Truth in the Form of a Lie
American Zen is running sideways, writing books, lecturing, referring to theology, psychology, and what not. Someone should stand up and smash the whole thing to pieces.
--Nyogen Senzaki[i]
These words could not have been uttered later than 1964, as they're quoted in the works of R.H. Blyth, one of the leading exponents of Zen philosophy of the West, who died that year. One could only imagine what the master Nyogen Senzaki might have to say today about Zen candles, Zen alarm clocks, Zen gardens that come in a box, and so on. Would you like a Zen screen protector? How about the Creative Zen 4GB Digital Player? Or audio treats such as The Zen of Golf, Husker Du's Zen Arcade, or The Zen of Screaming: Vocal Instruction for a New Breed? Those of you who (like my fiancee Nicole) are pregnant might consider a book entitled Zen Mama: Prenatal Yoga. (Actually Nicole has a book called Yoga Mom, Buddha Baby, which almost but not quite fits into this category.) Once it's born, the child might like the Uncle Milton Zen Dolphin.
Not only do you get the picture, but in all likelihood you have long since gotten the picture. This kind of commercialism has become so much a part of the American scene that even to rail at it at this point seems like something between a cliché and a cheap shot. So that is not my purpose. My purpose is to look into something a bit subtler: how ideas that are originally mystical or esoteric make their way into mass culture. How do these ideas get out? And what do such ostensibly terrible things as commercialization and vulgarization have to do with this process?
The best discussion of this issue that I know of appears in a classic work on the spiritual path: In Search of the Miraculous by the Russian philosopher P.D. Ouspensky. Originally published in 1949, it remains a perennial favorite. It tells about Ouspensky's studies with the enigmatic spiritual master G.I. Gurdjieff around the time of the Russian Revolution.
At one point Gurdjieff starts to talk about the work of an esoteric school.[ii] This is a group of people, he says, who have gotten together to achieve a specific undertaking. Gurdjieff does not give any examples, nor does he say what this work might be. If I were to guess, I would say that it usually has to do with elevating the consciousness of humanity at a specific time and place. If I were to suggest some examples myself, I might include the Academy of Plato, which recast the ideas of the Greek mystery schools in the then-newfangled language of philosophy; the Hermetic schools of the early Christian era, which sought to preserve the knowledge of ancient Egypt as its traditions were dying; the cathedral builders of medieval France; the Freemasons of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, who broke the back of spiritual and political tyranny in Western Europe; the Theosophical Society of the late nineteenth century, which reintroduced the wisdom of the East to the spiritually desiccated Western world.
Gurdjieff goes on to say, "When the work is finished the schools close. The people who began the work leave the stage. Those who have learned from them what was possible to learn . . . independently begin in one form or another their own personal work."
But it doesn't always turn out his way. Gurdjieff goes on: "It happens sometimes that when the school closes a number of people are left who were round about the work, who saw the outward aspect of it, and saw the whole of the work in this outward aspect. . . . To continue this work they form new schools, teach people what they have themselves learned, and give them the same promises that they themselves received. But when we look back on history it is almost impossible for us to distinguish where the real ends and where the imitation begins. Strictly speaking, everything we know about various kinds of occult, masonic, and alchemical schools refers to such imitation."
The point is that even these, shall we say, degenerate schools perform a function. According to Gurdjieff, they are the intermediaries between a humanity that is almost entirely immersed in the materialistic life and the higher level of the real schools, whose members have realized some genuine awakening. "The very idea of esotericism, the idea of initiation, reaches people in most cases through pseudo-esoteric systems and schools," Gurdjieff says.
There's a reason for this. People cannot hear "the truth in its pure form," Gurdjieff adds. "By reason of the many characteristics of man's being, particularly of the contemporary being, truth can only come to people in the form of a lie -- only in this form are they able to accept it; only in this form are they able to digest and assimilate it. Truth undefiled would be for them, indigestible food."
There's a lot in this view that cuts against current sensibilities. One is that, contrary to current notions of progress, we are less, not more advanced than our (extremely remote) ancestors; we have lost access to sacred truths that they understood. But of course the biggest objection is that this all sounds terribly elitist. It sounds as if knowledge is being withheld from the masses by self-described adepts who think they're too good to share what they have with the rest of us.
There is good reason to have this kind of suspicion. Over the past couple of generations, people have been waking up more and more to the fact that much of religion has, to quote J. Christ, consisted of "hypocrites" who "neither enter nor let them that are entering enter." In other words, the authorities often don't have much or any spiritual depth, and they're not too eager for you to have it either.
On the other hand, there is elitism and there is elitism. If you are going in for surgery, you have every right to expect that the guy who is cutting you open has the training to do so. You wouldn't say it's elitist to expect this. The same thing is true in the spiritual line.
What kind of knowledge are we talking about here? Here's one example: you are not your conditioning. You are not the sum total of things that you have been told you are by your parents, your teachers, your nasty little friends in the schoolyard, your high-school clique, or anyone since.
In one form or another, the idea that you are not your conditioning is bandied about a lot these days. You see it in practically every movie made for teenagers. The heroine is hemmed in by her parents, her teachers, her friends at school, and so on. In the midst of all these pressures, she eventually learns that she really has to be herself.
Does this sound corny? A hundred years ago it was an esoteric secret, transmitted by an initiation and couched in cryptic language. In a way it is corny. To see this idea on a computer screen or to be exposed to it in a movie is something, but not much; to look into yourself and see your conditioning and how it operates in the moment-to-moment life of your thoughts and emotions is very profound. A good spiritual teacher could show this to you in a way that is shocking without being damaging. This often requires a delicate touch.
Or take another once-esoteric idea: be here now. The Doctrine of the Present (as it's called in certain schools of esoteric Christianity) was long taught and understood, and much of traditional Zen practice is, as far as I can see, designed to further this awareness. For us it has become a slogan. But at least it is a slogan. And it's a better one than many of those that have been hoisted on the banners of causes and parties over the centuries.
Although I started out making fun of Zen chachkas, I have no idea whether the Zen schools as they exist now in this country are "real" schools or pseudoschools. Certainly I have met Zen practitioners who are as serious and dedicated as any. And it has always seemed humorous to me that this rigorous and ascetic tradition has come to be equated with a laid-back slacker attitude ("He's really Zen about it").
The point I'm making is not about Zen as such, but rather that these ideas leak into the mass culture in the form of cliches, slogans, and trinkets. As Gurdjieff said, they have to.
There is one little detail that complicates matters a bit. Supposedly there are the enlightened masters and the endarkened masses of mankind. Supposedly. But as a matter of fact, each of us has both of these levels in us. There is a part of the mind that is illumined (the problem is that the conscious mind usually isn't in touch with it). There is also a part of the mind that isn't illumined; it's naïve and mechanical. It only takes seriously what it can see and feel and touch. It may not like meditation but it may warm at the sight of a sacred picture or even a crystal. Yet this part of the mind is just as necessary to our functioning as are higher levels of consciousness.
Which all means, I suppose, that there's no reason to chide yourself for your collection of sacred crystals and feathers or to throw away your Zen alarm clock. Who knows? You may find one day that it wakes you up in more ways than one.
Photo by Guillermo, courtesy of Creative Commons license.
Richard Smoley's
latest book is Conscious Love: Insights from Mystical Christianity. He is editor of Quest Books and
executive editor of The Quest magazine.
His Web site is www.innerchristianity.com.
[i] Quoted in Zen: Selections from R.H. Blyth, ed. Frederick Franck (Torrance, Calif.: Heian, 1978), 235.
[ii] P.D. Ouspensky, In Search of the Miraculous: Fragments of a Forgotten Teaching (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1949)
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Comments
onecheekmooning at your point,how many fingers am I holding up?
your best so far........t
nice
"we have wandered eternal through mazes of crystallized thought that was planted in the visions the cave painters saw"
very nice.
in reaction to the article,
i often get offended when people who knew me back in the day talk to me and hear me talk about my music, they sometimes accost me for falling for "new agey shit", so to speak. i finally decided to start asking them what they mean by that phrase, not defensively, but simply as if i were confused and aloof to it. the christians largely seem to be upset with the self-serving nature of it. some may acknowledge after much discussion that the path of christ was the symbolic death of ego (as d.p. argues so matter-of-factly), but others may presume that humans have no agency.
certainly i will not budge from my humanism, but yet their perspective makes sense as well. they're fed up with the oprah-mongering commercialization of esoteric and eastern concepts, they just don't know it!
yet if they encountered these concepts on their own terms, rather than through the guise of a simulacrum way down the production line, they might just make sense to them on a personal day-to-day level.
people gotta upgrade the grey (alien?) matter...cuz one day it may matter! -deltron
on that Oprah note, because i think it may provide an interesting prompt to this article, really i see the view that the ego is evil to be a trick played upon us to keep us in our slumber---we must integrate and mindfully use the ego to help others, not just ourselves:::: we must dream.
oh, but dream?
dream? do we remember our dreams?
flouride in the water and toothpaste makes you C::rest while you're "awake" and i must go to sleep now. thanks trader joe's for the natural toothpaste.
the link below will play music in a separate window :o)
sundream2012.com
::wanderlust::
knowledge and elitism
Hi Richard,
Thanks for the thoughts. I am a huge admirer of Gurdjieff as filtered through other writers especially Ouspensky and JG Bennett (Gurdjieff: Making a New World is a masterpiece). Gurdjieff directly addresses the question of knowledge and elitism. He notes that knowledge of truth or reality is available to all, but most people don't even want the little bit that is their natural share. He also makes the very interesting and somewhat strange claim that knowledge is, in itself, a form of material, and there is only so much to go around. Therefore, those few who pursue it diligently are able to benefit from the fact that most people ignore and even avoid any access to esoteric knowledge, which liberates more of this material for the self-selected few who do want it.
I am also very intrigued by Gurdjieff's notion that your level of knowledge and your level of being are inextricably linked - that you have to attain a different level of being in order to access a different level of knowledge. I think this is true, and the purpose of any initiatory path. Most people in our culture are trapped in a dualistic, rationalized level of understanding, and would have to undergo an inner process of transmutation to reach a nondual realization.
How do you feel about Eckhart Tolle's work in regards to your thesis that esoteric ideology can become a new kitsch belief system? Or Ken Wilber/Andre Cohen? As I wrote elsewhere, I am persuaded by Slavoj Zizek's notion that "Eastern New Age-ism," Tao-ism, etcetera, has become the underlying ideology of our current form of post-industrial capitalism, as it allows people to feel detachment and remove from the predations and manipulations of the global multitude by the financial elite. Any thoughts on that?
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
you ask for thoughts, I give you....
Richard Smoley
Regarding wanderlust's post: I hope your Christian friends are not razzing you about New Age commercialism, because there are few religions that have been as flagrantly commercialized as Christianity, back to the days of selling indulgences.
Regarding Daniel's comment: yes, Gurdjieff did say that your level of knowledge must be parallel with your level of being. I think he said this in a prescriptive and not a descriptive way: i.e., your level of knowledge can indeed outstrip your level of being, but this is a bad situation and had better be avoided. If I remember correctly (and I don't have his books to hand), he also said that civilizations in the past had perished because of this imbalance.
The pop versions of enlightenment? I'm not a huge fan of Eckhart Tolle, but I would say that "The Power of Now" is probably the best of all pop New Age best-sellers. And I couldn't possibly have as high an opinion of K. Wilber and Andrew Cohen as they appear to have of themselves.
Zizek--perhaps this is an off-the-cuff remark, but what does he think he is doing with his own farrago of postmodern babble? We are supposed to take that seriously, I suppose. But to my mind it sounds far more self-indulgent than a heap of New Age self-promoters put together.
Zizek
Good point on Zizek. He seems deeply confused and caught in the mire like a lot of post-structuralist Leftist academic types. However he does have a few interesting insights from time to time.
I asked Zizek, after a talk, about whether he saw any value in meditation, and he pointed out DT Suzuki's writings that justified militarism and military atrocities as an expression of Zen philosophy. Suzuki was a major inspiration for the growth of Zen in the US (studied by the Beats, etc), so this is interesting.
Here is a bit form an online source that looks into Suzuki's support for militarism via Zen philosophy:
Fresh on the heels of the Japanese victory in the Russo-Japanese War
the year before, in 1906 D.T. Suzuki wrote an article "The Zen Sect of
Buddhism", where he claimed credit for Zen, for Bushido's military
prowess in the field:
| 'The Lebensanschauung of Bushido is no more
| nor less than that of Zen. The calmness and even
| joyfulness of heart at the moment of death which
| is conspicuously observable in the Japanese, the
| intrepidity which is generally shown by the
| Japanese soldiers in the face of an overwhelming
| enemy; and the fairness of play to an opponent,
| so strongly taught by Bushido -- all these come
| from the spirit of the Zen training, and not from
| any such blind, fatalistic conception as is
| sometimes thought to be a trait peculiar to
| Orientals.'
As usual, no one shuns association with victory. Later, in the midst
of the Chinese campaign, Suzuki describes the connection between Zen
and Bushido in "Zen Buddhism and Its Influence on Japanese
Culture" (1938):
| 'Zen discipline is simple, direct, self-
| reliant, self-denying; its ascetic tendency goes
| well with the fighting spirit. The fighter is to
| be always single-minded with one object in view,
| to fight, looking neither backward nor sideways.
| To go straight forward in order to crush the
| enemy is all that is necessary for him.'
|.
| 'Zen has no special doctrine or philosophy, no
| set of concepts or intellectual formulas, except that it tries to release one from the bondage of birth and death, by means of certain intuitive modes of understanding peculiar to itself It is, therefore, extremely flexible in adapting itself to almost any philosophy and moral doctrine as long as its intuitive teaching is not interfered with. It may be found wedded to anarchism or fascism, communism or democracy, atheism or idealism, or any political or economic dogmatism. It is, however, generally animated with a certain revolutionary spirit, and when things come to a deadlock-as they do when we are overloaded with conventionalism, formalism, and other cognate isms - Zen asserts itself and proves to be a destructive force.'
They clearly found that to be true in Nanking. Particularly in regards
to the beheading practice and bayonet practice against unarmed and
bound civilian prisoners, with Zen chaplains giving coaching on the
proper attitude and technique. Presumably based upon some of Suzuki's
work. This is documented in the tourist photos taken by soldiers which
are preserved in the photo volume "The Rape of Nanking : an undeniable
history in photographs" by James Yin and Shi Young.
Again from Suzuki in the same essay:
| 'There is a document that was very much talked
| about in connection with the Japanese military
| operations in China in the 1930s. It is known as
| the Hagakure, which literally means "Hidden under
| the Leaves," for it is one of the virtues of the
| samurai not to display himself, not to blow his
| horn, but to keep himself away from the public
| eye and be doing good for his fellow beings. To
| the compilation of this book, which consists of
| various notes, anecdotes, moral sayings, etc., a
| Zen monk had his part to contribute. The work
| started in the middle part of the seventeenth
| century under Nabeshima Naoshige, the feudal lord
| of Saga in the island of Kyushu.. The book
| emphasizes very much the samurai's readiness to
| give his life away at any moment, for it states
| that no great work has ever been accomplished
| without going mad-that is, when expressed in
| modern terms, without breaking through the
| ordinary level of consciousness and letting loose
| the hidden powers lying further below. These
| powers may be devilish sometimes, but there is no
| doubt that they are superhuman and work wonders.
| When the unconscious is tapped, it rises above
| individual limitations. Death now loses its sting
| altogether, and this is where the samurai
| training joins hands with Zen.'
Actually, the devilish function of Zen is ever-present (the Mind of
Bodhidharma), but only at critical points is its devilish nature fully
manifested.
| 'The problem of death is a great problem with
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.religion.buddhism.theravada/browse_th...| every one of us; it is, however, more pressing
| for the samurai, for the soldier, whose life is
| exclusively devoted to fighting, and fighting
| means death to fighters of either side.... It was
| therefore natural for every sober-minded samurai
| to approach Zen with the idea of mastering
| death.'
|.
| 'The spirit of the samurai deeply breathing
| Zen into itself propagated its philosophy even
| among the masses. The latter, even when they are
| not particularly trained in the way of the
| warrior, have imbibed his spirit and are ready to
| sacrifice their lives for any cause they think
| worthy. This has repeatedly been proved in the
| wars Japan has so far had to go through.'
|.
| 'The sword has thus a double office to
| perform: to destroy anything that opposes the
| will of its owner and to sacrifice all the
| impulses that arise from the instinct of self-
| preservation. The one relates itself to the
| spirit of patriotism or sometimes militarism,
| while the other has a religious connotation of
| loyalty and self-sacrifice. In the case of the
| former, very frequently the sword may mean
| destruction pure and simple, and then it is the
| symbol of force, sometimes devilish force. It
| must, therefore, be controlled and consecrated by
| the second function. Its conscientious owner is
| always mindful of this truth. For then
| destruction is turned against the evil spirit.
| The sword comes to be identified with the
| annihilation of things that lie in the way of
| peace, justice, progress, and humanity.'
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
zen, not knocking it, ok, I am...
zizek and new age
control and separation
The cure for that, what Eisenstein calls "reunion" or a felt state of "interbeingness", can only come about as a consequence of the inevitable collapse of the program of control and separation. If that's true, the conundrum is that in the meantime it would seem the most radical action to be taken in the face of atrocity is to fully feel the pain, so to speak (as corny and Oprah-fied as that may sound). The feedback loop will always get them in the end (or so I want to believe).
Ideas can go anywhere.
It appears to me that ideas can lead anywhere.
There is no natural progression from, "This idea, therefore, that idea," outside of mathematics.
So how can we say where the seed ideas will go, in the long term?
This is the "irreducibility of culture," making what is effectively free will.
actually...
Oh my
Zen, the finger pointing to the moon...
Mystery Schools
One of Gurdjieff's followers referred to the Fourth Way practice after his death as "eating crumbs from the master's table." The Dances, for example, which under Gurdjieff had been constantly evolving, froze into a set of rigidly prescribed movements that dared not deviate from Gurdjieff's formula -- even though when he was alive he made constant adjustments. This was as it should be: no one really understood them, and his followers had the humility to know not to fiddle around. But eventually they became a shell, a husk. The same applies to the entire Gurdjieffian corpus.
A master is not someone who faithfully applies whatever system has been passed down to him. Stories of Zen transmission actually emphasize this point. There is one I remember where the disciple throws the sacred writings his master has just ceremoniously given him into the fire. A real master innovates, overturns convention even within her own tradition. Imitation masters might overturn convention for overturning's sake, not for the sake of the truth.
This means that there is no external way to recognize a true master. This is what protects people from the truth. They will not even be attracted to it. This is an elitist phrasing. I would rather say, people are attracted to whatever meets their needs and serves their growth at a given time. The very concept of a "true master" as a discrete ontological category is misleading. If you are intent on finding one, you never will. You will only find one if you are looking for something practical for your self-development. If you are looking for a "spiritual master" you will likely find someone who resembles your concepts of what a spiritual master looks like, acts like, or talks like.
I agree with Richard that the fact that "finding yourself" or "the present moment" is even a cliche speaks to the success of centuries of mystery schools. If their purpose is to elevate the consciousness of humanity, they have been successful. Of course there is a long way to go.
Zizen
Richard, I agree with what I think is your point: I'm not convinced the commercialization of Zen or other spiritual disciplines is necessarily a bad thing: to go at it from Gurdjieff's line, there a quite a few people capable of growth who at this point are at a stage of strict consumer consumption. For them to recognize a spiritual discipline, that discipline must somehow sing to them on a consumer level. From that moment at the mall may grow unimagined abilities. A packaged Zen garden may someday inspire 15 minutes of meditation, and so forth. Old tools can be left behind, and there is no reason to fixate on how those lower tools are below our current level of practice.
This Zizek/Eastern New-Age thing got me thinking when you first wrote about it, Daniel. I agree that Zizek sometimes seems to get lost in his own brilliant tangle of thought. He doesn't exhibit the clarity of a Wittgenstein. He seems to revel in confusion. And that's fine. Sometimes he says something wonderful.
My specific thorn-in-thought about Zizek's claim is that the Eastern/New-Age thing doesn't seem well-suited to controlling the populace. How can you control someone who responds to the moment? He is beyond punishment or reward. Yes, these Eastern/New-Age practices will lessen our likelihood of revolt, but it will also make us less likely to commit atrocity--not because we back away from violence necessarily, but because we cannot be driven by the old motives. A solidier might commit atrocity because he seeks a terrible vengeance; Zen puts his rage into perspective. Someone else might commit atrocity, even against his conscience, because of a promise of future reward, a promotion; Zen eliminates the desire for reward. Etc. On a more practical level, Zen may lessen our desire to picket The Gap, but it also makes us less likely to feel a need to shop at The Gap. I think Zizek sees one side but not the revolutionary possibilities of the other.
There is no need to rebel against that which is not perpetuated.
Zizek, Nanking, etc.
I find it curious that Zizek, like so many who lay claim to the Marxist heritage, combines an ostensibly populist and democratic line of thought with a highly elitist and rebarbative discourse. I.e., very few of the disinheritied masses for whose welfare he displays such apparent solicitude could understand a word of what he is saying or writing.
Why? Because if you distilled his ideas into reasonably plain language, they would probably be insightful but also would seem fairly self-evident, and, more to the point, would probably not fill the volumes he has written.
Similarly for most of the postmodernist-deconstructionist authors. The pretentious, obfuscatory language is at least as integral to their message as the substance.
And of course it is true that Zen was used to justify Japanese militarism, just as the Japanese soldiers who were using human beings for weapon practice at Nanking thought they were acting like samurai.
My father was a sailor in the U.S. Navy in China in the '30s. He seemed to have seen something of the Rape of Nanking. I don't know what he saw or did not see. All he said was that he thought he would never sleep again.
There is to my mind only one lesson to be drawn from all this, and it's hard one. To resolve to keep one's own sanity and decency and humanity at times of mass insanity. To judge from history, this is extremely hard to do, whether you are an ordinary slob or a Zen master.
postmodern theory gobledygook
Hi Richard,
Yes I agree that it is absurd writers who pretend to be political radicals or Leftists write such contorted, jargon-riddled prose that they entirely alienate normal people. I don't understand this at all.
What do you think of Antonio Negri? Like Zizek, his prose can be complex. Yet I also find straightforward political ideas in his book that are deeply transformative and powerful.
"Will the transformation."-Rilke
Gosh darn this American Zen! My way is the TRUE way!
For Specialists Only
What does the former editor of Gnosis magazine have to do with leftist authors? Surely, cj, you're not suggesting that one should have MADE A SPECIALTY of studying leftist authors before one dare comment on them. Because that would be terribly, terribly elitist.
Actually, Daniel, I haven't read anything by Antonio Negri, so I would definitely fall in the "no opinion" category on that one.
As for the rest: the whole point of the article was that commercialism is always going to be with us. It is neither good nor bad in its own right. It is a way of entrance to more profound ideas for those who want this. For those who don't, they can just click on to some other site or switch the channel or turn the page, or try to get rich using The Secret.
Actually I like The American Book of the Dead, particularly with the original illustrations (not, I think, by E.J). Curiously, I bought a copy of it on September 21, 1976 (I used to write the dates on which I'd bought the books on the inside front cover.) Years later I did an interview with E.J. for the aforementioned Gnosis and brought along the copy for him to autograph. When he did I realized it was 21 years to the day since I had bought the book. For what that's worth...
From True to Truth
When I was younger, I practiced ECKANKAR.
Those were awesome days, full of soul travel, beautiful artworks, high esoteric principles, and a spiritual order.
Over time, I realized it wasn't true, and departed from it. Over even more time, I became a naturalist.
But then I noticed that I was different from other naturalists, secular humanists, atheists, what have you- that there were things that I knew, (Truth,) that they didn't, and when I checked back to the sources of all those differences, I kept finding myself back at: ECKANKAR, ECKANKAR, ECKANKAR. (And other spiritual/metaphysical sources, but this was a big one for me.)
I began rereading older works, and realized, "These people really were spiritual pioneers, explorers," and so on. They were making legitimate esoteric explorations and discoveries, (into virtue, into the nature of life, into the space of possibilities, into other ways of experiencing, thinking, and living,) even though they weren't really doing the things they thought they were doing (telepathy, talking with historical figures, visiting Venus, what have you.) And I realized just how hard it was to get through to naturalists, about these Truths, which are true regardless of whether we're naturalists or not-- the language just is not there.
So I see the point about fictions and commercializations and other things, pulling people in. Presently, there's no other way, because the domain is inherently imaginitive and fictive and appealing.
My present quest is to figure out how to guide people (including myself!) from the True to Truth, but without tricks or confusions.
The basis of my present investigations into how to do this, is to re-evaluate the role of the imagination. We seriously and deeply undervalue the imagination as a culture; We denegrate movies, imaginaries, and so on. (This may be changing, see: Rattatouli.)
My basic premise is that Truth is not only Truth, but it's also True, scientifically even.
The reason I i think that this question is so important, is because: Today people think in a scientific way, and they toss out anything that does not meet scientific muster. (Rightly so!) So to reach people today, naturalistic spirituality is of utmost importance. We need to be able to draw a clear, distinct, and unbroken line, from the scientific Truth, to the esoteric Truths.
Nobody has done this. Ken Wilber's a big name, but he goes into fantasy land, too. Most naturalistic spirituality goes into a variety of Buddhism, but never quite gets to Spirit, liveliness, esoterics, imagination, and so on.