“Spiritual or mystical experience, the subject of this chapter, is the mirror image of science—a direct perception of nature's unity, the inside of the mysteries that science tries valiantly to know from the outside. This way of understanding predates science by thousands of years. Long before humankind had tools like quantum logic to describe events that ordinary reason could not grasp, individuals moved into the realm of paradox through a shift in consciousness. And there they know that what cannot be is.”

— Marilyn Ferguson

The Aquarian Conspiracy (1980), Chapter Eleven, Spiritual Adventure: Connection to the Source

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Marilyn Ferguson 128

American writer 1938–2008

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“The science of agriculture rests on experience; and nothing else should be required or expected from it but that which appertains to a practical science. The first principles arise from the perceptions of the senses; but if experience wholly and entirely flowed from these perceptions, the development would not be less the offspring of science and the work of the understanding.”

Albrecht Thaer (1752–1828) German agronomist and an avid supporter of the humus theory for plant nutrition

Source: The Principles of Agriculture, 1844, Section I: The fundamental principles, p. 3.

“When we practice magic we are always making connections, moving energy, identifying with other forms of being. Magic could be called the applied science that is based on an understanding of how energy makes patterns and patterns direct energy. To put it another way, at its heart is a paradox:
Consciousness shapes reality;
Reality shapes consciousness.”

Starhawk (1951) American author, activist and Neopagan

Source: Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex and Politics (1982), Ch. 1 : Power-Over and Power-From-WIthin, p. 13

“There is science, logic, reason; there is thought verified by experience. And then there is California.”

Edward Abbey (1927–1989) American author and essayist

“Sam believed that what mystics tried to describe was the freeing of consciousness — deliberately or otherwise — from the restraints that normally define identity, into the quantum-connected paths of the Multiverse.”

James P. Hogan (1941–2010) British writer

Source: Paths to Otherwhere (1996), Ch. 38
Context: The combining of their differing perspectives into one viewpoint was a new, vividly revelational experience for both. Now she understood what Dave and Hugh had meant when they talked about seeing everything in ways they had never grasped before, which they found impossible to describe.
It reminded her of Sam's repeated assertion of the connectedness of all people, all life, and ultimately all things; that the perceptions of separateness and alienation that form the roots of strife are illusions. She still didn't understand it — not in any way she could have put into words; but, to some degree at any rate, she could feel it. Sam believed that what mystics tried to describe was the freeing of consciousness — deliberately or otherwise — from the restraints that normally define identity, into the quantum-connected paths of the Multiverse.

“In the natural sciences, language (mathematics) is a useful tool: like the microscope or telescope, it enables us to see what is otherwise invisible. In the social sciences, language (literalized metaphor) is an impediment: like a distorting mirror, it prevents us from seeing the obvious.
That is why in the natural sciences, knowledge can be gained only with the mastery of their special languages; whereas in human affairs, knowledge can be gained only by rejecting the pretentious jargons of the social sciences.”

Thomas Szasz (1920–2012) Hungarian psychiatrist

The Untamed Tongue: A Dissenting Dictionary (1990)

“The aims of social science with respect to human organizations are like those of any other science with respect to the events and phenomena of its domain. Social scientists wish to understand human organizations, to describe what is essential in their form, aspects, and functions.”

Daniel Katz (1903–1998) American psychologist

18
The Social Psychology of Organizations (1966)

“In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.”

Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) Italian mathematician, physicist, philosopher and astronomer

Third letter on sunspots (December 1612) to Mark Wesler (1558 - 1614), as quoted in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo (1957) by Stillman Drake, p. 134 - 135; Italian text online at Liber Liber http://www.liberliber.it/biblioteca/g/galilei/lettere/html/lett08c.htm, also from IntraText http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ITA0188/_PQ.HTM.
Variant translation: In questions of science the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
As quoted in Biographies of Distinguished Scientific Men (1859) by François Arago, as translated by Baden Powell, Robert Grant, and William Fairbairn, p. 365
Other quotes
Variant: In the sciences, the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man.
Context: for in the sciences the authority of thousands of opinions is not worth as much as one tiny spark of reason in an individual man. Besides, the modern observations deprive all former writers of any authority, since if they had seen what we see, they would have judged as we judge.

“It is with logic as it is with other sciences. They draw wisdom from the mysterious source of plain experience. Agriculture, e. g., aims to teach the farmer how to cultivate the soil; but fields were tilled long before any agricultural college had begun its lectures. In the same way human beings think without ever having heard of logic. But by practice they improve their innate faculty of thought, they make progress, they gradually learn to make better use of it. Finally, just as the farmer arrives at the science of agriculture, so the thinker arrives at logic, acquires a clear consciousness of his faculty of thought and a professional dexterity in applying it.”

Joseph Dietzgen (1828–1888) german philosopher

Letter 2
Letters on Logic: Especially Democratic-Proletarian Logic (1906)

“Science is a method for testing claims about the natural world, not an immutable compendium of absolute truths. The fundamentalists, by "knowing" the answers before they start, and then forcing nature into the straitjacket of their discredited preconceptions, lie outside the domain of science—or of any honest intellectual inquiry.”

Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) American evolutionary biologist

"An Essay on a Pig Roast," p. 437
Bully for Brontosaurus (1991)

“We have witnessed a revolution in the history of science. Not the sort of revolution that philosophers of science once believed in—they don't happen any more—but a revolution brought about by new tools, different ways of seeing, and novel ways of understanding. Nothing old needed to be overthrown to make way for the new.
The future of science will be increasingly dominated by artificial images and simulations.”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

Preface
Cosmic Imagery: Key Images in the History of Science (2008)

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