Introduction

The Emerging, Holistic Worldview

Awakening and Transformation of Consciousness

Reconnecting to Nature

Health and Healing

Socially Engaged Spirituality

The Emerging, Holistic Worldview

The concept of "worldview" evolved in modern times from the work of physicist Thomas Kuhn, whose 1962 book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been called perhaps the most important of the 20th century. He coined the word "paradigm" for a worldview, which is essentially a belief system that defines the way any particular culture interprets the world at a particular time. It is very resistant to change, and thus changes only when severely challenged. An important characteristic of a paradigm is that those interpreting the world by it do not think of it as characteristic of their culture and time, but rather see it as "the way things are", much in the same way that a child accepts the world as it is without further thought. Kuhn’s work was focused on the evolution of science.  He observed that science did not evolve in a simple linear fashion, as might be inferred from text books, but rather with occasional quantum jumps when particularly important new discoveries were made, usually because some observations were so in conflict with the prevailing beliefs that a new interpretation was necessary. These jumps he called paradigm shifts.

The currently dominant mechanistic worldview is in opposition to a gradually emerging, new holistic worldview of interconnectedness and oneness. Some, for example, indigenous peoples and Eastern mystics, might say that the emerging worldview is in fact a very ancient one.  We are now in a period of transition.  Many attempts at manifesting this new worldview are taking place right now within many areas of life, not least as concerns the relationship between science and spirituality.

A worldview is important because it is not just about science. Its affects are felt in every aspect of society, for example, in our attitudes to education, religion, politics, human relationships, living conditions, production technologies and much, much more. 

Thomas Kuhn

Galaxy

“The Eye of God”, another galaxy