Description. Quantum
physics adopted in support of New Age beliefs or Eastern mysticism
in general.
Founder. Fritjof
Capra’s The Tao of Physics (1975) offered the first major
attempt at the above synthesis.
How does it claim to work?
Proponents allege that the new discoveries of particle physics and
various theories proposed by physicists to understand them lend
strong scientific support to ancient mystical religions such as
Buddhism, Taoism, and Hinduism and to the modern movements based
on them, such as New Age religion, transpersonal psychology, and
various practices in the occult and holistic or New Age medicine.
Scientific evaluation.
Discredited; science is being misused to support Eastern and
occult metaphysics, mysticism, parapsychology, and so on.
Examples of occult potential.
The alleged scientific support of Eastern mysticism and New Age
occultism has personally justified such practices in the minds of
thousands.
Major problems.
Physicists in general reject the alleged associations to mysticism
and the occult; this even includes physicists whose personal
worldview is New Age. Some leading New Age theorists also confess
that the associations are nonexistent, contrived, or the result of
misinterpretation.
Biblical/Christian evaluation.
New findings or paradoxes uncovered in physics research may indeed
reveal additional information about the structure of the creation,
assuming interpretation of the data is accurate. However, alleged
parallels to New Age beliefs based solely on what are still often
theories in physics hardly validates Eastern mysticism
scientifically or otherwise, nor does it discredit biblical
metaphysics, cosmogony, or cosmology. Whether science can ever
adequately conceptualize or understand the nature of the creation
at the subatomic level is not known; however, factual scientific
discoveries that are made can only confirm, and will never deny,
the truth of the biblical worldview (Colossians 1:15-17; 2
Corinthians 13:8).
Potential dangers. The
misuse of science in the support of an occult or Eastern mystical
philosophy of life.
