Chapter 4: The Culture of Eternal Life Method and Ritual Both religion and science are forms of popular or
conventional knowledge, except where each leads beyond its
own presumptions into the esoteric and transcendental realms
of Truth. Religion makes profound use of the method of ritual, or
the repetition of what has been previously found to be
auspicious and revealing. But science makes equally profound use of the ritual of
method, which is also the repetition of what has previously
been found to be auspicious and revealing. The method of religion is to repeat prescribed external
or internal rituals of action and attention, until there is
a deep psychic encounter with the unknown. The ritual of science is to repeat prescribed external or
internal methods of action and attention, until there is a
conscious mental encounter with the unknown. Therefore, both religion and science pursue the
experiential knowledge of the unknown. Religious ritual is the science of the right hemisphere
of the human brain (or the holistic faculty of
intuition). Scientific method is the religion of the left hemisphere
of the human brain (or the analytical faculty of
comprehension). Both religion and science are motivated by the absence of
perfect knowledge. Both religion and science are founded upon the urge to
transcend the present limitations of the human
body-mind. Religion cannot do what science is intended to do,
because religion is not fundamentally oriented toward the
mental analysis of the world of manifest phenomena. Science cannot do what religion is intended to do,
because science is not fundamentally oriented toward psychic
unity with the world of manifest phenomena. Therefore, a complete or truly human culture would be
both religious and scientific in the highest and most
universal sense of each discipline. And the self-transcendence of Man is also beyond the
conventional methods and rituals of both religion and
science, even as both hemispheres of the brain must be
transcended if the mind is to be transparent to the Radiant
Reality in which the world of manifest phenomena is
floating.
Scientific Proof – Table of
Contents