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Brief Peeks Beyond: Critical Essays on Metaphysics, Neuroscience, Free Will, Skepticism and Culture
This book is a multi-faceted exploration and critique of the human condition as it is presently manifested. It addresses science and philosophy, explores the underlying nature of reality, the state of our society and culture, the influence of the mainstream media, the nature of free will and a number of other topics. Each of these examinations contributes an angle to an emerging idea gestalt that challenges present mainstream views and behaviors and offers a sane alternative. The book is organized as a series of short and self-contained essays, most of which can be read in under one hour.
257 pages, Kindle Edition
First published May 29, 2015
72 people are currently reading
530 people want to read
About the author
Bernardo Kastrup
36 books654 followersBernardo Kastrup is the Executive Director of Essentia Foundation and Founder/CEO at AI systems company Euclyd BV. His work has set off the modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence). As a scientist, Bernardo has worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the 'Casimir Effect' of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). He has also been creatively active in the high-tech industry for almost 30 years, having founded parallel processor company Silicon Hive (acquired by Intel in 2011) and worked as a technology strategist for the geopolitically significant company ASML. Most recently, he has founded AI hardware company Euclyd BV. Formulated in detail in many academic papers and books, Bernardo's ideas have been featured on 'Scientific American,' the magazine of 'The Institute of Art and Ideas,' the 'Blog of the American Philosophical Association' and 'Big Think,' among others. His most defining book is 'Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell: A straightforward summary of the 21st-century's only plausible metaphysics.' For more information, visit www.bernardokastrup.com.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
April 19, 2017
Absolutely brilliant!
This is the fifth book of Bernardo Kastrup that I've read, so I am fairly familiar to his clear philosophy, yet I still feel that I have learned a lot from this book.
Comprised from a series of critical essays on ontology, the philosophy of science, consciousness and the philosophy of mind, culture and society, education, free will and many other "big questions", Bernardo's book sheds clarity on these heavy topics, like tidying up an old closet, full of misplaced and useless clothing and accesories.
By keeping only what's internally coherent with our most direct observations, Bernardo's metaphysics offers a peace of mind and serenity that any critically thinking intellectual yearns for, in the desert of meaning that we call our mainstream worldview. Among many other gifts, this book bestows upon us a lifting of existential angst, a way to understand the most awe-inspiring mysteries of our existence, but most importantly, a way to reconcile our rational understanding of science and our deepest spiritual intuitions, finally stitching up the deepest wound in the modern man's psyche.
For me, this is one of the most important 10 Books that any rational human being should read in his/her lifetime.
This is the fifth book of Bernardo Kastrup that I've read, so I am fairly familiar to his clear philosophy, yet I still feel that I have learned a lot from this book.
Comprised from a series of critical essays on ontology, the philosophy of science, consciousness and the philosophy of mind, culture and society, education, free will and many other "big questions", Bernardo's book sheds clarity on these heavy topics, like tidying up an old closet, full of misplaced and useless clothing and accesories.
By keeping only what's internally coherent with our most direct observations, Bernardo's metaphysics offers a peace of mind and serenity that any critically thinking intellectual yearns for, in the desert of meaning that we call our mainstream worldview. Among many other gifts, this book bestows upon us a lifting of existential angst, a way to understand the most awe-inspiring mysteries of our existence, but most importantly, a way to reconcile our rational understanding of science and our deepest spiritual intuitions, finally stitching up the deepest wound in the modern man's psyche.
For me, this is one of the most important 10 Books that any rational human being should read in his/her lifetime.
December 9, 2025
This is it - the much needed conciliation of Eastern wisdom with Western philosophy. Kastrup gives a beautiful metaphysical framework to my first-person knowledge of truth.
I loved almost all essays on metaphysics and science, (-1) star for some of the essays on culture, free will, healing etc. which i found either muddled up or included things i mostly disagree.
Him concocting his whole outlook into his metaphysics, and attaching anything else that he leaves out personally to the paradigm of materialism is a bit simplistic. But overall beyond beautiful.
Some notes below.
// Brief peeks beyond science and meaning
Many people, scientists included, believe that the greatest taboo in science is the one against ‘magic.’ After all, science is a method for explaining things and phenomena in terms of measurable, concrete causes. ‘Magic,’ on the other hand, entails an appeal to undetectable or ethereal causes, only their effects being concretely observable. But actually, magic has never been the taboo of science. Because the chain of reduction must ends somewhere where we bump up to natural forces that we cannot explain or reduce to other natural phenomena. Where nature is as is. At that level, it must surely look like magic to us - just the way electromagnetic vibrations travel through the vacuum of space now.
So Kastrup argues the real taboo of science is meaning! Because initially, we thought we were at the center of the universe, heavens rotating around us. We thought we were significant and special. But as scientific findings accumulated, each took a bite out of that. More developments led us to believe that we are insignificant, we are just dust, "chemical scum".
But a taboo against meaning can be as naive and delusional as the hope for meaning. Who are we to know what significance we might have?
"The ingenuousness and failure of our earlier conceptions of it doesn’t imply that meaning itself is illusory."
// Brief peeks beyond the methodology of science
Science is extremely powerful but current physics can only explain phenomena in the tiniest scales within closed systems of tiny amounts of particles. The standard model does this. There is no working science of higher order beings, complex systems etc.
High technological prowess gives the illusion of science having mastered and domineered over existence. This is not true (coming from Kastrup, a comp sci guy who worked at CERN and ASML).
So much of science depends on the quality of our statistics. Because we cannot sample reality in its full density, we sample it as much as we can and then plot these samples to see if they drift from random noise. There are formal methods to do this. So a lot of "acceptable" science can be rejected or accepted on the basis of its methodology of statistics.
// Brief peeks beyond scientism and culture
Scientists has largely replaced the priests as access guides to ultimate reality, as highly specialized elites equipped with knowledge that the layperson would not comprehend. A personal inquiry is shunned in both cases, as psuedo-scientific in the former - and heresy in the latter. Scientism is filling the void left from religion.
// Brief peeks beyond neuroscience and memory
Neuroscience still has no idea what memories are, physically. We can't find any storing mechanism in the brain, only a "playing" mechanism, by looking at neural signals. There are some truly weird findings such as flatworm retaining memory after their head being severed, and anecdotal evidence for memory transfer with organ donations.
// Brief peeks beyond Neo-Darwinism
Today I learned there isn't enough evidence to conclusively accept genetic mutations are random.
The Neo-Darwinian paradigm is, the filtering of completely random mutations by the sieve of natural selection - thus leading to speciation and evolution.
The overwhelming evidence of natural selection is mistakenly attached to random mutations as well.
A completely purposeless evolution fits the materialistic metaphysics, but maybe there is a purpose and direction to it? Maybe localization of consciousness with richer and richer experience is some sort of teleological movement?
I loved almost all essays on metaphysics and science, (-1) star for some of the essays on culture, free will, healing etc. which i found either muddled up or included things i mostly disagree.
Him concocting his whole outlook into his metaphysics, and attaching anything else that he leaves out personally to the paradigm of materialism is a bit simplistic. But overall beyond beautiful.
Some notes below.
// Brief peeks beyond science and meaning
Many people, scientists included, believe that the greatest taboo in science is the one against ‘magic.’ After all, science is a method for explaining things and phenomena in terms of measurable, concrete causes. ‘Magic,’ on the other hand, entails an appeal to undetectable or ethereal causes, only their effects being concretely observable. But actually, magic has never been the taboo of science. Because the chain of reduction must ends somewhere where we bump up to natural forces that we cannot explain or reduce to other natural phenomena. Where nature is as is. At that level, it must surely look like magic to us - just the way electromagnetic vibrations travel through the vacuum of space now.
So Kastrup argues the real taboo of science is meaning! Because initially, we thought we were at the center of the universe, heavens rotating around us. We thought we were significant and special. But as scientific findings accumulated, each took a bite out of that. More developments led us to believe that we are insignificant, we are just dust, "chemical scum".
But a taboo against meaning can be as naive and delusional as the hope for meaning. Who are we to know what significance we might have?
"The ingenuousness and failure of our earlier conceptions of it doesn’t imply that meaning itself is illusory."
// Brief peeks beyond the methodology of science
Science is extremely powerful but current physics can only explain phenomena in the tiniest scales within closed systems of tiny amounts of particles. The standard model does this. There is no working science of higher order beings, complex systems etc.
High technological prowess gives the illusion of science having mastered and domineered over existence. This is not true (coming from Kastrup, a comp sci guy who worked at CERN and ASML).
So much of science depends on the quality of our statistics. Because we cannot sample reality in its full density, we sample it as much as we can and then plot these samples to see if they drift from random noise. There are formal methods to do this. So a lot of "acceptable" science can be rejected or accepted on the basis of its methodology of statistics.
// Brief peeks beyond scientism and culture
Scientists has largely replaced the priests as access guides to ultimate reality, as highly specialized elites equipped with knowledge that the layperson would not comprehend. A personal inquiry is shunned in both cases, as psuedo-scientific in the former - and heresy in the latter. Scientism is filling the void left from religion.
// Brief peeks beyond neuroscience and memory
Neuroscience still has no idea what memories are, physically. We can't find any storing mechanism in the brain, only a "playing" mechanism, by looking at neural signals. There are some truly weird findings such as flatworm retaining memory after their head being severed, and anecdotal evidence for memory transfer with organ donations.
// Brief peeks beyond Neo-Darwinism
Today I learned there isn't enough evidence to conclusively accept genetic mutations are random.
The Neo-Darwinian paradigm is, the filtering of completely random mutations by the sieve of natural selection - thus leading to speciation and evolution.
The overwhelming evidence of natural selection is mistakenly attached to random mutations as well.
A completely purposeless evolution fits the materialistic metaphysics, but maybe there is a purpose and direction to it? Maybe localization of consciousness with richer and richer experience is some sort of teleological movement?
January 22, 2022
This is an unusual collection of essays on worthy topics, heavily reliant on repetition and metaphor (both of which are fine by me) but let down somewhat by an antagonistic, Nietzschean style of writing at times.
Kastrup successfully synthesises an amalgam of old but overlooked ideas (or rather, perspectives) into an elegant central metaphor. He convincingly argues for the primary status of consciousness, and points out the striking limits of current scientific consensus, raising some interesting possibilities in the process (in particular, identifying the personal unconscious with the body struck me as innovative and highly plausible). Overall, the book can be seen as an exposition of what comedian Bill Hicks told us - accurately, in my view - years ago, namely that
“all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.”
The author does himself no favours, though, by adopting a confrontational, militant and at times gleeful tone when objecting to the ideas of his alleged 'opponents'. In my experience, unnecessary pejoratives and uncharitable readings tend to delight those who already agree but utterly fail to persuade others to change their mind.
The ideas here are excellent and important, ultimately making this an important contribution which deserves to be read more widely, if only to point to more considerate literature on the topics in question (e.g. on the primary status of consciousness: Huxley, A.N. Whitehead, Bergson, Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes; on the blindness and dangers of our cultural scientist paradigms and its philosophical causes: Rupert Sheldrake, Iain McGilchrist; the on the Atman-Brahman unity, dream-like nature of reality, self-as-world and pretty much everything else: Alan Watts).
Kastrup successfully synthesises an amalgam of old but overlooked ideas (or rather, perspectives) into an elegant central metaphor. He convincingly argues for the primary status of consciousness, and points out the striking limits of current scientific consensus, raising some interesting possibilities in the process (in particular, identifying the personal unconscious with the body struck me as innovative and highly plausible). Overall, the book can be seen as an exposition of what comedian Bill Hicks told us - accurately, in my view - years ago, namely that
“all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.”
The author does himself no favours, though, by adopting a confrontational, militant and at times gleeful tone when objecting to the ideas of his alleged 'opponents'. In my experience, unnecessary pejoratives and uncharitable readings tend to delight those who already agree but utterly fail to persuade others to change their mind.
The ideas here are excellent and important, ultimately making this an important contribution which deserves to be read more widely, if only to point to more considerate literature on the topics in question (e.g. on the primary status of consciousness: Huxley, A.N. Whitehead, Bergson, Peter Sjöstedt-Hughes; on the blindness and dangers of our cultural scientist paradigms and its philosophical causes: Rupert Sheldrake, Iain McGilchrist; the on the Atman-Brahman unity, dream-like nature of reality, self-as-world and pretty much everything else: Alan Watts).
March 21, 2022
The ideas presented in this book, though often controversial and anything but mainstream, are very mind-expanding and refeshing. Idealism suddenly sounded a lot more appealing, intuitively it just feels so much more attractive than the materialist outlook. Definitely recommend!
April 11, 2020
I came across Kastrup by a random conversation I was having with a dear friend, I was curious enough to ask him about what he is reading and he was generous enough to bring this book to my attention, I still recall how curious I was on that night to know what ‘’Metaphysical Idealism’’ is that I bought the book on the same night I was having the conversation with my friend. Before then I never thought of the world as an idea and I suppose we people come into this world thinking everything is made of matter so having this matter to be nothing but a manifestation of an idea generated in our mind would have never crossed my mind, when I started reading this book I realised how I have, over the years accumulated a materialistic worldview and with every new concept that was mentioned in the book I felt I’m resistant to change (Having read all of Kastrup’s books this resistance has weaken however, not vanished completely). I then couldn’t read pass chapter two for two main reasons the first one was merely because of that resistance I had to accept new ideas which in turns generated somehow a feeling of anger and that just made me wonder how difficult we resist a change and how our brain interpret this as death, and second reason because Kastrup starts his book by addressing several criticisms that materialists use to beg the question and, I suppose, I couldn’t comprehend most of his critiques in regard to that so I thought what would be best to do is buying his book ‘’Why Materialism Is Baloney’’ and then get back to reading this book and I did, after reading ‘Why Materialism Is Baloney’’ I formed a concrete foundation on how Kastrup tackles most or materialists arguments then going back to finishing ‘’Brief Peeks Beyond’’ was beyond than accessible and enjoyable too.
From what I can conclude reading the book is how eloquently Kastrup can make monistic idealism appealing and plausible to be considered, the whole work consists of more of Kastrup’s as usual uniquely expressing insights into the nature of reality, neuroscience, metaphysics and free will. Rejecting Physicalism on the grounds that it offends the principle of parsimony. It offers a spiritual, unique vision inserted in a lucid and clever critical analysis of the materialistic scientific model that dominates the culture of contemporary Western society it's ground-breaking stuff and best read with an open mind.
From what I can conclude reading the book is how eloquently Kastrup can make monistic idealism appealing and plausible to be considered, the whole work consists of more of Kastrup’s as usual uniquely expressing insights into the nature of reality, neuroscience, metaphysics and free will. Rejecting Physicalism on the grounds that it offends the principle of parsimony. It offers a spiritual, unique vision inserted in a lucid and clever critical analysis of the materialistic scientific model that dominates the culture of contemporary Western society it's ground-breaking stuff and best read with an open mind.
October 26, 2023
Bernardo Kastrup is a passionate proponent of a minority worldview, but one that is increasingly gaining acceptance in philosophy, psychology and even scientific disciplines. This philosophical view is idealism, in contrast to the materialism (or physicalism) that dominates our philosophical and cultural landscape.
Put briefly, philosophical idealism claims that mind or consciousness is the foundation of reality. By contrast, materialism/physicalism states that material stuff (as defined by physics) is primary and furthermore, gives rise to life and consciousness. For idealism, however, consciousness is not an isolated phenomenon that resides only in brains; rather, our entire body-brain system is in consciousness. In short, the whole material world is an expression of consciousness: most of this we see from the outside, but we are also provided a limited insider’s view – our own awareness, subjectivity and experience.
I used to think that idealism was nuts. I now think this was simply because I didn’t get it, and that’s not surprising. After all, common sense tells us that mostly everything in the world consists of plain old material stuff, with consciousness only making a brief appearance in a few select group of organisms (and demon possessed computers). But in recent years idealism has come to seem, at the very least, a valid option, and inherently no more problematic than materialism or dualism. Or as Kastrup reminds us, any theory of nature or existence requires at least one free miracle.
The mini-essays in this collection are a distillation and sharpening of Kastrup’s previous works (especially Materialism is Baloney). Somewhat of a tour de force for the idealist position, Kastrup outlines his basic argument, rebuts objections, discusses neuroscience, critiques the scientific and broader culture, grapples with resulting philosophical questions (e.g., free will), before reluctantly offering some practical applications.
It is Kastrup’s effective use of metaphor that makes his position both understandable and engaging. His likening of each individual psyche (you, me, etc) as a whirlpool within a broader transpersonal ocean of consciousness (mind-at-large) is particularly illuminating. However, the danger in this approach is that the metaphor can become the argument itself upon which further extensions of the theory are based (that is, metaphors should be windows, letting in light, not foundations, holding up the structure). So while the whirlpool image has a high level of explanatory usefulness, I do wonder at times if his arguments haven’t been swept away in the eddies of pure speculation.
However, there is one very cogent reason why Kastrup’s idealism, as opposed to common sense materialism, deserves attention: the 'hard problem' of consciousness. It is widely acknowledged, even by proponents of materialism, that after decades of brain research we are no closer to understanding how ‘dead matter’ gives rise to consciousness and subjective experience. I have long pondered this. There is absolutely nothing in the physical construction of the brain or its smaller components that demands, or even suggests, that we experience the world as we actually do: the smell of freshly ground coffee, the delightful blueness of the ocean, the pain of grief, the awe one feels gazing on a starry sky.
That brain activity and conscious states are clearly correlated Kastrup does not deny. Prod a lobe here, drop some acid there, and our consciousness will react in predictable ways. But our actual subjective state, our ability to feel something, to feel like something, to be aware and to be aware that we are aware, this remains a mystery. Kastrup rightly cans those who dismiss consciousness as 'just' an illusion, or 'nothing but' an epiphenomenon; furthermore, emergence theory only restates the problem because “in all known cases of emergence, we can deduce the emergent property from the characteristics of the lower-level entities that give rise to it”. It therefore bears stating again that “we cannot – not even in principle – deduce what it feels to see red, to be disappointed or to love someone from the mass, charge or momentum of material particles making up the brain.”
I don’t go with everything Kastrup proposes in this book. There are some ideas that seem to be teetering on the edge of whacky (to be fair, Kastrup remains finely balanced on this precipice). For now, I even remain agnostic about his central thesis. But what has grabbed me about his book, quite apart from the audaciousness of his ideas and images, is the multiple doors it has opened. For if idealism is permitted, then metaphysics and even (natural) theology - so scorned by materialism - are valid areas of investigation. And while Kastrup doesn't agree with panpsychism, that I think will be the next reading door I will step through.
Kastrup writes with passion for his position, even a convert’s zeal. In the phrase of William James, one senses in Kastrup a ‘will to believe’. Kastrup would probably maintain that at the end of the day idealism is simply more philosophically robust and scientifically justified than the reigning alternative, materialism. But he also makes no secret that idealism offers something that materialism does not: meaning and purpose, not only for one’s own brief life, but for the cosmos as a whole. And why would one not want that to be the case?
Put briefly, philosophical idealism claims that mind or consciousness is the foundation of reality. By contrast, materialism/physicalism states that material stuff (as defined by physics) is primary and furthermore, gives rise to life and consciousness. For idealism, however, consciousness is not an isolated phenomenon that resides only in brains; rather, our entire body-brain system is in consciousness. In short, the whole material world is an expression of consciousness: most of this we see from the outside, but we are also provided a limited insider’s view – our own awareness, subjectivity and experience.
I used to think that idealism was nuts. I now think this was simply because I didn’t get it, and that’s not surprising. After all, common sense tells us that mostly everything in the world consists of plain old material stuff, with consciousness only making a brief appearance in a few select group of organisms (and demon possessed computers). But in recent years idealism has come to seem, at the very least, a valid option, and inherently no more problematic than materialism or dualism. Or as Kastrup reminds us, any theory of nature or existence requires at least one free miracle.
The mini-essays in this collection are a distillation and sharpening of Kastrup’s previous works (especially Materialism is Baloney). Somewhat of a tour de force for the idealist position, Kastrup outlines his basic argument, rebuts objections, discusses neuroscience, critiques the scientific and broader culture, grapples with resulting philosophical questions (e.g., free will), before reluctantly offering some practical applications.
It is Kastrup’s effective use of metaphor that makes his position both understandable and engaging. His likening of each individual psyche (you, me, etc) as a whirlpool within a broader transpersonal ocean of consciousness (mind-at-large) is particularly illuminating. However, the danger in this approach is that the metaphor can become the argument itself upon which further extensions of the theory are based (that is, metaphors should be windows, letting in light, not foundations, holding up the structure). So while the whirlpool image has a high level of explanatory usefulness, I do wonder at times if his arguments haven’t been swept away in the eddies of pure speculation.
However, there is one very cogent reason why Kastrup’s idealism, as opposed to common sense materialism, deserves attention: the 'hard problem' of consciousness. It is widely acknowledged, even by proponents of materialism, that after decades of brain research we are no closer to understanding how ‘dead matter’ gives rise to consciousness and subjective experience. I have long pondered this. There is absolutely nothing in the physical construction of the brain or its smaller components that demands, or even suggests, that we experience the world as we actually do: the smell of freshly ground coffee, the delightful blueness of the ocean, the pain of grief, the awe one feels gazing on a starry sky.
That brain activity and conscious states are clearly correlated Kastrup does not deny. Prod a lobe here, drop some acid there, and our consciousness will react in predictable ways. But our actual subjective state, our ability to feel something, to feel like something, to be aware and to be aware that we are aware, this remains a mystery. Kastrup rightly cans those who dismiss consciousness as 'just' an illusion, or 'nothing but' an epiphenomenon; furthermore, emergence theory only restates the problem because “in all known cases of emergence, we can deduce the emergent property from the characteristics of the lower-level entities that give rise to it”. It therefore bears stating again that “we cannot – not even in principle – deduce what it feels to see red, to be disappointed or to love someone from the mass, charge or momentum of material particles making up the brain.”
I don’t go with everything Kastrup proposes in this book. There are some ideas that seem to be teetering on the edge of whacky (to be fair, Kastrup remains finely balanced on this precipice). For now, I even remain agnostic about his central thesis. But what has grabbed me about his book, quite apart from the audaciousness of his ideas and images, is the multiple doors it has opened. For if idealism is permitted, then metaphysics and even (natural) theology - so scorned by materialism - are valid areas of investigation. And while Kastrup doesn't agree with panpsychism, that I think will be the next reading door I will step through.
Kastrup writes with passion for his position, even a convert’s zeal. In the phrase of William James, one senses in Kastrup a ‘will to believe’. Kastrup would probably maintain that at the end of the day idealism is simply more philosophically robust and scientifically justified than the reigning alternative, materialism. But he also makes no secret that idealism offers something that materialism does not: meaning and purpose, not only for one’s own brief life, but for the cosmos as a whole. And why would one not want that to be the case?
August 2, 2023
The fifth or sixth Bernardo book I've read, this one contains two early chapters that purport to expound his analytic idealism argument, which seeks to deprecate the role of matter, instead viewing conscious experience as the metaphysical basis of everything in the universe. The rest of the book consists of related journal papers that Bernardo claims to have rewritten to create a full account of his theory.
I'm still looking for a book-length exposition that systematically deals with all open issues. I personally believe that he's looking in the right direction -- materialism is embarrassingly unable to account for consciousness as an emergent property of matter, the so-called "hard problem" -- but Bernardo faces a monumental task trying to instigate a paradigm shift. If matter is an illusion, it's still a pretty damned good one.
I'm still looking for a book-length exposition that systematically deals with all open issues. I personally believe that he's looking in the right direction -- materialism is embarrassingly unable to account for consciousness as an emergent property of matter, the so-called "hard problem" -- but Bernardo faces a monumental task trying to instigate a paradigm shift. If matter is an illusion, it's still a pretty damned good one.
December 6, 2018
This book has made me take metaphysical idealism seriously for the first time in my life. In my opinion this book is a must-read for any serious thinker. It makes an argument that can't be ignored. A sustained, internally consistent, well defended argument that an intelligent armchair philosopher like myself can easily follow - and what it's arguing is, there is no such thing as the material world.
March 7, 2021
Very Bernardo, and very helpful.
July 24, 2020
Current, lightning, flames, dreams, and starlight. Kastrup’s analogies are as beautiful as they are powerful, drawing us out of the deluded character of the ego and into the wonder of the mind-at-large. Logically rigorous, he gives us intellectual permission to accept what we’ve intuited all along. We are not malfunctioning biological robots. We are not characters in the dream. We are the whole dream. Look at the stars and behold your own mind.
More importantly, he teaches us why. Lost in “a crowd of our own alienated facets turned other,” we see our projected, obfuscated pieces mirrored back at us in the only meaningful way possible. Here, from the inside. “[T]he accruing value of the charade is only cashed in when the spell breaks and we finally become cognizant of our projections … earthshattering insight that confers meaning to all the years, centuries, eons of delusion” (page 141).
Kastrup’s philosophy the path to the light for any intellectual seeker.
“[Y]our belief is valuable currency, for the way you spend it sets the tone of your life” (page 201).
More importantly, he teaches us why. Lost in “a crowd of our own alienated facets turned other,” we see our projected, obfuscated pieces mirrored back at us in the only meaningful way possible. Here, from the inside. “[T]he accruing value of the charade is only cashed in when the spell breaks and we finally become cognizant of our projections … earthshattering insight that confers meaning to all the years, centuries, eons of delusion” (page 141).
Kastrup’s philosophy the path to the light for any intellectual seeker.
“[Y]our belief is valuable currency, for the way you spend it sets the tone of your life” (page 201).
October 29, 2017
Accessible. Centrally about the rejection of materialism on the grounds that it offends the principle of parsimony and the promotion of monistic idealism in spite of its counter-intuitive implications.
February 4, 2019
Consciousness is not in your mind. Your mind is inside consciousness. A brilliantly argued and persuasive essay on the centrality of consciousness. Including practical applications to one’s own life and health. If the central premise is true, which I am coming to believe it is, then this is a Very Important Book. It is also well-written, esp compared with some others in this genre.
February 18, 2024
Great 👍
Some of hhe best stuff I've read in the past 10 years. A proper grounding for those interested in religion, mythology, Psychology and the anomolist experiences that give rise to our social extrapolation of "reality".
Some of hhe best stuff I've read in the past 10 years. A proper grounding for those interested in religion, mythology, Psychology and the anomolist experiences that give rise to our social extrapolation of "reality".
July 27, 2021
BRILLIANT
June 3, 2015
Absolutely brilliant
This is Kastrup's best work yet. Thoroughly engaging and readable, the essays explain more than the concept of monastic idealism. They provide food for thought regarding many of the problems plaguing individuals and current society. I especially enjoyed the essay on free will. This book is destined to become a classic.
This is Kastrup's best work yet. Thoroughly engaging and readable, the essays explain more than the concept of monastic idealism. They provide food for thought regarding many of the problems plaguing individuals and current society. I especially enjoyed the essay on free will. This book is destined to become a classic.
October 13, 2015
T
Great book
Loved it. Everyone should reading. Five star
Can't wait for the other book .please read if you want to discover the universe
Great book
Loved it. Everyone should reading. Five star
Can't wait for the other book .please read if you want to discover the universe
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews