contents

Preface     v

The thesis of this book is that how things looked to people everywhere until modern science threw the West temporarily off-balance has helpful things to suggest toward the creation of a viable pattern for our time.

1.     The Way Things Are                1

Our best hope for a true universal view of reality is the convergent vision of the worlds great religious teachers, philosophers, mystics and prophets rather than a scientific secular view.

2.     Symbolism of Space: The Three-Dimensional  Cross           19

A three-dimensional cross is the most adequate model of reality that space can provide.

3.     The Levels of Reality             34

The Terrestrial Plane, The Intermediate Plane, The Celestial Plane, and The Infinite are the four levels of reality. Our minds are incapable of grasping the Infinite. But truth does not need us and is in no way dependent upon our powers of conceptualization.

4.      The Levels of Selfhood          60

As without, so within - the basic premise of the traditional outlook (and of this book) is that man and the cosmos have a similar shape.

5.      The Place of Science              96

Science, man's brightest intellectual exploit may house meaning beyond those it wears on its sleeve.  These meanings as they bear on the human spirit show themselves in a series of parallels between science and religion.

6.      Hope, Yes; Progress, No       118

Our true hope lies not in the illusion of collective progress of life here on the terrestrial plane but in an individual upward journey of soul and spirit to join the Infinite Creator of us all.

7.      Epilogue                               146

Is there anything respecting our thesis that has not been said and needs to be said? Perhaps some misunderstanding can be anticipated and allayed.

Appendix: The Psychedelic Evidence               155

There is reason to question whether it is wise to even mention the psychedelics in connection with God and the Infinite. The goal, it cannot be stressed too often, is not religious experiences: it is the religious life.  And with respect to the latter, psychedelic "theophanies" can abort a quest as readily as, perhaps more readily than, they can further it. It is the potential for the drug LSD as a resource for enlarging our understanding of the human mind and self that concerns us in this book.  The view of man that was outlined in Chapter 4 presented him as a multilayered creature and work with LSD points to the same conclusion.

 

Index                       174

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