Scientific
Proof of the Existence of God Will Soon Be Announced by the
White House!
Chapter 11: Beyond Doubt
True Religion Is a Higher Cultural
Motive Than Conventional Science
Conventional or traditional modern science is an
expression of two primary presumptions. On the one hand,
science is a method of enquiry, reflecting the analytical,
“left-brained,” extroverted tendency toward participation in
elemental or sense-bound events. On the other hand-and as a
consequence of the extroverted analytical disposition of its
enquiry-modern science has become dogma or primary cultural
doctrine. And that dogmatic and doctrinal presumption is
utterly “materialistic.”
“Science” propagates a great and negatively persuasive
popular conception. It is the concept of “matter,” which I
have criticized in these essays. Scientific materialism is
the dominant cultural or social, political, and
technological motive of the present human epoch, and the
trend of its propaganda represents the principal
anti-religious or anti-spiritual motive of recent
history.
Throughout this book, I have criticized that aspect of
science which represents the materialistic trend in
psychology and philosophy, whereas I have also made a
generally positive assessment of the creative possibilities
and discoveries of the rigorous intellectual method upon
which science is founded. In the present essay, I am
disposed to put true science (or the method that is science)
into cultural perspective relative to the total structure of
human consciousness.
Materialistic and propagandistic scientism represents,
for the most part, a degenerative adolescent influence in
contemporary society. That role of science is expressed via
exploitative technologies and all the subhuman power
politics of mass society. In comparison, false or
exclusively exoteric traditional religion is associated with
childish (or pre-adolescent) historical cultism. The
dominant historical cults (or “great religions”) serve to
maintain a level of “order” in a subhuman mass society, but
they demonstrate very little commitment to the universal
esotericism of Transcendental Wisdom, and, indeed, their
role is generally to suppress the open communication of such
Wisdom (and its Adepts) in the world.
In the scheme of popular or subhuman society, adolescent
scientism appears to be a motive superior to the relative
childishness of myth-laden exoteric religious cultism – and
so science has effectively dominated and nearly suppressed
the religious consciousness of modern Man. However, in the
scheme of a truly human social and cultural order, true
science is not an adolescent motive or influence, and true
religion is not a comparatively childish adventure.
False or childish religion is a species of magical
mentality. It is associated with acts of willful
hopefulness, in which desires for experiential consolation
or change are formed into verbal and emotional “prayers” to
the presumably real but invisible and mind-reading “God of
Nature.” Popular scientism is a cultural development that
seeks to replace the magical processes of childish religion
with technologies that actually fulfill the experiential
desires of mankind. As such, science is a “method” for the
answering of childish prayers. But such scientism is itself
no closer to human maturity than the clever adolescent who
offers secret pleasures to little children.
When science (or analytical enquiry) is extended as
technology it duplicates (and, in terms of practical
delivery, exceeds) the magical childishness of conventional
religion. As such, science duplicates the natural human
developmental pattern of growth from mere desire to willful
fulfillment. Popular scientism or technology represents the
triumph of the analytical intellect, expressed and
implemented via the will (or the power of practical
intention). If we view science in negative terms (as a
propagandizer of materialistic philosophy and psychology),
then we must view it as an essentially adolescent social and
cultural motivation. However, if we can understand and make
use of science as a truly human method and enterprise, then
we can see that it simply represents the mentality or
cultural adaptation of the third stage of human
development.
The third stage of human life (which I have described
within the context of seven fundamental stages) represents
the development of the analytical mind and the will. True
science is a cultural development of the third stage of
human life, and, as such, it is superior and senior to the
childish and subhuman magical mentality of false or
conventional religious cultism.
However, true religion is not a development of the
subhuman and magical egoic mentality. True religion is an
expansion beyond the third stage of life, beyond the stage
wherein we adapt to the analytical and broader understanding
of the true intellect and to the self-integrating,
self-expanding, and desire-implementing power of the will.
True religion, or true and mature religious practice,
actually begins in the fourth stage of human
development.
In the fourth stage development of human life, the will
is adapted to aspiration, or intuitive self-transcendence.
True religion expresses the self-transcending motive, rather
than the childish and adolescent motives toward
unenlightened self-fulfillment. Therefore, true religion is
a profound exercise of ecstatic surrender of the body-mind
to the Living Principle or “Spirit” in which “matter” (or
all psycho-physical events) is arising.
Seen as such, true religion is a superior or senior
motive to true science, although such true religion is not
antagonistic to true science and its benign technologies. In
a truly human culture, the method and the extended
enterprises of science (including technology and politics)
are adapted to cooperative participation with the higher,
universal, and profound esotericism of Transcendental Wisdom
Religion. Only true, universal, and esoteric religion is of
ultimate and human cultural value, and only such true
religion can provide the philosophical, psychological, and
cultural basis for the advancement of Man or mankind beyond
the level of our present impasse.
Scientific Proof – Table of
Contents
|