I was having a conversation with a friend the other day about the Apocalypse. I was sharing some new and interesting information I’d read about a Swedish biologist named Carl Calleman. Calleman’s theory is that the Mayan calendar traces the evolution of human consciousness through time starting billions of years ago with the birth of our Universe. The end of the calendar is not the end ofthe world, it is the end of the counting, the end of the constant wave mechanicss of change that keep us (humanity) so unbalanced.

Then we got to talking about What the Bleep and the Elegant Universe. My friend mentioned in an offhand way that “pseudo-scientists” are taking over the world.

I was vaguely put off by the idea of pseudo-science. What did she mean, really? Obviously the overt meaning is that scientists who theorize about things we can’t sense (i.e. see, hear, feel, touch, smell) are not real scientists at all. There are physicists talking about string theory (the theory that elementary particles are long strings of light vibrating at different modes like guitar strings), multiverses (parallel universes or alternate realities, in which another you might exist) and, my all time favorite, brane theory (that alternate Universe in which you might live could actually exist upon the skin of one of those vibrating strings mentioned earlier). But these physicist’s ideas are all mathematical. They are squiggles on paper. We can’t see them.

Those physicists can’t produce qualitative experimental predictions. Their ideas don’t fit into our Newtonian mechanistic view of the world, a view that appeals to our logical mind. We like things that are categorized. We want to know the Latin name because when we know it we can put it away and we don’t have to think about it anymore. (Plus, it’s fun to impress people on hikes.) There is a lot to think about these days, after all.

But really, is it so unusual to want to see what you are being asked to believe? Is it so unusual to want predictable procedures or to be able to feel like you understand what is going on around you? In order for this order to exist, there needs to be policy, a predictable path from the hypothesis to the conclusion.

We live in a world where our inclination is to want to break down our surroundings into understandable (i.e. controllable) bite sized portions. But science is moving further and further into what reads more like the table of contents in a science fiction novel than a text book, asking us to make a wild leap of faith into accepting that our reality is no more than a vibration in a matrix of time and space.

In 1676 Antonie van Leeuwenhoek, an uneducated Dutch tradesman, discovered a relatively simple way to make a microscope lens that could, with great patience and ample curiosity, magnify a specimen 200 times its actual size. Using his tiny glass lenses, Leeuwenhoek was the first to observe single-celled organisms. Imagine the shock and skepticism that must have transpired in the minds of the Royal Society when this fabric merchant began sending them letters describing the antics of the “very little living animalcules, very prettily a-moving,” moving through the “white matter, which [was] as thick as if ‘twere batter,” between his teeth “like a pike does through the water.”

Despite the fact that he had previously enjoyed a reputation as a credible observer with the Royal Society, Van Leeuwenhoek found himself thoroughly maligned after describing these animalcules. It took four years, a team of dedicated jurors and doctors, and an English vicar to see Van Leeuwenhoek’s observations vindicated.

Perhaps the answer is simpler than it first seems.

Rumi said “the middle path is the way to wisdom.” Some wise Egyptian said “one foot isn’t enough to walk with.” John Donne says that “reason is our soul’s left hand, faith her right.”

Ian Xel Lundgold, a great teacher within the Mayan mysteries, said that creation (time) is speeding up as we approach the end of the Mayan calendar. Things are happening faster and faster as we move forward on our three-dimensional time line. The only way to stay focused in a world that is moving so fast, said Ian, is to be like a gyroscope. An odd, but fitting metaphor, in that a gyroscope is more balanced the faster it spins. Sometimes, when you don’t know which way to turn, keeping it in the middle is the best option.