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In Franz Bardon's system of hermetics, the intellect is a fundamental attribute of the spirit and is at the same time an aspect of the air element on the mental plane. Knowledge is considered an active attribute of the air element, hence knowledge is also an attribute of intellect. In this first part, I'll discuss the role of knowledge on the path towards truth. The second part will deal with the role of wisdom.
Knowledge is the sum of two main factors: study and experience. Deciding which particular information to accept is determined by one's discernment.
The quality of discernment is always important when searching for the truth. This applies not only to spiritual subjects but to ordinary events as well. For example, discernment could mean the difference between getting a good deal or getting gypped out of your hard-earned money, or the difference between the fulfillment of being part of a spiritual support group or the terror of being trapped in a self-destructive cult.
In fact, Master Choa Kok Sui frequently reminded students to practice discernment and not believe in a spiritual teaching until they had a chance to verify it for themselves. If there is no way to verify something, one should then look at the track record of the teacher who is espousing a certain teaching. If the track record is good, then the teaching may be accepted as conditional truth until the student has the chance or the means to verify or refute the teaching.
In this day and age when people are getting tired of being called to blind obedience to religious dogma, the scientific method has been touted as the only rational way to get to the truth. Briefly, the scientific method consists of the following steps:
1. Ask a Question
2. Do Background Research
3. Construct a Hypothesis
4. Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
5. Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
6. Communicate Your Results
The scientific method is not a modern invention, since the earliest evidence of empiricism can be found in Ancient Egypt. There is perhaps a little irony in this since many occult and mystical teachings (pooh-poohed by hardcore scientists and rationalists) also trace their origins in Ancient Egypt.
Let's now discuss each step of the scientific method in more detail and also try to correlate its applications in the esoteric field.
1. Ask a Question
By asking questions, one makes the first step towards transforming faith into conviction. By asking the question in the proper manner, one is telling the universe that one is ready for the answer. "Ask and you shall receive" and by the Law of Attraction, you set these forces in motion.
2. Do Background Research
There is a saying that wise men learn by the experience of others. By the conscientious use of study, one need not reinvent the wheel every time a new idea comes up.
This is the step whereby one determines if there is any basis to a particular theory. Do other sources mention it? Are there points of divergence? Is it reasonable or logical when compared to other teachings?
One must be careful to keep an open mind, so that one does not inadvertently exclude certain data because of a bias about what constitutes "valid data."
3. Construct a Hypothesis
Aristotle once said that the mark of an educated mind is the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it. And this is important when making a hypothesis. It's not yet your conclusion, it's simply a concept that you are waiting to test out.
If one lacks the capability to validate a hypothesis, but has supporting data from background research, then one may consider a hypothesis a conditional truth until such time that one is able to validate or refute a theory for oneself. This is particularly important in the case of certain spiritual theories because most of the time one can only validate them through one's own inner experiences.
4. Test Your Hypothesis by Doing an Experiment
This is where a lot of materialists scoff at spiritual studies, because no scientific instrument to date can measure or replicate the subtle energies or experiences that are the bedrock of all spiritual studies. To those who are clairvoyant or who can at least do astral travel, the existence of subtle energy and the subtle realms are beyond question.
Unfortunately, the inability to measure or detect these subtle energies using modern equipment has led some non-clairvoyant people to conclude that no such subtle energies or realms exist. This is really unfortunate, because our inability to detect something is not necessarily evidence that it doesn't exist. For instance, the existence of the atom was only proven in the 19th century, yet atoms existed long before humanity discovered them.
On the other hand, other non-clairvoyants take the spiritual teachings on faith, although there is some danger if that faith is a blind one.
5. Analyze Your Data and Draw a Conclusion
This one is pretty straightforward. It involves bringing all the information together, both from one's studies and one's experiments, and deciding if one's hypothesis is correct or not.
If the hypothesis is correct, then hurray! But if not, then humility is needed in order to accept the negative results.
In this step, one also reviews the procedures and sees if there was any flaw or something missing in the experiment. This is often the point that leads scientists to conduct new experiments with modified hypotheses.
6. Communicate Your Results
The idea behind this step is to allow others to replicate one's results. In the scientific community, this would be called a peer review. In terms of spiritual teachings, different sages, prophets and wise men have communicated the teachings since time immemorial. Unfortunately, just like what I mentioned in step 4, the lack of (spiritual) equipment in a lot of people makes replication of results difficult.
People again mostly fall back on faith, but this is also how false prophets and tricksters have managed to dupe people into giving up their gold and in some cases their lives for the sake of a false teaching.
As we have seen, the scientific method is a very good tool and its use need not be limited to the scientific community. But sadly, even among scientists and engineers the scientific method is frequently thrown under the bus of corporate interests. In a recent article, Dr. Joseph Mercola stated that in one British poll, "more than one in 10 scientists and doctors claimed to have witnessed colleagues deliberately fabricating data in order to get their research published."
In another example, a group of farmers in India were able to smash crop yield records without the use of GMO seeds. The Indian farmers used a technique called System of Rice [or root] Intensification (SRI) that was developed in the 1980s by a French Jesuit in Madagascar.
This achievement contradicts the Monsanto claim that going GMO is the only way to boost crop yields, yet scientists are downplaying the achievement of the Indian farmers, saying more testing and peer-review needs to be done. However, as the author of the article states: Given the paucity — or total absence — of independent testing done on GMOs and pesticides developed by companies like Monsanto and Syngenta, it’s galling to read of scientists complaining “there is not enough peer-reviewed evidence around SRI” and that “it is impossible to get such returns.”
In the face of the above examples, and many more that one can research, one may ask what happened to the original intent of the scientific method? So it's important not to believe something just because of the position or profession of the person or organization saying it. As one saying goes, there's a reason we have a brain.
But the above examples show that perhaps we take more things on faith than we would like to admit. That's not necessarily a bad thing. We take it on faith that the engineers did their job in designing and constructing the passenger plane we're flying on and that we won't go down in a flaming ball of debris. We take it on faith that the steak we ordered in a restaurant is actually a steak and not horse meat posing as a steak. Of course, this system of faith leaves openings for trickery and deception, sometimes with disastrous results. But we still live on faith regardless, because we can't do everything ourselves.
The accumulation of knowledge and the scientific method are important parts of one's development, but in the spiritual path there comes a point when intellectual inquiry fails to answer certain questions. Since many things in life are taken on faith, one more quality is needed to guide us when empirical information is lacking. The quality I'm referring to is wisdom, the topic of the next part of this article.
Go to Part 2
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