Scientists mostly fall into the materialist-reductionist camp quick to dispel or write off anything ‘new age’, mystical or magical. For these folk, consciousness is created by the brain somehow – exactly how is unknown however. As science is moved forward by the publishing and peer review process, we tend to see a punctuated evolution of ideas that are published, scrutinized and then replaced. Scientists mostly live in their own little world conversing with their peers in their ivory towers. Periodically, the contents of their world explode into ours as the media picks up on some published research that perhaps has some impact on the masses. I am a trained scientist so I think I have every right to make these observations.
Of course, quantum physics has caused much consternation in the science camp as what has been discovered at the quantum level is so crazy, so weird that its difficult to believe and the implications are quite mind blowing. It has led some quantum physicists and other scientists to make some quite extraordinary statements;
“The cosmos is within us. We are made of star-stuff. We are a way for the universe to know itself.” Carl Sagan
“All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. This mind is the matrix of all matter.” Max Planck
[I can’t accept quantum mechanics because] “I like to think the moon is there even if I am not looking at it.” Albert Einstein
“Observations not only disturb what is to be measured, they produce it.” Pascual Jordan
But here is the funny thing. None of this is any way shape or form NEW. Nope. Magicians and mystics have known this for millenia. They came to these same conclusions via meditation and personal insight. Science and scientists must be shaken to the core to know (if they have looked at all) that what they think is new science and discover has in fact, been known since ancient Egyptian times and probably millenia before that. In recent years, people like Paul Foster Case published material that wouldn’t look out of place in quantum physics but to be truthful, he was simply echoing a much more ancient source of knowledge.
The fact is that there is no real dichotomy between science and the occult. If a dichotomy exists then it exists only in the minds of those materialist-reductionists who cannot accept that they were not first and still grasp for the answers. Perhaps they should read some occult books in search of some inspiration?
It was this picture of science and occult thought moving steadily closer and closer together that prompted me to write The Last Observer. The idea that magic and science agree in many respects I thought a compelling avenue for exploration in the form of a novel. The story examines reality and who creates it, it examines polarity and its role in creating reality and it looks from a different perspective at the battle lines between science and the occult…..
It is a theme that fascinates me and I am most certainly not done with it yet.