Aldous Huxley had some thoughts on this in "The Doors of Perception" and I'm not sure the author of that very perceptive book "Brave New World" (for me even more on the ball than 1984)can automatically be dismissed as a complete nutter.

Not sure I fully understand it.

There are certainly strange examples of inspiration from visions,for example,
Srinivasa Ramanujan(an Indian mathematician)credits his mathematical findings to the Goddess of Namagiri. According to Ramanujan, she appeared in his visions, proposing him mathematical formulae which Ramanujan would then have to verify. One such event was described by him as follows:
"While asleep, I had an unusual experience. There was a red screen formed by flowing blood, as it were. I was observing it. Suddenly a hand began to write on the screen. I became all attention. That hand wrote a number of elliptic integrals. They stuck to my mind. As soon as I woke up, I committed them to writing."

All his formulas have subsequently been shown to be valid.

There is an interesting phenomena in the creation of new super crystals. It can take years to create a new super crystal but once its been done, it becomes remarkably easier. Even if there are no changes to the process.

Similarly, mice of a species, respond quicker in maze tests, which their species has been exposed to, but that they haven't been exposed to

Although both these examples have rightly been criticised, and are not always consistent.

There is a case, at least to ponder like some of the interesting 'parapsychological phenomena' which as it turned out, wasn't in fact paranormal, but revolutionised modern Neurological understanding.

I suspect that we are scratching the surface.

Once we stepped out of the idea of seeing the universe as something separate from us, and instead seeing the universe as something we an inextricable part of, both on a Newtonian and Quantum scale, the weird starts to get scientific, especially on the quantum scale.

I used to know this Maths student at University, who was doing her PhD in topological geometry (that's how shapes distort and change across dimensions to us laymen). Even most of the maths lecturers couldn't understand what she was talking about, let alone doing.

I agree to a certain extent but as I'm sure you agree that a big difference is that theoretical physics can be changed by evidence and religion can not.

Also, I'm looking forward to the day when more religious people are willing to describe what they believe as 'theoretical religion'.

Edited by Stirlingsays (23 Feb 2017 7.37am)