The Twelfth Insight - James Redfield [9]
The skeptic was directly across from me, busy fueling his own vehicle. Finally, he spotted me and laughed out loud.
“Well, it’s the lover of coincidences,” he said. “What a Synchronicity this is!”
“Maybe,” I said. “We passed you back on the freeway, and we turned around to talk to you.”
I couldn’t quite believe that I had started off that directly, but it did seem to help me stay centered.
“And what do you think we have to talk about?” he asked.
His tone was sarcastic, yet semifriendly, and I suddenly realized he was speaking in the jousting style favored by scientists, a mode of talking that is more like a friendly debate. The key element of this style is to take great care not to inadvertently confirm some idea or theory held by the other party. In the world of Science, to affirm a colleague’s position is never something to be taken lightly. It has to be earned. So the idea is to be very skeptical at first and to check out whether the person is carrying the proper scientific attitude.
If the other party crosses the line and takes a position that is poorly thought out or too speculative, then the conversation is over immediately. On the other hand, if the other person is being logical and tentative with his pronouncements, then the debate can go on. I had always thought communicating in this manner was boring and time consuming, but I knew I could do it.
“I don’t know,” I replied, “whether we have anything to talk about or not. I guess we’ll have to see. I’m trying to make contact with the woman we saw back at the Pub. She was talking about an old Document, and I noticed you speaking with her outside, later. Did she tell you where in Arizona she was going?”
“What’s your interest in this document?” he asked guardedly.
“I’m interested in what it says about spirituality.”
He looked at me sharply. “You think it’s going to confirm your ideas about Synchronicity?”
“The part we have has already done that.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t give this kind of writing too much weight. The best it could do is add to our knowledge of some ancient people’s mythology and superstition.”
“Yeah, but you can compare what it says to your own experience and go from there.”
“In order to do what?”
“To identify phenomena to be investigated that may have been missed before.”
He gazed at me questioningly.
“Look,” I said, “I believe that there’s more to the Universe than a strictly skeptical attitude allows into experience. Sometimes you have to bracket your skepticism long enough to fully experience a new phenomenon. Don’t you ever wonder if there is something real and universal behind people’s spiritual experiences?”
He gave me a hint of a smile. I wasn’t convincing him, but I could tell he liked my tact.
“We need Science,” I added. “But we need it to look at everything.”
“What do you know of Science?” he asked, giving me a superior look. “Science is a very precise process where individuals explore and draw conclusions about the nature of the world around them. And its activity is very precise: one scientist suggests that something in nature works a certain way, and other scientists try to refute that hypothesis with other facts they think are true. Slowly, consensus is reached about the issue. In turn, this conclusion about reality is replaced with something that is even more true, and so on. That’s how scientific fact, and the resulting social reality that flows from it, is established. It’s a precise, orderly process.”
He looked away and added, “At least that’s the way it’s supposed to work.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“Well, lately a lot of corruption has happened: moneyed interests such as big pharmaceutical companies and food processors have taken over the medical schools and university departments with big grants, and now they get the results they want from studies. Other industries do the same thing, but health and food are the