Shifting the Paradigm: Shepard, Myth, and the Transformation of Consciousness

Abstract

In every era, startling scientific breakthroughs challenge old ideas and philosophies. " 'The 1980s will be a revolutionary time,' said physicist Fritjof Capra, 'because the whole structure of our society does not correspond with the world view of emerging scientific thought’.” Humankind discovered that the world was round, that the planets circled around the sun, that matter only seemed solid. Each of these discoveries resulted in a "paradigm shift," a term introduced by Thomas Kuhn in his landmark 1962 book, the Structure of Scientific Revolutions. A paradigm shift indicates a change in the framework of thought, in the scheme for understanding and explaining certain aspects of reality. A paradigm shift is a distinctly new way of thinking about old problems.