God 4.0: Book Review

★★★★★ Psychologist Robert Ornstein and Sally M. Ornstein published God 4.0: On the Nature of Higher Consciousness and the Experience Called “God” on 15 October 2021 and you can find it worldwide in affordable paperback, ebook, and audio editions, and at Goodreads.

According to the publisher's blurb, the work is “A stunning unification of science and tradition for a revolutionary new concept of spirituality to address the challenges of the modern world.” It follows on from Robert Ornstein's pioneering research laid out in The Psychology of Consciousness, and The Evolution of Consciousness, among many other works, and draws on modern research "from neuropsychology and religion, to evolutionary psychology, anthropology, archaeology, and genetics".

Followers of the Sufi thinker and author Idries Shah, and fans of Robert Ornstein, Sally Ornstein and the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge (ISHK) will lap this book up, as will those with an interest in spirituality, those hesitant to dip their toes into spiritual waters, and like-minded heretics (ie "free thinkers").

God 4.0 is quite sharply focussed, whereas Iain McGilchrist's magna opera The Master and his Emissary: The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World, and The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World, which explore similar and other topics, are panoramic in scope.

The critical path here is the gap between the theory (“know what”) and praxis (“know how”) of nurturing and developing higher consciousness. Things like immersion in Sufi teaching stories and in poetry (among other arts, crafts, and creative and imaginative endeavours) that stimulate the right hemisphere of the brain (and promote holistic experience – though with the left brain a faithful servant of the right) can hopefully bridge that gap and provide a new pathway that is available to the many, rather than how it has been in the past only open to a select or elite few largely under the direct physical guidance of teachers.

In this age of ever-increasing escalations in our societal and global woes and crises, there is a desperate need for change before it's too late to act – change that must come first and foremost from within each of us. And this is where this work can make a useful and timely contribution.

On this basis, I unhesitatingly give the book 5 stars.

The assertion that “We need to move beyond beliefs, to perception” is fine – as far as it goes. And yet there must be more to life than even this. Though there is much traditional objection to it, the – potentially revolutionary – idea of panpsychism is gaining traction, just as the old materialist models are being found lacking, and failing. So there is yet hope for us and for our co-inhabitants on this planet. But we can't afford to stand back and passively, anxiously, or impatiently observe: we have to roll up our sleeves and engage in self-work right here and now.

Maybe it's just me, but given that the book calls for a new spiritual literacy in the world (a task that will require a great deal of real effort from both a few key players and from the many tasked with implementing it), I was hoping that there would be more crossover and outreach to others who are looking beyond the current materialism, scientism and the late stages of the "deficient mode of the mental-rational structure of consciousness", who express a need to re-enchant the world, and who are engaged in what has been termed "the battle for the Soul of the World".

However, as I say, this is just my own personal bias, and this in no way detracts from this wonderful, very readable, inspiring, and timely work.

If you're wondering who these other folk are, see my blog post “Re-enchantment in a Material World”.

This also forms part of Secret Friends: The Ramblings of a Madman in Search of a Soul (Free PDF), both of which pale in comparison to the magnificent work of the Ornsteins and Iain McGilchrist.