CHAPTER 4

Magick and Science

agick is based on certain premises that we might call the “Foundations of Magick.” These are akin to the laws of physics, but physicists are just beginning to find scientific validation for some truths known to adepts for millennia. We can sum up these foundational ideas by saying that:

• energy is abundant;
• everything is connected;
• possibilities are infinite;
• the path lies within you;

. . . and that magicians can use their understanding of connections and available energy to turn possibility into actuality, by following that inner path. We will explore each of these points, but first a disclaimer.

The Limits

If anyone says that they understand exactly how magick works, they are probably an Ascended Master (and therefore not physically present) or kidding themselves.

The truth is that no human being really understands the workings of magick. To use an analogy, most people can walk and talk and drink a glass of water without having any real clue how their nerves and muscles and sinews are constructed. Likewise, almost anyone can flick a light switch and make the lights come on in the living room. But touching the light switch doesn’t make you an electrician, and being an electrician doesn’t mean you have a master’s degree in electrical engineering, and having that degree doesn’t mean that you understand how electricity works down to the subatomic level and beyond.

The same is true for magick. Anyone can work a simple spell, projecting energy toward a goal, and billions of people do it daily without having any training—or even calling it “magick.” Doing this doesn’t make one a magician: we reserve that title for people with training and intention. Being a magician doesn’t make you an adept: that takes years of training and practice, and probably some natural aptitude for the Art. And even adepts don’t understand everything about magick—not by a very long shot.

Now, we have models aplenty, which are working analogies. For example, kahunas (traditional Hawaiian shaman/priests) visualize psychic energy as being like water. Many Witches and others model the human Self as having three levels or personas. Using such models, we can all work magick, just as anyone can turn on the lights and pretty much anyone can learn to wire a table lamp. Some of us—quite possibly you—will become very, very competent at working magick, and transform our lives for the better. And a very few will become adepts, and change the world of humanity. And isn’t that enough?

But totally mastering magick would be like completely understanding physics. You probably know in general terms how many breakthroughs have occurred in the last century or so; yet in 1890, Albert Michelson, distinguished former Head of the Physics Department at the University of Chicago, who won a jillion science awards, including the Nobel Prize in Physics (1907), and who was the first to accurately measure the diameter of a star, stated firmly that “The more important fundamental laws and facts of physical science have all been discovered and these are now so firmly established that the possibility of their ever being supplanted in consequence of new discoveries is remote.”[1]

Today many scientists have a more realistic view of the matter. Thomas Carlyle said, “I don’t pretend to understand the universe—it’s a great deal bigger than I am.”[2] And the famous physicist J. B. S. Haldane added, “My suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose.”[3]

We will never completely understand physics or magick. Not you, not me, not the greatest adept alive. As far as we can tell, the realm of possible understanding is limitless, and there will forever be a frontier to our knowledge, beyond which lies . . . mystery.

None of this should discourage us from learning everything we can. Just don’t expect simple or complete answers, like the astronomy professor who told his students, in the final exam, to “Describe the universe, and give two examples.”[4]

Having said that, we can explore some working principles and models that will help you become a magician. Just remember, what follows is not “The Truth”—it just contains enough truth or resemblance to reality to work. And remember, too, that other models for magick also work perfectly well, we just can’t fit them all in one book.

The Nature of Reality

On one level, believing in magick at all seems a little crazy; it’s right on the library shelves between Bigfoot and fairies on one side, and unicorns and vampires on the other. Solid, respectable, commonsensible people don’t believe in such things—do they? They’re not real—are they?

To decide what might be real, we have to take a look at “reality.” Can you answer these questions?

TRUE or FALSE: There is real stuff out there that exists even if we don’t see it (like Paris, or air).

TRUE or FALSE: If we observe carefully and do lots of experiments, we can predict what will happen next (this particle is here, moving in that direction, so it will soon be there).

TRUE or FALSE: Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light (Einstein, right?).

TRUE or FALSE: There are certain laws of physics we know that govern matter in all times and places (laws like gravity and entropy).[5]

Did you answer “true” to all of these? Sorry; according to a lot of respected physicists, the answer is “maybe, maybe not” for every one.

We all would like the universe to behave in “normal,” predictable, commonsense ways, but at the deepest levels we can see, it doesn’t. Frank Herbert said it well: “Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”[6]

So here are some best guesses about the nature of reality.

The “Laws” of Nature Are Not Universal

The world we know seems to operate by certain natural laws that we think of as universal and unchanging. Life is based on carbon atoms rather than silicon, for example. Water runs downhill. We can’t see in the dark . . . and so on. But many of the “laws” we count on are based on random accidents that occurred when the universe started to expand, or when Earth was formed. In another universe, or galaxy, or even on another planet, the rules may be different. “A law of geology, biology, or human psychology may stem from one or more amplified quantum events, each of which could have turned out differently.”[7]

There Are an Infinite Number of Kinds of Particles
(Most of Which We’ll Never See)

How many different building blocks of the universe can you name? Well, there are protons, neutrons, electrons, and a few weird ones like quarks and muons. So, maybe ten or twelve? According to Superstring theory, there are not only a lot of different kinds of particles, there may be an infinite number. We just don’t know anything about most of them, because most have such high masses that we’ll never get them into a laboratory to look at.[8]

There Is No Difference Between Matter and Energy

At the smallest level we can measure, “things” sometimes act like waves of energy and sometimes act like particles of matter. Mostly they behave like whichever one you expect them to . . . which is very courteous and cooperative of them, but just a tad frustrating if you want your universe to be simple. Simple or not, this works just fine for magicians. We know we can manipulate energy, and we do it all the time in rituals. And if even solid things are really (or sometimes) energy waves, then they are not as rigid and static as they seem, but susceptible to change by the power of imagination, will, and directed energy.

Mostly, Everything Is Empty Space—Which Is Very Full

How much did you pay for this book? Did you know that it’s composed mostly of empty space—like 99.99999 percent of it? If you think that’s bad, so is your car’s engine block. Every “solid,” material object is built of particles (or waves) that are more space than stuff. But that doesn’t mean nothing is happening in that empty space, or that it looks like Sunday night at Starbucks. Scientist John Gribbin tells us that actually “it is seething with activity, a maelstrom of virtual particles . . .”[9]

The World Is Only Real Because We Are Watching It

Remember the “big bang”? Well, you’re probably too young, but you know that’s when everything started, right? Not exactly. Quantum theory says that it wasn’t really real until someone observed it—or at least observed the leftover radiation from the event. In other words, the universe existed only in potential, even after it was created, for billions of years, until we evolved to the point that we noticed. At that moment everything became real, back to the beginning. In a sense, we created all that exists by seeing it.[10] Remember that mean fourth-grade teacher you had who kept saying, “Pay attention—look at me!”? Poor thing, she just wanted to be real.

As Gribbin puts it, “the whole universe may only owe its ‘real’ existence to the fact that it is observed by intelligent beings . . . the fundamental axiom of quantum theory [is] that no elementary phenomenon is a phenomenon until it is a recorded phenomenon.”[11]

There’s Not One Universe; There Are Infinite Universes

If you read science fiction, you must have encountered the idea that there are “parallel universes” that are mostly like ours, but different in some key aspect. For example, our hero Captain Kirk of the Enterprise is an evil person in the universe next door; there, he actually walks around rumpled and unshaven and even sneers. Only there are more “universes next door” than we can imagine: one where Kirk is only captain of a beach volleyball team, one where he’s a druggist in Iowa, etc. Physicist Bryce DeWitt suggests that “every quantum transition taking place on every star, in every galaxy, in every remote corner of the universe is splitting our local world on earth into myriads of copies of itself.”[12]

Time Isn’t Real

Explain this to your boss the next time you’re late for work. Albert Einstein himself said that “the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” It seems that everything is happening at once—but our brains aren’t configured to process all the input simultaneously, so we build clocks, pretend time is linear, and handle one crisis at a time. It makes life much simpler, really. Of course, now and then the illusion breaks down and we can be heard muttering, “WHY does everything have to happen at once?”

The Universe Is Not Predictable

If you knew everything about the state of the universe at its beginning and understood all the laws of physics, you could pretty well predict everything as it unfolds, right? Wrong. The best you could do is to calculate “probabilities for various alternative histories of the universe . . . Information about which of those sequences of events is actually occurring can be gathered only from observation.”[13] In other words, there is randomness and chaos in the universe, and no matter how much you know about your cat, you cannot know which way it will jump—until you see it happen.

The Speed of Light Is No Limit (Think Instantaneous)

Did you ever see the bumper sticker that says, “186,000 Miles Per Second—It’s Not Just a Good Idea, It’s the Law”? For a long time, everyone thought that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light, and that was kind of comforting, especially if you had teenagers with driving permits. Just another self-delusion, it seems. Quantum mechanics tells us that everything throughout time and space is linked by “a web of electromagnetic radiation that ‘sees’ everything at once.”[14]

Does all this seem a little disturbing, or downright paradoxical? The great scientist Richard Feynman said that “the ‘paradox’ is only a conflict between reality and your feeling of what reality ‘ought to be.’”[15] Well, what do we know—or seem to know—that allows for the existence of magick?

Energy Is Abundant

From a certain perspective, everything can be said to consist of energy vibrating in various wavelengths. Thus energy manifests as solid matter, liquids, gases, plasma, and still more subtle energy fields. Because we are energy forms existing in an ocean of energy, we are generally unaware of the intensity and variety of the energy about us—we can’t “see the forest for the trees.” But energy is abundantly present, at least on the planet we are most familiar with.

We might recognize this more clearly if we could experience the environment of Earth from the perspective of, say, a hypothetical lichen-like creature from Pluto’s moon, Charon (hardly likely, but play along with the notion). Let’s name our pretend creature “wh,” which is a nice low-energy name. Now wh is used to three things: darkness, stillness, and extreme cold. One night (it’s always night there), wh wins a fabulous all-expense-paid vacation to Earth in the Charonian National Sweepstakes. It embarks on a Plutonian passenger spaceliner, which looks something like a wrinkled gray cantaloupe. Sunward to Earth, for a carefree rest among the primitives!

Some four hundred years later, right on schedule, the ship arrives and wh crawls out onto planet Earth—and into a nightmare! Burning solar radiation pours down in torrents; turgid gases howl and tear at wh, thunderous noises batter his tender earholes, and corrosive liquids and stinging silicate particles lash his body. This is not at all what wh expected! He immediately retreats into the ship and begins composing a strong letter to his attorneys. Back on the beach, human bathers enjoy the sunny skies and mild sea breezes of a perfect summer’s day.

Now that’s just one spot on one little planet. Imagine how much energy is being poured out by the sun right now; multiply that times billions of galaxies with trillions of stars.

What about all that cold, dark space between the stars? No energy there, right? Wrong. Scientist John Gribbin points out that “the energy density of the vacuum is infinite.”[16] So there is a huge supply of energy waiting to be used, if we can only harness it.

But does a magician need to wield great forces in order to work magick? Well, no. It’s all around us, but we don’t really need very much. You may have heard the idea that a butterfly flapping its wings in China could trigger a hurricane two weeks or two months later in the United States. Thanks to Chaos theory, that’s not really far-fetched. Murray Gell-Mann explains that “chaos . . . introduces, in certain situations, indefinitely large sensitivities of outcome to input [emphasis added].”[17] In other words, a little nudge at exactly the right time and place can have an enormous impact later.

So yes, magick requires energy, and there is a very great deal of energy out there; but the best magicians don’t even think in terms of hurling thunder and lightning. They use finesse—a little nudge.

Everything Is Connected

You are connected with events everywhere. Comedian Steven Wright gives an amusing example: “In my house there’s this light switch that doesn’t do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Germany. She said, ‘Cut it out.’”[18]

Everything is connected. A lovely metaphor for this model of reality is Indra’s Web. Imagine for a moment that you are drifting in the velvet blackness of deep space. Stretching out before you and receding behind you into infinite distance are myriad parallel silver threads. Crossing them right and left are endless banks and layers of more silver threads, touching each other as they cross. Reaching up and down as far as you can see, also criss-crossing, are countless more curtains of threads, so that the entire universe is filled with a silver fabric or webbing in multiple dimensions.

At each of the infinite number of points where the threads touch, a little clear crystal sphere is attached. The spheres are glowing, and their combined light illuminates the cosmos. Further, the polished surface of each sphere reflects every other sphere within it; in fact, it reflects the entire pattern of the web. Each reflects all that is reflected from every sphere; reflections reflected in reflections, images of images of images, all linked and sharing their light in limitless brilliance.

The poet Francis Thompson expressed the concept beautifully:

All things by immortal power,

Near or far,

Hiddenly

To each other linked are,

That thou canst not stir a flower

Without troubling a star.[19]

When you know what this means—when you feel it, on a level deeper than the conscious mind can go—then you have one of the keys to magick.

It has been so since the beginning of time. The particles that make up the universe have existed from the big bang at the beginning. John Gribbin explains:

The atoms in my body are made of particles that once jostled in close proximity in the cosmic fireball with particles that are now part of a distant star, and particles that form the body of some living creature on some distant, undiscovered planet. Indeed, the particles that make up my body once jostled in close proximity and interacted with the particles that now make up your body. We are . . . parts of a single system . . . If everything that ever interacted in the Big Bang maintains its connection with everything it interacted with, then every particle in every star and galaxy that we can see “knows” about the existence of every other particle.[20]

A variant of this insight about connections is expressed in the phrase, “As above, so below.” Microcosm reflects macrocosm. Whatever exists on a greater scale of magnitude, or as a thoughtform on subtler planes of being, has its counterpart or equivalent on the human scale and in the material plane.

The separateness of things that seems so obvious to us is, frankly, not real. But we believe it and act on that belief in ways that may destroy us. Listen to Fritzjof Capra:

The natural environment is treated as though it consisted of separate parts to be exploited by different interest groups. The fragmented view is further extended to society, which is split into different nations, races, religious and political groups. [This] belief . . . can be seen as the essential reason for the present series of social, ecological, and cultural crises. It has alienated us from nature and from our fellow human beings. It has brought a grossly unjust distribution of natural resources, creating economic and political disorder; an ever-rising wave of violence, both spontaneous and institutionalized, and an ugly, polluted environment in which life has often become physically and mentally unhealthy.[21]

We talk about the “other sex,” or those “other people” in “other places.” When we learn that the “other” is not other, that it’s us, that we are all intimately connected, then we can do magick. Better yet, we can survive as a species.

Possibilities Are Infinite

Yes, infinite. Looking at this statement from a cosmic perspective, we can see that in an infinite universe, everything we can dream of will manifest somewhere, sometime. “All possible things do happen, in some branch of reality.”[22]

Is the universe infinite? Astronomers say that our galaxy alone has about one hundred billion stars in it, with an uncounted number of planets circling them. What’s more, they can see, so far, at least one hundred billion galaxies, each with about that many stars. This means that the part visible to us includes more than 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars . . . and we can see no end to them.

Time is also a factor, of course. Given more time, more things become possible. Our galaxy seems to have been around for roughly seventeen billion (17,000,000,000) years, and for all we know this could simply be the latest in an infinite number of recyclings.

Yet the scope of the universe may be far vaster than even this information implies. What if whole galaxies exist on a microscopic scale in each grain of sand, each drop of water? What if all the galaxies we can see with our greatest telescopes are drifting in a mote of dust on some much larger world? What if there are whole worlds in the subtler planes—“the astral,” “the Realms of the Mighty Ones”—or in other dimensions of reality?

Somewhere, as you read these words, centaurs dance by moonlight, and torchlight glints from a golden hoard where dragons lie dreaming in their caverns.

You may be tempted to reply, “Maybe so, but I’m interested in the possibilities for my life here and now, not in whatever may be happening on distant planets or other planes.”

But the possibilities are here, too. Modern science has educated us to some of our potential; but you don’t need a doctorate in physics to work wonders. The world is full of people who have transformed their lives and found courage, love, and beauty where before there was despair and pain. Others engage in showier wonders such as psychic healing, fire walking, or bending spoons by mind power. Most of these people are not consciously practicing magick. How much more they could do if they had the understanding and disciplined skills of an adept!

What are the possibilities for your life? Do you need relationships that are loving, creative, and stable? Do you want a career that is more challenging and financially rewarding? Is there an old injury, physical or emotional, that you are ready to heal? Do you have fears or thought patterns that make you unhappy and block your best efforts? Is there an addiction you would like to release—to junk food, cigarettes, alcohol, drugs, overwork, or television? Is there an art or skill you’ve always wanted to learn, but did not because you feared you didn’t have the talent?

Magick can help you with any or all of these efforts. Imagine life as it could be for you. Imagine with your Younger Mind, for which colors are brighter, sounds more clear, tastes more vivid, and anything seems possible. It is possible. All your dreams are possible. You have chosen certain paths, but other paths still lie open to you, and magick is the door.

It will not be easy. You are learning that magick is not miraculous or supernatural. A few mumbled incantations or gestures with a wand will not get you where you want to go. To become a magician requires study and hard work, both in the astral realms and here in the material world. It also requires faith and imagination. But if you can believe, and dream, and work, then your possibilities are infinite.

Scientists as Magicians

Did you know that Isaac Newton, who “discovered” gravity, considered himself to be a magician? And not just an ordinary magician, but “part of the aurea catena, the ‘golden chain’ of magi, or unique figures designated by God in each age to receive the ancient Hermetic wisdom.”[23] He actually wrote far more about alchemy than about physics. Morris Berman tells us that “the centerpiece of the Newtonian system, gravitational attraction, was in fact the Hermetic principle of sympathetic forces . . . his unpublished writings reveal his commitment to the cornerstone of all occult systems: the notion that mind exists in matter and can control it.”[24]

In a much more recent era, Albert Einstein believed that “astrology is a science in itself and contains an illuminating body of knowledge.” He went on to say, “It taught me many things, and I am greatly indebted to it . . . astrology is like a life-giving elixir for mankind.”[25]

What about the most modern of present-day scientists? John David Ebert explains:

Ideas like the Gaia hypothesis, Chaos theory, Ilya Prigogine’s self-organizing structures, or David Bohm’s holographic cosmos all exhibit the presence of images from earlier, more mythic cosmologies . . . [Scientists at Princeton have] meticulously documented the reality of such paranormal phenomena as telepathy, psychokinesis and remote viewing. Rupert Sheldrake’s morphogenic fields are a kind of scientific transformation of the ancient anima mundi, the soul of the world which . . . infused the minutest particle with teeming, sentient consciousness. Medical doctors such as Richard Gerber, Larry Dossey or Deepak Chopra . . . [see] in thought systems like Kundalini yoga or acupuncture the rudiments for a whole new science of vibrational medicine, in which the pranic channels and pathways of the subtle body can become superconductors for states of consciousness leading to higher health.[26]

It seems we are coming full circle: the ancient magicks have emerged again as the cutting-edge theories of modern science.

But Does It Really Work?

Does magick always work? Yes, but not always with the result that you intended. That is, a spell or ritual will always have an effect, but flaws in the design or performance, or interference, can cause a different effect than you had hoped for.

For example, suppose you do magick to win the lottery, and then, very properly, you act in accord with your magick by buying a ticket. Granted, the odds of winning might be 1 in 50,000,000. However, you did magick! Yet you don’t win. Why?

Perhaps magick improved the odds in your favor, say to 1 in 1,000,000. You improved your chances of winning by a factor of fifty, and that’s impressive. The magick worked, to a degree. But it’s not enough—the odds are still heavily against you, and it’s not surprising that someone else wins the jackpot. After all, several million other people were wishing very hard that they would win, which by itself is a sort of diffuse, unconscious magick, and at least a few hundred were actually doing focused, intentional magick. Your spell is a drop in the bucket, and chances are it will not overcome all that desire and intent. Luck exists, too.

Usually when you perform magick, you don’t have hordes of people actively working against you. Usually, a well-crafted spell or ritual is quite successful. However, you should also know that magick rarely manifests with dramatic special effects. True magick doesn’t look like Hollywood magic. Your result will often be subtle and quiet, and it may seem more like a coincidence than a miracle.

Yet that’s not always true. I have been part of a working that involved two rings of nine magicians each, great incantations (partially in Latin), a crystal-tipped magickal staff, and a dragon’s egg, where lightning, thunder, and rainbows embellished the rite at all the appropriate moments. That’s very satisfying, but it’s the exception rather than the rule.

Do you wonder, “Why isn’t everyone out there practicing magick?” As Chuang Tzu said (of the Tao), “If it could be talked about, everybody would have told their brother.”[27] Magick is not well understood. What little we know is not easy to explain, much less to master. Besides, we live in a culture that long ago decided to follow science and religion, but not to explore the Arts of magick (with the exception of a few of us). When you mention magick to your friends, they may think you mean card tricks or making pigeons appear out of a scarf. If you explain further, they may look at you blankly. If you start to draw parallels between thaumaturgy and quantum mechanics, they may get very confused and turn on the television to escape.

And that’s okay; magick is not an adventure that everyone wants to experience. Magick is mostly terra incognita, the Unknown Land, even to the tiny handful of adepts among us. But if you have courage, you can explore that land and just maybe fill in a blank space on its vast map.

Exercises Toward Mastery

1: Abundant Energy

Do some research in a library or on the Internet: try to find out how much energy our sun produces in one minute. See if you can convert that into some measure that makes sense to you, like horsepower or light bulbs. Now multiply that times the number of stars in our galaxy. That gives you the radiation from the stars of one galaxy in one minute. Think about it.

2: Minimal Energy

Consider how much energy it takes to change a human life; for example:

• Saying “I love you”
• Signing a contract to buy a home
• Cutting a cancerous tumor from a human organ
• Reaching out to shake hands with a former enemy

Now, how much energy does magick require?

3: Connections

It has been said that there are no more than six degrees of separation between any two people on Earth. For example, you probably are not personally acquainted with the Premier of the People’s Republic of China. But you might know, for example, your cousin Marty, who knows a car mechanic named Fred, who knows the governor’s chauffer, who knows a senator, who knows the Chinese ambassador, who knows the Premier. Six steps get you to the Premier’s office in Beijing. It’s a theory that might or might not be true, on average. But just for fun, explore it. Ask your friends who they know who knows someone famous.

4: Infinite Possibilities

Meditate on the following question until you can answer it: What would you attempt if you knew that you could not fail? Now think of three reasons why it might be possible.

Blesséd be.

To follow this path further, read:

Stalking the Wild Pendulum: On the Mechanics of Consciousness by Itzhak Bentov (Destiny Books, 1977)

The Tao of Physics by Fritzjof Capra (Bantam Books, revised edition, 1984)

Natural Magic: The Magical State of Being by David Carroll and Barry Saxe (Arbor House, 1977)

Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science and Spirituality at the End of an Age by John David Ebert (Council Oak Books, 1999)

The Quark and the Jaguar: Adventures in the Simple and the Complex by
Murray Gell-Mann (W. H. Freeman and Co., 1994)

In Search of Schroedinger’s Cat: Quantum Physics and Reality by John Gribbin (Bantam Books, 1984)

Mad About Physics: Braintwisters, Paradoxes, and Curiosities by Christopher
P. Jargodzki and Franklin Potter (John Wiley and Sons, 2001)

How to Meditate: A Guide to Self-Discovery by Lawrence Leshan (Little, Brown & Co., 1974)

Everyday Miracles: The Inner Art of Manifestation by David Spangler
(Bantam Books, 1996)

The Magician’s Companion: A Practical & Encyclopedic Guide to Magical & Religious Symbolism by Bill Whitcomb (Llewellyn, 1993; see especially “What Is Magic?” on pp. 1–17)

Mind into Matter: A New Alchemy of Science and Spirit by Fred Alan Wolf (Moment Point Press, 2001)

[1]1 Quoted in Jargodzki, Mad About Physics, 133.

[2] Quoted in Jargodzki, 39.

[3] Ibid., 22.

[4] Jargodzki, 145.

[5] True/False questions are from Gribbin, In Search of Schrödinger’s Cat, 222–223.

[6] Quoted in Jargodzki, 71.

[7] Gell-Mann, Quark and the Jaguar, 134.

[8] Gell-Mann, 129.

[9] Gribbin, 260.

[10] Ibid., 212.

[11] Ibid., 209–210.

[12] Bryce DeWitt, article in Physics Today, 1970, quoted in Gribbin, 244.

[13] Gell-Mann, 131–132.

[14] Gribbin, 191.

[15] Richard Feynman, Lectures, quoted in Gribbin, 231.

[16] Ibid., 260.

[17] Gell-Mann, 131–132.

[18] Jargodzki, 77.

[19] Francis Thompson, quoted in Jargodzki, 50.

[20] Gribbin, 231.

[21] Capra, Tao of Physics, 9.

[22] Gribbin, 250.

[23] Jargodzki, 31.

[24] Morris Berman, in Jargodzki, 92.

[25] Quoted in Jargodzki, 125.

[26] Ebert, Twilight of the Clockwork God: Conversations on Science and Spirituality at the End of an Age (Council Oak Books: Tulsa, OK, 1999), 4–5.

[27] Capra, 17.