I cannot help but feel as if, in regarding and portraying itself as leading the charge away from the chains of the cult-like thinking it perceives in religion and its associated superstitions, science has become the very villain it thought itself to be slaying as the hero. My personal idealism considers the true spirit of the scientist as harboring the truly liberated and unfettered mind, as free of cognitive distortion as one can come, completely conquering all unconscious biases and cultural conditionings. These unconscious biases and walls of societal entrainment to me are like clouds obscuring what might otherwise be a perfectly clear and blue sky, that the Sun of the mind’s illumination might shine freely on all things. I instead often feel as if the mind of the so-called “scientist” relishes those overcast days.

But, then, if science is the truly liberated and truly free mind’s quest for pure knowing, then should not every scientist, philosopher, academic, or scholar — anyone who would credit themself as dedicating their very life to the pursuit of knowledge — be willing to make the great and treacherous foray into their own psyche and unconscious mind, if such a place is home to potential barriers to reason (such as fear, prejudice, conditioned biases, et cetera)? The scientist’s very first and most important instrument is their own mind. Psychoanalysis, to me, is the refinement and sharpening of that tool, that the measurements it gathers might be ever-more-accurate and precise. 

However, the great danger I am perceiving is in “scientists” who don masks of seemingly-unemotional objectivity, who perform their works in the name of pure “reason,” who instead seem to be veiling a deep-seated, white-knuckling clinging to the safe and familiar deep within the subjective recesses of their own psyche. Belief systems that are contrary to what they form an identity with — namely, religious or spiritual beliefs that contrast heavily with their chosen scientific or academic discipline built on foundational atheism — are met by these supposed objective “scientists” with ridicule, judgment, or even at times rage, perhaps masked by layers and layers of not-at-all prosaic academic jargon that further veils the true subjective roots of their opposition. 

Why is it that I so often find that in the most staunch of atheists who revere scientific rigor — and may seek to proselytize those who disagree, just like the religious zealots they have a distaste for — a background of having been wounded by religion, often rooted deeply in their childhoods, and so frequently by a parental figure who failed them, religious dogma wrapped around them like barbed wire, such that even their embrace might draw blood? 

Why is it so often these very scientists, with deep-seated wounds seemingly at the hands of religion (but in truth, at the hands of a flawed human), who admonish all religion and the pondering of anything remotely extra-physical the most heavily? If science is to be a truly-objective lens of approaching and investigating the world around us, free from all unconscious biases and emotional projections that might fetter the clarity of the mind — exactly what they accuse the religious and spiritual of doing — does a scientist whose opinion on religion and all spiritual matters that is inevitably emotionally-charged by personal wounding and deep-seated infantile rage from unmet needs fit that bill?

This is why I believe that the scientist must necessarily be willing to undergo something resembling a psychoanalytic process. Again, a scientist’s very first and very most important tool is their own mind — and what is psychoanalysis but the act of clearing out the Augean Stables of the mind with a river? I am not saying that every scientist should believe in the metaphysical, or necessarily even pay attention to religion. I am saying, however, that every scientist must be honest with themself about what is truly guiding the forming of their judgments, and that personal experience suggests that it is often unconscious emotional contents, and often wounding, guiding something treacherously masquerading as objectivity.