From the author of the global bestsellerThe Secret History of the World comes an epic new history of the relationship between spiritual belief and cutting-edge science.
Jonathan Black shows that from Marie Curie to today's architects of AI, many of our greatest scientists have been guided by secret, mystical and 'higher' teachings towards an understanding of the universe familiar to the builders of the pyramids of Giza or the Temple at Jerusalem. He explores how these discoveries, foreshadowed and paralleled by geniuses including Carl Gustav Jung and Hilma af Klint, raise deep and urgent questions about our understanding of the universe.
Is the material universe we perceive with our senses an illusion? Is a higher intelligence directing it? Are events in the future already fixed? How does modern physics show we are all connected in ways old science said were impossible? Are different kinds of intelligence - divine and less benevolent - emerging around us?
This is the science hardline atheists don't want you to know about.
The author explores how there's often an overlap between science and philosophy and that some of the greatest scientific minds have also had an interest in the not-so-scientific. An interesting read.