In order to better cope with the pressures and stresses of the current day, modern psychology is anxiously seeking to find new therapies to address the increasing disorders within the human psyche. In the process new fields of research, such as humanistic and transpersonal psychology, curiously appear to borrow more and more from the wisdom of the ages. This volume, containing eighteen articles by noteworthy expositors of the perennial philosophy such as Huston Smith, Seyyed Hossein Nasr, and Frithjof Schuon, presents the spiritual psychology of the wisdom traditions as a much-needed antidote to the current impasse in modern psychology.

Some Endorsements for Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy:

“[Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy] is more than an anthology. It is a wisely crafted collection of classic and contemporary scholarship noting that what many are seeking is what has always been, a perennial philosophy, that remains foundational. As one of the authors, Tage Lindbom, properly notes, ‘Secularization is a fish in troubled waters.’ This book claims the waters and is essential reading for all those who may have forgotten or are simply ignorant of the rich foundation provided by the perennial philosophy.”
—Ralph W. Hood, Professor of Psychology at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, past president of the Psychology of Religion division of the American Psychological Association, co-founder of The International Journal for the Psychology of Religion and co-author of The Psychology of Religion

“A necessary and bracing critique of the assumptions and limitations of contemporary Western psychology, this generous volume is also a passionate call and learned guide towards a truer perspective that embraces man's spiritual nature.”
—Gabor Maté, M.D., and author of In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction

“Knowing the nature of the mind is perhaps the most difficult undertaking, especially in today’s world. To comprehend the nature of mind one needs to turn to the domain of religion and spirituality. Yet the truth of the mind and its complexity cannot explicitly be defined in words. Inner or transcendent wisdom sees the mind’s own nature without the duality of the seer. Suchness (tathatā) of mind is only experiential and not expressible. The words used to describe thought are themselves a product of thought, which is conditioned and limited. Thus, differences and contradictions are unavoidable. Therefore, a comparative study of different viewpoints and commentaries is immensely important to awaken the inner intelligence to see the mind as it is. Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy: Studies in Comparative Religion edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is an outstanding effort in this direction.”
—Samdhong Rinpoche, former Prime Minister (Kalon Tripa) of the Tibetan Government-in-exile, author of Uncompromising Truth for a Compromised World: Tibetan Buddhism and Today’s World

“The rise of psychology has impacted the study and practice of spirituality, the experiences and attitudes relevant to ultimate human values that transcend ordinary behavior. Each chapter of this remarkable book demonstrates this interaction in a unique and provocative way. But rather than using psychology to reduce and ‘psychologize’ spiritual topics, its authors demonstrate how directives from the spiritual traditions can enhance and even illuminate the enduring importance of psychology in the 21st century.”
—Stanley Krippner, Saybrook University, co-author of Spiritual Dimensions of Healing

“The work at hand is a thinking and debating man’s delight. If you have any interest at all in attempting to include an educated and enlightened view of man’s higher functions in your purview of the world, you will learn from and enjoy this collection of essays. If you already have some knowledge in this area, brace yourself: you may see some of your favorites sharply criticized. A thought-provoking work.”
—Bruce W. Scotton, University of California, San Francisco, co-editor of Textbook of Transpersonal Psychiatry and Psychology

“This book, superbly edited by Samuel Bendeck Sotillos, is a masterful critique of the field of psychology and its loss of the sacred ground in which it once was rooted. It offers depth psychologists an opportunity to contemplate timeless truths echoed through the centuries by perennial philosophers who have always claimed psyche is subordinate to Spirit. Although ignored in depth psychology’s early years due to prejudice and lack of understanding, this is a message today’s psychotherapists must take seriously. Human beings need a deeper and wider transpersonal vision of who and what we are, which the saints and sages of the world’s spiritual traditions have always pointed to. In psychotherapy with a therapist committed to such a vision, patients penetrate into their unconscious depths and not infrequently awaken to the Ground of all Being. Their suffering itself occurred because they had turned away from Spirit. Above all, this volume passionately calls upon depth psychology to remember its origin in the perennial wisdom at the core of the great religions. There is something of a polemic in these pages. It deserves to be considered by depth psychologists of all persuasions.”
—Bryan Wittine, Transpersonal psychologist and Jungian psychoanalyst

“This anthology from Samuel Bendeck Sotillos is a must reference for anyone who is interested in psychology and its relationship to spirituality, and in developing an inclusive dialogue between disciplines that favor an integral outlook on the person and his or her potential. Selections in this anthology will inspire us to reexamine the metaphysical underpinnings of psychology, and remind us how important it is to rise above science’s attempt to reduce the human being to an epistemic object.”
—Sangeetha Menon, National Institute of Advanced Studies (Bangalore, India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Beyond Experience: Consciousness in Bhagavad Gita

“This anthology has some of the most discerning essays and reviews on spirituality and psychology, which provide much-needed care and caution to all those engaged in bringing them together or who wish to do so in future. Therefore, it is a must-read for all those who teach, research, consult, or study in such frontier areas as transpersonal psychology, states of consciousness, mind-body relation, holistic health, Indian psychology, and so on. It will be an invaluable textbook for courses in these and other related areas. I congratulate the editor of the book.”
—Kiran Kumar K. Salagame, University of Mysore (India), Board Member of the International Transpersonal Association (ITA), author of The Psychology of Meditation: A Contextual Approach

“One of the finest collections of essays on the Perennial Philosophy—a must-read for all psychologists who are engaged with spirituality and transpersonal psychology. The essays which critique modern psychology (including transpersonal psychology, and the framework of Carl Jung), in the light of the Perennial Philosophy are a revelation and make compelling reading. The book serves as a corrective to the excesses of modern psychology, and to this end Sotillos has done a commendable job. I for one will include the book in some of the graduate courses that I teach.”
—Suneet Varma, University of Delhi, co-editor of Foundations of Indian Psychology

“To its credit modern science by-and-large is becoming more cognizant of the essential connection between spirituality and psychological health and well-being and most of all its positive implications within the field of psychology. While there is ample data to document this in a plethora of academic journals and books, this new book Psychology and the Perennial Philosophy adds a novel contribution to the dialogue between psychology and spirituality, which captures many nuances that for the most part go unnoticed within these discussions, and last but not least, it provides a keen eye of discernment to understand this intricate relationship on a deeper level that is crucially needed. This work will be a valuable asset to students and long term mental health practitioners and professors alike who seek to better understand the relationship between psychology and spirituality.”
—Harold G. Koenig, Duke University, Director of the Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health, co-author of The Handbook of Religion and Health

We firstly find traces of systematical and comprehensive thought related to existence of the universe in Plato and Aristotle. Plato, by the doctrine of ideas which is the basis of his whole philosophy, accepted that the objective world was to be composed of shadows, and he propounded that the essential was in ideal world. On the contrary, Aristotle has shaped his thoughts related to being by conception made individual substances as base, and he defended that Platonic idealism was only a conceptual structure and the truth was not composed of absolute forms or ideas but it was to be consist of indivisible unity of them. In this paper it will briefly be dealt with the bases of both conceptions.

Another recent paper 'Mach's Principle and its connection with Inertia, Gravitation and Dark Matter' described how dark matter is more likely to be a gravitational effect rather than brought about by a halo of dark particles surrounding spiral galaxies on the assumption that the universe is closed and finite. The paper further explored the connection between Mach's principle and inertia to give a rationale for the operation of gravitation provided that this closed universe is expanding, and mentioned that this would also provide a basis of explanation for the passage of time and also a  possible function for the existence of black holes. The latter two issues were not described but are now covered in this follow up paper.

With reference to Wheeler and Feynman's Absorber theory,  an assumption is made that the rim of the resulting bounded and spherical universe is expanding at light speed which mediates the behaviour of all EM radiation within to duplicate the action of the singular rim. For the latter, time will not exist  at light speed but time will start to increase from zero the further within the sphere. The resulting conclusion is that the passage of time within the universe is governed by and directly related to the rate of its expansion. Speculation is made of the possible function of black holes in their possible capacity for storage of mass/energy to control the rate of expansion of the universe and hence the passing of time.

Publicação na Revista Ideação, v.1, n.40, 2019.

Tradução para o português de Expositio in libros De caelo et mundo I, l.6, onde Tomás de Aquino comenta um trecho do De caelo I, 3, sobre a ausência de geração e corrupção nos corpos celestes. No comentário, ele discute algumas objeções de João Filopono de Alexandria, filósofo do século VI, que defendia a possibilidade de os corpos celestes serem gerados e corromperem-se, bem como examina as respostas a essas objeções oferecidas por Simplício e por Averróis.

Sugiro ao leitor que confira as outras publicações da revista:
<http://periodicos.uefs.br/index.php/revistaideacao/issue/view/160>

In the analysis of Anaxagoras' physics in view of the relation between his teachings on multitude and heterogeneity, two central questions emerge: 1) How can the structure of the universe considered purely mereo-topologically help us explain that at the first cosmic stage no qualitative difference is manifest in spite of the fact that the entire qualitative heterogeneity is supposedly already present there? 2) How can heterogeneity become manifest at the second stage, resulting from the noûs intervention, if according to fragment B 6 such a possibility requires the existence of "the smallest", while according to the general principle stated in fragment B 3 there is not "the smallest" but always only "a smaller"? This paper showcases the perplexity of these two questions but deals only with the former. The answer follows from Anaxagoras' being a thoroughgoing infinitist in the way in which no Greek physicist was: the principle of space isotropy operative in geometry is extended to physics as well. So any two parts of the original mixture are similar to each other not only in view of the smaller-larger relation but also because each contains everything that the other one contains. This in effect means that at the stage of maximal possible heterogeneity each part of any part contains infinitely many heterogeneous parts of any kind whatsoever. So, neither can there be homogeneous parts in view of any qualitative property, nor can there be predominance in quantity of parts of any kind that would make some property manifest.

The literature surrounding the Kalam cosmological argument for the existence of God (KCA) is immense. As Quentin Smith points out, in a passage quoted by Paul Copan in the introduction: ‘A count of the articles in the philosophy journals shows that more articles have been published about Craig’s defence of the Kalam argument than have been published about any other philosopher’s contemporary formulation of an argument for God’s existence’ (1). Given the remarkable amount of philosophical interest KCA has garnered since William Lane Craig’s ground-breaking revival of the argument in 1979, it was inevitable that a compendium of scholarly essays on it would emerge. To that end, Copan and Craig have done us all a great service by drawing together some of the most substantial philosophical critiques and defences of KCA to have appeared in the literature – along with several original state-of-the-art essays – in this impressive two-volume set …

Cet article propose une analyse de la constellation dans le Coup de dés de Stéphane Mallarmé. Il s'agit d'étudier dans quelle mesure celle-ci peut constituer un modèle pour la forme poétique de l'oeuvre et son intelligibilité. Partant du constat que le lecteur déchiffre le Coup de dés en liant des fragments disparates de propositions et de mots, tout comme l'observateur du ciel cartographie des groupements d'étoiles, l'article étudie en diachronie le motif de la constellation dans l'oeuvre et la correspondance de Mallarmé, afin de proposer une interprétation de sa présence dans le Coup de dés, ainsi que du protocole de la lecture du poème.

This article suggests a new interpretation of the constellation in "A Throw of a Dice" by Stéphane Mallarmé. I consider it as a model for the form and meaning of the poem. Its reader deciphers the text by relating fragments of phrases and words, just like the astronomer makes connexions between stars to map constellations. The septentrion in "A Throw of a Dice" is considered as a key of the reading protocole of the poem.

Ensoulment is a cosmological perspective that integrates personal, interpersonal, collective and cosmic dimensions which allows us to connect with our soul and the Soul of the World. Ensoulment consist of 24 primary gateways, sacred letters and symbols. Through Ensoulment we learn to embody our soul and decipher her symbols and to understand how our soul’s cosmology is weaving herself through “Particles of Experience”. Every person, every mineral, every plant, every living being, animated or not, has a soul that is imprinted with their very own unique cosmology. Realizing and living one’s cosmology is fundamental to fulfilled, abundant and meaningful existence. 

In this article, I describe how to use Ensoulment for healing, healing of the mind- body and spirit. Having used ensoulment for the last 10 years with hundreds of clients I witnessed significant physical -emotional and mental long lasting transformation in my life and in client's life. This article is written in Hebrew, I welcome collaboration on the English translation.  Thank you and Enjoy. Natalie

The Grolier Codex (Codice Maya de Mexico, CMM) is discussed in the context of the archaeoastronomy of the ancient Americas on pages 98-99 of the March 1990 National Geographic Magazine article "America's Ancient Skywatchers" by John B. Carlson. One of four known ancient Maya books, the Grolier Codex depicts different manifestations of the planet Venus; the column of glyphs on the left of each panel records days in a 104-year Venus almanac. These plaster-coated bark-paper pages, carbon-dated to the 13th century, represent only half of the 20-page original. A numbered photographic arrangement of the Grolier Codex depictes the author's discovery that Codex pages 10 and 11 are actually two parts of the same "page 10".  Carlson clarifies the identities of Venus deities depicted in the Grolier Codex from a comparison of images from the Cacaxtla murals and links the images of the Grolier Codex with ancient Maya astronomically timed ritual warfare and sacrifice. (Grolier Codex photographs: Enrico Ferorelli; Other photos: Bob Sacha)

This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

This book investigates the cosmological work of Stephen Hawking — the famous British scientist in a wheelchair — and Thomas Hertog — his Flemish disciple — between 2006 and 2018. In 2006, Hawking and Hertog put forward a new framework called top-down cosmology. This approach starts from the present (“at the top”), with the properties of the universe as we can observe it today, and works its way back to the past (“down to the bottom”). This framework views the origin of the universe as all possible histories layered on top of each other. The universe did not have a single, unique beginning. Instead, it began in about every possible way.
In the ensuing years, Hawking and Hertog continued to refine their newly proposed cosmological framework, focussing on issues like the role of the observer and the conundrum of eternal inflation. A few weeks after Hawking’s passing away in 2018, a last joint article together with Hertog was published in which the next step to an even newer cosmological model was presented, applying a number of new concepts of holography in string theory.
What makes top-down cosmology stand out, compared to many other competing approaches, is Hawking’s attempt to scaffold his cosmological work by means of his philosophy of model-dependent realism. When two competing, even mutually incompatible, theories agree with observation, it is impossible to say one is more real than the other. From a cosmological point of view, it gave Hawking and Hertog a practically unconstrained liberty to play with concepts and tools of different branches of physics needed to construct their cosmological models. The author argues that model-dependent realism is not a brazen and failed attempt at philosophising, but a well thought through strategic move which definitely has its merits for science, provided that it would be worked out in a more systematic way. The author also defends the view that Hawking’s and Hertog’s approach to cosmology is indicative for a gradually changing attitude about what counts as “the scientific method” within the scientific community of fundamental physics and cosmology. The characteristics of this changing attitude are a more lenient view towards falsifiability and a stronger focus on non-empirical theory assessment.

Brussels, Uitgeverij VUBPRESS Brussels University Press, 2021.
ISBN  9789461172884
302 pages.

Kozmos je jedan od temeljnih čovjekovih interesa, a suvremena kozmologija jedna od najizazovnijih znanstveno-filozofijskih disciplina današnjice koja čini spoznajni okvir svim drugim znanostima. Naime, suvremena kozmologija, iako se danas uglavnom određuje kao empirijska disciplina i sami je kozmolozi smještaju na Popperovu liniju, nije isključivo empirijska disciplina zbog specifikuma vlastita predmeta i metoda (tzv. fundamentalan i tehnička ograničenja). U tom smislu suvremena kozmologija nije ni trenutačno najuspješniji opis univerzuma, odnosno standardni kozmološki model. Cilj je ovog istraživanja preko analize empirijske kozmologije, njezina specifikuma i granica uputiti na brojna mjesta, tzv. potencijalne prostore dijaloga empirijske kozmologije s drugim disciplinama, te pokazati da granice znanosti, u ovom slučaju empirijske kozmologije, treba shvatiti pozitivno, a njezin dijalog s drugim znanostima kao konkretizaciju suvremenosti suvremene kozmologije.

Ključne riječi: suvremena kozmologija, empirijska kozmologija, univerzum, standardni kozmološki model, fundamentalna ograničenja, tehnološka ograničenja, dijalog

ABSTRACT

The cosmos has been a subject of constant reflection and research for centuries. For a long time, the response to the question of the cosmos came from the philosophical perspective, and today the cosmos is of interest to many scientific disciplines, especially modern cosmology. Modern cosmology today is defined as an empirical discipline along Popper’s line of thought. The aim of this study is to determine the specificity and boundaries of empirical cosmology and to demonstrate that the boundaries of science, in this case empirical cosmology, should be understood positively, and its dialogue with other sciences as a concretization of the modernity of modern cosmology. In this sense, we speak of modern cosmology from a historical perspective and conclude that modern cosmology, as a developing scientific discipline, cannot yet be historically defined. We are faced with difficulties in determining the beginnings of modern cosmology, since the distinction between scientific concepts and ideas used at different moments in history should be taken into account, and we should not neglect the contributions of the socalled unsuccessful scientific theories and research. Furthermore, we explore the features of modern cosmology as an empirical discipline. We look back at the definition thereof, its specificity and boundaries. In this context, we conclude that the demand for the definition of modern cosmology is a rather complex issue since there are difficulties with the definition of science itself and also empirical science and its fundamental features; however, the definition also entails the specific subject and nature of modern cosmology. By researching these questions, we can conclude that it would be wrong to understand modern cosmology exclusively as empirical cosmology and, even less exclusively, to understand the standard cosmological model as the most successful description of the universe’s development. Namely, modern cosmology, as regards research, has a subject which is specific and unique, with an implicit inability to carry out experiments and the necessity to turn to the so-called philosophical choices and assumptions on the applicability of the physical laws of local physics, for instance, in the global context. Furthermore, empirical cosmology can only use the experimental data of other scientific disciplines, and in the observational sense, it is faced with the following: receiving data at the finite speed of light; with the fact that looking into the universe is looking into the past; with a series of so-called horizons (particle, wavelength, physical); with the properties and effects of selection and detection, and with the fact that models, which are by their nature idealizations, are the basic instrument of cosmology. Taken as a whole, empirical cosmology is confronted with a series of fundamental and technical constraints, which fact indicates the need for dialogue with other scientific disciplines if it is to come closer to a complete response to the question of the cosmos. Finally, we point out that modern cosmology should be understood more broadly as one of the most complex and the most challenging scientific philosophical disciplines of today, and that it represents the cognitive framework for all other sciences. This leads us to another specificity of modern cosmology - the number of boundaries it entails. If we understand these boundaries positively, as places of encounter and dialogue, i.e. something positive, we are in fact speaking about the number of so-called spaces for dialogue with other natural sciences (natural, humanistic and social). We discover the so-called spaces for dialogue among open questions in the standard cosmological model, ranging from the origins of the universe and questions of matter, dark matter, dark energy, homogeneity and isotropy to the enigma of what life is and where consciousness comes from. Thus, the boundaries of empirical cosmology reveal that, if we understand “modernity” as an always new aspiration to off er a more precise and complete answer to questions posed (in this case, the question of the cosmos), the “modernity” of modern cosmology is manifested precisely in its aspirations and efforts to form a more comprehensive cosmology (which includes other sciences, especially philosophy), and dialogue demonstrates the concretization of the modernity of modern cosmology.

Key words: modern cosmology, empirical cosmology, universe, standard cosmological model, fundamental constraints, technological constraints, dialogue

It is not possible to speak of a single systems approach. There are rather of a number of systems approaches, each loosely drawing on different aspects of a family composed mainly of, general system theory, cybernetics, information theory, chaos theory, and complexity theory. Systems approaches have been used in most of the social sciences, particularly sociology and management, but their use has extended into the arts and humanities.Creativity researchers have used systems approaches drawing on very different sources and in very different ways. The main focus has been to highlight creativity as a phenomenon that occurs in the context of multiple systems, and therefore involves a network of interactions.

Great strides have been made in the neurosciences over the past few years, especially in the areas of neurophysiology and neurophysics. In fact, the area of research called neurophysics has only emerged as a viable branch of physics in the past decade. The object of these researches goes beyond just discovering how the brain functions, but to actually discover the neural correlates of mind and consciousness. On the other hand, developing physical models of consciousness from a theoretical rather than an experimental or observational approach has also become popular over the past few decades. Together, these two approaches have raised the possibility that science will soon understand enough about mind and consciousness to answer important questions that have haunted philosophical thought and metaphysical speculations for several millennia, the most important of which might be ‘How does human consciousness emerge within the brain? And ‘What is the relationship between consciousness and the greater universe?’ These questions represent perhaps the greatest and the most important mysteries of all science because they define who we are, where we have been and where we are going as an intelligent species.

To understand Yoga in its historical context it is necessary to understand the Hindu concept of time which is incredibly expansive and infinitesimal, at the same time. The ancient Hindus conceived of Time as a great sweeping movement, which flowed in cycles of a magnitude inconceivable to the human mind. The cycles, called Yugas, repeat themselves after periods of rest which are described as the sleep of Brahma. This cyclical conception of time begins at the top with Satya Yuga, a Golden Age of truth and prosperity, virtue and supernatural strength and powers. This idea finds a resonance with the Biblical idea of the Paradise of Adam and Eve, when man lived in obedience to God's will. Psychic powers like telepathy and tele-transportation were common abilities. The age is appropriately named The Age of Truth when men were considered as one hundred per cent Good. In Satya Yuga, also known as Krita Yuga, Vishnu incarnates as Kapila and other sages and discloses the Paramajanana, or Highest Wisdom. The second cycle, swinging downward from the top, is called Treta Yuga. Degeneration begins to set in. Men are not so virtuous, nor so powerful. The Siddhis (psychic accomplishments) are not common and are exhibited mainly by sages and men of great penance (Tapasvin), as well as some valorous rulers. Vishnu assumes the form of a valiant emperor, Lord Rama, to destroy those evil persons who deviate from Dharma. Men are considered to be seventy-five percent good and twenty-five percent evil. Still, the power of goodness is greater than the power of evil. The wheel of time continues its downward swing and the third Yuga is known as Dwapara Yuga. In this Yuga the sage Vyasa appears, who divides the Vedas, which were one amorphous body of knowledge wisdom, into four separate sections: Rig Veda, Sama Veda, Yajur Veda and Atharvana Veda. Vyasa is often considered a partial incarnation of Vishnu. Dwapara Yuga is the age of the Divine God Man Lord Krishna, considered the Supreme Incarnation of Vishnu Traditionalists say that Dwapara Yuga ended on the day of Krishna's death, usually put about 3102 BCE. In Dwapara Yuga men were fifty percent good and fifty percent evil. Thus, the forces for good and evil were equally strong. The battle on the field of Kurushetra related in the great epic Mahabharata between the Kauravas (the brothers considered to be the embodiment of lust, passion, ignorance and egoism) and the Pandavas, (the brothers regarded as the embodiment of all virtues), came to a stalement as the evil force was equally strong to the force of good. The battle was eventually won by the Pandavas, only after Lord Krishna turned the tide by his mystic power and trickery. The last Yuga, Kali Yuga the age in which man presently finds himself, is an age characterized by the complete degeneration of man's nature and human institutions.

Focusing on the Western intellectual lineage, this essay traces the human archetypal metaphor for the universe as it shifts three times, from that of a great mind, to a great machine, to the modern-day transition toward an organismic view of the universe. We explore how the way we talk about nature can ultimately be scaled to a grounding cosmic metaphor, which itself comes to serve as the lens through which we interpret our deepest questions, - about what we are, and our place in reality. Discussed are the implications of the emerging organismic paradigm to the fundamental orientation of the self to the world, to other beings, and its place in reality.

Negli ultimi decenni si è assistito a un ritorno della questione dell'universo sulla scena filosofica, accompagnato dalla ripresa di autori, come Whitehead e Bergson, che hanno cercato di farsi carico della pluralità degli esseri che abitano la Terra e delle loro relazioni (fisiche, vitali, psichiche, sociali). La posta in gioco di questa operazione è alta: non si tratta soltanto di un discorso generale sui rapporti tra vita, coscienza e materia, bensì di un vero e proprio progetto di ricomposizione dell'universo, al di là del sistema di divisioni ed esclusioni che ha dominato la cosmologia moderna (vivente/non vivente, umano/animale, coscienza/materia, natura/cultura). Nella mia relazione farò riferimento a due voci emblematiche di questo progetto, Raymond Ruyer e William James, soffermandomi in particolare su due punti: la critica alla comprensione materialistica della natura, che riduce la diversità delle forme a modi della materia inerte, e la ridefinizione dei concetti di soggettività ed esperienza. Che cosa accadrebbe se, invece di limitare la nozione di esperienza alla sfera umana, ne facessimo una categoria primaria della natura? In che modo ci permetterebbe di articolare, senza tuttavia dissolvere, le differenze tra gli esseri? Seguendo Ruyer e James ci addentreremo in un universo plurale, composto di una molteplicità di esseri che sono altrettanti soggetti, umani e non umani, in continua evoluzione e interazione.

"Selected proceedings of the “First International Conference on Ethnoastronomy: Indigenous Astronomical and Cosmological Traditions of the World”held at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., 5-9 September 1983."

Available on Amazon.com  - see link in listing. Ships internationally from the USA.

تتناول هذه الدراسة واحدة من أهم نظريات الفيلسوف اليهودي ليفي بن جرشوم(1288 – 1344) وهي خلق العالم. إن العالم عند بن جرشوم مخلوق، لكن لا من العدم بل من مادة أولى قديمة غير متعينة. وعلى الرغم من أنه مخلوق إلا أنه أبدي من جهة المستقبل، أي أنه لا يفنى. والواضح أن نظرية بن جرشوم في العالم تنتمي إلى الاتجاه الأفلاطوني وهي إعادة صياغة لنظرية أفلاطون في العالم والتي تنص على أن للعالم بداية لكن ليس له نهاية، وأن العالم ذاته مخلوق لكن من مادة أولى غير مخلوقة. وكان بن جرشوم على وعي بالأصل الأفلاطوني لهذه النظرية وأشار إلى ذلك بوضوح، لكنه أقام تعديلات جوهرية عليها.
ولأن ابن رشد (1126-1198) كان آخر الفلاسفة السابقين على بن جرشوم والذي كان صاحب نظرية شهيرة في قدم العالم، ولأن بن جرشوم قد أسس نظريته في الخلق على أساس نقده لأرسطو، فإننا نهدف في هذه الدراسة عقد مقارنة بين بن جرشوم وابن رشد في مسألة القدم والحدوث، محاولين تقديم رد رشدي على نظرية بن جرشوم في الخلق.

La revolución científica y filosófica de los siglos XVI y XVII fue descrita por Alexandre Koyré como el paso «del mundo cerrado al universo infinito», lo que supuso la unificación de lo celeste y lo terrestre bajo unas mismas leyes físico-matemáticas, la conversión de la Tierra en un planeta como cualquier otro y la división ontológica entre el orden físico y el orden humano. Sin embargo, en el siglo XX la humanidad adquiere por primera vez en su historia el poder de destruirse a sí misma, sea por las armas nucleares o por la crisis ecológica global. Paralelamente, se produce un cambio de paradigma en la concepción científica y filosófica de la naturaleza, y en particular de la Tierra como morada originaria de los seres humanos y de los demás seres vivos. En este artículo se analizan todas esas transformaciones a través de cinco autores muy diferentes: Husserl, Arendt, Lovelock, Margulis y Latour.

The scientific and philosophical revolution of the 16th and 17th centuries was described by Alexandre Koyré as the passage «from the closed world to the infinite universe», which meant the unification of the celestial and the terrestrial under the same physical-mathematical laws, the conversion of the Earth into a planet like any other and the ontological division between the physical order and the human order. However, in the 20th century, the human race acquired for the first time in its history the power to destroy itself, either through nuclear weapons or through a global ecological crisis. At the same time, there has been a paradigm shift in the scientific and philosophical conception of nature and, in particular, of the Earth as the original dwelling place of human beings and other living beings. In this article, all these transformations are analyzed through the ideas of five very different authors: Husserl, Arendt, Lovelock, Margulis and Latour.

In this essay, I contend that Plato’s notion of the Divine or God is companionable – in a telling sense of the word, rather than comparable – with a Christian notion of God in three ways. Firstly, Plato provided proofs for the Divine in his first cause (cosmology) position, maintaining all that exists or transpires essentially has, or had a cause; this is also insisted on in the Christian Doctrine of God. Secondly (teleology), Plato’s precept is that humanity is not on its own, amid creation, in its moral involvement – goodness is embodied in creation – therefore, we can discover, and even encounter, order and perfection by examining the universe; this is demonstrated within Christian Theology and Doctrine. Thirdly (ontology), Plato locates supreme importance in the demesne of the unseen; similarly, Christianity locates uppermost value in things not of this world, but on resources from an unseen realm of the heavenlies – a place of origin and ultimate being.

A new, consciousness-first scientific paradigm, incorporating Supreme Consciousness, Cosmic Mind and subtle sub-atomic cosmic intelligence agents called microvita, can replace the present materialist paradigm. The new paradigm can provide new insights into the origin and nature of living beings and the observed upward evolutionary trend of life in the universe. In the new paradigm, a Cosmic Cycle of Creation starts from unexpressed infinite Supreme Consciousness and creates a Cosmic Mind and within it the universe containing matter, individual living beings, and human beings with developed minds. Each human mind ultimately completes its Cosmic Cycle by finally merging with unexpressed infinite Supreme Consciousness to spiritually fulfill the goal of human life, according to spiritual guru Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar. According to P. R. Sarkar, life is the “ceaseless fight to restore an unstable equilibrium.” Prominent in different phases of the Cosmic Cycle are the actions of microvita—subtle sub-atomic living beings emanated from the Cosmic Mind, that act as evolutionary cosmic intelligence agents. They move the Cosmic Cycle forward at every step, starting within the formation of fundamental physical particles from microvita. Microvita produce the anti-entropic or upward evolutionary trend of the universe that is currently unexplained. This upward evolutionary trend continues inexorably despite the current laws of physics, especially the second law of thermodynamics, which predicts that the universe as a whole is continually moving from a lower to higher state of entropy or disorder. Microvita participate in upward evolutionary processes from the formation of subatomic particles and atoms, to producing complex biochemical molecules life and minds, to forming new species including human beings, causing and curing diseases, to helping human civilization to advance, and to composing Divine Grace that helps human beings complete their spiritual journey. Scientific research on microvita is urgently needed at all levels, to the discover the natural laws that describe all these actions of microvita, so that many urgent problems facing humanity today can be solved in ways that are beneficial to all.

The golden ring to which most physicists aspire is a unified field theory that incorporates all of modern and classical physics. Some scientists and others call this a TOE or ‘theory of everything’, but it is no more than false hubris to believe that humans could possibly know and explain everything about the universe at this time. Einstein chased this goal for the last three decades of his life, basing his theoretical research on his general theory of relativity. Meanwhile, the vast majority of scientists supporting the other major accomplishment of the Second Scientific Revolution were investing all of their time and efforts to advancing the quantum theory and their quest has been extremely successful. They originally had no interest in a unified field theory. After Einstein died in 1955, his efforts were all but abandoned because of his philosophical stance against the prevalent Copenhagen Interpretation of quantum theory even though he had been one of quantum theory’s founders. During the 1970s the tables started to turn and quantum theorists became interested in unifying physics, although not from the foundational principles of relativity theory. They claimed that quantum theory was more fundamental than relativity so they began the same quest from a totally different direction despite their claims to be continuing Einstein’s quest.  Throughout the development of the ensuing standard quantum model, superstring theory and many other theoretical schemes, quantum theorists have remained resolute in their conviction that the quantum and relativity are mutually incompatible so the quantum must completely do away with and replace relativity once and for all. However, the quantum theory and relativity are not actually incompatible and, in fact, say the some of the same things about the nature of physical reality. When the similarities are fully defined and studied and the basic assumptions behind each of the theories are altered to reflect the similarities instead of the incompatibilities, only then can the point of their compatibility be determined and act as a unifying principle resulting in a completed unified field theory of the type that Einstein once sought. The development of this physical model of reality is not without irony. Not only is the quantum theory incomplete as Einstein argued in EPR, but Einstein’s general relativity is also seriously incomplete and true unification cannot be rendered complete at any level of reality until all the theoretical models being unified are themselves complete.

The conformal cyclic cosmology (CCC) is a cosmological model proposed by Roger Penrose and Vahe Gurzadyan. CCC is a cyclic Universe theory in which a Universe consists of a infinite succession of aeons where each aeon originates with its own Big Bang and has an exponentially expanding future, consistent with a positive cosmological constant Λ. In the basic CCC scheme the conformal infinity of the previous cycle is joined to the Big Bang origin of present cycle resulting in endless cycles of aeons. These cycles are said to be unending in both past and in the future denying any role to the "external teleological agency". This theory is juxtaposed against the cyclic Universes and Kalpa theology of Advaita School of Hindu-Vedic tradition.

Keywords: CCC, Conformal Cosmology, Entropy, Non-Dualism, Advaita, Experiential Consciousnes

A vida sensível propõe uma mudança radical no modo de entender não só os objetos culturais, mas toda a série de “fenômenos”, de aparições, desde a linguagem até a moda, ao que o pensamento medieval chamava de “formas intencionais”, de “imagens”. A humanidade constituiria, para Emanuele Coccia, não um apartamento da animalidade, mas o seu aprofundamento, o aprofundamento no “sensível” – e o que conhecemos por mundo seria justamente esta esfera composta apenas por imagens.

In 1887, Paul Tannery suggested that some ancient Pythagoreans defended a form of atomism against which Eleatic philosophers such as Zeno of Elea reacted. Later, Democritus and Leucippus on one hand, Plato on the other, developed atomistic intuitions in reaction to this old debate. No one would accept nowadays Tannery’s historical claim, but the philosophical content of his interpretation is still relevant for the history of atomism, especially for the Middle Ages. Indeed, according to Tannery the Pythagoreans defined atoms as points, i.e. the equivalent of units for numbers but with a position in space. This conception of a point was well known in the Middle Ages thanks to Boethius’ adaptation of Nicomachus of Gerasa’s Institutio arithmetica and other indirect sources (Macrobius, Martianus Capella, for instance) and was accepted by several philosophers and theologians. In this paper we try to follow the reception of this
concept from the 12th to the 14th century.

¿Es la cosmología realmente una ciencia? ¿Cuál es su objeto? ¿Es acaso el Cosmos? Pero, ¿los modelos cosmológicos actuales, como el del Big Bang, nos desvelan la estructura última del Universo o simplemente agrupan una serie de datos astrofísicos dispersos en un esquema unificado? Y, ¿qué relación guardan las teorías cosmológicas con la metafísica, la teología y los mitos de nuestro tiempo? Estas son sólo algunas de las cuestiones que se discuten en el presente libro.

La gran popularidad de la cosmología induce a pensar con excesiva ligereza en ideas tales como Cosmos, Universo o Naturaleza. Ante el atropello o la estridencia con que muchos científicos las emplean, la filosofía no puede permanecer eclipsada ni acalambrada.

Puede adquirirse en:
http://permeso.net/es/inicio/299-filosofia-cosmologia-978847848600.html

Many scientists believe that any true unification theory of physics must include a concept of consciousness as well as a model for the mind that interprets our three-dimensionally biased and limited sensations of the external physical/material world. And, that number is growing. The single field theory goes even further than that, in fact, well beyond the simple notion of mind and consciousness as mere human bound perceivers and interpreters of the external material/physical world by placing the physical origin of consciousness within every geometrical point in the universe itself. Some higher level permanent ‘pattern’ structure must be at work in the background of mind to lend more than temporary stability and even ‘permanence’ to the electrical field patterns that constitute the action of mind, since mind, as such, is ephemeral and would disappear (decohere or destabilize) after a few moments as individual electrical potentials neutralized or canceled each other out, positive for ...

Hindu philosophy views the cosmos to be holonomic and self-similar in nature. The procedures and methods used in the construction of Hindu temples bear a striking resemblance to the procedures of fractal geometry, including discretization, fractalization and extensive use of recursive procedures, with self-similar iteration. The instructions given in ancient Vastu shastras (texts on architecture) work like general programmes to generate various types of temples. The presentation draws attention to the similarities between the procedures and resulting forms in computer graphics and Hindu temple architecture, explain the relationship that exists between the form of the temple and the concepts of Hindu philosophy. It is proposed that Hindu temples may be viewed as examples of 3-dimensional fractal architecture and that the fractal principles used in them along with the parametric and algorithm based-form generation processes, have special significance to the emerging new discipline of Fractal Architecture world-wide.

The second part of the paper shows the applications of the fractal procedures as seen in contemporary architecture as a new methodology of creating architecture which follows a parametric, procedure based form-generation approach, rather than the intuitive approach. The fractal approach leads to an architectural output that is organic and holistic, with an integrated physiognomy similar to that found in natural structures. Fractal principles are drawing great attention in the architectural community, and a large body of work is emerging both as conceptual and also built architectural forms. The presentation illustrates with examples of contemporary works of fractal architecture – both conceptual and built architecture – ranging from individual structures to community networks using parametric modeling; and how thousands of temples in India and Asia built centuries ago provide excellent examples of fractal architecture created through parametric form-generating algorithms.

Presented at the Second International Academic Conference on Modern Oriental Art,
Moscow, 17–20 October, 2017

The author refers to my article "Stephen Hawking, the Foolish Wise, the Extraterrestrials, and Today´s Criminal Elites´ Main Fear", republishing long excerpts from it; he also mentions several of my publications about Assyrian - Babylonian, Egyptian, Hittite and Hebrew cosmologies. Furthermore, he expands on points I included in a seminar about the cosmological beliefs and ideas propagated by Thule Gesellschaft.
https://greeksoftheorient.wordpress.com/2017/08/03/%CE%B1%CE%BD%CF%84%CE%B1%CF%81%CE%BA%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE-%CE%BD%CF%8C%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BF%CF%82-%CF%80%CF%8C%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82-%CE%BD%CE%B1%CE%B6%CE%B9%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%BA%CE%AE-%CE%B3%CE%B5/

The idea that space is three-dimensional is just a convention. This essay presents reasons related to optimality that require that it have dimensions slightly less than three. It is an introduction to the theory of noninteger dimensionality of physical space together with the evidence in support of it.

The fourth known pre-Columbian Maya codex, the only one discovered in the twentieth century, was found by looters in the mid-1960s. First exhibited in New York in 1971, what has come to be known as the  Grolier Codex is half of a 20-page, 104-year divinatory hybrid-style Mesoamerican Venus Almanac, probably the physically oldest surviving pre-Columbian book, and with new radiocarbon dates that place it in the thirteenth century CE. It is likely to be the oldest surviving book on paper from the Americas as well as the only ancient Maya codex now residing in Mexico. Although most Mayanists have accepted it as authentic, based in part on the author’s 40 years of research, it remains an unacknowledged Mexican national treasure, as it has never been officially recognized. Mesoamerican Venus Almanacs were widely used in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica to regulate practices of sacred warfare, the goal of which was to obtain captives for sacrifice, their blood shed to invoke the personified forces of rain and fertility. The  Codex offers unique images of 10 of the 20 manifestations of Venus, greatly enriching our knowledge of these traditions. The present study offers a brief history of accounts of the discovery of the Codex and allegedly associated artifacts; presents a documented photographic history; outlines the author’s comprehensive program of research, including several new scientific discoveries; and offers a new Latinized name that recognizes that the Codex Mayano-Mexicanus is an authentic ancient book deriving from the Maya culture and now properly residing in Mexico.


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This article has been posted on Academia.edu as part of the Grolier Codex Project of the Center for Archaeoastronomy under the directorship of John B. Carlson, Ph.D.  The Grolier Codex Project seeks to further advance the study of the Maya Grolier Codex.

Scan of a chapter from Religions of India in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., Princeton Readings in Religions, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995: 333-351.  A basic survey of the beliefs and practices of a medieval Bengali Hindu Tantric tradition, the Vaisnava Sahajiyas, who blended tantric yoga and ritual sexual intercourse with devotional bhakti practices appropriated from the orthodox Gaudiya Vaisnava tradition.  In this chapter, readers will find translations (from the Bengali) of several short lyrical poems on subtle physiology and inner states of Being, an excerpt from a longer esoteric manual (the Amrtarasavali of Siddha Mukunda Deva) dealing with subtle physiology and yogic cosmology, and an excerpt from an extensive Sahajiya interpretation of the famous Gaudiya Vaisnava hagiography of Krsna Caitanya, the Caitanya-caritamrta.  This later text is called the Vivarta-vilasa,and is attributed to Akincana-dasa (ca. 1675-1700 C.E.).  The chapter also includes commentary by the author.

This article addresses the Orthodox Christian representation of reality, or doctrine of creation, and the possible need to rephrase and communicate its meaning within the parameters of contemporary scientific culture. To redraft the traditional Orthodox worldview today is both necessary and largely unproblematic. Rephrasing the doctrine of creation is demanded by the pastoral and missionary exigency to reaching out to audiences conditioned by contemporary cosmology. Given the earlier successive reformulations of the Orthodox doctrine of creation throughout history and within various cultural frameworks, this task, I suggest, does not pose any insurmountable difficulty.
© 2019 Johns Hopkins University Press

This study explores the multifaceted Maya Deluge Myth, from its pre-Columbian origins to current fantasies about a great world-destroying flood at the 13 Baktun period ending of the Maya Long Count on 21 (or 23) December 2012. No such flood is prophesied in any Maya records for this date, and the famous scene on Dresden Codex page 74 is discussed in its context as a symbolic depiction of the annual world-renewing downpours at the onset of the rainy season in springtime in the Maya world. The presiding gods of warfare and blood sacrifice were the agents of fertility and the regeneration of nature, and not the agents for the destruction of the Maya in a world-ending deluge. The misinterpretation of Dresden page 74 has propagated, unchallenged, for over a century of Maya scholarship and found its way into “new age,” fringe, and popular culture. This research helps to set the record straight along with providing a history of the meme.

The remarkable contributions of Father Dumitru Stăniloae (1903-1993) ranged from traditional theology to patristics, from spiritual anthropology to asceticism, and from apologetics to mystical theology. Although his attentiveness to modern cultural trends and ideas has been at times noticed, his input in terms of bridging the traditional representation of reality and the contemporary sciences remains largely ignored. The fact of the matter is that, as a genuine neopatristic theologian, Father Stăniloae was aware of the challenges posed to the traditional worldview by the sciences, and also willing to initiate a constructive dialogue between the theological representation of reality and contemporary cosmology. Interestingly, he did not stumble on account of the ideological narratives in the guise of which scientific cosmology is sometimes promoted—from the atheistic propaganda of the communist regime of those days Romania to the agnosticism and aggressive scientism pertaining to various Western milieus. Instead, discerningly, without prejudice, he consistently referred to the available scientific data in order to give a new articulation to the traditional worldview. In so doing, he provided modern theology with a means to communicate the traditional worldview in intelligible ways to a contemporary, scientifically educated audience. Herein I consider the achievements of Father Stăniloae in the reformulation of the patristic representation of reality—particularly the views of Saint Athanasius the Great and Saint Maximus the Confessor—in conversation with aspects pertaining to the contemporary scientific paradigm. I address the author’s cosmological elaborations by focusing on three main areas, namely, the movement of the universe, the rationality of the cosmos, and the anthropic principle. My goal is to show that for him scientific cosmology and the Christian worldview were, far from antagonistic, a match made in heaven.

The causal relationship between cymatic pattern and Hindu-Yantra exposes the essential pattern underlying the universe. Phenomena that confirm this blueprint are convergent evolution, stigmergy (swarm-intelligence), chaos/complexity theory, exaptation, gestalt, Plato’s-problem and perhaps even sympathetic magic.
The unified-field and collective unconscious are the same; science explains the metaphysical. Ancient Yantra-Mandalas catalogue the morphology of the unified-field.
Cross-referencing quantum theory, biologist Rupert Sheldrake, Carl Jung and media-analyst Marshall McLuhan reveals this new Gestalt. Symbols are the keys to understanding reality. Systems Theory is an important new paradigm.