The Ubiquity of Gnostic Panpsychism: Self-Identification with the Cosmos and Natural Order In Adherents of Past and Present Religions

By Brendan Bombaci

Panpsychism is the notion that consciousness is co-fundamental with matter. Cosmopsychism has it that matter is *in* consciousness or Mind at large, whether this be that of a sentient monad or even quantum computer. These terms were crafted originally by Western philosophers and are used today also by researchers of quantum physics and neuroscience, but the notions are far more ancient and spread around the world, somewhat hidden within the myths, folklore, and religions of myriad cultures. This thesis / short book delves into these stories and beliefs, describing fully the way in which the embedded philosophies, teased apart from the culturally nuanced caricatures scaffolded on them, are valid ethnoscientific cosmologies which imbue the physical sciences with life and are globally unified.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: May 6, 2023
• ISBN: 9781312592384

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The Ubiquity of Gnostic Panpsychism: Self-Identification with the Cosmos and Natural Order in Adherents of Past and Present Religions

By Brendan Muir Bombaci, MA

This work is copyrighted All Rights Reserved, January 2023

First Revision, March 2023

Second Revision, September 2025

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"In this most general sense, one can see the findings of physics supporting certain thinking of ancient sages.  When [Niels] Bohr was knighted, he put the Yin-Yang symbol in his coat of arms. Quantum mechanics tells us strange things about our world, things that we do not fully comprehend.  This strangeness has implications beyond what is generally considered physics.  Physicists might therefore be tolerant

when non-physicists incorporate quantum ideas into their own thinking."

- U.C. physicists Bruce Rosenblum and Fred Kuttner (2011:251-252)

"We ought to remember that religion uses language in quite a different way from science.

The language of religion is more closely related to the language of poetry than to the language of science [...] The fact that religions through the ages have spoken in images, parables, and paradoxes means simply that there are no other ways of grasping the reality

to which they refer. But that does not mean that it is not a genuine reality.

And splitting this reality into an objective and a subjective side won't get us very far."

- Discoverer of atomic structure, Sir Neils Bohr (1927)

"If finally we look back at that idea of [Ernst] Mach, we shall realize that it comes as near to the orthodox dogma of the Upanishads as it could possibly do without stating it expressis verbis […]

The external world and consciousness are one and the same thing."

- Pioneer physicist, Erwin Schrödinger (1964)

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Introduction

The Renaissance and Scientific Revolution both stemmed from processual self-exile from the dominion of fundamentalist religious dogma and superstition, but not without extraction of certain scientific truths embedded in it all. The stepwise progression of philosophy towards the scientific method is rooted in the also stepwise progression from animism to shamanism and ancestor worship, then to polytheistic and monotheistic views (Peoples, Duda, and Marlowe 2016; Winkelman and Baker 2010:135-148), the latter of which will be brough under question as being ‘mono-’ at all.  The capstones of these views are always culturally relevant stories that are in actuality complex symbolic combinations of cosmology, psychology, ethics, and traditional ecological knowledge or ‘natural history’ (Barber and Barber 2006) while also being entertaining enough to pass the test of time via the persistent verbal transmission of culture.  So, we ought to be careful when we consider such things to be pure mythos or fable, incompatible with scientific progress and interpretation – they are in fact coded tomes of ethnoscience. 

Importantly, there is in these regards an ancient notion that unifies Western and non-Western cosmological views.  This notion is panpsychism, the theory that consciousness is co-fundamental with matter and may even precede it (Goff and Moran 2022; Seager 2021; Skrbina 2017; Vetlesen 2020). However, further astonishing findings across multiple disciplines such as astrophysics, astrobiology, and artificial intelligence, lend cogent credence to note just this, but its more expanded philosophy of cosmopsychism (Shani 2015), i.e., that consciousness is not just co-fundamental with matter but rather that the universe is in consciousness, a notion that Idealists regard as indicating a living monad (Kastrup 2018). It has recently been expounded in detail the ways in which these modern sciences, as well as quantum physics and neuroscience, can help us understand that the ancient Vedas of India had presciently put a pin on the map for realizing these tenets, and incorporated them into the ideology and lifeway of Vedānta (Bombaci 2022), progenitor of both Hinduism and Buddhism, with their respective transcendental practices.

In Part I of this paper, Hinduism as well as other ancient and modern world religions will be explored in how they contain complex polysemic pantheons that circle around gnostic panpsychism or cosmic self-identification / non-dualism.  Part II of this paper will explore how myriads of cultures throughout the millennia have been tempering materialist thought via entheogenic ritual in order to noetically realize the nature of panpsychism and/or cosmopsychism, dietarily instilling a powerful sense of connectedness to the environment and the cosmos as well.  Part III is a thorough exposition of scientific corroborations of panpsychism and cosmopsychism having leverage over other modern philosophies. For the reader of any faiths detailed in this paper, Part III may be entirely superfluous, since, as Saint Thomas Aquinas said, "For those with faith, no evidence is necessary; for those without it, no evidence will suffice."  For the reader attracted to this paper due to its anthropological exposition, to which discipline it has been categorized, it may be best to read front to back. For the explorative reader whose main interests are typically philosophical and scientific literature, starting with Part III and returning to the start may be best. 

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Part I: Polytheistic Religions as Gnostic Cosmopsychist Mythos

Opening Statement

The originator beings of pantheons worldwide are typically omniscient and omnipresent but also boundless, or beyond space and time. This has caused many philosophers and theologians to consider such notions pantheistic or panentheistic.  However, the deities in these belief systems themselves are represented as bounded aspects of the creator god, in anthropomorphic forms for us meant to serve as familiar visages for the will of the ultimate, capable of purveying knowledge in ways we can comprehend.  In some such systems outlined in this paper, all things bear consciousness in a myriad of ways or perspectives, and not just ‘divinity,’ so we have more than simple pantheism (which regards holiness explicitly and not consciousness in a concise way), and more than animism too.  And with deities representing nuanced aspects of the singular cosmic will or consciousness, whom are also omnipresent and omniscient, we have more than a variety of disparate gods, or polytheism – something which can perhaps be argued for many more polytheistic systems of belief than are discussed in this paper.  We can consider relative cultural understandings to be in line with panpsychism, but the nature of said cultures’ belief systems regarding contact with the divine involves a knowledge of integrating such consciousness for the sake of learning, honor, ecstasy, tangible empowerment, or liberation from the constraints of the deceptive ego.  So, we then see in these religions a sort of gnostic cosmopsychism as well as moralizing belief system – i.e., belief in self-identification with a universal consciousness or secular agency.  No less, this cosmopsychism is heavily symbolized with elements of the natural world and the celestial sphere, in a way that describes the laws of physics, biology, and co-fundamental consciousness with a fanciful twist that can be verbally transmitted for thousands of years without losing much integrity.  This is the great boon of mythos to the upkeep of science.

Vedānta and Hinduism

The oldest historical cosmology in the world that bears striking resemblance to modern cosmopsychism is the noted ideology of Vedānta as written in the Upanishads in ancient India, i.e., the transcendence-focused foundation of Hinduism. In Vedānta, the cosmos itself was created by an entity named Brahman, whose mind, named Paramātman, manifested the complex fantastic evolution of physics and nature throughout perceived material reality once it awoke.  The awakening thus spawned the expansion of the cosmos in a way that Western physicists would recognize as the Big Bang. To later Hindus, this expansion was and still is carried out by one of three Trimurti aspects of Paramātman personified as the god Shiva, with a bang of his drum (Daniélou 1985:219).  It is known that acoustic vibration did indeed precede the elements via the Big Bang, and the expansion (not actually a ‘bang’ or explosion) of the universe can be likened to a wave or ripple on a pond.  Of note, a 2-meter-tall statue of Shiva exists at the famed CERN laboratory in Geneva where the Large Hadron Collider is located – a gift from the Indian government in appreciation of scientific collaboration.

Shiva’s hourglass shaped drum is symbolic of the liňga and yoni, the fiery upward pointing triangle and watery downward pointing triangle representing opposed forces of life which are also interdependent for creation like the male and female sex, of which they are also symbolic (ibid:219).  As Shiva is known as ‘The Destroyer,’ he wields a bow resembling a rainbow (light against darkness), as well as a trident spear named triśūla which is symbolic of the destruction of falsity and evil - namely chaos against order on physical, subtle, and spiritual planes. The trident is also symbolic of the three actions of cosmic law as Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer (ibid:216), as well as the three gunas or qualities of Nature: tamas (experience), rajas (existence), and sattva (consciousness). These gunas also have specific meanings in the connotation of time or Kāla:

Perceptible manifestation can take place only within space-time.  Sattva, the centripetal tendency, is the principle of location, of space, while tamas, the centrifugal tendency, is the essence of absolute time, the measure of the expansion by which things are destroyed. Relative or cyclic time, on the other hand, which is the effect of the circular motion of the planets, is related to space and pertains to the revolving tendency, rajas, through which all substances, all things, are born. [ibid:201]

Shiva’s dual aspect, Vishnu ‘The Preserver,’ balances out the entropy of cosmic expansion with his tool of material retention: a ‘discus’ or ‘wheel’ (spiral) with six spokes and 108 points, numerically relative to the geometry of Metatron’s Cube, a Platonic Ideal form containing ratios for fundamental inorganic and organic growth patterns including the Golden Spiral (and relative phi ratio) at the heart of galactic accretion/formation and relative to the Fine-Structure Constant. It is named Sudarśana or ‘Beauteous-Sight,’ is symbolic of the six-petaled lotus, and

‘It represents the [universal] Mind’ (Visnu Parana 1.22.68 [224]), the limitless power which invents and destroys all the spheres and forms of the universe, the nature of which is to revolve.  According to the Ahirbudhnya Samhita (2.62 [225]), Sudarsana is the ‘will to multiply.’ [ibid:155].

And, as Brahmā is deemed the creational power of the trifecta male aspects of Brahman, he wields these opposed but complimentary forces or cosmic laws of Shiva and Vishnu, for such creation (ibid:253). Brahma was born from an ethereal golden ‘egg’ or ‘embryo’ in the causal boundless waters (ibid:235-238), and he is also known as Prajā-pati or the Lord of Progeny, "the source of what is not and what is, who is the Immense Being [Brahmā], the Indestructible (aksara) [i.e. the instrument of speech], as well as the thing said (vacya) (Brhad devata 1.62[450]) (ibid:238).  Of materiality and elemental foundations,

"The Golden Embryo [from which Brahmā manifested], principle of all vibration or movement, expresses itself ‘in the form of a vibrating energy’ (spandana- śakti-rūpa). It divides itself into the causal mass of potentialities (the ‘causal waters,’ rayi) and the breath-of-life (prāna) pictured as the wind that creates the waves in the causal ocean from which all forms develop.  In the microcosm this breath of life becomes the breath that causes the places of articulation to vibrate and thus gives birth to manifest speech." [And] In the cosmic sacrifice, the Moon, which is the essence-of-life (soma), is identified with water (rayi), while the Sun, the Āditya (sovereign principle), is the breath-of-life (prāna), for breath is born of heat as are all the forms of wind." [ibid]

Tied to this, Vishnu’s conch shell represents water, the first compact element born of the causal waters, and fluid harmonic sound (vibration) associated with the origin of elemental creation [ibid:155]. 

As Shiva is known as the origin of worlds but also as Kāla (time), i.e. the destroyer of worlds, it is sensible to recognize his form in the tri-fold nature of time as being the guna of tamas (centrifugal energy) [ibid:201]. Vishnu’s guna of time is then of rajas or relative/revolving time, (i.e., the music of the spheres), and Brahma’s would then be of sattva or centripetal/spatiotemporal time, having separated the infinitely incomprehensible singularity into dimensional space. An avatar of Shiva named Indra wields a vajra or ‘thunderbolt club’ representing the indestructibility of a diamond and the life giving-or-taking force of lightning. And as different forms of wind and thence breath in lifeforms are all born from heat,

"In the Vedas, Indra appears as the deity of the sphere of space, the dispenser of rain who dwells in the clouds. Feared as the ruler of the storm, the thrower of the thunderbolt, he is also the cause of fertility. As the ruler of the sky world, he is the companion of Vayu, the wind, which is the life breath of the cosmos." […] In the triad of gods, Agni, Vayu, and Surya, who hold pre-eminence above the others, Indra frequently takes the place of Vayu as the ruler of the sphere of space. Agni, Indra, and Surya then represent the three forms of fire: [respectively] the fire of the earthly world, the thunderbolt or fire of the sphere of space, and the sun, the fire of the sky." [ibid:106-107]

With the combined symbolism of these cosmic forces and weapons, we can refer to the power of light, water, and electrons (electrical arcs) in the Miller-Urey experiments, as well as recent findings in astrobiology.  In an epic tale, Indra was embattled with his nemesis Vritra, the ‘Dragon of all dragons,’ who polysemically represents evil and extreme drought.  As no life can exist without atmosphere, borne of water, and Vritra held captive the seven water bodies that fed the world, imminent dissolve of creation would take place without