The Use of Language and the Importance of Sources

Science is now transcending the materialist philosophy, and pointing toward a new sense of a living world. The cosmos is no longer like a machine running down; it is more like a developing organism with an inherent memory, and so is our planet, Gaia. The old idea of determinism has given way to indeterminism, chaos and complexity. The laws of nature may be more like habits. Minds may extend far beyond brains. Memories may not be stored as traces in our brains, and may not be wiped out at death. Mental causation may work from the future towards the past, while energetic causation works from the past towards the future. New experimental research points to the reality of our mental connections to the world around us. These new paradigm shifts in the sciences shed a new light on spiritual practices like pilgrimage, ritual, prayer and the survival of bodily death. In this workshop we will explore some of these many implications.