Quest Magazine

A Sense of the Cosmos: Scientific Knowledge and Spiritual Truth

By Jacob Needleman
Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish Books Publishing, 2003. Paperback, 178 pages.

Explorations of the relationship between science and religion/spirituality generally focus on the pressing need to reconcile these two great domains. The aim of Jacob Needleman's A Sense of the Cosmos, originally published in 1975 and now reissued, is very different though equally important: It probes our attitudes toward both science and ourselves.

Few can be better qualified for such probing than Jacob Needleman, distinguished philosopher, teacher, widely published author and editor (and the general editor of two outstanding metaphysical/philosophical series), and sought-after consultant in many fields including psychology, education, medical ethics, philanthropy, and business.

In the preface to the present edition, Needleman states: "We cannot know, so the great spiritual traditions teach, with only one part of the human intelligence." The greatness of modern science is rooted in its courageous effort of reliance on what it considered the pure intellect as it was joined to and supported by a rediscovered respect for the bodily senses, .. as the source of knowledge. But in this revolutionary development ... what was forgotten is that the heart, the power of profound feeling, is absolutely necessary in order both to be good and to see the good." The ultimate question we must deeply ponder is the "Being of beings." If this sounds too abstract, simply "step outside one starry night

By Jeffrey Mishlove
Charlottesvllle, VA: Hampton Roads, 2000. Paperback, xx + 283 pages.

Jeffrey Mishlove is a parapsychologist, author of the classic work, Roots of Consciousness (1975) and of Psi Development Systems (1983) and, among other things, the gifted host of Thinking Allowed, the acclaimed public television interview series on new thought and consciousness (in production since 1986). In this book he chronicles and meticulously documents an engrossing story of a powerfully talented psychic, Ted Owens, who called himself "The PK Man" (PK standing for psychokinesis), whose life and career Mishlove personally studied for some years until Owens's death in 1987. Owens's activities were also carefully followed at different times by other scientific researchers (a urologist, a clinical psychologist, an astronomer, and several noted physicists) and by several journalists. Mishlove cites their independent testimony.

Owens predicted or caused the occurrence of a variety of spectacular events, including thunder and lightning, snowstorms, earthquakes, droughts and hot spells, drought-relieving or freezing rains, floods, tornados, power failures, volcanic eruptions, the technical failure of human machinery, strange turns in sporting events, and the summoning on command of UFOs into the field of vision of spectators. The question whether the human mind can exert a direct influence on distant physical systems with no known mediation has long been debated. But if this power does exist, its implications are, as Mishlove says, "staggering in every way-philosophically, scientifically, sociologically, spiritually, and most importantly, in terms of how we know and understand ourselves." Owens claimed that none of his demonstrations were the result alone of his own psychic abilities but always involved assistance from or commands of Space Beings or Space Intelligences-his SIs, as he called them. Mishlove asks, "Was Owens really in touch with extra dimensional beings existing in some hyperspace dimension ... or were they a delusion that Owens had built up in his mind in a desperate attempt at self-understanding?"

This story in fact raises many questions psychological, scientific, parapsychological, ethical, social, philosophical, and metaphysical. Mishlove's approach is interdisciplinary. To give just one example: the idea of hyperspace beings is, of course, totally unacceptable from the viewpoint of scientific materialism. But it is not inconsistent with insights of physics concerning hyperspace, as in superstring theory, nor with many biblical accounts, nor with metaphysical ideas of mystics of today and of the past, nor with some commonly held ideas of shamans.

Owens used his powers inappropriately, even very destructively, in some instances. Mishlove points out, however, that Owens lived and operated within a world that offered him little in the way of support or understanding, and that his efforts to use psychokinesis for human benefit were met with sarcasm and ridicule. "This is a situation faced today by thousands of talented intuitives, psychics, shamans, healers, and seers," he writes.

As here told, this story is a page-turner. Above all, it heightens one's perception that to be a human being is to "wield the dual powers of awareness and intention, every waking and dreaming moment." And it arouses a resolve to "practice mental hygiene" with regard to one's own "stream of consciousness."

-ANNA F. LEMKOW

January/February 2003

A Concise Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Religion

By Anthony C. Thiselton
Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2002. Softcover, viii + 344 pages.

Have you ever wondered who the main academic philosophers of religion are and what they say? This book is a good sampling. Different thinker's views about God and the human mind are laid out in short, clear, and authoritative encyclopedia-type articles. If you want to know just what Thomas Aquinas's famous five proofs of the existence of God were, or how modern existentialism interfaces with faith, this is the book to read. It is also a good source to look up basic terms like Belief, Metaphysics, Realism, Logic, and of course God, among others, to see what thinkers are thinking about them now.

This book is from the world of western university philosophy departments. It presents the intellectual stream central to that world, from the Greeks to the latest schools of analytic philosophy, together with name-theologians like Barth and Tillich. Eastern philosophies are presented fairly but less fully, while alternative strands of western thought, including Theosophy, are passed over. Contemporary British philosophies of religion are especially prominent, which is understandable since the author is canon theologian at two English cathedrals.

Personally, I found the discussion of Alvin Platinga, an American philosopher of religion who has taught at Calvin College and Notre Dame University, particularly intriguing. He has argued, in books like God and Other Minds, that while we cannot prove that anyone other than oneself is conscious-that person in the room with you, or with whom you live, could be a robot just programmed to act like a conscious being-it seems warranted to extrapolate from one's own consciousness to postulate consciousness in another similar being. In the same way, though we cannot prove there is a divine mind behind the universe, there are enough clues, from the mystery and orderliness of it all to our own consciousness, to warrant reasonable belief. This is similar to examples and arguments I have used in respect to theosophical ideas that matter and consciousness interact throughout the universe, from quantum phenomena through human beings to planets and galaxies and the Root of it all.

One could not expect everything in one handy, moderately-priced book, and there are other resources to fill in the lacunae. But like any good bit of philosophy it can get thought started, as it did mine. As a reference work in philosophy, or just as a good read if you enjoy exposure to stimulating philosophical ideas and the thinkers behind them, A Concise Encyclopedia of the Philosophy of Religion is highly recommended.

-ROBERT ELLWOOD

January/February 2004

Jonathan Edwards's Philosophy of History: The Reenchantment of the World in the Age of Enlightenment

By Avihu Zakai
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003. Hardcover, 348 pages.

Most people who attended high school in the United States remember Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) for his stunning, frightening sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," which is standard fare in American literature classes. It is regrettable that many dismiss Edwards on this basis and thus miss the depth and wonder of much of his other writing.

Avihu Zakai's book has a narrow focus on Edwards's philosophy of history. Even though he provides some introduction to Edwards's life and work, it is not the easiest place for a neophyte to begin. Those who are unfamiliar with Edwards would best turn to George Marsden's excellent new, biography Jonathan Edwards: A Life (Yale University Press, 2003).

For the Theosophical reader, Zakai's book will probably be most interesting for the parallel between Edwards's time and our own. Edwards lived in the era of the rationalist Enlightenment philosophers, who mechanized the universe and secularized history, squeezing out the presence of the Divine. While he was intimately familiar with the new philosophy, Edwards had experiential reasons why he could not accept it. As a seventeen year-old college student, he had a religious conversion, in which "the appearance of every thing was altered; there seemed to be, as it were, a calm, sweet cast, or the appearance of divine glory, in almost every thing." Once one's eyes have been opened, it is hard to shut them again.

Zakai demonstrates how Edwards labored against the intellectual trends of his day in an effort to reenchant the world with the presence of God. In his works on nature, he claimed "every atom in the universe is managed by Christ." If one sees Christ as the universal Logos, how many of us might agree? When considering history, Edwards gave preeminence not to human activity but to the movement of the Spirit, especially as displayed in periodic revivals. Do we not also try to discern spiritual cycles in outer history? Zakai points to the influence of Edwards's writings on American Protestant culture, where the revival continues to occupy a prominent place, although often in the hands of those less sophisticated than Edwards.

As women and men living in an age of scientific reductionism and philosophical nihilism, we are also striving to reenchant the world, to open our eyes and those of others to Spirit moving in nature and history. We would do well to attend to those who shared this struggle in other times.

-JOHN PLUMMER

July/August 2004