You always get what you resist. That spiritual/metaphysical axiom has been promoted by many religious and secular sources, and is found perhaps most prominently in the doctrine of psychology. Psychologists believe that repression causes that which is repressed to seek an unnatural outlet, like some kind of fluid which is trapped in a container and keeps building in pressure until it comes exploding out at the weakest point of the container.

Another example of "you always get what you resist" comes from the split between the religious and scientific viewpoints. Amit Goswami, a physicist from the University of Oregon who is well-known for his writing about the two subjects (see his book "The Self-Aware Universe: How Consciousness Creates the Material World"), says in an article in the June-August 2001 IONS Neotic Sciences Review that:

Both science and religion are endeavors in the search for truth. ...The problem is that even when we haven't gone far enough in our search, we try to impose our limited truth upon others. This is what many exoteric religions have done traditionally. now science is doing the same thing, which has led to the present polarization of science and religion.

This brings to mind W.B.Yeats' poem The Great Day:
Hurrah for revolution
and more cannon shot!
A beggar on horseback
lashes a beggar on foot.
Hurrah for revolution
and the cannon come again!
The beggars have changed places
but the lash goes on.

To understand why science is riding the horse today requires a look at its humble origins. Science, as we currently think of it, is a European philosophy that emerged quite specifically as a rebellion against the dogmatism of the medieval church. In medieval times, the church controlled what was permissible to think and what was permissible to be known. In the 13th century, philosopher Roger Bacon colluded with the prevailing religious perspective when he said:

It is not necessarily impossible for human beings to fly, but it so happens that God didn't give them the knowledge of how to do it. It follows therefore, that anyone who claims he can fly must have sought the aid of the devil. To attempt to fly is therefore sinful.

One can imagine how well that went over with the closet intellectuals of the day. If you insinuate that point of view into every nook and cranny of then-contemporary life, a picture of a society bound in a philosophical straight-jacket emerges.

The alchemists and healers of the day were in dire violation of the law as they labored in pursuit of knowledge. Today, though scientists and doctors often find themselves in a debate with religious authorities (for instance, the debate on human cloning or stem cell research), the religious authorities no longer have the ability to inflict torture and capital punishment that their predecessors once enjoyed. Because of that power, the predecessors of today's scientists and medical researchers did much of their work secretly. The peer-review standard that culminates what is now known as scientific method was out of the question in those days. It required a great deal of bravery to speak openly of one's work in a time when it meant literally putting your life on the line to do so.

This atmosphere, fostered by the medieval church's attitude that it was the sole arbiter of the One Truth, was the very essence of repression. And in the time-honored way, the repressed knowledge eventually made it out into the light. But as it did so, its keepers cast aside all trappings of spirituality. indeed, they rebelled against any vestige of spirituality appearing in their work.

Modern science was born at the moment when somebody asked the question "What does the universe look like if we presume that God is not the motivating force?" That question was also the beginning of the schism between science and religion. The religious world took the divorce hard and tried to enforce its marital rights with its customary "inquisitive" zeal. Nonetheless, many brave individuals persisted in their damn-the-torpedoes search for truth.

Somehow, the search for truth became corrupted when the "what if God is not the motivating force" question became not just a question, but a religious precept for science. The what-if scenario, which is a valid starting point for inquiry, became a declaration that it was no longer acceptable to cite divine origin or motivation as "causal" in any area of scientific inquiry.

The earliest religious thought and the earliest scientific thought were one and the same. Issues about where we came from, how life and the universe began, how the laws of nature work, etc. are covered by every religious tradition and are, of course, the subject of scientific inquiry as well. A near-universal religious principle holds that God (or gods) is the prime mover of material reality, both as creator and as underlying motivator. Various expressions of this exist, but some form of creationism is commonly found in most religious philosophies. Science, like all or most religions, has its own version of a creation myth, though it would shudder if we applied the word creationism to it, since that word has been assigned to the exclusive use of what are, in the eyes of the scientific illuminati, a bunch of rubes. The scientific creation myth is known by the psycho-sexual moniker "Big Bang" Theory. Its theories are based on currently-believed properties of matter and the usual deterministic calculations starting with information about where we are and where we believe we're going and therefore, through regression analysis, figuring out where we've been.

Human knowledge is often superceded by the latest, greatest knowledge that proves what we once knew is wrong, but thank god (oops!) we know now what the truth really is. Despite this, the scientific creation myth is presented as truth or the true basis of the ultimate explanation, whatever that will be. And how dare anybody teach that foolishness about God creating the universe in seven days! Science has branded it a myth that no-one in their right mind would believe in.

Interestingly, in addition to the literal interpretation of creationism, the religious creationism stories can easily be interpreted as a metaphor for how the universe came to manifest from the subjective idealist point of view, i.e. the point of view that consciousness is the primary reality and creates the material world. Subjective idealism is the opposite of material realism, which is a fundamental belief in science. Material realism believes that the physical universe is the primary reality and that consciousness and life are anomalies which emerged out of the physical universe.

In the same way that religious believers scorned those who did not agree with them, the adherents of the new godless scientific thinking began to ridicule those who still clung to a belief in God as the glue that bound everything together. Little by little, and accelerating when the products of scientific thinking began to have enormous economic impact, science hardened in its attitude towards religious thought.

The physical universe, from the workings of the heavens to the life processes within the body, was thought to be some kind of deterministic mechanism which, like a clock, could be known such that, if you could identify a particular state at a given moment, and could identify the processes, you could then know the state at any future or past time. This dry, possibly simplistic and notably non-mystical viewpoint prevails today in mainstream scientific and medical thought. This viewpoint is based in Newtonian physics. Sir Isaac Newton's work in the late 1600s and early 1700s was revolutionary. His mathematical prowess succeeded in providing analytical tools for quantifying many phenomena in the natural world. The particular tools he provided emerged at approximately the same time as the pendulum-driven and balance wheel-based clock. With the clock as a model, and the mathematical tools provided by Newton, cosmologists soon envisioned a universe which ran cyclically and predictably. Diagrams of the cosmos from the 1600s bear an uncanny resemblance to clockworks. Coincidence? I think not.

Now, science has emerged as a religion (though rarely called that, and certainly not by its adherents) in and of itself, complete with its own dogma and its own ruling martinets. Like most religions, science seeks to explain the universe and to explain mankind's place in that universe. And science, like many religions, proclaims itself to be the keeper of the One Truth. It also largely claims that everything can be known through its philosophy, despite its own dictums that logical systems cannot be both consistent and complete. Science, like a modern Sisyphus pushing its rock up the hill but never quite reaching the top, seeks ever greater amounts of information about smaller and smaller details looking for the ever-elusive holy grail of the "single building block of material reality." Like a Chinese puzzle-box, each new discovery seems to require more new discoveries to reconcile the inconsistencies that prevent a completely unified world view based on scientific doctrine.

Now the beggars have changed places. The scientists now wield the lash and persecute those who would perpetrate thought that does not acknowledge the scientific philosophy of objectivism as the ultimate truth. (This persecution is most evident in the world of medicine which, interestingly enough, is primarily based on the Newtonian world view, i.e. determinism, the world as a clockworks in which everything has a clear cause-and-effect relationship, a view which has largely become obsolete in light of a more-modern set of scientific beliefs known as quantum theory.) The divine, the religious, the mystical and the miraculous have been repressed in the scientific world. And under the "you always get what you resist" axiom, scientists have found mysticism and religious thought emerging in the esoteric world of advanced theoretical physics.

Since Newton's time, many great scientific minds have tried honestly and honorably to apply mathematical concepts to all of the phenomena of the universe in an attempt to explain "everything." Unfortunately, a satisfying sense of completeness has eluded them. It turns out that these tools could never be applied correctly to all situations. A scientist would apply a formula to an observed phenomena, then later discover that the formula didn't account for all aspects of the phenomena. Thus, the formula would be modified to include the additional data. Then the cycle began again as new observations brought about more exceptions which caused the experimenters to further refine their formulas.

Eventually, this line of inquiry led to the early concepts of the atom. These early concepts, influenced still by the idea of the universe as a clockwork, showed the atom to be like a miniature solar system, with electrons rotating like planets around the nucleus. Further inquiries along this line led to the observation of many phenomena which could not be explained adequately by this model. So atomic theory was shattered by the emergence of quantum theory.

Quantum theory was a radical departure from the Newtonian point of view. One of the many mind-bending ideas in quantum theory is the concept that objects (at least at the sub-atomic level) can de-materialize in one place and then re-materialize in another place without "moving" in a continuous fashion between the two places. Perhaps the most troubling idea is illustrated by the thought experiment that asks "If a tree falls in a forest and nobody is there to hear it, does it make any noise?" Quantum physicists realized that in many, perhaps all, of their experiments the very act of observation had an effect on the results of the experiment. Ultimately, the influence of the act of observation could not be separated from the results of the experiment.

This introduced the idea of the effect of consciousness into the scientific process. Newtonianism had conveniently disposed of consciousness as an element, by simply ignoring the fact that its descriptions of the physical universe did not address consciousness as a phenomena and did not seem to have the capability to do so. (This lack of capability is a very important point, by the way. It shows that not everything is explainable within the context of scientific thought. It is important to keep this idea in mind as we evaluate the usefulness of scientific thought in our personal toolbox.) Quantum physicists came up with thought experiments that dramatically illustrated the effect of consciousness on an event.

One such experiment is known as "Schrodinger's Cat." This experiment asks us to imagine that we seal a cat inside a box which contains a random-event-based trigger which can release a poison which will kill the cat. There is a 50/50 chance that the trigger will be activated and will kill the cat within an hour. After an hour, we ask ourselves whether the cat is alive or dead. If the box is still sealed and we haven't looked inside, the quantum physicist believes that it is most correct to now view the cat as a probability function or wave. The probability function says that the cat is 50% dead and 50% alive. Of course, in the "normal" world view something is either alive or dead, it can't be half one and half the other. But unless we look inside the box, we simply can't know the condition of the cat and thus it continues as a probability function. Once we look inside, we "collapse the wave" when we ascertain whether the cat is, in fact, dead or alive. Thus, consciousness itself affects the experiment, since the act of observation has caused a specific result, i.e. the collapse of a mathematical wave function.

Now the Schrodinger's Cat experiment gets really interesting: Let's say the box and the cat are in Tibet and you are in Tibet to observe. Your best friend is halfway around the world in Dallas, Texas. After the cat has been in the box for an hour, it exists as a probability function for both you and your friend. You open the box and observe that the cat is still alive, which collapses the wave function for you. Does the cat still exist as a 50/50 probability wave for your friend? To say yes is to say that you can exist in a universe that is different from everybody else's. in this case it means you can exist in a world in which the cat is alive as far as you are concerned, but it may not be alive as far as somebody else is concerned. This point of view is generally considered unsatisfying. Thus, at the moment of observation you collapsed the wave function for everybody, everywhere. That means that in your consciousness and in everybody else's consciousness, the same thing happened throughout the universe at exactly the same time, i.e. the probability wave collapsed and the cat was irrevocably alive as far as everyone and everything in the universe was concerned. Many have taken this to be an illustration that all consciousness is linked as one consciousness. This is sometimes called the unitive consciousness theory. (By the way, there is also a further implication that the speed of light is not a limiting factor and that space doesn't really exist in quite the way the Newtonians thought it did, because your action of consciousness regarding the condition of the cat had its effect instantaneously throughout the universe.)

This idea of a single, unitive consciousness is instantly identifiable as mystical thought, though many scientific traditionalists still argue bitterly that it is incorrect to infer any mystical aspects to the work of science. Nevertheless, the mystical implications of scientific research have continued to emerge, to the point where the observations of the great scientific thinkers are often indistinguishable from the observations of the great religious minds. Oops, again! Meanwhile, the dogmatic defenders of non-mystical scientific thought (as if such a thing could really exist) insist that we who believe in the mystical implications of scientific discovery are mentally deficient.

Traditionally faith is thought of as the basis for religious views, not scientific ones. Yet, as we examine the views held by the Scientists (the capital S signifying those, whether scientists by profession or not, who hold the religious belief that the world view espoused by modern science is the one Truth), we see many examples of faith as the basis of their beliefs. Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary even defines faith as "that which is believed on any subject, whether in science, politics, or religion." Thus, it is acknowledged that belief is a part of science. Yet most of us have been inculcated by media, politicians, drug companies and others to believe that science is Truth beyond mere belief.

A few simple examples of science's dirty laundry hint at the weaknesses in scientific method. These include the corruption of supposedly independent peer-review journals which secretly accept money from companies which stand to benefit by publishing certain studies and experiments. unquestioning public acceptance of medical tests which have little, if any, validity. popular acceptance of therapies which are obviously more dangerous than the illness they purport to cure.

These issues need to be addressed in great detail by each of us as we determine how to live our lives and choose our beliefs. We are expected to believe the subset of human knowledge which makes up the world view of our times, without questioning why the popular world view varies so much from era to era, or even culture to culture in any given era including the current era. We are expected to believe in science-based authorities, usually ensconced in government and academia, who are the keepers of not just the supposed "real" truth but also the sanctioned methods by which they proclaim truth may be known. And those who choose to accept knowing and methods and truths that are outside of the imprimatur of these keepers become modern-day heretics.

Science started as a rebellion against religion and dogma. Now it has become a dogmatic religion in and of itself. It is a religion which has, as a matter of doctrine, shunned what it believes to be mystical thought and religious thought. Now, to its chagrin, it finds the mystical, the religious and the miraculous emerging from its own reflection. You always get what you resist.

How does this relate to the ministry of EMC²? Our religious viewpoint emerges from a combination of influences. In addition to the influence of many traditional spiritual teachings, EMC²'s ministry is strongly influenced by the revelations and possibilities that have emerged from the religious insights of advanced theoretical physics. These insights have also been part of the path to the direct revelations we have received about the Sacrament of Energetic Balancing and the spiritual technology by which that sacrament is created and delivered. The religious expression "God is in all things" has a direct correlation with Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity, E=mc2, which says that everything is energy. According to the algebraic Symmetric Postulate, if a=b, then b=a. Therefore, if everything is energy, then energy is everything. Thus there is only one thing: energy. If God is light, as many religions state and depict, and we know light to be a form of energy, then God is energy. This conclusion is based on the Transitive Principle which says that if a=b and b=c, then a=c. If everything is energy, then each of us is energy. Thus we are intrinsically one with everything. If we are conscious, then everything is conscious. These beliefs are direct, simple conclusions about our spiritual nature, drawn from the few scientific principles illustrated here.

EMC² celebrates the fact that we live in an age where spirituality has merged with technology and where the rational thought of our times leads to the same revelations taught by the great spiritual masters of the ages. We welcome those who feel called to participate in the Sacrament of Energetic Balancing and receive the benefits of this spiritual technology as another step in their own evolution.