A Science of the Spiritual

At the conventional level, thus in common public discourse, a rather deep abyss separates the spiritual and the so-called scientific. It is an either-or situation. Science represents a materialistic monism (although not all scientists do). The spiritual are presumed to believe in one or more supernatural beings who stand above visible reality in a governing, law-giving, rewarding and punishing relationship. The reason for this is that, viewed from a distance, most highly developed religions project a narrative in the form of ruler-and-subject—easily understood by human societies in which that pattern is always present.

This description, to be sure, is a gross simplification—but that’s what animates public discourse. It ignores the fact that science has reached levels, certainly in physics and to a lesser extent in neuroscience, where hard materialism is ever less sustainable. It also ignores the fact that higher religions have arisen transcending the primitive ruler-subject model. To be sure, the higher faiths still rest on primitive foundations as a consequence of historical origins, thus Christianity on Judaism. At the same time the earlier religions, influenced by higher religions, have also, at their leading edges, become much more spiritualized. Every religion now has a mystical level—an elite expression.

Also present, in very tentative form, is a genuine science of the spiritual. My hope is that the likely brutal transition to a post-fossil-age will not plunge us back to primitivity. If we manage that transition well, the science of the spiritual will continue to grow. If not, it will sink out of view as harshly doctrinaire religious management of masses once more arises. Alchemy is an example of such a science—hidden and submerged by the collapse of the Roman Age.

By a “science of the spiritual” I mean a vastly enlarged scientific venture to understand reality, and particularly spiritual reality, free of the strictures of dogmatically managed Revelation—thus authoritarian religion. Revelation itself, to be sure, would be a central concern of this new science, viewing it as human experience of the transcending regions but, to be sure, interpreted by the very people who have had them—and then socialized yet more, for purposes of human governance, by others.

This science, so far is it already exists, has made me wonder more and more if perhaps human encounters with the Beyond might not be over-stated by those who have experienced them—and this for reasons that are mutually reinforcing. One is that their expectations are formed by religious ideas—thus occurring in the context of religious practices. The other is that the actual “heavenly” environment is both more natural to humans and yet also quite unfamiliar, therefore it is overly stimulating. Good evidence for this comes from Swedenborg’s accounts; his long exposure to that world had made him familiar with it. He also saw enough to see the vast complexities of reality beyond the border. At the same time, it may well be that being anchored in a body is not very helpful for understanding that world, that much learning is ahead for us before we’re fully acclimatized there, that (per Swedenborg and others, e.g., Robert Monroe) low adaptations are available and also common there; and, finally, concerning that last point, that spending some time in this our own more constricted “world of boxes,” to cite a phrase from Carl Jung’s account of returning from a near death experience, may benefit those of us who have lived a life here attentively. It may enable us to aim higher when we actually get there.

A science of the spiritual, given the abyss that separates science and religion today, will tend to appeal to neither the spiritual nor to the scientific camps. But there is always a third way.