What seemed to confuse my friends the most was that I was doing cutting-edge research in seismic geology at the same time that I was having mystical experiences. They took science and mysticism to be mutually contradictory, whereas I found them to be mutually enhancing. Because mysticism is rooted in direct experience of the divine, no faith is involved. Religious faith is based on accepting the validity of the mystical experiences of dead people. The basic contradiction here is that the most profound aspects of mystical experiences cannot be communicated in words. This inherent ambiguity has lead to some serious confusion, argument, and bloodshed. Think of how many Christians have died over the exact nature of Christ's embodiment, the definition of the Trinity, or the correct date of Easter. Most Christian denominations are deeply hostile and suspicious of mysticism largely because mystical experiences have the power to upset the status quo. The last thing they want to see is large numbers of people channeling Jesus. It would spin their tightly-structured theological systems into chaos. In classical civilization, the idea of science as a separate intellectual tradition barely existed, and creative thinkers such as Pythagoras and Aristotle were considered philosophers rather than scientists. Furthermore, in classical civilization, ideas took precedence over observations. What we now think of as scientific disciplines, such as astronomy, chemistry, engineering, natural history, mathematics and physics, all arose within religious contexts. Chemistry grew out of alchemy, astronomy from astrology, physics from natural philosophy. The earliest irrigation systems of Mesopotamia and Egypt were engineered and administered from the temples. For centuries, the precise calculation of astronomical phenomena all over the Mediterranean and Celtic worlds was the province of priests and priestesses. Historically, the divorce of science and religion is a fairly recent phenomenon that gradually took place in the centuries following the Renaissance and took hold with a vengeance during the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Enlightenment. In Europe before the middle of the nineteenth century, it was common for scientific studies to include reference to the Bible for support. The spiritual pursuits of some major scientists, such as Newton's interest in alchemy, have commonly been ignored by academics or downplayed as embarrassing aberrations. Indeed, the extreme reductionist views of some twentieth century scientists are reminiscent of rebellious teenagers who totally reject the beliefs of their parents, in this case the religious cultural matrix in which science originated. The anti-material bias in Western spiritual thought has deep mythological and historical roots: the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis; Platonic idealism; the Zoroastrian belief in the complete corruption of the world by the demon of the lie. Zoroaster (aka Zarathustra), who probably lived sometime before 1000 BCE in what is now Iran, appears to be the originator of a dualistic spirituality tradition that irrevocably divided creation into warring opposites and stifled the turning of the Tao as a consequence. For Zoroastrians, the good side was identified with light and spirit, the evil with darkness and matter. The preference for spirit over matter and light over dark carried over into Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Neoplatonism, Christianity, and Western occultism. In the present day it is an ingrained and unquestioned cultural and ethical paradigm. For example, consider the immense popularity of the Star Wars films of George Lucas. The war between the light and dark sides of "the Force" is a modern retelling of the ancient Zoroastrian myth. Modern totalitarian ideologies such as Nazism and Marxism typically identify light with good and dark as a metaphor for evil, although Marxism is unusual in preferring matter over spirit. This ethical polarization persisted in varying degrees through the Judeo-Greco-Christian-Islamic cultural tradition to the present day, culminating in the current war of culture on Nature by Marxism, capitalism and modernism. One of the most perplexing questions in human history is why science flowered in Christian Europe. Many inventions were made in China and Pagan Europe, but nowhere else than Europe did a systematic program of investigation of Nature appear. One of the principal reasons science flowered in the Christian world is that the rational intellect was highly valued and cultivated. Aristotle's logical methods have been part of the epistemological foundation of western Christianity since the time of Thomas Aquinas (1224-1274). Part of the explanation may also be the suppression of Christian mysticism. Because the impulse to experience the essence of Nature was thwarted in the mystical dimension, it took the avenue of scientific experimentation as an outlet, much like thwarted sexual energy can be used to create religious ecstasy. Science blossomed during the European Enlightenment which was in part a reaction to the religious paranoia of the Burning Times and the Inquisition. Much of the hostility of science toward mysticism is due to conflation of mysticism with organized religion. In addition, science shares in the general hostility towards mysticism as part of the ambient Christian cultural values that it grew out of. Part of the hostility of science towards mysticism is justified. Consider those goofy, ungrounded spiritual types who draw absurd conclusions about physical reality based entirely on channeled information. My geologist side considers most of the New Age stuff about California falling into the sea, Earth changes, photon belts and similar whatnot to be ludicrous, while however at the same time I strive to retain an open mind toward the possibility of new physics. Any religious teaching that contradicts what science knows of the physical realm is suspect until proven otherwise by observations. One of the measures I apply when judging any spiritual practice or religion is how well its average adherents treat the Earth and its creatures. I cannot name one world religion that has passed this test. One of the deeply embedded patterns of history is the replacement of old religions by new ones that are more in tune with the times. Thus the animistic beliefs and animal powers of the hunting and gathering peoples were replaced by the elaborate pantheons of the agricultural communities. Widespread literacy in Classical times facilitated the rise of religions of the Book and the subsequent fossilization of evolving mystical traditions into static sacred texts. In an ironic turn of the Tao, the rational non-mystical thinking fostered by Christian clerics gave rise to science and high technology, which effectively destroyed the stranglehold Christianity had on the human imagination. Now we see atavistic religious practices, such as fundamentalism and Paganism, resurging worldwide in reaction to soulless technological civilization. I suspect that the moral certainty and religious fervor that currently energizes the Christian right will peak shortly after the year 2000, and will be followed by a crisis of faith when their millennial expectations are dashed. Fundamentalism will fail in the end for the same reason it always does: because it is too divisive and mean-spirited to long endure before people react against it and turn elsewhere for inspiration. Eventually the pendulum of politics will swing away from severity and back to compassion. What I foresee, and pray, is that a scientifically grounded mystical pantheism will eventually emerge from the current Pagan revival and provide the spiritual foundation for an ecologically sane global civilization.