ABSTRACT
The chapter analyses a psychological phenomenon indicating that certain kinds of magical causality, such as ‘participation’ and ‘direct Self over matter’, leaked into the concepts of modern physics and cosmology. Recent psychological experiments have shown that modern rational adults subconsciously believe in the supernatural. At the same time, philosophical and psychological studies have revealed that there exists a deeply rooted link between magical and scientific types of thinking. Magical thinking operates at the level of the subconscious through symbolic images, where it generates draft ‘theories in the making’; scientific thinking filters these draft theories and selects those that are in concord with ‘objective reality’. The criteria used for this selection are empirical verification via experiment and compliance of a theory with the general context of available knowledge. As physical science stepped from the observable world into the micro and mega worlds, empirical verification of certain theoretical ideas through experiment became impossible. The remaining criterion – compliance with the general context of available knowledge – is a lot ‘softer’ than empirical verification. As a result of this ‘softening’ of the border between magical and scientific thinking, the subconscious belief of modern people in the supernatural filtered through into the very heart of physics – its theories about the origin and structure of the universe.
