ABSTRACT
Few would now deny that we in the West have lost our sense of meaning; that the old symbols and ceremonies that once carried us into and beyond ourselves to a world of numinous significance no longer perform their function. This loss has been hailed by some as a liberation from delusion, by others as a tragic loss of sense of destiny. Scientists on the whole have seen the process as a release of man's consciousness from subservience to false gods and a turning towards the truth. The gods have been revealed as fraudulent because they are seen to be projections of man's psyche, not external beings at all. The truth can be discovered, according to current scientific consensus, only by a total withdrawal of all psychical projections on the world and a pure perception of natural phenomena, uncontaminated by psychological, subjective elements. Someone or something capable of pure perception of this kind defines the ideal scientific observer, the disinterested spectator, the witness of objective truth.
