The cosmos remained interestingly mysterious...

The cosmos remained interestingly mysterious, but was regarded spiritually meaningless. A traditional science such as alchemy was “reduced to a chemistry in which the substances had lost all their sacramental character.”44 Hence, traditional science’s study of relatively high orders of reality was exchanged for the mere study of the manipulation of matter in its own plane.45 In other words, science regressed into a strictly empirical and moral-free study of only the superficial aspects of the physical.

Thus, the symbolism used by Native-Americans in their understanding of their natural environment, the symbolism used by Babylonians in their studies of the cosmos, the symbolism used by alchemists in their experiments of alchemical substance, were all substituted for a shallow perception that now helps fuel the superficial materialist mentality prevalent in the world today.

The natural environment lost its symbolic significance in the eyes of the prevailing majority in science; it became simply regarded as physical property available for exploitation and consumption.

Even though modern science has the ability to provide certain kinds of information, it denies itself the interpretation of that information on any level other than that of the physical.46 This strictly logical positivist approach may not have been an issue had there not been obstacles placed against the interpretations of others.

In consequence to such obstacles, the world is provided with superficial facts regarding the many uses of the environment, but not the symbolic significances of such facts. Such symbolism had multiple interpretations from varied perspectives, but are now all forgone. Humanity therefore loses a great esoteric cosmological understanding in substitute for a virtually never-ending attempt to satiate worldly desires.

The practical significance of this is that a tree today can be used for the production of paper, pancake syrup, and other consumer goods, but it is generally no longer a studied entity of harmonious purity-let alone an instrument of enlightenment and transcendence. Despite Islamic philosophy’s criticisms of modern science, Muslim governments of the East have openly welcomed it into their countries with great expectations.

Given certain factors within this reception, regardless of such high expectations, these countries can ultimately only achieve bittersweet-and mostly bitter-results.