A Quote by Fritjof Capra

Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both. — © Fritjof Capra
Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science but man needs both.
Mystics understand the roots of the Tao but not its branches; scientists understand its branches but not its roots. Science does not need mysticism and mysticism does not need science; but man needs both.
Religion is nothing but institutionalized mysticism. The catch is, mysticism does not lend itself to institutionalization. The moment we attempt to organize mysticism, we destroy its essence. Religion, then, is mysticism in which the mystical has been killed. Or, at least diminished.
The science-denial machinery is a serious adversary, and it has a big advantage over real science: it does not need to win its dispute with real science; it just needs to create a public illusion that there is a dispute.
I'm a seeker. I'm very much a believer in science. But I do think there are times when science and mysticism intersect.
The Middle Ages were an era of mysticism, ruled by blind faith and blind obedience to the dogma that faith is superior to reason. The Renaissance was specifically the rebirth of reason, the liberation of man's mind, the triumph of rationality over mysticism - a faltering, incomplete, but impassioned triumph that led to the birth of science, of individualism, of freedom.
What does mysticism really mean? It means the way to attain knowledge. It's close to philosophy, except in philosophy you go horizontally while in mysticism you go vertically.
One has to recognize that science is not metaphysics, and certainly not mysticism; it can never bring us the illumination and the satisfaction experienced by one enraptured in ecstasy. Science is sobriety and clarity of conception, not intoxicated vision.
Of course, mysticism is very hard to isolate because, given the kind of consciousness that I was sort of instructed in as religious consciousness; that borders on mysticism so closely that it's hard to know whether you qualify or not, or whether mysticism is artificially isolated when it is treated as a separate thing from experience. Obviously, mysticism can be a form of madness, but then consciousness can be a form of madness.
Science is the exploration of the experience of nature without psychedelics. And I propose, therefore, to expand that enterprise and say that we need a science beyond science. We need a science which plays with a full deck.
Healing does not come through intense affirmation of divinity, or by simply pouring out love and the expression of a vague mysticism.It comes through mastering an exact science of contact, impression, of invocation plus an understanding of the subtle apparatus of the etheric vehicle.
Mysticism has often been misunderstood as the attempt to escape this simple, phenomenal world to a more pure existence in heaven beyond. This is not mysticism, but Gnosticism. Biblical mysticism is the attempt to exit 'this world' to an alternative reality that pervades the old order. Its goal is to jettison the mind-set that says 'greed is good,' selfishness is normal,' and 'killing is necessary.' Mysticism in biblical terms is not escapism, as so many have caricatured it, but a fight for ethics and social change.
Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science
Religion is to mysticism what popularization is to science.
Mysticism is just tomorrow's science dreamed today.
When science starts to be interpretive it is more unscientific even than mysticism.
Pseudo-mysticism seeks to evade reality; authentic mysticism wants to live it.
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