Secrets of The Lost Symbol by Daniel Burstein

Author:Daniel Burstein
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

Noetics

The Link Between Modern Science and Ancient Mysticism?

by Lou Aronica

In his first Robert Langdon book, Angels & Demons, Dan Brown explored the tension between science and religion, set off in history through the conflict between Galileo and the Vatican. He suggested there were two nonoverlapping magisteria, to use Stephen Jay Gould’s phrase, one the Cathedral of Science (the advanced physics lab at CERN), the other the Cathedral of Religion (St. Peter’s Basilica). Still, there were hints that Dan Brown was thinking about a grand reconciliation. Among the clues was a copy of Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics, a real-life book that was on the bookshelf of the fictional physicist Leonardo Vetra, and one among four dealing with the full spectrum of the science/religion debate. Capra’s argument is that humanity needs both physics and Eastern mysticism.

Seven years later, it is clear that Dan Brown has fully adopted this argument in The Lost Symbol, using noetic science as his vessel. (Brown here also continues his tradition of mentioning real books and real persons. In TLS the mind-altering possibilities of science are reflected in the reference to The Dancing Wu Li Masters, and the real-life tribute is to two of the most visible proponents of noetics, Lynne McTaggart and Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, both of whom are featured in this chapter.)

Noetic science has its champions, but it also has more than its share of critics, “hard” scientists chief among them. The doubters point to the fact that there have been no independent, double-blind experiments that support the thesis that mind moves matter, mind heals bodies, or that the soul literally resides in the body. Neil deGrasse Tyson, the noted astrophysicist, once wrote a column in which he cleverly reflected the prevailing view of all such “mental” science: “. . . the persistent failures of controlled, double-blind experiments to support the claims of parapsychology suggest that what’s going on is non-sense rather than sixth sense.”

To sort this out for us, we asked Lou Aronica to take a more detailed look at Dan Brown’s new favorite science. Aronica has been a highly successful writer and publisher. Among dozens of other titles, he published Lynne McTaggart’s What Doctors Don’t Tell You. As a writer he has authored numerous books, among them Miraculous Health: How to Heal Your Body by Unleashing the Power of Your Mind (with Rick Levy). His latest book is The Element (written with Sir Ken Robinson), which is a New York Times bestseller. He starts us off with an apt quote.

Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

—Arthur C. Clarke

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