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The gap between panpsychism and idealism is bridged if one infers that fundamental consciousness, instead of being a property of elementary material particles, pervades the fabric of space itself, from where it is then canalized into living beings.

Renowned psychiatrist Dr. Iain McGilchrist laid out his idealist metaphysical views unambiguously in the closing presentation of the ‘Science of Consciousness’ conference, 2021. His clarity, lucidity and almost hypnotically compelling style provided a spellbinding end to the conference. Video and transcript follow.

It increasingly strikes us that the reason why many scientists and scholars reject idealism—the notion that reality is essentially mental—is based on simple misunderstandings of what idealism states or implies. In this brief editorial, we would like to discuss and correct some of these misunderstandings.

In the fourth episode of the Essentia Readings podcast (available for free on all major platforms), Nadia Hassan reads Dr. Pim van Lommel’s ‘Near-Death Experiences during cardiac arrest,’ a half-hour of fascinating material.

Conceptual reasoning might seem as central to our understanding of self and world today as the Earth once seemed central in the pre-Copernican cosmos. But just as the Copernican Revolution repositioned the Earth in the orbit of a much larger system, an on-going revolution in our understanding of ourselves will dramatically expand the boundaries of our inner cosmos.

We’re launching the Reality Reminded podcast, with acclaimed Dutch documentary filmmaker Hans Busstra. Could it be that we have ‘un’minded reality and now need to ‘re’mind it? This is a show like no other, in that each episode covers a specific theme, as opposed to a specific interviewee; the listening experience has an almost visual feel to it; and the content covered is more akin to an ongoing television documentary than a podcast. And best of all, it’s all FREE.

In the third episode of the Essentia Readings podcast (available for free on all major directories), Nadia Hassan reads Dr. Gerald Woerlee’s What is consciousness? A half-hour of fascinating material that may surprise you.

When a special kind of ‘beingness’ organizes itself by taking on form, it presents itself to itself, from within, against its own background, thereby igniting consciousness into existence.

Every year Essentia Foundation organizes an online conference featuring some of the world’s leading scholars, scientists and academics, on a topic relevant to ontological idealism. This year, we are delighted to focus on The Science of Consciousness, in a very special edition of the conference organized by Prof. dr. Sarah Durston. We’re even more delighted to count as our partners, this time, the Sentience and Science Foundation and the Institute for Advanced Study of the University of Amsterdam.

In an age when abstraction and conceptual games have come to dominate our philosophy, we must wonder whether we’ve lost something important, even crucial, in our way to relate to the world, one another and even ourselves.

Research suggests that there is a neurological foundation to the experience of social connectivity, and that it is the same as the foundation of consciousness itself: synchronistic alignment appears not only within an individual brain in correlation with experience, but also between people taking part in joint tasks. This can form the basis for an objective ethics, argues Dr. Walden.

In this fascinating second episode of the Essentia Readings podcast, Nadia reads Prof. Victor Petrenko’s work. Nadia’s commentary towards the end is particularly spellbinding! This podcast is available through all major platforms.

Spanish science journalist and doctor Antonio Rial delights us with the perspectives acquired after decades studying and communicating science. He regards reality as the image of a hierarchical structure of mental processes, an evolving ecosystem of minds.

Can people—even those ostensibly not hypnotizable—be coaxed into creating entire virtual realities that they then take for facts? Can the same techniques be used to alter our memories of the past? If so, is this significant for our understanding of what reality—the real reality—actually is? Psychologists Prof. Petrenko and Dr. Kucherenko share astonishing results produced by Russian clinical and experimental psychology, which answer these questions in the affirmative.

While physicalism is impossible to confirm even in principle, idealism suffers from no such limitation. This intrinsic verifiability makes it a more fruitful avenue of investigation.

We are delighted to launch today the Essentia Readings podcast. In it, British-Lebanese artist Nadia Hassan reads a selection of the material published by Essentia Foundation, adding her own commentary and impressions. With this initiative, we hope to reach you with quality, enriching content not only during your reading time, but in other moments of your life as well.

Metaphysical beliefs modulate our experience of all aspects of life. As such, explicitly assessing the metaphysics we internalize can be the difference between depression and contentment, anxiety and vibrant aliveness. In this brief editorial, we highlight the crucial importance of metaphysics to every facet of our lives.

In seeking to ameliorate social injustices by debunking the egoic self as measure of all things, the social sciences risk inadvertently abolishing the very notion of a subject of experience, argues Dr. Donna Thomas. The way forward, according to her, is to embrace metaphysics and understand the self not as a separate social agent, but as the ontic ground of all reality, common to all of us.

Theologian Dr. Asher Walden argues that the self can be accounted for purely as a momentary aggregate of mental factors. Although we normally think of experience as some kind of relation between a subject and an object, in truth there is just experience.

Journalist Hans Busstra interviews physicist Dr. Markus Müller on his so-called ‘zero-worlds’ theory, which was not meant as a proof of idealism, but does ‘give you idealism for free.’

Prof. Vladimir Serkin discusses a theory of consciousness whereby the latter is not regarded as merely a product of physiological function. His isn’t an idealist approach and, therefore, we at Essentia Foundation reserve judgment about it. However, the theory is undoubtedly scholarly and reveals the remarkably interesting directions in which Russian academia is pursuing an explanation for mind. They aren’t as held back by physicalist prejudices as similar efforts in the West, and thus deserve our careful attention.

The claim that individual human consciousness is a segment of a universal mind, separated from it via dissociation, is supported by the neurobiology of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID), according to psychiatrist Dr. Yulia Perch. In this essay, complexity science and Dr. Perch’s own clinical experience are used to demonstrate that dissociative processes in a living psyche are not specific to DID, but widespread and inevitable.

If the reality we think we inhabit is but a story confabulated by the brain’s ‘default mode network,’ what is the world ‘out there,’ and the self ‘in here,’ when the inner storytelling is subdued through meditation?

Prof. Petrenko shows that we may be regularly, though implicitly, using the so-called “collective unconscious”—a transpersonal field of subjectivity we all share, but which we can’t explicitly access through introspection—to tap into each other’s minds, minds in the animal kingdom as a whole, and perhaps even beyond.

Today we’re releasing a complete, carefully produced but free online course on Analytic Idealism, perhaps the most modern and intellectually compelling formulation of Idealism currently available. The course is based on a series of seven videos, totaling over 6 hours of content. It is conducted by Essentia Foundation’s executive director, Bernardo Kastrup.

Analytic Idealism Course This is a carefully produced but free, online, video-based course on Analytic Idealism, with over 6 hours of content, conducted by Essentia Foundation's executive director, Bernardo Kastrup. Whereas the course has been designed to be accessible to a non-specialist audience, it makes very few concessions in terms of the substance and thoroughness [...]

Consciousness is the inner reality of the world, governed by the laws of coherent quantum systems, while matter is but an expression of the meaning inherent in this inner reality. The classical world of matter conforms to the statistical properties of a primordial quantum ‘language’ spontaneously used by the inner quantum reality to express itself. These are the insights of physicist—and inventor of the microprocessor—Federico Faggin in this captivating essay.

Journalist and documentary filmmaker Hans Busstra interviews Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal on ‘the flip’: the sudden change of worldview away from the materialist paradigm that is increasingly experienced by scientists, scholars and academics the world over.

One of the most respected psychologists in the Slavic world—where materialist prejudices are less pronounced—Prof. Victor Petrenko, a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, discusses his views on the nature of mind and reality. He shows, through remarkable experiments, that our very perception is conditioned upon our ability to tell ourselves, conceptually, what we are perceiving. It is possible that we simply do not perceive what we have no conceptual categories to make sense of. This way, we may be immersed in effectively alien aspects of reality that we cannot cognize. This captivating essay introduces to a Western audience the high-quality—and arguably less metaphysically biased—scholarship of the Slavic world in an area of knowledge whose relevance to our lives cannot be overestimated.

In this short and powerful essay, cardiologist Dr. Pim van Lommel summarizes and discusses four rigorous studies of Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) carried out in clinical settings. He concludes that, on a scientific basis, the materialist notion that brain activity somehow is or generates consciousness is not adequate to accommodate and make sense of the empirical evidence available.

Science fiction and certain voices in academia have manufactured cultural plausibility for the notion that we should, one day, be able to build a conscious computer. But is this idea even coherent to begin with? Who best to ask but the creator of the microprocessor and artificial intelligence pioneer, Federico Faggin.

Is science in general, and physics in particular, compatible with a consciousness-only worldview in which matter is merely an appearance of extended mental processes underlying all nature? Physicist Dr. Claus Metzner doesn’t see why they shouldn’t.

Dr. Thomas argues that children, before a conceptual, culture-bound notion of self is inculcated in them, have a more spontaneous, broader sense of identity that defies our current worldview. She argues that their more natural, fluid self is more conducive to overcoming the despair characteristic of our present situation, and that it has much to teach us about reality itself. 

Consciousness is more fundamental than, and precedes, higher-level mental activity such as thoughts and emotions. Therefore, it is possible that consciousness—as a kind of primary ‘operating system’—is present even in the complete absence of recognizable mental activity, argues dr. Woerlee with the authority of an anesthesiologist. We may thus be conscious even during states of seeming unconsciousness, which is relevant for metaphysics—such as idealism—that consider consciousness fundamental.

After Dr. Müller’s extraordinary presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference, we, the editors, felt the need to interview him and explore his ideas further. If you haven’t watched his presentation already, we recommend you do so before reading on. The video is linked.

In this inaugural editorial, we introduce ourselves to you by discussing our perspective on an urgent challenge facing our society, our vision for how to address this challenge, and how we hope to contribute to the solution.

There are extraordinary experiences that, although commonplace, contradict the current materialist metaphysics. This is what Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal argues in his presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference. 

Is matter merely a ‘graphical user interface’ to a deeper, conscious reality? In his presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference, neuroscientist Prof. Donald Hoffman argues compellingly that this is indeed the case.

A new understanding of space and time is a prerequisite for making sense of the mind-body problem, argues Prof. Bernard Carr in his presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference.

If the mind-body problem is at all solvable, should it ever be solved? In his presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference, renowned author and science journalist John Horgan maintains that, for moral reasons, it shouldn’t.

Has rigorous empirical research ever contradicted materialism? In his presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference, Prof. Edward F. Kelly discusses decades of solid scientific work that does precisely that.

There are uncanny correspondences between Jewish mysticism and cutting-edge theories of reality such as idealist cosmopsychism, as discussed by neurologist Prof. Hyman M. Schipper in his presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference.

Essentia Foundation's 2020 online work conference In late 2020, Essentia Foundation has brought together an elite group of scientists and scholars to discuss, over two different days, the role of mind in nature. Is mind merely epiphenomenal? Or is it the very ground of reality? The discussions unfolded along a broad variety of disciplines, from hardcore [...]

After failing to find anatomical or functional correlates of a variety of psychiatric conditions, Prof. dr. Sarah Durston has moved away from metaphysical materialism. This is what she discusses in her presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference.

Prof. Mikhail Ilyin, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, discusses foundational issues around the mind-body problem, as historically explored in Western philosophy and beyond. Watch his presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference.

Fred Matser, Essentia Foundation’s Founder and Chairman, explains his motivations for taking this initiative.

Fred Matser, Essentia Foundation’s Founder and Chairman, invites us to contemplate the limits of mere words and concepts in our interactions with one another and nature at large. Are we missing out on important things because we assume that what cannot be said also cannot exist?

In this eye-popping essay, physicist and mathematician Melvin Felton explores the uncanny and unexpected similarities between the structure of the human brain and the universe at large, at both unfathomably small and unfathomably vast scales. Nothing in today’s science explains these bewildering similarities.

Is what we see, what we get? Are the seemingly material objects around us what the world actually is? Or are our perceptions merely providing us with a coded representation of a deeper, mysterious reality?

So what comes first, matter or mind? Prof. Kak’s answer is nuanced and deserves a thoughtful read.

In this cogent essay, emergency physician Dr. Anoop Kumar elaborates on his view of the fundamental role mind plays in healthcare, as well as his three-minds model.

Does the brain produce the mind? Or is the relationship between the two something altogether different? We explore the latest science in this short film.

In this powerful essay, Prof. Schipper unveils the uncanny similarities and correspondences between the ancient Kabbalah and cutting-edge theories of reality such as idealist cosmopsychism.

Are popular myths and tales merely an expression of naive superstition, or do they reflect—metaphorically or symbolically, as the case may be—something real about the underlying nature of reality? Author Patrick Harpur’s answer is as thoughtful as it is nuanced.

Our first-person perspective is primary, the external world emergent, argues physicist and member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Dr. Markus Müller, in his presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference. A follow-up interview with Dr. Müller, expanding on the topics of his presentation, is also available.

Does the matter that surrounds us have a standalone reality, irrespective of observation? Or is matter merely the thin, superficial appearance of a deeper, mysterious reality?

Prof. dr. Jan van der Greef discusses his intellectual journey from childhood polio to life sciences, entrepreneurship, art, and finally to a non-dual relationship with nature at large. Watch his presentation during Essentia Foundation’s 2020 online work conference.