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New Age Science 1 CHAPTER THREE NEW AGE SCIENCE 1 DaB ich erkenne, was die Welt im Innersten zusammenhalt, Schau alle Wirkenskraft und Samen und tu nicht mehr in W orten kramen J.W. von Goethe, Faust I THE QUEST FOR A UNIFIED WORLDVIEW One of the notable characteristics of New Age thinking is its high regard for modern science. This may seem surprising at first sight because New Agers also tend to distrust and reject academic rationalism; but, in fact, the contra­ diction is only apparent. Modern scientific developments-especially in theo­ retical physics-appeal to New Age concerns for two reasons. On the one hand, they are interpreted in such a way as to legitimate a spiritual worldview; but, at the same time ( and for the very same reasons) they also serve as weapons to attack the existing scientific consensus. This is possible because the "old" and the "new" science are perceived as radical opposites, if not in practice then at least in principle. Traditional science-associated with the academic estab­ lishment-is thoroughly condemned as materialistic and conducive to human alienation, but the New Age has discovered the new science as a potential ally against it. Following Thomas Kuhn's Structure of Scientific Revolutions2, New Age believers claim that established science reflects an outdated reductionis­ tic paradigm bound to be replaced by a new paradigm based on a holistic per­ spective. The suggestion that the evolutionary thrust of science now leads it to reject the very materialism it once helped to create is as inspiring to some peo­ ple as it is outrageous to others. That New Age Science diverges from main­ stream science is recognized by critics and sympathizers alike, but both inter­ pret this fact differently. Critical outsiders prefer to speak of "fringe science", an appellation which reflects their conviction that these approaches are bor­ derline cases of genuine scientific research, if not nonsensical pseudo-science pure and simple. Defenders, on the other hand, turn the fact of their marginal 1 Briggs & Peat, Looking Glass Universe; Chowdhury, Wiskerke, van Zoest & van der Zwan, Holisme en New Age-bewustzijn; Hemmering, 'Uber Glaube und Zweifel; Griffin, Reenchant­ ment of Science; Gladigow, 'Pantheismus'; Templeton & Herrmann, God Who would be known; Mutschler, Physik-Religion-New Age; Grim, Philosophy of Science and the Occult, Sect. IV: Quantum mysticism; Sperry, 'Search for Beliefs'. 2 Kuhn, Structure of Scientific Revolutions. NEW AGE SCIENCE 63 position into an advantage by re-labeling their perspective as "leading edge science". They see themselves as the avant-garde of scientific progress: pio­ neers of a radical new worldview. In order to put "New Age science" into context we must, first of all, eval­ uate its status as science. Surely most of its central proponents are, or have been, practicing scientists. Some of them (David Bohm, Ilya Prigogine) enjoy general recognition for their contributions to fundamental research, while oth­ ers (Peat, Jantsch) hold or held university posts while also writing books for a general public. A few authors (Capra, Sheldrake) started their career as sci­ entists but, as a result of the popular success of their books, largely or com­ pletely abandoned fundamental research for a career in the lecture circuit. It is undoubtedly the case that the authors' scientific credentials have served, in the eyes of the general public, to lend authority to the views expressed in their books3• Nevertheless, there can be no doubt that the literature of New Age sci­ ence does not primarily aim at keeping the public informed about the current situation of scientific research, or at disseminating knowledge about new sci­ entific discoveries. Rather, New Age science is typically concerned with devel­ oping unified worldviews. It shares this ambition with many popular exposi­ tions of modem science. Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time4, to give one well-known example, culminates in the perspective on a Grand Unified Theory (GUT) which, if and when it will be discovered, is expected to deal the final death blow to theism and to metaphysics generally5• In fact, the appeal of popular science books in general seems to be based largely on the exciting suggestion that science is on its way to know the "Mind of God"6• In its sec­ ular variety, such as represented by Hawking, the premise is that such knowl­ edge would prove the superfluity of traditional theologies and the vacuity of religion; the New Age variety, in contrast, suggests that science can shed light on, even explain, the workings of the divine in the cosmos and thus secure a scientific basis for religion. It is hardly surprising that both alternatives pre­ suppose different conceptions of God. The appeal of the secular variety rests on its (quasi-)polemical relation to a christian theism characterized by the tra­ ditional attributes of omniscience and omnipotence. The New Age counterpart is not concerned with christian theological conceptions but emphasizes, instead, the ubiquity or immanence of the divine in the cosmos. New Age science is, therefore, characterized by the search for a unified worldview which includes a religious dimension. This religious dimension­ the specifics of which will be discussed in Part Two of this study-may be 3 Cf. Mutschler, Physik-Religion-New Age, 16; O'Hara, 'Of Myths and Monkeys', 70-71. 4 Hawking, Brief History of Time. 5 Hawking, Brief History of Time, 166-169. 6 Cf. Davies, Mind of God. .
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