ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Spiritualism and Magnetism Scientific Bases of Spiritual Phenomena Historical Aspect While making statement of case in the first chapter, we have pointed to the Western thinkers’ averse rather hostile stance towards spiritualism and our pseudo scholars’ blind submission to the Western scheme of thought.

We also need to look at the historical aspect of the problem to acquire and facilitate a better comprehension of the scientific bases of spiritual experience. This is an undeniable historical fact that since the time of ancient Greeks, Eastern thought has played a vital role in the development of Western philosophies and psychologies. This intellectual influence on Western mind reached its zenith during Renaissance period.

With the advent of natural sciences, however, the positivistic approach dominated Western science and philosophies and the intellectual West drifted away from the Eastern psychologies and study of transcendence. A quotable instance is that of Plotlines who felt influenced by Persian and Indian philosophies. He, in his reflex action, left a deep impact on Christian mystics, which continued for centuries. He profiled a world of experience beyond the bonds of sense-reality.

He offered the doctrine of divorcing the sensuous experience to transcend self-awareness, time and place and achieve the state of ecstatic union with God. This doctrine formed an essential ingredient of Christian psychology. Later, engendering a controversy between science and religion, the progressive thinkers of science-age regarded the mystic aspects of religion as outdated, unscientific and based on ignorance and lack of education.

The custodians of religion also took an aggressive stance of which Galileo became an exemplary figure. The gulf then could never be abridged. The empirical intellectual culture in the West rejected the Eastern philosophies and psychologies, disregarding them of any import in the new materialistic scheme of things. After this fall, however, there was a revived inclination towards Eastern thought in nineteenth century. There are numerous factors responsible for this shift in the Western stance.

One of these factors is the fact that the Western psychologies ignored a large range of experience that happens to be an inevitable and dynamic part of our life. This tilt towards spiritual experience is revealed through writings of some leading psychologists of that age. A Canadian psychiatrist R.M.