The Role of the Holistic/Subjective Approach

While science was mechanistic or objective in its approach this does not mean that science did not employ introspection. It did but it could not admit to this without bringing unjust criticism upon those who could not confront integrativeness, be integrative and think integratively. In truth, as Einstein pointed out in his quotes given earlier, effective science depended on an equal blend of objectivity or experimentation with soul-guided introspection. To use Professor Birch’s comment, also mentioned earlier, effective science depended on a strong conscience.

The main talent required for the research or experimentation that objective inquiry depended upon was the ability to reason or think — mental cleverness or speed at mental information processing or I.Q; the talent subjective inquiry or introspection depended upon was soundness of self or lack of alienation or access to our soul’s guidance for thinking. People who were exceptionally good at introspection — who were innocent of hurt to their souls — who were exceptionally sound thinkers — were what we once called prophets. So in truth the ideal or most effective scientist was someone who was in part a prophet. However, we could not acknowledge this or take steps to select scientists for this quality. We could not afford to recognise or acknowledge soundness (because of the criticism implicit in being ‘unsound’) until we could defend our battle-weary/exhausted state. We could not establish soundness tests to accompany our I.Q. tests to judge who should enter universities. As has been explained in Part 2 of this book, had alienation tests been carried out along with I.Q. tests we would have discovered that the more intelli-Page 178 of
Print Edition gent were in general the more alienated; therefore, to find the ideal blend of soundness and cleverness, we should have chosen those with average I.Qs. The reality however was that we were unable to recognise soundness and by stressing only cleverness we became extremely unbalanced, as will shortly be explained. (It should be acknowledged that some scientific subjects were more remote from the human condition than others making them less threatening and thus less in need of soundness to investigate them. Subjects such as mathematics and astronomy were relatively ‘safe’ non-threatening subjects which did not suffer greatly from being investigated by alienation while subjects that brought the human condition into focus, such as biology, required the soundness of people like Darwin to investigate them effectively.)

By the way it was evasive to claim that the reason we didn’t assess soundness is that we didn’t know who was sound and who wasn’t. We repressed soundness and in the extreme crucified it, which we could not have done if we were not able to recognise it. In fact it would have been easier to establish tests that measured alienation than it was to establish tests that measured I.Q. Teenagers at school have a number system for ‘sex’ which goes: 1 is holding hands, 2 is kissing, 3 is putting your hand under the blouse, 4 is putting your hand up the dress, etc. These steps in perversion development go on and on and provide an accurate measure of our degree of upset/anger because our level of upset/anger and with it alienation is reflected in our degree of sexual perversion. Sir Laurens van der Post, in his book, The Heart of the Hunter (1961), mentions that ‘Not by the men, but by the women who flock to him and their obedience, shall you first know the true prophet’. Men normally ‘used’ women and when they did not, and it was apparent in their eyes whether they did or not, women recognised it. Women were the first to recognise and acknowledge an innocent — a prophet.

In earlier, more naive times, human societies often did recognise and make a place for people who were exceptionally good at introspection, able to confront the truth and reveal it to othersPage 179 of
Print Edition without evasion — who were exceptionally free of the need to be evasive — who were necessarily exceptionally innocent of encounter with the compromise of the human condition and who were thus unhurt, uncorrupted, sound and not upset. The Hebrews of biblical times fostered such people — they were the prophets of the Old and New Testaments. More recently we have become too sophisticated or aware of the dangers acknowledgement of prophets and their sound thinking brought upon us to openly recognise and collect them. Their great innocence of hurt, their soundness, unevasiveness and openness only served to remind us of our non-innocence, criticising us and increasing our hurt.

We certainly needed innocence/soundness/introspective-guidance/subjective-capability/conscience but it also served to criticise us. We had to find the full truth that defended us before we could even acknowledge the existence of soundness and innocence let alone openly select for it and cultivate it as we could the cleverness required for objective inquiry.