Mystics and Scientists 2018 – Eastern and Western Perspectives on Science and Spirit

Dialectical ‘both-and’ thinking is key to resolving paradox and integrating ideas in ways that avoid reduction of one idea to the other. In this talk, the history of such thinking in the West and East will be explored, including the Chinese yin-yang model, Hegel’s dialectical reasoning, Jung’s exploration of opposites within alchemy and the psyche, Erikson’s dialectics of psychological development, dialectical behaviour therapy, and both-and thinking in quantum physics. A dialectical model of the relationship between science and spirituality will be discussed.

Theoretical physicist Wolfgang Pauli discovered through his dreams and his active imagination ‘The Piano Lesson’ a dimension beyond quantum physics and depth psychology connected with love and synchronicity. A Chinese lady offered him in the Piano Lesson a ring that would enable to stay in contact with that dimension. Inside the ring there was an energy present, personified as an inner teacher and turned from lead into gold. The ring is known in mathematics as the complex unit circle and in physics as the heart of quantum physics. It is the ring i where i stands for the imaginary unit. The energy inside the ring represents a consciousness still unknown either to quantum physics or depth psychology, the sacred consciousness of the inner Christ.

This talk is on the theme of Rupert Sheldrake’s recent book, Ways to Go Beyond, in which he looks at seven spiritual practices […]