The line between science and religion has always seemed clear to me. The notion of science actually refers to a very specific method: hypothesis, controlled testing, evaluation of results, scrutiny by peers, repeat. It also implies a certain set of beliefs – called ‘laws’ in the parlance – considered to be true. Conversely, there are unspoken rules, possibilities that are considered to be not possible. These generally fall into a category called Magic, or, more popularly, Religion. I tend to err on the side of science, though perhaps science isn’t the best word, more like pragmatism. There’s a third category, generally held in contempt by both scientists and religious types.

When I was young, I was drawn to unexplained phenomena. At nine years old I gave myself nightmares as my own fascination drew me to research Spontaneous Human Combustion – I stared at gruesome photographs and feared this to be my fate, while learning that the Earth’s own electromagnetic field perhaps had some influence on the flammability of human flesh. Later, I read in depth books on Extra Sensory Perception – research into brain-wave patterns and experiments the Soviets had performed while trying to create super-spies, or perhaps the best athletes or chess players in the world. As a teenager I read about real vampires: historic accounts of anemic villagers going made from famine and drinking the blood of humans – indeed, human blood is absorbed directly through the stomach lining into the body of the drinker, bypassing digestion. I pondered why people in hospitals received transfusions instead of large mugs, until I realized what it must be like to swallow a quart or two of fresh blood.

Now, I never seriously got into aliens, government plots, or conspiracy theories. I mean, those things are all interesting to think about, but they didn’t seem to me to be very practical. That realm wasn’t just unknown, it was actively kept secret, at least until the invading race revealed themselves or the President himself went on TV and said ‘yep, we’ve had antigravity crafts for fifty years now…’. How could I discover something intentionally kept from me? It didn’t feel to have a practical impact on my life, whereas the concept that I myself, with proper training and focus, move an object through space using the force of thought, was deeply enthralling.

As an adult, I read more esoteric and specific writings. Ancient spirituality, modern occultism, quantum physics, practical descriptions of life-force energy, alternate histories of the development of civilization. What struck me most about these texts was how similar they all were. I made connections back and forth between books that were so literal it made my jaw hurt, and so fanciful it was impossible to understand how the author himself believed his own philosophy, and all manner in between. Each topic was written primarily in the context of itself: the witches and warlocks considered that they had found the key to manipulating reality, Taoist sages posed that only through stripping away unnecessary trappings of our lives are we able to truly begin to understand the Chi energy that binds the universe.
Eventually, I saw all of these points of view within a larger context: they are all different models and theories and philosophies describing the same thing, and that that same thing actually, tangibly exists. It is the indescribable something that makes life different from non-life, the spark that makes conscious self-aware creatures different from dogs and bugs. The thing that makes it possible to learn, to become smarter, and to understand. A palpable force that allows 100 year old cigarette smoking Chinese Tai Chi masters able to shove a tree without using muscles. Even science demonstrated in its own self-righteous way that on a small enough level, energy and matter are indistinguishable.

I find all of this fascinating, but it begins to lose its pragmatism, again, my approach to understanding. As my focus broadens, my ability to put my hands on this thing I am learning about diminishes, and it floats into the abstract world of philosophy, where we struggle with ideas instead of practice in our daily lives.

I decided to focus. Something in my daily life, without which I cannot survive. A long standing interest, and that which I can work with with my hands and body. There was no decision to be made: food.
I have had a minor obsession with food that makes my interest in all this scientific/mystic philosophy seem pale. Family friends who have known me longer than I can remember tell me “You were really into your food as a kid… I mean really!” I cook and eat all kinds of things, but in the past couple of years, my interest has been largely with Vegan cooking. Don’t ask me why, I’ve never considered myself a vegan, sometimes vegetarian. I like the challenge of cooking without many of the rich and simple to prepare items that many meals are based around. I also like creating meals that are approachable to anyone: interesting enough for skeptics, but accessible for those with lactose intolerance, and the like. Working together with my brother, we prepared a vegan spinach lasagna for an Italian meat fanatic, who tasted it and didn’t believe that it had no cheese whatsoever, and catered a gourmet meal for 14 people who never even noticed the lack of meat or dairy until we pointed it out at the end of the meal.
I had already made the commitment to organic food, and was moving in a more healthy direction, and I was beginning to read some radical Taoist whole-foods nutrition evidence on food-combining for optimum digestion that seemed impossible to implement, but I began trying. I continue to struggle – particularly working in a fast-paced corporate environment in the financial district of San Francisco – but I have dramatically reduced refined flour and sugar, and eliminated milk, cheese, and meat from my diet. I experimented: cease eating one type of food for a month or two, and re-introduce it to see how my body responded. I was impressed at how my digestion would clog after a burger, and that ice cream induced a hangover that lasted several days. Once the process began, it just seemed natural. A whole-foods, balanced diet, however, is just the beginning.

Both China and India have pragmatic spiritual traditions that span six thousand years or more. There are extensive writings on exercise, medicine, architecture, meditation, enlightenment, and, of course, proper diet. Chinese Taoist philosophy is relatively loosely organized. Sages, adepts, and practitioners have written extensively on their studies and findings, and a large library could easily be filled only with the most important of these texts. Of course, over time, much of this has been re-researched and distilled, and today there is a relatively well-understood approach (which modern lifestyles effectively inhibit). The Chinese approach tends to be on the practical side – there are no Taoist deities, specific rules or laws that one must live by in order to appease the one-ness of the universe; it is a simple and personal relationship with that certain je ne se quoi that is being alive. The Indian tradition of Vedic Science is more structured, but with that structure comes a symbolic system that again blurs the lines between science and religion.