That is not the case, although it is true that textbooks are revised every couple of years just to keep pace with new knowledge. The fear I often hear expressed is that these ‘new’ ideas cannot be real because we’d have to throw away all of our textbooks and start over again. It is often imagined to be a regression to the past, or a veiled revival of religious ideas (as in ‘intelligent design’). However, much of the resistance is due to a misinterpretation of what post-materialism means. Also, the engines of modern civilization rely on materialism, so the status quo (meaning existing power structures) will strenuously resist any shift. That said, materialism as such isn’t going to go away any time soon, because as a doctrine it’s far too successful. Society decides what it finds interesting, and those interests are strongly modulated by fads, fashions, politics, and pragmatics. These same interests in Myers’ and James’ time were suppressed for nearly a century by both the mindless embrace of behaviorism in psychology, and by two world wars. Over the past five decades, when you look at the number of scientific, scholarly and popular conferences on consciousness, and the renewed interest in the scientific study of meditation and psychedelics, you can see a massive shift under way. Paradigm shifts are difficult to see when you’re in the midst of one.
Has the long-awaited paradigm shift not happened because of weak evidence, or institutional and psychological resistance?ĭean Radin, chief scientist, Institute of Noetic Sciences I asked some of the leading figures in the field of transpersonal psychology and empirical spirituality. What happened? How come, one hundred and forty years later, we are still eagerly awaiting this ‘paradigm shift’, like cult members awaiting the end of the world? It would be widely accepted that our minds are not confined to our bodies, that they can connect with one another in telepathy, that they survive the death of the body, and that that they are connected to a higher consciousness or Atman. Many SPR members believed it would not be long before the 200-year-old materialist paradigm would be replaced by a new idealist paradigm, in which consciousness would be recognized as the foundation of all things. They laid the groundwork for what became transpersonal psychology, and the empirical spirituality one finds everywhere today - in the science of mindfulness, for example, and the science of psychedelics. They also gathered evidence for telepathy (a word coined by Myers), hypnotic healing, precognitive dreams and many other phenomena that did not fit neatly into the materialist paradigm. Its members - which included William James, Arthur Conan Doyle, Frederic Myers and, later, Gerald Heard - achieved some remarkable results, including establishing the idea of the subconscious (or ‘subliminal self’), and beginning to investigate the effects of meditation. The SPR sought to take an open-minded, empirical approach to unusual phenomena like telepathy, mediums and ghost-sightings. As the incoming data seemed to suggest, perhaps this will occur more so for the employer than the employee.One hundred and forty years ago, a remarkable group of Victorian thinkers came together to form the Society for Psychical Research. Therefore, from a psychological perspective, all these elements indicate that transitioning to a new idea of the remote workplace as the norm will be met with difficulty and resistance.
It will be confronted and resisted by those who perhaps prefer the old way, or need the office for social interaction, or simply do not trust that employees can be motivated to work away from the watchful eyes of a manager. As with many scientific revolutions that break long-held concepts, the remote workplace is also a psychological paradigm shift of seismic proportions. Long-held beliefs are not easily relinquished. It is a structural revolution in how we think of ourselves as employers and employees. Remote work reflects a “Kuhnian” paradigm shift. The post-pandemic remote worksite, one that is no longer a forced necessity, will present employers and employees with challenges.