FEATURE
Beyond Matter…
How Spirituality Can Make sense of the world STEVE TAYLOR
As an academic - a researcher and senior lecturer at a university in the UK - people are often surprised by my spiritual views on the nature of life, and of the world. For example, when I mention to colleagues that I believe in some form of life after death and in paranormal phenomena such as telepathy or precognition, they look at me as if I’ve told them I’m going to give up academia and become a professional footballer. It’s taken for granted that intellectuals and academics
and natural selection. But there is a third alternative
don’t entertain such unusual views. People are
world-view: a spiritual approach that transcends
even more confused when I tell them that I’m
both conventional science and religion and explains
not religious. “How can you believe in life after
many of the riddles that neither of them can answer.
death without being religious?” They wonder.
Panspiritism - “All is Spirit”
But it is very possible to be intellectual and rational while accepting the existence of seemingly ‘irrational’ spiritual
This is an approach that I call panspiritism literally, ‘all is spirit’. Panspiritism suggests
phenomena. In fact, in my view, it is much more rational to be open to such perspectives.
A Materialist View Our culture is dominated by a belief system which in its
that the fundamental reality of the
Spirituality isn’t often thought of in an ‘explanatory’ context
own way is just as dogmatic and irrational as a religious paradigm. This is the belief system of materialism, which
universe is not matter, but spirit. Spirit pervades all living beings, and all nonliving things, so that they are always interconnected. You could compare it to fundamental forces like gravity and electromagnetism, which aren’t caused or produced by anything - they simply
are. But spirit is even more fundamental than these forces, because it preceded the universe.
holds that matter is the only thing that exists, and that
The universe - with all of its material particles and
anything that appears to be non-physical - such as the
forces and laws - is an expression of spirit. Spirituality
mind, our thoughts, consciousness or even life itself - is
isn’t often thought of in an ‘explanatory’ context.
physical in origin, or can be explained in physical terms.
It’s often assumed that we only have two
Most people believe that it’s the role of science to explain how the world works. But the simple notion
choices in how we see the world: a ‘scientific’
that there is a fundamental spirit which is ever-present
materialist view or a religious one. Either you believe
and in everything has great explanatory power.
in heaven and hell, or you believe that there is no
In fact, this is the main reason why I think this
life after death. Either God created all life forms, or
approach is so valid. There are many things that don’t
they evolved accidentally through random mutations
make sense from a materialist perspective, but which
10 The Henge Magazine
