‘Written with both clarity and insight, this is a rare and enriching book, which integrates the wisdom of many spiritual traditions. Whilst illuminating the need now more than ever before to explore interspirituality, our universal commonality and deeper spiritual nature, it shows the way forward for embracing the Whole.’
~ Eileen Davies
Introduction to Realms of Wondrous Gifts by Santoshan (Stephen Wollaston)
There was a time when writing a book of this kind would have been considered as being out of touch with current thinking by the scientifically minded – although it is still sadly the case that there are many who insist on hanging onto a split between spirituality and science. The hypothesis put forward by James Frazer in The Golden Bough, published over a hundred years ago, was that humans have evolved from mythical indigenous beliefs in magic and in many spirits interrelated with nature and tribal communities who respected the Earth’s biodiversity, to formalised religions influencing the structures of the great civilisations of history, to a scientific age and way of relating to life and the Universe that has no need for the beliefs and practices of the previous two stages.
For some, Frazer’s path to cold scientific and dualistic logic holds the final view, and for many years mechanistic science was thought to have proven once and for all that life was nothing mysterious and promoted ideas about nature needing to be controlled, dominated and paid little respect. A spirit world or a sacred Earth to be celebrated, revered, cherished and lived in harmony with, or a Cosmos with spiritual implications and purpose, were pushed aside in favour of theories about life and the planets being nothing more than regulated machines with no creative mind permeating and underlying them, and no room for such things as psychic, shamanistic and mediumistic phenomena, the miraculous, or ideas about the sacredness of existence.
Yet this is not the end of the story. For we currently live in exciting times, where some physicists and scientific philosophers such as Joel Primack and Nancy Ellen Abrams are discovering that humans hold a special place in a living Universe that is not without significance. Some contemporary scientists are validating psychic phenomena and transcendent and spiritual realms of experience as fact and have once again joined the search to discover what they imply and how we can best understand and awaken to diverse powers related to life – seeking how to responsibly manifest different abilities and live in harmony with the realms of nature and spirituality with which they connect.
Similar to Carl Jung’s theory about the Collective Unconscious, the studies and theory of the Cambridge biologist Rupert Sheldrake into Morphogenetic Fields and Resonance (a biological field permeating nature that contains information to shape the exact form of living things as well as behaviour) point to an interconnected creative and psychic mind of the world and all life. In John David Ebert’s Twilight of the Clockwork Gods he mentions how doctors such as Richard Gerber, Larry Dossey and Deepak Chopra are taking ancient microcosomologies seriously, as well as Yogic beliefs about kundalini and pranic energy. A spirit world, a sacred Earth, telepathy, angels, reincarnation and the existence of the soul are all areas for earnest discussion for various respected contemporary scientists and doctors.
Ebert mentions how the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research Program have meticulously documented the reality of paranormal phenomena such as telepathy, psychokinesis and remote viewing. In the DVD version of the excellent What the Bleep do We Know? (extended English version) Dr Dean Radin, a senior scientist at the Institute of Noetic Sciences, mentions how it is no longer a case of asking whether scientists believe in psychic abilities or not as many of them do. Contemporary terms such as ‘precognitive events’ are now being employed by them to investigate an array of spiritual, mediumistic and psychic phenomena and wisdom.
With this in mind, let us look at some traditional myths, accounts and documented comments and experiences of various yogis, mystics, seers and prophets and their teachings about them and search for a central core that might unite them. But before we do this, I feel it is wise to reflect on some areas that connect with the subject, which are explored in the first chapter.
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