The Union of Science and Mysticism

by Walter Starcke

The union of science and mysticism is a marriage that is being made in heaven. Scientists are proving the singularity of all material existence, and when we equate spiritual singularity with the physical presence of humankind, the oneness of Spirit and matter will no longer be a fiction. The belief that either science or mysticism alone will be able to eliminate duality is destined to fail, but when we combine these two dimensions of the one reality a whole new way of life is revealed. Until then we are experiencing a crisis of perception.
Bruce Lipton does more to close the gap between the spiritual and material than anyone I’ve come across up until now. Sitting on the deck of his home in California last summer we talked about this current crisis of perception and how our beliefs directly affect every cell in our bodies. He would point out the scientific principle and I would add the metaphysical equivalent.
Positive faith is not just a spiritual virtue - it is a physical necessity! When we become consciously aware of the affect our attitudes have on our health and well being we will have closed the gap between our spirituality and our humanity. When we teach our children at an early age that whatever they focus their intentions on they create via their perceptions they won’t need others to tell them how to live. When that day comes being spiritual will be ordinary, not special.
Nationally, we are a country at war in a world of personal wars that are born of misconceptions. Our individual crisis of perception affects not only our daily lives, but the whole world we live in. A harmonious physical outcome brought on by a consciously positive approach to life is possible, thus we are responsible for the outcome.
Free will is no more or less than our choice of perceptions. From the moment we get out of bed in the morning, until we lay our heads on the pillow at night, our wills are the process that sets the wheels in motion. The way our wills operate is the way our minds move matter. Perceptions act to modify or veto actions that are initiated unconsciously, but our will is similar to the arc in a light bulb that connects the positive and negative poles creating the light. Free will is the spiritual arc that connects consciousness to form and action.
John Joe McFadden, a professor of molecular genetics, at the University of Surrey, England explained in his book, Quantum Evolution , “Neuronal activity may precede a conscious decision to act by three to four hundred milliseconds; but there is still a gap of two hundred milliseconds between the awareness of a conscious intention to act and the initiation of the motor impulse.” I believe it is in this motor-lag period that our perceptions have an influence on voluntary action. Free will is this two hundred-millisecond connecting arc (my word for the magic) that joins the Spirit to the flesh. As human beings, we are responsible for that arc, which is our free will, and the quality inherent in what we “will” is the “word that becomes flesh.” That is why our perceptions that create our intentions in life are so vitally important. Our perceptions quantify and qualify our intentions that through the will physically perform and direct our lives.
We live in what our current string theorists call parallel universes. The actions of our neurons exist simultaneously with non-physical consciousness or perceptions. Ordinarily, we cannot think two things at the same time, but because of our parallel existences and what Carl Jung called synchronicity, we can consciously experience separate levels that are not included in a single moment s thought. Free will based on our perceptions is that arc joining the parallel existences, uniting Spirit and matter, heaven and earth, or our perceptions and the forms they take.
We live, move, and exist in a sea of consciousness, an infinite ocean of levels of awareness manifesting as our individual perceptions. Without the realization that consciousness is operating behind all the situations and appearances that are taking place in our lives, it is impossible to close the gap between the visible and invisible and experience the spiritual condensate of mind, body, and spirit.
In every culture there is a concept of the existence of a creator or source of creation. In the West we call the creator God. In India they call it Brahma. Our quantum physicists have come up with a new name for it - consciousness. They have concluded that consciousness is the creator, and are substantiating their claim by proving that everything that exists is invisible consciousness appearing visibly in or as form. In other words everything we see are formed perceptions. Once we perceive ourselves as being the presence of divine or mystical consciousness, we will understand that we have within us the same power or source of creativity that we have attributed to God.
Recently, I received a letter asking me to define the word consciousness and how it related to perceptions in a simple enough way that an eight year old could understand. In attempting to do so I turned to Webster s New Twentieth Century Dictionary. It wasn’t any help, because it still offered a definition that was carried over from the Nineteenth century. It left out the experiential nature of consciousness and labeled it a noun meaning “Awareness, knowledge of what is happening.” Webster’s did hint at the affect our perceptions have on our lives by including the recently invented phrase, “consciousness-raising.” However, it continued by saying that consciousness-raising is a noun, meaning “The process of seeking to increase awareness of one s role in connection with problems of modern life.” In other words, changing one’s gross perceptions.
Without using the word “perception” but including its relevance, my answer to the eight-year-old was that “your consciousness is an invisible picture of who you are. It is made up of all that you think, feel, care about, all that you like or dislike. It includes all the things you remember, those you have forgotten, and those of which you have yet to become aware. Your consciousness (perceptions) is what causes you to make the decisions you make.”
Whether what appears to us as material reality actually exists or whether it is similar to the image projected onto the movie screen of our perceptions. Until now perceiving of life objectively has predominantly assumed top priority, while perceiving of life subjectively, symbolically, or spiritually has been of secondary importance. Once we accept or perceive the creative nature of consciousness, our priorities begin to shift.
Making war, dropping bombs on innocent people, using economic pressure to get results, or promoting acts of terrorism are examples of groups and nations perceiving of an objective approach as the solution to its problems. When the subjective approach becomes the primary perception the conditions - poverty, a lack of education, or limited opportunity - that lead to terrorism will be eliminated and there will be no more wars.
How often have you said to yourself, “I should have followed my first impression; it’s almost always right?” At those times you first perceived an intuitive reality, but then you let your mind, which was loaded with previous judgmental perceptions, take over. You may have talked yourself out of your gift of intuitive truth.
Our crisis of perception, and the effect that thought has on matter, is a classical example of how science is proving the existence of consciousness, or Spirit. In doing so, they have shown us that the mystics have been right when they have said that we are not living a life of time or space, but as Spirit, which knows no time, no distance, and no boundaries. The way in which our own consciousness appearing as our perceptions unfolds dictates the quality of our physical and human experience. When our scientists discover the nature of perceptions, they will realize that they have found what most people think God to be.