Divided Between Worlds: Logic and Spiritual

To whom it may interest or concern,

I am requesting any and all for advice, opinions, help, or even just thoughts on this. I am at a sort of impass, and sitting on a fence that I must fall off before it ends me.


I grew up in a world of magic, mystic, and spirituality. A few years after my birth, my mom awoke and began to explore spiritual practices. Tarot, astrology, myth, spirit, etc. Many new age persuits. I was taught these, and from a young age saw what she saw, and believed what she believed. It explained so much, brought richness to the world around me, and helped foster a very close bond between me and her that still persists today. We are closer to each other than perhaps anyone else we know.

In recent years though, my spiritual view has... collapsed, for lack of a better term. I am a scientist by trade. I am working on a PhD in chemistry. I'm constantly around the scientific world, scientific thought, and since high school I have learned to think critically. It's paramount to what I do, and it has brought me so much clarity to understanding how science, life, and people all work. There is logic behind it all. I have a never-ending quest to seek the truth, the universal whole behind everything. Break down every mirror, glass window, smoke screen, and leave nothing altered or warped from what really is.

In the past year and a half or so (around the time I moved to Oregon), my spiritual sides have been shred to ribbons by my mind. Very little has survived, and I have clung to only small bits for my own safety. I didn't set out to cut everything, it just happened upon my observation. It mostly started when after I moved to Oregon, things failed to gel in my life like the normally have. I came out here under intense stress and I felt it was largely due to that. In hindsight I did reject a few entry points I should have taken. Something just felt missing. I was over-focusing on the real world to fix bad habits I had in years prior. After a few months I fell apart because I wasn't finding much happiness or friendship. I assumed it was a product of grad school which is largely normal.

It was also during this time that I started paying much closer attention to the state of the world, and in particular the atrocities of extremist theological beliefs and they damage they were causing. I was attempting to understand how they really can come to believe this, be so blinded to reason, and be so hurtful. I paid close attention to what belief, and faith is. What it means to make a claim, and how the claim maker has the burden of proof. It was then that I realized... all of my spiritual beliefs failed it too. I couldn't prove it, any of it. It all failed. Any explanation I offered up failed standard rules of logic (and I mean literal, formal logic). Anything and all could be explained by a rational reason that surmized to fit far better than anything spiritual.

I drifted a lot from my spirituality. Synchronicities meant little anymore. I couldn't explain many of them, but by satistics, things can appear to be beyond coincidence on the small scale. Energy and feeling were meerly emotional excitations one has in a moment. We feel it is something greater because we evolved to have those feelings. They're ingrained within us from evolution and the basis of survival. The list goes on and on and on. Nearly everything can and does have a rational explanation behind it. I denied much of it at first, but as time grew on, I took it on more. Those with atheist thought always seemed correct and factual to me; they made sense, and I couldn't hide from it further. In my desire to find truth and honesty, I found it, and I deeply did not like what I have found and learned. It confounded me greatly how so many of them were at such peace with this. I was not finding that peace.

I have been depressed for a long time now, largely since this began many months ago. In the past two months however, it has reached a fever pitch. through recent conversations this is at it's core. This lack of spirituality to me is what's causing this depression, and it's only getting worse. Why? Because life has lost it's magic. Life has grown inexorably harder, harsher, and so less forgiving. If there is no divine order, then my how lucky I have been so far. Too lucky. I have seen how absolutely painfully unforgiving my work has been in chemistry. I have no external help, nothing to save me if I fall. In the past I felt I have, but it was just sheer dumb luck. That will not last forever, and I fear satistics are taking over and it is running out. Those I know who are spiritual could be placing false hope into absolutely nothing, and godallmighty what pain they are going to feel when things don't work out, and I so badly don't want them to feel that. Everything has become dark, bleak, and just...dead. Devoid of life.

I want to go back to my spirituality. I feel that I can't though. I can't unlearn logic though. It quite literally can't be beat, and my mind is a steal trap. It can not forget something just because it doesn't like it. I have seen what strong faith can do to people. Some are fine, but some turn into unwavering fanatics. I can not and will not become that. I can't allow myself. Yet, that seems like it is required for the magic of life to return. I constantly question, and the logic of, what if is ever permeating within me. What if this is wrong? There is so much, too much contingent within faith, and I will always see it.

I'm reaching a point though, where I have to back to faith and spirituality. I feel it is killing me. My motivation, will, energy, drive, everything is slowly dying. There have been too many nights I have gone to bed and do not want to wake up. I genuinely just want to die. End it. If this is all there is, and life is just suffering, why on earth would I want to keep living? I'm having such a hard time seeing what good is on the horizion in the long term if I remain logical and realistic. It truly makes me feel, what is the point? I haven't been able to garner happiness from nearly anything for almost a year now. I may feel it in the moment, but the second I stop, I return back to that low level baseline. It's like I never experienced happiness with what I had done in the first place. The only reason I have still held on to threads of my spirituality, is because it keeps me alive. The fear of, if there IS something else, suicide would doom me to repeat it all. So I go on with exsistence.

How do I get back? How do I get spirituality back? I so desprately and badly want to to be real. I, in many ways, NEED it to be real. I need to be able to communicate with the unseen world around me. Use it to aid in my motions in the right direction. Connect with it, help aid others in the right direction, and ultimately be happy. There's just, so much factually wrong with it, so much wrong information. So many individuals who are wrong, fanatics, or just blinded to reason. I don't know what is right.

I need my spirituality, I need truth, and I need happiness. I need all of them to EXIST. To actually be. I just fear that it is literally impossible for someone like me, someone with a mind like I have, to have all of these.

If you have any advice, opinions or thoughts, please share. I am getting desperate, because with each day it gets harder and harder to move forward. If things keep up par with the course it's been on, I may only have a few years left in me, and I must do something to stop that.


P.S. I attached my natal chart as I know some may request it as refrence anyway.

Spirituality and science is most likely supposed to be combined. For instance, supernatural things such as ghosts and what not can likely be explained by physics but we just haven't gotten there yet. So don't feel like there has to be a separation. The most spiritual shows I watch are shows about the universe and how stars form and die Remember, lightning used to be supernatural...in either case though, lightning still is pretty awesome even though we know how it occurs. You, like many, are on a path of higher spirituality. Not worshiping some abstract deity, but discovering yourself and the universe. And you can absolutely do this through science,

I feel I may not be able to help much on dealing with depression. It was very helpful to me to carry a Green and Red post it around. Any time you are doing something you enjoy or lose time, write it down ont the green post it.
Any time you are doing something you do not like or drains your energy out it on the red one. Then it will paint a picture of what moves you in life.

As for you science, I am a Chemical Enginner so also very logical and data driven in all parts of my life.

I can suggest some books I have found to appeal to my scientific bend of spirituality.

The Astrology File by Gunter Sachs
He studied if Sun sign correlates to marriage or even occupation with data.

The Power of your subconscious mind by Joseph Murphy
Many stories like how the structure of benzene was determined through meditation or listening to your dreams.

Hidden Messages in Water by Masaru Emoto
Studying the impact of positive or negative vibrations on water crystal formation.

The Tao of Physics by Fritjof Capra
How a PHD Physacist saw parallels to Eastern Mysticism

Read about the letter Carl Sagan wouldnt sign onhow why Astromoners saw no scientific force to explain Astrology. Then read up on Quantum Entaglement on how Scientists produced data that directly contradicted their condemnation of Astrology.

I hope this helps, take a break, get lost in nature and find what you love to do that doesn't feel like work.

TheAstrologyCalculator said:

Hidden Messages in Water by Masaru Emoto
Studying the impact of positive or negative vibrations on water crystal formation.

I hope this helps, take a break, get lost in nature and find what you love to do that doesn't feel like work.

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I can highly recommend these, though I've not read the book, read extracts. Though walk in nature, so healing. And water, I just love it with my watery Pisces Moon, river, lake, beach, or pond!

I can't know what you're going though, tautomer, but I can suggest that this will balance out. You may not get back to where you were before, you're going through an inner change of discovery. As you've attached your chart, I feel something to do with your 9th house Chiron and the fact that the midpoint of your Jupiter (faith/belief) and Sun(soul/self)/ Mercury (thoughts/mind) is currently being squared by transiting Chiron (wounding/healing/understanding). No matter what people may say about Chiron, when in hard aspect to a sensitive point in your chart, its hard!! You just have to let it pass through you. You are likely to discover another layer to yourself, I don't know what or how that will be.

What I can suggest, is not to try to get back where you were before. Life is bringing an inner change to you, its a process.

With your 9th house Chiron, your faith/belief, during life may well undergo many changes. Chiron is where we have a deep inner wound or a sense of something not quite right, and we may try to find ways to heal this or integrate this throughout life, different ways and techniques. You may be able to eventually, or even now, help other people discover and understand their own sense of faith or, even, belief in themselves. What you're going through is a part of that learning.

Also the Jupiter return can be a renewal of your Jupiter traits, faith/belief like a new start. Its in the process of happening now. I think, in a way, the Jupiter Chiron transit by square to your natal Jupiter and midpoint mentioned above, is really bring about a crisis in order to find a renewal in those areas.

I can't speak from experience of 9th house Chiron, though a 9th house Pluto currently being squared by Pluto, I frequently explore the subject of faith/belief and spirituality/rationality.

The link is just one, there is much more info out there if Chiron is a 'space rock' that takes your interest.

arent you getting uranus square neptune, neptune sextile uranus in 2013
as well as eventually neptune square mercury...

we have the same outer degree 04,12,13

im looking at this period more in the eye in the middle of a storm.

your actually getting a cross link between mercury, uranus and neptune.

since uranus at 4, mercury at 4, and neptune is going towards 4..


but i guess the saturn period makes you in to a james randi

Not being an astrologer I'm hesitant to post a reply, but I feel like I should mention that I have been through a somewhat similar upheaval. In my case, even with the knowledge of the reality of things that transgress the current scientific paradigms and confound common sense, the Universe seemed so painfully and utterly devoid of any meaning whatsoever - it is more complex than I can elucidate on in this message, but you get the idea. It is the most painful thing imaginable, and you have my deepest sympathies. The feeling is similar to severe depression, but since the psychological source of the anguish is identifiable it would be foolish to call it that; it's more of an acutely-felt existential crisis.

You may have heard, due to your spiritual background, of something called the "Dark Night of the Soul". If I may, I think that your crisis is possibly a signifier that your life path is, in large part, a very spiritual one.

I can't quite put my finger on what helped me climb out of the living hell that you're in now, though I can say that I ended up dropping the temptation to intellectualize experience -- I managed to trust that everything was as it should be, that there is meaning and value to experience and it would reveal itself to me in fullness of time.

I think the aforementioned mind-set allowed the Universe to give me the necessary experiences that would facilitate a "wake-up call", if you will - to shed the out-moded view of the Universe and the divine that I had and grow into something much bigger and better. It was a subtle shift that happened very gradually, though some people experience sudden awakenings during an experience like yours.

If I could give you any other advice, it would be to find someone who you think could understand what you're going through and talk to them - in my case I visited a shamanic practicioner who was also a psychologist, and I believe it was a help. I don't know what this would mean for you, but rest assured that many spiritual-types go through this phenomenon.

If you are capable of it, believe that everything is working out perfectly, what you need to know or have is there and will be revealed to you in fullness of time, even if you don't know what that is yet.

Godspeed, my friend!

http://videolectures.net/nipsworkshops2011_hogg_theories/


this is exactly why there is no data of astrology:

"Cosmology, at the present day, works with static catalogs (of, say, galaxies) and point estimates of fundamental physical quantities (of, for example, two-point functions, on which most cosmological science is based). Next-generation cosmological experiments are looking for ever more subtle effects in larger and larger data sets; they will not provide all the cosmological information of which they are capable unless we can develop probabilistic approaches that transmit as best as possible all the information in the raw data to the quantities of interest (for example, the spectrum of primordial density fluctuations or the mass of the dark-matter particle)."


the astronomical data itself is "point estimates". reducing even the possibility of bridging the gap between astronomical data and geographical data.

starting at that surface-data technique could possibly yield some clues to the symmetry between geographical shifts from astronomical set ups.


it doesnt necessarily have to be a "force" one way to experiment with "pathways" that are constant but evolutionary are for example the particle or atmospheric changes of patterns passing through a spinning bowling ball. its not aerodynamics at this earth-rate, but its really the transgression of how one "force" turns in to another. the ultimate effect of aerodynamics on an organic bowling ball.

there doesnt even have to be an immediate connection in classical terms, but a arche-fossil of how one force shaped the system of "atmospheric forming".

what is inspiring to know is that if the solar systemic forces effect or are superimposed with such intricate things as thoughts it can be expanded to say that all of the galaxies produce an effect on a particular location. since following the solar system out even in a newtonian fashion leads to the spacial interconnection between two galaxies and revolutions around other galaxies or clusters. which means that even in a newtonian fashion the earth life is tied to the entire universe.

i used to believe in straight up hard determinism before "spirituality" except now i think by learning the core challenges of relating once science has "covered over all phenomena" is would be possible to then change our relations. since many of the "ruptures" of human existence are "unconscious" at development levels. this would initiate the next-level of spacial travel as well which would maybe be interpolated and singular.

one still should understand something like aristotles 4 causes when for example seemingly unconnected things such as mercury retrograde happen. how can a computer break down once someone with mercury retrograde natally goes by it during a mercury retrograde.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-causality/


scientific categories might at first become reduced and simple states, but eventually their complexity and interconnection become infinitely difficult to figure out.

the higher abstractions of existence are tied to the combinations of situational reorganizations of phenomenological rendering of simple planes.

that is what spirituality really is when simple planes become phantasmagorical. it could be that it is trying to say something from the other end.

tautomer said:

P.S. I attached my natal chart as I know some may request it as refrence anyway.

Click to expand...

Is that your natal chart or your relocated natal chart?

Thank you all for your thoughtful replies. Even alone just hearing different prospectives is helpful, but some when a step further to suggest reading material. I will look in to them. My life is very busy and I do not have much down time. However I will do my best to write a more detailed reply soon when I get the chance. Thank you all again.

!4C said:

Is that your natal chart or your relocated natal chart?

Click to expand...

That is my birth chart. I do not know how to do relocation charts.

I hear you on being busy.
Amazon just started shipping the documentary "Tarology"
It looks interesting enough that I bought it.
.

tautomer said:

That is my birth chart. I do not know how to do relocation charts.

Click to expand...

On the astro.com's extended charts, select "Relocation Chart" under the "Other Charts" section of the chart type drop down menu. Then set the reference location under the options section.

What do you know about the mathematics of Chaos theory? Chemists are generally not mathematicians. Usually they put a mathematician on any of the science project teams because its easier to teach a mathematician to be a chemist or a biologist than vice versa. My son has a PhD in Nuclear Astrophysics, but his dual undergrad degree in math and physics makes him a physicist who is also a mathematician.

Chaos theory allows us to realize the edge of our logical views of the world. We can take the logic as far as we want it to go,but at some point it simply breaks down in the way the Newton could produce a formula to predict the movement of the Sun and the Moon, but when the earth was added, it was beyond his capability. Things just got too chaotic.

At some point a wider frame of reference overwhelms logic, and spirituality is the only salvation.

I suggest you study Chaos Theory.

tautomer said:

That is my birth chart. I do not know how to do relocation charts.

Click to expand...

Astrodyne Technology, IMO, is way more effective than Astro*Cartography.

I feel the solution lies in your yod. When you come back to the board PM me and let's talk about it. You see, I think your yod really is in the 9th house with it's opposition in the 3rd house. This makes sense from this type of scenario that you are describing. I feel, until you understand the yod and find an outlet for it, you will continue to be depressed. I've been there. The yod apex in the 9th requires something from you! This is most likely a spiritual solution... one of mental discipline. That's where you'll connect your academics and spiritual nature IMO.

Science takes you into your left brain which is logical thinking and takes you OUT OF your right brain which is your creative thinking. So in truth, you are right where you "should" be. When you say your mind is "a steel trap," you see in your own words how far you have traveled into your logical left brain right where science wants you to be. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, it's just what is.

I grew up in a world of magic, mystic, and spirituality.

You ARE in a world of magic, mystic and spirituality. It's just a matter of where you place your perspective.


How do I get back? How do I get spirituality back? I so desperately and badly want to to be real. I, in many ways, NEED it to be real. I need to be able to communicate with the unseen world around me. Use it to aid in my motions in the right direction. Connect with it, help aid others in the right direction, and ultimately be happy. There's just, so much factually wrong with it, so much wrong information. So many individuals who are wrong, fanatics, or just blinded to reason. I don't know what is right.

How do I get spirituality back?

Since you are in your logical thinking, I will explain the facts.

Fact! You CAN NOT get spirituality back!You can't get it BACK because it was never taken from you, and it will never be taken from you.

Fact! Every word you wrote was from your spirit, yet filtered through your current beliefs you have adopted from outside of yourself. So what appears as you "needing spirituality BACK", is really just beliefs that need to be challenged, loosened up, and then those that are detrimental to you, allowed to fall away. You have no idea how much Universal Truth is in the words you wrote.

Fact! The universe responds to thoughts, so anything you focus on, you are saying YES TO. "I need it to be true," will make you a match to situations where you get to continue to doubt that it is true. However, "I know the unseen world is real," will make you a perfect match to proof in your emotions, beliefs and reality that the unseen world is real and interacting with you, and for you, in amazingly syncronistic and infinite ways.

I need my spirituality, I need truth, and I need happiness. I need all of them to EXIST. To actually be.

Fact! How beautiful that you have the perfect recipe to a balanced and magical life!!! Spirituality/Creative right brain + Truth/Logical left brain = a happy, balanced and magical life. Now you just need to filter through every belief you have until you find your own internal, intuitive balance. You will know it when you reach a balanced brain.

You said "I can't unlearn logic." It's not about "unlearning logic," it's about bridging logic and spirit together where they are meant to be. You will feel and see with your mystical and magical spirit as you logically analyze each truth that is before you.

I just fear that it is literally impossible for someone like me, someone with a mind like I have, to have all of these.

Healing is the process of accepting all, then choosing best.

Gregg Braden The Divine Matrix Conference
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9PwFC9TNLL4

Gregg Braden came from the scientific field and now is bridging science and spirituality together like they should be. Gregg has been so healing for me as I have literally consumed every video he has on YouTube as well as every book. I've watched/read them over and over the past few months.

Listen to Gregg's words and feel the energy of the truth you feel in them. Look for your own truth. No one is on your own individual path BUT YOU. What do you believe? A lot of times if you ask yourself, "what do I WANT to believe?" the answer that comes is from your true self. Your higher self knows. You just have to be open to listen.

[FONT=&quot]
Not only is the universe stranger than we imagine, it is stranger than we can imagine - Sir Arthur Eddington[/FONT]

Hi Tautomer,


What you are going through is actually the reverse of what some others go through. They start from a "traditional" or scientific perspective, whose collapse they experience one way or another, then they are "hit" by spirituality and they have to arrive at their own personal "solution". I put it in quotation marks because I don't think of "solution" as something static, it is more like you sort of create your ritual to be able to establish a good working knowledge of your current (and always changing) reality.


I agree with Sagakkan when s/he says that what you need, or what you are waiting for, is a new kind of experience. Maybe you have outgrown a ready-made system, but i do not think switching to another ready-made system is the suitable response, but you are the one to tell. Maybe you should also apply the same logical and factual scrutiny to science as you are to spirituality. Both sides have a lot of chaff to be separated from the seeds.


Any worldview that claims to incorporate the totality of reality, and to have an answer for everything, is a sham, I am sorry to say. No honest person and no honest theory is without limits both in the type of experiences they are able to deal with/incorporate (and what, by definition, is left out) and the extent to which their explanations are valid.


What we call science is actually merely the consensus of the majority of contemporary scientific community. If you don't know what I am referring to, you are lucky. But for some, there comes a point in their "scientific career" when they are confronted by data that is not welcomed by the consensus, and you will see what happens. There's always much more "anomalies" or "erratic data" etc than we are lead to believe, but they are usually dismissed or hidden in small letters and footnotes, etc. Then, one day these data will be accumulated and reconsidered by somebody and if presented at the right time, when there are plenty others in the scientific community who have reasonable doubts, there comes a "scientific revolution" (a.k.a. Kuhnian paradigm shift).

When enough significant anomalies have accrued against a current paradigm, the scientific discipline is thrown into a state of crisis, according to Kuhn. During this crisis, new ideas, perhaps ones previously discarded, are tried. Eventually a new paradigm is formed, which gains its own new followers, and an intellectual "battle" takes place between the followers of the new paradigm and the hold-outs of the old paradigm. Again, for early 20th century physics, the transition between the Maxwellian electromagnetic worldview and the Einsteinian Relativistic worldview was neither instantaneous nor calm, and instead involved a protracted set of "attacks," both with empirical data as well as rhetorical or philosophical arguments, by both sides, with the Einsteinian theory winning out in the long-run

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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift#Kuhnian_paradigm_shifts


Such paradigm shifts do not only shed light on the deficiencies of a given "paradigm" of a discipline, but also on the ultimate inadequacy of any collective worldview that does not give enough importance to individual phenomena/experiences and to the individuals themselves.


As long as something limits you in fully experiencing whatever you are experiencing, whether it is a "scientific" or a "spiritual" worldview, I think it needs to be recognized to be what it is: unnecessary restriction. I believe experience comes first, explanations and theories (if any), come only afterwards.

However deep your
Knowledge of the scriptures,
It is no more than a strand of hair
In the vastness of space;
However important appears
Your worldly experience,
It is but a drop of water in a deep ravine.

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Tokusan



Like Zarathu, I also wanted to mention chaos theory... particle physics is another interesting topic, imo, that can help you put science into perspective. But I am pretty sure you would find strange contradictions or elusive details in your own field, as well.


peace,


T.