Did this picture surprise you? It surprised me. Only…why? If you were to dissect a unicorn, what would you expect to see inside?
I so often see people trashing religion, spirituality and myth as nonsense. Usually the response they get from the opposite side of the fence is a kind of smiling, even sad, shake of the head and the words “you just don’t get it.” Having lived on both sides of this conversation, this former atheist can attest to the truth of this. I see here two separate but equal worldviews, logical mind and mythical mind. (Very roughly equivalent to popular left brain/right brain theories. Apologies to my cringing neuroscientist friends.) Usually one dominates; rarely do they function seamlessly together.
Attempts to bridge the two get ugly. On one hand, you have mythical mind judging its experience by the standards of science and logic. The desire of New Agers to be taken seriously by the scientific community, often accompanied by elaborate and painful discussions of quantum physics, is based on the assumption that for their experience to be true, it must be logical. They misunderstand the role and function of science. The fact of the matter is that science is slow. It is supposed to be. It is careful and precise, trusting that over time truth will emerge. At any given point in time, right now even, we think we understand a lot of things. However, many of these will be reinterpreted later, even proven wrong. The data accumulates, we interpret, we have working theories, and these get trickled down into the common culture. Right now the New Agers and religious folk are combating an outmoded mechanical view of the universe. And rightfully so…we know this is out of date. The problem is, we don’t yet know how. On a tangible day to day level, we do not understand the full implications of quantum physics. We won’t, science won’t, for a very long time. Refusing to wait for the solid research results in misguided attempts to explain spiritual experience with abused scientific lingo…also known as pseudoscience.
Why try to hijack and misuse scientific terms to explain things that are simply not (yet) researched, not proven, not scientific at all? Because for many New Agers, science is still their god. Deep down, they still feel that only science and logical thinking can grant validity. If they truly valued mythical mind and spiritual experience, they would judge it by its own standards instead of making it into something it is not. Please, leave the discussions of quantum physics to physicists. There’s no need to devalue your experience just because they haven’t finished their research yet.
Don’t assume because the unicorn isn’t made of flesh and blood that it does not exist. And don’t get huffy when researchers point out that there is no research to support the existence of unicorn intestines.
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I will continue this discussion in future posts. I think it is very important to understand the erroneous thinking that can result from unskillful attempts to synthesize these two worldviews. Next I will address the hidden misuse of mythical thinking by atheists. Fun!
In the meantime, be sure to read the interesting conversation taking place in the comments.
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Mysterious Artemis 