The Arkana Dictionary of New Perspectives [antikvár]

PrefaceDeference to the Chinese classic, the i ching', forbade my calUng this 'A Book of Changes', but if the title had been available it would have been apt. There are on the one hand events that change the world, and on the other hand there are fundamental changes that may or may not manifest in specific events, and while the former are the staple of orthodox historical study, the latter are often too indeterminate and fugitive for the historian's attention. It is with such changes that the present book is primarily concerned. They are more often changes in our perceptual, mental or experiential perspectives upon the world than in the world itself Such changes are not always equatable with or determined by the advent of something new, or by progress in science or technology. They may consist as much in rediscovery as in discovery, in shifts in human priorities and purposes as much as in increments in knowledge or power, in image change as much as in material change. Change is of its nature a time-related concept, and we are accustomed to thinking of it in terms of progress, of the future coming into our world and our lives and requiring us to accommodate to it; but it may equally come from the past, from the wealth of knowledge that has accrued from man's experience of and endeavours in the world. New perspectives open up in both time directions.This preamble is by way of explaining what some will consider the incoherence of this book, the incompatibility of some of its subjects, the juxtaposition of science with so-called pseudo-science, of approved orthodox ideas and subjects with speculative cultic alternative ones. The idea that science should consort with esotericism psychology with parapsychology, orthodox medicine with alternative medicine, the established culture with the counterculture that seeks to subvert it, is still for many people heresy or sheer humbug. Oddly, though, it is not so heretical to propose that significant changes are often engendered by such seemingly mismatched couplings. To look at something from a different perspective, to throw light upon it from an unusual angle, is known as lateral thinking', and is respectable. For orthodoxy, heterodox perspectives are all right as vantage points, or goads to creative thought, but not to be taken seriously as subjects in their own right. That some of them are so taken in the present book will no doubt give offence and draw predictable criticism. Parapsychology, for instance, is still widely regarded as a crank science, and the phenomena it deals