Quest Magazine

Nature Loves to Hide: Quantum Physics and Reality, a Western Perspective

By Shimon Malin
New York: Oxford University Press, 2001. Hardback, xvi + 288 pages.

Science has always been an integral part of the Theosophical Society. It is part of the Second Object and finds support in the Mahatmas Letters: "Modern science is our best ally." A quick perusal of our past literature and lectures shows that, as a Society, we have always shown an interest in modern science.

In 1975 Fritjof Capra changed the public face of panicle physics by publishing a perennial best seller entitled The Tao of Physics. On November 5, 1977, the Society brought Capra to its national center, "Olcott," for a weekend seminar. That was also the beginning of the Theosophical Research. Institute (TRI), which continued for a time.

What made Capra's book so compelling was his pointing out the parallels between Eastern mystical thought and some of the new concepts in quantum and relativity theory. Eventually, he concludes that particle physics and Eastern mysticism converged. After Capra's book, a number of others extended the subject, one of the better ones being Gary Zukav's work, The Dancing Wu Li Masters.

Once the initial excitement of Capra's book had passed, the scientific community, with a collective yawn, seemed to revert to business as usual and moved on to other interesting subjects like black holes and string theory. As coeditor of the TRI Journal, I found this somewhat frustrating since we were unable to convince orthodox scientist to continue this line of study.

The only other book that generated some excitement was Amit Goswani’s work, The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World. It had a provocative tide but was unconvincing to most of my scientific friends who read it. The Theosophical Society has published another of Goswani's books, The Visionary Window: A Quantum Physicist’s Guide to Enlightenment. Here the tide presents an even bigger challenge, and I'm afraid the scientific community has still avoided this whole area.

Now comes Shimon Malin's new book, which just may have a chance of being read and taken seriously in the orthodox scientific community. Why is this? The book is more difficult- to read than those mentioned above. It makes you think, even in its lighter passages. It covers a wide range of authors, including Plato, Plotinus, Bohr, Schrodinger, Whitehead, and Heisenberg. And yet there is something about this book that most scientists will accept. After some thought, I have decided I know what that is.

While editor of the TRI Journal, I found that many orthodox scientists did not like to involve themselves with the vocabulary of the East". As soon as words like "karma," "Oneness," "Vishnu," and so on entered the discourse, interest waned. What did Malin do to avoid this? Look at his subtitle- his book is a "Western Perspective." He has used Western vocabulary, and his explanations are clear and simple, even though the topics are quite difficult. The few places he felt the need to include mathematical arguments, he has relegated them to appendices. Even there, they are presented with humor and clarity.

I noticed on the book's jacket that Ravi Ravindra had given a positive review of its content and message. Since Ravindra was the Professor and Chair of Comparative Religion, Professor of International Development Studies, and Adjunct Professor of Physics at Dalhousie University, he has the credentials to evaluate the hook. However, Ravindra is also a long-time and influential member of the Theosophical Society. He has given many talks and conducted many workshops for the Society. I was not surprised when I got to page 227 to find Malin mentioning his "good friend from Nova Scotia, the physicist and philosopher, Ravi Ravindra."

Malin's book repeats much of the same material that Capra and Zukav covered, but does so without Eastern vocabulary and hence the need for a reader unfamiliar with Eastern religions to learn a new background. Instead, Malin relies solely on philosophers and scientists of the West to convey his arguments. Whenever he needs to slip into the subjective, he uses two fictional characters, Peter and Julie, to convey his message. In some ways they are the right brain and left brain of text.

An important part of Malin's effort is to introduce what he calls the Subject of Cognizance. Without this, we have a dead image of a living universe. Simply put, "all scientific evidence is based on human experiences; the human mind is the ultimate measuring apparatus. Yet the nature of the Subject of Cognizance is never raised as a scientific issue."

-RALPH H. HANNON

January/February 2003

The Esoteric Origins of The American Renaissance

By Arthur Versluis
New York; Oxford University Press, 2001. Hardback, vi + 234 pages.

Arthur Versluis considers Western esotericism the most important new field of religious and interdisciplinary scholarship. In this groundbreaking work, he is the first to study the presence of Western esotericism in North America and its influences on the major writers of the nineteenth-century American Renaissance.

The term "Western esotericism'' includes herbalism, astrology, folk magic, and the several forms of divination that seventeenth-and eighteenth-century European colonists brought with them to help discern their uncertain future in a new world. English and German settlers, especially, integrated practical esotericism into their daily lives. By the time of the nineteenth century, these esoteric currents were disappearing. The rise of the sciences, technology, and industrialization in the early nineteenth century presented a cosmology that separated and objectified, whereas the esoteric traditions worked with the deeper connections between "humanity, nature, and the divine."

The elimination of esotericism from American daily life, however, was not complete. Our of sight did not" mean our of mind. Indeed, the writers of the American Renaissance were responsible for "the transference of esoteric traditions from daily life into literary consciousness." In this volume, Versluis analyzes esoteric themes in the work of writers like Poe, Hawthorne, Melville, Alcott, Emerson, Fuller, Whitman, and Dickinson-writers who limited their contact with esoterica to the available literature, but did not practice.

Versluis suggests several reasons why previous studies have almost completely ignored the influence of esotericism on these writers. First, academia assesses esotericism as superstition. Second, the study of esoteric traditions is transdisciplinary, cutting across many disciplines, with ramifications beyond any single one, making it difficult to find a home in academia. Third, critics claimed that nineteenth-century American literature belonged on a level with Shakespeare, though discounting the bard's own references to magic and esoterica. In the wilderness of unexamined primary sources, Versluis searches for specific esoteric connections between a given writer and the writer’s works. His analysis and scholarship are as fascinating as a treasure hunt.

Versluis closes with two interesting suggestions. First, that the work of these writers with esoterica influenced them to adopt an open tolerance for truth in every tradition. This led to the Transcendentalist thesis that a universal human religion is inherent in all the world religions. Second, their work probably prepared the way for the later emergence of semisecret lodges in American cities and the practice of astrology and alchemy from the last century until today.

-DAVID R. BISHOP

January/February 2003

Jung: A Journey of Transformation

By Vivianne Crowley
Wheaton, IL: Theosophical Publishing House, Quest, 1999. Hardcover, 160 pages

Carl Gustav Jung emphasized a crucial psychotherapeutic process he called transformation. "One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light," Jung insisted, "but by making the darkness conscious." His career penetrated the shadows of the unconscious mind and illuminated everyday experience. His work encourages genuine spirituality, increases an appreciation of the world's mythologies, and explains how metaphors and dreams provide healing. Crowley's book assists readers in comprehending Jung's principal concepts and techniques. The author, a licensed psychologist trained and practicing in the Jungian tradition, organizes Jung's theories systematically and employs colorful charts that simplify without distorting his central concepts. This book is especially suited as an introduction to Jung and his philosophy.

-DANIEL ROSS CHANDLER

January/February 2003

Alchemical Psychology: Old Recipes for Living in a New World

By Thom F. Cavalii
New York: Jeremy R. Tarcher/Putnam, 2002. Paperback, 365 pages.

Thom Cavalli's new book provides a very readable introduction for the nonspecialist to the Jungian approach to alchemy- sometimes called the Great Work. Here, alchemy is the quest for the transformation of the "lead" of our unconscious lives into the "gold" of greater consciousness and psychological integration. The book is written in an entertaining style and includes helpful chart's and pictures; with plenty of space, for notes. The attractive presentation is unfortunately marred by a number of small errors - for example, Albertus Magnus has become Albertus Magus, and Wittgenstein might be surprised to find himself listed as a physicist.

In a welcome move, Cavalli acknowledges that alchemy also has legitimate physical laboratory applications and higher spiritual aspects, but that explicitly psychological readings of the Work only made their appearance in the last hundred years. However, I was disappointed that he did not give more than a passing nod to nonpsychological approaches to alchemy, leaving his psychotherapeutic approach to stand alone, at least as far as this book is concerned.

As Cavalli himself states, the psyche is only one level of our being. One of the strengths of the alchemical tradition is its ability to describe and catalyze transformation on all levels-elemental, physical, psychological, and spiritual. Cavalli's readers might want to broaden their search by investigating laboratory alchemy (e.g., the courses written by Jean Dubois for the Philosophers of Nature), alchemical magic (e.g., David Goddard, The Tower of Alchemy; Gareth Knight, Experience of the Inner Worlds and The Secret Tradition in Arthurian Legend), and spiritual alchemy (e.g., the sacramental alchemy of Paul Blighton, The Philosophy of Sacramental Initiation and The Book of Alchemy).

Cavalli's practical exercises and clear language will insure that his book is a valuable help to seekers. Nonetheless, we know our soul only in living experience and in union with our body and our spirit, and the wise operator will not neglect these aspects of being in the alchemical Work. After all, "what is below is like that which is above, and what is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracle of the one thing."

--JOHN PLUMMER

March/April 2003