Published in the Echo, Charlottesville, VA, February 2008
Science and Spirit — Closer Than You Might Imagine
by Jim Wray, PhD
by Jim Wray, PhD
Is it difficult to make a transition from the physicist world view to that of the shaman? Not really; and here’s
why.
The physicist’s worldview is as much a method of understanding as it is a collection of observations. It’s the
‘scientific’ one, based on the model of an objective world. It’s the one that we the observers poke and probe
to arrive at a description of the world’s behavior; a description that we all agree is accurate and true because
we can independently verify it. The physicist’s description of the world relies on laws that can be simply
stated and even formulated with mathematical equations. Arguably the most famous of these is Einstein’s ‘E =
mc2’, a counterintuitive formulaic equivalence of mass and energy that has propelled the human race into an
atomic age full of promise, progress and peril.
If we term the world out there to be ‘objective’ while our experience is ‘subjective’, we describe a brute
machine world, devoid of consciousness. Physicists observe elements of the natural world that do not possess
consciousness — stones, meteors and stars.
The physicist asks ‘How does it work?’ not ‘Why does it work?’. The philosopher considers more
fundamental questions, such as, ‘Who am I? Where does the observer begin and end? Does the observer
persist beyond the life of the body? Is there even such a thing as an observer? Is there a prime mover, a God?
Is there purpose?’
Although there are distinctions between physics and philosophy, and religion and shamanism, all attempt to
answer the same question: ‘WHAT’S GOING ON?’ Each of us reaches into our accumulated wealth of
experience, religion, study and derives the best answer we can. And our answers evolve over time and
throughout our lives. The conundrum is perhaps stated best by the poet Sri Aurobindo:
“.. A thin life-curve crosses the titan whirl
Of the orbit of a soulless universe,
And in the belly of the sparse rolling mass
A mind looks out from a small casual globe
And wonders what itself and all things are…”
As a physicist I learned that objects persist, at least energetically. An electron and a positron can annihilate
one another, but their energy persists as a pair of photons. Not one iota of energy has ever been observed to
be lost. The energy simply shifts to a different ‘container’ so to speak.
So it’s not much of a stretch to understand that consciousness also persists. The shaman sees consciousness
as not only persistent beyond the existence of the body’s form but also permeating the objective world. Just
as energy is pervasive, so is consciousness.
“..And yet to some interned subjective sight
That strangely has formed in Matter’s sightless stuff,
A pointillage minute of little self
Takes figure as world-being’s conscious base..”
As a physicist I entertain the idea of hidden dimensions. String theory, for example, a model deduced from
observing the sub-atomic realm, proposes more than the three space and one time dimensions we directly
perceive. The shaman, too, models the world with hidden dimensions — dimensions that may be navigated
through consciousness and intention.
The physicist learns to navigate the hidden dimensions indirectly. The in-direction is to see the presence of
the hidden dimensions and the roles they play by their effect within the observable dimensions of space and
time. The shaman dials into inner/hidden dimensions through intention and ceremony; setting the stage and
then a watching with interned subjective sight. The shaman is aware of visual, auditory and sensory
perceptions that enter his awareness in the context of intention.
The world of physics is replete with koans — the paradoxes and questions that confound and confuse us as
they inform and enlighten. Take the electron for example. The electron is probably the best known of the
universe’s building blocks. Our knowledge of it is vast and we have technology to prove it. However, upon its
discovery at the end of the 19th century, its benign beginning was unheralded. In fact, its discoverer, Sir J. J.
Thompson, could see nothing practical coming from its discovery.
Now when we say we have seen the electron, we’re actually fudging a bit. No one has ever seen an electron.
There’s something out there, that when modeled as an electron, has effects we can explain. That’s the first
koan: How is the substantial universe built up from unsubstantial building blocks?
Electrons are identical and indistinguishable from one another; there’s no way to tag an electron. If electrons
were not all identical, there could be no matter as we know it. There’s another koan: How is it that the
substantial universe, with its incredible diversity and differentiation, is constructed from things that are
identical?
Related by its origins in the same quantum modeling of matter is, arguably, the most famous koan of modern
physics: the wave-particle duality. This koan above all has a strong crossover to the shamanic world view. If
we perceive the electron, for example, through an experiment designed to measure its wave like properties, we
see the electron as a wave. But if we perceive that same electron through an experiment designed to measure
its particle like properties, we see the electron as a particle. Koan: Sub-atomic objects will behave as particles
or as waves conforming to our perception of them. This is a realization with possibly very ancient roots since
shamans of Peru “have always known that our perception of the world determines its very nature” (The Four
Insights, Wisdom, Power and Grace of the Earthkeepers, Alberto Villoldo, p. 18).
Looking for common ground, both the physicist and the shaman are searching for principles that reduce the
apparent complexity of the world to a manageable set of axioms. The physicist calls them laws and can
categorize the dynamics of vast domains of behavior with a single equation. Einstein’s field equations for
gravity characterize everything from a falling apple to the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way
galaxy, and beyond to the limits of space and time.
In the shaman’s worldview, principles are approachable on a person to person basis; they are no longer
abstractions of the intellect that exist only as mechanical laws repeating unerringly the same story. My
mentor, Alberto Villoldo, conveyed this quite succinctly (I’m paraphrasing here, using my notes from a talk he
gave):
“The Q’ero Indian shamans have taught me about the principle of death and rebirth, the coming together and
going apart of things. This is Jaguar to the Q’ero. To the physicist this is entropy; the net effect of process is
to dissipate. Try un-spilling a cup of coffee and cream from the seat of your car. The difference between the
shaman’s and the physicist’s view is that the shaman can say: ‘Come to me Jaguar. Teach me about the
rainbow bridge crossing over to death …’. I’ve never heard a scientist say: ‘Come to me entropy. Teach me
about chaos…”
There is added complexity in the way the shaman allows life and consciousness to permeate abstract
principles. There is a simplicity, however, in that the principle is no longer abstract and remote; it can be
honored, embodied, learned from, and most importantly, tamed as an ally and collaborator in the adventure of
consciousness emerging from an inert universe.
“..Such is our scene in the half-light below.
This is the sign of Matter’s infinite,
This the weird purport of the picture shown
To Science the giantess, measurer of her field,
As she pores on the record of her close survey
And mathematises her huge external world,
To Reason bound within the circle of sense,
Or in Thought’s broad impalpable Exchange
A speculator in tenuous vast ideas,
Abstractions in the void her currency
We know not with what firm values for its base…”
“…There is a deeper seeing from within
And, when we have left these small purlieus of mind,
A greater vision meets us on the heights
In the luminous wideness of the Spirit’s gaze.
At last there wakes in us a witness Soul
That looks at truths unseen and scans the Unknown;
Then all assumes a new and marvelous face…”
So the shamanic worldview is not that big a leap for a physicist (maybe as long as he is also a poet). Both
views rely heavily on perceptions that are not obvious — perceptions of an unseen world. And both views
invoke principles embedded in the unseen that produce tangible, repeatable effects.
There are many variants of “energy healing”. The energy healing my wife and I practice is the culmination of
Dr. Alberto Villoldo’s years of studying with indigenous healers of the Amazon and high mountains of Peru.
Dr. Villoldo’s personal journey and distilled teachings of the Q’ero Indians and other shamans of the Americas
has been published extensively. (www.thefourwinds.com).
Again, the poet, Sri Aurobindo:
“..A world she made touched by truth’s fleeing hem,
A world cast into a dream of what it seeks,
An icon of truth, a conscious mystery’s shape,
It lingered not like the earth-mind hemmed in
In solid barriers of apparent fact;
It dared to trust the dream-mind and the soul..”
why.
The physicist’s worldview is as much a method of understanding as it is a collection of observations. It’s the
‘scientific’ one, based on the model of an objective world. It’s the one that we the observers poke and probe
to arrive at a description of the world’s behavior; a description that we all agree is accurate and true because
we can independently verify it. The physicist’s description of the world relies on laws that can be simply
stated and even formulated with mathematical equations. Arguably the most famous of these is Einstein’s ‘E =
mc2’, a counterintuitive formulaic equivalence of mass and energy that has propelled the human race into an
atomic age full of promise, progress and peril.
If we term the world out there to be ‘objective’ while our experience is ‘subjective’, we describe a brute
machine world, devoid of consciousness. Physicists observe elements of the natural world that do not possess
consciousness — stones, meteors and stars.
The physicist asks ‘How does it work?’ not ‘Why does it work?’. The philosopher considers more
fundamental questions, such as, ‘Who am I? Where does the observer begin and end? Does the observer
persist beyond the life of the body? Is there even such a thing as an observer? Is there a prime mover, a God?
Is there purpose?’
Although there are distinctions between physics and philosophy, and religion and shamanism, all attempt to
answer the same question: ‘WHAT’S GOING ON?’ Each of us reaches into our accumulated wealth of
experience, religion, study and derives the best answer we can. And our answers evolve over time and
throughout our lives. The conundrum is perhaps stated best by the poet Sri Aurobindo:
“.. A thin life-curve crosses the titan whirl
Of the orbit of a soulless universe,
And in the belly of the sparse rolling mass
A mind looks out from a small casual globe
And wonders what itself and all things are…”
As a physicist I learned that objects persist, at least energetically. An electron and a positron can annihilate
one another, but their energy persists as a pair of photons. Not one iota of energy has ever been observed to
be lost. The energy simply shifts to a different ‘container’ so to speak.
So it’s not much of a stretch to understand that consciousness also persists. The shaman sees consciousness
as not only persistent beyond the existence of the body’s form but also permeating the objective world. Just
as energy is pervasive, so is consciousness.
“..And yet to some interned subjective sight
That strangely has formed in Matter’s sightless stuff,
A pointillage minute of little self
Takes figure as world-being’s conscious base..”
As a physicist I entertain the idea of hidden dimensions. String theory, for example, a model deduced from
observing the sub-atomic realm, proposes more than the three space and one time dimensions we directly
perceive. The shaman, too, models the world with hidden dimensions — dimensions that may be navigated
through consciousness and intention.
The physicist learns to navigate the hidden dimensions indirectly. The in-direction is to see the presence of
the hidden dimensions and the roles they play by their effect within the observable dimensions of space and
time. The shaman dials into inner/hidden dimensions through intention and ceremony; setting the stage and
then a watching with interned subjective sight. The shaman is aware of visual, auditory and sensory
perceptions that enter his awareness in the context of intention.
The world of physics is replete with koans — the paradoxes and questions that confound and confuse us as
they inform and enlighten. Take the electron for example. The electron is probably the best known of the
universe’s building blocks. Our knowledge of it is vast and we have technology to prove it. However, upon its
discovery at the end of the 19th century, its benign beginning was unheralded. In fact, its discoverer, Sir J. J.
Thompson, could see nothing practical coming from its discovery.
Now when we say we have seen the electron, we’re actually fudging a bit. No one has ever seen an electron.
There’s something out there, that when modeled as an electron, has effects we can explain. That’s the first
koan: How is the substantial universe built up from unsubstantial building blocks?
Electrons are identical and indistinguishable from one another; there’s no way to tag an electron. If electrons
were not all identical, there could be no matter as we know it. There’s another koan: How is it that the
substantial universe, with its incredible diversity and differentiation, is constructed from things that are
identical?
Related by its origins in the same quantum modeling of matter is, arguably, the most famous koan of modern
physics: the wave-particle duality. This koan above all has a strong crossover to the shamanic world view. If
we perceive the electron, for example, through an experiment designed to measure its wave like properties, we
see the electron as a wave. But if we perceive that same electron through an experiment designed to measure
its particle like properties, we see the electron as a particle. Koan: Sub-atomic objects will behave as particles
or as waves conforming to our perception of them. This is a realization with possibly very ancient roots since
shamans of Peru “have always known that our perception of the world determines its very nature” (The Four
Insights, Wisdom, Power and Grace of the Earthkeepers, Alberto Villoldo, p. 18).
Looking for common ground, both the physicist and the shaman are searching for principles that reduce the
apparent complexity of the world to a manageable set of axioms. The physicist calls them laws and can
categorize the dynamics of vast domains of behavior with a single equation. Einstein’s field equations for
gravity characterize everything from a falling apple to the black hole at the center of our own Milky Way
galaxy, and beyond to the limits of space and time.
In the shaman’s worldview, principles are approachable on a person to person basis; they are no longer
abstractions of the intellect that exist only as mechanical laws repeating unerringly the same story. My
mentor, Alberto Villoldo, conveyed this quite succinctly (I’m paraphrasing here, using my notes from a talk he
gave):
“The Q’ero Indian shamans have taught me about the principle of death and rebirth, the coming together and
going apart of things. This is Jaguar to the Q’ero. To the physicist this is entropy; the net effect of process is
to dissipate. Try un-spilling a cup of coffee and cream from the seat of your car. The difference between the
shaman’s and the physicist’s view is that the shaman can say: ‘Come to me Jaguar. Teach me about the
rainbow bridge crossing over to death …’. I’ve never heard a scientist say: ‘Come to me entropy. Teach me
about chaos…”
There is added complexity in the way the shaman allows life and consciousness to permeate abstract
principles. There is a simplicity, however, in that the principle is no longer abstract and remote; it can be
honored, embodied, learned from, and most importantly, tamed as an ally and collaborator in the adventure of
consciousness emerging from an inert universe.
“..Such is our scene in the half-light below.
This is the sign of Matter’s infinite,
This the weird purport of the picture shown
To Science the giantess, measurer of her field,
As she pores on the record of her close survey
And mathematises her huge external world,
To Reason bound within the circle of sense,
Or in Thought’s broad impalpable Exchange
A speculator in tenuous vast ideas,
Abstractions in the void her currency
We know not with what firm values for its base…”
“…There is a deeper seeing from within
And, when we have left these small purlieus of mind,
A greater vision meets us on the heights
In the luminous wideness of the Spirit’s gaze.
At last there wakes in us a witness Soul
That looks at truths unseen and scans the Unknown;
Then all assumes a new and marvelous face…”
So the shamanic worldview is not that big a leap for a physicist (maybe as long as he is also a poet). Both
views rely heavily on perceptions that are not obvious — perceptions of an unseen world. And both views
invoke principles embedded in the unseen that produce tangible, repeatable effects.
There are many variants of “energy healing”. The energy healing my wife and I practice is the culmination of
Dr. Alberto Villoldo’s years of studying with indigenous healers of the Amazon and high mountains of Peru.
Dr. Villoldo’s personal journey and distilled teachings of the Q’ero Indians and other shamans of the Americas
has been published extensively. (www.thefourwinds.com).
Again, the poet, Sri Aurobindo:
“..A world she made touched by truth’s fleeing hem,
A world cast into a dream of what it seeks,
An icon of truth, a conscious mystery’s shape,
It lingered not like the earth-mind hemmed in
In solid barriers of apparent fact;
It dared to trust the dream-mind and the soul..”
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