ABSTRACT
One can accomplish studies of just about anything from an empirically based, positivist stance. Most scientists operate in the context of disciplines, just as most academics and scholars do. This positivist approach has infected much of social science as well, leaving the impression that all or the only valid knowledge is that drawn from empirical, mathematical, or logical deduction. Despite wide cultural differences, there seems to be some sort of universality to the ways of the shaman. The differences also pointedly indicate that there is no one "right" way to be a shaman. In biological systems, new understanding about how genes work suggests that genes and environment interact to create the characteristics of an individual—not that the gene alone determines what those characteristics will be. Physicist Fritjof Capra and co-author Pier Luigi Luisi comment on the empirical nature of both physics experiments and meditative insights.
