A reflective exploration of consciousness, the brain, and spiritual connection inspired by The Secret of Secrets, and how its ideas quietly reshape how we see reality.
Number 7 resonates with me. We can thank Plato for the concept of duality, separating the spiritual from the material. That alone has had a great influence on the Enlightenment and Western Christianity that put God up in the sky, separate from the material world, or even detached from it. Thanks to great thinkers like Richard Rohr who writes about the Universal Christ and the sacredness of all things, some are beginning to understand that the spiritual realm is not separate, but present.
I really like this perspective. The idea that the spiritual and material might not be two completely separate realms is something I found especially interesting when exploring the book and the questions it raises around consciousness.
I also think there’s something powerful in the idea of finding the sacred within ordinary life rather than looking for it somewhere “above” or outside of it. It changes the way we might see ourselves, other people and the world around us.
Thank you for bringing Richard Rohr and the Universal Christ into the conversation. I hadn’t explored that perspective in depth, but it gives me another thread to follow. ❤️
This is exactly the kind of thing I can disappear into for hours. Consciousness, what happens after death, whether our brains create everything we experience or are somehow filtering something much bigger than us - there are so many questions we simply don’t have answers to yet.
The brain-as-receiver idea is especially fascinating to me. Not necessarily because I think we can prove that’s what’s happening, but because it completely changes the way you think about consciousness and what we actually know about reality.
And I appreciate that you keep coming back to curiosity rather than certainty. I think “I don’t know, but I want to keep asking” is sometimes a much better answer than forcing everything into something we can neatly explain.
The older I get, the more comfortable I am with the possibility that there may be far more going on than we currently understand. And honestly, I think the mystery is part of what makes these questions so interesting.
I completely understand what you mean - I could disappear into these questions for hours too. ❤️ There’s something about consciousness and what happens beyond this physical life that keeps opening more questions rather than giving us neat answers.
I’m especially with you on the “I don’t know, but I want to keep asking” part. I think there’s a freedom in being able to explore an idea without needing to immediately decide whether it’s true or false. The brain-as-receiver idea is fascinating for me for exactly that reason - not because I think we can prove it, but because it makes us question some of the assumptions we’ve made about consciousness.
And I agree, the older we get, the more comfortable we can become with not having all the answers. Maybe the mystery isn’t something we need to solve… maybe it’s part of the experience. ❤️
Yes, that’s exactly what I love about these kinds of questions. I don’t need to have a definite answer to enjoy thinking about them. Sometimes the possibility itself is enough to keep me curious.
The brain-as-receiver idea is especially fascinating because if consciousness isn’t entirely created by the brain, it opens the door to so many other questions about what we are and what might happen when the body dies.
And I agree about getting more comfortable with “I don’t know.” I think I actually enjoy the mystery more now than I would have when I was younger. I’ll definitely check out the article. ❤️
I’ve been studying Dan Browns approach recently. I’m a travel guide and have a few history buffs on my tours and the magic is making history appealing in situ, which I think he does.
I wrote an article about going to a place to write about it after discovering that’s what he does. I’d be interested to hear if you agree.
Your essay covers so many topics and questions that I’ve wrestled with all my life. Even as a young child I had questions that I didn’t quite know how to frame, perhaps, but that lived within me throughout my growing up years.
As an adult I have continued searching and asking questions about human consciousness, religions, spirituality, death, after death, and our place in this vast universe and perhaps beyond. I think there is so much more knowledge we could access if we were just able to tune in to everything surrounding us and to every facet of our own beings.
❤️ I love that you’ve carried these questions with you since childhood. I think some questions arrive long before we have the words to properly explain them, and then they keep finding us in different ways as we grow.
I’ve always been drawn to those same questions - consciousness, spirituality, death, what might exist beyond what we can see, and why we are here at all. I also find the idea of tuning in fascinating. Maybe there is more around us and within us than we normally notice, and part of the journey is becoming more aware of it rather than trying to have an answer for everything.
I’m really glad this piece connected with something you’ve been exploring for so many years. Thank you for being part of the conversation. 😊❤️
If you would like to explore further I wrote an article about “death is not the end” together with another great writer. Give it a try and see if this fits your curiosity.
Your points about brain injuries and sudden abilities, and about the brain filtering perception, have an interesting counterpart in savant research. The neuroscientist Allan Snyder proposed that acquired savants may gain access to less-processed sensory information that exists in every brain but is normally held back by top-down inhibition. That is a filter story too, except the information starts inside the head. Did the book engage with those neurological accounts at all, or did it stay mostly with the receiver framing?
That’s a really interesting connection. I hadn’t explored Allan Snyder’s work on acquired savants in the article, but the idea of reduced top-down filtering does fit nicely alongside the book’s broader discussion of the brain as a filter.
From what I took from the book, though, it leans much more toward the receiver framing than toward neurological explanations like Snyder’s. I think that’s one of the questions I found most interesting - whether changes in perception can be explained entirely by changes within the brain, or whether they leave room for something beyond it.
I’ll have to look more closely at Snyder’s research now. Thank you for bringing that perspective into the discussion - I hadn’t considered the “filter” idea from that direction. ❤️
Thank you so much! ❤️ I’m really glad it gave you something to think about, and thank you for sharing it too. These questions around consciousness and what might exist beyond what we can see are exactly what made me want to explore the book in the first place. I always enjoy seeing where a conversation like this takes people. 🙏🏼
❤️ It sounds like we’ve been circling around a very similar idea from our own experiences. Sometimes we look for answers in symbols, signs or something outside ourselves, when what we need is a little space to hear what is already there.
And knowing you could repost so many parts honestly makes me smile. Thank you for reading it so closely and for sharing your thoughts! 🙏🏼
This was a good one. I had no idea about this book as well. I never thought that Dan Brown would write a book about these topics. But I am sure it's going to be a very good one. Thanks for this.
Thank you! ❤️ I was curious about it too because it’s quite a different direction from what I expected from Dan Brown. That’s actually what made me want to explore the book and some of the ideas behind it.
I hope you enjoy it when you get to read it! I’d love to hear what you think, especially about some of the questions it raises around consciousness and what we are beyond the physical. 💕
In my article there is a direct link to the book if you want to get via Amazon.
Indeed, most of clients (coaching and counselling) do share these visions of belonging to the whole by being opened to it. I could say that if 10 yrs ago Dan Brown's books surprised me and people I know, today his book comes as confirmation of what we actually feel and keep in our hearts as a kind of cosmic heritage. Thank you for sharing this post in a very understated style. If you are interested in following the fiction with some core research ( not neuroscience) but technologies of the soul in comparative manner, here is a book, quite unknown, that you might enjoy: Out of this World - Ioan Couliano, here
I really like the idea of a “cosmic heritage” - that feeling that some ideas don’t necessarily arrive as something completely new, but as a recognition of something we may have already felt somewhere inside.
And thank you for the book recommendation. I’ll definitely add it to my reading list. ❤️
The idea of the brain as a receiver resonates deeply with me because it touches something I have experienced personally.
During a clinical death episode many years ago, I retained a clear experience of consciousness while my physical body remained in intensive care. I don’t offer that as scientific proof of what consciousness is. I can only say that, from the inside of my own experience, consciousness did not feel confined to the body.
Some questions cease to be purely philosophical once life has placed us inside them.
Thank you for sharing something so personal. I can understand why the idea of consciousness as a receiver would resonate with you after an experience like that.
There are questions we can explore scientifically, and then there are experiences that make those questions feel very different because we have lived through them ourselves.
And I love your last sentence. Some questions really do change when they stop being abstract ideas and become part of our own experience. ❤️
What stayed with me is the invitation to hold these ideas with curiosity rather than certainty. The possibility that consciousness, identity, and perception may be more complex than our usual explanations suggests gives the reflection its real appeal. I also liked the thought that some questions do not need immediate answers to change the way we live with them.
Thank you… There are so many questions around consciousness and what we are beyond the physical that I don’t think we need to rush into having definite answers.
For me, the curiosity is part of what makes these questions so interesting. Sometimes simply allowing ourselves to wonder about something can change how we see our own life, even when we still don’t know what the answer is. Thank you for picking up on that part of the article. 💕
I really liked this article. It’s made me think things through. I’d like to read the book too!
In answer to your question with grid it gives me hope to hope I will see a form of my father again in an afterlife. Even if I don’t recognise him.
Before I was baptised I always believed us as energy and the law that it can neither be created nor destroyed only transferred still help me feel some part of us (spiritual side) lives on.
I like to believe we are three part beings body, soul and spirit.
I’m so glad the article made you want to read the book too. ❤️ And I really understand what you mean about hoping to meet your father again, even if you wouldn’t recognise him in the same way.
Personally, I strongly believe we will meet everyone again in spirit, and that we will recognise them - not as we knew them in flesh and bones, but through who they are beyond the physical. There’s something comforting about that idea for me. I wrote an article about this topic if you would like to explore further.
I also share your belief that we are more than the physical body. I see us as energetic souls who come here and manifest through a body to experience life, learn, grow and develop. The body is the way we experience this particular life, but I don’t believe it is all that we are.
And I really like your idea of us being three-part beings - body, soul and spirit. It gives another way of thinking about consciousness and what might continue beyond this life. Thank you for sharing such a personal thought. ❤️
Number 7 resonates with me. We can thank Plato for the concept of duality, separating the spiritual from the material. That alone has had a great influence on the Enlightenment and Western Christianity that put God up in the sky, separate from the material world, or even detached from it. Thanks to great thinkers like Richard Rohr who writes about the Universal Christ and the sacredness of all things, some are beginning to understand that the spiritual realm is not separate, but present.
I really like this perspective. The idea that the spiritual and material might not be two completely separate realms is something I found especially interesting when exploring the book and the questions it raises around consciousness.
I also think there’s something powerful in the idea of finding the sacred within ordinary life rather than looking for it somewhere “above” or outside of it. It changes the way we might see ourselves, other people and the world around us.
Thank you for bringing Richard Rohr and the Universal Christ into the conversation. I hadn’t explored that perspective in depth, but it gives me another thread to follow. ❤️
This is exactly the kind of thing I can disappear into for hours. Consciousness, what happens after death, whether our brains create everything we experience or are somehow filtering something much bigger than us - there are so many questions we simply don’t have answers to yet.
The brain-as-receiver idea is especially fascinating to me. Not necessarily because I think we can prove that’s what’s happening, but because it completely changes the way you think about consciousness and what we actually know about reality.
And I appreciate that you keep coming back to curiosity rather than certainty. I think “I don’t know, but I want to keep asking” is sometimes a much better answer than forcing everything into something we can neatly explain.
The older I get, the more comfortable I am with the possibility that there may be far more going on than we currently understand. And honestly, I think the mystery is part of what makes these questions so interesting.
I completely understand what you mean - I could disappear into these questions for hours too. ❤️ There’s something about consciousness and what happens beyond this physical life that keeps opening more questions rather than giving us neat answers.
Myself and Andrea wrote about it in this article if you would like to read: https://wisdomlibrary.substack.com/p/what-if-death-is-not-the-end?r=2r3u84&utm_medium=ios
I’m especially with you on the “I don’t know, but I want to keep asking” part. I think there’s a freedom in being able to explore an idea without needing to immediately decide whether it’s true or false. The brain-as-receiver idea is fascinating for me for exactly that reason - not because I think we can prove it, but because it makes us question some of the assumptions we’ve made about consciousness.
And I agree, the older we get, the more comfortable we can become with not having all the answers. Maybe the mystery isn’t something we need to solve… maybe it’s part of the experience. ❤️
Yes, that’s exactly what I love about these kinds of questions. I don’t need to have a definite answer to enjoy thinking about them. Sometimes the possibility itself is enough to keep me curious.
The brain-as-receiver idea is especially fascinating because if consciousness isn’t entirely created by the brain, it opens the door to so many other questions about what we are and what might happen when the body dies.
And I agree about getting more comfortable with “I don’t know.” I think I actually enjoy the mystery more now than I would have when I was younger. I’ll definitely check out the article. ❤️
I’ve been studying Dan Browns approach recently. I’m a travel guide and have a few history buffs on my tours and the magic is making history appealing in situ, which I think he does.
I wrote an article about going to a place to write about it after discovering that’s what he does. I’d be interested to hear if you agree.
https://quentinchalmers.substack.com/p/a-slightly-shit-dan-brown?r=5sir1n&utm_medium=ios
This was. Very well composed article
I appreciate your feedback 😊
Great article!
Thank you 🙏
You’re welcome!
Thank you for this.
Your essay covers so many topics and questions that I’ve wrestled with all my life. Even as a young child I had questions that I didn’t quite know how to frame, perhaps, but that lived within me throughout my growing up years.
As an adult I have continued searching and asking questions about human consciousness, religions, spirituality, death, after death, and our place in this vast universe and perhaps beyond. I think there is so much more knowledge we could access if we were just able to tune in to everything surrounding us and to every facet of our own beings.
Thanks again for sharing your work with us. 😊
❤️ I love that you’ve carried these questions with you since childhood. I think some questions arrive long before we have the words to properly explain them, and then they keep finding us in different ways as we grow.
I’ve always been drawn to those same questions - consciousness, spirituality, death, what might exist beyond what we can see, and why we are here at all. I also find the idea of tuning in fascinating. Maybe there is more around us and within us than we normally notice, and part of the journey is becoming more aware of it rather than trying to have an answer for everything.
I’m really glad this piece connected with something you’ve been exploring for so many years. Thank you for being part of the conversation. 😊❤️
If you would like to explore further I wrote an article about “death is not the end” together with another great writer. Give it a try and see if this fits your curiosity.
https://www.wisdom-library.com/p/what-if-death-is-not-the-end?r=2r3u84&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Another one that might interest you is about “intuition, dreams and in intelligence within us”.
https://www.wisdom-library.com/p/dreams-intuition-quiet-intelligence-within-us?r=2r3u84&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
If you decide to read it let me know what you think.
Your points about brain injuries and sudden abilities, and about the brain filtering perception, have an interesting counterpart in savant research. The neuroscientist Allan Snyder proposed that acquired savants may gain access to less-processed sensory information that exists in every brain but is normally held back by top-down inhibition. That is a filter story too, except the information starts inside the head. Did the book engage with those neurological accounts at all, or did it stay mostly with the receiver framing?
That’s a really interesting connection. I hadn’t explored Allan Snyder’s work on acquired savants in the article, but the idea of reduced top-down filtering does fit nicely alongside the book’s broader discussion of the brain as a filter.
From what I took from the book, though, it leans much more toward the receiver framing than toward neurological explanations like Snyder’s. I think that’s one of the questions I found most interesting - whether changes in perception can be explained entirely by changes within the brain, or whether they leave room for something beyond it.
I’ll have to look more closely at Snyder’s research now. Thank you for bringing that perspective into the discussion - I hadn’t considered the “filter” idea from that direction. ❤️
Love this and I have shared such a fascinating and thought provoking subject .. thanks for such a great post 🙏🏼
Thank you so much! ❤️ I’m really glad it gave you something to think about, and thank you for sharing it too. These questions around consciousness and what might exist beyond what we can see are exactly what made me want to explore the book in the first place. I always enjoy seeing where a conversation like this takes people. 🙏🏼
Truth isn’t hidden in codes or symbols. It reveals itself in those moments when the mind grows quiet enough to listen.
I've been saying this for months!
I could repost so many things from this article. Thank you so much for sharing this!!
❤️ It sounds like we’ve been circling around a very similar idea from our own experiences. Sometimes we look for answers in symbols, signs or something outside ourselves, when what we need is a little space to hear what is already there.
And knowing you could repost so many parts honestly makes me smile. Thank you for reading it so closely and for sharing your thoughts! 🙏🏼
This was a good one. I had no idea about this book as well. I never thought that Dan Brown would write a book about these topics. But I am sure it's going to be a very good one. Thanks for this.
I am gonna get this book soon.
Thank you! ❤️ I was curious about it too because it’s quite a different direction from what I expected from Dan Brown. That’s actually what made me want to explore the book and some of the ideas behind it.
I hope you enjoy it when you get to read it! I’d love to hear what you think, especially about some of the questions it raises around consciousness and what we are beyond the physical. 💕
In my article there is a direct link to the book if you want to get via Amazon.
Yeah will check it out. Thanks a lot 😊
Indeed, most of clients (coaching and counselling) do share these visions of belonging to the whole by being opened to it. I could say that if 10 yrs ago Dan Brown's books surprised me and people I know, today his book comes as confirmation of what we actually feel and keep in our hearts as a kind of cosmic heritage. Thank you for sharing this post in a very understated style. If you are interested in following the fiction with some core research ( not neuroscience) but technologies of the soul in comparative manner, here is a book, quite unknown, that you might enjoy: Out of this World - Ioan Couliano, here
https://www.amazon.com.au/Out-this-World-Otherworldly-2001-05-01/dp/B0184X4JV0
I really like the idea of a “cosmic heritage” - that feeling that some ideas don’t necessarily arrive as something completely new, but as a recognition of something we may have already felt somewhere inside.
And thank you for the book recommendation. I’ll definitely add it to my reading list. ❤️
The idea of the brain as a receiver resonates deeply with me because it touches something I have experienced personally.
During a clinical death episode many years ago, I retained a clear experience of consciousness while my physical body remained in intensive care. I don’t offer that as scientific proof of what consciousness is. I can only say that, from the inside of my own experience, consciousness did not feel confined to the body.
Some questions cease to be purely philosophical once life has placed us inside them.
Thank you for sharing something so personal. I can understand why the idea of consciousness as a receiver would resonate with you after an experience like that.
There are questions we can explore scientifically, and then there are experiences that make those questions feel very different because we have lived through them ourselves.
And I love your last sentence. Some questions really do change when they stop being abstract ideas and become part of our own experience. ❤️
Thank you. That distinction matters deeply to me.
Experience does not have to become proof in order to change the way we understand a question. ❤️
What stayed with me is the invitation to hold these ideas with curiosity rather than certainty. The possibility that consciousness, identity, and perception may be more complex than our usual explanations suggests gives the reflection its real appeal. I also liked the thought that some questions do not need immediate answers to change the way we live with them.
Thank you… There are so many questions around consciousness and what we are beyond the physical that I don’t think we need to rush into having definite answers.
For me, the curiosity is part of what makes these questions so interesting. Sometimes simply allowing ourselves to wonder about something can change how we see our own life, even when we still don’t know what the answer is. Thank you for picking up on that part of the article. 💕
I really liked this article. It’s made me think things through. I’d like to read the book too!
In answer to your question with grid it gives me hope to hope I will see a form of my father again in an afterlife. Even if I don’t recognise him.
Before I was baptised I always believed us as energy and the law that it can neither be created nor destroyed only transferred still help me feel some part of us (spiritual side) lives on.
I like to believe we are three part beings body, soul and spirit.
I’m so glad the article made you want to read the book too. ❤️ And I really understand what you mean about hoping to meet your father again, even if you wouldn’t recognise him in the same way.
Personally, I strongly believe we will meet everyone again in spirit, and that we will recognise them - not as we knew them in flesh and bones, but through who they are beyond the physical. There’s something comforting about that idea for me. I wrote an article about this topic if you would like to explore further.
https://wisdomlibrary.substack.com/p/what-if-death-is-not-the-end?r=2r3u84&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
I also share your belief that we are more than the physical body. I see us as energetic souls who come here and manifest through a body to experience life, learn, grow and develop. The body is the way we experience this particular life, but I don’t believe it is all that we are.
And I really like your idea of us being three-part beings - body, soul and spirit. It gives another way of thinking about consciousness and what might continue beyond this life. Thank you for sharing such a personal thought. ❤️