Concerning the Spiritual in Art and Science

Mike King
London Guildhall University
April 1996

1.	Introduction	2
2.	The Spiritual: some definitions	4
3.	A Brief History of the Spiritual in Art and Science	5
3.1.	From the Ancient Greeks to Plotinus	5
3.2.	The Renaissance	6
3.3.	The Enlightenment	8
3.4.	The Divorce of Science and Religion	8
3.5.	Blavatsky, Steiner, Gurdjieff	9
3.6.	The Art of the Spiritual: Blake, Besant, Steiner, Mother Meera	12
3.7.	Colour: Gravity and Grace	13
3.8.	Quantum Theory and the Anthropic Principle	14
4.	The Spiritual in Modern Art	16
4.1.	An Art of Our Own - Roger Lipsey	17
4.2.	Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klee, and Itten: The Bauhaus	18
4.3.	The American Abstract Expressionists	20
4.4.	Stelarc and Musafar: towards a spiritual in cyberspace	21
5.	The Spiritual in Modern Science	23
5.1.	Reactions to Quantum Theory: Einstein and Bohm	23
5.2.	Popular Physics-as-Mysticism: Capra and Zukav	23
5.3.	Ken Wilber	24
5.4.	Polkinghorne and Davies: compartments	24
5.5.	Dennett and Dawkins: two reductionists against religion	26
5.6.	Sheldrake and Mae-Wan Ho: non-reductionist biologists	28
5.7.	Tipler: science fiction?	28
5.8.	Studies in Consciousness	30
6.	The Spiritual in Art and Science	32
7.	Conclusions	34
8.	References	35

1.	Introduction

What are you doing young man?
Are you so earnest, so given up to literature, science, art, amours?
These ostensible realities, politics, points?
Your ambition or business whatever it may be?

It is well — against such I say not a word, I am their poet also,
But behold! such swiftly subside, burnt up for religion's sake,
For not all matter is fuel to heat, impalpable flame, the essential life of the earth,
Any more than such are to religion.
					Walt Whitman, 1852

Science: Doubting.  Religion: Knowledge.  Art: Self-delusion
					Ozenfant, 1952

... twentieth-century art conceived ideals that in their religious dimension would have been recognizable to Meister Eckhart and in their workshop dimension to Leonardo.				Roger Lipsey, 1988

The title of this paper comes from Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art, and by expanding it to include science one is clearly attempting to cover a rather large area of human endeavour; clearly not much more than a map of the territory is possible. To narrow this down only two of the possible three relationships between art, science and the spiritual will be investigated: that between the spiritual and art and that between the spiritual and science (the interaction between the arts and sciences is well-documented elsewhere, for example in Leonardo). Furthermore, the focus will be on investigating the intuition, which has grown out of personal observation in recent years, that science is at this juncture more receptive to the spiritual than the arts. This may be a complete misreading of the arts of course, but the purpose of this paper is to explore the question and open it up to debate. Note that the 'arts' covered in this paper will be mainly the visual fine arts of painting and sculpture. An additional motivation for investigating the three disciplines together is a growing intuition that science, or to be more precise, scientists, desperately need the artistic or poetic vision in order to engage with the spiritual. Too often (as shown below) the scientist assumes that religion is about asking questions about the fundamental nature of existence: this is one possible response to existence, but the artist makes another type of response — an emotional one, which may have a closer affinity to the spiritual impulse.

As a focus for the discussion I will refer to two television programmes shown in the UK in the Autumn of 1995, one called 'Hidden Hands' which attempted in its first part to demonstrate the influence of the occult on modern painters such as Kandinsky and Mondrian, and the second a programme in the Equinox series called 'God Only Knows' covering the recent phenomenon of scientists seeing the proof of God in their science. The material on which these programmes were based is widely available and will be referred to in this paper, so a viewing of the programmes is not necessary to follow the arguments here. What was interesting in the contrast between the two programmes was the dismissal of the spiritual influences on Kandinsky and Mondrian as 'hocus-pocus', and the respectful attention generally given to scientists talking about the spiritual implications of quantum theory (for example). Waldemar Januszczak (commissioning editor for the arts, Channel Four) states quite baldly in the 'Hidden Hands' booklet: " ..., Mondrian and Kandinsky were driven by murky, confused, pseudo-medieval hocus-pocus." Much of Part 1 of the series was devoted to this thesis, while in contrast the 'God Only Knows' booklet kicks off with a Stephen Hawking's assertion that a 'complete' theory of science would bring us to truly know the 'mind of God'.
 
The recent spate of speculative writings by scientists led the Guardian newspaper to complain that "Atheists, at least, used to find comfort in the sceptical words of the boffins. But now even the most rigorous of scientists are showing signs of conversion to the idea of a deity." This may be an overstating of the position — Peter Holland, a professor in the foundations of physics, attacks the 'new-ageist' view of physics as not just metaphysics but mysticism leading to obfuscation: "Science still represents a noble tradition of anti-clerical subversion but society infects all its products. What a historical irony that the arch-rationalists end up bearing a new-ageist banner". 

Although this paper will not dwell on the relationship between art and science, it will be a reasonable proposition to any Leonardo reader that there can be a fruitful relationship between these two, and that historically Leonardo da Vinci epitomises it. There is not space here to argue this in more depth other than to offer the view that art and science complement each other, and that they propose few mutually antagonistic areas of thought, unlike the boundaries between art and the spiritual, and science and the spiritual. It is partly these potential antagonisms that this paper will focus on, and also the way in which these potential antagonisms can be reconciled through either compartmentalisation or integration.

It is implicit in the title of this paper, and in the Whitman quote above, that the spiritual is somehow antecedent to both the arts and sciences. This assumption guides much of the discussion here, but will be returned to later to see how reasonable such an assumption is.

This paper starts with a few definitions of the 'spiritual', and is followed by three main sections: firstly a brief history of the spiritual in art and science, secondly a survey of the spiritual in 20th century art, and thirdly by a survey of the spiritual in 20th century science. These sections, because of their breadth, can only touch on some of the key elements, but it is hoped that in the conclusions some detailed considerations can be drawn out.

2.	The Spiritual: some definitions

The 'spiritual' is one of the trickiest areas of human understanding to taxonomise, or in any way in which to make definitions that can be universally understood, or that mean broadly the same thing across different communities. It is even harder when trying to find reliable terms that might be meaningful to both artists and scientists, but without an attempt we will make no progress. (One reason for the difficulty is that it is reasonably clear what it is to be well-educated in the sciences or the arts; a trained artist can pick up science with reasonable effort and vice versa — but it is more difficult to understand what it is to be well-educated in the spiritual.) Hence I shall use a simple categorisation which I hope will be useful: a distinction between the religious, the occult and the transcendent. For the purposes of this paper then, the 'spiritual' will be a broad term that covers these three distinct areas; in turn the 'religious' is intended to convey traditional and organised religious spirituality such as Christian, Islamic, Buddhist; the 'occult' an esoteric preoccupation with such matters as the paranormal, reincarnation, clairvoyance and disembodied beings; and finally the 'transcendent 'as dealing with a shift in personal identity from the physical and temporal to the infinite and eternal, or with mystical union, or with nirvana.

Clearly the boundaries between the religious, the occult, and the transcendent (as used here) are blurred, and also value-laden in different ways for different communities. They are also crude in that within them one needs much finer distinctions, for example between the religiousness of Christianity or Hinduism, the occultisms of William Blake or Rudolf Steiner, and the transcendences within Buddhism or the work of Krishnamurti, to give just a few examples. For now it is hoped that these terms (which will be used in the rest of this paper in this specific way) will give us a basic tool with which to begin probing the spiritual in art and science.

3.	A Brief History of the Spiritual in Art and Science

3.1.	From the Ancient Greeks to Plotinus

Science itself was not born with the Greeks (much of their 'science' was just plain wrong); its origins came with the Renaissance, but some of the ground for it was laid in the mathematics and logic of Greek thinkers. We might say that the science (such as it was), art, and religion were closely integrated in the lives of the Greek thinkers and that their outlook on life was very different to ours today. In Plato we find a considered view of how spirituality should inform the arts, and the Platonic and Neoplatonic tradition became a very important current, via Plotinus and St. Augustine, in spiritual thinking in Europe up to and beyond the Renaissance, influencing the arts along the way. 

In respect to our taxonomy of the spiritual, the mainstream religion of the ancient Greeks was polytheistic and animistic; some, such as Pythagoras, may be said to have interests in the occult, and Socrates clearly represents the transcendent. Plato's influence on Western thought is considerable, but a discussion of his ideas and spirituality is confused by the difficulty of disentangling his thought with that of Socrates. In the Republic we find a a rationality so extreme as to be absurd, but apparently in the service of an irrational morality. The so-called logical nature of the discourses are manipulative yet obviously driven by a deep spirituality that cannot have its origins in rationality. The spirituality can be characterised as chiefly moral, though elsewhere in Plato's work the transcendent takes precedence. The Republic is important because of its severe criticism of the arts: using the example of a bed, Socrates argues that its principle reality, its 'Form', appears to us second-hand through the skill of the carpenter and third-hand through the skill of the painter. He extends this idea to all the arts, particularly poetry, that representation is third-hand; furthermore, because of its seductive nature and the tendency to represent 'bad' things, peoples, or actions, the arts are a degenerative influence. In Plato's ideal state only those artists would be permitted who depicted beautiful things in a beautiful way. To modern thinking this is tending to the fascist, and we find 20th century equivalents in the Stalinist control of the arts in Russia and elsewhere.

We have then a clear call from antiquity, echoing through religious art up to the Enlightenment and beyond, that art should be subordinate to the spiritual. Plato's assumption, that the artist necessarily is even clumsier than the carpenter at reaching the form or essence of 'bed' needs to be challenged however: one only has to think of Van Gogh's version for example. For many with the appropriate sensitivities the paintings of his simple room with its bed and chair seem to grasp the very essence, divine essence, of the ordinary.

The ancient Greeks were not of course all as frigid about the arts as Plato, as the exuberant remains show. A useful connection between the spiritual and the artistic that emerged from the period lies in the word 'sublime', debated in the short treatise On The Sublime, attributed to Longinus (now known to be from an unknown author of the first century AD). Where Plato is the puritan (and distant forerunner of Tolstoy and Gandhi), Longinus represents the sophisticated analyst of the arts (though chiefly of literature). He cites five sources of the sublime, and then adds that by reading Plato one can add a sixth: the emulation of the great artists of the past. Plato says the exact opposite of course.

With Plotinus we begin to make a better connection between the spiritual and art through the sublime. His essay on Beauty is at the same time more spiritual than Plato, and also more sensitive to the poetry of beauty: it is not made subservient to spiritual goals in a rigidly-controlled ideal state. Plotinus' source of authority is generally considered to be Plato, but a closer examination shows a wholly independent thinker whose authority is based on personal contemplation. For Plotinus, the beauty of any object or abstraction has its source in some Principle. This Principle is inherent in a person's soul and when in the presence of beauty responds as if through a form of recognition:

Our interpretation is that the Soul — by the very truth of its nature, by its affiliation to the noblest Existents in the hierarchy of Being — when it sees anything of that kin, or any trace of that kinship, thrills with an immediate delight, takes its own to itself, and thus stirs anew to the sense of its nature and of all its affinity.

For sure, one can see a resonance with Plato's Forms, and Plotinus even uses the term Ideal-Form, but Plotinus's language and source is his own. However, like Plato, he does not encourage the visual arts per se: it is in the Renaissance that Plotinus's ideas of Beauty became a source of artistic inspiration.

3.2.	The Renaissance

The Italian Renaissance can be seen as a period of looking back to the ancient Greeks; a revival of Platonism to equal or compete with Aristotelian thinking; and the birth of the empirical method which gave the impetus to science and humanism, leading to their later triumph in the Enlightenment. The universal religious vehicle in Europe at this time was of course Christianity, and biblical themes provided most of the serious subject-matter for the great artists of the period. Raphael and Michelangelo are probably typical of the historically-influenced artists in this period, whereas Leonardo da Vinci represents the point of departure towards science and humanism. 

Michelangelo (1475 - 1574) is considered the artist of this period to most closely aspire to the ideals of Neoplatonism. One of his most ambitious projects, the tomb of Pope Julius II "would have provided a magnificent exposition of Christian Neoplatonism if its original plan had been carried out." It was intended to symbolise the spiritual ascent of man: "Man's animal nature enmired in the appetites was to be dramatically symbolized by a group of fettered slaves, while statues of victory represented the soul liberated from bondage." Michelangelo was deeply influenced by the founder of the Florentine 'Academy', Marcilio Ficino, and the Neoplatonist endeavour of the school. Ficino translated Plato and Plotinus, and the school also attempted to assimilate influences such as Pythagoras and the Zoroastrian tradition. In terms of our spiritual taxonomy the overall engagement of the school was with the transcendent, and became almost a cult. As far as we know Michelangelo's spirituality was more conventional, and showed itself in the Christian religious themes of his work and in the sublime quality of his work.

In Leonardo's notebooks we find the first real man of Western science: a man willing to look for himself, rather than to believe what others say. The fact that he combined this embryonic science with an extraordinary skill as artist made him the archetypal humanist and Renaissance man to modern culture. Leonardo (1452 - 1519) was quite explicit that experience should be the ultimate authority, and not the ancients, as this passage from his notebooks shows:

Though I have no power to quote from authors as they have, I shall rely on a far bigger and more worthy thing—on experience, the instructress of their masters. They strut about puffed up and pompous, decked out and adorned not with their own labours, but by those of others, and they will not even allow me my own. And if they despise me who am an inventor, how much more should they be blamed who are not inventors but trumpeteers and reciters of the works of others.

Leonardo had much to say on this subject, and is to be credited with being the first European to explicitly point to what was wrong with the physics of Aristotle and the Greeks: they did not trust or develop the skills of experience. Neither was Leonardo a Neoplatonist, and although he believed in a soul as distinct from the body, his general view seems materialistic and a little pessimistic. His paintings included many conventionally religious themes, and contain a sublimity, that to a modern eye, far outstrips the paintings of Michelangelo. The haunting beauty of the Mona Lisa has been recently attributed to the likelihood of it being in part a self-portrait; looking at Leonardo's writings I would suggest also that it is the moral element in Leonardo that we are seeing in this painting. His religiousness, conventional in most senses, and not in our terms either occult or transcendent, found easy expression in the moral, perhaps partly due to the struggles he personally had as an outsider, illegitimate and homosexual.

Galileo (1564-1642) took the cue from Leonardo — to look for himself — literally: he had heard of the invention of the telescope and made one for himself. His patient observations confirmed the theories of Copernicus and Kepler, that the earth moved around the sun and not the other way round, and also revealed new heavenly bodies, bringing the total to eleven. This number not only contradicted the traditional seven, but had no mystical significance. Bertrand Russell writes: "On this ground the traditionalists denounced the telescope, refused to look through it, and maintained that it revealed only delusions."

Although Galileo mocked (along with most modern educated Westerners) those who refuse to believe the evidence derived from the careful but ever-verifiable and repeatable use of scientific instruments, the human instinct for the simplicity and comfort of received wisdom can also be found in the great scientists. Kepler for example was discomfited by the elliptical nature of the planetary orbits whose mathematics he had derived, Newton by the implications of gravity that the universe would eventually collapse on itself, and Einstein by the indeterminism in quantum theory. The relevance of this observation is that the adoption of a scientific outlook can never fully counter the human instinct for belief, and this is a useful corrective to those who dismiss the spiritual on the grounds that it is based only in belief.

3.3.	The Enlightenment

Newton (1642-1727) completed in the seventeenth and eighteenth century the scientific triumph that Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler had initiated. While Newton was a conventionally religious man, and also believed in astrology, it was probably his scientific work more than anything else that allowed for the later scientific rationale for atheism. His work with alchemy does not suggest an interest in the occult that it might imply today: the chemistry of his age did not give any reason why base metals should not be transmutable into gold, and in the absence of a theory of the periodic table there was no reason not to carry out systematic laboratory work based on the earlier theories of the four elements. Newton's basic Christian beliefs existed quite separately from his genius as a scientist, and his insular and unforgiving nature does not reveal a particularly sympathetic man. In Newton we have the modern archetypal scientist of genius: Einstein fits this pattern well, down to a common underperformance at school and college, and a neglect of family and friends.

In the work of the philosopher John Locke we can see a conceptual framework emerging which was better suited to the emerging science of the period than older modes of thought, and which epitomises the Enlightenment. According to Bertrand Russell: "Locke may be regarded as the founder of empiricism, which is the doctrine that all our knowledge (with the possible exception of logic and mathematics) is derived from experience." Locke (1632 - 1704) therefore argues against Plato's forms or the idea that there is an essence or innate idea or principle that precedes and is superior to reality. The emphasis on experience is part of modern science, and Locke's endorsement of empiricism cemented the scientific world-view of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

3.4.	The Divorce of Science and Religion

The contemporary idea, only just being eroded at the edges, that science and religion stand in opposition has a strange history. In the context of our distinction between the religious, the occult, and the transcendent, we may observe that it is the traditionally religious that has been most visibly at odds with the scientific. The reaction of the religious establishment of Galileo's time epitomises the supposed gulf between science and religion, but we would find it hard to imagine Christ, the 'founder' of this establishment, finding any fault with poor Galileo's telescope. Why? Because Christ's project lay elsewhere. Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, leave the telescopes unto the scientists: it is not hard to accept this interpolation. But human beings are multi-dimensional, and never more so than in our current highly-educated post-modern era. We are interested therefore in how an individual or community with artistic or scientific preoccupations (or both) deals with the spiritual: divorce is not an option, but compartmentalisation or synthesis are options. The popular view of a gulf between science and religion may be termed part of 'scientism': a view of science from the outside.

3.5.	Blavatsky, Steiner, Gurdjieff

The waning of Christian influence in the arts and in society in general towards the end of the 19th and into the 20th century left a spiritual vacuum. Romanticism in its various forms filled the gap to some extent, while the occult gained ground in the last part of the 19th and first part of the 20th century, notably with the Theosophists and Anthroposophists. However it is probably true to say that the occult, even the occult 'science' of Steiner, do not sit as easily with a scientific world-view as does the transcendent.

Theosophy was a 19th century spiritual movement that spilled into the 20th century and influenced many modern artists. It also produced an offshoot called Anthroposophy, led by Rudolf Steiner, who was originally a Theosophist. Theosophy (dismissed by Waldemar Januszczak as we have seen as 'pseudo-medieval hocus-pocus') was in fact the first organised response by the West to a growing awareness of Eastern religious thought, and an attempt to make a synthesis between the spiritual of the East and West. It was founded by Helena Petrovna Blavatsky and Henry Steel Olcott, and attracted Annie Besant and C.W. Leadbeater amongst others; it eventually proclaimed its mission to prepare the way for the second coming (the Buddha Maitreya). This conflation of Christ's and Buddha's reappearance united followers from all over the world to prepare the way for him, but when Leadbeater and Besant claimed the young Jiddu Krishnamurti for this role it became too much for some Western thinkers, including Rudolf Steiner, and led to his departure. As Krishnamurti grew into the role prepared for him by the Theosophists he gradually became uneasy with it and eventually rejected it in a dramatic gesture; strangely he then went on to teach to a world audience in a way entirely reminiscent of Jesus or the Buddha. Where he really departed from the Theosophists was in his rejection of all tradition; they attempted a huge synthesis of it, while he, like Leonardo, spoke of the Truth as arising from one's own being or experience.

One of the prime documents of Theosophy's grand synthesis was Blavatsky's Secret Doctrine, unfairly dismissed by the 'Hidden Hands' team as 'monumentally opaque'. It was however an important influence on early twentieth century artists like Mondrian and Kandinsky, as was Besant and Leadbeater's Thought Forms. Both books are squarely within the occult, though both the religious (especially in the moral sense) and the transcendent are present. Thought Forms had a special impact on the painters in the early years of the twentieth century in that it contained many colour plates representing the auric manifestations of emotion. (Auras are supposedly seen by clairvoyants around the body of individuals, and reveal their thoughts and feelings through colour and abstract shapes.) Thought Forms is of historical interest in showing many assumptions of the period: in particular that science would soon have to acknowledge the 'invisible world' of the astral plane. This was based on specialist forms of photography, the best-known surviving one being Kirlian photography. In fact modern science is generally hostile to the aspirations of the Theosophists because of its occult overtones; it is, as we shall see, more sympathetic to the transcendent, and more recently to the conventionally religious (or so it seems on the surface).

According to our simple taxonomy of the spiritual, Rudolf Steiner's work belongs chiefly to the occult, though as his work is also deeply Christian (often characterised in fact as an occult Christianity) it overlaps with the religious. It is not however transcendent in the sense that the word is used in this paper. Steiner's work is probably the occult at its best, and as such represents a system of knowledge and self-development of great value. It has had an enormous underground influence on the Europe of the first part of the 20th century, and even now leaves its mark on education, the arts, and industry (Weleda pharmaceutical products come from a Steiner company, in a similar way that Clarke's shoes came out of the Quaker movement).

Rudolf Steiner was born in 1861 in Hungary, near the Austrian border. He was exceptional at school, and studied biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics at the Vienna polytechnic. One of his first major employers was the Goethe-and-Schiller archive in Weimar, where he edited Goethe's scientific works. His science background was overshadowed by his life-long occult gifts that seemingly enabled him to enter another world of disembodied spirits and thereby gain access to forms of knowledge other than the conventionally scientific. He regarded his teachings, which came to be known as Anthroposophy (after his split with the Theosophists) as scientific, but his thesis that it would eventually be proven as such was unfounded. His neglect by modern thinkers is a loss, but is probably due to the emergence of psychoanalytical and behaviourist modes of inquiry which fit more comfortably with the mainstream of intellectual life in the 20th century. His teachings on the arts are summarised in several Anthroposophical publications, chiefly The Arts and their Mission. This book contains a summary of his teachings, with the usual cheerful assumptions that they will one day become mainstream:

One result of anthroposophical spiritual science — once it has been absorbed into civilisation — will be the fructification of the arts. Precisely in our time the human inclination toward the artistic has diminished to a marked degree. Even in anthroposophical circles not everyone thoroughly comprehends the fact that Anthroposophy strives to foster, in every possible way, the artistic element.
This is of course connected with modern man's aforementioned aversion to the artistic. Today the positive way in which Goethe and many of his contemporaries sensed the unity of spiritual life and art is no longer experienced. Gradually the conception has arisen that art is something which does not necessarily belong to life, but is added to it as a kind of luxury. With such assumptions prevailing, the upshot is not to be wondered at.
In times when an ancient clairvoyance made for a living connection with the spiritual world, the artistic was considered absolutely vital to civilisation. We may feel antipathy for the frequently pompous, stiff character of Oriental and African art forms; but that is not the point at issue. In this and further lectures we shall be concerned, not with our reaction to any particular art form, but rather with the way in which man's attitude places all the arts within the framework of civilisation. The necessity is to see a certain connection between today's spiritual life and the attitude toward art previously alluded to.

This passage contains many of Steiner's preoccupations, perhaps the most important being a reference to an ancient time when clairvoyance was the norm. Steiner believed that humans were all originally spiritual beings, but in the 'fall' we came to inhabit a more and more materialistic world, culminating in the present one. However, he saw all living things as 'sleeping' spirits, and to some extent this extended to the mineral and planetary worlds as well. In connection with the arts he goes on to say that architecture derived primarily from the building of mausoleums for the benefit of the dead, while the art of clothing belonged to the opposite pole, that of birth. Sculpture was the key art-form related to the present life, as well as painting. However he regarded modern painting degenerate for various reasons:

Today, in the fifth post-Atlantean age, painting has assumed a character leading to naturalism. Its prime manifestation is the loss of a deeper understanding of colour. The intelligence employed in contemporary painting is a falsified sculptural one. ... Painters express through lines the fact that something lies in the background, something in the foreground; their purpose being to conjure up on canvas an impression of spatially formed objects ... A true painter does not create in space, but on the plane, in color, and it is nonsense for him to strive for the spatial.

Steiner goes on to explain that the spiritual world is in fact two-dimensional and when we come to inhabit it we are freed from the 'tyranny 'of three dimensions. The painter should therefore strive to use two dimensions, and also to use colour which is the true third dimension: hence the artist should move from space-perspective to colour-perspective. These ideas perhaps only illustrate the effort needed to get to grips with Steiner's ideas; they are clearly radical, even preposterous at first glance, but there is also clearly a fine intelligence at work. There is also an end-result that can be examined: 'Steiner art'. Anthroposophically-inspired painters produce work that may not be main-stream but is very interesting, and seems to exert an undercurrent of artistic influence, particularly in continental Europe.

About the time that Steiner died a teacher called G.I.Gurdjieff (1877 - 1949) came into prominence as a spiritual leader in the 1930s in Paris. While both men had a kind of esoteric Christianity as part of their teachings they had radically different projects. Although Steiner dealt with an esoterism that still provokes well-educated commentators to use terms like 'hocus-pocus', he was as earnest and straightforward in his affairs as a parish priest. Gurdjieff, in contrast, delighted in confounding his audience with red-herrings and obfuscation, reserving his real teachings for private gatherings and intimate moments. It is hard therefore to justify a conclusion born of many years study of Gurdjieff's work, that it dealt primarily with the transcendent, but there is not space here to defend it in detail. The ritual aspects and occult cosmology of his work, combined with the popular suspicion of charlatanry (which he liked to promote) obscure this essence of his teaching.

It is his attitude to the arts that is important here, and the following passage from a question and answer session give us some insight into it:

Question: What place do art and creative work occupy in your teaching?

Answer: Present-day art is not necessarily creative. But for us art is not an aim but a means.
Ancient art has a certain inner content. In the past, art served the same purpose as is served today by books—the purpose of preserving and transmitting certain knowledge. In ancient times they did not write books but expressed knowledge in works of art. We shall find many ideas in the ancient art which has reached us, if we know how to read it. Every art was like that then, including music. And people of ancient times looked on art in this way.
You saw our movement and dances. But all you saw was the outer form—beauty, technique. But I do not like the external side you see. For me, art is a means for harmonious development. In everything we do the underlying idea is to do what cannot be done automatically and without thought.
Ordinary gymnastics and dances are mechanical. If our aim is a harmonious development of man, then for us, dances and movements are a means of combining the mind and the feeling with movements of the body and manifesting them together. In all things, we have the aim to develop something which cannot be developed directly or mechanically—which interprets the whole man: mind, body and feeling.
The second purpose of dances is study. Certain movements carry a proof with them, a definite knowledge, of religious and philosophical ideas.

Gurdjieff was interested in promoting a harmonious development of man, through the training and integration of the three centres: thinking, feeling and body. In his own terminology we are 'three-brained beings' but unable to develop because of the imbalanced predominance of one centre or atrophy of another. His teachings have been called the 'Fourth Way' because he believed that the way of the yogi, monk, or fakir (corresponding to thinking, feeling, and body) were, in isolation, incomplete, and that a synthesis of these paths into a fourth path was necessary. Transcendence could only be achieved when all three 'brains' worked together.

Like for Steiner and Plato, art for Gurdjieff was subordinate to the spiritual, as we see in the above passage. Gurdjieff was more interested in music, dance and drama than the visual arts, but it is of interest to note that his 'movements' had a parallel with Steiner's Eurythmy: one can only speculate that both felt that modern man needed to be better anchored in his body.

3.6.	The Art of the Spiritual: Blake, Besant, Steiner, Mother Meera

While the spiritual enters art through each artist that is spiritually inclined, artists by definition give their lives to primarily to art. The great mystics and religionists on the other hand primarily give their lives to God, or to their particular spirituality if it is not framed in terms of God. People who are primarily spiritual do occasionally produce works of art, Mother Meera being a contemporary who does so, and whose paintings are reproduced in book form. The Steiner movement is unusual for a spiritual movement in its emphasis on art, as we have seen, but the style is strangely reminiscent of Mother Meera. So also is that of Blake. William Blake is the exception to the discussion in this paragraph so far, in that the spiritual and the artistic were not separate in his life, and one not subordinate to the other. The common visual elements in Blake, Steiner and Meera relate to the representation of spirits or disembodied beings or energies, using flowing wavy forms.

The imagery of Besant and Leadbeater's thought-forms share some of these visual elements, though the purpose of their production was more illustrative than artistic, and they were produced by different artists under the instruction of these theosophists. All four groups of imagery do share in addition an occult overtone, as defined earlier, though the spiritualities in each case differ widely. The common, and occult, theme is that of a hierarchy of disembodied beings or angels, which leave the conventions of established religion far behind. In Meera's case the occult dimension of her work and personal experience are downplayed in favour of what is defined here as the transcendent, and in Blake and in Theosophy the transcendent is also strongly present. In Steiner it is absent.

3.7.	Colour: Gravity and Grace

The phrase 'gravity and grace' are taken from the book of the same name by Simone Weil, an exact contemporary of Sartre's; a philosopher, but with a deeply spiritual bent. Gravity and Grace is a collection of her brief statements, aphoristic in nature, and gathered under rather arbitrary headings for want of any other organising principle. The book opens with this statement: "All the natural movements of the soul are controlled by the laws analogous to those of physical gravity. Grace is the only exception."

Her work is profound but largely pessimistic (her intellectual maturation took place as a Jewess in exile from Nazi France), as some of these quotations on art show:

A work of art has an author and yet, when it is perfect, it has something which is essentially anonymous about it. It imitates the anonymity of divine art. In the same way the beauty of the world proves there to be a God who is personal and impersonal at the same time and is neither the one nor the other separately.

In everything which gives us the pure authentic feeling of beauty there really is the presence of God. There is as it were an incarnation of God in the world and it is indicated by beauty.
The beautiful is the experimental proof that the incarnation is possible.
Hence all art of the highest order is religious in essence. (That is what people have forgotten today.) A Gregorian melody is a powerful a witness as the death of a martyr.

Art has no immediate future because all art is collective and there is no more collective life (there are only dead collections of people), and also because of this breaking of the true pact between the body and the soul. Greek art coincided with the beginning of geometry and athleticism, the art of the Middle Ages with the craftsmen's guilds, the art of the Renaissance with the beginning of mechanics, etc. ... Since 1914 there has been a complete cut. ... Is therefore quite useless for you to envy Leonardo or Bach. Greatness in our times must take a different course. Moreover it can only be solitary, obscure and without an echo ... (but without an echo, no art).

Her views on art, though instructive, are too pessimistic too be useful here and will be left aside in favour of the more widely useful concepts of gravity and grace. We can think of these as 'lenses' through which we can look at any phenomenon in one of two possible ways. Gravity corresponds the 'lens' of materialism, a seemingly growing influence which worried Steiner and the peak of which came perhaps with the first world war: this war seemed to halt the first flow of 20th century artistic interest in the spiritual (noticeably at the Bauhaus, but also in Weil's thinking). Grace corresponds to the 'lens' of the spiritual, but grace is in fact a specialised term in the spiritual, so caution is needed. Grace is specifically beyond the human will, though it does not necessarily imply a belief in an external God or other deity: it can be prayed for or prepared for, but it arrives from its own necessity, not ours. Both artists and scientists are deeply in need of it for their own disciplines; Arthur Koestler, for example, in The Act of Creation skilfully traces its role in art and science (though he does not use the word grace).

In the world of gravity colour is a wavelength of the electromagnetic spectrum, the heart is an organ that pumps blood, and stars are hydrogen/helium fusion reactors that consume themselves. In the world of grace colour is emotion, the heart is the axis of love, and stars are the 'forget-me-nots of angels.' This may be dismissed by some as romanticism, but reminds us again that artists and scientists alike, if they are to accommodate the spiritual, have to give up a single world view. This is particularly true in the world of colour. We have seen how Steiner views colour as a 'space' more appropriate to painting than perspective; occultists generally describe their experiences, for example auras, in terms of colour. Goethe produced a massive volume on colour which has little to do with conventional scientific understanding of the subject, and this tradition extends into the twentieth century in the work of Johannes Itten (one of the founder-members of the Bauhaus), amongst others.

3.8.	Quantum Theory and the Anthropic Principle

Returning to science again we note that the discovery of quantum theory in the twentieth century has initiated a trend in modern science to restore man to the central place in the universe denied to him by the early science of Galileo and Kepler. The high-point of the 'clockwork' view of the universe came with Newton, and this reductionist view is widely held today as the scientific paradigm, even in the biological sciences (see below). Quantum theory has changed this to some extent, suggesting to some that man, or in particular, consciousness, is as essential to the existence of the universe as the universe is essential to the existence of man. This is termed the anthropic principle and is found in the work of Tipler and Barrow, and also in the work of John Archibald Wheeler. The less radical interpretation of quantum theory is called the 'Copenhagen Interpretation' and merely states that the observer cannot be excluded from the experimental investigation of sub-atomic phenomena. The most-cited quantum example is Schrödinger's Cat Paradox, which can be understood from the Copenhagen Interpretation to resolve the life or death of an imaginary cat only at the point of observation (in another interpretation known as 'many worlds' it can be understood in terms of parallel universes). The quantum physicist Erwin Schrödinger imagined a single photon being directed through a half-silvered mirror (a mirror that allows 50% of light energy through, and 50% to be reflected). The mirror is arranged in such a way that if the photon (a single quantum of light energy) passes through the mirror it triggers a photo-sensitive device which kills an unfortunate cat kept in an opaque box. Because of quantum indeterminacy there is nothing in the history of any part of the experiment that will allow us to predict whether the photon goes straight through or is deflected, and it cannot split in two by definition. Hence the only way that we can know whether the cat is alive or dead is by opening the box: this is not just a problem of ignorance, but one that goes to the heart of science.

The Anthropic principle does not rest on quantum theory alone however, but points also to a range of laws and numerical constants that, if they deviated to the smallest fraction from their existing values, would make life impossible. Although these ideas have come from physicists, some theologians or philosophers of religion, notably Richard Swinburne, have picked up on them as helping to revive ancient 'proofs' of the existence of God.

The Anthropic principle may not strike one in the first instance as having much to do with spirituality, certainly not of the religious type defined above. However, parallels can be made with the transcendent category, via notions of wholeness or union, and we see that this theme emerges with Capra and Zukav in the seventies (see below), along with occult implications. More recently physicists are drawing on the same physics to support the more conventionally religious concepts such as God, resurrection, and immortality. Let us look first at the early development of the spiritual in artistic movements in the 20th century.

4.	The Spiritual in Modern Art

Where art of previous centuries reflected mainstream religious concerns, and indeed for much of history could hardly be separated from religion, the 20th century, from a basis in Nietzsche's thought onwards, strikes out on its own. This is not to say that Christian thought is not present in Western art in the twentieth century; one only has to think of the example of Gaudi, the Spanish architect, for example. However, artists who are 'conventionally' religious are probably the exception. 

Examining the spiritual in modern art becomes a difficult undertaking, perhaps for two reasons. Firstly, when we leave the conventional religious spirituality we are left with the less widely understood occult and transcendent spiritualities. Secondly, an art which does not generally deal with the old religious symbols of crucifixion and so on, and is often dealing with abstractions or even the totally abstract, may not immediately be perceived to have a spiritual dimension. This is compounded by the writings of the 20th century artists, or perhaps more by the lack of them. For where the spiritual is central to a piece of modern art, it may be entirely conveyed in a visual language, and the scholars of science and theology are not trained in the visual. Conversely the artist is generally not widely read in the spiritual, and may be unaware of resonances across cultures and epochs with his or her work, and may indeed by innately suspicious of possible restraining influences in spiritual traditions or movements.

In examining the spiritual in 20th century art we are confronted with such problems, but are however indebted to art  historian Roger Lipsey for some ground-breaking work. One of the premises of his work (and based on Mondrian and Kandinsky's thinking) is that the arrival of the abstract in modern art allowed a new exploration of the spiritual. He is also clear that Theosophy was amongst the important spiritual influences of the time. The 'Hidden Hands' programme made this point about Modernism:

Kandinsky, Paul Gaugin, Constantin Brancusi, Theo van Deusburg, Johannes Itten, Walter Gropius (for a while) Robert Delauney, Aleksandr Scriabin, Arnold Schoenberg, Paul Klee, Franz Marc, Boris Pasternak, Aleksander Blok, Katherine Mansfield, T.S. Eliot — all were great pioneers of Modernism, and all were involved in Theosophy and its unpronounceable spin-offs, such as Anthroposophy, Christosophy, Theozoology and Aisophy. In fact, from fin de siècle Paris to 1950's New York (Mark Rothko and Jackson Pollock were both one-time disciples of Eastern gurus), a fascination with magic, the occult and the supernatural were integral to the Modern spirit.

The barely-veiled scorn for Theosophy etc. in this passage is not surprising in the mid-nineties, but would have been a surprise for the artists and writers mentioned of the period.

4.1.	An Art of Our Own - Roger Lipsey

Roger Lipsey is well-known for his work on the late Ananda Coomaraswamy, an authority on religious art of previous eras. Lipsey's book An Art of Our Own — The Spiritual in Twentieth-Century Art is a thorough and fascinating updating of Coomaraswamy's interests into the 20th century, starting, as does this paper, with Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art. The tension between the spiritual and artistic is immediately present in the choice of title, for it comes from a quote from Brancusi:

In the art of other times there is a joy, but with it the nightmare that the religions drag with them. There is joy in Negro sculpture, among the nearly archaic Greeks, in some things of the Chinese and the Gothic ... oh, we find it everywhere. But even so, not so well as it might be with us in the future, if only we were to free ourselves of all this ... It is time we had an art of our own.

The 'all this' we need to free ourselves from, and which 20th century Western artists and writers have done so thoroughly is the religious baggage of previous centuries. In modernism and later art movements the 20th century does have an art of its own, but Lipsey is interested, as we are, in where the spiritual lies within it. If the modern artist rejects traditional religion, what is the source of the spiritual? In the first decades of the century the answer, using the terminology of this paper, is in the occult. In particular it is in the occult of Theosophy, but as we have seen, Anthroposophy and Gurdjieff's work have also played their part (it seems very likely that Brancusi for example met Gurdjieff, and may well have absorbed some of the influences of his school). We also find that the transcendent is a strong influence. Using Brancusi as an example again, we find that one of the books to have the greatest influence on him was Jacques Bacot's 1925 translation of the thirteenth century Tibetan Buddhist The Life of Milarepa.

Lipsey's introduction asks of course what the spiritual is, and what in particular it might be in art, giving firstly a broad outline of the issues as we have done here. He goes on: "All of this duly noted, spiritual remains an old-fashioned word of vague meaning. Yet it is this word that Kandinsky seeded into twentieth-century art, and apart from any individual, it still speaks. It requires a positive response from us." Lipsey points out that many intellectuals of his generation were profoundly influenced by the inevitable conclusion of 19th century religious failure: "Beyond, there may be a void: whole sections of modern literature address the perception of a profoundly unwelcoming void. The generation of which I am a part explored the void at the earliest possible age, under the influence of Existentialist literature. We sat on park benches trying to validate Sartre's compelling description of metaphysical nausea ..." The void is a key concept in the spirituality of the transcendent, particularly in Buddhism, but is deeply problematic in the West, particularly to the artist. While Lipsey does not explore this much, he does draw an interesting metaphor from Sufi thought; the contrast between 'eyes of flesh,' which perceive only the material world, and 'eyes of fire,' which perceive only the spiritual. He goes on: "For such eyes nothing is lonely matter, all things are caught up in a mysterious, ultimately divine whole that challenges understanding over a lifetime. ... eyes for art strike a balance between these sensibilities." This idea, that the artist stands between heaven and earth and somehow mediates between them, will be returned to later.

The early part of Lipsey's book traces, as we have done above, some of the spiritual developments on the artists of the twentieth century. He focuses on Theosophy and Anthroposophy, but only mentions Ouspensky (a close associate of Gurdjieff's) in the section on Kasimir Malevich, saying: "Suprematism can be viewed in part as an artist's response to the world-view and implicit challenge of Tertium Organum." This major work of Ouspensky's was produced before he met Gurdjieff, but many of the preoccupations in it carry over into his later work. Its influence may well have been most noticeable amongst Russian artists.

The strength of Lipsey's work is in its thoroughness and insight into the lives, concerns, and work of 20th century artists. However, his notions of the spiritual are not fine-grained enough to deal with the subtlety of the phenomenon, especially given the difficulties outlined earlier. In this essay, by starting with the crude boundaries of religious, occult and transcendent, I am pointing to a way to build on Lipsey's work and take it further. Let us look at a brief selection of the key players in 20th century art, looking both at Lipsey's research and at ways to refine it.

4.2.	Kandinsky, Mondrian, Klee, and Itten: The Bauhaus

The influence of Theosophy on Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinsky, plus the spiritual interests of Johannes Itten, contributed to making the Bauhaus a focus for the spiritual in the 1920s. Steiner's and Gurdjieff's work had no comparable outlet in Europe, but in fact various forces conspired to diminish the spiritual aspect of the Bauhaus. It lay at the heart of twentieth century Modernism, and was founded by Walter Gropius in 1919 in Germany, and, considering the interests of many of those involved, could have developed into an artistic version of Plato's or Ficino's Academies. (It even sometimes had the 'cult' overtones of Ficino's Renaissance Academy.) It is generally considered that the first world war and the Russian Revolution turned the current of idealism (sparked by Theosophy et al.) from the spiritual in the direction of the social. At best this swing had a democratic impulse, but the materialistic emphasis of socialism, and the drift towards fascism in Germany, put paid to the spiritual aspirations of many of the Bauhaus artists (it was closed by the Nazis in 1933). Lipsey has this to say: "It is a matter of lasting astonishment that the Bauhaus began with a medievalizing, romantic self-image and emerged in a few short years as the principal artisan of design principles that are the essence of 'modern' and the hallmark of the century."

Johannes Itten was deliberately employed by Gropius in the early years to teach at the Bauhaus because of his strongly mystical dimension, but left eventually as directions changed. Lipsey comments:

He viewed the Bauhaus as a "secret, self-contained society" with spiritual goals. In his classes, he offered students the opportunity to practice relaxation, breathing, and concentration exercises intended, as he later wrote, "to establish the intellectual and physical readiness which makes intensive work possible." ... Itten precipitated the crisis of 1922 by embodying the esoteric and romantic aspects of the Bauhaus so militantly that he threatened to sever the school from its moorings in mainstream society.

Itten himself made the following comments about the spiritual underpinning of his work in Design and Form, one of the coursebooks to emerge from teachers at the Bauhaus:

I had studied oriental philosophy and concerned myself with Persian Mazdaism and Early Christianity. Thus I realised that our outward-directed scientific research and technology must be balanced by inward-directed thought and forces of the soul. ... It is not only a religious custom to start instruction with a prayer or a song, but it also serves to concentrate the students' wandering thoughts. At the start of the morning I brought my classes to mental and physical readiness for intensive work through relaxing, breathing, and concentrating exercises. The training of the body as an instrument of the mind is of the greatest importance for creative man. ... Besides relaxation, breathing is of the greatest importance. As we breathe, so do we think and so is the rhythm of our daily life. People of great, successful accomplishments always have a quiet, slow and deep breath. Shortwinded people are hasty and greedy in thought and action. 

These extracts show much of Itten's thinking and character, and the reactions to them may illustrate the problem that artists have with the explicitly spiritual. The library copy of Design and Form from the Arts faculty of my university has a simple pencilled comment in the margin close to the last point made in this extract: 'Suspicious'. The 'Hidden Hands' team commented: "Itten was a zealous campaigner for a pseudo-religion called Mazdaznan, which its adherents claimed was derived from the teachings of Zoroaster in Persia. Itten wandered around in monk-like robes and instituted a strict regime of meditation, colonic irrigation and vegetarianism (during Itten's tenure, observers noted, everything at the Bauhaus smelt of garlic." They go on to claim that the Mazdaznan experiment was a disaster.

Let us turn back now to Kandinsky's Concerning the Spiritual in Art as a turning point for Modernism. It was published in 1911, and was deeply influenced by Theosophy: he had 'snapped up' a copy of Thought Forms in 1908 and joined the movement in 1909. Kandinsky's Variations series is considered by Frances Saunders to be almost indistinguishable from the illustrations in Thought Forms. The thesis of the 'Hidden Hands' documentary is that the contemporary art scene is embarrassed about the early spiritual influences on Modernism, but it seems that even twenty years ago the editors of the Dover edition of Concerning the Spiritual in Art only give a passing mention to Theosophy, and disregard it altogether under 'further reading'. Kandinsky himself only devotes a few paragraphs to it, apparently quoting from Blavatsky's The Key to Theosophy:

Theosophy, according to Blavatsky, is synonymous with eternal truth. "The new torchbearer of truth will find the minds of men prepared for his message, a language ready for him in which to clothe the new truths he brings, an organization awaiting his arrival, which will remove the merely mechanical, material obstacles and difficulties from his path." And then Blavatsky continues: "The earth will be a heaven in the twenty-first century in comparison with what it is now," and with these words concludes her book.

Kandinsky shows in Concerning the Spiritual in Art the seeds of the spiritual dilemma that makes the appearance of the spiritual in the arts so fitful in the 20th century: the apparent hierarchical nature of it. In the chapter called 'The Movement of the Triangle' he likens society to a triangle with those few spiritual or artistic geniuses at its apex, and, as one goes down, a greater and greater number of artists of lesser and lesser value; the triangle moves upwards, thus representing 'progress'. This image fits well with Theosophy, but with the rise of socialism after 1917 it exposes an elitist view of art that sat uncomfortably with the new order. The shock of the first world war must also have shaken the faith of men like Kandinsky in Blavatsky's prediction of a heaven in the 21st century, and in the later Bauhaus years he tempered the spirituality of his earlier period to fit the more materialistic and machine-oriented aspirations of his students. 

Piet Mondrian was only briefly at the Bauhaus, but was just as deeply influenced by Theosophy as Kandinsky, though to the 'Hidden Hands' team only to his detriment as an artists. They print a triptych of Mondrian's call Evolution as an example of this period (it is the dominant piece amongst similar work hidden in the Gemeente Museum, unshown). His later and better-known work continued to explore one of the Theosophical themes, that of geometry.

Paul Klee was another teacher at the Bauhaus for a time, and shared with Kandinsky a friendship with Thomas de Hartmann, musician and close collaborator with Gurdjieff. Kandinsky met de Hartmann between 1908 and 1912, before de Hartmann met Gurdjieff in 1916, and for whom both he and his wife gave up everything. Klee's notebooks, like those of many artists, do not reveal the kind of spiritual preoccupations that we find in those of a man like Krishnamurti, and I have not found so far any mention of Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, or even de Hartman. Lipsey comments:

Paul Klee (1879-1940)—Swiss-born, mature in art by 1914, Bauhaus master in the great years of the institution,  renowned for works of originality, wit, and depth—is the author of one of the century's few unerring statements on the spiritual in art. With Kandinsky's On the Spiritual in Art and Brancusi's aphorisms, Klee's 1924 lecture "On Modern Art" is all one need know to be certain that twentieth-century art conceived ideals that in their religious dimension would have been recognizable to Meister Eckhart and in their workshop dimension to Leonardo.

The last sentiment in this passage, concerning Eckhart and Leonardo, could be seen as an aspiration at the heart of this essay. However, I think Lipsey is a little optimistic, particularly in respect of Klee's 1924 lecture, which makes no direct reference to the spiritual at all. I suspect that the spiritual in Klee's work has to be approached via the work itself, and I have no suggestion at this point for an easy method for so doing.

4.3.	The American Abstract Expressionists

Another influential group of 20th century painters that drew heavily on spiritual influences in one form or other was the group known as the American Abstract Expressionists. Coming to prominence after the second world war in New York, they included Jackson Pollock, Mark Rothko, Barnet Newman, Ad Reinhardt, and many others. A cursory glance at the writings of these artists leave one again in doubt as to the extent of any explicitly spiritual references in their writings, but overall there is strong evidence for a spiritual concern running through their work. Lipsey is similarly hesitant, though not sceptical. His comments revolve around an exhibition called "The Spiritual in Abstract Art: 1895-1985" (Los Angeles, 1986; Catalogue Editor: Maurice Tuchman) in which the last two paintings, one by Ad Reinhardt and another by Mark Rothko had the most impact on him. Lipsey says:  "These works at once 'settled' the exhibition, brought it home; one could feel again that there is a modern spiritual, and these works demonstrated it." We are presented here with a quite understandable subjectivity, shown again in this quote from Lipsey: "Although Barnett Newman (1905-1970) took keen interest in traditional spiritual ideas, possessed a sense of scripture, and contributed cogently to the endless murmur of conversation among American artists of the period, he never succeeded in giving eloquent pictorial form to his insights." 

We should not be discouraged however either by the difficulties in pursuing the spiritual in the writings of the artists, nor by our subjective responses to their art. I believe that our whole conception of the spiritual can be fruitfully softened and expanded by the visual arts: much more work is needed, that is all. The American Abstract Expressionists have a spirituality that is firmly in the transcendent category (as defined in this essay); the mainstream religious is only nodded at, and the occultism of the earlier part of the century has vanished. Lipsey points out that Ad Reinhardt for example was a friend of Thomas Merton, read Coomaraswamy, attended Suzuki's talks on Zen Buddhism, and was literate in Buddhism. 

4.4.	Stelarc and Musafar: towards a spiritual in cyberspace

I would like to conclude this brief section on modern art with a mention of the electronic arts and the virtual territory that they inhabit: cyberspace. The post-modern, eclectic, and rule-free world of the electronic arts may produce at worst a New-Age pap, but at best there is a genuine freedom of thought and spiritual aspiration. Once again one has to look very hard to find explicitly spiritual references, but this should be no obstacle. We see for example a transcendent theme again, this time a transcendence of the biological organism; many indeed speak of a post-biological world, or of 'obsolescence of the body'. This is the theme of the work of performance artist Stelarc. This Australian artist works with mechanical and electronical devices that provide an interface to computer-controlled movements of his own body, prostheses, and industrial robots: he uses his own muscles to send or amplify their movements to control mechanical systems, and in turn allows computer-mediated control over his own body via electrical impulses of about 40V. His visually stunning performances raise all kinds of questions regarding transcendence of the body, surrender of personal will, and the acceptance of pain. In interview however he is rather wary of the direct spiritual implications of his work; even though he practised yoga for twenty years he does not want direct parallels to be drawn, and one can only respect this.

Fakir Musafar is another performance artist, working mainly without electronics, but is much less reticent than Stelarc about the spiritual — indeed he criticises Stelarc for his silence on this area. Musafar's work turns us back to the occult (as defined here): it has its roots in out-of-body experiences, shamanism, and fetishism. An overwhelming spiritual experience at the age of seventeen (after fasting and a form of self-immolation) led to a conviction that he had lived before in a completely different culture and time, and that the erotic and bodily were deeply linked to the spiritual. He comments:

That beautiful experience colored my whole existence. From that day on I wanted everyone to have that kind of liberation. I felt free to express life through my body. It was now my media, my own personal "living canvas," "living clay." It belonged to me to use. And that is just what I have done for the past thirty years. I learned to use the body. It is mine, and yours, to play with! I wrote a poem after the experience. It said:

Poke your finger into Red,
Feel the feeling through.
And when the feeling is no more,
Feel no-feeling too!

This poem has a resonance for me with the following meditation from the Vigyana Bhairava Tantra (Lord Shiva's 112 methods of meditation):

Devi, imagine the Sanskrit letters in these honey-filled foci of awareness, first as letters, then more subtle as sounds, then as most subtle feeling. Then, leaving them aside, be free.

Musafar is significant as an artist who occupies Gurdjieff's territory of the fakir, that is one who's path is through the body rather than through mind or heart. The transcendent implications in his poem, and the occult nature of his out-of-body experiences reminds one again that we cannot apply these categories too strictly however.

Whether the spiritual in cyberspace will have its emphasis on the transcendence of the body, or more on the collectivisation of mind and consciousness is yet to be seen. There is considerable interest in the ideas of Teilhard de Chardin in connection with the Internet; in particular his idea of the noosphere. De Chardin is interesting in his own right as a Jesuit priest and palaeontologist: his life's work represents an attempt to reconcile the scientific and religious, but lack of space prevents a detailed presentation of his ideas. Let us turn instead to the way in which the spiritual is emerging in the work of the scientists of the 20th century.

5.	The Spiritual in Modern Science

We have seen earlier how the spiritual has gained an entrance into modern science through quantum theory and the Anthropic principle, though both may be seen more as a humanistic than spiritual development. The scientific community has not reacted in a homogeneous way to these developments however, as the following sections show. 

5.1.	Reactions to Quantum Theory: Einstein and Bohm

It is a reasonable assertion today to say that the subjective entered science with quantum mechanics. Whether the spiritual does or does not is a question that is highly debatable; Wilber denies it (see below) while a more cautious approach may be to suggest that it gave the scientists the first real excuse to talk about the spiritual. What is not always appreciated is that even the first premise was not so easily reached, and we find in particular that Einstein resisted it, and in a more subtle way so did the physicist David Bohm. Einstein's comment on quantum theory, that "God does not play dice," is well known, but in fact it came from a profound distrust of chance, both in his personal life and in physics, and he spent the last 30 years of his life unsuccessfully trying to find the 'hidden variables' behind quantum theory that would bring it back to the fold of a deterministic science. No one would pretend that Einstein's occasional use of the word 'God' represented a profound engagement with the spiritual, and the conversations between him and Rabindranath Tagore are often cited to show how Einstein wanted to cling at all costs to the idea of an 'objective' universe out there, against Tagore's Hindu metaphysics.

David Bohm, on the other hand, had a life-long interest in mysticism (as his conversations with Krishnamurti show). His best-known work Wholeness and the Implicate Order is dense and opaque to most lay readers; nevertheless it represents an attempt to complete Einstein's project to find the 'hidden variables'. Bohm steers clear of the physics-supports-mysticism view, yet his work is much more than the incidental interest of a physicist in mysticism: it is a clear manifesto for the synthesis of the two.

5.2.	Popular Physics-as-Mysticism: Capra and Zukav

Though many scientists, through the confrontation with quantum theory and other developments in the 'new' physics, were having to re-evaluate science itself, and in many cases found parallels in religion or mysticism, it was the physicist Fritjof Capra who first brought the parallels to popular attention. His book The Tao of Physics was turned down by twelve publishers until Wildwood took it in 1975; a million copies have now been sold worldwide. Gary Zukav, trained in the liberal arts rather than physics, followed with The Dancing Wu Li Masters in 1979. Both books are good introductions to the 'new' physics, and to the parallels with mysticism, but neither authors have the kind of depth-exposure to the spiritual that Ken Wilber (discussed below) has. If we relate the works of Capra and Zukav to our simple taxonomy of the spiritual, then the parallels they draw are mainly to the transcendent, with references here and there to the occult.

5.3.	Ken Wilber

Ken Wilber wrote his first book The Spectrum of Consciousness in 1973, while a graduate student. He has been a prolific and maverick author since that point, spanning the spiritual, the scientific, and the psychological. His reading in the spiritual is broad and deep, and as a result gives a much subtler interpretation of the parallels between physics and mysticism than offered by Capra and Zukav. Indeed it may be just their work that he is complaining of in this quote in his preface to Quantum Questions:

The theme of this book, if I may briefly summarize the arguments of the physicists presented herein, is that modern physics offers no positive support (let alone proof) for a mystical worldview. ... It is not my aim in this volume to reach the new-age audience, who seem to be firmly convinced that modern physics automatically supports or proves mysticism. It does not. But this view is now so widespread, so deeply entrenched, so taken for granted by new-agers, that I don't see that any one book could possibly reverse the tide.

Wilber wishes to tread a more delicate path than either the New-Ageists or the conventional scientist who compartmentalises. His work is more engaged with the psychological or psychoanalytical than is directly relevant to this paper, but he presents us with an interesting possibility for the integration of seemingly opposing fields (the spiritual, the artistic, the scientific) through his concept of levels of consciousness. His idea is that the apparent contradictions are merely there because one is debating phenomena related to one level at a level that is inappropriate to it. This idea does not translate directly to the theme of this paper, but we shall return to it later.

Wilber's Quantum Questions is a good source of the writings of some of the key scientists on the spiritual this century, perhaps as useful as Lipsey's An Art of Our Own. However, in the ten years since Wilber's work science and the spiritual have generated a quite new debate, bringing physics and mainstream religion together.

5.4.	Polkinghorne and Davies: compartments

John Polkinghorne, theoretical physicist and recently ordained into the Church of England, has written for many years on science (with the emphasis on quantum theory) and religion. His premise is that both are 'an enquiry into what is.' Although his book Reason and Reality includes a chapter called 'Quantum Questions', he seems unaware of Wilber's book of the same name and the main proposition in it. Polkinghorne argues for a form of 'complementarity.' For example, both theology and science are concerned with the origins or genesis of the universe and life; for both this becomes a legitimate enquiry; and the traditionally 'exclusive' accounts can in fact be accommodated by seeing them as complementary to each other while appropriate to differing contexts of human activity. Valuable as Polkinghorne's work is, it restricts itself to a narrow band of congruence between science and religion: that of the 'enquiry' leading to explanation. (The main problem with this is that it cannot touch on the devotional, for the devotee, whether ecstatic or sober in their love of the divine, cannot be said to be pursuing an enquiry, more that of a relationship.) For Polkinghorne revelation is the religious equivalent to the scientific procedure that leads from enquiry to explanation, but in the work of Paul Davies revelation is mistrusted.

Paul Davies is a British-born physicist currently working in Australia. Davies (one of the scientists featured in Equinox: God Only Knows) won the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1995. This prize, worth $1m, has previously been awarded to Mother Teresa, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and Billy Graham, and went to Davies in recognition of his work which includes God and the New Physics and The Mind of God (a reworking of the former title, some nine years later). The title of the latter book comes from the last sentence in another famous modern physicist's book, A Brief History of Time, by Stephen Hawking. The Templeton Prize, larger than any prize in physics is given to a living person who has shown "extraordinary originality" in advancing humankind's understanding of God or spirituality.

Davies' spiritual interests lie clearly in the religious category, according to the definition in this paper. There is little of the occult or transcendent, and his reading in theology, though broad for a scientist perhaps, is limited compared to that of Ken Wilber for example. What is it then that has made his books best-sellers, and attracted the Templeton Prize? Davies is a scientist with no faith in the supernatural, as this quote shows:

I have always wanted to believe that science can explain everything, at least in principle. Many nonscientists would deny such a claim resolutely. Most religions demand belief in at least some supernatural events, which are by definition impossible to reconcile with science. I would rather not believe in supernatural events personally.

Davies books introduce the new physics (relativity and quantum theory and their more recent developments) in a lucid style, with a running commentary on the theological implications. He takes a very different route to Capra and Zukav, by dealing with mainstream (Christian) theological problems, and even seems a little hostile to Oriental thought:

The popularity of "holistic science" in recent years has prompted a string of books, most notably Fritjof Capra's The Tao of Physics, that stress the similarity between ancient Eastern philosophy, with its emphasis on the holistic interconnectedness of physical things, and modern nonlinear physics. Can we conclude that Oriental philosophy an theology were, after all, superior to their Western counterparts? Surely not.

Even though his later book concludes with a brief section on mysticism, Davies avoids it on the whole, and perhaps this is his popular appeal: a dialogue with mainstream Western religion. He provides an update, via the new physics, on the arguments for the existence of God, most of which looks even less convincing than in the days of the old physics. He makes a nod at some of the metaphysics emerging from 'new' physics, including the anthropic principle and holism, but is not that enthusiastic about straying from 'proper' or reductionist science. However his position is weakly anthropic, as the closing section in The Mind of God suggests:

What does it mean? What is Man that we might be party so such privilege? I cannot believe that our existence in this universe is a mere quirk of fate, an accident of history, an incidental blip in the great cosmic drama. Our involvement is too intimate. The physical species Homo may count for nothing, but the existence of mind in some organism on some planet in the universe is surely a fact of fundamental significance. Through conscious beings the universe has generated self-awareness. This can be no trivial detail, no minor byproduct of mindless, purposeless forces. We are truly meant to be here.

This might be mildly encouraging to the conventionally religious person, but in fact Davies is not in favour of religion at all, as the closing remarks in his previous work show:

I began by making the claim that science offers a surer path than religion in the search for God. It is my deep conviction that only by understanding the world in all its many aspects — reductions and holist, mathematical and poetical, through forces, fields, and particles as well as through good and evil — that we will come to understand ourselves and the meaning behind this universe, our home.

Is conventional religion so desperate that it is grateful that scientists even bother to write about God? When mostly the argument is against the very concept? And to the tune of $1m? This is not to denigrate Davies' work, merely to emphasise that there is a strange phenomenon here. We can of course point to Davies' very limited exposure to the religious in all its forms, and also to pick up on a point in the last paragraph quoted above: let us indeed have the poetry. His knowledge of the world of gravity is profound, but in the world of grace a whole education is lacking.

5.5.	Dennett and Dawkins: two reductionists against religion

There can be however no general thesis that science is amenable to the spiritual: many eminent scientists of today are not only reductionists, but see in the success of their reductionism reasons to attack religion. Daniel Dennett is a philosopher by training, but now works with 'cognitive' robots and is best known for his book Consciousness Explained; Richard Dawkins is an evolutionary biologist at Oxford known for his excellent science writing, including The Selfish Gene: both are fiercely anti-religious. If we compare them to a third well-known modern scientist, Francis Crick, we find a reductionism common to all three, but a lower-key approach in the latter. Crick received, along with James Watson, a Nobel prize for his share in the discovery of the double-helix structure of DNA. Despite this achievement, he changed course, and at the age of 58 took on a new scientific challenge: consciousness, and has recently published a book on the subject called The Astonishing Hypothesis. This hypothesis is that 'we are nothing but a pack of neurons', and that one day we will discover the neural correlate of consciousness. His attitude to religion (probably fairly common in the scientific community) is summed up in some of these passages:

The record of religious beliefs in explaining scientific phenomena has been so poor in the past that there is little reason to believe that the conventional religions will do much better in the future. It is certainly possible that there may be aspects of consciousness, such as qualia, that science will not be able to explain. We have learned to live with such limitations in the past (e.g., limitations of quantum mechanics) and we may have to live with them again. This does not necessarily mean that we shall be driven to embrace traditional religious beliefs. Not only do the beliefs of most popular religions contradict each other but, by scientific standards, they are based on evidence so flimsy that only an act of blind faith can make them acceptable. If the members of a church really believe in a life after death, why do they not conduct sound experiments to establish it? ... If revealed religions have revealed anything it is that they are usually wrong.

While a passage like this sums up the views of not only many scientists, but also a large section of the modern lay public, Dennett and Dawkins are not content to limit themselves to a few throw-away paragraphs like this embedded in their writings. Dawkins, recently appointed Professor of Public Understanding of Science at Oxford (a chair sponsored, a little alarmingly, by Microsoft), considers religion to be a (harmful) virus, and said of religious people confronted with science that they were 'know-nothings' and 'no-contest.' He has admitted since then only that his scorn was a 'tactical error.' The Churchman has said of his work: "One great virtue of this book [The Blind Watchmaker] is to demonstrate the incompatibility of Darwinism and theism. The author points out the inconsistency of these sophisticated theologians who wish to appear in step with modern science, while at the same time retaining a corner for God in their cosmogony." David L. Edwards in the Church Times says this: "Dr Dawkins is determined to hunt down any theologian who tries to prove, or even suggest, God by finding gaps in neo-Darwinian biology ... And it is surely important that those who would defend religious belief in the age of science should grasp the full force of the explanation of nature which has no need of God." We can assume both of these comments come from their author's own, but different, agendas; the battle is an old one, and obviously not yet drained of potential for further conflict. One consensus that is emerging however is that a God required merely to fill in the gaps in scientific knowledge (a trend started with the Deists of the Enlightenment) — a 'God-of-the-gaps' — is satisfactory to no one.

Dennett is a pugilist of a scientist, a little like Crick (who has a lengthy appendix in The Astonishing Hypothesis that dismisses most of his opponents within science with acerbic one-liners), but is happy to take a swipe at anything within or outside of science. He sees Darwinism as a "universal acid" capable of dissolving away biology, ethics, economics, and religion. The following extract from an interview is illuminating:

[on Dawkins:] "... By my work is much more concerned than his with the genuine pain of those with religious beliefs when they confront what he and I both say they have to give up". [my italics] ... Can we not just leave the religions to be happy in their so-called delusion? No, says Dennett. Change is necessary. "I acknowledge that this is hurtful and I say, yes, people will suffer. But they have to make whatever accommodation they can to the obligation to educate their children with truth and not falsehood. ..."

The reductionism of these scientists is absolutely necessary for the advancement of science, though in the cases of Crick and Dennett they face tough opposition within the emerging science of consciousness community. Their continuous barracking of conventional religion is strange however, and is running counter to the reverse trend of attempting its takeover. Before we look at Frank Tipler, a physicist who believes that not only has physics taken over theology, but that he has proved the existence of God, we should look at some biologists who disagree with Dawkins.

5.6.	Sheldrake and Mae-Wan Ho: non-reductionist biologists

It has become a commonplace truism that the roles of physicist and biologist have reversed over the last 150 years: the animism and vitalism of the early biologists has now been replaced by the 'hard' reductionism of Crick and Dawkins (you are 'just' a bunch of neurons, or 'just' a selfish-gene carrier, take your pick), while the clockwork universe of Newtonian physics has been replaced by the mysticism of quantum theory. However, there are some notable biologists who reject the reductionism of their colleagues. Rupert Sheldrake (friend of Andrew Harvey of Mother Meera fame) is foremost in this area, and has had the unusual honour of provoking the editor of Nature to declare that his books "were fit for burning". Sheldrake comments on his early training:

... But as I advanced in my studies, I was taught that direct, intuitive experience of plants and animals was emotional and unscientific. According to my teachers, biological organisms were in fact inanimate machines, devoid of any inherent purposes, the product of blind chance and natural selection; and indeed the whole of nature was merely an inanimate machine-like system.

Later on he began the attempt to integrate the reductionist biology of his training with his early 'direct and intuitive' experience of nature that led to hostility from the establishment. His book, The Rebirth of Nature, has one subtitle (on the front cover) — 'New Science and the Revival of Animism' — and another (inside) — 'The Greening of Science and God', both of which reveal some of his concerns. The book is in two parts, the first dealing with the historical development of the modern reductionist view, and the second laying out his ideas for the reintroduction of a form of animism into modern science.

A quite different approach is taken by the biologist Mae-Wan Ho, author of The Rainbow and the Worm — the Physics of Organisms. Although she takes her cue from quantum holism, her idea is that organisms are much less centrally controlled than our study of brains lead us to believe, and that a better model for living things and the world as a whole is that of a 'participative universe'. This does not require quantum theory, and can be approached quite legitimately from a systems study of organisms: it just requires that assumptions about the brain and control be put to one side. This is perhaps a form of anti-reductionism that does not require (as Sheldrake's does) new forces or fields.

5.7.	Tipler: science fiction?

Frank Tipler, author of The Physics of Immortality, represents an extreme reaction of the scientist to the spiritual possibilities of the theories of his discipline. His book has provoked the reaction, similar in intensity to reactions against Sheldrake, that he should be 'de-frocked' of his PhD (this attack came from the biologist Lewis Wolpert in the Equinox programme). A close look at his book does, to my mind, remind one of the view that logic is a whore, at least in Tipler's hands. However, I think the book is an important landmark, and should not be ignored — in fact it might make a useful touchstone for a modern liberal education: its breadth and challenge need a broad educational base from which to mount any attack on its central thesis. 

To summarise Tipler's ideas: modern cosmology predicts the elimination of biological life as we know it, either through the 'heat death' (lack of energy in fact) in an ever-expanding universe, or its consumption in the inferno of the 'big crunch' (the final singularity of the universe as it contracts again). In any case organic life on Earth has only some billions of years to go before the Sun wipes it out. However, the anthropic principle discussed above requires that life (consciousness) is central to the cosmos, and therefore the future evolution of it must be such as to ensure its existence (in some form or other) for eternity. From this premise Tipler deduces that we shall all be resurrected by God to live for ever in the far future: what's more he claims to have the scientific 'proof' for the existence of God and our immortality. Here is the conclusion to his book:

The Omega Point Theory [the name is taken from Teilhard de Chardin's writings] allows the key concepts of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition now to be modern physics concepts: theology is nothing but physical cosmology based on the assumption that life as a whole is immortal. A consequence of this assumption is the resurrection of everyone who ever lived to eternal life. Physics has now absorbed theology; the divorce between science and religion, between reason and emotion, is over.
I began this book with an assertion on the pointlessness of the universe by Steven Weinberg. He repeats this in his latest book, Dreams of a Final Theory, and goes on to say "... I do not for a minute think that science will ever provide the consolations that have been offered by religion in facing death."
I disagree. Science can now offer precisely the consolations in facing death that religion once offered. Religion is now part of science.

To show that his premises lead to his (startling) conclusions, Tipler has to make a number of radical assumptions along the way. Firstly, life, including the personality of every person that ever existed, can exist as a digital simulation; secondly that robot 'probes' can colonise the universe (thus disseminating digitally encoded life) and engulf the universe with intelligence before its collapse has gone too far; third that this intelligent life can engineer the final collapse in an asymmetrical way (harnessing the features of chaos theory) in order to provide huge amounts of usable energy; fourthly that this collective intelligence (called the Omega Point) will be benign enough to collect all possible data regarding each one of us and initiate our eternal simulation on vast computers; and finally that the last infinitesimally small period of time before the final singularity will feel 'subjectively' to us like an eternity.

Each of these major assumptions then requires another group of assumptions to make them work: for example that colonisation of the universe will be achievable through matter/anti-matter engines (no-one knows at this point how to build one), and that mind is computable so that we can be 'uploaded' into computers (Roger Penrose, for one, disagrees with this). Our resurrection then depends on the fact that living persons now (and in the past) can be photographed billions of years in the future from the light-rays bouncing off the edge of the universe, and that will give the Omega Point sufficient information to run an exact simulation of us, preferably choosing us in our prime. Tipler does recognise that there could be a practical difficulty with this (we cannot even photograph an entire planet even within our own galaxy at the moment, not even as a spot of light), so he suggests that instead the cosmic computer could reconstruct us all knowing that we are 'completely defined' by the four billion-odd genes in our bodies. This would unfortunately mean resurrecting an inconceivably large number of people who never existed, but Tipler can be generous: he has already shown that the Omega Point has infinite computing power at its disposal.

As if all the scientific odds were not stacked against his theory (putting it charitably), Tipler also has to show that various religious and cultural attitudes to immortality are wrong. The most important of these are eternal recurrence and reincarnation, both of which require lengthy discussions through philosophy and religion to dispose of.

Tipler supplies a Scientists Appendix to The Physics of Immortality, which he claims proves mathematically various elements of his theory. His strategy, if one were inclined to the cynical, is to argue very tightly and scientifically small points, and then make huge (but downplayed) leaps between them, thus stringing together some plausible science in the service of an implausible conclusion. It is an enjoyable read however, and it deserves a refutation. My own suggestion is to take Tipler's devotion to determinism at face value and point out that immortality is already guaranteed by the very theory of eternal recurrence that he tries to argue against. I simply have a different version: if the universe started from a Big Bang, and returns to a Big Crunch in an entirely deterministic fashion, then it only takes one simple leap of logic to suppose that it will do the same again and again, and in exactly the same way.

This answer to Tipler (which is in one sense 'trivially true' and therefore not in the least interesting) gets, I believe, to the heart of his obsession: he absolutely requires a 'continuity' of personhood, which such a theory denies. He obtains support for his view from certain parts of the Judaic-Christian-Muslim traditions, believing for example that while waiting for resurrection the billions of years will feel like no 'subjective' time at all.

While I believe that the anthropic principle deserves a place in modern thought, it is undermined by Tipler's obviously emotional attempt to avoid his own, and others', mortality. The really interesting part of his work, and of a growing number of other scientists', is their willingness to use (some would say hijack) the language of religion. In terms of the categories of spirituality developed above, it is religious rather than occult or transcendent.

5.8.	Studies in Consciousness

Zukav and Capra represent a populist New Age 'physics-as-mysticism'; Wilber a subtler note of caution in this endeavour; Dennett and Dawkins as irredeemably hostile to a meeting of religion and science; Sheldrake and Mae-Wan Ho as the 'holistic' brigade; Davies and Tippler the 'physics-as-theology' hijackers. These represent a spectrum of approaches to the spiritual in science, and we find in the emerging field of Studies in Consciousness a forum in which all find a place in a common debate. In a single issue of the Journal for Consciousness Studies, or on a single conference platform, we can find all these approaches, and in addition the out-and-out mystic or religionist. Wilber may be sceptical that physics supports mysticism, but if it were not for quantum theory this meeting of minds in a common cause would not have happened. On the face of it a quest for a real understanding of consciousness looks rather unpromising, but as a meeting place for the spiritual and the scientific it is highly significant.

6.	The Spiritual in Art and Science

While it is clear that something is happening in the sciences with an explicit reference to the spiritual, and that no such large-scale detectable phenomenon is happening in the arts, it may be premature to assume that science is more receptive to the spiritual than the arts. In that a willingness exists for scientists to speak openly on the theme that their science supports a spiritual world-view of one sort or another, we probably have to account for it, in the first place at least, in terms of the developments in quantum theory. This development has brought science up against the brick wall of the subjective, and from there a path to the spiritual is certainly possible, if not inevitable. We also see a continual, if less obvious, engagement with the spiritual in the arts of this century, starting with Kandinsky and the Bauhaus, through the American Abstract Expressionists, and into the modern electronic arts. One might say that the equivalent event in the arts of this century to the discovery of quantum theory in physics has been the development of the abstract in art. However the beginnings of abstract art coincided with an explicit concern with the spiritual, whereas the impact of quantum theory has taken roughly fifty years to emerge from the Copenhagen interpretation to the popular spirituality of Capra and Zukav. We have seen also that artists write diffusedly, if at all, about the spiritual: it has to be found directly in their work. Modern scientists on the other hand write profusely about the spiritual, even to the point of raising the kind of protest mentioned at the beginning of this paper.

In both the arts and sciences there are however considerable tensions and antagonisms to the spiritual.

Perhaps the mutual antagonism between science and religion is precisely because of an instinct that (as Polkinghorne puts it) both can be an inquiry into what is. To the extent that science and religion compete to give us a rational account of the universe and its origins there will probably be no reconciliation: the efforts of Polkinghorne, Davies, and Tipler are not convincing in this respect at least. What they do offer us, in different ways, is different approaches to a harmonious relationship. I have suggested earlier that two possible ways to characterise this relationship are through either compartmentalisation or integration (synthesis). The first route may lead to a cessation of dialogue between the scientific and the religious, while the second may lead to a 'flattening' of the two cultures where only the narrowest of common ground is shared.

Compartmentalisation at best is a positive position I would argue. It implies a mixed community of scientists and religionists that each respect each other's territory, priorities, and goals. It implies an ease with multiple world-views, for example a Darwinist such as Dawkins recognising that a creation-myth from any religious tradition is an entirely valid world view from which to base much of ones' life except the strictly scientific ones. It implies that an Islamic or Christian creationist recognise that Darwinism is an entirely valid view from which to base relevant technologies and agricultural practice. In saving the whale it might be entirely relevant that Darwinists have found evidence for its descent from the wolf; on the other hand the impulse to save it in the first place has no Darwinist foundation at all, and could come from any number of humanist or religious contexts. In an individual who practices both science and spirituality compartmentalisation is just as plausible, as with Polkinghorne and Newton. Any deeply religious person will find reasons in his or her daily activity for the greatness of God, so there is nothing special about Newton or Polkinghorne seeing their science as glorifying their Lord: a farmer or dress-maker can do the same. Paul Davies, after the publication of his first book, was surprised to find out how many fellow-scientists held both a scientific and a religious world-view in seemingly watertight compartments, but unfortunately he is rather scathing about this, rather than probing this interesting phenomenon. In a post-modern culture it should come naturally that a person can move fluidly from world-view to world-view with neither confusion or hypocrisy.

A variation on the concept of compartmentalisations is Polkinghorne's complementarity. The term suggests the ability to hold different world-views that also inform each other. Wilber's message in Quantum Questions is along this line and is consistent with the picture drawn of the early quantum scientists whose quotes make up the bulk of the book, and fits also with his 'spectrum of consciousness' idea. The more recent physicists such as Davies and Tipler seem however to want to take the spiritual territory over, and on the terms of science. This is as pointless as the converse trend: where mystics and religionists start proposing new physical 'fields' and other bogus science. What then are the characteristics of a genuine complementarity? It is generally considered that science is about doubt, and that spirituality is about belief, so how can these opposing inclinations cross-fertilise our two world-views? I would suggest however that this dichotomy is ill-informed, from both sides. Much of what a scientist does is an act of faith, in the sense of trusting the unknown and committing energy and personal resources into research; much of a scientist's work is based on the sheer love of it. Doubt is merely one of the tools in his bag. Spirituality on the other hand often uses doubt as a tool: the whole principle of via negativa lies in the doubting of the physical senses over the nurturing of a nascent new faculty — faith and doubt intermingled, as in science. The faith to take a leap into the unknown, the appropriate use of doubt, and the love of one's allotted path: these are common to both science and religion. However, one could argue that these are common to all human endeavour, so what more specifically can the one activity inform the other with?

At this point in time this is not clear. My only suggestion is that in the emerging field of the science of consciousness a science of the subjective is badly needed. William James suggested a form of introspectionism, and a series of laboratory experiments were begun in the hope of yielding a scientific understanding of the psychological, but for various reasons these gave way to the behaviourist investigations that have dominated 20th C psychology. However, many spiritual traditions can offer quite systematic contemplative practices that may be useful in establishing a rigorous introspectionism useful to studies in consciousness. What in turn can science directly offer the spiritual, other than a reinforcement of the common ground of most human endeavour, as defined above? For all the writings of the scientists this century on the spiritual, I don't believe that I have come across a single such suggestion. Hence I am not sure at this point that complementarity can be much more than compartmentalisation. 

What of the even more extreme project, that of an integration or synthesis between science and religion?  1,100 delegates attended the First World Congress for the Synthesis of Science and Religion in 1986; approximately 3,000 'scientists, religious leaders, philosophers, and eminent thinkers' are expected to attend the second event in 1997. The advisory board for this event includes Huston Smith, and the programme includes Consciousness Studies, Origins of Life and of the Universe, Bioethics, Ecology/Environment, and World Peace. The programme in fact looks more like a complementarity than a synthesis, and as such may be highly successful: there are many practical goals outlined here where scientists and religionists can work together. At this point, despite Bohm's work and Wilber's spectrum principle, I cannot see where a synthesis might begin.

Le us turn now to the spiritual in art. Is Plato right that we should be wary of art as seductive; should we sum up art as self-delusion as Ozenfant says? Can we really be as optimistic as Lipsey in his assertion that 20th century art would satisfy the spiritual dimension of an Eckhart and the workshop dimension of a Leonardo? Again much more work is needed, but the indications are more promising of a profound relationship between the spiritual and the arts. It would be too far-fetched to talk of a synthesis, except in the very rare Blake-like cases, but we seem to have much more than a mere compartmentalisation or complementarity: the spiritual really does seem to feed into the arts, however fitfully, and however poorly artists write about the spiritual. There are however clear antagonisms; mainly from the free-thinking artist's spirit against the perceived tyranny of organised religion (Brancusi's 'baggage'). It should also be remembered that both Theosophy and Anthroposophy had some of the inevitable trappings of a cult, and despite the very high goals and great achievements of both organisations, there was, and is, an inevitable prescription of thought, and proscription of behaviour. Artists are instinctively uncomfortable with this (and is not part of de Chardin's appeal the pathos surrounding his vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience, the latter causing the suppression of his work during his lifetime?).

7.	Conclusions

The considerable recent writings on spirituality by scientists is an important phenomenon and deserves further study. The impulse arises from, or was released by, quantum theory, but it is hard to see how a real synthesis may emerge. A sympathetic complementarity would however be a great step forward in bringing the scientific and religious communities together, though the danger has to be recognised that some scientists are merely trying to appropriate the territory of the spiritual with little real sympathy for it. While contemporary artists write little about spirituality, it seems that the spiritual is an important undercurrent of influence in the arts. Whether this entered with abstract art, or merely changed the nature of the influence from being main-stream religious to occult and transcendent needs clarification.

What of the idea, stated at the beginning of this essay, that the spiritual is antecedant to both science and art (as Whitman would have it)? The anthropic principle allows that consciousness at least is on an equal footing with matter, but some spiritual traditions place it as antecedent to matter, while most of science places it as an emergent property of matter. To say that the spiritual is antecedent to science is therefore not easily or widely supportable. However, we find it much easier to assert that the spiritual may be antecedent to art.

Further research is needed into the spiritual in art and science. There may also be a fruitful line of enquiry as to whether the arts can successfully mediate between science and the spiritual. Lipsey's quote from the Sufis regarding 'eyes of flesh' and 'eyes of fire' may be relevant: perhaps the artist is best attuned to move from one to the other during the course of his or her work. One might also suggest that science needs the poetic in order to allow a complementarity with the religious on even terms, and that the religious needs the poetic to avoid the dogmatic and reactionary.

8.	References