There are three kinds of medical sciences that human beings believe in and practise. One science is the set of views and beliefs handed down through the generations. This science is the science of the past that we inherit. Not all in it is wrong or erroneous as is often made out to be. Much of it had been useful in its own time and much still helps. This science is based mostly on empirical evidence though often it is shown as a belief-system. However, even when it is practised as a belief-system it still may help! For human beings are affected deeply by their beliefs, including belief in modern science. Faith is a most important component in all healing and it is not always good to take away this faith and substitute it with half-knowledge and imperfect knowledge that modern science represents. Medicine is largely a practical science and if something helps, it helps.
The second kind of science is relatively more modern and is based on testing and re-testing of hypotheses, of accurate physical observations and analysis of data, of systematic trial of medicines and methods of healing. There is no belief in it except for the belief in its methodology and certain ‘a priori’ assumptions. It is based on reason and limited by the degree and quality of observations and an accurate reporting of data. Most often researchers take into account one type of data and disregard other more subtle and subjective events taking place in real-time to arrive at ‘truths’ of healing. But there is much that escapes even a most accurate observation, on all sides so to speak. Our sensory apparatus is selectively tuned and cannot record a whole mass of data that underlies each and every phenomenon which is often the end-result of a complex series of events stretched over a long time, not to speak of a complex play of forces and energies that play through matter.
The third science is the science of the future which awaits in the dusk of the passing night for its hour. This science is based on intuition and a symbolic understanding of creation and the deeper script of life than its surfaces reveal. This science needs an attunement to the ‘Wisdom’ that has gone into creation and an augmentation of the human system and its capacities for observation, means of knowledge and action. This science is already growing slowly from the womb of the present and, even though it carries around itself the shadows of the past, it is destined to emerge fully and assert itself on man and life. Its basic premise is that more than systems and methods, equipment and instruments, man himself must grow and evolve. As he does so his very conception and perception and with it the power of effectuation will also change.
While the past yet hangs around us and the present overwhelms us, it is the future that holds the key to a deeper and fuller understanding of both. Only by a deeper and fuller understanding of ourselves and the world can we definitively solve the riddle of life and cross the desert-space filled with phantom images. Thus alone can we definitively answer the question posed by the enigmatic Sphinx. Thus alone can we pass beyond our present limited existence towards a greater life.
