Reductionism to Personal Experience By Charles Snelleksz-Mathelot
Indigenous cultures understand that everything is alive, has a soul, is intelligent and aware, and that we are just part of the circle of life - rather than the dominant life form. They value the visionary experience and feel that the people, who have visions, are enriching community and supporting culture to thrive and grow. These two fundamental viewpoints appear to be missing in contemporary western culture which reduces everything in a lineal manner, into its component parts. Each part is investigated mechanically to
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understand its purpose and its connection to the other parts in creating the whole. In this modern system of investigation, the invisible metaphysical background upon which all form is placed, is not considered. The metaphysical background is known through personal experience. My experience of the metaphysical will be different to another’s experience. What determines our experience is our individual uniqueness and the contribution we are here to make for the evolution of all life. Reductionism doesn’t allow for personal experience, because experience is something which
cannot be reduced into its separate parts for investigation and then reassembled into the original experience. Reductionism is present in religion, medicine, politics, economics, sexuality, gender identity, cultural norms and even in our personal beliefs. Wherever we seek to restrict and control we will generally find a restrictive and reductive ideology playing out. So many movements begin with the purest intention to ‘do good’, either for the Earth, animals or humanity. Over time however, many such groups become fundamental, restrictive and reductive in their ideology. There is no allowance for personal experience that does not fit the dogma.
