Ideas That Shaped Our Modern World

Humans are a problem-solving animal. We evolve both physically and mentally in response to challenges, which enables us to move beyond our inheritance — to consciously evolve. Throughout our history, innovations and solutions have been linked to our search for transcendence.


Travel the Journey

“As the problems and challenges facing humankind have changed, so have their religious and ideological solutions. We live among the wreckage of once-potent solutions. If we neglect them, they may become barriers to thought and action. If we understand them, they are a treasure house for all of us to share.”

The Unseen World: The Rise of Gods and Spirits
The Institute for Cultural Research


God 4.0

On the Nature of Higher Consciousness and the Experience Called “God”

By Robert Ornstein with Sally Ornstein

Review by Denise Winn
Contributing Writer

Countless research findings reveal the existence of a second network of cognition that transcends everyday consciousness. It is what people have tried to activate, from the earliest shaman-sages to Moses 3,500 years ago, to Jesus 2,000 years ago, to Muhammad 1,400 years ago, all the way up to the myriad of contemporary seekers. Read more 

A Contemporary Look at the Nature of Religious Experience

Review by George Kasabov
Contributing Writer

People can persuade themselves of anything. Many believe that death is a transition to a transcendental world, that miracles occur through the will of God, or that our lives are ruled by immaterial spirits. How is it that, in our scientific age, when we have learned so much about the evolution of the universe and the nature of life, so many still cling to such beliefs? Why is it that faith – belief in the unprovable – is considered a virtue?

Religious Evolution and the Axial Age

From Shamans to Priests to Prophets

Hardcover edition 2018

By Stephen K. Sanderson

Reported by Sally Mallam
Contributing Writer

Why are there are so many different types of religion and how and why has religion evolved over time? The answer lies in both our biological and our sociocultural evolution.

Further Reading