When Scientist and Mystic Meet

August 13th, 2007

Several years ago, I reached a point in my life when I began to doubt there was any purpose or validity to anything I was working on. Researching the mind's infinite potential, studying lucid dreaming, exploring the mind's apparent ability to heal the body — all of it started to seem futile.

This feeling wasn't new. It was nothing I hadn't experienced before, yet at the time it seemed overwhelming. It was driven by an internal conflict that needed to be resolved.

I'm part scientist, part mystic. I see the beauty in science and mysticism equally and believe they are simply two ways to explore the same world. One is objective, one is subjective, but both are valid approaches in their own right.

I don't fear the merging of science and mysticism the way many people do. Instead, I imagine the many discoveries and advancements that could come from a truly scientific exploration of mystic traditions. Studies in meditation, dreaming, biofeedback and visualization have turned up fascinating results and prompted as many intriguing questions as they've answered. Mysticism relies on an intense personal examination of the inner workings of the mind. Having those same inner workings explored from another direction through science is practical and, in a way, inspirational. I find it immensely exciting whenever these areas overlap. This is why I've always felt comfortable treading the gray area between the two.

But for reasons I didn't recognize back then, I suddenly felt lost, directionless, and anything but comfortable.

My pursuits seemed pointless, primarily because they fell into that same gray area, too scientific to be classified as mysticism and too subjective to be accepted as scientific. I was frustrated with myself for not being able to choose one direction or the other.

Either you're a scientist or a mystic, I told myself, make up your mind.

I didn't realize I could be both.

What I had to learn, what I already knew on some level, was that those pursuits weren't pointless at all. In trying to assign them some arbitrary purpose that would allow them to fit snugly into one category or the other, I was inadvertently destroying the real meaning they had to me, the purpose I'd given them long ago: to bridge the gap between science and mysticism.

In my quest to fit my studies solely into one camp or the other, I'd lost sight of my original intent and was no longer being true to myself. I'd forgotten what had excited me about this whole process in the first place and, because that excitement had to be replaced by something else, was now consumed with a gnawing sense that something was simply wrong.

This feeling of wrongness finally reached an unbearable level. I'd become so frustrated with the sheer volume of unfounded claims being made by folks in the personal development field that I'd almost decided to forget about mysticism altogether. But some part of me couldn't give up on it. I didn't want to let a few bad apples spoil the whole bunch (or, in this case, let a few greedy individuals and crazies wipe out the legitimacy of the entire field). I'm a creative soul, a visionary, and mysticism is a passion I couldn't easily suppress. I wanted to keep my open-minded, wonder-seeking, mystic self.

I believe there's much more to this universe than meets the eye, and at the time I was convinced science wasn't doing enough, wasn't making enough progress. I considered the possibility I might be too strict in my scientific evaluations of those unfounded personal development claims. Then I quickly discounted that possibility, refusing to forsake my analytical side, just as a moment ago I'd refused to desert my mystic side. Healthy skepticism isn't a bad thing. I wanted to keep my sensible, scientific self too.

I'd always prided myself on being able to balance the logical with the emotional, the scientific with the mystical, and I wasn't ready to abandon either path.

There was a war going on inside me and neither side was winning.

I was suspended in the middle and I felt stuck, torn between one side and the other, not realizing this feeling was entirely self-inflicted, not realizing being suspended in the middle was exactly where I needed and wanted to be.

One night, after a particularly grueling week during which my skeptical side attempted to bury my mystic side once and for all, I went to bed and pleaded with my subconscious mind, the Universe, the collective unconscious, or whatever else was willing to respond. Just give me a reason to keep at it, I begged, Show me there's something more to all this. I fell asleep with that thought in mind.

The next morning I woke up rather abruptly, jolted from deep sleep to wide awake, with a song in my head. It wasn't just a trace of a song, a few notes or a captured phrase lifted from the lyrics. It was a whole song, and it was playing in my head loud and clear.

I did a quick reality check to make sure I wasn't dreaming. Nope, not dreaming. The song kept playing. I listened to make sure the music wasn't coming from a neighbor's radio. No, definitely not the neighbors either.

I recognized Peter Gabriel's voice. I own a couple of his CDs but didn't recognize this song as one I'd ever heard before. I got out of bed, booted up the computer, and Googled the song. Even after I got out of bed and walked into my office, the song was still playing clearly in my head, and I guessed the title was "More Than This" simply because that phrase appeared repeatedly throughout the song.

I'd guessed the title correctly but quickly discovered the song had been released only on two CDs I didn't own. I double-checked the track listings on my two Peter Gabriel CDs but the song wasn't there. I checked a few other CDs in my collection, thinking perhaps his song had appeared on a compilation disc with songs from other artists, but my search turned up nothing.

I was absolutely certain I'd never heard the song before, yet it was playing in my head and somehow I knew every beat of the music and all the words, as if I'd heard it dozens of times.

I didn't discount the chance I'd heard the song somewhere without consciously realizing it. I doubted I'd heard it on the radio, if only because I don't listen to the radio very often and when I do I listen to the classical music station, but I didn't rule out the possibility I'd heard the song playing in the background while I shopped at the grocery store, bookstore, or some other similar venue. I thought it unlikely, partly due to the fact that the song had received minimal airplay in the U.S. and partly due to how difficult it was to believe I'd vividly remember all the words to a song I didn't recall ever consciously hearing at all, but the possibility, however slim, existed just the same.

I could spend a lifetime debating whether I'd heard the song somewhere before or if instead it spontaneously arrived in its entirety in my mind for the very first time that morning. I could spend another lifetime debating whether the song appeared in my head for a specific reason or for no real reason at all, whether it was just a coincidence or instead a message from my subconscious or something more.

I laughed because my mind (or the Universe, or the collective unconscious, or whatever else you prefer) had given me exactly what I'd asked for. Show me there's something more to all this, I'd demanded, and I'd be given "More Than This" in return. The irony was inescapable.

I realized at that moment that this song, this event, would have whatever meaning I gave it.

My mystic self recognized that my late-night plea had been a form of soul-searching, of reaching out and connecting with my higher self or maybe even whatever infinite source binds together this wondrous universe of ours. My scientific self realized that my mind had somehow, through whatever synergy of gray matter and electrical signals, pulled to the surface a piece of obscure information it needed at that particular moment in time.

The important thing was, I'd posed the question to both of them and they had come up with the same answer.

In that moment, I saw the source of my problem, the root of my internal conflict. I rediscovered the meaning I'd given to my studies long before, the purpose I'd found so much joy in, the purpose I'd somehow forgotten. I realized science wasn't making the kind of progress I wanted to see because it needed more people like me. It needed more analytical, wonder-seeking, sensible, mystical explorers willing to navigate that gray area and bridge the gap.

I'd come full-circle. I was whole again.

I bought a copy of the Peter Gabriel CD. Whenever I have doubts, whenever I have one of those days and don't feel that same sense of balance, I play the song. And it works, because it still has the meaning I gave it.