THE SCIENCE OF THE 1ST PERSON

Both of these books embody highly original first-person approaches to consciousness. Douglas Harding is in his 93rd year having begun his quest in the 1930s, while Itzhak Bentov was an engineer who died in 1979 and is author of Stalking the Wild Pendulum. The book has been completed by his widow and was published last year for the first time. Harding's book is essentially a series of 37 propositions about 1st person science, systematically elaborated and accompanied by apposite quotations from recognised sages and scriptures. He rightly argues that modern science is valid and indispensable as far as it goes but that it should not be mistaken for the whole and needs to be complemented by the ancient wisdom or SCIENCE-1, the science of the observer. What he calls SCIENCE-3 is the science of the observed in which the individual makes an object of himself. However, as Harding observes, 'he's pretending to be the very opposite of what he really is. No way can he avoid being the 1st Person that demands a science of its own.' Or, as Wittgenstein reminds us, 'we feel that when all possible scientific questions have been answered, the problems of life remain completely untouched.' Before proceeding, the reader is invited to open a paper tunnel in the centre of the book to gain an experience of the third person seen at the other end in the mirror. One has to stop overlooking the 'Aware Emptiness that's your side of these black marks on white paper, taking them in.'

Among the propositions now very directly presented to the reader are that SCIENCE-1 insists on verification, is ultra-analytic, is sense-based, is the discovery of the knowable, is self-righting, is simple, is never boring, is ultra-sceptical, gives the universe meaning, restores the sense of mystery, overcomes time, is practical, is spontaneously applied, diagnoses and treats the specific disease of Man, normalises paranormal phenomena. It is a varied list as one can see. The style is epigrammatic. Under SCIENCE-1 is disinterested, one reads that SCIENCE-3 can bring out humility in the face of the evidence, reverence for the truth, tireless patience and dedication – but then the SCIENTIST-3 is unable to be completely disinterested with job, family and reputation to think of. Here SCIENCE-1 can provide a corrective: 'Nothing is to be gained from Nothing.' The tone is sometimes playful but the content is penetrating: 'while SCIENCE-3 tries to reduce my vast world to something in my head, SCIENCE-1 goes on the reduce my head to Nothing – a Nothing that explodes into Vastness.' The book is best read slowly, one chapter a day, so that one can dwell on the paradoxes.

Bentov's book is also playful, and is illustrated with his own pencil sketches. He operates at both the scientific and the mystical levels, hence combining an understanding of the material world with inner intuitive knowledge or direct cognition. However, he never presumed any universal validity to his insights, commenting that 'I speak from my present level of ignorance. The more you know, the more ignorant you become, because ignorance grows exponentially – the more answers you get, the more new questions arise.' His starting point is that we human beings are part of a larger structure and must somehow contain the information about the universe, information that can be unfolded in the course of spiritual evolution. The picture that emerges from this book is much larger than our current science, but it contains some fascinating pointers to expanded perception through subtle senses and bodies.

The five parts are entitled The Fertile Void, On Devas, Gods and Creators, Beyond the Universe, A Guided Tour of the Universe and Who's Running the Show. His model of the universe is that of 'a hologram or interference pattern in which all parts are interconnected, containing information about each other and thus about the whole universe.' He calls the hologram of information the Universal Mind, so that by projecting one's consciousness into the Universal Mind in a heightened state of awareness one can obtain knowledge about the whole universe. The whole book is a mind-stretching exercise. Here I will mention only two seed ideas for further reflection. The first, related to evolution, is the idea that 'the universe is a machine for the distillation of consciousness.' Consciousness originates in the Creator and is distilled to be raised to a level equal to his own. This struck me as a very fertile idea. Our experiences are themselves transformed in our consciousness so that only a distillation is left over. At death these are distilled into our being, which is essentially what we are and 'take with us'. The second idea is that we reflect the Creator and 'the whole system is designed so that the more a consciousness learns, the more responsibility it gets, and the more troubles go with it, because it has more to control.' Don't we know it!

In answer to the question Who's Running the Show, Bentov reaches the same conclusion as Neale Donald Walsch: 'you are pure consciousness or pure awareness and that is the supreme SELF that has been guiding you through a long and eventful trip back to itself….so you are the Supreme God of the system! At the same time you are the person doing the nine-to-five job, pushing a pencil or driving a truck…we are all part of pure consciousness… which breaks down into units, and each has an awareness of self and thinks he is different from everyone else.' One can't help smiling at this and I for one recognise it as true. Surely this is the same message as Ramana Maharshi and indeed of Douglas Harding. Or Plotinus: 'Remembering is for those who have forgotten.'