A Quest toward an Understanding of REALITY As Described by Traditions and Science, or Building Bridges between Science and Traditions
Welcome to the place where researchers and seekers of REALITY meet!
Jacgues Mahnich - Prorject Initiator
We live in a wonderful world. Our task is to discover / recover what it is all about. In front of us (and in us, because we are part of it) we have ONE Reality which is viewed, understood, and constructed by an infinity of human concepts, either through the filter of Science or through the filter of traditions. Both have been around for thousand years and have built and refined many models of this ONE Reality. Both have brought some understanding to our quest, and they have molded many of our behaviors. By Traditions, we mean all the traditions throughout the planet and ages which have brought some understanding of the REALITY in which we are living. This includes all the main religious traditions, and any other philosophy or spiritual movement.
Science and Traditions are like an old couple, they have been living for so long side by side, talking about Reality with different languages. There have been honeymoon periods where both were together on the same team, and there have been strong confrontations and conflicts, leading to the current apparent separation. Where Traditions have nurtured human beings since they existed on earth, knowledge acquisition through Science was at a much slower pace. But the last three hundred years brought an acceleration in the rate and scope of scientific discoveries. The last forty years was even more dramatic and many of the new discoveries are reshaping our life landscape. Internet is one of them, and it has opened an unprecedented way to interconnect and communicate between people worldwide. Scientific discoveries are now published in real time and accessible on the net.
What is proposed here is a “virtual place” for serious seekers of REALITY, involved in this quest to discuss and share ideas, concepts, experiences, and research reports, in order to identify the subjects and build the road to the convergence between Science and Traditions. The road will be long and winding, and the true seekers will need to be well-equipped not to fall in the various traps all along the way. Humbleness will probably be a safe attitude. We know that we do not know…
Let’s wish that this initiative brings some benefit to the world by identifying some tracks and trails where Science and Traditions meet, and provides some guiding light and better understanding of the ONE Reality therefore reducing the amount of suffering in the world.
About the Theoscience Project
Building a bridge between Traditions, including Theosophy and Science has always been part of the activities of theosophists all around the world. The very first theosophical book – Isis Unveiled, was already a call for this approach. Since this time, myriads of books have been published on the subject, and many groups have been and are still active throughout the theosophical world. On the other hand, also since this time, Science has been progressing tremendously. Since the 1970s, renowned scientific minds have opened the scope of scientific research outside the usual boundaries of physical observations. The current vision in Cosmological and Particles Physics has evolved to include many more of Nature’s models from which parallels with the Wisdom Religion teachings can be assessed. Finally, the Internet technologies are enabling information access to a larger public, and the researchers’ mindset seems to open up to larger Reality models.
The Project THEOSCIENCE is a proposal to energize synergies and to encourage knowledge sharing between the communities of seekers. The proposed roadmap for the development of this initiative can be summarized in the following four major steps :
1. Build a leadership/steering committee, a network of leaders of the theosophical-science
groups in the world. This board will establish the objectives/policies and procedures required.
2. Launch the communication/sharing tool – THEOSCIENCE.ORG web site – where
newsletters, research publications, and any relevant information can be posted.
3. Organize common subjects for research in order to promote synergistic approaches
and encourage cross pollination.
4. Further developments, like international THEOSCIENCE conferences can be
organized.
Theoscience Project Preliminary Roadmap for the first steps
a) Phase 1 – Build the structure
An Internet access controlled blog will be dedicated to the first phase.
It will support a collective effort to establish the objectives, the methodologies, the policies and procedures for operations. Access will be limited to the leadership team during the initial phase.
- Identify volunteers, from Science and Traditions areas to form a Leadership Team. All streams of thoughts will be welcomed, and mostly encouraged, in line with the recent ITC Naarden Declaration1 (August 2014).
- Draft and approval of a charter for the Project, including goals and objectives
- Draft and approval of methodology / methodologies for the research activities
- Launch THEOSCIENCE.ORG web site and THEOSCIENCE biannual e-Journal
b) Phase 2 – Develop Research efforts
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- Identify main items of interest where Science and Traditions may bring a common understanding of the One Reality. (i.e. matter, energy, forces, fields, cosmology, anthropology…)
- Identify main items of interest where Science and Traditions may bring a common understanding of the One Reality. (i.e. matter, energy, forces, fields, cosmology, anthropology…)
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- Identify “champions” for each subject
- Identify “champions” for each subject
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- Map out existing knowledge on both sides on these subjects (current state-of-the-art)
- Map out existing knowledge on both sides on these subjects (current state-of-the-art)
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- Develop research plans
Jacques Mahnich – Project Initiator