Behind the Lost Symbol: Woo-Woo or Frontier Science? Part One
As it tops bestsellers' lists, Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol, catapulted into the mainstream the frontier science he calls "Noetics," an area of active research for over twenty-five years, which he characterizes as humanity's best hope. Leading Noetic scientists report a concurrent boost in book sales and website inquiries. In this and succeeding blogs, I'll explore this frontier science with its leading proponents, mentioned in the book.
The Lost Symbol portrays a thrilling search through a rapidly changing landscape of ancient symbols, prompted by the urgent need to save the life of a close friend of Brown's Da Vinci Code hero, symbologist, Robert Langdon. In this search, Langdon and the book's heroine, Noetics' scientist, Katherine Solomon, delve deep into the subterranean layers of arcane symbolism which underlie the historical architecture of our nation's capital and its most famous government buildings.
Ancient symbols, mysteries--why are millions of people so interested in this perennial wisdom--particularly right now?
Well, while I've thumbed through the pages of mystical texts, and gazed awestruck at the Pyramids, personally, I'm not so interested in the symbols themselves any more-- but in what's long lurked mysteriously behind them.
While the infinite will always inspire awe, at this historic moment, I feel that we can no longer afford to remain mystified by the nature of reality or the role of human awareness within it. Although societies, ancient and current may have suppressed some of these deeper truths, the time has come to pull away the curtain and face them squarely.
"Modern frontier science is just catching up to what ancient spiritual traditions have long espoused: God is not outside of us, God is within us," says Lynne McTaggart, author of The Intention Experiment. "We have the power to create our world, through our awareness and intentions."
McTaggart regularly conducts intention experiments on line at www.theintentionexperiment.com -- and lead a workshop this past weekend at New York's Omega Institute (www.eomega.org). In her books and experiments, McTaggart probes the power of focused, collective intention to produce measurable changes.
In her view, the renewed interest in once arcane topics comes from peoples' sense that "a central life force interconnects everything, as many Many Eastern, ancient, and native traditions hold. As many disciplines of science converge to prove this, it resonates very deeply with what people intuitively recognize."
"There are different ways of knowing and engaging the world," says Marilyn Schlitz, the President of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, (http://www.noetic.org), an international membership research, educational, and programmatic organization, which has researched these phenomena for over thirty years. "We have this discursive intellect, which we need for rational decision-making," Schlitz, a scientist, affirms. "But we also have this intuitive gut level way of knowing."
Schlitz reports that when Noetics co-founder, MIT trained astronaut Edgar Mitchell returned from walking the moon in 1971, he recognized that "the great frontier is not an explanation of outer space, but the exploration of the science of inner experience." The word, Noetics derived from the Greek, means that direct, inner knowing.
The converging new scientific view includes rather than excludes inner awareness. Now, says McTaggart, "Experiments in quantum physics, biology, chemistry are ripping up the book of conventional science and scattering it to the four winds," replacing the previous depictions of reality.
"Instead of this static image of separate things all jostling around in empty space, with a bunch of lonely people on a lonely planet in a lonely universe, the frontier science reveals that everything, including consciousness itself, is made up of vibrating and shape shifting energy, constantly trading information back and forth. This changes our view of life, of us, of everything." McTaggart says.
Knowing this helps "us take back our power, makes us co-creators, and offers a sense of optimism about our ability to change the world."
This changing view is key to addressing major global challenges, Schlitz maintains because "Most of the problems we have today are not inherent in planet earth, but come from our own world view. The greatest leverage point for positive change is to dive into who we are and in the spirit of creativity to look for new solutions to age old problems."
McTaggart believes that the greatest potential and need lie far beyond the use of intention for individual abundance or betterment, as championed in books, such as The Secret.
"As we begin to move in tandem, a multitude of people sharing the same focused intention can have a greater effect than any single individual," Schlitz agrees.
To experience this, I attended McTaggart's intention workshop. For my followup blog and an upcoming online radio conversation with Lynne McTaggart, sign up for my free ezine at www.health-journalist.com
Follow Alison Rose Levy on Twitter: www.twitter.com/healthattitude
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See Linda E. Savage's Profile
Hi Alison, Thank you for your comment on my blog and I want to chime in with Noetic Science. I've been a member of IONS for years and they are definitely on the leading edge of science and what used to be seen as totally separate: spiritual truths. Thanks for bringing this to the public awareness.
Linda Savage
Hi All; one of the hallmarks of science is open-mindedness to new discoveries and information as new discoveries are how science progresses.
I would recommend that people concerned about a lack of scientific grounding in McTaggart's book actually read the Intention Experiment where she has thoroughly documented the published research that supports her claims.
Otherwise, one is at risk to conflate all sorts of things that McTaggart never mentions, and based on fears and presuppositions, omit to acquaint oneself with the actual science.
Thanks a lot. I went to the page (note: your link isn't active, only correct).
Interesting stuff. Someday I'll take a very close look. Very surprising. When you're trying to convince scientists or people with a science background, the best thing to point out is always to mention that the thing appears to be fully peer-reviewed.
As I said: fancy.
This doesn't sound like *science* to me.
Just like 'investment banks' aren't banks, 'noetic science' need not be science. I have no problem with that, but I am not a noetic scientist.
That's because it's not!
Cool !!!!
Has the author heard of these other frontier sciences : astrology, phrenology, alchemy? They are also cool. I believe them all, unconditionally.
.
That's cool indeed. It means you believe everything, because they are contradictory.
Yeah, those are all pretty swell frontier sciences!
It's that dag-blamed palmistry that no critical thinker could buy into!
Numerology's pretty cool too ... being that it's so 'mathy' and all!
Just recently, I've been turning on to the hottest new thing : divining rods. Very hip, very now. All the kids are doing it.
.
While I agree McTaggert may have oversimplified Quantum Physics etc., I think that her attempt to explain complex subjects in layman terms is a good thing. I disagree with the article at scrib.com that states people will walk away thinking "I know Quantum Physics now!" Instead, they will have a basic understand of what it's about, and the ramifications of the new and exciting theories it has given to science.
Great article, Ms. Levy
I want to challenge the blogger - and anyone else interested - to read this long and well thought out deconstruction of McTaggert's work:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/6507514/The-Nonscience-of-Lynne-McTaggart?classic_ui=1
If you read it, you will find it hard to escape the conclusion that her writing is (to use the blogger's own words) just more new age WOO-WOO, and not science at all.
I do not want to disparage the importance and power of intention. We live in a universe where there is a natural movement from thoughts, to actions, to consequences. However, because we live in a chaos system, there are always forces at work that affect us in ways we cannot entirely understand or predict. Two dead, and 20 hospitalized, last week at SECRET guru James Arthur Ray's Sweat Lodge in Sedona shows that clearly (and tragically) enough.
If we take the WOO-WOO out of our thinking about intention, we will garner more support for our efforts to make this a better world.
Thanks! I'll go through the science in the link to analyze the critique. I won't offer general comments until I've done so.
But two points implicit in the critique bear mention.
I agree that regarding intention as a magic bullet is flawed-- iust like using biochemical interventions without addressing causal imbalances. As you say, many people intend a wide range of things, and believing that our individual wishes will in all cases prevail -- is naive.
I'm not a big proponent of recruiting elements of the field effect for individual gain-- nor is McTaggart. As opposed to the Secret, she emphasizes and empowers people to undertake collective intention for the sake of others and collective good-- an important distinction.
Nor should her being a journalist who is open-mindedly investigating/experimenting-- be held against her. In fact, it's a strength. I don't agree that only a few high priests can access science-- translators who make it more accessible do us all a real service.
The bottom line here is that quantum science provides a larger context and an expansion of the purely biochemical interpretation of reality.Numerous material science and simple biological studies support that expanded view. However, our notions of what constitute blinded research make human studies difficult because with human mental field effects, there are no absolute controls on the human being. That does not mean that such effects don't exist, but that the observer effect necessitates examining some of our presumptions about what constitute appropriate research parameters.
I read the link and I am quite confused. (I didn't read anything by McTaggart and I'm not sure I will. I'm not into popular science journalism).
The author of the link is obviously very upset. And he probably knows a lot about quantum mechanics. And has read a lot of popular books referencing it about which he was very upset. But what's the point of the torture and of the several pages of pain in the review?
It probably all boils down to what McTaggart really intends to achieve with invoking quantum physics. There are two options: if the idea is to claim that there is actual substantial evidence for thoughts bringing about physical changes in material objects it is quite likely false. If the point is to invoke the analogy of quantum physics to point out that many macroscopic phenomena behave in ways that are much better described in stochastic or non-deterministic terms than in terms of full control or full lawfulness and predictability of their behaviour, it is perfectly valid and useful as an analogy. And even though it would then be quite speculative to go on to claim that such a point of view can provide a new level of control - at a different level of resolution of the phenomena - even that speculation would be perfectly plausible and useful.
I didn't read her books, but I don't see the point of complaining about speculation which is motivated by analogies and nowhere claims to be
... nowhere claims to be scientific.
But your real point is about whether woo-woo is good or bad to make this a better world.
Let me suggest the following: if you insist that only questions are allowed for which science will provide an answer, then you're going to have a hard time solving real-world problems.
But it's a pseudo-conflict - instead of a problem with pseudo-science: there's no reason to cut down the realm of applicability of science or dispute it. There's really only the observation that it has the effect of restricting what will count as allowable evidence for you. And even if you're not worried about paraphenomena at all - which I am not - you would still find that the restriction precludes an awful lot.
As an illustration, you can take any discussion about reductionism in science you like. From the point of view of physics, much of chemistry does not exist or makes little sense. Dto for biology, dto. for socio-biology and further up until you reach human civilization and finally your personal life problems.
What's the point of insisting on an ill-defined notion of 'scientific method' that doesn't even suffice to explain these transitions? Because nobody has so far explained these transitions credibly.
Rock on, Diogenes!
btw I don't say this to 'make room for God' or something. Hell no, I'm not into intelligent design, trust me.
It's more of a taste for simplicity and economy and also honesty. You won't find me denying the existence of phenomena just because they don't fit into a box. And the phenomena of human choice don't fit into the box of physics - not even of quantum physics, last time I checked.
in a nutshell:
it has been observed a long time ago that an interesting consequence of quantum phenomena is that they leave a certain amount of room for 'free will' at the macrolevel. For example, already Popper was fond of that speculation., back in the early days of quantum physics.
This doesn't mean that anything at the level of civilization or politics really gets EXPLAINED by quantum physics. It only means that due to the absence of full explanations of deterministic physics, at least THERE IS ROOM for the phenomena we know of ever since ancient times.
So the net result is: there is LESS of a problem or a conflict than could exist. Not more.
FInally!! I'm getting Google alerts on "The Lost Symbol" and it is so nice to see someone writing about the various topics the book explores instead of saying simply that Brown is a lousy writer. Thank you!
The esoteric subjects he discusses are very meaningful to me because I had a spiritual awakening nearly eight years ago due to the music of a famous classic rock band and was led on an incredible journey of self-discovery. I never did drugs, but somehow the awakening triggered a state of bliss which lasted for months, and my consciousness expanded in ways I didn't know were possible. My odyssey was a real life "Lost Symbol" meets "Rock 'n' Roll" adventure because my soul (or higher consciousness) guided me to make connections between alchemy, Freemasons/Rosicrucians, healing, and rock music (loooong story I chronicle in my book "I Found All the Parts: Healing the Soul through Rock 'n' Roll").
After the awakening, incredible synchronicities occurred on a regular basis. The idea that our consciousness impacts our physical world was revealed in such profound ways, that I couldn't pass them off as coincidence. It is very frustrating to see the important messages Brown is trying to bring forth in "The Lost Symbol" about man's spiritual growth get dismissed as psuedo-science and the like, because there is no doubt that Lynne McTaggart and the myriad of other authors and scientists exploring the boundaries of human consciousness are onto important information.
Laura Faeth
my hunch is that the point of speaking about 'noetic science' is to avoid the accusation of pseudo-science.
Which makes perfect sense, because there's no reason (or promise) why science should really help us with what we care about. And nobody can keep us from using our brains (or consciousness) to explore beyond the limits of scientifically sound methods. People who do that rarely even want it to be called science.
So if the pointless accusation 'pseudoscience' can be gotten out of the way, I'd call that progress.
There are other words for that in philosophy, but actually I kind of start to like 'noetic science'.
Hi diogenes-- I love this sentence in the article "...the renewed interest in once arcane topics comes from peoples' sense that "a central life force interconnects everything, as many Many Eastern, ancient, and native traditions hold. As many disciplines of science converge to prove this, it resonates very deeply with what people intuitively recognize."
Every time I mention on the blogosphere the notion of a numinous impulse in nature not entirely accessible by reason that many artists, scientists, philosophers from ancient time to now have intuited, I take a beating particularly from the atheists. I don't know why there is such a modern resistance to extra-rational ways of knowing. Anyway I loved the book The Lost Symbol. I studied petroglyphs for many years and finally found that I could not find their meaning scientifically. I finally plunged into a study of shamanism and primitive and modern art and found the answer there.
No doubt any attempt to break the chauvinisms of individual sciences is welcome.
I don't know (yet) what 'noetic science' really stands for, but in times of crisis, the impulse to go back to the roots and rethink the path of how we got here is always promising - and often the only thing that can work at all.
Because there are always roads not taken. Mostly, because of the dominance of some chauvinism or another.
You make excellent points.
I once heard Hans Peter Duerr who was a major student of Heisenberg's say that if you have a net, you come to believe that all the fish that can be captured are the ones in your net. But you fail to account for those outside of your net.
That is the situation of science-- and then that hardens into a belief system. It's not that many forms of science don't well characterize many features of reality. The issue is whether there is proper open-ness and humility before what they have yet to characterize-- as well as open-mindedness for new research that explores an expanded territiry.
absolutely. It is this 'hardening into a belief system' that has been detailed in Thomas Kuhn's 'Structure of scientific revolutions'.
But that only refers to the process of getting hold on one of the fish in the net, as you say. It doesn't even touch upon the other stuff, because that's where the institutionalized process doesn't apply. Unfortunately, most real-life problems lie outside.
I am just rephrasing what you wrote.
The first thing that comes to my mind is: why use a term so terribly close to 'dianetics'? Seems a marketing accident.
The word itself is fine, of course.
See Ed and Deb Shapiro's Profile
Hi Alison great blog .. Love Lynne McTaggert
We interviewed astronaut Edgar Mitchell for our book published Nov 3rd
BE THE CHANGE
How Meditation Can Transform You and the World
This statement is right on and close to what Edgar told us .. it is in our book:
Schlitz reports that when Noetics co-founder, MIT trained astronaut Edgar Mitchell returned from walking the moon in 1971, he recognized that "the great frontier is not an explanation of outer space, but the exploration of the science of inner experience." The word, Noetics derived from the Greek, means that direct, inner knowing.
Blessings,
Ed
Be the Change-- that says it all.
What a great title.
Can't wait to read your book.
November is coming up soon. Is the Big Apple on your book tour itinerary-- for a meetup?
Alison
See Ed and Deb Shapiro's Profile
It will be soooo good to see you!
Ed
Thanks for writing about this fascinating topic. It is time for ths kind of knowledge to go mainstream--it could be the only thing that will save us. There is a not-well-enough-known philosopher and mathematician named Frankin Merrell-Wolff, who also wrote--in the middle of the twentieth century-- about noetics, a form of cognition that is neither perception (using the senses) nor conception (using the mental facultiies alone), for which he coined the term "introception," Wolff wrote about his realizations in a series of fascinating books, among them Pathways Through to Space. Basically, he provides a sort of intellectual context and framework for what you have described and for the work Lynn McTaggert is doing. This way of knowing, as Wolff describes it, is unmediated,--it comes from a deeper fusion of subject and object than we ordinarily experience, a merger of the knower and the thing known--a kind of partcipation mystique in reality. Althogh this may all sound a bit abstract, it is really incredibly important stuff. As Woff writes, "This is an increase in relative knowledge having most profound significance, both in the theoretical and pragmatic senses, insofar as it tends to make an enormous difference in life and conduct, and in valuation and meaning." [Like going to the moon and back!!)
Fascinating.
What's old is new again.
Interestingly, the symbols in the Lost Symbol symbolize something-- but what is that they symbolize? In the works you mention as well as this new research, scientists are looking into that-- but the mainstream awareness is more focused on: Woo-woo something mystical might be hiding behind that symbol-- rather than the greater reality being pointed to.
Hi Alison,
If we are able to utilize intention to create something in our world I believe it would be limited to the internal. Our brains monitor and regulate our bodies as well as it houses our minds. The great leap will be to not only harness our thoughts and emotions but to use what we learn from that practice to determine of we can control organ and glandular actions.
nice post,
little brother
Hi Little Brother:
Thanks for you comment.
Well, there is no doubt whatsoever that many do believe exactly what you suggest and the reason that belief is so prevalent is that much science has been confined to explorations within those parameters. But the point is that the frontier science that McTaggart and Schlitz expore extend beyond those parameters.
It is a sea change to recognize that the science of dog eat dog and a fight for survival can give way to a science of mutual interaction, and cooperation-- because interconnection (even of thought) has impact.
Alison
Alison
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