In this new book, I discuss seven further practices: Ways to Go Beyond continues the enquiry I started in my book Science and Spiritual Practices, published last year, in which I discuss seven different practices that have been investigated empirically, both by the practitioners themselves and by scientists studying the effects of their practices. Spiritual practices provide ways in which consciousness can be explored empirically. The exploration of consciousness through consciousness itself is literally empirical, based on experience. The Greek word for experience is empeiria, the root of our English word ‘empirical’. In French, the word experience, means both ‘experience’ and ‘experiment’. The ultimate arbiter is experience, not theory. Yet it is entirely consistent with the scientific method, which involves the formation of hypotheses – guesses about the way the world works – and then testing them experimentally. This convergence of science and spiritual practices is surprising from the point of view of materialist orthodoxy, in which the vast majority of contemporary scientists have been trained. We are at the beginning of a new phase of scientific, philosophical, and spiritual development.
As I discuss in my new book, Ways To Go Beyond, And Why They Work, there are several possible interpretations of spiritual experiences, including the materialist view that they are all inside brains and that there are no more-than-human forms of consciousness ‘out there’.Īt the same time, spiritual practices are being investigated scientifically as never before. The experiences themselves leave open the question of the nature of the spiritual realm. Such experiences are often described as spiritual.
They can lead to experiences of connection with more-than-human consciousness, and a sense of a greater conscious presence. In major cosmopolitan cities, it is now possible to attend rituals from a wide range of religious traditions, to learn to meditate, to practice yoga or chi gong, to take part in shamanic practices, to explore consciousness through psychedelic drugs (albeit illegally in most places), to sing and chant, to participate in a wide range of prayers, to learn martial arts and to practice a bewildering array of sports.Īll these practices can take us beyond normal, familiar, everyday states of consciousness.
Never before has any civilization had access to almost all the world’s spiritual practices.
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