ABSTRACT
In the midst of and in the wake of 1960s activities of radical activists, hippies, and yippies and a “journey to the east” there was a burst of interest in the idea that there are parallels, analogies, and convergences between modern physics and ancient mysticism. “Parallelism” is a recurring strategy in the history of intellectual struggles. It is also a reaction to the degeneration of adaptability that accompanies establishing sociocultural niches. The parallelism of the 1960s-1970s. signaled by the publication of Fritjof Capra’s The Tao of Physics (1975), carried a potential for stimulating revolutionary changes in science and society; at the same time, it was a reflection of social forces fostering such changes. On the one hand we have to explore this phenomenon with the unmasking, debunking, and demystifying tools of critical sociology and anthropology and do this in a comparative historical perspective. On the other hand, we need to consider a conjecture on the evolutionary significance of parallelism. The Capra thesis has continued to echo across the millennial divide, so it is still necessary to address this thesis and adjust it to fit the view through the lens of a sociologically grounded critical realism.
