Tag Archives: Religion

The Universe May Be Stranger Than Religion Imagined

David W. Falls writes about artificial intelligence, belief, secular meaning, and the future of human identity. This essay explores how human beings have long interpreted strange or unseen experiences as signs, spirits, visitations, or messages from beyond. Its central argument is that science has not made the universe less mysterious. It has made supernatural explanations harder to defend. The unseen may be real, profound, and astonishing without being sacred, personal, or watching us.

The piece moves through perception, pattern-making, grief, ghost belief, religious explanation, and the hidden realities revealed by modern science. It is skeptical of supernatural claims, but not dismissive of the experiences that often give rise to them. My aim is to take mystery seriously without turning it too quickly into doctrine.

Three In One Nature of Consciousness & Dream Seequence

Alan MacDonald was a graphic designer and illustrator for 40 years.
“As a metaphysical artist I am concerned with a three-way comparison between: metaphysics (science of subject / why), Science of object (how), and information technology, the most important metaphor we have for the nature of consciousness. Vedic philosophy, describes the three in one nature of consciousness; rishi, devata, chandas (knower, known, process of knowing). My ‘Dream Sequence’ series proposes dreams as daily status reports from the source regarding our level of alignment with the source. I record every dream, interpret upon waking and illustrate it.”

Voyage to a Beginning: A review of Gary Lachman’s ‘Touched by the Presence’

Luke Gilfedder, a British author and modernist scholar, reviews Gary Lachman’s new memoir, ‘Touched by the Presence: From Blondie’s Bowery and Rock and Roll to Magic and the Occult’. ‘Touched by the Presence’ follows Lachman’s journey from founding member of Blondie to prolific writer on consciousness, counterculture, and the Western esoteric tradition. The book offers a distinctive perspective on the intersection of the arts, existentialism, and the philosophy of consciousness, as experienced by a young person undergoing a major life transition – from member of a world-famous band to full-time author.

From Curvature to Creation : What π really measures

Sabahat Fida is a lecturer in Zoology with the Higher Education Department in Kashmir. With academic training spanning in both the sciences (MSc Zoology) and the humanities (MA Philosophy), her work seeks to bridge the realms of science, metaphysics, religion, and philosophy. ‘From curvature to creation: what pi really measures’ explores the philosophical implications of the mathematical constant π. The piece traces π from its definition to its quiet governance of physical laws and biological form, arguing that its ubiquity points to a mathematically ordered cosmos.

Can you be aware of nothing? The rare sleep experience scientists are trying to understand

Adriana Alcaraz-Sanchez is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (IASH), University of Edinburgh.
“I completed my PhD in Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. I’m interested in the study of consciousness, in particular in altered states of consciousness across wakefulness and sleep. To date, my research has focused on the examination of unusual forms of awareness during sleep, including witnessing-sleep, minimal forms of dreaming, and the hypnagogic state. At present, I’m investigating the links between dreaming and daydreaming. I take an interdisciplinary approach, and most of my work combines methods from analytic philosophy, phenomenology, and qualitative research.”

How higher states of consciousness can forever change your perception of reality

Steve Taylor is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology, Leeds Beckett University.
Steve Taylor PhD is the author of several best-selling books on psychology and spirituality, including his new book DisConnected: The Roots of Human Cruelty and How Connection Can Heal the World. He was past chair of the Transpersonal Section of the British Psychological Society.
Dr Taylor teaches Consciousness Studies, Transpersonal Psychology and Positive Psychology. His research interests are spirituality, transformational experiences, parapsychology and altered states of consciousness.
Steve’s background is in Transpersonal Psychology and Positive Psychology. He has published 14 books, and his journal articles have been published in many academic journals, magazines and newspapers, including The Journal of Humanistic Psychology, The Journal of Consciousness Studies and The Journal of Transpersonal Psychology. His work has been featured widely in the media in the UK.

On ‘The Other Side: A Journey into Women, Art and the Spirit World’

Jennifer Higgie is an Australian writer and former editor of frieze magazine. Her books include ‘The Other Side: A Story of Women, Art and the Spirit World’ (2023), ‘The Mirror and the Palette: Rebellion, Revolution and Resilience: 500 Years of women’s self-portraits’ (2021), the children’s book, which she also illustrated, ‘There’s Not One’ (2017), and the novel ‘Bedlam’ (2007) She was the guest curator of the 2023 exhibition Thin Skin at Monash University Art Museum in Melbourne and is the host of the National Gallery of Australia’s new podcast, Artist’s Artists.

From the mystery and majesty of the universe and beyond

Shanthi Chandrasekar is a multimedia and multidisciplinary artist from Maryland, USA, who has an academic background in physics and psychology, and has been trained in the traditional Indian art forms of Kolam and Tanjore-style painting. While many of her works are influenced by her Indian heritage, her true inspiration comes from the mystery and majesty of the world around her; her muse lives where the scientific overlaps with the spiritual.