Posted on 21 April 2025, 7:03

Generally, when Gina and I have friends and/or relatives over for lunch or dinner, I avoid talking about spiritual matters or any subject discussed at this blog.  I know from past visits that our guests are not interested in the subject matter, usually because they have their own belief systems or aren’t ready for one. Nearly all our guests know of my books, at least that I have authored a few, and think the views expressed in those books are either demonic or simply too weird to discuss. There is also a general rule set down by Gina that we don’t discuss politics. That means, topics are pretty much limited to aches and pains, the weather, sports and other mundane matters. 

At our most recent lunch, one guest did bring up a spiritual matter relating to politics. He discussed his concern with another guest, at which point I was impelled to offer my two-cents worth on the matter. After I contributed my ideas, one guest, appearing somewhat shocked, said, “I forget, what exactly are you?” He was asking for the name of my religion or belief system.

It had been some years since being asked to identify my religion. My military dog tag had me as a “Catholic,” but I could never make sense of Catholicism’s humdrum heaven and horrific hell and began parting ways with it during my early 20s. I gave Protestantism a try for a few months, but its afterlife, lacking the middle-ground of purgatory, and its emphasis on the atonement doctrine, made even less sense to me. My “religion” then became Stoicism. Long- distance running became my passion and I subscribed to the ”The Stotan Creed,” (formed from “stoic” and “spartan’) as taught by an eccentric Australian running coach, Percy Cerutty (lead runner in bottom left photo). It involved such mental-toughening exercises as running up and down sand dunes and running barefoot over trails covered with thorny burrs.

In addition to the long-suffering of my Catholic days, the running experience stressed self-control, fortitude, and overcoming adversity. Some runners looked upon it as a religion. However, while I found the running experience to be analogous to life or a microcosm of it – a fresh start, proper pacing, struggles, depletion of energy, “dying” over the final yards, total depletion at the finish line, and then being “reborn” after the finish – the eschatology was an illusory one. Nevertheless, the lessons from running helped me deal with the adversities of life and inspired serious thinking relative to the “finish line” in both a race and life. “Now what?”

Soon after turning 50, I felt a need to explore real eschatology and turned to psychical research. There was a time when I called myself a Swedenborgian, a basically Christian faith named after the great Swedish scientist, Emanuel Swedenborg. I was further impressed with the research carried out by such famous scientists as Robert Hare, Alfred Russel Wallace, and Sir Oliver Lodge (upper left photo), all clearly supporting the idea that consciousness survives death in a greater reality. Lodge’s research and writings impressed me the most. After a few years of study, I became a “spiritualist,” although I resisted being a Spiritualist (with a capital “S”). That is, I was a spiritualist to the extent of believing in a spirit world and not being a materialist. I was all for the study of mediumship for research and evidence purposes but not as a religious practice to summon up the “dead” every week. Moreover, Jesus didn’t have to be God, per se. He remained in the picture as the “Chairman of the Board” in the greater reality.

Naming my religion

About 20 years ago, before a surgical procedure at a hospital, I was asked by the admissions clerk, sitting at a computer, for my religion. I started to say “none,” but that would most likely have been interpreted as being an atheist, or worse yet, a nihilist.  The hospital was owned by the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and I didn’t want to be identified as a nihilist by the clerk or by the nursing staff that would tend to me for a few days after the procedure. 

I considered saying I was a “Christian Spiritualist,” but I suspected that would also stymie the clerk. I ended up saying “Christian,” and the clerk then filled in the space on the admissions form.  I figured that if my procedure didn’t go well and I ended up dying in the hospital, I could still have a reasonable conversation with whatever Christian minister they summoned to console me in my final moments in this realm of existence.

Back to my much more recent need for an identity, I started to say “unorthodox Christian,” but then I blurted out “panentheist.” Our guest’s eyes widened and he said, “you mean, ‘pantheist’.” I replied that I meant panentheist, not pantheist.  I expected a question as to the difference, but I was saved when Gina said it was dessert time and asked me to get the ice cream out of the freezer to go with my 88th birthday cake.  By the time I returned with the ice cream, the subject matter had changed and I was spared from attempting to explain the difference between a panentheist and a pantheist.  I was going to say that there was a big overlap between the two and that there are as many schools of panentheism and pantheism as there are of Christianity, and so it requires a somewhat lengthy discussion.  I was thankful that I didn’t have to get into all that. 

Panentheism vs Pantheism

I recall reading something several years ago about a fairly famous historical figure – his name escapes me now – identifying himself as a panentheist.  My worldview was much the same as his and so I concluded that I must be a panentheist.  However, the need for a label was not that high in my chain of needs and I forgot about it.  The one thing that I remembered was that the panentheist did not require a personal God.  He or she could believe that consciousness survives death in a greater reality without having to identify that God or know whether God is a He, She, or It.  On the other hand, I also recalled that the survival aspect was not really discussed in panentheism or pantheism.  It was all about God not having to be humanlike and possibly not more than a bundle of core atoms at the center of a timeless universe.  How could there be an “afterlife” in a world without time?  After our guests departed our home, I pursued a refresher course in in panentheism and pantheism.

The best explanation I could find was at Britannica, which explains it this way:  “Both ‘pantheism’ and ‘panentheism’ are terms of recent origin, coined to describe certain views of the relationship between God and the world that are different from the traditional theism. As reflected in the prefix ‘pan-‘ (Greek pas, ‘all’), both of the terms stress the all-embracing inclusiveness of God, as compared with his separateness as emphasized in many versions of theism. On the other hand, pantheism and panentheism, since they stress the theme of immanence – i.e., of the indwelling presences of God – are themselves versions of theism conceived in its broadest meaning.  Pantheism stresses the identity between God and the world, panentheism (Greek en, ‘in’) that the world is included in God but that God is more than the world.”

Beating around the Bush

So much beating around the bush by Britannica and other references.  Britannica doesn’t define “world,” while other references discuss the universe and the cosmos without stating whether there is a difference between the two.  I couldn’t find one reference that gives a clear-cut explanation as to where the afterlife fits into pantheism or panentheism. I inferred that panentheists accept an afterlife but pantheists don’t, but that point – the most important of all, as I see it – is only indirectly addressed.  I put the question to AI (ChatGPT) and was informed that pantheists typically do not believe in a personal afterlife and see death as a “return to the cosmos.” This idea is more in line with materialism or impersonal mysticism, the “self” dissolving into the greater whole of existence, it stated.  Panentheists, it continued, are more likely to believe in a continued existence of consciousness, either as a soul, a process, or a spiritual reality that is somehow preserved within the divine being.

“Since panentheism allows for God to transcend the physical universe, it creates space for beliefs in an afterlife, reincarnation, or some kind of ongoing relationship between the soul and the divine,” AI further stated, adding that religious panentheism includes certain strands of Christianity, Hinduism, or Sufism. 

According to Britannica, classical theism holds that eternity is in God and time is in the world; however, since God’s eternity includes all of time, the temporal process now going on in the world has already been completed in God.  Pantheists see time as illusory, while panentheism espouses a temporal-eternal God who stands in juxtaposition with a temporal world.  Therefore, in panentheism, time retains its reality.

I don’t know if or when I’ll ever be asked to declare my religion or worldview again, but whatever I choose I don’t think the inquirer or admissions clerk will comprehend any of my choices. I’ll stick with “unorthodox Christian.” Then again, I might declare myself as an “existentialist,” although I might have to qualify that by saying I am an existentialist of the Soren Kierkegaard (right photo) School, not the Sartre School.  I can visualize the hospital admission clerk’s puzzled expression if I were to reply that I am a “Kierkegaardian.”

As Kierkegaard saw it, despair over earthly matters is really despair about the eternal.  “He thinks he is in despair over something earthly and constantly talks about what he is in despair over, and yet he is in despair about the eternal,” Kierkegaard wrote, adding that the condition requisite for healing is always a recognition of the eternal being at the foundation of the despair. It seems clear to me that the chaos and the turmoil in the world today is a result of the failure to connect our despairs to the eternal – an eternal in which consciousness continues in a larger life.

Michael Tymn is the author of The Afterlife Revealed: What Happens After We Die, Resurrecting Leonora Piper: How Science Discovered the Afterlife, Dead Men Talking: Afterlife Communication from World War I. and No One Really Dies: 25 Reasons to Believe in an Afterlife. His latest book Consciousness Beyond Death:  New and Old Light on Near-Death Experiences is published by White Crow books.

I just stumbled upon this quote, somewhat related to this blog.  Raynor Johnson is quoting The Venerable Sumangalo from “Ancient Wisdom,” teachings of Brahmano-Budhist countries on death.
“Protestantism is so incredibly vague about eschatological teaching that even the educated clergy are left to cultivate home-grown dogmas on the point. The Bible supports almost the whole gamut of after-death concepts, including the finality of death, the idea of immortality as being a special concession accorded to a chosen few, the concept of death as a sleep…awaiting a final judgment, an immediate entry into punishment or reward, and perhaps some others.  Catholicism is ever definitive on the after-death pathway, and this perhaps may account for the fact there are only three or four haunted castles in all Italy.  The other Catholic countries are equally short of ghosts….On the reverse of the picture, consider England and its uncountable array of ghosts…America as well.  I wonder if the report is true that ‘Anglicanism is England’s only safeguard against the encroachments of religion?” 

Mike

Thanks, Keith. I must confess that I didn’t realize “eschatology” had been given such a wide definition by many references.  In the definition I had accepted over the years, it was strictly focused on the afterlife environment.  Nearly all the references on Einstein talk about his belief or disbelief in God, but the assumption seems to be that God and the afterlife are always concomitants. Some of the references don’t even talk about the afterlife, apparently because they don’t believe it exists, and the focus is on the “end times.”
Mike

HI Michael,
I had to look up what eschatology meant ! The answer is no.
However there is some interesting stuff on Youtube if you input ‘Einstein and Religion’.
kp

Science and Religion have been at war, as the former has risen in esteem while the latter has been in decline. And, there are those who identify as “Spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), another category into which one may slot themselves. So, even amongst that unabashedly spiritual, religion may be shunned as a lesser form of spiritual expression.

As Spiritualism was on the rise, there was the expectation that it would supplant religion, with attempts to formalize a creed ( https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/spiritualism/beliefs/beliefs_1.shtml ) and various organizations and alliances were formed for the purpose of mutual aid and support.

Interestingly, Spiritualism unfolded alongside the nascent field of science and technology. The “cosmic telegraph” of communication via raps and planchette, emerged alongside the “electric message boy” of telegraphy. Direct voice mediumship came of age in concert with the development of telephony. As Darwin and Wallace fashioned a theory of evolution by natural selection, a corresponding principle of spiritual evolution and eternal progression became popular amongst spiritualists. While religion and science were often in conflict, Spiritualism encouraged scientific investigation into its phenomena, and hoped for a “new science” that could include investigation of the spiritual alongside the material.

Would religion exist in a perfect world of enlightened beings? As we are not isolated, wholly self directed entities, but live in concert with others of our kind within a vast tapestry of life in a multitude of forms, some form of acknowledgment and receptivity towards that which transcends our finite expression of divinity would seem inevitable and essential. Though personally I grapple with concepts of worship and devotion, perceiving it almost as a form of self congratulation, it is important to be reminded that as individuals, even in the ultimate sense of self, we are but minute points of light in an infinite firmament of radiant creation. There is a Greater to our lesser, worthy of praise, devotion, and dedication.

Keith,
Thanks for the comment.  Are you aware of any eschatology or consciousness survival in Einstein’s worldview? I couldn’t find it.  See my blog of March 17, 2017.
Mike

You should have said “Im the same as you,a spiritual being having a human experience”.

Mike:

Comment made to recent “On Being Catholic, Stoic, etc.” Blog:

Bob was my colleague until just before I retired a few years ago.  He was a Brit in his 80s who lived in The Netherlands.  I only encountered him once in person, at a business conference in Chicago. We and others worked for our British client remotely, starting long before the Pandemic.

Bob and I would occasionally speak on Skype separately from our usual business activities.  I’d usually commiserate with him, as he sometimes had difficulty with our client.  We struggled to find a topic of mutual interest that wasn’t work-related as I approached retirement.

I brought up various areas associated with the “afterlife” and larger realms of consciousness, mediumship, etc., but nothing in these areas interested him—he apparently didn’t believe there was anything after death.

Then I learned he’d died in his sleep.

Not so long afterwards, I distinctly heard Bob’s voice.  He said:  “You were right!  I owe you one!”

—-
Thanks!

Bill Ingle

Dear Michael,

By panentheism, what is really indicated is the simultaneous transcendence/immanence of God.  This is a venerable position within the world’s spiritual traditions.  Just to consider two examples for the moment:  First, in Islamic Sufism, the importance of the balance of the transcendent and immanent perspectives – what Ibn al-Arabi terms ‘seeing with two eyes’ – is emphasized in the terms ‘tanzih’, God’s transcendent incomparability, and ‘tashbih’, God’s immanent similarity.  Divine unity, ‘tawhid’, can only be grasped by the simultaneous holding of both perspectives.  Second, in Hindu Vedanta, one finds the same emphasis on the balance of the two perspectives in the classic Advaitic ‘mahavakya’ (great saying) ‘Brahma satyam jagan mithya, jivo brahmaiva naparah’ (Brahman is real, the world is unreal; the individual soul is none other than Brahman).  In only this way may nonduality, ‘a-dvaita’, be properly grasped.  Other traditions could similarly be brought in.  See, for instance, Loriliai Biernacki & Philip Clayton, “Panentheism Across the World’s Traditions”.

But really, this is all present in the Perennial Philosophy.  To quote from Aldous Huxley’s capsule summary:

“At the core of the Perennial Philosophy we find four fundamental doctrines:
First: the phenomenal world of matter and of individualized consciousness—the world of things and animals and men and even gods—is the manifestation of a Divine Ground within which all partial realities have their being, and apart from which they would be non-existent.
Second: human beings are capable not merely of knowing about the Divine Ground by inference; they can also realize its existence by a direct intuition, superior to discursive reasoning. This immediate knowledge unites the knower with that which is known.
Third: man possesses a double nature, a phenomenal ego and an eternal Self, which is the inner man, the spirit, the spark of divinity within the soul. It is possible for a man, if he so desires, to identify himself with the spirit and therefore with the Divine Ground, which is of the same or like nature with the spirit.
Fourth: man’s life on earth has only one end and purpose: to identify himself with his eternal Self and so to come to unitive knowledge of the Divine Ground.”

You will ask if the metaphysical vision of the Perennial Philosophy is congruent or consistent with what we know regarding posthumous survival.  Consider the following communication from ‘The Master’ – whom I consider a discarnate realized sage – communicated to George and Nella Wright via automatic writing, as presented by Theon Wright in his book ‘The Open Door’ (pp.119-121), which fully bridges the panentheism of the Perennial Philosophy and the full reality of discarnate survival:

“My Children, Back of and beyond the Universe you know, permeating and transcending it, there exists an Underlying Reality, the nature of which you cannot conceive or express in terms of your ordinary everyday experiences or language.
It is a Cosmic Consciousness that is aware of its own Being. It is intelligent, universal, integral in its essence and in its manifestation. It is coherent, indivisible, and a complete Whole that expresses its potentialities in a diversity of individual manifestations.
The realization of your One-ness with this Cosmic Consciousness constitutes a Higher Selfhood, an extension of your individualized ego beyond the physical limitations of the universe in which you live, and a contact with and awareness of the Underlying Reality.
This Underlying Reality is in constant flux and evolution. It creates by manifesting itself and ex-pressing its potentialities under a category of conditions that give rise to the phenomenal universe, which thus becomes the Appearance, or concrete projection of the Underlying Reality in terms of Space, Time, Form, Motion, Matter and Force.
The Appearance, or manifestational universe, is thus the dynamic phase of the Underlying Reality or Cosmic Consciousness.
Since it is the concrete expression of an unfolding and evolving Reality, it must exist in varying degrees and planes.
The modes of manifestation, Space, Time, Form, Motion, Matter and Force, are not entities in themselves. They are not limitations in the sense of being obstructions or interferences. They are rather the vehicles or instrumentalities through the agency of which the abstract becomes concrete, the Reality becomes Appearance, the Cosmic Consciousness individualizes and gives expression to its inherent potentialities.
The dynamic, or manifestational phase of Cosmic Consciousness operates to create the phenomenal universe, or the Appearance which is the projection under the conditions of Space, Time, Form, Motion, Matter and Force of that which exists a priori in the Underlying Reality.
The compulsion or urge to manifest and express itself is an inherent necessity of the Cosmic Consciousness. The awareness of Being becomes an awareness of Becoming. The process of manifestation results in the fulfillment and Self-realization through experience.
The various stages and degrees of Self-realization marking the progress of the Underlying Reality toward the goal of ultimate fulfillment are represented by different planes of development, from the crudest, densest physical expression through graduated and overlapping levels of consciousness to the highest spiritual individualizations.
On these higher levels consciousness has so expanded and merged as a result of accumulated experience that it becomes less individualized or differentiated and approaches unification with the Universal Self, the Cosmic Consciousness, or the Underlying Reality.
The physical universe in which you live, and of which you are aware through your senses, comprises the lower, denser levels of manifestation. This is the universe, or “world”, of primary self-consciousness. It is the plane of farthest divergence or differentiation among entities. Here you are aware of Self as distinct and separate—the Ego Sense. You contact your environment by means of the physical senses which interpret to the inner consciousness the modes of manifestation which surround you and in which you function.
And in your functioning on this plane and these levels of manifestations, you gain wider and wider experience, express more and more the potentialities inherent in your particular individualizations of the Underlying Reality, and thus by your specialized activity, you enrich the Whole and participate in its unfoldment.
Just below the level of the physical plane there is a sub-material world in which Cosmic Consciousness first individualizes in elemental degrees of manifestation under conditions that are difficult for you to comprehend, since they involve manipulation of space-time, matter-form, and force-motion in an extrasensory environment and in dimensions outside the scope of your experience. You have no mechanism to respond to stimuli arising in the sub-universe and so are unconscious of it.
Similarly, there exists just above the level of the plane on which you function another “world” of consciousness and manifestations. This is the Psychic Universe, the next step in your progress and unfoldment. It is not wholly separate and distinct from the world in which you live; rather, it is superimposed upon the physical world, interpenetrating it and overlapping, so that the boundaries are not fixed and impassable. It corresponds to a new and advanced degree of evolution, providing another opportunity for further experience. Its modes of manifestation parallel those of this world, but like the sub-material plane, it is keyed to rates of vibration and dimensions which your senses cannot ordinarily perceive. You do not have the general physical mechanism to respond to stimuli on or from that level.
There is, however, a common dimension or factor that exists and forms a connection on all planes. It is the continuous chain or thread that runs through all manifestations and beyond manifestations. It is Consciousness—the Underlying Reality behind all Appearance, the real Self within.
This connection provides a doorway by means of which we enter other planes of the phenomenal universe and function on them, and by which entities from those other planes can reach you in this physical world. Consciousness crosses all seeming barriers and if you know how to utilize it you can pass between worlds as simply and as readily as you utilize motion in space to pass from one city to another here in your ordinary space-time world.”

Best,

Paul

Mike – another excellent blog. Based on the convolutions of philosophy described in your blog, I guess I am also a panenthist in some ways, or maybe a Sethian spiritualist with a lowercase “s” but I’m not sure that would fit on a doctor form 😄🍷 meanwhile, happy 88th birthday once again, brother😎
Mike S

Thanks for this interesting discussion, Michael. It is indeed difficult to pin down a simple label for a complex topic involving ‘The Greater Reality’. My personal view is that the word God is a useless term and should be dropped since it has so many different connotations for different people - as you say - he, she or it.
Then there’s Einstein’s ‘Cosmic Religion, or Cosmic Spirituality’ founded in wonder at the nature of the universe; no personal God needed. “Anyone who becomes involved in the pursuit of science”, he claimed, “becomes convinced there is a spirit manifest in the laws of the universe - a spirit vastly superior to that of man.” If asked for a label I may choose ‘cosmic spirituality’.  Einstein himself described his belief system as “cosmic religion,” which recognized a “miraculous order” in the universe, devoid of personal deities. This order is not just a set of rules, but rather a manifestation of a higher power or intelligence.
By the way I found this interesting article - https://shorturl.at/b6VRL

Keith