets, act in such a way that they maybe described as “conscious.” Physicist Freeman Dyson, on his acceptance of the Templeton Prize, stated that:

Atoms are weird stuff, behaving like active agents rather than inert substances. They make unpredictable choices between alternative possibilities according to the laws of quantum mechanics. It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom.14

What this means is that there is information behind matter. Information that precedes the material realm. Gerald Schroeder, an MIT-trained scientist who has worked in both physics and biology and author of the famous book The Science of God, makes a number of important comments on this subject. In his more recent book, The Hidden Face of God: Science Reveals the Ultimate Truth (2001), Schroeder explains that quantum physics—along with other branches of science—is the tool for discovering a universal wisdom that lies behind the material world. As he puts it:

It took humanity millennia before an Einstein discovered that, as bizarre as it may seem, the basis of matter is energy, that matter is actually condensed energy. It may take a while longer for us to discover that there is some non-thing even more fundamental than energy that forms the basis of energy, which in turn forms the basis of matter.15

John Archibald, professor of physics at Princeton University and recipient of the Einstein Award, explained the same fact when he said that the “bit” (the binary digit) of information gives rise to the “it,” the substance of matter.16 According to Schroeder this has a “profound meaning”:

The matter/energy relationships, the quantum wave functions, have profound meaning. Science may be approaching the realization that the entire universe is an expression of information, wisdom, an idea, just as atoms are tangible expressions of something as ethereal as energy.17

This wisdom is such an omniscient thing that covers the whole universe:

A single consciousness, a universal wisdom, pervades the universe. The discoveries of science, those that search the quantum nature of subatomic matter, have moved us to the brink of a startling realization: all existence is the expression of this wisdom. In the laboratories we experience it as information that first physically articulated as energy and then condensed into the form of matter. Every particle, every being, from atom to human, appears to represent a level of information, of wisdom.18

This means that the material universe is not a purposeless and chaotic heap of atoms, as the atheist/materialist dogma assumes, but is instead a manifestation of a wisdom which existed before the universe and which has absolute sovereignty over everything that exists. In Schroeder’s words, it is “as if a metaphysical substrate was impressed upon the physical”. 19

This discovery shatters the whole materialist myth and reveals that the material universe we see is just a shadow of a transcendent Absolute Being. Thus, as Schroeder explains, quantum physics has become the point where science and theology meet:

The age-old theological view of the universe is that all existence is the manifestation of a transcendent wisdom, with a universal consciousness being its manifestation. If I substitute the word information for wisdom, theology begins to sound like quantum physics. We may be witnessing the scientific confluence of the physical with the spiritual. 20

Quantum is really the point where science and theology meet. The fact that the whole universe is pervaded by a wisdom is a secret that was revealed in the Qur’an 14 centuries ago. One verse reads:

Your god is God alone, there is no god but Him. He encompasses all things in His knowledge. (Qur’an, 20:98)

The Natural Sciences: The Collapse of Darwinism and

The Triumph of Intelligent Design

Darwin: His theory is now refuted by a great deal of scientific evidence.

As we stated at the beginning, one of the main supports for the rise of atheism to its zenith in the 19th century was Darwin’s theory of evolution. With its assertion that the origin of human beings and all other living things lay in unconscious natural mechanisms, Darwinism gave atheists the opportunity they had been seeking for centuries. Therefore, Darwin’s theory had been adopted by the most passionate atheists of the time, and atheist thinkers such as Marx and Engels elucidated this theory as the basis of their philosophy. Since that time, the relationship between Darwinism and atheism has continued.

But, at the same time, this greatest support for atheism is the dogma that has received the greatest blow from scientific discoveries in the 20th century. The discoveries by various branches of science such as paleontology, biochemistry, anatomy and genetics have shattered the theory of evolution from various aspects. (See Harun Yahya, Evolution Deceit, 2000). We have dealt with this fact in much more detail in various other books and publications, but we may summarize it here as follows:

Paleontology: Darwin’s theory rests on the assumption that all species come from one single common ancestor and that they diverged from one another over a long period of time by small gradual changes. It is supposed that the proofs for this will be discovered in the fossil record, the petrified remains of living things. But fossil research conducted in the course of the 20th century has presented a totally different picture. The fossil of even a single undoubted intermediate species that would substantiate the belief in the gradual evolution of species has not been found. Moreover, every taxon appears suddenly in the fossil record and no trace has been found of any previous ancestors. The phenomenon known as the Cambrian Explosion is especially interesting. In this early geological period, nearly all of the phyla (major groups with significantly different body plans) of the animal kingdom suddenly appeared. This sudden emergence of many different categories of living things with totally different body structures and extremely complex organs and systems, including mollusks, arthropods, echinoderms and (as recently discovered) even vertebrates, is a major blow to Darwinism. For, as evolutionists also agree, the sudden appearance of a taxon implies supernatural design and this means creation.

Biological Observations: In elaborating his theory, Darwin relied on examples of how animal breeders produced a different variety of dogs or horses. He extrapolated the limited changes he observed in these cases to the whole of the natural world and proposed that every living thing could have come to be in this way from a common ancestor. But Darwin made this claim in the 19th century when the level of scientific sophistication was low. In the 20th century things have changed greatly. Decades of observation and experimentation on various species of animals have shown that variation in living things has never gone beyond certain genetic boundary. Darwin’s assertions, like “I can see no difficulty in a race of bears being rendered, by natural selection, more and more aquatic in their habits, with larger and larger mouths, till a creature was produced as monstrous as a whale.”21 actually demonstrates his great ignorance. On the other hand, observations and experiments have shown that mutations defined by Neo- Darwinism as an evolutionary mechanism add no new genetic information to living creatures.

The Origin of Life: Darwin spoke about a common ancestor but he never mentioned how this first common ancestor came to be. His only conjecture was that the first cell could have formed as a result of random chemical reactions “in some small warm little pond”.22 But evolutionary biochemists who undertook to close this hole in Darwinism met with frustration. All observations and experiments showed that it was, in a word, impossible for a living cell to arise within inanimate matter by random chemical reactions. Even the English atheist Nobel Prize-winner Fred Hoyle expressed that such a scenario “is comparable with the chance that a tornado sweeping through a junk-yard might assemble a Boeing 747 from the materials therein.”23

Intelligent Design: Scientists studying cells, the molecules that compose the cells, their remarkable organization within the body and the delicate order and plan in the organs are faced with proof of the fact that evolutionists strongly wish to reject: The world of living things is permeated by designs too complex to be found in any technological equipment. Intricate examples of design, including our eyes that are too superior to be compared to any camera, the wings of birds that have inspired flight technology, the complexly integrated system of the cells of living things and the remarkable information stored in DNA, have vitiated the theory of evolution which regards living things as the product of blind chance.

All these facts have squeezed Darwinism into a corner by the end of the 20th century. Today, in the United States and other Western countries, the theory of intelligent design is gaining everincreasing acceptance among scientists. Those who defend the idea of intelligent design say that Darwinism has been a great error in the history of science and that it came to be as the result of materialist philosophy’s being imposed on the scientific paradigm. Scientific discoveries show that there is a design in living things which proves creation. In short, science proves once more that God created all living things.

Psychology: The Collapse of Freudianism and the Acceptance of Faith

The representative of the 19th century atheist dogma in the field of psychology was the Austrian psychiatrist Sigmund Freud. Freud proposed a psychological theory which rejected the existence of the soul and tried to explain the whole spiritual world of human beings in terms of sexual and similar hedonistic motivations. But Freud’s greatest assault was against religion.

Later studies showed that Freud’s ideas, especially the ones about religion were totally flawed.

In his book The Future of an Illusion published in 1927, he proposed that religious faith was a kind of mental illness (neurosis) and that, as human beings progressed, religious faith would completely disappear. Due to the primitive scientific conditions of the time, the theory was proposed without the requisite research and investigation, and with no scholarly literature or possibility of comparison, and therefore, its claims were extremely deficient. Indeed, if Freud had the possibility of evaluating his propositions today, he would himself be surprised by the logical deficiency of his claims and he would be the first to criticize such senseless presuppositions.

After Freud, psychology developed on an atheist foundation. Not only Freud, but the founders of other schools of psychology in the 20th century were passionate atheists. Two of these were B.F. Skinner, the founder of the behaviorist school and Albert Ellis, founder of rational emotive therapy. The world of psychology ended up by becoming the forum for atheism. A 1972 poll among the members of the American Psychology Association revealed that only 1.1 percent of psychologists in the country had any religious beliefs.24

But most psychologists who fell into this great deception were undone by their own psychological investigations. It became known that the basic suppositions of Freudianism had almost no scientific support and, moreover, that religion was not a mental illness as Freud and some other psychological theorists declared, but a basic element of mental health. Patrick Glynn summarizes these important developments:

Yet the last quarter of the twentieth century has not been kind to the psychoanalytic vision. Most significant has been the exposure of Freud’s views of religion as entirely fallacious. Ironically enough, scientific research in psychology over the past twenty-five years has demonstrated that, far from being a neurosis or source of neuroses as Freud and his disciples claimed, religious belief is one of the most consistent correlates of overall mental health and happiness. Study after study has shown a powerful relationship between religious belief and practice, on the one hand, and healthy behaviors with regard to such problems as suicide, alcohol and drug abuse, divorce, depression, even, perhaps surprisingly, levels of sexual satisfaction in marriage, on the other. In short, the empirical data run exactly contrary to the supposedly “scientific” consensus of the psychotherapeutic profession.25

Finally, as Glynn says, “modern psychology at the close of the twentieth century seems to be reacquainting itself with religion”26 and “a purely secular view of human mental life has been shown to fail not just at the theoretical, but also at the practical, level.27

In other words, atheism has been routed also on the field of psychology.

Medicine: The Discovery of “How Hearts Find Peace”

Another branch of science that was affected by the collapse of atheist suppositions was medicine.

According to results compiled by David B. Larson and his team at the National Institute for Healthcare Research, a comparison among Americans in relation to church attendance yielded very interesting results. Risk of arteriosclerotic heart disease for men who attended church frequently was just 60 percent of that for men who were infrequent church attenders. Among women, suicide was twice as high among infrequent as among frequent church attenders; smokers who ranked religion as very important in their lives were over seven times less likely to have normal diastolic pressure readings than were those who did not.28

Secular psychologists generally explain such phenomena as having a psychological cause. In this sense, faith raises a person’s morale and contributes to his well-being. There may be some truth in this explanation, but if we look more closely we see something much more dramatic. Belief in God is much stronger than any other influence on the morale. In comprehensive research on the relationship between religious belief and physical health, Dr. Herbert Benson of the Harvard Medical School came up with some interesting results. Although he did not have any religious faith, Benson arrived at the result that faith in God and worship had a much more positive effect on human health than could be observed in anything else. Benson concludes that he has “found that faith quiets the mind like no other form of belief.”29

Why is there such a special relation between faith and human spirit and body? The result arrived at by Benson, who is a secular researcher, was, as he put it, that the human mind and body are “wired for God.”30

This fact, that the medical world is slowly beginning to notice, is a secret revealed in the Qur’an with the verse, “Only in the remembrance of God can the heart find peace.” (Qur’an, 13:28) The reason why those who believe in God, pray to Him and trust in Him are physically and mentally more healthy than others is that they behave in harmony with their nature. Philosophical systems opposed to human nature always bring pain, sorrow, anxiety and depression upon people.

The basic source of the peace experienced by a religious person is that he acts in order to gain God’s approval. In other words, this peace is the natural result of a person’s listening to the voice of his conscience. A person does not live the morality of religion simply “to be more at peace” or “to be healthier”; a person who acts with this intention cannot find peace in its true sense. God well knows that what a person stores in his heart or what he reveals. A person experiences peace of mind only by being sincere and attempting to gain God’s approval. God commands:

So set your face firmly towards the [true] religion, as a pure natural believer, God’s natural pattern on which He made mankind. There is no changing God’s creation. That is the true religion—but most people do not know it. (Qur’an, 30:30)

In the light of the discoveries that we have briefly indicated above, modern medicine is starting to become cognizant of this truth. As Patrick Glynn says, “contemporary medicine is clearly moving in the direction of acknowledging dimensions of healing beyond the purely material”.31

Society: The Fall of Communism, Fascism and the Hippie Dream

The collapse of atheism in the 20th century did not occur only in the fields of astrophysics, biology, psychology and medicine; it happened also in politics and social morality.

Communism may be considered the most important political result of 19th century atheism. The founders of this ideology, Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky or Mao, all adopted atheism as a basic principle. A primary goal of all communist regimes was to get society to adopt atheism and to destroy religious belief. Stalin’s Russia, Red China, Cambodia, Albania and some Eastern block countries applied immense pressure on religious people to the point of committing mass murder.

Yet, amazingly, at the end of the 1980s this bloody atheist system collapsed. When we examine the reasons for this dramatic fall, we see that what collapsed was actually atheism. Patrick Glynn writes:

To be sure, secular historians would say that the greatest mistake of Communism was to attempt to defy the laws of economics. But other laws, too, came into play… Moreover, as historians penetrate the circumstances of the Communist collapse, it is becoming clearer that the Soviet elite was itself in the throes of an atheistic “crisis of faith”. Having lived under an atheistic ideology—one that consisted of lies and that was based on a “Big Lie”— the Soviet system suffered a radical demoralization, in every sense of that term. People, including the ruling elite, lost all sense of morality and all sense of hope.32

An interesting indication of the Soviet system’s great “crisis of faith” was President Mihail Gorbachev’s attempts of reform. Since the time that he assumed the presidency, Gorbachev was interested in moral problems as well as economic reforms. For example, one of the first things he did was to initiate a campaign against alcoholism. In order to raise the morale of society, for a long time he used Marxist-Leninist terminology but he saw that this was of no use.

Gorbachev: His futile attempts could not heal the “crisis of faith” in the Soviet society.

Then, in the later years of the regime, he even began to mention God in some of his speeches, even though he himself was an atheist. Naturally, these insincere words of faith were of no use and the crisis of faith in Soviet society continued to worsen. The result was the collapse of the gigantic Soviet empire. The 20th century documented not only the fall of communism, but also that of another fruit of 19th century antireligious philosophy—fascism. Fascism is the outcome of a philosophy which may be called a mixture of atheism and paganism and which is intensely hostile to theistic religions. Friedrich Nietzsche, who may be called the father of fascism, extolled the morality of barbarous idolatrous societies, attacked Christianity and other monotheistic religions and even called himself the “Antichrist.” Nietzsche’s disciple, Martin Heidegger, was an avid Nazi supporter and the ideas of these two atheist thinkers gave impetus to the terrifying savagery of Nazi Germany. (The Holocaust, one of the greatest act of evil in human history, was the result of Nazi anti-Semitism, an ideology that hated Jews and the monotheistic faith that has been the cornerstone of Judaism—and also Islam.) The Second World War, that caused the death of 55 million people, is another example of the calamity that atheist ideologies like fascism and communism have brought upon humanity.

At this point, we must recall another atheist ideology—Social Darwinism—which was among the causes for the outbreak of both the First and the Second World Wars. In his book entitled Europe Since 1870, Harvard history professor James Joll states that behind each of the two world wars lay the philosophical views of Social Darwinist European leaders who believed in the myth that war was a biological necessity and that nations developed through conflict.33

In contrast with the theist and peaceful American Revolution, the French Revolution was atheist, neo-pagan and extremely violent.

Another social consequence of atheism in the 20th century appeared in Western democracies. In the present day there is a tendency to regard the West as the “Christian world.” However, since the 19th, century, a quickly growing atheist culture has held sway with Christian culture, and today there is a conflict between these two cultures in what we call Western civilization. And this atheist element has been the true cause of western imperialism, moral degeneration, despotism and other negative manifestations.

In his book God: The Evidence, the American writer Patrick Glynn draws attention to this matter and, in order to compare the God-fearing and atheist elements in the West, he takes the examples of the American and French Revolutions. The American Revolution was carried out by believers; American Declaration of Independence states that all men “are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights”. Since the French Revolution was the work of atheists, the French Declaration of Human Rights was very different, with no reference to God and full of atheist and neo-pagan notions.

The actual results of the two revolutions were quite different: in the American model, a peaceful, tolerant environment was created that respected religion and religious belief; in France the fierce hostility to religion drowned the country in blood and unleashed a savagery such as had never been seen before. As Glynn says, “there is an interesting historical correlation between atheism, on the one hand, and moral and political catastrophe, on the other hand.”34

Glynn notes that attempts to turn America into an atheist country have also caused harm to society. The fact that the sexual revolution (for example) that spread in the 60’s and 70’s caused immense social damage is accepted even by secular historians.35

John Lennon: The world he imagined —one without religion— did not bring a happy end, neither to him nor to his followers.

The hippie movement was a demonstration of this social damage. The hippies believed that they could find spiritual emancipation through secular humanist philosophy and by such things as unlimited drugs and sex. These young people who poured onto the streets with romantic songs—like John Lennon’s Imagine in which he spoke of a world “with no countries, and no religion too”—were actually undergoing a mass deception.

In fact, a world without religion actually brought them to an unhappy end. The hippy leaders of the 1960s either killed themselves or died from drug-induced comas in the early 1970s. Many other young hippies shared a similar fate.

Those young people of the same generation who turned to violence found themselves on the receiving end of violence. The 1968 generation, who turned their backs on God and religion and imagined they could find salvation in such concepts as revolution or selfish Epicureanism, ruined both themselves and their own societies.

The Dawn of the Post-Atheist World

The facts that we have briefly summarized to this point shows clearly that atheism is undergoing an inevitable collapse. In other words, humanity is — and will be — turning towards God. The truth of this assertion is not limited only to the scientific and political areas that we have written about here. From prominent statesmen to movie stars and pop artists, those who influence opinion in the West are much more religious than they used to be. There are many people who have seen the truth and come to believe in God after having lived for years as atheists. (Patrick Glynn from whose book we have quoted is one of these ex-atheists).

The fact that the developments which have contributed to this result began in the same period, that is from the second half of the 1970s, is quite interesting. The anthropic principle first appeared in the 1970s. Scientific criticism of Darwinism started to be loudly voiced at that same time. The turning point against the atheist dogma of Freud was a book entitled The Road Less Traveled published in 1978 by Scott Peck. For this reason, Glynn, in the 1997 edition of his book writes that “over the past twenty years, a significant body of evidence has emerged, shattering the foundations of the long-dominant modern secular worldview.”36

Surely, the fact that the atheist world-view has been shaken means that another world-view prevails, which is belief in God. Since the end of the 1970’s, (or, from the beginning of the 14th century according to the Muslim calendar) the world has seen a rise in religious values. Like other social processes, this does not happen in a day and the majority of people may not notice it because it has been developing over a long period of time. However, those who evaluate the development a little more carefully see that the world is at a major turning point in the realm of ideas.

Secular historians try to explain this process according to their own principles but just as they are in deep error with regard to the existence of God, so they are greatly mistaken about the course of history. In fact, as the following verse reveals, history moves as God as determined: “…You will not find any changing in the pattern of God. You will not find any alteration in the pattern of God.” (Qur’an, 35: 43) It follows, then, that history has a purpose and unfolds as God has commanded. And God’s command is the perfection of His light:

They desire to extinguish God’s Light with their mouths. But God refuses to do other than perfect His Light, even though the disbelievers detest it. (Qur’an, 9: 32)

This verse means that God has sent down His light upon humanity through the religion that He has revealed. Those who do not believe want to extinguish this light by their “mouths”— intimations, propaganda and philosophies, but God will finally perfect His light and give dominion to religious values on earth.

This may be the “turning point in history” mentioned at the beginning of this article as also indicated by the evidence we have provided here, as well as the implications of various hadiths and statements by scholars. Surely, God knows best.

Conclusion

We are living at an important time. Atheism, which people have tried for hundreds of years to portray as “the way of reason and science,” is proving to be mere irrationality and ignorance. Materialist philosophy that sought to use science for its own ends has been in turn defeated by science. A world rescuing itself from atheism will turn to God and religion. And this process has begun long ago.

It is clear that believers have important duties in this period. They must be aware of this major change in the world’s way of thinking, interpret it, make good use of the opportunities that globalization offers and effectively represent the truth along this road. They must know that the basic conflict of ideas in the world is between atheism and faith. It is not a struggle between East and West; in both East and West there are those who believe in God and those who do not. For this reason, faithful Christians, as well as faithful Jews are allies of Muslims. The main divergence is not between Muslims and the “People of the Book” (Jews and Christians), but between Muslims and the People of the Book on the one hand, and atheists and pagans on the other. Of course, we must not show hostility to such people but view them as people who need to be rescued from their error.

The time is fast approaching when many people who are living in ignorance with no knowledge of their Creator will be graced by faith in the impending post-atheist world.

Under the pen name of Harun Yahya, Adnan Oktar has written some 250 works. His books contain a total of 46,000 pages and 31,500 illustrations. Of these books, 7,000 pages and 6,000 illustrations deal with the collapse of the Theory of Evolution. You can read, free of charge, all the books Adnan Oktar has written under the pen name Harun Yahya on these websites www.harunyahya.com

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(1) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, pp.19-20, 53

(2) Bryce Christensen, in a review of Gerald Shroeder’s book The Hidden Face of God, Booklist March 15, 2001

(3) George Politzer, Principes Fondamentaux de Philosophie, Editions Sociales, Paris, 1954, p. 84

(4) S. Jaki, Cosmos and Creator, Regnery Gateway, Chicago, 1980, p.54

(5) Henry Margenau, Roy Abraham Vargesse, Cosmos, Bios, Theos, La Salle IL: Open Court Publishing, 1992, p.241

(6) John Maddox, “Down with the Big Bang”, Nature, vol. 340, 1989, p. 378

(7) H. P. Lipson, “A Physicist Looks at Evolution”, Physics Bulletin, vol. 138, 1980, p. 138

(8) Paul Davies, The Cosmic Blueprint, London: Penguin Books, 1987, p. 203

(9) W. Press, “A Place for Teleology?”, Nature, vol. 320, 1986, s. 315

(10) George Greenstein, The Symbiotic Universe, p. 27

(11) Hugh Ross, The Creator and the Cosmos, p. 123

(12) Denton, Michael Denton, Nature’s Destiny: How the Laws of Biology Reveal Purpose in the Universe, The New York: The Free Press,1998, p. 14

(13) Paul Davies and John Gribbin, The Matter Myth, Simon & Schuster, New York, 1992, p. 10

(14) As quoted in Gerald Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God, Touchstone, New York, 2001, p. 7

(15) Gerald Schroeder, The Hidden Face of God, Touchstone, New York, 2001, p. 8

(16) Ibid. p. 8

(17) Ibid. p. 28

(18) Ibid. p. xi

(19) Ibid. p. 48

(20) Ibid. xii

(21) Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species: A Facsimile of the First Edition, Harvard University Press, 1964, p. 184

(22) Charles Darwin, Life and Letter of Charles Darwin, vol. II, From Charles Darwin to J. Do Hooker, March 29, 1863

(23) “Hoyle on Evolution”, Nature, vol. 294, November 12, 1981, p. 105

(24) Edwin R. Wallace IV, “Psychiatry and Religion: A Dialogue”, in Joseph H. Smith and Susan A. Handelman, eds., Psychoanalysis andReligion, John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1990, p. 1005

(25) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, pp.60-61

(26) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, p.69

(27) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, p.78

(28) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, pp.80-81

(29) Herbert Benson, Mark Stark, Timeless Healing, Simon & Schuste, New York, 1996, p. 203

(30) Herbert Benson, Mark Stark, Timeless Healing, Simon & Schuste, New York, 1996, p. 193

(31) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, p.94

(32) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997,pp.161-162

(33) James Joll, Europe Since 1870: An International History, Penguin Books, Middlesex, 1990, pp. 102-103

(34) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, p.161

(35) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World , Prima Publishing, California, 1997, p.163

(36) Patrick Glynn, God: The Evidence, The Reconciliation of Faith and Reason in a Postsecular World, Prima Publishing, California, 1997, p. 2

The many theological hypotheses and theories regarding the survival of consciousness are without a basis from the scientific standpoint. Orthodox science even look askance towards the findings of parapsychology. Accounts such as Near-Death Experience, spontaneous past life recall, hypnotic regressions, Out-of-the-Body Experience, and psychic phenomena in general seemingly point to the immortality of the soul; however, conventional science still find such occurrences inconclusive. Fundamentally, science, however, does not oppose the notion of the existence of the soul or of its immortality; it is at present researching through empirical methods to prove or disprove it. However, it is realized that the phenomenon of the soul does not readily submit to objective analysis. Science realizes the limitations of its instruments in the detection of the existence of the soul.

There is another aspect to immortality and this concerns the physical form. Physical immortality is an ancient belief and is to be found in many cultures. In legends and in tales we find the theme of physical immortality repeatedly. The possibility of its attainment is well believed in among most metaphysicians. There are many highly spiritually developed yogis who are said to have reached the state of physical immortality. We personally possess the secret teachings that according to our preceptors in metaphysics, allow one to acquire immortality not only of the soul, but of the physical body as well–at least, it extends man’s life-span way beyond the norm.

In Taoism spiritual and physical immortality are both given careful consideration. Regarding physical immortality, there are many alchemical formulas supposed to immortalize the material body. Those who achieve physical immortality are called hsien. To the ignorant these alchemical formulas are supposedly made out of mineral or herbal substances; but to the knowledgeable, they refer to the internal processes of chi or energy. The methods for attaining spiritual immortality is associated with the spiritual realization of Tao, the Absolute, the “Mother,” the “Source of all things.” To Lao Tzu, death does not touch the one who has realized the Tao.

According to certain spiritual teachings immortality is the continuous awareness of Self-existence and being without ever lapsing into an unconscious state no matter what psychological and physical conditions or transformations take place such as sleep, concussions, or death. It is the state of realizing one’s divinity and unity with the Source of all. Immortality and the state of being eternal are associated with one’s divine Parent. Unless one recognizes and is aware of this unified state between one’s identity and the Divine Being, one is not immortal, one merely undergoes various changes and is subjected to the whimsical forces of nature. Immortality from this point of view is not something that we automatically acquire when we pass through transition. It is a state that we may acquire here and now. The realization of one’s unity with God is the confirmation of one’s perpetual existence. There are many systems that purport to teach the aspirant the methods of acquiring mystical realization and unification with the divine being, they usually belong to the esoteric section of our world-religions; like religion proper, some of these mystical schools believe theirs to be the best. Popular metaphysics as a whole, embraces many of the above concepts regarding immortality.

The desire for immortality have also taken hold on the minds of computer engineers. To these scientists the computer is analogous to the human brain. They hope that one day a super-computer would be created where every function of the brain would be duplicated, and that it would be possible to transfer or download the human mind and consciousness into it thus creating an artificial habitation for the soul-intelligence. This is their strategy for immortalizing the soul-”a ghost in the machine” reality. Related to this is the supposition that computers and micro-chips would be so advanced and sophisticated in the near future that it would probably generate artificial intelligence-that is, thoughts and feelings of their own.

SOUL FACULTIES

The soul has various psychic faculties though most of them are not being used by the average person. The use of these faculties often result in strange paranormal activities or phenomena. Most psychic phenomena associated with the dead are actually caused by the living. For instance, hauntings are often believed to be “dead persons” appearing to the living, while in most cases hauntings are caused by the astral forms of people who are asleep and inadvertently appearing to others.

Some of the various psychic faculties are: Clairvoyance, clairaudience, clairsentience, telepathy, psychokinesis, precognition, soul-travel, and bilocation. These psychic faculties may be developed. It is not merely a gift. Those who are born with them usually have acquired them through psychic-training programs in past-lives. The “powers” that we mentioned above are considered to be the lower faculties of the soul. These powers belong to the etheric, astral and lower mental bodies. There are higher spiritual faculties and these are associated with the higher components in the microcosm, such as the Higher Mental, Buddhi, and Atma.

SOUL CULTURE

Spiritual evolution, when left to nature, progresses at a snail’s pace. Plant-like consciousness may take millions of years just to reach the animal consciousness stage. Human beings, likewise, in the natural course of evolution would similarly require eons just to attain human perfection or godhood–the next kingdom above humankind. However, there are spiritual practices that assists one to shorten this time tremendously. What would take a million years could all unfold in a single lifetime. This was alchemy’s biggest secret discovery–the transformation of lead, which is symbolical of the imperfect human being, into gold, which represents the perfect man. Why wait for nature to transmute lead into gold when it could be done in the laboratory by duplicating and accelerating nature’s processes? This was the alchemist’s reasoning. Though they exoterically referred to metals as the subject of their transformation, they were actually referring to the human soul.

The acceleration of evolution was referred to by the Master Jesus when he mentioned the “strait and narrow path.” According to him only the few would discover this path. These are the teachings that the Master promised to give to his disciples at a time when they were totally prepared for it. These esoteric doctrines and mystical practices are “lost” in the present-day teachings of the Churches. We need not say any more of this.

At present there are many esoteric schools and organizations, both East and West, helping mankind to evolve at a rapid pace. Among the creatures of the four kingdoms, man is the only one able to take his evolution into his own hands. By working with nature, humanity would make much progress. If society en masse reaches the consciousness level attained by the saints there would be no more wars and needless conflicts. This is not an impossibility. Mortal, human thoughts make us believe in our limitations–limitations that actually do not exist.

Soul culture helps us to rapidly evolve and to reach the goal set for us human beings by our Progenitor. In soul-culture there are three basic practices to consider: meditation, energy-work, and soul-refinement.

Meditation

Meditation is the most basic practice in soul-culture. It has been engaged in by saints, prophets, sages, and mystics throughout the ages. There are many meditational methods designed for various purposes. The Hindu yogis have their own methods of meditation, just as the Buddhists and the Taoists have theirs. The Western Tradition also possesses its own forms of meditation.

The basic purpose of meditation is to attune one’s conscious mind with one’s Higher Self, one’s Soul, or one’s inner divinity. In prayer we speak and the higher Intelligences listen; in meditation, the higher Intelligences speak and we listen. Hence, meditation helps us to receive spiritual and divine impulses emanating from God and one’s highest being. Inspiration and self-empowerment are the result of true meditation.

In the more advance practices of meditation we are led gradually to higher and higher dimensions or planes of consciousness where we would ultimately unite or become aware of our Spirit–the Monad. This attainment is referred to by Western writers as “Cosmic Consciousness.” In an ancient scripture we are taught a method of meditation:

“The Self, the inner spirit, ever dwelleth within the hearts of men. Patiently separate Him thou from the cover of the body in which He liveth, even as thou takest off the blades of a reed-plant. Him know thou as pure and immortal; know thou, He is pure and immortal.” (Kathopanishad, II. 6.17)

Energy-Work

Before the advanced practices of meditation may be successfully carried-out, one’s whole force-field and energy-structure would have to be purified, strengthened, refined, awakened, restructured, and empowered. This practice is referred to as energy-work.

The various components of the microcosm that has to be worked upon in energy-work includes the physical body, the chakras, the aura, the etheric channels, the etheric webs, the electronic belt, and the subconscious mind. There are material and psychic toxins accumulated in the vehicles of the Personality that have to be eliminated; and karmic stains that have to be removed. These negative energies causes lots of problems, not only in one’s higher spiritual cultivation practices, but also in daily life. Many of our so-called bad-luck stems from these etheric rubbish accumulated upon our system.

Soul-Refinement

Evolution requires soul-refinement. In order to raise one’s vibrations and improve the quality of one’s force-fields it is also necessary to refine one’s soul-nature, one’s character. It is a person’s low character that generates and attracts negative energies and it would be senseless to constantly perform energy-work when the time could be spent in more beneficial meditational practices. For this reason, aside from energy-work, one has also to work upon spiritualizing one’s character–getting to the root of the problem, so to speak. Almost all religions teaches this aspect of mysticism–a moral standard is set for us to follow. However, sometimes we find it difficult to live up to the standard laid out for us. Sometimes we may consciously know a thing to be right, but subconsciously we are impelled to think, feel or do the opposite. We experience an inner conflict. Metaphysics offer certain methods to overcoming this conflict, and to restructure the subconscious mind with positive energy patterns.

CONCLUSION

It is regrettable that this work could not be presented in a more perfect manner, and that it remains much to be desired. What we have written in this paper merely represents the tip of the iceberg. There is much more to be taken into consideration than what we have addressed in this paper. The Ancient Wisdom is a storehouse of metaphysical knowledge and we advise the interested reader in mystical matters to delve into its study. Certain aspects and knowledge concerning the whole immaterial part of man, as well as the destiny of the Soul goes way beyond the understanding and reach of conventional science and psychics. Nevertheless, There are many more things that could be said about the Soul, not only from the metaphysical point of view, but also from the anthropological, psychological, philosophical, and religious perspective. It is for this reason that we appeal to the reader to do some personal research and acquire the necessary information that would lead to a greater understanding of the Soul–not solely in an intellectual way, but also experientially in a mystical manner through spiritual cultivation. In the early stages of this paper we spelled the word Soul with a small first capital-letter; now we end this work using an upper-case. After studying this paper the reason should be obvious. One last advice: Know Thyself!

Copyright © 2006 Luxamore

“Today is a very important day. It is the birthday of a dear relative of mine,” stated Reverend Pat Loughan a minister of the Metaphysical Chapel of South Florida. Reverend Pat was a medium in attendance at the very first S?ce or sitting circle I had ever introduced at this Metaphysical Chapel.

As I sat in my chair, I shifted a little nervously. I wondered if I would be able to address this “birthday” with any accuracy. For me validating information appeared when spirit wanted to present it, not because I insisted it be provided.

Finally it was Reverend Pat’s turn to be the sitter. “Sitter” is a term describing the person receiving the services of a medium. I gently ran my hand over a rough outline of the human form I had sketched, seeking any sort of energy emanations.

This is a technique used by mediums to explicitly identify deceased loved ones who want to come through for a sitter.

As soon as I did this, my hand was attracted to the area which identifies her maternal grandparents. There was so much energy at this location, my hand uncomfortably popped about. As I did this, I heard the words “maternal grandmother” whispered in my ear. I echoed them aloud.

Rev. Pat could not contain herself. She smiled and said excitedly, “Yes! Today is the birthday of my grandmother!”

I continued with a visual description. “I see her with short, soft wavy white hair. She is wearing a dress with a ‘V’ neck, a white background and blue flowers on it and an apron. I get the impression she liked to bake.”

“Yes, my grandmother did love to bake, and she did have a dress similar to that. Her apron was a signature piece of clothing for her! ” The rest of the description was confirmed.

Later Rev. Pat brought in a woman for me which was an exact description of my mother! And Kevin Lee brought in a man who was an exact description of my father! I was delighted!

A guest at the event proved how some souls are more assessable than others to come through to meet us.

I scanned her aura and found a deceased uncle on her mother’s side of the family. As well, her deceased father was presenting himself to me. I tried to bring in her father, since she did not remember her uncle was deceased at first. Perhaps it had slipped her mind, because he was an uncle through marriage.

“The first thing I get is that your father has been gone for some time.” She affirmed this was true. The energy coming from him was very weak.

“I am being shown a very broad and wide midsection of a man wearing a blue shirt tucked into blue jeans. I am hearing he was a blue collar type of worker. I hear he had a heart problem.” Our sitter said her father was not heavy, nor was he blue collar. I would get one thing correct about her father, and then the next three to four things were disconfirmed. Finally she vaguely alluded to the fact this might have been her uncle and not her father, but we were still quite confused.

Rev. Pat continued as a medium describing a man who was quite similar and identifying him as the sitter’s uncle. Our sitter agreed this was her uncle. Apparently her uncle was overshadowing the transmission of her father. The stronger energy wins out all the time.

Our sitter explained, her uncle had died about five months before. She had visited him while he was sick in the hospital, before he departed earth. Her uncle obviously had a stronger tie to her than she realized, perhaps since he was more recently deceased than her father.

When you are working with spirit it is important to be flexible, because the spirits on the other side have their agenda too. Certain spirits will want to come in and certain ones will either not want to come, or are simply not energetically matched to the medium. In other words, “You can’t always get what you want!”

S?ces are a good way to:

1. Assess the level and quality of the medium for any future session you might want to schedule with him or her.
2. See if the medium leading the circle is energetically matched to bring in your deceased loved one.
3. Find evidence of the continuity of life.
4. Receive healing over the loss of a loved one.

S?ces are certainly real if they are conducted by ethical and legitimate mediums.

Mention the word “metaphysical” around a Christian fundamentalist and you will be met with a suspicious glare. That kind of talk is not found in the bible. It is modern, it is science, it is secular, it is witchcraft, it is New Age and it is a threat. I ask you however, what part of the bible is not metaphysical?

The term “metaphysical” simply refers to something that is outside the presumed limitations of physical reality. I never know how much of the bible to take literally but I do know that walking on water, rising from the dead, feeding thousands with one fish, virgin birthing, escaping bodily destruction from fire, making the blind man see, plopping down instant human beings and turning water into wine definitely pushes the boundaries of our perceived reality. I would call these activities metaphysical.

Notice that I said “perceived” reality. It is what we decide based on what appears to be. Research has recently shown us that particles and energy can be interchangeable because they are really forms of the same essence. In other words, thought energy is transmitted by actual little electric ions. The higher we are tuned to spirit vibrations, the quicker our intention gets across and in so doing it bypasses heavier, slower methods of moving these ions around. So there really is a scientific explanation for many of the miracles we find in the bible.

Do you see what this discovery means? It reconciles science and religion which have vehemently opposed each other since the beginning of time. It explains material things in spirit terms and spiritual things in material terms. I guess I call it metaphysical Christianity.

Within this understanding we are recognizing an energetic force and we are attributing good things to it such as kindness and love and healing and beauty. This force can be broken down into a comprehension of tiny electric ions which are moving in a life enhancing direction. We are at liberty to hop on at any point of the belief spectrum, but no matter where we choose to identify ourselves, there is still a reality-based explanation for our conviction.

Fundamentalists hook up to their viewpoint by way of intense, non-intellectual emotion. That’s fine, ideas can be feelings and don’t have to have words. Metaphysicists hook up to theirs by way of scientific explanation. That’s fine too, because actually ideas and feelings are two vehicles which lead to the same understanding. Both lead to the experience of faith.

Energy and particles. Interchangeable substances. In fact, we could even do away with the word metaphysical because the phenomenon we are referring to is actually all physical. Or is it that that everything begins and ends in the spirit, so the manifestation is really just a byproduct of that great mystical power? Mystical? That word is not in the bible either, but so what? We have merged the two populations of science and religion and so we have made the world into a more integrated and harmonious place.

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