A Sense of the Cosmos: Scientific Knowledge and Spiritual Truth

The venerable theme of rapprochement between science and spirituality gets painstakingly explored in this mazy treatise. Needleman (a professor of philosophy and religion, novelist, consultant on education and medical ethics and the author of numerous books, including The American Soul: Rediscovering the Wisdom of the Fathers) invokes a number of mystical/philosophical thinkers, including Heidegger, Gurdjieff, Kierkegaard and Maimonides, to help plumb the conundrums of cosmology, particle physics, medicine, psychology and""the One ultimate question: the Being of beings."" With considerable effort, readers will uncover a rather familiar critique: science divorces the intellect from the body and the emotions and presents a picture of a meaningless, mechanistic universe that makes people feel both alienated and self-important. Because man is a""microcosm,"" true knowledge of""the universal laws of energy, time and causality"" comes only from""direct observation in oneself"" in relation to them, he says, as recommended by the great mystical traditions--especially the Eastern religions, whose physical/meditative rituals are a model of the union of body, intellect and emotions. It is only through""the Path"" of intense spiritual discipline, Needleman contends, that we can contemplate the""play of inner and outer forces that influence... life."" Section headings like""What is Consciousness?"" and""The Face of Reality"" convey the grandiosity and nebulousness of Needleman's reflections, which put a rationalistic gloss on traditional mystic themes of the oneness of being, the superiority of emotion and experience to analysis, and the communion between the individual and the""consciousness"" of the universe. Scientists will find little of value in these ruminations, but readers in search of a reenchanted cosmos may be comforted.