Lecture Series 2025
Religion, Spirituality, and the Metaphysics of Change
How to create and maintain a functional spirituality
(Notes and links to the recorded sessions will be posted here within 24 hours of each session.)
Session 1: The Quantum Universe
In this first session, we’re going to consider how human beings interface with the universe that makes up the world of our experience. We’ll see how our perception differs from what we might call “the reality.” What appears to us as a fixed and static world is anything but. How can our spirituality deal with a relativistic world?
| Questions for Thought and Discussion |
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| 1. Have you had any experience with fundamentalist thinking? If so, what was it about? How did it make you feel? How did it affect how you felt about spirituality? About religion? |
| 2. Uncertainty avoidance (“what is different is dangerous”) is common among fundamentalist thinkers. What are your thoughts about living in a relativistic universe where nothing is certain? How do you feel about it? |
| 3. Law and religion have been used to help people manage their decisions about right and wrong, the present and the future. Does living in a relativistic universe change how you think about these things? If so, how? |
If you wish to share your thoughts with the group, you may email your answers to Les at [email protected].
Due to technical difficulties, the speaker’s video feed failed to record. The audio portion and some of the questions and answers are available here.
Session 2: How does it all fit together?
In this second session, we’ll discuss how quantum entities are drawn together into larger and more complex systems that are themselves quanta and that exhibit similar characteristics. We’ll discover that systems exist within a double matrix that determines how and why they behave as they do.
| Questions for Thought and Discussion |
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| 1. Systems are everywhere, and they have one thing in common: they strive for stability. When stability is threatened, the elements try to prevent it. What systems are you a part of? Have any of your systems pushed back when you tried to change, even for the good of the system? Explain. |
| 2. Consciousness in living systems is distributed in quanta. How does consciousness show itself in unicellular organisms? In plants? In insects? In animals? In people? Is consciousness the same in all of them, or does it manifest differently in different quanta? |
| 3. If consciousness drives complexification, pushing toward full self-expression, do you think the life-consciousness matrix has anything to do with “dark matter” and “dark energy”? As energy-matter evolves (complexifies), consciousness becomes more evident. How dependent do you think consciousness is on energy-matter? |
If you wish to share your thoughts with the group, you may email your answers to Les at
[email protected].
The session video will be available within twenty-four hours of the session’s conclusion.
Session 3: What do we know?
The third session is a sort of bridge, taking us from the spacetime continuum (matrix) into the life-consciousness matrix. We begin by reviewing how we, conscious beings, navigate the spacetime continuum using mathematical concepts from geometry, abstracting from the world of energy-matter. This leads us to question other concepts: how we “tag” elements of consciousness using univocal, equivocal, and analogical terms.
| Questions for Thought and Discussion |
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| 1. Using geometry (point, line, plane, solid, and cartesian coordinates [x, y, z, t]) we try to bridge the gap between the worlds of energy-matter, spacetime, and life-consciousness by organizing entities into a conceptual framework. Yet none of these things exist in real life. Can you think of other conceptual frameworks that we impose on reality to help us understand it? |
| 2. All our measurements are approximations and are made relative to objects (entities) located in spacetime and dependent on the speed the measurer and the measurement scale are traveling. How does that knowledge affect your understanding of the terms “exact” and “true”? |
| 3. “Being” is a transcendental that is used analogously depending on the object it’s applied to: subatomic particles, atoms, molecules, “inanimate” objects, plants, animals, and humans. “Truth” and “Goodness” are also transcendentals used analogically. Can you find different ways that “truth” and “goodness” are used where what they refer to changes their meanings? |
If you wish to share your thoughts with the group, you may email your answers to Les at
[email protected].
The session video will be available within twenty-four hours of the session’s conclusion.
Session 4: Why Spirituality?
In session four, we delve more deeply into the locus for spirituality, the life-consciousness matrix. “Spirituality” is another “tag” that we use to refer to an identifiable reality. We’ll explore some of the ways that we can identify spirituality and come up with a description that works for anyone.
| Questions for Thought and Discussion |
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| 1. Although life-consciousness can’t be itself divided into quanta, like the material world, the entities that participate in life-consciousness can. Beings grow in complexity by quantum steps. Single-celled organisms are alive, but not conscious. At what point do you think entities become conscious? Are animals self-conscious? At what point does self-consciousness arise? |
| 2. Since life-consciousness is semi-independent from the material world of spacetime, and conscious beings through memory and imagination are able to travel at will through space and time, and their existence isn’t tied to a physical form, can some, or all, conscious beings survive physical death? If so, which ones? Can you? |
| 3. We said that selfish, self-centered, and harmful thoughts, words, and deeds isolate the conscious beings who entertain them from the evolutionary direction of the universe toward ever-greater connectivity. Can such higher-evolved beings, by their own actions, find themselves slipping into less-evolved levels? Can such behavior cause dis-integration of the entity? What do you think? |
If you wish to share your thoughts with the group, you may email your answers to Les at
[email protected].
The session video will be available within twenty-four hours of the session’s conclusion.
Session 5: Isn’t Religion made up?
In session five, we look at religion: its writings and doctrines from the viewpoint of a realistic view of the universe and spirituality. We want to examine why these things were created and the people who created them. We want to question their motivations and look to see if there were ulterior motives involved, like many people insist. Ultimately, we want to know if any of it is worth pursuing from a spiritual perspective.
| Questions for Thought and Discussion |
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| 1. During the War of 1812, British troops burned Washington DC, or so the U.S. history books tell us. In fact, they were Canadian troops (as a colony of Great Britain), and they burned Washington in retaliation for our burning their capital at the time, Kingston, Ontario. Can you think of any other instances where history isn’t complete or historically accurate? |
| 2. When you tell stories, do you ever exaggerate for effect? What does that tell you about the “wall of water to the right and to the left” as the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, or Jesus feeding the five thousand? Do those exaggerated details invalidate the purpose of the stories? Does it tell us something about the storytellers? How should we read stories from deep in human history? |
| 3. “Faith in God” has two meanings: to believe something about God, or to trust in God. Since all God-language is analogous (applying to the realm of life-consciousness concepts from the world of energy-matter), do you think it’s possible to trust a God you don’t believe in? |
If you wish to share your thoughts with the group, you may email your answers to Les at
[email protected].
The session video will be available within twenty-four hours of the session’s conclusion.