By Walt Garlington, an Orthodox Christian living in Dixieland. His writings have appeared on several web sites, and he maintains a site of his own, Confiteri: A Southern Perspective.
The ties between science fiction and Eastern pagan religions like Hinduism and Buddhism are fairly well-known. Movies like Star Wars, The Matrix, and Avatar, all feature themes from those religions. For example:
Back in 2007, prior to the release of the first part of Avatar, Cameron explained the meaning behind the title. According to Times Magazine, he shared, “It’s an incarnation of one of the Hindu gods taking a flesh form… In this film, that means human technology is capable of injecting a person’s intelligence into a remotely located biological body.”
Cameron expressed his interest in Indian mythology and the pantheon and called them “rich and vivid”. Although he never intended to make the film on Hinduism, the ideas of incarnation, interconnectedness and reverence for life shaped that philosophical aspect of the story.
Fr Seraphim Rose was warning about this almost 50 years ago in Orthodoxy and the Religion of the Future (see the chapter titled ‘The Spirit of Science Fiction’).
Yet it is not simply science fiction that has openly connected itself with Eastern mysticism but science itself (Jay Dyer has some good videos on this in his Globalist book discussions). Quantum mechanics and Hinduism will serve for an illustration:
The relationship between consciousness and creation has fascinated humans for millennia, with Vedic philosophy and modern quantum mechanics each offering captivating insights into how our perception of reality is intricately woven into the fabric of existence. While separated by time and geography, both traditions converge on a profound idea: that consciousness is not merely a passive observer but a fundamental force that shapes reality itself. . . .
In the Vedic tradition, consciousness is not confined to the individual mind; it is a cosmic force that pervades all existence. The Vedas and Upanishads speak of Brahman, the ultimate reality, as a boundless, infinite consciousness. Brahman is both the source and substance of the universe, encompassing everything that is, was, and will be. The individual self, known as Atman, is considered a reflection of Brahman, making every sentient being a participant in the unfolding of reality.
Vedic sages believed that reality is shaped by the observer. In texts like the Mandukya Upanishad, the process of creation is described as arising from the interaction between the observer (consciousness) and the observed (the material world). The world, according to this view, does not exist independently of our perception; instead, it comes into being through the act of observation. The concept of Maya (illusion), further suggests that the physical world is a projection of consciousness, not an objective, fixed reality.
. . . Now, let’s fast forward a few millennia and step into the world of quantum mechanics — a branch of physics that has redefined our understanding of reality at the most fundamental level. One of the most striking phenomena in quantum mechanics is the observer effect. This refers to the idea that the very act of observing a quantum system can alter its state.
. . . The observer effect suggests that reality at the quantum level is not fixed until it is observed. This parallels the Vedic idea that the material world is a projection of consciousness. In both traditions, the observer plays a crucial role in shaping reality. While quantum mechanics does not attribute consciousness to this observer effect, it does challenge the notion of an objective, independent reality . . . .
When we look at the parallels between Vedic philosophy and quantum mechanics, it becomes clear that both traditions point to a universe that is deeply interconnected with the act of observation. In the Vedic tradition, consciousness is the primary force that brings the world into being. In quantum mechanics, the observer effect demonstrates that reality at the quantum level is influenced by observation. Though quantum mechanics stops short of attributing consciousness to this process, it aligns with the Vedic view in suggesting that reality is not as fixed or objective as we once believed.
A recent study suggesting that there is a general consciousness pervading the universe rests on similar ideas:
Consciousness is fundamental; only thereafter do time, space and matter arise. This is the starting point for a new theoretical model of the nature of reality, presented by Maria Strømme, Professor of Materials Science at Uppsala University, in the scientific journal AIP Advances.
Strømme, who normally conducts research in nanotechnology, here takes a major leap from the smallest scales to the very largest – and proposes an entirely new theory of the origin of the universe. The article presents a framework in which consciousness is not viewed as a byproduct of brain activity, but as a fundamental field underlying everything we experience – matter, space, time, and life itself.
. . . For many years, Strømme has worked on a quantum‑mechanical model that unites quantum physics with non‑dual philosophy. The theory is based on the idea that consciousness constitutes the fundamental element of reality, and that individual consciousnesses are parts of a larger, interconnected field.
In this model, phenomena that are now perceived as ‘mysterious’ – such as telepathy or near‑death experiences – can be explained as natural consequences of a shared field of consciousness.
“My ambition has been to describe this using the language of physics and mathematical tools. Are these phenomena really mystical? Or is it simply that there is a discovery we have not yet made, and when we do it will lead to a paradigm shift?”
. . . Her theory also suggests that our individual consciousness does not cease at death, but returns to the universal field of consciousness from which it once emerged. This, too, she has formulated in quantum‑mechanical terms.
. . . “The texts of the major religions – such as the Bible, the Koran, and the Vedas – often describe an interconnected consciousness. Those who wrote them used metaphorical language to express insights about the nature of reality. Early quantum physicists, in turn, arrived at similar ideas using scientific methods. Now, it is time for hardcore science – that is, modern natural science – to seriously begin exploring this,” says Strømme.
As we have seen just above, the idea of a universal, general, impersonal consciousness is clearly Hindu. Her attempt to link her theory to the Christian Bible is an error as we shall see in moment.
But first it is important to mention what should be obvious by now: Science has become a powerful tool that the anti-Christian forces in the world are using to destroy the faith of Christians. The constantly changing nature of its discoveries and decrees and theories instills a veneration for relativism in people rather than a respect for absolute truth. This is one of the reasons why the South (the Bible Belt) has been so insistent on cleaving to the divine revelation in the Holy Scriptures, as one of her best philosophers Professor Richard Weaver pointed out several decades ago:
Reverence for the “word of God” is a highly important aspect of Southern religious orthodoxy. Modern discussions of fundamentalism usually overlook the fact that belief in a revealed knowledge is the essence of religion in its older sense. The necessity of having some form of knowledge that will stand above the welter of earthly change and bear witness that God is superior to accident led Thomas Aquinas to establish his famous dichotomy, which teaches, briefly, that whereas some things may be learned through investigation and the exercise of reasoning powers, others must be given or “revealed” by God. Man cannot live under a settled dispensation if the postulates of his existence must be continually revised in accordance with knowledge furnished by a nature filled with contingencies. . . . It is therefore imperative in the eyes of the older religionists that man have for guidance in this life a body of knowledge to which the facts of natural discovery are either subordinate or irrelevant. This body is the “rock of ages,” firm in the vast sea of human passion and error. . . . If moral philosophy must wait upon natural philosophy, all moral judgments become temporary, relative, and lacking in those sanctions which alone make them effective, as the more perspicacious Southern theologians pointed out (The Confederate South, 1865-1910; A Study in the Survival of a Mind and a Culture, LSU Dissertation, 1943, pgs. 89-90. Published by ProQuest LLC, Ann Arbor, Mich., 2015. Now available as The Southern Tradition at Bay.).
While there is certainly a place for science in the life of the Orthodox Church (see many essays on that linked to this page), it is nevertheless imperative in the age in which we live that Orthodox Christians guard against the evil uses of science, what is called scientism in many places, and thus to ground themselves not in ever-shifting scientific theories but in the divine, unchanging teachings of the Holy Tradition of the Orthodox Church (which is a much firmer foundation than the naked, individualistic reading of the Bible that many Protestant Southerners are familiar with).
To that end we will examine the main hypotheses presented above in the light of those teachings.
Consciousness as presented in Hinduism and now in quantum physics is a generalized, impersonal field found in the background of the whole cosmos. Each person’s consciousness is a temporary distillation of that general consciousness, which then is reabsorbed back into the single universal consciousness upon the death of each individual (this is blatantly presented in season six of the animated series Star Wars: The Clone Wars, episodes 11 and 12).
The Orthodox Church teaches something completely different. No property in living beings, whether God, the angels, or man, exists in a separate, impersonal form, i.e., outside of persons. The essence and energies of a being always exist in an individual hypostasis or person (bolding in the original):
Saint Basil the Great had said this; in other words, there cannot be any essence without a hypostasis – an essence that does not have any hypostases within it. This means that when we speak of the one God, or, when we speak of the one essence of God, we must immediately also imply the persons – His three Persons. The one does not precede the other, because quite simply, the one cannot exist without any hypostasis, and the hypostatic form of God’s essence is triadic. That is why we do not have essence without hypostasis. At this point, we need to add the opposite observation – that there cannot be a hypostasis without essence; in other words, it is not correct for one to suppose that the hypostases are precedent to the essence, as though they can be perceived on their own, without essence. Essences without hypostases do not exist, nor hypostases without essences. This is the third principle, which places all three Persons at the same level. The persons appear simultaneously (not meant in the sense of time), as the hypostases of the essence.
To speak of some kind of anhypostatic consciousness diffused throughout the universe (like time or gravity) as Hindus and quantum physicists do is merely the repetition of a very old error that the Orthodox Fathers dealt with centuries ago.
This is where Roman Catholics run into trouble. They give priority to the impersonal divine essence over the Three Hypostases of the Holy Trinity. This ‘submersion’ of the Hypostases ‘within impersonal being’ leads to errors ‘that recall[] Plotinos or the doctrine of nirvana’ as well as ‘pantheism’ (St Dumitru Staniloae, The Experience of God, Volume 1, Revelation and Knowledge of the Triune God, translators Barringer and Ioanita, Holy Cross Orthodox Press, Brookline, Mass., 1994, p 274). In other words, because they share the same impersonal conception of Reality with Hinduism and quantum physics, there will be a strong temptation for Roman Catholics to accept the new ‘discovery’ about a pan-cosmic consciousness.
The other issue that ought to be examined briefly is the notion that the creation has no fixed being, that it is constantly in a flux of ongoing change because of the ‘observer effect’. This also conflicts with what the Church Fathers teach – namely, that the creation is not an illusion, that it has a fixed character, and that this character is defined precisely by the logoi created by God Himself. The teachings of St Maximos the Confessor are very helpful here:
The cosmology of Maximus is for a large part expressed in his theory of logoi, [5] the notion of logos in general occupies in his thought a fundamental place and there receives a devleopment which knows no equivalent in the Greek Fathers.
For Maximus, the logos of a being is its principle or its essential reason, that which defines it fundamentally, but also its finality, that in view of which it is, in brief its raison d’être in the double sense of the principle and end of its being. Because this principle and this end are in God, the word logos has before all for Maximus a spiritual meaning and is not reduced to the “natural logos” as it was understood by Aristotle.
Since the logoi have their existence in God, Who is supremely Real, the creation is likewise real and not a phantom or illusion:
The supreme unity of the logoi is realised in and by the Logos, the Word of God himself which is the principle and the end of all the logoi. The logoi of all beings have in effect been determined together by God in the divine Logos, the Word of God, before the ages, and therefore before these beings were created; it is in him that they contained before the centuries and subsist invariably, and it is by them that all things, before they even came into existence, are known by God. Thus every being, according to its own logos, exists in potential in God before the centuries. But it does not exist in act, according to this same logos, except at the time that God, in his wisdom, has judged it opportune to create it. Once created according to its logos, it is according to this same logos again that God, in his providence, conserves it, actualises its potentialities and directs it toward its end in taking care of it, and in the same way by his judgment he assures the maintenance of its difference, which distinguishes it from all other beings (Ibid.).
The weaponization of science has been an ongoing project for decades via Big Pharma, genetically modified ‘food’, etc., and particularly with covid. The attempt to recast consciousness as simply another impersonal scientific variable that can be measured and quantified, something that arises in the universe without God and apart from God, is the latest instantiation of that. Let us gird ourselves with the teachings of the Orthodox Church’s Holy Fathers that we not be led astray by scientism or any other falsehood.
