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I N S I G H T
O U T L O O K
Contents
Introduction
The Interrelation Between Inner and Outer Space 1
Security in the Natural Scientific-Philosophical View of Life 31
On Possession 59
Botanical Reflections on the Death of the Rain Forests 71
The Sun, a Nuclear Power Station 79
Editor's Word
INTRODUCTION
The world is a rotating sphere moving through space
while circling the sun. Every one knew this, but then it
could be seen when space research programs supplied
photographic images a few years ago: the planet earth,
a blue sphere, floating free in space.
Since then, I have been fond of evoking this picture
in my inner eye before going to sleep. I imagine how I,
lying here in my bed, am traveling along there on the
surface of the sphere, where so much has happened
since it has been quietly moving along the trajectory
determined for it in primordial time.
Only after billions of revolutions around the sun,
after planet earth had greened and after many more
millions of years, when animal life had developed, did
the being appear that experiences the world and itself
consciously. As one of these beings gifted with
con-sciousness I now observe the blue sphere, on
which the drama of mankind takes place, from space
through the eye of a camera. The fate of nations, the
personal histories that have been acted out there, now
separated from today's viewer by the curtain of time!
But the images live on in the timelessness in which we
all participate through our consciousness: fabulous
cultures that flowered in China centuries ago, the
world of Greek and Roman antiquity, Alexander the
Great's Persian War, the Aztec empire, the Crusades,
the Gothic and Renaissance periods, two World Wars
...
Nothing of this shifting scenery could be seen on the
surface of the earth from the cosmic perspective, and
neither could be seen the generations of individual
humans appearing and disappearing in it. The picture
that presents itself from space today has always been
the same--the blue sphere, illuminated by the sun,
floating quietly through space, unperturbed by time
and the fate of mankind.
While this picture is etched on my inner eye with the
clarity of a photographic image, I know that I am
presently on the dark side of the surface of that
sphere, that I am here in my house which sits in a field
in the Swiss Jura, in the bedroom, with the window
open, breathing the fresh night air mixed with the
scent of hay. On the sphere my individual existence
vanishes among the billions of humans inhabiting its
surface at the moment for a cosmic second. In
contrast, here I am, the center of the world, of my
world, extending from my room across the countries
of the earth to the moon, to the sun, into the infinity of
space aglitter with stars.
What then is true, what is real, am I here or there? Is
it even possible to ask this question, the answer to
which seems so obvious? I think so, for basically
nothing is obvious. That so much, almost everything,
appears to be obvious to us to is one of the most
monumental
errors
in
our
mental
attitude.
Obviousness could be the ruin of the world.
The answer to the above question, I am here in my
room and there on that blue sphere is not obvious. It
represents a higher truth only understood by someone
who realizes that the world on which he stands is a
sphere. The only thing true and real to a primitive man
is what he can experience directly with his senses, in
this case that he is here, on the world, that it is flat
with the firmament stretched above it. He only knows a
part of the truth.
In the following work I would like to show what this
example of nocturnal meditation demonstrates: that,
depending on the standpoint of the observer, reality
offers quite different perspectives that are not neces-
sarily mutually exclusive. Rather, they add up to an
encompassing truth. They contain insights into the
essence of our day-to-day reality that I have acquired
through experiences in my own life. Thus, they are
very personal observations on a central problem of
reality that inevitably lead us into the realm of re-
ligion.
Everyone is, in fact, his own philosopher, for every
human experiences the world in a unique manner
according to his own uniqueness and, correspond-
ingly, devises his own personal image of it. Everyone
has to make do in his special reality.
The questions asked by children show that we are
all already born as philosophers: "Dad, where does
the
world
stop?--When
did
God
make
the
world?--Why does everyone have to die?"--and the
like. They are questions to which we still cannot find
the answers in all of the many philosophical treatise,
even though they are basic questions relating to our
existence.
I still clearly remember a childlike philosophical
discussion from my youth that I had with a friend of
mine when I was about ten years old. We were on our
way to school and were just strolling toward the old city
gate when my companion asked me, "Do you still
believe in God? Since I noticed that they cheated me
with the Christ child (translator's note: in the tradition
of German speaking countries, the Christ child plays
the role of Santa Claus as the bearer of gifts on
Christmas Eve) and that St. Nicholas was none other
than my Uncle Fritz, I no longer believe that he ex-ists."
I answered that it had to be different with God than
with the Christ child and St. Nicholas. The world
and people, that only God could have made, really did
exist.
That was my proof of God, and it still is today.
Why do children ask such profound questions?--
Because the creation, disclosing itself to their fresh
senses directly and untouched, does not appear to be
obvious to them yet. It is the adults who see it that way
through a perception dulled by habit. But that is not
how it is, the children are right. They are still living in
Paradise because they are still living in the truth. They
still perceive the world as it really is, as wondrous.
Adults now only experience amazement about the
newest inventions and products of science and tech-
nology, about computer-guided rockets, laser discs,
space travel, etc. We have every reason to admire these
magnificent
accomplishments
of
human
inge-niousness, even if some of them do scare us. The
tragedy is that we fail to see the secondary, transient
character of all of man's works, that we are not aware
that science and technology are based on things pre-
existing in nature. The chemist works with the matter
of which the earth is made; the physicist and the
biologist investigate the forces and laws of a
transcendental origin that preserve the anorganic
universe and animate the world of plants and animals;
the technician makes those laws subservient and
exploitable.
The origin of the primary world, of the creation with
its laws governing the course of the stars and the
growth of a blade of grass that existed before man
appeared, is beyond rational explanation. The insights
of the natural sciences are descriptions of preexisting
conditions, they are not explanations. The botanist
can describe the shape and color of a flower to the last
detail and compare it with other blossoms; the cell
physiologist can investigate and vividly depict the
mechanisms of fertilization, cell division, and the
manner in which this blossom forms organs. But why
a flower is the way it is, where its design plan and the
laws according to which this plan are executed came
from, remains a mystery. The child sees the flower as it
is in its totality and thus sees what is essential,
namely the miracle. In comparison to this, whatever
scientific research might add is of little import.
But it is by no means meaningless. I became a
chemist and then studied the chemistry of plants
precisely because I was attracted by the mystery of the
matter and the miracle of the plant world. The insights
into the construction of matter and the chemical
structure of the pigments of blossoms and other plants
that I acquired in my work did not diminish my
amazement about nature, about its workings, about
its forces and laws--they increased it. An insight into
the internal structure and life processes of natural
objects is added to the perception of form and color
imparted by the
observation of their surface. This results in a more
complete picture of their reality, a broader truth.
It could well be that the value and importance of the
natural sciences is not primarily that they gave us
modern technology, comfort, and material affluence;
their actual, evolutionary meaning could be the ex-
pansion of human awareness of the miracle of crea-
tion. The recognition of the creation as a firsthand
revelation, as "the book written by the finger of God,"
could become the basis of a new, world encompassing
spirituality.
Natural scientific research has let us perceive how
man is embedded in the entirety of nature and how he
represents an inseparable part of it. This knowledge is
in conformity with the emotional experience of the
mystic and the unity of all living things. It appears that
this fundamental truth is now entering increasingly
into the general consciousness from these two sides in
a complimentary manner.
This opens up a promising view into the future, for
the main problems of the present derive from a
du-alistic awareness of reality. The perception of our
natural environment as something separated from
man, as an object that can be used and exploited
without limitation, has led to an ecological crisis. The
newly awakening religious awareness of the unity of
man with nature, and only it, could induce the
unavoidable.
A personal, childlike perception of nature, to be
equated with the mystical experience, as the one
source and natural scientific insights as the other,
form the basis of the following work. These two com-
plimentary views and insights into the unity of the
outer material and inner spiritual worlds, the natural
and humanistic sciences, define my philosophy of life.
It does not contain any new philosophical insights;
rather it is the result of a timely, personal experiencing
of old truths. I found security, trust, and safety in it
because its main features coincide with the concepts
of the great philosophers and their common religious
origin.
Rittimatte, Burg i.L.
Switzerland
The Interrelation
between Inner and
Outer Space
Reality is just as magical as
the magical is real.
Ernst Juenger
"Sicilian Letters to the Man
on the Moon"
THERE are experiences that most people avoid talk-
ing about because they do not fit into the reality of
everyday life and defy rational explanation. I am not
referring to specific events in the outer world, but to
processes within us that are generally dismissed as
mere imagination and expelled from memory. In the
experience I am talking about, the familiar view of our
1
environment suddenly undergoes a strange, exhila-
rating, or frightening metamorphosis, appears in a
different light, takes on a special meaning. Such an
experience can waft over us like a breath of air, or it
can affect us profoundly.
I have a very vivid memory of such an enchantment
from my youth. I do not remember the year, but I can
still recall the precise location where it took place,
somewhere along the path through the woods on the
Martinsberg above Baden, Switzerland. As I was
strolling through freshly greening woods illuminated
by the morning sun and filled with bird-song, every-
thing suddenly appeared in an unusually clear light.
Had I never looked at it closely enough before, and was
I all of a sudden seeing the spring forest as it truly
was? It radiated in a glow of eloquent beauty, touching
the heart in a singular manner, as though it wanted to
include me in its glory. I was filled with an
indescribably blissful feeling of belonging and a
blessed security.
I do not know how long I stood there enthralled, but
I remember the thoughts that occupied me as my
radiant condition slowly dwindled and I walked on.
Why did this blissful view not linger on having, after
all, revealed a reality rendered convincingly by this
direct and deep experience? And how could I, urged on
by my overflowing joy, tell anyone about my
experience, sensing immediately, as I did that I could
find no
2
words for what I had seen? It seemed strange that I, a
child, had seen something so wonderful, something
that adults obviously did not notice. For I had never
heard them talk about it--or was this one of their
secrets?
During my later youth I had several more of these
exhilarating experiences while walking through fields
and forests. They came to determine the basic
concepts of my view of life by assuring me of the
existence of an unfathomable, vivid reality hidden
from the view of everyday life.
I included the above description of my childhood
visionary experiences in the introduction to my pro-
fessional autobiography, LSD--MY PROBLEM CHILD,
(Stuttgart, 1979), for that mystical experience of reality
was one of the reasons I chose to become a chemist. It
awakened in me a longing for a deeper understanding
of the make-up and essence of the material world.
During the course of my professional activities, I
encountered psychoactive plant substances that are,
under certain conditions, capable of triggering
visionary
states
similar
to
the
spontaneous
experiences I have described above. My experiments
with mind-altering substances, of which LSD became
known throughout the world, led me to the problem of
the relationship between substances and con-
sciousness, between the outer material and the inner
spiritual world.
3
What we call reality is obviously an interrelation
between inner and outer space. Reality is inconceiv-
able without a subject being, a self to experience it. It is
the product of interrelation between a transmitter in
the outer space and a receiver in the inner space.
I use the expression outer space in its general,
everyday meaning. I am not referring to curved space
or the four-dimensional space of theoretical physics. I
am talking about three-dimensional Euclidean space. I
am talking about nothing other than the empty space
that can be filled with material objects.
The inner space is consciousness. Consciousness
defies definition, for it is what I need to contemplate
what consciousness is. It can only be circumscribed as
the receptive and creative center of the spiritual self.
There are two basic, characteristic qualities that
define the differences between outer space and inner
space. The first: while there is only one outer space,
there are as many inner spaces as there are humans.
The second characteristic difference is this: inner
space is a purely subjective mental experience, while
outer space exists objectively.
And now for the definition of reality that I have
alluded to here. The reality I am talking about in this
context is not a transcendental reality, a reality of
theoretical physics capable of being illustrated and
explained with the help of mathematical formulas
4
alone. The reality I want to talk about is the reality we
mean when we use the expression in everyday life, the
world as we humans perceive it with our senses.
Reality thus defined is inconceivable without an
experiencing being, without an ego. It is the result of
an interrelation between material and energetic
signals that emanate from the outer world, from the
outer space and a consciously experiencing self in the
inner space of a human.
To illustrate this, we can compare the process by
which reality is created with the generation of sounds
and pictures during a television broadcast. The mate-
rial world in the outer space functions as the trans-
mitter, giving off optical and acoustic waves and
supplying tactile, gustatory, and olfactory signals. The
receiver is embodied by the deep self of an ego, where
the stimulus received by the antenna of the sensory
organs are transformed into an image of the outer
world in the inner space where they can be
experienced mentally.
If either the receiver or the transmitter is missing, no
human reality can be created, just as the screen of a
television would remain empty in the absence of
pictures and sound.
In the following I will try to explain what we know
about the physiology of man with regard to his func-
tion as a receiver, as well as about the mechanisms of
5
receiving and experiencing reality on the basis of sci-
entific insights.
The antennae of the human receiver are comprised
of our five sensory organs. The antenna for optical
images from the outer world, (the eye), is capable of
receiving electromagnetic waves, and of projecting a
picture onto the retina that coincides with the object
from which these waves emanate. It is important to
realize that the human eye can only receive a very
small section from the very broad spectrum of elec-
tromagnetic waves emanating from the outer world to
depict objects from the outer space. The immeasurable
spectrum of electromagnetic waves traveling through
the universe extends from wave lengths of one billionth
of a millimeter, corresponding to the range of X-rays
and ultrashort Y-rays, up to radio waves that are many
meters long. Our eyes only respond to a very small
range between 0.4 to 0.7 thousandth of a millimeter ( =
0.4 to 0.7 millimicrons). Our eyes can only receive and
perceive this very limited range as light. All the other
rays in the boundless domains of electromagnetic
waves filling the universe do not exist in human reality.
Within the small spectrum of visible waves between
0.4 and 0.7 millimicrons, our eyes and the receiver in
the inner space are capable of differentiating between
different wave lengths and recognizing them as dif-
ferent colors.
6
In connection with our reflections it is important to
note that colors do not exist in the outer space. Gener-
ally speaking, we are unaware of this basic fact, even
though it can be looked up in every textbook on
physiology. Objectively, all that actually exists in the
outer space is matter transmitting electromagnetic
oscillations of varying wave lengths. If an object
reflects or transmits electromagnetic waves with a
length of 0.4 millimicrons from the light shining on it,
we say that it is blue; if it transmits waves with a
length of 0.7 millimicrons, we describe the object as
being red.
The perception of color is a purely psychic and sub-
jective event taking place in the inner space of an
individual. Objectively speaking, the brightly colored
world as we see it does not exist on the outside. The
visible world, the colorful world of day-to-day reality, is
the product of a transmitter, namely materials objects
in the outer space emitting specific electromagnetic
waves--and of a receiver, the psychic screen in the
inner space. The optical range of what we call reality
does not exist on the outside, it exists on the psychic
screen inside every individual.
There are similar relations between the transmitter
in the outer space and the receiver in the inner space
in the acoustic world. The antenna for acoustic sig-
nals, (the ear), displays a similarly limited breadth of
reception in its function as part of the receiver. Viewed
objectively in an analogy to colors, sounds do not
7
exist. What does exist objectively are once again the
waves, compressions and expansions of the air similar
to waves, that are received by the ear, registered by the
tympanic membrane, and transformed into the psy-
chic sensation of sound in the hearing center of the
brain--in all its abundance of words, music, and a
multitude of other reverberations. The human anten-
nae for acoustic waves, the ears, react to waves in a
range between 20 and 20,000 oscillations per second.
Slower and faster oscillations filling the outer space
are not registered and thus are non-existent in the
experience of human reality
The other aspects of reality made accessible by the
remaining three senses, those of taste, smell, and
touch, are also created and received by the transmitter
in the outer space and the receiver in the inner space,
respectively. Just like sounds and colors, there is,
objectively speaking, no sensation of touch, smell or
taste either physically or chemically.
A sense of taste is triggered by certain molecular
structures in food that act as transmitters. Gustatory
nerves in the tongue act as antennae that react
specifically to these structures and that transmit the
impulses produced by the corresponding reactions to
the center of taste in the brain.
The transmitter for our sense of smell also consists
of molecules--molecules in the shape of vapors with
specific structures to which the olfactory nerves in
8
our nose react as an antenna. The signals received by
the olfactory nerves--like those absorbed by the gust-
atory nerves--are transmitted into sensations of smell
or taste in the brain in the inner space. We do not know
how
this
transformation
of
chemical
and
elec-trophysical impulses into the psychic dimension
of sensation takes place. This is a gaping hole in man's
knowledge potential.
The sense of touch, the most ancient, most primitive
sense in the evolution of man, reacts to solid objects in
the outer world in an unspecific manner. These objects
are registered by the corresponding nerves and are
sensed as a wide band of sensory observations--rang-
ing from the softest touch to hard resistance--in the
inner space by means of certain brain mechanisms.
We can regard every antenna that transmits a sen-
sation of hot, cold, and pain as a specialized tactile
nerve. It is obvious that pain does not exist in the outer
space; pain is a purely subjective experience in the
inner space.
A basic characteristic of our view of reality derived
from the above consideration is its inherent limitation.
This limitation is defined by the very narrow range with
which our receivers react to incoming impulses. How
different the world would look if our antennae reacted
to electromagnetic waves, and the psychic receiver to
another bandwidth in the wave spectrum? For
example, longitudinal waves in the
9
wireless range: in that case, we should see into other
countries; or to ultrashort X-rays, in which case solid
objects would appear transparent. That transparent
world would be just as real to us as our present one is
now.
Thus we can conclude that the world as we perceive
it with our eyes and our other sensory organs repre-
sents a reality especially tailored to man, defined by
the abilities and limitation of the human senses. Ani-
mals see and experience the outer world completely
differently with their antennae that react to different
kinds and different wave lengths of impulses; they live
in a different reality.
Bees, for example, are provided with visual antennae
that react to wave lengths in the ultraviolet and
ultra-red spectrum, they see colors that are invisible to
us. Dogs, with a highly developed sensitivity of their
olfactory nerves, discover and enjoy smells that are
absent in our reality. Bats perceive a reality based on
sound by using a sonic radar system.
The metaphor of reality as the product of a trans-
mitter and a receiver clearly illustrates that the
seemingly objective picture of the world surrounding
us that we call reality is actually a subjective picture.
This basic fact signifies that the screen is not in the
outer, but in the inner space of every human being.
Within himself every human carries his own personal
image of reality created by his private receiver.
10
But if every human possesses his own individual
picture of the surrounding world, of reality, we have to
ask the question; "how true can these personal,
individual pictures be?" The answer is that they are all
true. They represent the truth, the reality of the re-
spective individuals. In an absolute, objective sense
however, these individual realities are not true. There
is a transcendental reality, the true essence of which
remains a mystery, hidden behind this subjective pic-
ture. It is limited by the selectivity, the clearness of
modulation of our sensory organs, and the capacity of
our mental efficacy--and beyond the manifestation of
the physical world that represents our reality. What we
know objectively about the physical world, our limited
knowledge about what we have called the transmitter,
has been revealed be scientific research. Everything
that could be objectively observed in the outer world is
matter and energy: matter, characterized by its
chemical and physical properties, in innumerable
anorganic shapes and in the shape of uncounted living
organisms; and energy as radiation, thermal, and
mechanical energy. It has also been discovered that
energy and matter can be reciprocally transformed
according to Einstein's formula: E = mc2 (E stands for
energy, m for the smallest unit of matter, and c for the
speed of light).
We and the animals of a higher order share the
ability--the wonderful ability that defies any further
attempt of scientific interpretation--to transform se-
11
lected energetic and material stimulus from this
material world existing on the outside into the physical
experience of a shining, living image of the physical
world. This image of the physical world we share with
these animals does not become a human reality until
we additionally include what Teilhard de Chardin
called the noosphere of the spiritual world.
The expression sphere, noosphere, evokes the con-
cept of a spiritual atmosphere invisibly flowing around
our planet. We must recognize however, that what
exists objectively speaking, of the noosphere in the
outer space is itself only matter and energy. We can
only find the symbols of the spirit in the outer space,
mainly sound in the shape of the spoken word and of
music, and as matter in the shape of books containing
written words, and finally as matter in the shape of
human artifacts--paintings, sculptures, architecture,
etc. The noosphere, created from the contributions of
innumerable individual people during the course of the
evolution and history of mankind, exists today
exclusively in the form of these material and energetic
symbols in the outer space. It only becomes a mental
reality in the inner space of the individual thanks to
the decoding ability of his individual receiver.
Based on these reflections, the whole interrelation
between the outer material world, the transmitter, and
the inner spiritual world, the receiver, becomes appar-
12
ent. Both are necessary as inseparable entities for the
formation of what we call reality.
The metaphor of the transmitter/receiver for reality
reveals the basic fact that reality is not a concretely
defined condition. Rather, it is the result of a continu-
ous input of material and energetic signals from the
outer space and their continuous decoding or trans-
formation into psychic experiences in the inner space.
Thus reality is a dynamic process being created anew
at each moment.
Actual reality only exists in the here and now, at the
moment. This explains why a child, living in the given
moment much more extensively than an adult,
perceives a more real image of the world; it lives in a
world permeated with more reality, more truth.
To experience true reality in the moment is one of the
main concerns of mysticism. This is where the
childlike and mystical experience meet. A poem written
by Andreas Gryphius (1616-1664) during the baroque
period refers to this:
The years they are not mine
that time has taken from me
The years they are not mine
that still perhaps might be
You moment, you are mine,
and if I treasure thee, Then
He is also mine, who made
time and eternity.
13
If reality were not the result of continuous changes,
but a stationary condition, there would not only be no
moments, there would not even be any time, since the
sensation of time is only activated by a perception of
change. The processional character of reality creates
time. Without reality there would be no time, and not
the other way around. The transmitter/receiver con-
cept of reality also imparts an insight into the essence
of time.
Understanding reality as a product of the transmit-
ter and the receiver however, takes in an especially
important meaning when we consider the share each
receiver, every individual human, has in the formation
of reality. It makes us fully aware of the world-creating
power invested in every human. Each individual is the
creator of his own world, for it is in him, and only in
him, that the world and the abundance of life it
contains, that the stars and the sky become real.
Every human being's real freedom and responsibility
is founded in this truly cosmogonic ability to create his
own world.
Once I have recognized what in reality is objectively
on the outside and what is subjectively taking place
within myself, then I am more aware of what I can
change in my life, where I have a choice, and thus
what I am responsible for. Conversely, I know what is
beyond my willpower and must be accepted as an in-
alterable fact. This clarification of my responsibilities
14
is an invaluable help. I have the choice of receiving
what I want from the endless programs of the great
transmitter; that means I can let the aspects of crea-
tion enter into my consciousness--and thus imbue
them with reality--that make me happy, or I can let in
other ones, ones that depress me. It is I who creates
the bright and dark picture of the world. It is I who
invests the objects that are, objectively, only shaped
matter in the outer world not only with their color, but
along with my affection and love, with their meaning
as well. This not only applies to the picture of my
inanimate surroundings, but also to the living beings,
the plants and animals, and to my fellow humans. In
one of his poems, Franz Werf el put it this way: "Every-
thing exists if you love! Your friend will become
Socrates if you let him."
Just as I am the receiver for the messages of my
fellow man, I am in turn a transmitter for him since I
am materially located in his outer world. I can only
convey my desires, even if they are purely spiritual, an
idea or my love to him through what characterizes the
transmitter; via matter and energy, namely through
my body.
Even an
unspoken
understanding,
expressed by a glance or a light touch, even it can only
be conveyed by material fingers, material eyes, by the
material bodies of the loving couple. Communication
would not be possible without matter and energy.
We are reciprocal transmitters and receivers, but
even so the image of the transmitter is first formed in
15
the receiver. It is a common experience that different
people have a completely different image of one and
the same person. Which is the real one? Objectively
this cannot be decided as there is no objective image in
the outer space. Objectively, the person is nothing
other than colorless matter and energy in the outer
space.
For myself, as well, my own body is part of the outer
world. I can see it as well as experience it with my other
senses. In the same manner my sensory organs, the
antennae of the receiver ego, are matter and energy
and thus part of the outer world. This is not only
evident with regard to my eyes and ears; the nerve
tract leading from them to the brain are matter, just
like the brain itself. The electric currents and impulses
that conduct the signals from the outer world to the
brain in the nerve tracts and that continue to operate
in the brain can be objectified, can be measured as
energetic phenomena, and thus should also be
ascribed to the transmitter. But then we encounter the
great gap in our knowledge I have already mentioned:
the transition from a material-energetic occurrence to
an immaterial, no longer objectifiable, subjective psy-
chic-spiritual image, to a subjective perceiving and
experiencing. This gap in our knowledge simulta-
neously represents the boundary between the trans-
mitter and the receiver and also where the two fuse
and combine into the totality of life.
16
The transmitter/receiver metaphor of reality would
appear to correspond to a dualistic concept of the
world: outer space and inner space, objective trans-
mitter and subjective receiver. However, this dualistic
aspect dissolves in an all-embracing, transcendental
reality if we trace the evolution of human reality, that
is the evolution of mankind, back to its source.
So let us start the search for the origin of our cor-
poreal existence, our material side that is, within our
metaphor as part of the transmitter.
The inception of our bodies from the combination of
the ovum with a sperm cell is sufficiently well known,
as its development in the womb, its birth, and its
growth based on metabolic processes. But can we
really consider the combination of the ovum and the
sperm cell to be the actual origin of our material, our
corporeal existence? After all, the ovum and sperm do
not originate in a void, they come from the parents,
and that means there is a transmittal of matter from
parents to children. And the parents themselves are
created from the ova and sperm cells of their parents,
and so on, through uncountable generations. It is
obvious that there is a material connection between
each human being of our time and all his ancestors--
and even further back in evolution, all the way back to
the origin of living matter per se, back to the primeval
cell.
17
These considerations indicate that we are, even on a
material level, related to our fellow humans and all
living organisms, to the plants and animals.
We can continue our quest for the origin and think
about the source of the primeval cell. It must have
been created by primeval procreation, meaning that
the first living cell, the primeval cell, must have been
shaped out of inanimate matter, out of atoms and mol-
ecules, at the beginning of evolution.
The line between inanimate and animate matter is
also the line where scientifically founded thoughts stop
and where the realm of imagination and belief begins.
This is where we must face the question whether the
creation of the primeval cell is based on a coincidence,
with a great number of molecules drifting together and
combining into a highly organized cell structure, or
whether the cell was created according to a plan. We
must ask the questions: Was the creation of a
coincidental, purely material, or a planned, and thus
spiritual event? It seems unimaginable that such a
complicated, highly structured and organized entity as
a cell could have been created by random chance. It
appears obvious--and this is precisely where belief
takes over--that the primeval cell was following a plan
at its conception. And the primeval cell, for its part,
also contains a plan, the plan to reproduce itself, the
actual characteristic of life. A plan embodies an idea,
an idea in spirit.
18
In actuality, the atoms themselves, the construction
material of the primeval cell, are similarly highly or-
ganized
entities.
They
represent
a
kind
of
micro-cosmos that defies being viewed as the product
of chance.
It is a remarkable fact that the smallest structural
unit of lifeless matter, the atom, and the smallest
structural unit of living organisms, the cell, display a
similar design. Both are made up of a coat and a
nucleus. In both the atom and in the cell the nucleus
is the most important component. The characteristic
features of matter, mass, and gravity are concentrated
in the core of the atom, and the nucleus of the cell
contains the basic elements of life, the genetic code
and the heredity factors, within its chromosomes.
As the assumption that the origin of highly de-
veloped forms such as the atom and the cell cannot be
attributed to chance is pivotal to a belief in a spiritual
inception and background of the universe, I will try to
substantiate it by means of a palpable metaphor. The
construction of a cathedral can be used as an example
for genesis of an organized form; it would, however, be
just as easy to use any number of other examples.
Let us suppose that all the construction material for
the building of a cathedral, including the technical
appliances and the necessary energy, were readily
available at some location. Without the idea of an ar-
19
chitect, without his plans and instructions, the
cathedral would never be erected.
This kind of consideration must be just as valid for
the creation of atoms or for living cells as they are far
more complicated and ingenious structures than a
cathedral.
If we cannot even imagine the random creation of a
cell, the smallest unit of living organisms, then it is all
the more difficult to do so in the case of the innu-
merable more highly developed forms of life in the
plant and animal world. Whether evolution took place
from primitive to flowering plants, from reptiles to
birds to mammals, through gradual mutations or
sudden change, is immaterial to these thoughts; nor
are the intervals of these events of any importance
whatever. For every new, living organism embodies the
realization, the transformation of the plan, of a new
idea into reality.
I would like to use the metaphor of the cathedral
once again. Just as the cathedral radiates the idea and
the spirit of its architect, every living organism ema-
nates the idea and the spirit of its creator. The more
differentiated, complicated, and highly developed the
form of a creation is, the greater the spiritual content
that can be expressed through it.
Human beings are the most highly developed, dif-
ferentiated, and complicated organisms of evolution;
20
this means that human beings express more about
their creator than any other creatures. The human
brain, with its fourteen billion nerve cells, each of
which is connected with six hundred thousand other
nerve cells, is the most complicated, highly organized
form of life in the known universe. The spiritual ele-
ment, which even manifests the spirit of its creator in
the primeval cell through its idea and its design, has
achieved its highest and most elevated development in
the human brain. It has attained its momentary per-
fection in the human spirit, in what we have called the
"receiver" in our metaphor. In the human receiver the
spiritual abilities have developed to such a degree that
it is now capable of being conscious of itself. In man,
the most highly developed part of creation, creation
becomes conscious of itself.
Within our transmitter/receiver metaphor we can
express this as follows: As matter, the human brain is
part of the material universe, and thus the brain is
part of the transmitter. But the idea and the design of
the brain we have developed to the spiritual ability that
we have defined as the receiver. In other words, matter
and spirit, transmitter and receiver, are fused together
in
the
human
brain,
and
the
dualism
of
transmitter/receiver does not really exist. The trans-
mitter and the receiver are nothing other than mental
constructions of our intellect--useful, valuable, and
necessary means that are used during the preceding
deliberations on a rational understanding of the
21
mechanism on the basis of which human reality is
created.
The transmitter/receiver metaphor of reality dem-
onstrates that it is necessary for an idea to be ex-
pressed in some form of matter and energy to be
existent, to become reality in the outer space. And it
shows that every form created in the outer space, from
the atom to the living cell, to the innumerable forms of
living organisms in the world of plants and animals,
from the planets to the suns and galaxies, that every
single one of these created forms represents the
realization of an idea. To ask about the origin of all
these ideas, about the creator-spirit that begat all the
created forms and permeates all created forms, is to
ask about the origin of all being.
In the gospel according to John we can read: "When
all things began the Word already was. The Word dwelt
with God, and what God was, the Word was." The
translation of "Word" from the original Greek "logos" is
controversial. "Logos" could also be translated as
"Idea." "When all things began, the Idea already was
. . . "
During the past two thousand years, mankind has
not developed a deeper understanding of the genesis of
the creation than John's. In the preceding discussion
we reached the same conclusion based on scientific
research and rational thought: a divine idea as the
origin and the pillar of creation.
22
Etymologically, the word "idea" is related to the
Greek "eidos" (image, picture). An idea is the spon-
taneous appearance of an inner picture of something
that did not exist previously. The origin of every cre-
ative process is an idea. Our ability to have new ideas,
that is to be creative, is the gift we share with the
creator of the very first, the original idea, the idea out
of which the world was born. The gift is our divine
inheritance. Our reflections on the essence of reality
using the transmitter/receiver metaphor have led up
to the primeval questions of being.
At the end of these thoughts on the essence of real-
ity, I would like to mention their value in daily life, the
help they can offer for a better understanding of our
position as human beings within creation.
As creation exemplifies the material form, the man-
ifestation, the realization of the divine idea, creation--
the transmitter of our metaphor--is continuously
transmitting the divine idea. Creation contains the
message, is the message of its creator to his creations
who can receive it, to humankind.
The greatest physician, natural scientist, and phi-
losopher of the Renaissance, Paracelsus, to whom
radio and television were unknown, availed himself of
a different metaphor to express this fact. He called the
creation a book written by the finger of God, a book we
need to learn how to read. But instead of studying this
book containing the revelation firsthand, we gener-
23
ally adhere to the texts written by human hands. In-
stead of opening up our senses, our minds to the
message of the eternalness of the stars, and the
beauty of our earth with all its wonderful creations in
the realm of plants and animals, we weld ourselves to
our personal problems, encapsulated in a narrow, ego-
tistical view of life. In the process we forget the most
important fact: that, due to our corporeal and spiritual
existence, we are part of the divine creation and of the
all-permeating spirit, and that every single one of us is
the "sole heir of the whole world." This truth,
encompassing the fact that there are no barriers be-
tween the subject and object, between the I and the
You, that dualism is a construction of our intellects--
this truth is revealed in the course of our reflections,
aided by the transmitter/receiver metaphor, on what
reality is.
However, truth that is solely the result of a thought
process, of rational reflection, is not effective enough
to become a decisive factor in our lives. Only when
accompanied by an existential, emotional experience
does it grow sufficiently strong enough to be able to
influence and alter our view of life. An emotional con-
firmation of truth can be achieved through meditation.
Meditation strives to eliminate the subject/object, the
I/You barrier to vanquish the dualism.
For this reason the transmitter/receiver concept of
reality, which affords us an insight into the origin of
24
the division of the subject and the object and reveals
this dualism to be a construction of our intellects, can
be a useful object of meditation. Experiencing the lift-
ing of the subject/object dualism emotionally enables
us to experience a state of mind called cosmic con-
sciousness or, in the Christian tradition Unio Mystica.
It can occur as the result of meditation alone or of
meditation combined with yoga, breathing techniques,
entheogenic drugs, or spontaneously as a gift. It is the
visionary experience of a deeper, transmitter/receiver
encompassing reality.
Our transmitter/receiver concept of reality can aid
us in mentally interpreting this extraordinary state of
mind, the Unio Mystica.
Initially it reveals to us that the mystical sight is not
an illusion, but the revelation of a different aspect of
reality.
We only see and experience a small fraction of the
surrounding world, of the transmitter, with our
everyday consciousness; in a mystical emotional
state--when the receiver is adjusted to maximum
width of perception--we simultaneously become aware
of an endlessly expanded outer a,nd inner universe.
The border erected between our ego and the
surrounding world by our intellect is dissolved, and
the outer and inner space blend into each other. We
now experience the endlessness of the outer space in
the inner space as well. The unlimited space is now
25
open to an unlimited number of images flowing in, as
well as to images from the past, experiences that were
collected during the course of a whole lifetime--old
images that were stored in the subconscious due to the
limited space in consciousness, all these inner images
are awakened to new life and fuse with the new ones
flowing in. This extremely intensive experiencing of
innumerable new and old sensory perceptions and
feelings merging inner and outer space creates a sen-
sation of eternity and timelessness, of an everlasting
here and now. The body, which in a normal state of
mind feels separated from the surrounding world, is
now experienced as united with creation, as a part of
the universe, which in fact, it is. This also imparts a
feeling of security with regard to the corporeal exis-
tence.
In such an ecstatic condition the transmitter and
the receiver, the outer material and the inner spiritual
world, the outer and the inner space, are fused to-
gether, they are united in the consciousness; thus we
must develop a notion of the original idea, the idea
that already was, that dwelt with God.
A visionary experience with the intensity of the cos-
mic consciousness or the Unio Mystica is temporally
limited. It can last a second, a few minutes, in rare
cases a few hours. We are not able to go about our
daily business in this extraordinary condition. It is
obviously necessary to have a limited ability to per-
26
ceive and a restricted consciousness to be capable of
meeting our daily obligations. To survive in everyday
life, we have to fix our concentration on our activities
in the environment in which we have to go about
performing our given duties. From time to time how-
ever, we need a vision, an overview of our life, and an
insight into its primeval spiritual reason, so as to
observe our place in the universe and our daily
obligations and problems from the correct perspective
and with the right understanding.
This is why more and more people today are de-
veloping the habit of interrupting their daily work and
their restless activity to meditate for a few minutes, or
an hour, or longer. The goal of this meditation is not to
achieve the ultimate visionary experience, the Unio
Mystica, every time. The goal of this meditation can be
to achieve deeper insight into the interrelationship
between inner and outer space, between the inner
subjective and outer objective world, and to thus
become aware of the existence of the transpersonal
transmitter and receiver, subject and object, creator
and creation, all-encompassing reality. This can fill us
with trust, with love, with strength, and with peace.
27
Security in the
Natural Scientific-
Philosophical
View of Life
Our spirit is growing in-
creasingly
aware
of
the
wholeness of the world and
our oneness with it due to
the progress of the natural
sciences. If this recognition
of the total unity is not only
an intellectual recognition,
if it opens up our complete
being
to
a
bright
omniconsciousness, then it
turns into a radiant hap-
piness, into an all-encom-
passing love.
Rabindranath Tagore in
"Sadhana" (1861-1941)
31
There is no need of proof
that an artist reigns in
nature. His works may be
apparent, but no created
spirit gains access to his
place of work. We see con-
firmation of this wherever
we look, in every mosquito
wing, in every blade of grass,
in every snow-flake.
Ernst Juenger in "The
Spanish Moonhorn"
A LL conditions of happiness are based on security
in the widest sense of the word. We know the hap-
piness of feeling secure within the house of our par-
ents, within our family, within a friendship. We can
also derive a feeling of security that is akin to hap-
piness from belonging to small or large associations,
be they of a professional, political, cultural, or reli-
gious orientation. In contrast, unhappiness is usually
related to being unprotected, separated, lonely, and
lost.
This connection between happiness and security
does not only apply to the individual fate of a person,
but to whole cultural eras. We are talking about the
security that a view of life--valid for a certain period
53
32
of human history and essentially circumscribing his
attitude toward life--can offer the human race.
In the following I will try to demonstrate that the
securing power of a view of life is mainly based on the
relationship of man to creation, and especially to living
nature expressed in it. It would appear that the
difficulties and seemingly unsolvable problems of the
present in spiritual, social, economic, and ecological
matters can be traced to a disturbed relationship of
man to nature as the common and final cause. The
one-sidedly materialistic, natural scientific view of life
that is valid in modern western industrialized society
is incapable of offering security. It does not express the
connection of man to, and indeed his confinement in,
living nature. I would like to explain how this could be
eliminated through a corresponding expansion and
deepening of the natural scientific view of life based on
my own experience and personal opinion.
Every cultural group has maintained the memory of
a prehistoric time in the shape of myths, the memory
of a world in which all humans lived in abundance and
blissful security free of all toil and trouble. It was the
Golden Age Hesiod spoke of, or the Judeo-Chris-tian
tradition of the age of man before the expulsion from
Paradise. At that time man was still completely one
with creation, was an integral part of it, was secure
with it. The world was a garden, the Garden of
33
man found sustenance and everything he needed
without hardship and labor.
Whether the people of those prehistoric times were
actually as happy as they are described to have been in
mythology is unimportant; what is certain is that
conditions were already no longer paradisiacal at the
time the myths were created, for otherwise their ab-
sence would not even have been noted. The ancient
authors, to whom we owe thanks for writing down
these myths, were already infused with an historical
awareness, with the ability to compare the view of life
of their times with the view of a past human epoch.
This ability, presupposing a critical distance from
contemporary events, was already characteristic of a
new stage in the development of human awareness.
The biblical allegory of the Fall of man is probably
intended to be a description of the entry into this new
stage of awareness. The fulfillment of the promise of
the Snake: " . . . you will be like the gods knowing
both good and evil," split the unity of creation and
creature in the human awareness. This new ability to
both consciously recognize and differentiate made
man the responsible master of his own deeds, but he
lost the security that had existed in his subconscious
unity with creation. This was the expulsion from Par-
adise.
34
Expelled from the abundance proffered by nature in
the Garden of Paradise, man, who was no longer pro-
tected and now had to rely on himself and on the fruits
of his labor, started to build settlements and cities.
These are the origins of cultural history which is
essentially a history of city cultures. The great
cultures grew and died in and with the cities. Wher-
ever on earth there were no cities, time passed by
without history.
Cities were places where populations found protec-
tion from their enemies and the vagaries of nature. For
thousands of years, they were essentially secure place,
in which civilizations and cultures could develop. In
modern times, the purpose and character of especially
large cities has gone through a basic change
throughout the world. Centers of life and culture have
turned into centers of commerce and industry. Modern
urban centers no longer protect their inhabitants from
their enemies, they do the opposite; they attract his
weapons. And with the noise and the general pollution
in the industrial cities, the feeling of security has been
lost. But cultural life is still centered in the cities, and
world history is still being made in the large cities by
people now living there in insecurity and dread.
Uncertainty, fear, dissatisfaction, inner emptiness,
and aggressiveness are becoming prevalent in our
social, political, and cultural life.
35
Where are the origins of this development that
brought about these changes in the habits of mankind,
that led to a change of the face of the earth, to the
present day view of life, to the present awareness of
reality? Temporally they are located in the 17th
century, geographically in Europe. At that time, a
naturalism completely dedicated to the measurable
appeared that was successful in elucidating the phys-
ical and chemical laws in the structure of the material
world. This knowledge made possible a theretofore
unimagined exploitation of nature and its forces. It led
to the present worldwide industrialization and
technologicalization of almost all areas of life. On the
one hand this brought about material affluence and
unimaginable comforts in everyday life for a part of
mankind, on the other it caused the cited change of
cities from centers of life and culture to centers of
commerce and industry and a catastrophic destruc-
tion of the natural environment.
The reason why it was specifically the European
mind that gave birth to the natural sciences, why
specifically it was capable of this feat, can probably be
explained by the fact that the awareness related to the
aforementioned separation of the individual from his
environment apparently developed there earlier than
in other cultures. For an ego that is capable of con-
trasting itself with the surrounding world, that can
regard the world as an entity, an object, a mind cap-
36
able of objectifying the surrounding world, was the
precondition for the creation of Western, scientific
naturalism. This objectifying view of life was already at
work in the first documents of natural scientific
thought, in the cosmological theories of the
pre-So-cratic Greek philosophers. This attitude of man
toward nature, making a decisive control of nature
possible, was first clearly formulated and philosophi-
cally substantiated by Descartes in the 17th century.
At the beginning of its modern development, natu-
ralism was still based on a religious view of life. Re-
searchers approached nature as a creation enlivened
by the spirit of God. Paraclesus called nature "a book
written by the finger of God," the deciphering of which
was the task of the naturalist. Kepler recognized the
harmony of the world created by God in the laws of the
planetary orbits, and none of the authors of the old
botanical works forgot to praise the Lord for the
miracles of the plant world.
The decisive and consequential change took place
when, following the great revolutionizing discoveries of
Galilei and Newton, research concentrated more and
more on the quantitative, measurable aspects of
nature. The qualitative, and encompassing method of
observation, for which Goethe spoke out using his
theory of colors as an example, was increasingly
shunted into the background. The quantitative meth-
37
ods of naturalism that no longer used direct observa-
tion required more and more complicated and refined
appliances for their measure. They supplied objective
results that were substantially independent of the ob-
server, thus additionally supporting the separation of
subject and object in the awareness. The disciplines
dealing with the measurable aspects of nature, physics
and
chemistry,
experienced
incredible
growth.
Physical and chemical methodologies were incorpo-
rated into other areas of the natural sciences, biology,
botany, and zoology. As precise sciences, the natural
sciences were delineated from the arts, and they were
granted preeminence as vehicles of theoretical insights
due to the reproducibility and the objec-tifiability of
their results. The great successes of the natural
sciences, especially in the fields of physics and
chemistry, gave us insights into the macrocosmos and
the microcosmos of our world. The practical use of
their discoveries and inventions on which the tech-
nologies and industries characterizing our age were
founded, led the materialistic view of life, its origins
being in this naturalism, to its victory. This view of life
has become the belief, the myth of our times.
Religious views of life have lost credibility in the
general awareness to a concomitant degree. True, ec-
clesiastical beliefs are still outwardly demonstrated;
religious dogmas and ethics are officially still the
guidelines in personal and public life. But the spheres
38
of belief and factual knowledge are separated, and
practical life is determined by the latter. Even if a
statesman swears on the Bible, he still only trusts in
the reality of the atomic bomb and makes his interna-
tional political decisions accordingly. Only the world
created and controlled by technology is viewed as real
today, i.e. as being important to everyday life, the
extent of which can be seen in the fact that environ-
mental protectionists, who see our true real home in
the original nature and who believe in its powers, are
still considered to be somewhat quaint.
The attempt at a short explanation given above of
how the present world situation came about could be
summarized by once again citing the biblical example
of the Fall of man.
After having been expelled from the security of the
Garden of Paradise into insecurity and self-respon-
sibility, man, endowed with an expanded ability to
perceive, was empowered to dispose over the earth and
its treasures, i.e. "Subject the Earth to yourself." But
instead of turning his new home into an earthly
Garden of Eden to find new security, man, misunder-
standing the divine directive, destroyed the earth while
abusing his newly achieved mental ability and is now
about the make it completely uninhabitable.
Does the development have to continue in this direc-
tion and does the destruction of the inner and outer
39
world have to keep on expanding? Pessimistic fore-
casts are multiplying. What is sure is there is no
reverse development, only forward development, a
further development of the history of ideas that has
been achieved, of the present state of awareness and
that accompanying natural scientific view of life is
possible. It is just as impossible to reverse the expan-
sion of technological-industrial civilization. All that
can be done is to give its further development a new
goal, a new meaning.
A precondition and basis for a change to the better
would have to be the healing of the "European fate
neurosis" as Gottfried Benn has called the split per-
ception of reality. It would be necessary to revive an
image of reality in the general consciousness in which
the individual no longer experiences himself as sepa-
rated from the surrounding world, but as one with
creation.
It is essential to recognize that the one-sided belief in
the natural scientific view of life is based on a
momentous error. Certainly, everything it contains is
true, but this only represents half of reality; only its
material, quantifiable part. All of the spiritual dimen-
sions that cannot be described in physical or chemical
terms, which include the most important charac-
teristics of that which is living, are absent. These need
to be integrated into the natural scientific view of life
40
as a supplementing half, so that an image of a com-
plete, living reality is created that also includes man
and his spirituality. Consciously experiencing this
complete reality lifts the separation between the indi-
vidual and the surrounding world, between man and
creation. This would heal us of the "European fate
neurosis." Such a natural scientific view of life, sup-
plemented by the dimensions of that which is living
and enhanced by meditation would be able to offer us
security again.
The goal is not to deny the validity of the natural
scientific view of life and to downplay the value of the
measuring sciences. We are only talking about recog-
nizing their titanic myopia. To the contrary, we are
making the argument here that the natural scientific
view of life is the only solid, stable basis on which to
build, and on which we must therefore continue to
build spiritually as well as materially. The enormous
amount of substantial knowledge, the deep insights
into the material construction of the world, the earth
and its living organisms are undeniably great
achievements that cannot be neglected. The expansion
of our awareness of reality they caused cannot be an-
nulled, for they represent a new, higher level in the
history of the development of the human spirit.
In the following I would like to describe how my view
of life was influenced by my knowledge and my
41
insights as a natural scientist. As the following obser-
vations are thus mainly personal opinions and views,
so that the subjective is an important factor in them, a
few remarks about the subject, about myself, would
appear to be indicated in introduction.
As a boy I had frequent mystical experiences of
nature while roaming through the fields and forests. A
field of flowers, a sun-brightened spot in a forest, some
place in my surroundings would suddenly appear in
strange clarity. It was as though the trees, the flowers
now wanted to disclose their true essence to me, and I
felt connected to them in an indescribable feeling of
bliss. These experiences impressed themselves on me
deeply even though they were usually only of very
short duration. It was they who not only kindled my
love of the world of plants, they defined my whole view
of life in its basic outlines by disclosing to me the
existence of an all-encompassing, securing, deeply
gratifying reality hidden from everyday life.
This interest in the problem of reality, primarily
displaying itself as a material reality, was the reason I
decided to study chemistry even though my classical
education in Latin was considered to be the basis for
work in the humanities. An additional factor in
selecting the field of chemistry was my desire to find
some stability in a hard, irrefutable area of knowledge.
In philosophy, history, literature etc., opinions are
con-
42
tradicted by opinions, convictions by convictions, for
all systems of the mind can be discussed. In contrast,
the material world is irrefutable and its inherent laws
are fixed. The science that offers us insights into this
tangible, hard, but basically still mysterious part of
our world, into matter, is chemistry.
Chemistry is generally regarded as the most mate-
rialistic science. However, it is only the object of chem-
istry, matter, that is materialistic or material; its
scientific-methodical research is, like all scientific re-
search, of a mental nature.
At this point I would like to insert a digression about
the image of the natural sciences and especially of
chemistry, in the general awareness. Superficial
knowledge has brought about an incorrect impression
of the essence and the meaning of the natural
sciences. Today our views and opinions are mainly
determined by the mass media, uniformly and world-
wide. What they pass on as knowledge--it is called
information today--is usually only partially correct,
superficial, and not aimed at truth and verity, but
mainly at sensationalism. Programs have to sell well.
For example, what the average person thinks about
chemistry has, to a great extent, nothing whatever to
do with chemistry as a science. The cliche of the chem-
ist is that of the man in the white coat wearing glasses
and mixing up something in a test tube. He is the
43
poison mixer par excellence. This concept already
demonstrates the existing erroneous understanding of
the essence of chemistry. The mixer of poisons would
be a physicist, not a chemist, for mixing is a physical
process.
Chemistry
only
starts
where
the
transformation of substances, of matter, is the issue.
Beyond that, the common perception of the expression
"chemistry" is exhausted with the image of the chemi-
cal industry, and the smell of environmental pollution
connected with it. Only a small minority of the popu-
lation is aware of the importance of the theoretical
insights of chemistry as a science of the construction
of the whole visible, material world.
So much for my digression on the incorrect percep-
tion of the essence of chemistry; it applies to the other
natural sciences as well. I thought it was necessary
because it demonstrates a superficial knowledge that
is mainly at fault for the incorrect evaluation of the
natural scientific view of life.
Studying chemistry fulfilled my expectations. It
opened a view into the inside, into the visible con-
struction of the visible world: into the molecular and
atomic structures and the microcosmos of the atom. I
learned that the realm of minerals, the worlds of plants
and animals, including man, consist of the same few
elements. Of the total 92 known atoms, the by far
greater number only exist in traces. There are
44
only a dozen elements that are decisively involved in
the construction of the earth and its biosphere;
hydrogen,
oxygen,
nitrogen,
silicon,
calcium,
sitrontium,
phosphorus,
sulphur,
iron,
nickel,
magnesium sodium, potassium, to only name the most
important. If we trace the common construction
elements of the atoms even farther back to the protons
and neutrons that form the atomic nucleus and the
electrons circling the nucleus, the number of
construction elements of the whole world is reduced to
three.
The reduction of the world to a few dead elements as
its last reality has been used as the basis of a mate-
rialistic view of life. This expresses an incredible ex-
aggeration of the role of matter in creation. It is nothing
less than reducing the miracle of a cathedral to the
number and the quality of the building stones used;
ignoring its blueprint, its beauty, its meaning, and
consequently finding no reason to think about an
architect. In addition, the cathedral lacks the dimen-
sion of life, so that the comparison does not even
express the complete magnitude of the inadmissible
reduction of the essence of creation to the level of
chemistry.
It is hard to understand why chemists specifically--
who should know what is within the powers of chem-
istry and what its limitations are--are not increasingly
attacking this materialistic view of life
45
reduced to the level of chemistry. In fact it is more the
biologists who have too great a trust in chemistry, and
who are trying, within their rational aspirations, to
trace the phenomena of life to chemical reactions.
This is one of the essential points of my work. I want
to demonstrate that opinions diverge at the point of
different perceptions of the role that chemistry plays in
the natural scientific view of life. On the one side we
have the role of chemistry and its laws as the final
cause and reason for the creation of the visible world,
on the other the role of chemistry as the science about
the construction material being used by a spiritual
force to construct creation in its colorful abundance.
I would now like to present a few thoughts that show
how, in my case, it was above all my knowledge as a
chemist that disclosed a natural scientific view of life
to me that gives me security.
When, in the garden or while taking a walk, I stop to
meditate on a plant, I not only see what a non-chemist
sees, its shape, its color, its beauty; thoughts about its
inner construction, its inner life and the chemical and
physical process they are based on also force their way
into my mind. The plant is composed of innumerable
individual chemical compounds. I can visualize their
chemical formulas. To name only a few: the
composition of the skeleton substance, the cellulose
made of saccharose rests, then the complex
46
formula of the leaf green chlorophyll, consisting of
several nitrogenated hydrocarbon rings with a central
magnesium atom, furthermore the structural formula
of the colors in the blossom, for example the formula of
a blue color, of a anthocyanin. Most of these plant
components can also be produced artificially, by
means of chemical synthesis. I know the efforts
necessary for this in a laboratory, the construction out
of reactive groups of atoms via many intermediary
steps, at high or low temperatures depending on the
type of respective chemical reaction, sometimes in a
vacuum, at times under high pressure etc. Chemist
Hans Fischer Munich, who together with a whole
school of assistants and students, supplied us with the
main body of work for explaining the structure of
chlorophyll, was rewarded with a Nobel prize. Harvard
Professor Robert Woodward, who finally succeeded in
synthesizing chlorophyll completely, was also honored
with a Nobel prize. My respected teacher and doctoral
advisor, Professor Paul Karrer, who worked on
explaining the structure and synthesis of blossom
colors, on the anthocyanins and the car-otenoids
during the twenties and thirties, was also awarded a
Nobel prize for his work. And all of these achievements
were only possible on the basis of the knowledge
acquired by chemists of preceding generations. I am
elaborating in such detail to show the enormous
chemical effort hidden behind the synthesis of each of
the numerous substances of which a plant is
composed.
47
And every little blade of grass is capable of this
effort. It produces these materials--the work of hun-
dreds of chemists for many years would not be suffi-
cient to synthesize them--quietly and humbly with
light as its only source of energy. A chemist has to
marvel at this.
But nevertheless, it is chemistry, and we know its
laws today. We can imitate them even if it is incredibly
difficult and means we have to tap all our possibilities.
But while observing the plant I am concentrating on
at this moment, other thoughts as well force their way
into my mind. They relate to the manner in which
chemistry is made subservient, something that cannot
be explained, it can only be described. Place and time
enter into the equation, things that have nothing to do
with chemistry anymore. After all, each of the
uncountable synthetic processes has to take place at a
given time and a given location so that the predeter-
mined outer shape of the inner construction of the
plant, its different organs with their various functions
can be formed. This adds a multitude of physical
processes and forces, such as diffusion, absorption,
capillary phenomena, to chemistry. All this is unim-
aginable without a blueprint and without a coordinat-
ing power.
Cell physiology and molecular biology offer an ex-
planation for this. The blueprint is pre-programmed
48
in the chromosome map of the nucleus of the cell. It is
written down by means of the four letters of the genetic
code, by means of the four different DNA-mole-cules.
These are incredible scientific insights into a won-
derful mechanism. It is important, however, that we
comprehend that this only explains the mechanism;
we know the four letters of the biological alphabet. The
decisive question about the origin of the text remains
unanswered. In addition, we have to take into
consideration that chemical structures, such as the
one represented by the nucleic acid group of DNA, can,
by their very nature, only direct the chemism of an
organism, they cannot determine its shape.
In conclusion, I would like to talk about a third kind
of thought process that goes through my mind as a
chemist while meditating in the garden or while walk-
ing through the woods. It revolves around the rela-
tionship in the chemical structure of human and plant
organisms and the inclusion of man in the biocosmos
expressed in it.
Every higher organism, be it plant, animal, or
human being, stems from a single cell, the fertilized
ovum. Cells are the smallest units of life of which
organisms are constructed. Plant, animal, and human
cells not only display a similar structure-- consisting
of the nuclei protecting the chromosomes,
49
the former embedded in the protoplasm and the whole
contained by the cell membrane--they also have a
largely identical chemical composition. In spite of the
innumerable variations in the chemical structure of
the various organ parts and tissue types, in their
totality the same classes of organic chemical com-
pounds are involved in the material composition of the
bodies of humans and animals as in those of plants. In
both the worlds of plants and animals these are pro-
teins, carbohydrates, fats, phosphatides, etc., they
themselves being composed of the same simple struc-
tural units, the amino acids, sugars, fatty aids, etc.
that are the main elements forming the material basis
of organisms.
This similarity of material composition exists in re-
lationship to the great metabolic and energetic cycle of
all things living in which the realm of the plants,
animals, and humans are united. The energy that
keeps this cycle of life going is supplied by the sun.
Primarily it is nuclear energy created by the transfor-
mation of matter into radiation energy during nuclear
fusion. The daystar transmits this energy to the earth
in the shape of light. The plant, the green carpet, the
vegetable kingdom, is capable of absorbing this
immaterial flow of energy in maternal susceptibility
and of storing it in the shape of chemically bound
energy During this process, the plant transforms
organic matter, water, and carbonic acid onto
50
organic substances with the help of the leaf green
chlorophyll as the catalyst and light as the energy
source. This process, called the assimilation of car-
bonic acid, supplies the organic construction units--
sugars, carbohydrates, amino acids, proteins, etc.--
for the assembly of the plant, and thus of animal
organisms, as well. Energetically, all life processes are
based on this light absorption by the plant. When the
nutrients stemming from plants are combusted in
human organisms to obtain the energy necessary for
the life processes, the reversed process of assimilation
is taking place: the organic nutrients are transformed
back into anorganic matter, into water and carbonic
acid, while releasing the same amount of energy orig-
inally absorbed in the form of light. Even the thought
process of the human being is supported by this en-
ergy, so that the human spirit, or consciousness, thus
represents the highest, the most sublime energetic
stage of the transformation of light.
I have taken the liberty of recapitulating these basic
insights of the natural sciences, facts that can be
looked up in any elementary text book on biology,
specifically because they are no longer given appro-
priate attention due to their general familiarity. They
are part of a body of knowledge that only receives
consideration on a strictly intellectual level. Moon
landings, space travel, science fiction books and
movies, in which living nature is not even shown any
51
more, have a greater influence on the minds and
imaginations of the inhabitants of our industrial so-
ciety and define their values of life and perceptions of
reality.
However, to someone with close ties to nature, to
someone who, through meditation, lets these natural
scientific findings some to conscious life, the tree or
the flower he is contemplating no longer appears sim-
ply in its objective beauty. Rather, he feels deeply
connected to it as a fellow creature, as a living being
created by light.
I am not talking about some sentimental enthusi-
asm for nature, about a "back to nature" in
Rousseau's meaning. Indeed, the roots of that
romantic movement--with its search for an idyll in
nature--can be found in man's feeling of being
separated from nature.
What I have tried to describe using the example of
our relationship to the world of plants is the elemen-
tary observation of the actually extant unity of every
living thing, the development of an awareness of se-
curity in a common basis of creation. The more orig-
inal flora and fauna of earth have to give way to a dead
technological environment, the rarer this kind of ex-
ulting experience will become.
Those important experiences of my youth I men-
tioned earlier, where field and forest would suddenly
52
appear in the inexplicable light of enchantment, have
nothing to do with sentimentality. As I know today, it
was actually the light of the reality of being in the
common basis of life together with the plants that
triggered this enchantment in the open mind of a
child.
In the above I have tried to show that, from the
standpoint of a chemist, the insights of natural scien-
tific research need not lead to a materialistic view of
life. Quite the opposite is true: if they are contemplated
and understood correctly, they invariably point to an
altogether inexplicable, spiritual primordial basis of
creation, to the miracle, the mystery--in the
microcosmos of the atom, in the macrocosmos of a
spiral nebula, in the seed of a plant, in the body and
spirit of a human--to the divine.
Meditative observation starts at the depth of objec-
tive reality to which perspicuous knowledge and in-
sight have penetrated. Thus meditation does not imply
a turning away from objective reality. The opposite is
true: it means you penetrate with a deeper and
broader understanding. It is not an escape into
mysticism, but a search for an encompassing truth by
simultaneously observing the surface and the depth of
objective reality stereoscopically.
By observing natural scientific discoveries through a
perception deepened by meditation, we can develop a
53
new awareness of reality. This awareness could be-
come the bedrock of a spirituality that is not based on
the dogmas of a given religion, but on insights into a
higher and deeper meaning. I am referring to the
ability to recognize, to read, and to understand the
firsthand revelations "in the book written by the finger
of God," as Paracelsus designated creation.
Thus it is necessary to recognize the laws of nature
uncovered by the research of the natural sciences for
what they are, to see that they are not primarily the
instructions and means for the exploitation of nature,
but revelations of the metaphysical blueprint of crea-
tion. They reveal the unity of all things living in a
common spiritual primordial basis.
Another important insight affecting the position of
man in creation can be derived from the hierarchic
structure of all things being, structures explained by
natural scientific research. It is the hierarchy in the
structure of the anorganic, from the elementary parti-
cles to the atom, molecules, rocks, planets, suns, and
on to the galaxies, as well as in the realm of living
matter, from the cells to tissue, organs, organ systems,
and all the way to complete organisms. Thus the dual
function of all things being becomes clear: on the one
hand it is as an independent whole, and on the other
as part of a higher order. So as to be able to meet their
obligations as a part of a higher order, all units
54
are inhabited by the desire and the strength to achieve
their own completeness. This is where the obligation of
every individual human being to work on himself
shows as a law of nature, and thus as a metaphysical
revelation--the obligation to perfect his given abilities
and to expand his knowledge, and thereby his
awareness, to be able to do justice to his destiny and
his duty as a spiritual being participating in creation.
If bliss encompasses the final goal of this destiny--
as Thomas Aquinas formulated it; ultima finis vitae
humanae beatitido est--and happiness presupposes
security, then, the preceding development of the
human race could be understood to mean that we are
to develop out of the shadowlike, mythic happiness of
our security in a dreamlike state of being into the
happiness of a completely aware, glowing existence of
freedom and responsibility.
It is true that we have achieved a high degree of
awareness and freedom today thanks to the insights of
natural scientific research and their technical ap-
plications. Now, however, it is important to once again
become aware of the security in creation we lost as the
precondition for all true happiness; it is important to
once again recognize what man overlooked in his ti-
tanic arrogance; that we are rooted and secure in our
common creative primordial basis of all things living.
55
Hof mann
If this insight were to enter into our collective con-
sciousness, the result would be that natural scientific
research and the hitherto destroyers of nature, tech-
nology and industry, would be applied to transform
our world back into what it once was--into an earthly
Garden of Eden.
In place of Utopian projects of space travel, of insane
arms programs, and senseless contests for economic
and military supremacy, this could then become a goal
of humanity, uniting the peoples of the earth and
promising true happiness. We could derive new,
sensible standards from this goal, pointing the way to
a solution to all of today's confusing economic, social,
and cultural problems.
56
57
58
On Possession
You will not be able to take
joy in the world until you feel
the ocean flowing in your
veins,
until
you
clothe
yourself with the heavens
and crown yourself with the
stars, and see yourself as the
sole
heir of
the
whole
world--and more than that,
for there are people living on
it who, like you, are the sole
heirs.
Thomas Traherne (1638-1674)
in "Centuries of
meditation"
It is amusing and informative to ponder the original
meaning of words. They derive from a direct experience
of reality and relate to elementary facts and activities of
our existence. Thus they possess, from the
59
time of their inception, a figurative character that in
the course of time has been worried away like the
image on a coin, so that it is only visible when studied
closely.
Using the word "possessions" as an example makes
this transformation very vivid. The corresponding verb
to "possess" relate to the process of "sitting down on
something." I pos-sess a chair originally meant, I am
sitting down on a chair. This turns it into my
possession. It has become my chair, if not in a legal
sense then at least to the extent that it is my chair in
contrast to other chairs on which other people are
sitting.
In very early human communities, when the word
was created, possession probably designated only
what one could use personally. The main thing one
pos-sessed was a horse. It, along with the other objects
used in daily life, was what constituted a possession
among people still leading a nomadic life. Since then,
possession and possess have achieved a much more
encompassing as well as symbolic meaning. Since the
introduction of the legal concept of property as the
judicial recognition and lawful protection of a
possession, it has become possible to acquire more
property than it is possible to possess or, in the orig-
inal meaning, to use personally.
60
This notion planted the seed of an important part of
the human tragedy. As the word property also implies
the concept of the right to dispose over a possession
and thus also translates into power, the acquisition of
property simultaneously leads to an accumulation of
power. The striving for power, the attainment of power,
the use of power in a positive sense, and the abuse of
power are fate determining fact in our personal lives
and in world political events.
The relationship between property and power is the
reason for the abolishment of private personal property
in communist states. This increased the property of
the state, and its power grew accordingly. In capitalist
countries power is effectively wielded by groups that
have accumulated enormous amounts of property.
Power based on property has little to do with human
contentedness; it is more inclined to detract from it.
For this reason this essay will concentrate less on
possessions with the character of property, and there-
fore on their relationship to power, and more on pos-
sessions in their original meaning, on their existential
importance to the individual. Legally, possession is
defined as the actual power of a person over an entity,
meaning that he can do whatever he wants to with the
corresponding object, that he can dispose
61
of it in any way that he pleases. I can also possess
something that is not my property; if I have a borrowed
or some tool in my workshop and use it in any manner
I like, the tool is in my possession, but it is not my
property. The opposite is also possible; I can call
something my property that I do not or cannot even
possess, if we understand possess to always indicate
some kind of use in the widest meaning of the word, as
an active or receptive relationship to an object.
Property does not become a possession until there is
an existential relationship between the owner and the
property. A possession does not become property until
there is an abstract relationship, a legal attribution.
The fact that there is an accompanying verb to pos-
session, possess, but no such verb for property, addi-
tionally underlines the fundamental difference
between the two.
Many fruitless efforts, many disputes, much dis-
content would evaporate--and there would be a
corresponding increase in equanimity, cheerfulness,
and happiness--if, generally aware of this difference,
we were to concentrate more on real possessions and
less on property. A Chinese aphorism underlines the
meaning of this in the most succinct way: " The master
said: My garden'. . . and his gardener smiled."
62
The master is correct in telling his friends that it is
his garden, for it is his property. But it could be that he
is hardly ever there. Or perhaps he does walk through
on occasion to show his visitors an especially beautiful
plant and the newest pavilion. In contrast, the garden
is the natural element of the gardener. He lives in and
with it. He planted the trees, he prepared the flower
beds, he knows every single flower, every single plant.
He cares for them lovingly, he watches them grow,
blossom, and die. He knows the garden in the
freshness of the morning dew, he walks among the
flower beds one last time at nightfall when the aroma
of some of the flowers is especially pervasive, and
during the heat of the afternoon he enjoys taking his
nap in the pavilion. He loves the garden with all his
heart. It also he who "possesses" the garden from
dawn to dusk; he is its real possessor. It is his garden,
and that is why he smiles when his master says: "My
garden . . . "
In the above example of the master and his gar-
dener, the proprietor at least still had the possibility to
enjoy his garden. But if we look at large landed prop-
erties the difference between the proprietor and the
possessor is even more obvious. It is not necessary to
be the possessor of meadows, fields, and woods you
strode through to be able to take pleasure in the
flowers along the way, the winds playing in the trees,
or the other sights and sounds encountered along the
way.
63
The woods around where I am fortunate enough to
live are the property of the surrounding communities
and partially of a private foundation. During my long,
almost daily walks through the woods it is rare that I
encounter someone else, and I never run into the
communities or the foundation. I experience the forest
with the birds, the deer, and all the other animals that
live there. And when, on occasion, I do meet a lone
hiker, our greetings are almost always accompanied by
the exchange of a few friendly words vibrant with the
sympathy of two people who are both aware that the
other is the possessor of these woods.
There is an old boundary stone at the edge of the
forest near the country border. On one side it displays
the coat of arms of the neighboring monastery of
Mariastein, for several centuries the owner of the forest
glade on which our house is located. On the other side,
looking out over France, a bas-relief still clearly shows
the arms belonging to none less than the great French
statesman Jules Mazarin (1602-1661). In recognition
of his outstanding services during the so-called
Pyrenees Peace Accord between France and Spain,
Louis XIV presented him with the country of Pfirt and
other adjacent areas in the Sundgau. Considered to
have been one of the wealthiest people in Europe, this
avaricious statesman died without ever having set foot
on his Alsatian possessions.
64
This clearly exemplifies the illusory character of this
kind of ownership: it is only a property, not an actual
possession. The vagabond drifting through beautiful
countryside was, in reality, the possessor of the land;
the rich man in Paris only owned it on a piece of paper.
At this point the objection could be raised that, viewed
from a different angle, the value of Mazarin's Alsatian
possessions was not illusory, that it was indeed very
concrete: he collected money from them in the shape of
taxes and other duties.
So now we have to consider the possession of money.
If true possession means a corporeal, sensory rela-
tionship to an object, then money can never become
something I possess; it will always be a symbol of
possession. Money is, quite understandably, an es-
pecially sought after property, as it can enable us to
obtain many things that we can use, apply, enjoy; it
can give us real possession.
There is no need to list all the things money can buy.
The universal possibility of converting money into
many different kinds of possessions gives it an es-
pecially manifold power that is inherent in property.
However, it is useful--and if you have little money
comforting--to realize where the possibility of con-
verting money into possessions reaches its limits.
65
In a case where the value of a possession is solely
based on consumption, on gratification, it is deter-
mined by the owner's capacity for gratification. Even a
millionaire can only eat as much as his stomach al-
lows. If he orders more, he will have to leave it on the
table. What holds for food is even more evident in the
case of liquor. Here a price is exacted for transgres-
sion: a hangover, an alcohol poisoning that can be
fatal.
A rich person can, however, make the gratification of
his bodily needs and pleasures more enjoyable than
can a poor one; but this only applies to a limited de-
gree. If you can spend more money, say for a meal, the
pleasure of eating will indeed be more increased. But
the simplest meal tastes better to someone who is
hungry than the most refined one does to someone
who is not. In general, the rule holds that the intensity
of gratification of corporeal pleasures is defined by the
extent of the corresponding need, by the appetite in the
widest meaning of the word. But an appetite cannot be
purchased. This compensates for many social
injustices.
But the grand compensation is that every human is
in possession of the ability to be a possessor. A pos-
sessor-possession relationship is only possible be-
tween a subject capable of perceiving an object and its
usufruct, whereby object should also be understood to
66
include spiritual contents and usufruct a relationship
consisting of love and joy. As every human, and only
the individual human, is capable of perceiving and
loving, he alone can take possession of objects in the
outer world. This ability not only permits him to pos-
sess individual items in the outer world in the manner
I explained beforehand, he can also be, in the true
meaning of the word, the possessor of the whole world.
This is the divine gift placed in every human's cradle.
Most of the time, however, our view is obstructed by
things in our direct vicinity, our thoughts are occupied
by personal interests and problems, so that we fail to
see the miracle and the beauty of creation as a whole.
The heavens and earth, the sun and moon, walks
through the field and forests during the changing
seasons, have become matters of course and are
hardly noticed anymore.
Nor do we think about the fact that the colorful,
sensually vibrant world as we see and experience it is
created in ourselves.
The first chapter in this book extensively discusses
this wonderful occurrence, the interrelation between
matter and energy in the outer space as the transmit-
ter and the spiritual center that makes us aware in the
inner space of every human as the receiver, out of
which reality is created.
67
There is only one outer, physical space that I share
with all other humans; in contrast, I am the sole pos-
sessor of my spiritual inner space. That, and no other,
is the place where the image is created we call our
reality. This image has grown in me by means of my
senses. It belongs to me. I am the sole possessor of this
image that is identical with the world, with my world.
This is what Thomas Traherne means in his motto
that precedes this essay, with his invitation to regard
myself as the sole heir of the whole world. Every
human is, in fact, the sole possessor of the whole
world, including his fellow men who are a part of that
world, for the world only becomes a reality in one ego,
in every ego.
This knowledge, derived from natural scientific in-
sights, namely that the whole world is in my posses-
sion, is not in itself sufficient for me to be able to take
joy in this world. What has to come to pass is what
Traherne means when he says; "I have to feel the
oceans flowing in my veins, I have to clothe myself with
the heavens and crown myself with the stars." Rational
knowledge has to be augmented by emotional
experience. I must not remain separated from the
oceans, the heavens, the stars. I must feel that I am
within the creation and the creation is within me, that
we are one. Then the world belongs to me, as I belong
to it. Not until then will my heart recognize its real
beauty, will I feel secure and be able to take joy in it.
68
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69
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70
Botanical Reflections
on the Death of the
Forests
IN spite of the public discussion about the death of
the forests, two fundamental botanical reflections are
rarely if ever mentioned, even though they are more
than obvious.
One relates to the question of why air pollution has a
negative impact on the plant world, on the trees of the
forests, before it affects the world of animals and man.
After all, generally one would consider a fir or beech
tree to be more robust and less sensitive than an
animal or a human.
But the enhanced sensitivity of plants with regard to
pollutants in the air is immediately apparent if we
consider the fundamental differences in the biology of
plants and animals.
71
We "only" need air for oxygen, which we use to
combust our food to obtain energy for our life pro-
cesses. A plant, on the other hand, derives the main
bulk of its food from the air, taking carbon out of it in
the shape of carbonic acid (specifically: carbonic
anhydride = carbon monoxide = CO2). As air only
contains 0.035% carbonic acid, in contrast to an
oxygen content of 21%, a plant has to come into
contact with an incomparably large amount of air to
meet its large carbonic acid requirements than is
necessary for a human to inhale in order to obtain his
relatively smaller quantity of oxygen. To this end, the
green tissues of plants, the leaves and needles, in
which the assimilation process of the carbonic acid
takes place are embedded with a highly developed
ventilation system that enables them to filter the
greatly diluted carbonic acid out of the air. The air can
penetrate into the interior of the leaf or the needle via
fine pores, so-called stomata, whereby energy single
oak or beech leaf has more than half a million of these.
Necessary for metabolism, this extensive, highly
intensive ventilation of a plant explains why so many
more air pollutants (sulphur dioxide, nitric oxides,
ozone, lead, dust, and others) are trapped in them
than in animal organisms, so that the effects of a
poisoned environment will first be noticed among
plants, than among humans and animals.
72
The other thought not taken into consideration
about the death of the forests relates to the question of
why, in the realm of plants, it is specifically the trees of
the forest that are the victims of the poisonous
substances in the atmosphere. As far as we know,
there is as yet no sound explanation for this. There is a
possibly frightful danger lurking behind this lack of
knowledge. For if there is no known basic difference in
the assimilation mechanism of carbonic acid in forest
trees and fruit trees, or in other useful plants such as
potatoes, wheat, etc., we have to consider the
possibility that the plants man uses for food will start to
die in the foreseeable future, as well.
To review briefly, the plants constructs its organism,
consisting of carbonic compounds, from the carbonic
acid in the air and from hydrogen, using the light of
the sun as its source of energy and the green of the
leaves (chlorophyll) as its catalyst, in a process called
the assimilation of carbonic acid, or photosynthesis.
The hydrogen is obtained by pho-tochemically
splitting the water rising in the roots. The oxygen
released during the process is passed into the air
through the stomata.
In our organism and in that of all animals, the
exactly reverse process takes place. The organic sub-
stance synthesized by the plant, our food, is com-
busted while absorbing oxygen; at the same time, we
73
obtain the energy absorbed by the plant in the shape
of life and transfer the combustion products, carbonic
acid and water, into the atmosphere by exhaling. The
cycle is thus complete.
Aside from the basic carbohydrate cycle, there are
other cycles in which nitrogen and minerals play a
role; they, too, are powered by the energy of the sun.
When looking at photosynthesis, we are confronted
by the basic process of creation that supports all life
on earth be transforming the immaterial light flow from
the sun into the material energy of plant organisms by
means of the green carpet of plants of the earth, these
organisms for their part being the life basis of the
world of animals and humans. The death of trees that
can be traced to a disruption of the photosynthesis
due to damage caused to the green plant cells by
pollutants in the air is the harbinger of a threatening
interruption of the basic process in our own life cycle.
The basic concepts of the assimilation of carbonic
acid, of photosynthesis, are described in every ele-
mentary textbook of botany. Unfortunately, however,
it is specifically this kind of fundamental knowledge
about the basis of our lives that, having no practical
use, is frequently shelved along with the textbooks.
But today it is of paramount importance that we all
74
recall to memory these natural scientific insights; for
they make us aware that the death of the forests is
beginning to acutely endanger the basis of all life on
our planet, and that the postponement of possible
measures to banish this impending catastrophe would
not only be boundlessly irresponsible, it would be a
crime threatening all of life.
75
76
5
77
78
The Sun, a
Nuclear
Power Plant
If we take a look at the passionate worldwide
discussion surrounding atomic power plants, we could
reach the conclusion that essentially, the problem of
exploiting nuclear energy simply revolves around an-
swering the two following questions:
a) Will future energy needs be so large that we will
need atomic power plants?
b) Is the operation of atomic power plants so safe,
and is the problem of atomic waste so solvable, that we
need have no fear of catastrophes or hereditary
biological damages to the human species?
Both are questions that can only be answered by
specialists and competent scientists--if we can answer
79
them based on the given facts and knowledge we have
today.
But the scientific experts disagree on the answers to
both questions a) and b). Thus if we look at the matter
from these two standpoints only, it is unclear whether
we should or should not agree to the construction of
atomic power plants.
There are, however, other reflections related to the
problems of the use of atomic energy that have nothing
to do with the answers to questions a) and b), and
every thinking person can ponder them without
having to rely on the experts or specialists.
I am referring to the thoughts and considerations
that surface when we contemplate the fact that the sun
is nothing other than a gigantic power plant.
Our knowledge of the chemical and physical pro-
cesses taking place on the sun is quite precise. They
are all nuclear reactions. Among them, the fusion of
hydrogen nuclei into helium nuclei is of great impor-
tance. Together with these processes, incredible
quantities of energy are radiated out into space, their
forces undiminished for billions of years.
The median distance of the earth from the sun in its
orbit is approximately 150 million kilometers. In com-
parison to the sun, the earth is very small; its volume
80
is 1.3 million times smaller than that of the sun. Thus
only a minute fraction of the radiation from the nu-
clear reactor sun reaches the earth.
But we owe everything to this radiation.
Without this extraterrestrial energy source there
would be no life on earth.
The basic process for the creation and formation of
all things living, the transformation of anorganic
matter--of carbonic acid and water--into organic
substances takes place with the radiation of the light
of the sun delivering the energy. This process, called
the "assimilation of carbonic acid," supplies the
organic
building
blocks--sugar,
carbohydrates,
proteins, etc.--for the construction of plants. As no
animal organisms can exist without plants, the former
need the latter as the food source, the intake of light in
the shape of the assimilation process of plants is
simultaneously the primary energy source of human
life.
Even the formation of the human spirit would have
been impossible without the original presence of the
light of the sun. The human spirit, our consciousness,
represents the highest, most sublime energetic trans-
formation stage of light.
We owe all of the large earthly sources of energy to
the extraterrestrial nuclear reactor, the sun: --the
wood of the forests;
81
--the coal, oil, and gas deposits, in which the sun's
warmth of uncounted millions of years was stored;
--the hydraulic power of lakes and rivers--constantly
fed by the clouds raised into the sky by the force of the
sun--that human intelligence has been able to exploit
in a secondary manner in the shape of warmth, light,
and electricity.
The extraterrestrial nuclear reactor is also the
greatest cleaner and renewer of the life elements i.e.
water and air. Based on the action of the sun's heat,
pure water rises to the skies from the salt water of the
oceans, from polluted rivers and lakes, from the wet
ground--and the purified element falls back to earth
as refreshing rain or snow that water the plant world.
The sun also supplies the energy necessary for
clearing and regenerating the air. During the process
of combustion--digesting food in animal organisms, in
gasoline engines, in every fire--oxygen is used and
carbonic acid is produced. Conversely plants absorb
carbonic acid and discharge oxygen into the
atmosphere during the assimilation taking place in the
green of the leaf with the light of the sun supplying the
energy.
The nuclear reactor sun differs from earthly atomic
power plants in that it is: --absolutely accident and
radiation safe;
82
--poses no threat in disposing of nucelar waste;
--entails neither construction or operating costs;
--has an unlimited supply of fuel, whereas earthly
uranium desposits will be depleted in a few decades;
--continuously supplies all peoples of the earth with
energy without discrimination;
--has created a green plant world for man and animals
that has to give way where earthly atomic power plants
are located.
What is man doing when he obtains additional en-
ergy through nuclear power plants?
He is kindling sun fires on the earth, that is nuclear
reactions, or physical-chemical processes of the type
taking place on the sun, 150 million kilometers away.
The consequences of this incredible distance and a
protective earth atmosphere are that only harmless
traces of dangerous radiation reach us, while an
all-creating, all-sustaining sunlight falls on our plant.
The use of nuclear energy on a large scale (and not to
even mention the madness of atomic weapons) creates
the
danger
of
contaminating
earth
with
life-threatening radiation. What that means becoms
obvious when we consider that life on earth was only
possible after nuclear reations here had, with the ex-
ception of the traces in the elements that are still
83
radioactive today, died down in the course of billions of
years.
The atoms, the construction units of the material
world, can be compared to minute solar systems in
which electrons circle the atomic core like planets
around the sun. With the exception of the processes in
the still remaining traces of radioactive elements, all
transformations of matter on the planet earth take
place in the realm of the electrons, the microcosmic
planets, the atomic cores, microcosmically corre-
sponding to the sun, are not damaged.
In contrast, the atomic cores are affected in the case
of the nuclear fusion and nuclear fission. In this pro-
cess, matter vanishes by dissolving into energy. In the
planetary reactions-planetary in a macrocosmic and
microcosmic sense- in other words during the material
transformations in dead matter and during metabolic
action in the living organisms of the realms of plants
and animals, matter is retained.
Thus the exploitation of atomic energy should not be
simply viewed as a further development in the tech-
nology of energy production; rather it means some-
thing completely new, namely an intrusion into the
core of matter, a "de"-velopment away from the natural
conditions on which life on our planet is based. From
this we can derive that the dangers connected with the
exploitation of nuclear energy are life-threatening,
84
Hof mann
and that it is very difficult, if not impossible, to contain
them.
Would it thus not have been more reasonable if en-
ergy research had concentrated on expanding familiar
sources of energy, in other words, on the ones that
ultimately originate in the nuclear power plant sun,
and that have thus far been able to satisfy our energy
needs?
The question whether there will soon be an energy
gap that we will have to bridge with nuclear energy is
open; it is certain, however, that we will need a new
energy concept at some time in the future.
As our present energy supply is largely based on
consuming our "capital" of solar energy, or our re-
serves of oil, gas, and coal, this capital will, as large as
it is, be used up in the foreseeable future. Instead of
once again propping our future energy supply on a
short-lived capital, (namely the uranium deposits that
will be depleted in a few decades), we should be
striving for an energy plan that restricts itself to the
use of "interests", to exploiting the continuously new
flow of energy from the nuclear power plant sun. So as
to assure that this energy will be sufficient to meet all
our respective future needs, we should expand the use
of the forces of wind and water, if necessary including
other forms of energy that can be collected in the form
of "interests". But above all, we should con-
85
centrate on an intensified exploitation of the direct
radiation of the sun.
It has been calculated that the amount of energy
reaching the earth on one single day in the shape of the
sun's rays would be sufficient to meet our present
energy requirements for several hundred years. Thus
the most sensible, worthwhile research projects of our
times are the ones dealing with solar radiation as the
ideal main source of energy for the future. It is not
Utopian to assume that human ingenuity will succeed
in capturing a small fraction of the vast energy flowing
down to us without the aid of wires from our great,
safe, inexhaustible, extraterrestrial nuclear power
plant, to transform into a useable form, and to thus
solve the energy problem for all times to come.
86
Editor's Foreword
The mark of true great thinkers has always been
their scholarship and academic accomplishments, as
well as the ability to translate difficult concepts into an
accessible form. Dr. Albert Hofmann, Member of the
Nobel Prize Committee, Fellow of the World Academy of
Sciences, Member of the International Society of Plant
Research and the American Society of Phar-
macognosy, is such a man.
The book you hold in your hands is the product of
this great thinker, possessor of a brilliant mind who
happens to think in another language. Not merely a
language of phonetics and sentence structure, but a
language of thought, of novel inductive and deductive
reasoning.
As the
reader progresses
through
INSIGHT\OUTLOOK, it becomes readily apparent
that the flow of ideas and associations is quite different
from what one may have come to expect from routine
academic study or scholarly musings.
Dr. Hofmann draws from his immense knowledge of
the physical and social sciences to weave a picture of
reality, both objective and spiritual, that is accessible
to all. Touching first on one realm of conjecture and
then another, he draws us into a kinetic but very
controlled dance of reasoning. This wonderful train of
thought spirals around and around, always relevant
and revealing, until finally the dance ends and the
entire concept emerges complete and multi-dimen-
sional. As always, Dr. Hofmann not only leads us to
places in the mind where we have never been before,
but he also bids us to use our new-found insight as a
launching area for further intellectual meditation.
Two fundamental insights permeate the observa-
tions contained in INSIGHT\OUTLOOK. The first is
based on the recognition that the natural scientific
concept of life and the world view unveiled by visionary
experience are not contradictory as we have been
taught to believe, but are indeed complimentary. The
second is a series of reflections on the interrela-
tionships of the outer, objective, material world with
the inner, subjective, spiritual world. Both appear to
be mutually exclusive, yet both are fundamental as-
pects for the construction of what each individual
human being calls reality.
In the first chapter "The Interrelation of Inner and
Outer Space", the metaphor of a television broadcast
is used to illustrate the production of reality. The outer
material world functions as a transmitter, the inner
spiritual and creative center of the individual human
being functions as the receiver. There is but one
transmitter, the outer world, but there are as many
receivers as there are human beings. This in turn
creates individual, different, and viable realities for
every person on earth.
The second chapter, "Security in the Natural-Scien-
tific-Philosophical View of Life", shows how the in-
creasing knowledge of the physical world gained
through the explorations of the natural sciences
closely parallels our growing awareness of our place on
earth, both in the past and in the future. These
world-wide insights, which closely resemble visionary
experience, can provide us as a species with a better
understanding of our place in the cosmos and our
duties for the safe-keeping of our planet.
The existential relationship between objects and
owners is the topic of the third chapter, "On Posses-
sion". Possession becomes property by its judicial
recognition and protection. The means by which an
object is enjoyed however, involves a subjective
appreciation of it, an emotional bond. Objects in this
use of the term are understood to include spiritual
experiences and relationships. The gift placed in every
human being's cradle is the ability to become not only
possessor of their immediate physical surroundings,
but of their own individual, subjective world.
"Botanical Reflections on the Death of the Forests"
reconstructs the processes by which the forests of the
world are slowly dying at the hands of man's industrial
waste products. The basic concepts of the assimilation
of these poisons are available in every elementary
textbook on botany, yet having no immediate practical
use they are ignored. In this chapter, we are shown
how the signs that herald the death of the forests
forecast the endangerment of all life on our planet.
The human spirit, our consciousness, is shown to be
the highest, most energetic transformation of light in
the final chapter "The Sun, a Nuclear Power Plant".
The dangers of conventional man-made nuclear power
are contrasted with the clean, inexhaustible power of
the sun. Throughout our planets evolution, the sun
has been the engine that has driven the production of
coal, gas, oil, and the hydraulic power of rain, lakes
and rivers, even the cleansing and regeneration of the
very air we breathe. To capture but a small fraction of
this immense, extraterrestrial nuclear power source is
shown to be a solution for all our energy problems to
come.
INSIGHT\OUTLOOK uniquely opens the readers
mind not only to the building blocks of the past, but to
the possibilities of the future as well. It has been a
labor of love to retain the flavour, the intensity and
structure of Dr. Hofmann's work. To this end, special
thanks are extended to Dieter Hagenbach for
prelimi-nary
translations,
Jennifer
Wilson
for
consummate production, and Gary B. Wilson for
guidance and direction.
Dr. Hofmann makes several referrals to the word
"utopia" in the following work. The translation of this
word
from
the
Greek
is
"nowhere".
IN-SIGHT\OUTLOOK is a road-map to the discovery of
a world extant not only in the hopes and dreams of
humankind, but also as a guide to a physical reality
readily possible in the critical years to come. Dr. Albert
Hofmann is our Beatrice and we are the travellers, our
hearts and minds the hands and tools required to drag
the dream of utopia into existence.
Robert Grayson Hall
Editor
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Science/Environment
" Albert Hofmann is a true visionary, one of those rare individuals who can
follow the intricacies of science to the edge of the known, where it transforms
into spirit."
Paul Zuromski
Body, Mind and Spirit
Dr. Albert Hofmann is a world renowned scientist
and Fellow member of the World Academy of Art and
Science. A leader in pharmaceutical-chemical re-
search, he is the author of several prominent books,
among them "LSD-My Problem Child "(McGraw-
Hill, New York 1980). Now retired, yet still active in
scientific and philosophical pursuits, Dr. Hofmann
lives in Burg, Switzerland
HUMANICS
P.O. Box 7400
Atlanta, GA 30357
Insight Outlook
Dr. Albert Hofmann
HUMANICS NEW AGE
Atlanta, Georgia
HUMANICS NEW AGE P.O.
BOX 7447 Atlanta, Georgia 30309
Humanics New Age is an imprint of Humanics Publishing Group.
Copyright C 1986 by Albert Hofmann
C 1986 by Sphinx Medien Verlag, Basel, Switzerland C 1989
(English) by Humanics Limited
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced by any means, nor transmitted,
nor translated into a machine language, without written permission
from Humanics Limited.
First Edition
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hofmann, Albert, 1906-
[Einsichten, Ausblicke. English] Insight,
outlook / Albert Hofmann, p. cm.
Translation of: Einsichten, Ausblicke. ISBN
0-89334-116-9
1. Religion and science--1946- 2. Mysticism. 3. Nature --Religious
aspects. I. Title. BL262.H6413 1988
215--dc!9
88-39854
CIP
Photographs by RANJIT AHUJA
Cover and Text layout by PURNA AHUJA