Science and Mysticism

Abstract

Huxley’s interest in mysticism and science will be the focus of the remainder of this study. An historical perspective reminds us that one way Western science defined itself as it emerged in the Renaissance was in its relation to religion. This point of reference is less foregrounded today, but it is worth recalling how science and religion were positioned at various stages in their modern development to see why events in Huxley’s period were significant.¹ The most commonly held model is one of increasing conflict and then subsidence into indifference. Religion and science are seen as antagonists locked in a bitter struggle for epistemological authority and sociopolitical prestige until, around the late nineteenth century, science emerges as the victor. The two sides then enter a period of cold-war segregation.

God as a sense of warmth about the heart, God as exultation, God as tears in the eyes, God as a rush of power or thought — that was all right. But God as truth, God as 2+2=4 — that wasn’t so clearly all right. Was there any chance of their being the same? Were there bridges to join the two worlds? (Antic 4. 1923)