16:

Implications of the Model

Leave all dialectic behind and follow the path of the Powers.
– René Schwaller

The previous chapter explored practical applications of the nine-path ennea-

gram model. In this chapter, we’ll look at how it highlights aspects of both the
enneagram and tarot from an angle that reveals their power to revivify and restore
the Western Esoteric Tradition. In the case of the enneagram, it is such a new
system that it has not even been fully integrated into that Tradition. I hope this
chapter will illustrate what the enneagram has to offer and how the enneagram
and tarot together can help restore the long-fractured relationship between sci-
ence and spirituality.

The Fool’s Secret

And just who is the one with the most to tell us about how to reunite science
with spirituality? Naturally, it’s The Fool! This is a book about Fools, written
by a Fool, and directed to an audience of fellow Fools who are engaged in the
“excellent adventure” we call life. That’s why The Fool is right there in the title
and prominently displayed on the cover, stepping off his cliff into the Great
Unknown. Every time he sets forth, he never knows what he will find. Of course,
as the author of the book, I have seen fit to introduce him to an enneagram
adventure. But what neither of us know is where this adventure will take us, for
that bouncing enneagram ball may be headed off yet another cliff!
I originally entitled the book The Hero’s Journey in the Enneagram & Tarot,
but the wording was awfully similar to Banzhaf ’s Tarot and the Journey of the
Hero. But one of my favorite movies is Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, which
always sends me into stitches. One day, it popped into my head to call this
book The Fool’s Excellent Adventure, and I decided to go with it.
Little did I realize just how important a role The Fool would come to play—
how his ability to wear so many different hats would affect my understanding
of not only The Fool, but what this book is all about. But it wasn’t The Fool
alone; it was The Fool on the enneagram. Because it was when I placed The Fool
on the enneagram that I began to see his special role more clearly, especially as
Key 0. And that’s when it began to dawn on me why it is important to make The
Fool the focal point of the journey. It’s because we’re fast approaching a point
where we need to get to know The Fool, to learn what he knows, and even to
204 – the fool’s excellent adventure

emulate him (even though he’s just a fool). Because The Fool knows something
we need to know: the secret to eternal life.
To understand what this means, we need to look at a little history. I talked
in Chapter 9 about the paradoxical quality of the idea of “zero/infinity” and
how it was rejected by Greco-Roman culture and subsequently by the Chris-
tian Church, whose religious doctrines dominated European culture until the
scientific revolution of the 18th century Enlightenment began to undermine
them. Over the next century, science began to replace religion as the new arbi-
ter of truth. By the late 19 th century, many scientists believed they had every-
thing sewed up in a nice, neat little package.
Then came the revolution in quantum physics, which threatened to pull
down the whole darned edifice by creating multiple paradoxes that no one
has been able to resolve. Instead, the paradoxes keep getting worse. And their
implications for our beliefs keep getting hairier. Western culture has been
running from the questions that the new physics raises for a very long time.
But now things have reached the point where there’s no more running.
This is creating an ontological crisis in Western culture. “Ontological,” by
the way, is just a fancy word for “being-ness,” and it’s used to mean the nature
of life and how it came into being. Science can refer to the Big Bang, but it
cannot explain what gave rise to the Big Bang. Even the Big Bang theory has
come under attack in recent years. What we thought we knew is coming in-
creasingly into question; every new discovery seems to raise more questions
than it answers.
The net effect is that, within less than three centuries, the traditional belief
structures of the West—both religious and secular—have been considerably
shaken up. Initially, science supplanted religion as the dominant paradigm in
modern culture. But now, the very methodologies that demonstrated the limi-
tations of Western religious doctrine are now demonstrating the limitations
of modern scientism—the belief that science provides the only valid means of
acquiring knowledge.
At this point, Western culture is fast approaching the point where there
seems to be no rock left to stand upon when it comes to understanding ei-
ther the nature of life or the nature of human consciousness—at least from a
mainstream perspective. This is because both mainstream religion and main-
stream science rest upon assumptions that are simply too rigid and narrow to
encompass the reality either is trying to describe. And one of the greatest false
assumptions is that religion and science are opposites, rather than complements.
Restoring Western culture will require a reconciliation of the two, as Ken Wil-
ber pointed out in Integral Spirituality (2006).
My purpose here is to explore the role that the tarot and enneagram can
play in restoring Western culture, especially when used in tandem and in-
formed by Hermetic (“as above, so below”) philosophy. But it’s useful to start
 chapter 16: implications – 205

by seeing what physicists have to say about the implications of their discover-
ies, because this helps us see where we are right now as a culture.

The New Physics

Most physicists are not philosophers; they did not study physics in order
to delve into deep philosophical questions about the nature of life or human
consciousness. In fact, most assiduously avoid such topics. But in Quantum
Enigma: Physics Encounters Consciousness (2011), physicists Bruce Rosenblum and
Fred Kuttner attempt to confront the implications of the new physics for human
consciousness, despite the fact that both appear to much more comfortable with
the traditional scientific method than psychology or metaphysics. Thus, it’s no
surprise to discover that these authors are not exactly thrilled by the “woo-woo”
implications of the new discoveries in their field, especially the idea that the act
of observing appears to create our physical reality:
All of physics is based on quantum theory. It’s the most battle-tested theory
in all of science. And one-third of our economy involves products designed
with it. However, quantum mechanics also displays an enigma. It tells us that
physical reality is created by observation....The mystery presented by quan-
tum mechanics...[is called] the “quantum measurement problem.”1
Calling a mystery a “measurement problem” sounds like a vain attempt to
make the mystery go away. It hasn’t worked, but you can’t blame them for try-
ing: their entire worldview is based on the idea of mechanism (that’s why they
talk about “quantum mechanics,” not “quantum mysteries”). Alas, quantum
physics is not nearly as mechanical as Rosenblum and Kuttner would like. The
problem is that it “challenges [the whole premise of ] scientific realism” (p. 139)
by compelling physicists to confront the idea that human consciousness has the
power to change reality, whether we like it or not. And most physicists do not.
Quantum physics has inadvertently shown that observers inevitably influ-
ence the outcome of scientific experiments, which means that the two most
important assumptions in the empirical method—the assumption of objectiv-
ity and independence of conditions—do not work at the quantum level. Then
we have the unsettling idea of “spooky-action-at-a-distance,” which implies
the literal interconnectedness (“entanglement”) of everything in life. (I love
the way that scientists manage to take things that ought to inspire awe and
mystery and use language that makes them sound like something dreadful;
“entangle” is defined as “to cause to become twisted together or caught in a
snarl or entwining mass.”)
Mainstream physics is so averse to these ideas that there is even a whole
line of experiments designed to allow physicists to “move on” so they don’t
have to deal with this “hard question” of human consciousness (see pp. 202–
203). Nevertheless, these authors do try to tackle the question, mostly by cit-
206 – the fool’s excellent adventure

ing the work of philosopher David Chalmers on mind/body consciousness.

But they leave out a veritable raft of scientific studies showing empirical sup-
port for all sorts of “spooky action” involving some kind of psi. Their failure
to delve more deeply into the many scientific studies on these topics stems no
doubt from their visceral distaste as scientists for phenomena they consider
“mystical,” even when the reality of these phenomena can be empirically verified by
rigorous scientific studies.2
Disappointingly, the book does not really provide any answers to the
questions it poses; it simply ends with the famous Shakespearean quote from
Hamlet (“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt
of in your philosophy.”). I suppose this is their way of saying, “After writing this
whole book, we still have no idea what physics has to do with consciousness.”
However, the authors are more forthcoming about how they feel about this
lack of resolution on their website:
The quantum weirdness is not hard to “understand”—even with zero phys-
ics background. But it’s almost impossible to believe. When someone tells
you something you can’t believe, you might well think you don’t under-
stand. But believing might be the real problem. It’s best to approach the sub-
ject with an open mind. That’s not easy (emphasis mine).
No, it’s never easy to move beyond the boundaries of what we think we
know, to abandon the basic assumptions by which we live our lives. But that’s
the hero’s journey in a nutshell. In this case, we’re talking about the journey of
hard-headed Western science into the Special World of Relativity and Quan-
tum Mechanics. As with any good hero’s journey, what the adventurers find in
the Special World both awes and amazes them.
But these hero physicists seem to be stuck in their amazement, unwilling
or unable to accept the implications of what they see, because it threatens to
turn their whole worldview upside-down (which appears to be their Ordeal).
It’s not just these two authors who are upset. It’s the leading lights within the

“i had no idea it would look like THAT!”

 chapter 16: implications – 207

field. Erwin Schrödinger (of the famous cat “thought experiment”) was so dis-
mayed by the implications of his work that he admitted, “I do not like it and I
am sorry I had anything to do with it.” Neils Bohr said that “anyone who is not
shocked by the quantum theory doesn’t understand it.” And an unnamed com-
mentator in Quantum Enigma says that what he sees coming down the pike
will leave people (that is, physicists) begging to go back to the less disturbing
world of quantum theory. Einstein declared after one quantum physics discov-
ery, “If it is correct, it signifies the end of science.”3
He is right of course. The new physics does signify the end of science, but
only science as we know it—science in the narrow, purely materialist sense.
In another sense, the new physics opens science up to an entirely new way of
thinking. It’s the transition that’s difficult, because scientists raised in the old
paradigm are not looking for a new way of thinking. And a new scientific para-
digm has yet to emerge.

Western Science and Eastern Religion

However, quantum physics continues to unearth evidence that has spiri-
tual implications. As mentioned above, there’s going to have to be some sort of
rapprochement between science and spirituality if both arrive at similar con-
clusions about the nature of life. Unfortunately, the ancient wisdom traditions
of the West that could have provided the ontological foundation we need to
gracefully come to terms with the new physics have been repeatedly and ruth-
lessly stamped out, first by religious leaders (using brute force) and later by the
scientific establishment (using public ridicule). It’s only since the turn of the
21st century that it has become even marginally possible for mainstream inves-
tigators to dare to explore the relationship between science and spirituality.
In the East, there exist ancient traditions that allow science and religion to
be reconciled; there exist sacred texts containing the same kind of paradoxical
statements that we see in modern physics textbooks. And there exists another
paradoxical idea new to the West: the idea that Being arises out of Non-being.
In Hinduism, Non-being is called the maha pralaya, “the [Great] Center or
Zero, which is the primeval cause of the entire manifestation and to which ev-
erything will ultimately return.”4 Lao Tsu said in the Tao Te Ching, “All things
are born of Being. Being is born of Non-being.” Jalaluddin Rumi, founder of
the Mevlevi Sufi order, has said, “The moon passes over the ocean of Non-be-
ing. In the desire of the One to know himself, we exist.” In Buddhism, non-Be-
ing is the state of sunyata, “the fruit of Enlightenment.”5 “The Buddha...taught
that everything we take to be solid is actually empty of any inherent nature.
The apparently substantial world we perceive is in reality, without substance
at all, and is akin to a dream. The full realization of this truth is the basis for
enlightenment.”6
208 – the fool’s excellent adventure

Please note, if you will, the tone of these statements. They are graceful, poet-
ic, and quietly inspirational. What they are not is fearful. The mystics of the East
are not shaking in their boots over the idea of zero, infinity, the possibility of get-
ting sucked into a black hole, or of a singularity “piercing a hole” in the fabric of
the universe (all concerns expressed in either Zero: The Biography of a Dangerous
Idea or Quantum Enigma). Rather, their attitude is impassively matter-of-fact—
which is the kind of attitude we might expect more from scientists than mystics.
This difference in tone illustrates the huge gulf between the perspectives of
East and West. The West has the jazzy technology that can produce the weird
quantum effects, but not the philosophical and spiritual roots to cope with
what the investigators find. As a result, the experience of discovering the truth
about life is rather like opening Pandora’s box. The East used a different route
to discover the same truths, and they discovered them much earlier—not
through scientific manipulation but through direct spiritual experience.
The mystical teachings of the East have three critical truths to share with
us in the West: (a) there are two aspects of the Totality or Life: Being and Non-
being; (b) Non-being gives rise to Being; and (c) Non-being is where we came
from and the state to which we will ultimately return. What is more, the return
is joyful; it is associated with completion, illumination, and primordial bliss.
Quantum physicists are in the process of figuring out the part about Being
and Non-being; what they can’t seem to grasp is the bit about illumination
and bliss! 7 (Modern physicists are the Messengers of the Gods, they just don’t
know it yet!)

Western Science and Western Esotericism

We have seen that many beliefs in Eastern religious traditions are based on
direct, mystical experiences—experiences that are generally compatible with
the discoveries of modern physics. This is one reason why many modern West-
erners are drawn to Eastern religion: because it gives them a way to reconcile
science with spirituality. But Western culture differs from Eastern culture in
many ways, which is why it is unlikely that Eastern religion will ever be adopt-
ed on a large scale in the Western world. A better solution is to rediscover the
lost wisdom of the West, which is just as powerful as the wisdom of the East.
One place to look is Hermetic philosophy, which provides a set of broad
principles that explicate the nature of life and a vision of humankind towards
which to strive. Another is sacred geometry, which delineates the hidden
building blocks of creation and encompasses a number of profound Western
systems, including the enneagram and qabala. A third place to look is to the
tarot, which hides the wisdom of the West in archetypal images with the pow-
er to reconnect us with Cosmic Memory, both individually and collectively.
These are only a few of the better-known resources that can revitalize Western
 chapter 16: implications – 209

culture; we can also look to indigenous shamanism, Jungian dreamwork, Celt-

ic wisdom, and other traditions that preserve the ancient wisdom of the West.
A resource I have found particularly helpful for providing a detailed de-
scription of the nature of creation is a set of teachings dictated to Western eso-
tericist Dion Fortune in the 1920s. Although Fortune wrote many books, she
says these teachings were channeled, not her own creation. Published in 1949
as The Cosmic Doctrine, these teachings precisely echo the wisdom of the East
when it comes to the idea that life originates in the Unmanifest (Non-being):
The Unmanifest is pure existence. We cannot say of It that it is Not. Although
it is not manifest it Is. It is the source from which all arises. It is the only
“Reality.” It alone is substance. It alone is stable...the Unmanifest is the Great
Negation; at the same time, it is infinite potentiality which has not [yet]
occurred (p. 19).
This quote is from the first page of the book. The rest of the book explains
two things: (a) how the world of manifestation comes into existence (through
the “unificatory principle” of Love) and (b) how the beings that come into
manifestation (“Divine Sparks”) can evolve from being part of the dream to
being part of the reality that gives rise to the dream.
To do so requires us to learn how to love, “whether that love be intellectual
sympathy on the plane of the concrete mind or physical unity on the plane of
matter. Love in all of its aspects is a symbol of
the Logos as One” (p. 185). To love is to open to 0
the spirit of life and its opportunities for experi-
ence, not holding back or distancing ourselves
out of fear, distaste, or a sense of superiority.
And this brings to mind The Fool and his
love affair with life (Fig. 16-1.) He may have his
head in the clouds (at least at the start) but he
has not a shred of fear, distrust, or hubris. He
cares not a fig for his image but listens to his in-
ner voice and acts to satisfy his endless curiosity
about life.
Recalling his “zero” position reminds us that
The Fool is always an edge-walker who stands
9 -18 - 27
between the two worlds of the Unmanifest and 8-17-26 1-10 -19
the Manifest, which is a very special place in
mystical lore. In Sufism, it is called “the place 7- 16 -25 2 -11-20
where the two seas meet”; it has been called the
6-15 -24 3 -12 -21
“locus of the mystical journey.” This distinctive
spot is a place of strange and paradoxical events, 5 - 14 - 23 4 -13 -22
such as a cooked fish coming to life again and
Fig. 16-1. The Fool, Happily Cliff-Diving.
210 – the fool’s excellent adventure

jumping back into the ocean—a logical impossibility, unless time can move
backwards. It’s also the place where we might encounter Khidr, the mysteri-
ous Green Man, who figures prominently in both Sufi and Celtic lore. In
Sufism, he is the mystical teacher who instructs us through paradox and sur-
prise, rather than according to our expectations.
There is a famous Sufi story about Khidr and Moses. Moses wants to become
the student of Khidr, but Khidr warns him, “You will not be able to follow me.”
But Moses persists and Khidr agrees to let him try. But Khidr is a hard master
to follow, because he does many things that Moses does not understand. Some
of them even seem morally wrong. Each time Moses protests, Khidr patiently
explains himself and Moses relents. But after the third time, Khidr reminds
him of what he foretold at the beginning and sends him on his way.
I n t h is stor y, Moses represents t he conditioned self that is brought
up in the Dream world of Being. This is where he learns the rules that govern
the created world. His encounter with Khidr symbolizes the first time he
becomes aware of his inner teacher, his in-tuition. But his conditioning makes
him distrust it, and he falls back on relying upon the conventional rules he has
been taught from childhood.
The story of Moses and Khidr is like the story of Sir Percival’s first visit to
the Grail Castle, where in a moment of clarity, he perceives the Grail Proces-
sion. But he is too inexperienced to know how to respond to the vision. Like
Percival, Moses will have to have further experiences before he acquires the
maturity to trust his inner voice (an attainment symbolized in the tarot as The
Fool becoming The Hermit).

A Fool’s Paradise
In a quantum sense, The Fool represents the “Divine Spark” as it first
emerges into the Special World of Being. He may be “trailing clouds of glory,”
but he is also apt to trip and fall a lot, due to a complete lack of life experience!
The delicate white rose that he carries attests to the purity of the world from
which he comes, as does his white undergarment; his laurel wreath tells us he
will win the day; and his waving feather celebrates his entrance into the dream
world we call reality. His magnificent robe contains the Hebrew letter Shin
(fire), a symbol of the eternal flame. He has no real luggage, only a very small
bag that could carry practically nothing; it has on it the emblem of the eagle,
the highest manifestation of Scorpio, the sign of death and rebirth.
This empty-looking bag is our clue as to The Fool’s secret. It’s not secret
knowledge or powers that he has; it’s about what he has-not. It’s about the noth-
ingness he carries with him wherever he goes, the spark of divine nothingness
that serves to connect him to his place of origin.
 chapter 16: implications – 211

The Fool is the only card in the tarot deck that symbolizes this particular
quality, as shown by his special zero. That’s why he is the journeyer and the
joker that can become any card in any deck. It’s why he always looks young and
never really dies: because his life is eternal. He shows us why we do not need to
fear non-existence. Non-existence is home.
In a tarot reading, The Fool is not considered a bad card to draw. But it
often leaves us scratching our heads as to why we drew it. There are so many
possible meanings attached to The Fool. To interpret the card, we can’t just
rely on something we memorized. We have to use our intuition.
The Fool is designed to give us a little taste of paradox, perhaps to help us
get used to dealing with paradox in our own lives, just as small synchronicities
allow us to see the interconnectedness of life, even when it comes to trivial
events. I recently went to the store just to buy mint Tums. All I had at home
were the fruity kind and I don’t like them much. As I walked down the aisle, I
saw a guy approaching from the other end. We were the only two people there.
As I walked, scanning the shelves for Tums, I saw him scanning the shelves,
too. Eventually we converged on exactly the same shelf and, finally, on the ex-
act same spot. It turned out we had both come to the store for just one thing: a
bottle of mint Tums. We had a little conversation about it, because there were
no mint Tums and we had to settle for an inferior brand.
This encounter was not exactly a cosmic event. But it was unusual and odd-
ly amusing, as are many synchronicities. Often, they don’t seem very “spiri-
tual” in the usual sense of the word. But maybe the funniness of these events
might be more important than we think. We always expect spiritual stuff to be
serious, even solemn. But it might be more spiritual (and loving) to learn how
to laugh and have fun, even in little ways, so we can avoid getting too serious
and self-important. The Fool doesn’t look very self-important. In fact, he’s the
only character in the entire tarot who is routinely portrayed in a comedic role,
often with torn pants, a harlequin outfit, or accompanied by a funny little dog,
as in the RWS deck.
But let’s be honest—when we draw The Fool in a reading, how many of us
really want to identify with him? Not many, I’ll bet. Most of us like to think
we’re a little more clued-in and a little less spaced-out. But are we, really? Or
are we just too dense to realize the truth?
Western culture conditions us to think we’re the smartest, most sophisti-
cated, and most technologically advanced people who have ever walked the face
of the earth (political correctness notwithstanding). But if humility is a virtue,
how do we really rate on a scale of 1–10? How would we rate on our ability to
love, to be truly sincere, or to see ourselves in a humorous light? How many of us
have the kind of trust in life that would allow us to walk off a cliff, knowing no
real harm can come of it?
 212 – the fool’s excellent adventure

To get a handle on what’s really going

T ALIT on, a simple model may be useful; see Fig.
O Y 16-2. This figure depicts the equation non-
T





being + being = the totality. Non-
 NON-BEING
being (the top circle) and Being (the bottom
 enneagram circle) are in a figure-8 flow,


0/9 signifying the idea that there is a continuous



8 1


 7 BEING 2 
flow between existence and non-existence;
6 3
some people call this reincarnation. When
we incarnate, we begin dreaming; when we


5 4


die, we come home to reality.

Fig. 16-2. The two circles of Being and Non-
The Flow between Being & Non-being.
being are connected at Point 0/9—the point
“where the two seas meet.” And that’s why
this point is associated with The Storyteller (Type 9) on the enneagram and The
Fool in the tarot. Both archetypes are one and the same.
In the life cycle, Point 0/9 is where we emerge from Non-Being into
Being. This is a momentous event, whether we are talking about the original
emanation of Being from Non-being, the bursting forth of a universe into
existence, or the birth of an individual human being. The return to Non-being
is equally momentous, because it represents waking up from the dream and
remembering our true identity. There is no death, no final end, to either life or
to consciousness; there is just a flowing forth and receding back, according to
our individual nature and the larger cycles of life (the “Cosmic Tides”). 8
This is not a complicated idea. Is it really so hard to comprehend? Eastern
culture has known about it for millennia. It’s we in the West who have forgot-
ten our divine heritage, and forgotten it so completely that we have come to
fear our gifts instead of developing them.
But in Jungian psychology, the more we fear something, the more we con-
stellate it in a distorted form. We are currently constellating the technical abil-
ity to tamper with most basic elements of life, like atoms (to create bombs or
missiles), genes (to create new species or clones), and silicon (to create artifi-
cially intelligent machines). We play the role of idiot savants, creating new stuff
that we don’t how to use. Collectively speaking, we seem to have a pretty low
spiritual I.Q.
As we delve ever more deeply into the mysteries of life, what kind of under-
standing will inform our work? The detached mentalism of philosophy? The
cruel logic of atheism? The cynical spirit of commercialism? None of these can
show us the way out of fear and into the light (not even in combination with
money, drugs, or zombie apocalypse flicks).
 chapter 16: implications – 213

If we in the West want to get grounded in the real, we need to recover our
lost wisdom teachings, to revive the Hermetic spirit that fizzled out after the
Renaissance, and find a way to integrate art, science, and religion as they sought
to do during that Renaissance era that many of us look back to so fondly.9 It’s
time to create a second Renaissance, one that cannot be easily subverted by
Church, State, or our fears of the unknown.
The nine-path model presented here is designed to offer one practical ap-
proach for rediscovering the wisdom of the West. The intent is to honor the
traditions of the past while also developing innovations for the future. The tar-
ot gives us visual images to make abstract ideas concrete; the enneagram pro-
vides nine paths of development and a matrix upon which to envision them.
When we can dream, we can make life come true,
When we can love, we can find our way through.
When we can laugh, we can take back the night,
When we can die, we can live in the light.
From the The Cosmic Doctrine: “Whosoever expresses Love brings Spirit,
which is One, into manifestation...therefore, choose Love—and live.”10

Notes
1
The first part of this quote is from the authors’ website (see http://quantumenigma.com/
nutshell/); the second part is from their book, pp. xi–xii.
2
To discover just how much empirical work has been done to verify the existence of psi, see,
e.g., the work of respected experimental psychologist Daryl Bem (his scientific papers are
available at his website, including a meta-analysis on precognition experiments); The Biology of
Belief , by biochemist Bruce Lipton (Hay House: 2016); Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experi-
ences in a Quantum Reality (Paraview: 2006) and Supernormal (Deepak Chopra: 2013), both
by Dean Radin, head of the Institute of Noetic Sciences. Also check out the website The Cam-
paign for Open Science, established by Dr. Larry Dossey in 2014 to promote the fair-minded
scientific assessment of consciousness.
3
It’s a bit dismaying to see such brilliant thinkers respond to the new physics with such a
“tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth.” Maybe these physicists would not be quite so gob-
smacked if they were part of a scientific culture in which science and spirituality were not re-
garded as mutually exclusive. But they are part of that kind of culture. According to a 2009 Pew
Foundation survey, 95% of Americans say they believe in some sort of higher power while only
51% of scientists say they do. The spread is even wider is we ask about a belief in God: 83%
Americans vs 33% of scientists say they believe. You might think this is because scientists are
naturally inclined to be less religious; and this may be true. But as someone who worked for
years in that environment, I can testify that science promotes a culture of disbelief that makes
it hard for anyone with a spiritual orientation to work for an extended period in a scientific
environment. And there is absolutely no way to talk about religion or even spirituality at work;
the topic is simply taboo.
214 – the fool’s excellent adventure

4
Chandra, Ram. The Complete Works of Ram Chandra, Vol. 1 (Shri Ram Chandra Mission:
1989), p. 28.

5
See http://buddhanet.net/cbp2_f6.htm.
6
Aaron de Long and Kim Desrosiers; see https://westchester.shambhala.org/.
7
That’s the problem with Western science: it’s superb at bloodlessly dissecting things into
their bits and pieces but not so good at appreciating the beauty of the creation as a whole or
the idea that it might have some kind of overarching purpose.
8
The Cosmic Tides are one of the Cosmic forces described in The Cosmic Doctrine, and they
have to do with the timing of Cosmic events, just like the ocean tides on earth. The Cosmic
Doctrine includes this particularly interesting statement: “By a knowledge of these Cosmic
Tides the ‘illuminated’ may avail himself of their forces, hence the power of a knowledge of
the Numbers of the Secret Calendar” (p. 32). There is no explanation of what these Num-
bers are or what the Secret Calendar might reveal. But doesn’t it sound intriguing?
9
This is religion not in the narrow, doctrinal sense, but in the sense of the word religio, which
means “sacredness, piety, holiness, conscientiousness, a sense of right, divine service.”
10
The Cosmic Doctrine, p. 185.