An excerpt from Chapter 1 of Judy Kennedy's book:

Integrating Science and Spirituality

Multidimensional reality is best explained by Ed Witten’s M Theory – a super theory to unify all string theories in modern physics.  String theories say that subatomic particles are more like moving strings stretching to form membranes (“branes”) that become worlds or universes of their own.  The search is currently underway for a vanishing particle called the graviton, which when found, will shed much light on how travel between these dimensions occurs.[i]  Ageless Wisdom or occultism has long known about these different dimensions and calls them “planes ” rather than “branes.”  Recent research into what physicists call dark matter reveals more about what scientists don’t know than what they do.  It is estimated that current scientific knowledge only applies to about 7% of the universe.  The remaining 93% is unknown.  Additionally, science tells us that humans do not use their brains to their fullest potential.  Yet the brain is not the be all or the end all, but merely an instrument.  Occultists are trained to develop and finely tune that instrument, which more often than not obviates dependence on artificial ones.  Therefore some of their accomplishments appear to be supernormal feats.  In reality, these phenomena, if not already understood, are on the verge of explanation via continuing discoveries in physics and integrative medicine.  Until then, they remain “occult” or hidden from view.

Albert Einstein said, “It is possible that there exist human emanations which are unknown to us.  Do you remember how electrical current and “unseen waves” were laughed at?  The knowledge about man is still in its infancy.”[ii]  To learn about the magic of computers one studies computer science.  To learn about the magical workings of the mind, such as telepathy, one studies occultism.  These days, however, the lines between legitimized science and occultism are beginning to blur because both approaches to life and problem solving end and begin in the mind – the one field of mind – consciousness.  Modern science for the first time is asking the same question occultism has explored for ages:  What is the nature of mind?

For centuries, science subjugated pure reason and creative insight to the crippling superstition  of absolute objectivity.  Quantum physics demonstrated there was no such thing.  We cannot observe reality without changing it.  As popular author Gary Zukav states, “We cannot eliminate ourselves from the picture.  We are a part of nature, and when we study nature, there is no way around the fact that nature is studying itself.”[iii]

One of the most respected and influential philosophers of the 20^th century, Ken Wilber, is another pioneer in this area.  His works have contributed much toward bridging the boundaries between science and religion.  In a similar vein, he writes:

"We have seen that the philosophers of science are in widespread agreement that empirical science depends for its operation upon subjective and intersubjective structures that allow objective knowledge to emerge and stabilize in the first place.  Put bluntly, knowledge of sensory exteriors depends upon nonsensory interiors, interiors that are just as real and just as important as the exteriors themselves.  You don’t get a message on the telephone, claim the message is real but the phone is illusory.  To discredit one is to discredit the other."[iv]

Being objective means being unbiased, having no prejudices – that there’s an “out there” to be observed, totally separate from the observer, right?  Well the problem that went unnoticed for three centuries, according to Zukav,

 "…is that a person who carries such an attitude certainly is prejudiced.  His prejudice is to be “objective,” that is, to be without a preformed opinion.  In fact, it is impossible to be without an opinion.  An opinion is a point of view.  The point of view that we can be without a point of view is a point of view.  The decision itself to study one segment of reality instead of another is a subjective expression of the researcher who makes it.  It affects his perceptions of reality, if nothing else.  Since reality is what we’re studying, the matter gets very sticky here."  (Emphasis added.)[v]

As it certainly did when Madame Blavatsky tried to explain this to the public in the inadequate language  of her day:  “…matter is spirit at the lowest point of its cyclic activity” and “spirit is matter on the seventh plane.”[vi]  Or as the ancient Hermetic Axiom puts it, “As above, so below.”  And as the great heart sutra goes, the Prajna Paramita of Tibetan Buddhism:  “Form is exactly emptiness; emptiness exactly form.”  All variations on modern field theory show that particles cannot be separated from the space surrounding them in accordance with this root principle.  Fritjof Capra, author of The Tao of Physics, explains,

"The distinction between matter and empty space finally had to be abandoned when it became evident that virtual particles can come into being spontaneously out of the void, and vanish again into the void, without any nucleon or other strongly interacting particle being present… Here then, is the closest parallel to the Void of Eastern  Mysticism in modern physics.  Like the Eastern Void – the “physical vacuum” – as it is called in field  theory – is not a state of mere nothingness, but contains the potentiality for all forms of the particle world.  These forms, in turn, are not independent physical entities, but merely transient manifestations of the underlying Void."[vii]

So does this mean that all opposites as we have come to know and love them are not real and serve  no purpose in the scheme of things?  Not exactly.  It just points to the fact that there is something beyond all that – something that operates beyond the bounds of dualistic thinking  – beyond the rainbow.  Yet it is in the mind where we must realize this truth.  As the Tibetan  Djwal Khul reminds us in Alice Bailey’s Esoteric Psychology, “It is in the realm of so-called mind that the great principle of separateness is found.  It is also in the realm of mind that the great at-one-ment is made.”[viii] 

This takes us back to Zukav who quotes Carl Jung:  “The psychological rule says that when an inner situation is not made conscious, it happens outside, as fate.  That is to say, when the individual remains undivided and does not become conscious of his inner contradictions, the world must perforce act out the conflict and be torn into opposite halves.”  Wolfgang Pauli, the Nobel prize-winning physicist who was also Jung’s friend, similarly states, “From an inner center, the psyche seems to move outward, in the sense of an extraversion, into the physical world.”  Zukav concludes that if these men are correct, “… then physics is the study of consciousness.”[ix]

Now you know why occultism which has always had for its primary subject the study of consciousness has also been called metaphysics.  This is where they finally meet.  And these days, we have the ridiculous term, “New Age.”  This stuff is not “New Age.”  This stuff has been around for millenniums.  This stuff is Ageless Wisdom.  It was with the Druids; it was among early Egyptians.  It was taught to Jesus by the Essenes and to the Jews in the form of the Mystical Qabalah.  We find it in the shamanistic practices of indigenous peoples all over the world – from the Native American Indian and Australian  Aborigine to the ancient Mayans and their unknown ancestors.  The Buddha finally found peace in its limitless light, and in sharing its mysteries began the great Eastern lineages that continue to this day.  We find its hidden treasure buried deep within the pages of folklore and myth – ancient and contemporary.  The sacred story and its secrets are revealed to us in literature and modern movies for those who are receptive to its symbolism.

Still, I prefer the term 'occult’ because even with the advent of scientific confirmation, it remains hidden from the masses in its purer forms.  It also alludes that it is more of a science than a faith.  This is the difference between the pure occultist and the pure mystic.  “When the scientific temperament approaches the Unseen, it chooses the Occult Path of development, and when the artistic temperament approaches the Unseen, it chooses the Mystic Path; one progresses through right knowing, and the other through right feeling, and both meet in the end,” says legendary occultist Dion Fortune in her classic treatise, The Esoteric Orders and Their Work.[x]  However, this was more true yesterday than today.  As stated previously, since the turn of the 20^th century, the trend has been towards integration – balance – like the holistic  merging, interdependence and cooperation that results when the hemispheres of the brain are acting in harmony.  But what good is that harmony if we don’t do something with it?  Therefore in occultism, the emphasis is on practical application of this Ageless Wisdom to make the world a better place for self and others.  As Lama Surya Das says, “Reality, after all, is spiritual  enough.  Spirit is meaningless without being grounded here and now in this plane of existence.”[xi]

Buddhism teaches that wisdom without compassion is just as incomplete as love without truth .  This too is acknowledged by Fortune:

"We might speak of the mystic art and the occult science and in so speaking we are reminded that every art is based on a science, and every applied science partakes of the nature of art.  The highest development is attained when the mystic has the knowledge and technique of an occultist, or when the occultist is at heart a mystic.  The mystic can then express the teaching  of the spirit  in terms of the intellect and so render them available for those who have no higher consciousness than that of the mind; and the occultist who shares in the things of the spirit will have that element of devotion in his nature which is so often lacking in those in whom the intellect is dominant.  Without this element the final synthesis is impossible; he will only be as the exoteric philosopher who follows an ever-receding horizon, because he only studies phenomena by means of the effect they produce on the senses.  Noumenal consciousness, which is the ultimate aim of the esotericist, is only possible to those who can actually unite with that which they wish to know… To this all paths lead, and in this all aims find their realization."[xii]

On a similar note, Carl Jung  writes:  “Science is the art of creating suitable illusions which the fool believes or argues against, but the wise man enjoys for their beauty or their ingenuity, without being blind to the fact that they are human veils and curtains concealing the abysmal darkness of the unknowable.”[xiii]  Then why the stigma attached to the occult, other than the fact that in general, most people fear the unknown?  Well, as Dion Fortune explains,

 "An immense mass of verbiage has gathered around the Sacred Science since Madame Blavatsky drew back the curtain of the sanctuary, and the Theosophical Society sought to popularize the ancient Mystery-teaching .  Imagination, freed from the bonds of proof, has had free rein, and scoffers have found ample material that was legitimate game for their comments.  The pseudo-occultism of the present day, with its dubious psychism, wild theorizing, and evidence that cannot stand up to the most cursory examination, is but the detritus which accumulates around the base of the Mount of Vision.  All such worthless rubbish is not worth the power and shot of argument; in order to form a just estimate of the Sacred Science we must study originals, and try to penetrate the minds of the great mystics… whose works bear evidence of first-hand knowledge of the supersensible worlds."[xiv]

This is why, as all true Gnostics or those who know proclaim, the only real proof of anything comes from the integrity of one’s own experience.  We are given the tools and the means by which we realize this Great Work or dharma as it is called in the East – and demonstrate the underlying principles of this Ageless Wisdom in the ordinary trials and tribulations of our everyday lives.  This is the only confirmation we need.  It works – and that’s all we need to know.