One can only regret that this discovery has come rather late, because, in the name of \u2018philosophical and scientific\u2019 materialism, we have witnessed brutal dictatorships which, to cite the most disastrous, have caused around ten million victims under Lenin and Stalin, some fifty million under Mao Tse-tung, and a third of Cambodia\u2019s population under Pol Pot; and we continue to see other dictatorships with concentration camps for all those who do not believe in the \u2018scientific evidence for materialism\u2019, and which, being in power, are unlikely to accept the new theories. This is to mention only the most grotesque instances, but the psychic damage caused by the lack of freedom of expression, which has affected art under those materialist regimes, must be emphasised: suffice it to recall the music, poetry and literature that Russia produced before the revolution, some of which were banned as decadent and contrary to material progress, such as the music of Tchaikovsky, one of the geniuses who most clearly expressed the transcendent function of art. If the magnitude of what happened is not appreciated, this is due to the lack of understanding of the sciences of the spirit that prevails in our times. (I refer the reader to The Roots of Art<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Certainly, our defence of the sciences of the spirit cannot be indiscriminate. We know only too well that man has also managed to distort the nature of these disciplines, but this is the product of dogma, which is precisely a consequence of the pre-eminence of the utilitarian faculties over the unitive ones, to the point of producing a mental blockage within discernment, which, moreover, knows only exclusivist dualisms: God and man, spirit and nature, heaven and hell, believers and unbelievers, the damned and the saved, false and true doctrines, and so on; this makes it irreconcilable with the unitive faculties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Through the same mechanism, the sciences of matter have also fallen into the dogma of reason, which, being an external faculty, accepts as \u2018truth\u2019 only what is verified in matter; that is to say, the \u2018true doctrine\u2019 is materialism, which has been turned almost into a religion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the end, it is evident that what is respected, predominates and has decisively triumphed is materialism; and, more seriously, it has come to materialise minds. Hence our fellow human beings have been turned into objects, Nature into an object of exploitation, and reality has been reified; there are even clear symptoms of mechanised minds to be observed in multitudes who take pleasure in listening to repetitive electronic music, literally monotonous and devoid of melody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the most widely discussed subject of our time, artificial intelligence, about which everyone speaks wonders, I shall confine myself to highlighting its dangers. First, a connection that seems to have gone unnoticed but which, from the perspective of my Psychosophy<\/em>, is clear: it is an extension of the outermost faculty of reason (by which I mean discernment), within which contemporary man has become confined through his obsession with material utilities. This faculty is indeed dual by nature, and its scope does not extend beyond the physical world. AI\u2019s binary system is the product of the least creative faculty we possess; it is unsurprising that it has no intelligence. In the human being, however, discernment is not disconnected from the intellect, which is sometimes nourished by feelings and intuitions that transcend reason, sufficiently to bring the spirit closer to the spiritual faculties I have called unitive, because they tend towards the unification of the mind, faculties arising from moral, aesthetic, religious and philosophical consciousness. But this is not the case with the now-famous AI, which is entirely unaware of these higher faculties, precisely those that define us as human; for that very reason, it will tend to dehumanise us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of our faculties, the one in which AI proves most effective is memory, but our memory is laden with feelings and lived experiences that this apparatus does not register; far from recalling them, it will tend to make us forget that indispensable nourishment of the soul, to make us still more robotic. Perhaps the most harmful aspect of this invention is that it turns people into a mass, since it serves everything up ready-made to the user, generating the passive attitude so characteristic of mass man. If we are not prepared to discern and resist the influence of the media of propaganda and dissemination, which have already indoctrinated and numbed us, if we are already \u2018mediatised\u2019, we shall be even less prepared to face this threat that is already under way: AI. (See The Triumph of the Masses<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n Specialisation, which is steadily increasing, is one of the characteristics of contemporary society; perhaps it is inevitable and necessary for society, but the specialist does not seem to realise that he has become a small cog, which leads him to narrow his cultural, intellectual and spiritual horizons, to become confined within a tiny earthly space; in other words, alienated from the universal and perennial, that is, from philosophy. Added to this is a present danger lurking ahead: many specialisms will be replaced by AI; if the specialist\u2019s life is bound up with his profession and he happens to be replaced, his demoralisation will be complete. Perhaps more than ever, man needs the sciences of the spirit, which do not depend on novelties, which reflect what is eternal in our being, what we are and what endures; they are our refuge in the face of constant and astonishing change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In truth, what we most need from today\u2019s science and technology is for them to stop producing devices of destruction and extermination. Unfortunately, they have already created them. What the times require, then, is precisely an inner change, which is what I have been proposing for half a century. And this change does not come about by transforming Nature (the basic premise of materialism), but by transforming our consciousness. Through that premise, we have reversed the order of things, the priority in the order of knowledge, which must evidently begin with the knowing subject, with the one who is, rather than with what surrounds him, as though we (and this is another false premise) had already attained our fulfilment and could dispose of the rest of living beings as we pleased.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Material progress is inevitable, but the exploitation of those who lag furthest behind by those who advance the most can be prevented, although, as history shows, this has never happened, nor will it happen until the human being changes his conduct, that is, until he emerges from his primitive mental stage of survival. In fact, he surpassed that stage long ago, but has not overcome his mental state, and it is clear that he will not achieve this through more technology, which ceaselessly generates new means of exploitation. The answer, even if we do not wish to see or accept it, lies in the sciences of the spirit, whose objectives, as I understand and apply them, are these: to restore our dignity and humanity within society and to integrate us into the World.<\/p>\n\n\n\n If we make a genuine act of awareness, we shall admit that hopelessness, the lack of meaning in our existence, the very anguish we try to conceal with immediate pleasures and entertainments, and the very nihilism we profess, are clear signs of inner regression. Could it be from ourselves that we wish to be distracted? Everything seems to indicate that the more we master Nature, the more we alienate ourselves from our own nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is easy to judge physicists and the politicians who urge them to apply their ingenuity to diabolical inventions without taking responsibility for our own condition. Everything seems to indicate that, in our progressive identification with our external faculties, created by and for matter, we have failed to notice that we have undergone a process of alienation from our spiritual faculties; it is this process that has led us to place our faith in matter, to the point of confusing what we are with what we have, and thus to dehumanise ourselves. This must be clear: to the extent that we are alienated from our unitive faculties, we are alienated from our destiny.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Several factors have contributed to the present way of thinking and believing, factors which, indeed, have been ignored; as we know, it is ignorance that has caused and will continue to cause the greatest evils in our species, yet we continue to fall into its nets. I shall try to summarise them, beginning with the psychological factor:<\/p>\n\n\n\n The net into which our scientists had fallen was woven several centuries ago by reason itself, which has led them to take a logical conclusion as a first principle: the famous cogito ergo<\/em>\u2026 \u2018therefore, I exist\u2019, \u2018therefore\u2019, it exists. Yet, almost half a century ago, in my first work, The Return to the Sources<\/em>, in the chapter \u2018I Think, Therefore\u2026\u2019, I was already pointing out:<\/p>\n\n\n\n As soon as we think, we transform reality into an abstraction; it ceases to be what it is and becomes an abstraction. When I myself am the object of thought, the consequence will be understood. When I think of myself, I cease to be what I am; I annihilate myself through thought, I transform myself from reality into a concept. When one says I think, imagine, remember, and so on, note that, strictly speaking, the I is out of step with those acts, and that it would be more correct to say it is the one who thought, imagined, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It may be argued that this does not change I think, therefore I exist, since one can assert: I thought, therefore I existed; nevertheless, I am is not the same as I was; the one who was has something of the dead, of the non-existent, about him, for he never becomes actual as a being. This will be admitted, but it will be maintained that we are being too strict about time, since there is only a second between the act of thinking and the I; that is true, but it is this second that renders it no longer present. The I is a conclusion, an idea, not an existing being. Since we can establish a relationship between the two that we can verify countless times, we shall conclude that there exists an I that thought, imagined, and so on. Yet it is precisely here that the reality in which we live begins, the mirror of the world of concepts, when we begin to live in and by refractions and therefore by dualities. It is not a matter of showing our existence through symbols, but of living our existence, and for this we must remove the mirror that prevents us from entering the present and living it. When something as vital as our own existence is at stake, demonstrations are not enough; we must perceive ourselves existing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We therefore object to the Cartesian principle, which refers us back to our individual perspective and thus to our world of abstractions. In our view, the first principle of a philosophy cannot be a product, something constructed or elaborated, but, on the contrary, something as simple and solid as a foundation stone. Philosophy would be the development of what is evident to us precisely because of its simplicity and Unity. An authentic first principle should not require proof or demonstration, because it must be so indubitable to us that it has no need of them. If the first principle is preceded by a therefore or a consequently, it is no longer a first principle but a result. I do not exist because I think; rather, I experience myself living; there is an evidence of life that precedes my thought.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n Another factor, very poorly understood, as was to be expected, is the philosophical one. In this discipline, thinkers themselves, rather than resolving the issue, have contributed to the general lack of understanding for two centuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kant had demonstrated incontrovertibly, and once and for all, that reason cannot go beyond the material, phenomenal world; to transcend it and enter noumenal reality, other faculties were needed, and these are the ones I have called unitive. It is these that idealist philosophers in general have possessed and applied, even if they did not know it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The deviation began with Hegel, who did not listen to Kant, to the point of constructing a philosophical system on the premise that \u2018the real is the rational\u2019; the premise was arbitrary and insufficient, but \u2018scientific\u2019. That house of cards did, of course, collapse. Unfortunately, the matter did not end there. On the one hand, \u2018scientific and philosophical\u2019 materialism was constructed from the cards scattered on the floor, and we have already pointed out the harm it caused. On the other hand, since Hegel had been regarded as the foremost exponent of Idealism, which proves only that this doctrine is not understood, the collapse that swept him away marked the beginning of scepticism towards the Transcendent on the philosophical plane. This was aggravated, with the proclaimed death of God, on the religious plane, which likewise proves, on that plane too, a lack of understanding, for it is the Christian God they have buried; there are other visions of God, or of the Transcendent, which our hasty agnosticism has prevented us from understanding (on this religious factor, see Parallel Civilisations<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n To these psychological, philosophical and religious misunderstandings we must add the Industrial Revolution, which turned our gaze towards the means and made us forget the ends; and what is most alarming is that we do not become aware of the gravity of this forgetting. The result is that only secular reality remains. This forgetting of ends has led to progress for progress\u2019s sake, that is, to progressivism which, since it is unaware of the ends, projects itself in every direction, so that it builds on one side and manufactures the means of destruction on the other; and this is the product of reason without wisdom. To restore the priority of wisdom is the function of philosophy properly understood, which I have spent decades trying to restore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The faith that had been invested in the dominant religion, which has ceased to hold sway, was transferred to matter and to those who transform it. Ortega y Gasset observed that, if an extraterrestrial were to ask who the most intelligent beings on this planet were, everyone would point to scientists, rather than Plato, the Buddha or Beethoven; even to discover what happiness is, they would turn to the most renowned, Einstein, the very man who, in a registered letter, advised Roosevelt to manufacture the atomic bomb. I shall not be the one to deny his genius or that of the atomic physicists, but it is my duty to highlight the negative consequences of their discoveries and their way of thinking. We know, moreover, that this same bomb has been improved and multiplied, and that the means of delivering it have been perfected, so that the destiny of our species can now be decided in a few minutes; and this is much more than a lack of wisdom: it is rational madness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It should be added that the intelligence quotient, as it is usually measured, has little or nothing to do with our humanity; there are compelling examples of this. Darwin himself did not hesitate to assert that what defined us as human was our morality, the spiritual faculty par excellence. Whether scientist, artist, politician or beggar, it is by his virtues that we must judge man first and foremost.<\/p>\n\n\n\n That is to say, what truly defines us is the spiritual faculties, precisely those we have forgotten, because for several generations now we have directed our attention, interests and knowledge towards material goods, without noticing, in this process, our progressive alienation from ourselves, our fellow human beings and Nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the beginning of this Manifesto, I observed that, as a result of the application of quantum theory, a change of perspective has taken place among the scientists most advanced in this discipline, consisting in the recognition of the existence of a Consciousness that underlies Nature and precedes the human mind. In their long search among brain cells, the sciences of matter have not found where intelligence is generated, but have discovered it outside the mind. That is to say, the mind would no longer have a creative function, as has been believed for centuries, but a receptive one. The brain, which we identify with the mind, would be another sense, like sight or hearing. Curiously, this is what Hindus have always believed. But we know that Western culture has remained apart from Eastern knowledge, in the belief that the \u2018true\u2019 sciences of matter, as well as philosophy, religion, art and psychology, are Western. I confess that I have had the good fortune not to fall into this provincialism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The brain, then, would be another sense, but certainly with far more complex functions, such as the capacity to order everything perceived. For this ordering, I have distinguished two interrelated faculties with different functions. One is the external part of reason, discernment, which performs the mechanical function of joining, separating and comparing, for which it depends on memory; it is from this faculty, as I said earlier, that AI arises as an extension. The other faculty is the intellect, which performs an intermediate function, since it nourishes discernment through intuitions drawn from the Consciousness of the World. (For a detailed explanation of these mechanisms, I refer the reader to my Psychosophy<\/em> and my theory of knowledge.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n What remains to be explained, then, is what this Consciousness of the World is and how it expresses itself, this Consciousness that permeates, illuminates and inspires the individual consciousnesses of all beings, which the sciences have just discovered. For forty years, I have been speaking precisely of a Universal Consciousness, explaining and detailing its functions in the Cosmos and its relationship with our individual minds, and, conversely, the ways, conditions and methods necessary for our individual consciousness to gain access to It. Here, of course, I can offer only a few pointers; but the attempt is worthwhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Until proven true, hypotheses are beliefs, and knowledge comes through experience, both in the sciences of matter and in those of the spirit. But the latter, the sciences of the spirit, are of a different nature: knowledge of them is not acquired in laboratories or at desks, but through a different mind, feelings, purposes and life. Aesthetic perception, moral practice, religious feeling and philosophical intuition are paths devoid of matter, on which no apparatus can stand and which it cannot even detect. The scientific method is cumulative, and on that path nothing can be accumulated either. Reason, which, as I have already indicated, is dualistic, has divided the way of knowing into two: subjective and objective. Beyond reason, however, my theory of knowledge (to which I refer the reader) has set out a method that transcends that duality, which I have called unitive and which is entirely spiritual in nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The difference in the case of the idealist philosophers whom I have discussed in my works is that each, in his own way, has had a transcendental intuition, or a direct experience of that Consciousness, and it is from this that they deduce their philosophies. Physicists and scientistic philosophers have followed an inductive path; idealists, a deductive one. The former infer that there must be a Consciousness; idealist philosophers know that it is the first reality and develop their philosophies from it. The difference in perspective and method is radical and vital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It follows from what has been said that it is not enough to discover something we can label Consciousness and, from there, begin to think, or continue thinking, about what the World must be like; rather, we must awaken and actualise that Consciousness. This is the challenge facing quantum physics. Since reason is dual by nature, if a Consciousness has been reached through it, however much one may have concluded that there is a Unity, this will remain a concept out there; it will not bring about a vital transformation. Thinking about consciousness is not the same as thinking from Consciousness, as Being Consciousness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have heard of some scientists who, finding themselves now, thanks to the quantum, faced with a reality of a spiritual order that transcends matter, have begun to philosophise. I have no objection, but I greatly fear that they will reach no more than hypothetical realities as long as they continue to use the scientific method, applicable and effective in understanding matter but sterile in matters of the spirit. And not only the method, but the very mental faculties used by scientists are unsuited to this purpose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I shall take as an example one of the most distinguished scientists, Mr Roger Penrose, Nobel laureate in physics, a person of very extensive knowledge, ranging from the most distant galaxies to subatomic particles. His findings are astonishing, it must be admitted. For example, he informs us that our own bodies are made up of atoms that belonged to galaxies millions of years ago; that is to say, we are part of the Cosmos. This astonishes me because it coincides entirely with my cosmology, but I observe that it expresses only the material relationship; it remains to explain why those atoms seek or are impelled towards an Order, for everything indicates that there is a force underlying matter that tends to stabilise and create; otherwise, there would be Chaos, in which existence is impossible. Why have those atoms organised themselves to generate life? Do we living beings not feel a vital impulse that not only keeps our hearts beating, but leads us to love, to know, to create, that impels us, in the end, beyond ourselves, that is, to transcend ourselves? It is these unitive forces that the sciences lack in order to complete their understanding of the Cosmos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Penrose strives to demonstrate why religions exist, and does so in the classical manner, taking the most widespread religion as his reference: the first error, into which Toynbee and so many others had already fallen, because in this matter quantity does not determine quality. The second error was foreseeable, for it is the same one the Church makes: taking an entirely spiritual moral message as factual events. I have dealt with this subject at sufficient length in The Triumph of the Masses<\/em>, so I shall not discuss it here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I shall say only that what is decisive in understanding the religious noumenon is the experience of reality that transcends reason, which is what so many mystics and philosophers express. The matter lies in understanding their teachings; it is legitimate to say: I do not understand them, or I am not capable of doing so, but not to say: I do not believe. There are no false or true religions, but relatively similar paths towards the same destination. I have no intention whatsoever of justifying the deviations and wanderings that have occurred along the journey, but they serve to remind us how far man is from reaching that destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Some 4,200 years ago, precisely in the oldest surviving sacred text, the key to understanding this matter had already been expressed: \u2018Truth (God) is one, but the wise (men) give it different names\u2019 (Rig Veda<\/em>, Book 1, Mantra 164, 46). Hindus have accepted this postulate as a matter of course ever since; in the West and the Middle East, it is still not understood (or people do not wish to understand it). For those who are wary, we can clarify this postulate further: God need not be personal, nor have will, intention or form; that is to say, God may be entirely free of all anthropomorphism. In my own view, to avoid misunderstandings, I do not even speak of God. Nor does Buddhism need to do so.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mr Penrose probes more deeply when, following the second law of thermodynamics and the logic of the principle of entropy, he concludes that, if there has been a creative Consciousness, it must have been a mathematical genius; but he tells us nothing about morality. That is to say, morality remains a human creation. The sciences of matter continue to maintain that morality, like art, comes from our brain, just as they previously imagined intelligence did. The materialist conception remains latent in the mind and operative in practice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In truth, I never cease to be astonished at how some people come to interpret art in history. We hear anthropologists assert with (scientific?) certainty that the paintings and engravings at Altamira and Lascaux were made to ensure successful hunts. But, by all the gods! Do they not realise that they are applying their narrow utilitarian outlook to everything they find? No, gentlemen, those cave paintings are artistic expressions that man needed more than twenty thousand years ago; those animals had something divine, something transcendent, as Egyptian art would later clearly show. The mythical mentality possessed the virtue of sacralising Nature; the Semitic, anthropocentric and monotheistic mentality desacralised it. And now, through ignorance of other doctrines and of the religious noumenon in general, which has led to the unwarranted adoption of agnosticism, even the notion of the sacred has been lost. (For an understanding of the mythical mentality, see Parallel Civilisations<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n In his famous book Cosmos<\/em>, Carl Sagan passes through Greece and discovers some ingenious utensils and tools. It would seem that, for scientists caught in the rational and materialist nets, the vision of the Cosmos begins with the first utilitarian inventions. No, gentlemen, that is not so either: the Greeks soared to heights that even today we cannot comprehend. For them, the Cosmos began with That Which Transcends reason, with the Immortals and their struggle to establish the Universal Order, an episode sculpted on the frontispiece of the Parthenon (a work destroyed by Christian fanatics). This Order and its temporary disruption are expressed throughout Greek art (which we have yet fully to understand), and sublimely in Greek tragedy, which has had no parallel since. Have we asked ourselves why it attained that degree of perfection? Because it brought together psychology, mythology, religion, literature, imagination, a philosophy of life and other virtues expressed as Art, so that it contained what is most essential and decisive in our nature, what is indispensable to our humanity: the sciences of the spirit. (See \u2018Tragedy\u2019 in The Roots of Art<\/em>.) The invocation of the Muses had been an obligatory tradition among writers from Homer to the Renaissance. Today one may think it was mere rhetoric, but for more than two thousand years poets were convinced that their inspiration came from on high; and this conviction is not explained as \u2018belief\u2019, but as communication with the Transcendent. (See \u2018The Invocations\u2019 in The Roots of Art<\/em>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n For more than a century, The Decline of the West<\/em> has been proclaimed, coinciding with material progress. Everything seems to indicate that the more scientists and technologists think, the less people in general think, becoming passive and dispirited. If we add AI to this state of mind, we shall witness a society obese in body and spirit. I am not suggesting that the former should stop thinking, but seeking to encourage everyone to think better about the present situation, for it is evident that we are not equal to the circumstances we have created.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We must thank the sciences and technology for having enlarged and improved the stage of survival, that is, our animal stage; but the error lies in attributing to them functions beyond their capacities, in believing that we are evolving in every sphere thanks to external or material improvements. No, gentlemen, we are simply enlarging the human anthill, not emerging from it; rather, the more it grows and improves, the more confined we are within our anthropocentrism and selfishness. The path to follow, as will by now be clear, in order to rise beyond this anthill, is that of the sciences of the spirit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There is no opposition between these sciences; they simply perform different functions: whether we want more comfort, conveniences and devices, constructive and destructive, or whether we opt for more goodness, beauty, social and international integration, inner and outer peace, humanity and wisdom. They respond to different faculties, interests, means and objectives. One is the fruit of systematic reason and the study of matter; the other, of a primarily contemplative life, which generates other ways of perceiving, thinking and feeling. Afterwards, if one wishes to philosophise about the experience acquired, systematic thought is also necessary, but always adapting reason to spiritual experience, and not vice versa. It is not a question of one science or the other, but, for the reasons stated above, the priorities must be clear. The reason is simple: when the sciences apply themselves strictly to matter, they have no need of immaterial reality, and so tend to dispense with spiritual values; that is when the misunderstandings begin, not in their science, but in its application, in its use, and this is a problem that concerns the sciences of the spirit, particularly morality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This is not merely a matter of abstract values. When discussing the sciences of the spirit in my Psychosophy<\/em>, I am referring to forms of consciousness which are constituent parts of our mind and nature, the indispensable points of reference for thinking, feeling and acting. Moral, aesthetic, philosophical and religious consciousness are the transcendent faculties that connect us with the Cosmos that we are. To be conscious is not merely to be awake and possess reason and memory, but to have these unitive forms of consciousness present and active. Our acts of awareness, which illuminate and ennoble our knowledge, depend on them; conversely, to lose contact with them is a loss of consciousness: this is what I understand by alienation. Agnostics should consider this way of viewing the mind and reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would not be surprising if these new scientific hypotheses, and even my own work, were now to generate an ideology of panpsychism, a little more interesting than those currently in use, but it would amount to no more than another intellectual fashion. For the direction we must take is not to enlarge our I or habitual consciousness, but to transform it into another Consciousness, higher in every sphere, particularly the moral, for it is clear that, if we remain the same, disaster is foreseeable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps everything can be reduced to this evident fact: our species is much closer to its destruction than to attaining its fulfilment, that is, happiness and wisdom. It is clear that we are following the wrong path, and that following it to the end is senseless. The answer follows with equal clarity: a change in outlook and action is indispensable; perhaps it can no longer be postponed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This change will take place only when we have the lived experience that the Good and the Beautiful, as Plato perceived, are creative principles; Plotinus, and the author of this manifesto, confirm it. When we know and feel that we are an extension of a Universal Moral Order. And this, as I have emphasised in my comments on Idealism, is no novelty: Fichte strove to demonstrate it. (See The Roots of Morality<\/em>.) The fact that we have not attained this transcendent morality must not lead us to disconnect ourselves from our immanent morality, which is there to show us our present path, the very path that leads us to transcend ourselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Schelling, for his part, saw man\u2019s transcendence through art, as did Schiller and the Romantics in general (see The Roots of Art<\/em>). Shortly afterwards, Rub\u00e9n Dar\u00edo exclaimed: \u2018Art is the glorious victor. It is art that conquers space and time\u2019; and they were able to count on numerous followers. But it was then that the materialist loss of direction began.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It is legitimate to observe and study the universe as a mechanism, but that is its visible part, to which mathematics and physics can be applied; there still remains that which permeates the universe, the Spirit that animates it, Life itself in which everything participates, for every existing being, every cell, needs to be sufficiently conscious to be in the World. And this Intelligence-instinct is only one of the emanations of Universal Consciousness, emanations perceptible only through the appropriate faculties when they are raised to a high level of awareness, attained far beyond reason.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I have more than sufficient reasons to propose a Neo-Renaissance; I consider it the appropriate means of emerging from the lamentable present state. The Birth (Greece), humanism in the Renaissance and the exaltation of feelings in Romanticism demonstrate a consciousness different from the rational, which far surpasses the materialist outlook. It is those movements that have in fact generated the great ascents of consciousness in history, as my philosophy of history emphatically maintains (see The Evolution of the Spirit<\/em>).<\/p>\n\n\n\n It will be understood that I do not oppose the work of scientists; I have sought only to point out its limits. It would also be unfair to many of them who have not lost their humanity and are already venturing into the spiritual sphere. With more than twenty of them, I have contributed to a book, Exploring Consciousness<\/em>, in which I summarise my conception of Universal Consciousness, from whose perspective the priorities stated above are clearly revealed. Moreover, Penrose himself, whom I discussed earlier, admits in his latest presentations that the great Problem facing the sciences today is that of consciousness, and even asks whether there might be a consciousness spread throughout the cosmos. But he admits that this is as far as he and the most advanced sciences can go. What is decisive is that the sciences have opened a door leading to immaterial reality, from which the sciences of the spirit draw their nourishment; and it will be understood that I speak in the name of these sciences within a philosophical framework consistent with the sciences of matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sciences, too, from their own perspective, could investigate the link between Consciousness and the immaterial realities to which they have access, particularly photons, for intelligence, intuition and inspiration have always been linked to light in the religious and artistic spheres. That the Egyptians, Greeks, Hindus, Incas and Aztecs have worshipped, or continue to worship, the sun is more than a hint. Moreover, the gods associated not so much with the sun as matter \u2014 Phoebus, Surya \u2014 as with light as spirit \u2014 Apollo and Vishnu \u2014 represent Intelligence itself (and to think that the Greeks and Hindus are na\u00efve is to express our own na\u00efvet\u00e9). And those same spiritual faculties lead me to establish that link. I have already suggested in my cosmology that stars, besides producing the heat and light necessary for life, spread intelligence (they do not create it); photons could be vehicles laden with intelligence that nourish the consciousness of animate beings. But I leave this idea in the hands of scientists, for it would be wonderful if these sciences were to put an end to their disagreements and come together in a fraternal embrace; this is, ultimately, the purpose of this Manifesto.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In my view, the most beneficial outcome that the scientific discovery under discussion can produce is to awaken a renewed interest in idealist philosophies, which evidently have the clearest view of the spiritual landscape and, for that very reason, are the most conducive to knowledge of ourselves, thereby allowing us to attain an essential perspective that encompasses individual perspectives (see my theory of perspectives).<\/p>\n\n\n\n The purpose of my work is to bring about the lived experience of Universal Consciousness. This implies a displacement of the nucleus of consciousness that generates a radical change of perspective. It is not knowledge of the behaviour of matter that will produce this change, but knowledge of our true consciousness, after overcoming the consciousness with which we have mistakenly identified ourselves. The priority is knowledge of our internal circumstances, which lead to the perception of the emanations of Universal Consciousness, for it is they that bestow wisdom, and without wisdom there is no philosophy; and without philosophy (which we must not confuse with the ideologies in use in our times), societies crumble.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The human being, in general \u2014 I shall not cease to insist on this determining condition \u2014 has become aware only of his individual consciousness. He therefore does not perceive the constant relationship he has with his transcendent Consciousness. In accordance with my idealism, founded on my experience, I observe that, besides the intellectual or transcendental intuitions necessary for the perception of Universal Consciousness in Itself, the experience towards which all my work is directed, every creative intuition is nourished by a relative or partial perception of Unity, which is the very Essence of Universal Consciousness. Moreover, I maintain that man orders his mind, his knowledge and his circumstances because he participates in some way in the Universal Order. Unity is absolute Order, and this is the point of reference for every ordering intuition. Newton\u2019s apple cannot be understood if we think of an apple tree, but it acquires meaning if we imagine the mythical World Tree, expressing that Unity, that Order, the Creative. The more universal the intuition, the closer it comes to the transcendental intuition of Universal Consciousness in Itself, but this lies beyond the universe conceived by the sciences of matter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There will be no shortage of those who say that what I call the sciences of the spirit are not sciences, since they are not demonstrable in the same way as those of matter. To this I shall reply: if there is any merit in my work, it lies in the effort I have made to ensure that they are indeed sciences. I have stripped them of every creed, dogma, determinism, subjectivism, relativism, exclusivism and other isms; I have founded them on experience and provided the means of attaining it through a theory of knowledge, a transcendental psychology (Psychosophy<\/em>), an ethics, an aesthetics, a philosophy of history and a metaphysics. This experience of the Transcendent is not an invention of mine (my philosophy seeks truths, not novelties); it has been repeatedly verified over 2,600 years in Buddhism and Hinduism (the similarities and nuances in its interpretation have been duly highlighted in The Evolution of the Spirit<\/em> and Parallel Civilisations<\/em>). And, should this not prove sufficient, everyone is invited to contribute to the same purpose, for my philosophical system is open and its aim is to spread this knowledge in the conviction that nothing is more useful and necessary for our species.<\/p>\n\n\n\n My philosophy, which has sought to bring together and organise universal idealist thought, does not work with imagined or hypothetical ideals, nor does it preach the hope of finding ethereal or heavenly worlds; rather, it acts upon verifiable levels of awareness, generating spiritual experiences that lead to a vision revealing the whole of Reality, spiritual and material, the Universus<\/em> in which we exist and have our being. And it is in this Unity of Consciousness that the fulfilment of our mind and our existence is to be found. In the conviction that this is so, all my work is directed towards that Destiny. (For a detailed explanation of what has been set out here, see the works cited, in particular The Search for Universal Consciousness<\/em>.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n 26\/10\/2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Manifesto in the Name of the Sciences of the Spirit One can only regret that this discovery has come rather late, because, in the name of \u2018philosophical and scientific\u2019 materialism, we have witnessed brutal dictatorships which, to cite the most disastrous, have caused around ten million victims under Lenin and Stalin, some fifty million under […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11652","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized-en"],"yoast_head":"\n