I said last time I would explore some of the references I discovered over the years that lend support to Johnann Grander’s work, and I will at some point, but I find myself drawn in this moment to reflect generally on what I’ve termed a feminine science. For me this notion is not about the physical gender of its practitioners; nor is this series intended to suggest that everything feminine is good and everything masculine is bad. But one without the other leads to pathology. This is what I wish to explore.
When I worked with Grander® Technology, it was not uncommon to be told something like this: “I already know there is nothing to investigate, because what you’re telling me violates the laws of physics.” There are many, many, many problems with such a statement from my perspective, but I would like to summarize them as concisely as possible in a way that will help us explore this concept of a feminine science. My summary would be as follows: our science has marginalized life.
Somehow we’ve created a system of thought in which Life itself just doesn’t fit. There’s something in the concoction of concepts to which we adhere that is labeled as “life”, that comes into the picture relatively late, but by then it is this watered-down intellectual gruel—a head-scratching phenomena defined by six or seven attributes that are all “explained” by the law-abiding dynamics of the utterly lifeless blips, blaps and squiggles that are “real.” As much as I’m fascinated by what the blips, blaps and squiggles have been shown to do in certain circumstances, I’m not at all of the opinion that this is a balanced view of the universe in which we find ourselves.
One can make a career out of perhaps the most fundamental of modern sciences—physics—and never once connect the work that is done to Life. Yes, I’ve chosen to capitalize Life at this point, because the Life I am speaking about—Life in its wholeness, on its own terms—must be distinguished from the loosely bound superposition of concepts to which it has been reduced by modern thought. Life is not a bag of tricks. That aside, my statement stands regardless of one’s stance on the value of Life. One can make a career in physics without mentioning life in any of its forms. To me, this is not only absurd, it is a pathology with destructive consequences.
I’m not one for throwing the baby out with the bathwater, so let me say that I agree with every fiber of my being that there is a place for quantification and analysis of phenomena. Let’s suppose that such is the virtuous expression of a masculine science. Johann Grander performed thousands of experiments, and while I wasn’t in the room, I believe he was a very careful, astute, and methodical observer of his inputs, outputs and controls. In the grand scheme, it’s not a bad thing to be able to calculate how much force a reinforced concrete slab can carry before it fails. It’s not a bad thing to understand how much thrust a jet engine can produce, or how to keep airplanes in controlled flight. It’s not a bad thing to understand how particular metabolic pathways in organisms are affected by disease. But it’s a bad thing to elevate these technical successes at the expense of our awareness that everything we do is rooted in Life.
This is where the masculine tendency goes too far, in my mind, and becomes pathological. This analytical tendency of human thought must be balanced by the virtue of feminine science, which is a receptivity to, awareness of, and appreciation for the reality of Life itself. In the most profound form of which I am aware, this receptivity is nothing short of a wholehearted relationship with Life itself, through which human consciousness becomes a vehicle for insight, intuitive discovery, and direct contact with the wholeness of Life. In a simpler form, it is simply the acknowledgement of context, of the bigger picture in which our analytical efforts take place.
To be clear: what’s absent from our science today is the feminine aspect of human consciousness. Modern scientific thought is closely related to, and the product of, our fragmented human consciousness. It is my opinion that we have quite literally abandoned a portion of our own being in the processes that have led us to the position we find ourselves today. It is not that every specific scientist has done this, or that all human beings who are scientists fit a certain mold. That is patently false. We’re all in this collective vantage we’ve fabricated together, and many have made astonishing breakthroughs via moments of receptivity and insight, but we see the pathology in the fact that they’re not allowed to discuss this inherently personal element of their work. We see the pathology in the fact that it’s “not scientific” to do so.
I want to close this post by returning to the notion that Johann Grander’s technology violates the laws of physics. Really what is conveyed by this statement is that his work is nonsensical when placed into the context and vocabulary of the modern scientific paradigm. This is because he has started with an appreciation for Life, and acted upon his insights into the relationships that form the heart of the natural world. It doesn’t matter that he can’t predict how individual electrons will behave when isolated from all other particles and blown to bits in magnetized tubes. The quintessential experiments of modern science are profoundly interesting, but they are the study of tigers in cages, of cells not only dead, but dyed, of elements stolen from their natural domain and forced to perform on our sterilized stages. Such experiments can only yield a partial understanding; they can never recover the whole. The sad, but simple truth is we don’t even know what we’re looking at in these dazzling displays.
The inability of a profoundly simply technology like Johann Grander’s to be perceived without threat, much less appreciated at a basic level by a great many people, shows the extent to which the predominate mindset in which we live and work has been insulated from the feminine element of human consciousness. And this has occurred to our great loss as a world community. Certainly there have been gains, but the costs are more profound than I think we generally realize.
(I’d like to note that I’ve focused on Johann Grander’s work because I’m personally familiar with it, and because I think it is a profound example of what is possible. In my life it has served as an intriguing reference point in thinking about these topics, and has provided a vehicle for encountering different viewpoints and perspectives. The aim here is not commercial. If you want to refute the notion that all crows are black, it’s probably good to have a white one on your shoulder.)