The Science of the 1st Person - Douglas Edison Harding

This book is about the heart of religious experience, namely Enlightenment (which is finding the truth concerning oneself), and about science (which is finding the truth concerning other things), and about the relationship between them.

It claims that Enlightenment is more truly scientific than science itself; and that, without Enlightenment, science is only half the story and therefore full of contradictions, of insoluble problems both theoretical and practical. It shows how, when at last one turns one’s attention round and ceases to overlook the Looker––the 1st Person at the near end of one’s microscope or telescope or spectacles––these contradictions are resolved. Some 37 examples are given, taken from such diverse fields as physics, mathematics, semantics, epistemology, and psychotherapy, to show how nothing less than Enlightenment makes sense and works out.

The Reader will find that Enlightenment is not, after all, an unattainable mystery, but perfectly natural and instantly accessible to anyone who carries out the simple test––the basic experiment of the Science of the 1st Person–– which this book describes.

Of Harding’s numerous works, the most comprehensive is The Hierarchy of Heaven and Earth: A New Diagram of Man in the Universe, the best-known is On Having No Head: The Rediscovery of the Obvious, and the most thorough and rigorous is The Science of the 1st Person: Its Principles, Practice and Potential.