Expanding the Scope of Science
ORIGINS
David Lorimer introduces the Galileo Commission Report
REMIT
The Galileo Commission was founded in 2017 with a view to expanding the worldview of science beyond its limiting materialistic assumptions, which are seldom explicitly examined. A central and widely held assumption is that the brain generates consciousness and is therefore extinguished at death.
Following widespread consultation in 2018 with 90 advisers representing 30 universities worldwide, we have published the Galileo Commission Report, written by Prof Dr Harald Walach and entitled Beyond a Materialist Worldview – Towards an Expanded Science. The report has been widely endorsed as a groundbreaking document, so we encourage you to support our movement by joining the Galileo Commission either as a Professional Affiliate or a Friend. There is also a Summary Report and a Layman’s Report, and a brief summary of the argument is available in a number of languages. We encourage you to read and support Dr Athena Potari’s Call for a Renaissance of the Spirit in the Humanities and to read our edited book Spiritual Awakenings, which documents the transformative experiences of 57 scientists and academics.
A Call for a Renaissance of the Spirit in the Humanities
The “Call for a Renaissance of the Spirit in the Humanities”, written by Dr Athena D. Potari, is a pioneering project aiming to raise awareness regarding how the prevailing paradigm of materialism affects the ways in which knowledge is approached within the context of the Humanities. In line with the Galileo Report, which discusses the importance of liberating the positive sciences from the limitations of the paradigm of scientific materialism, this Call aims at making the case for the Humanities as well. The Call explores how recent developments in scientific studies on consciousness, and the ensuing understanding that consciousness is primary and unified, can inform our understanding of what it means to be “human” with correspondingly appropriate epistemologies, as well as how we approach key areas of human activity, including ethics, politics and the environment.What people say…
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Spiritual Awakenings – Marjorie Wollacott & David Lorimer (Eds)
Scholars share the experience of their own spiritual awakening and journey, including encountering challenges to their credibility in academia, if they shared these experiences. Their comments about transformation in values, beliefs, and approaches toward life are very moving, expressing a deep inner wisdom and connection, not only with humanity, but with the earth and cosmos.
Recent News
Karmic Law: A Synoptic Approach – Adrian Klein
In this paper, an extended approach to the philosophical term of Karma is presented, suggesting a high compatibility between its traditional (initiatically transmitted, especially Buddhist) and scientific interpretation. Blending of both apparently dissimilar concepts is meant to reach a more synoptic perspective on this widely known doctrine, which basically addresses a universal law of nature and its impact on individual and collective worldlines.
Does Mystical Experience Give Access to Reality? – Paul Marshall
There are reasons for the neglect, and in the present article I consider two major theoretical obstacles to finding metaphysical significance in the experiences: a radical form of contextualism and a reductionist approach to neuroscience. With these obstacles addressed, there is room to consider how mystical experience and metaphysics can be brought into dialogue, a task facilitated by the contemporary resurgence of interest in alternatives to materialist metaphysics and a renewed interest in mystical experience encouraged by psychedelic research.
Imaginal Inspirations with Cynthia Bourgeault
David Lorimer's guest today is Cynthia Bourgeault, who is a modern-day mystic, Episcopal priest, writer, and internationally acclaimed retreat leader. She divides her time between solitude in her seaside hermitage in Maine and a demanding schedule travelling globally to spread the recovery of the Christian contemplative and Wisdom paths.
Gerard Kuiken on the Pushing Boundaries podcast – False Dualities, Space-time, Life-death
Gerard proposes that without a limitation there is no existence and that the brain is the tool for setting up limitations and controlling the consciousness of differences. In this way, 'man becomes aware of himself by limitation and experiences that as the awakening of his own world. Time is part of the form world and the formless world is timeless, a formulation corresponding to insights from near-death and mystical experience. Life and death are complementary in the sense that in life, spirit is beyond space-time and substance is in space-time.
Back to the Aether in Physics and Cosmology – Adrian Klein
The concept of a universal medium pervading everything, the aether, has been long ago rejected by mainstream science as a speculative one, especially after the famous Michelson-Morley experiment that failed to confirm the reality of a luminiferous essence invoked for the propagation of E.M. waves. Nevertheless, the concept has been re-established as a serious, experimentally proven one, by the work of Nicola Tesla, the genial physicist widely recognized in modern academic circles. His achievements are quite unparalleled in experimental physics, and recently recalled to public attention by Serbian researcher Goran Marjanovic – whose papers have been published in various academic editorial outputs of high credibility.
Imaginal Inspirations with Mark Gober
David Lorimer's Guest today is Mark Gober who is an award-winning author of four books: "An End to Upside Down Thinking" (2018), "An End to Upside Down Living" (2020), "An End to Upside Down Liberty" (2021), and "An End to Upside Down Contact" (2022). He is also the host of the podcast "Where Is My Mind?" Gober serves on the Board of Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell’s Institute of Noetic Sciences and the School of Wholeness and Enlightenment.
