Today is the anniversary
of the martyrdom of Renaissance philosopher, Giordano Bruno. I learned about Brother Bruno, a one time
Dominican monk from Naples, Italy who died on this day in the year 1600, watching the pilot episode of "Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey" hosted by the very likeable
astrophysicist, Neil deGrasse Tyson. I
appreciate the way professionals like Tyson or Brian Greene can make complex
studies in physics or cosmology accessible to an interested layperson such as
myself, as well as, how good production can make these subjects richly
entertaining.
I was delighted by the
animated vignette in this episode, “Standing Up in the Milky Way” that
introduced me to a philosophical explorer, a contemporary of Nicolaus
Copernicus and Galileo Galilei, whose contribution to the understanding of our
physical universe was every bit as radical and revealing as that of his famous
peers. Bruno taught that he agreed with
Copernicus, the earth was not the center of the universe, it revolved around
the sun, but he went much further by proposing that the sun is only one of an
infinite number of stars orbited by any number of other planets which perhaps
nurture life, as does our sun and earth. But what really made me
sit up and take notice was when Tyson explained how Bruno came to his theory of
infinite galaxies.
“And then when he was
thirty, he had the vision that sealed his fate.
In this dream, he awakened to a world enclosed inside a confining bowl
of stars. This was the cosmos of Bruno’s time. He experienced a sickening moment
of fear, as if the bottom of everything was falling away beneath his feet. But he summoned up his courage.”
We watch as the animated Bruno character lifts
the curtain and crawls out into a gloriously expanded landscape of the
universe. He extends his arms and
takes flight; then we hear the character speak for himself:
“I spread confident wings
to space and soared toward the infinite, leaving far behind me what others
strained to see from a distance. Here, there was no up. No down.
No edge. No center. I saw that the Sun was just another
star. And the stars were other Suns,
each escorted by other Earths like our own. The revelation of this immensity
was like falling in love.”
Giordano Bruno, I realized,
arrived at his brave heretical view of the cosmos through dreaming, perhaps,
very likely, in an out-of-body experience or a lucid dream. He awoke with that clarity of understanding
that such dreams inspire; the experience was more real than anything in the
physical dimension and it transformed him completely into an evangelist for a
new vision of heaven and earth, one that unfortunately got him tortured
and burned as a heretic by the Roman Catholic Church.
Tyson wraps this
fascinating segment on Bruno with these words:
“Giordano Bruno had
planted the seed. Ten years after Bruno’s
martyrdom, Galileo first looked through a telescope, realizing that Bruno had
been right all along—the Milky Way was made of countless stars invisible to the
naked eye, and some of those lights in the sky were actually other worlds.
Bruno was no scientist. His vision of
the cosmos was a lucky guess, because he had no evidence to support it…”
Alas, Bruno, it was “only
a dream.”
I did some research with
the hope of finding the actual account of Bruno’s dream in his own words and
still haven’t found it. But I did
discover that the episode ignited some controversy around Bruno’s story. None
of the detractors took exception with Cosmos’ depiction of how Bruno arrived at
his paradigm shattering theory of infinite universes; they all agree it was in
dreams. They just don’t think the program should have implied he was a martyr
for science. According to several
critiques, he was really martyred for denying the truth of certain core Catholic
doctrines. And, I guess, that makes a hell of a lot of difference?
Here’s an example by Dr.
Danny Faulkner in an article entitled “Cosmos Grossly Mischaracterized the
Heretic Giordano Bruno”
“So, was science also the
problem with Bruno? Hardly. Bruno was a mystic, arriving at his ideas through
dreams. Eventually he saw his dreams as trumping the authority of Scripture, as
well as the authority of the Roman Catholic Church, of which he supposedly was
a member. Even though the Cosmos episode repeatedly depicted Bruno as
believing that he was simply exploring God’s creation, if Bruno even believed
that God created the world, Bruno’s god was very different from the God of the
Bible. Bruno rejected basic doctrines of Christianity such as the trinity, the
Virgin Birth of Jesus, the deity of Jesus, and the Crucifixion and Resurrection
of Jesus. And these are just a few of the more jarring problems with Bruno;
there are many other problems. Ultimately, it was these heretical ideas that
got Bruno into trouble with the Roman Catholic Church. Given that, it was
amazing that it took the Roman Catholic Church eight years to execute Bruno. We
do not advocate or condone punishing anyone for their beliefs about either
religion or science. However, the producers of Cosmos ought to be honest
and clear about the reasons why Bruno was condemned rather than making him a
poster-child for supposed visionary scientists who disagree with religious
authorities.”
I’m deeply sorry that Brother Bruno, because he had the misfortune of living during a tyrannical theocracy, died a horrible and lonely death for ideas, both scientific and spiritual, that
were centuries ahead of his time. What is incredibly
exciting to me is that the real cutting edge of Bruno’s contribution is barely recognized,
even today. In dreams, we can make
discoveries that translate into waking reality; scientific discovery can come
of dreaming and be tested in dreaming.
Here’s how William Buhlman
explains it in his book, “Adventures Beyond the Body”:
“All of us are interdimensional
beings currently focusing our attention upon a single dimension of
energy-matter. Out-of-body and
near-death experiences, dreams, altered states of consciousness, even death
itself are evidence of our multidimensional nature. Consciously recognizing and
personally experiencing our nonphysical nature is a major step in our
individual evolution. Eventually all of
us will evolve to the point where we are able to consciously experience and
explore the entire universe. This will
occur when our species grows to recognize that we and the universe are the same
– multidimensional.
The New Frontier
of Science
In the twenty-first
century, science will recognize that the answers to the elusive physical
mysteries of our existence—the cosmology of the universe, the unseen nature and
structure of matter, the evolution of our species, and even the existence of
life after death—can be found only by exploring the unseen substructure of the
universe. This recognition will be a major evolutionary step of science and a
turning point in human evolution. Slowly we will move from being an externally
focused, biological species to being an increasingly multidimensional species.
This process of change has already begun. Astrophysicists, quantum physicists,
and particle physicists are even now conducting extensive experiments that
support the concept of a multidimensional universe. This trend will continue
throughout the twenty-first century.
Once we begin to explore
the interior of the universe, a new age of scientific research and discovery
will emerge. Modern science will expand its current observations of matter and
reality beyond all current concepts. Science will begin to explore the unseen
source of physical energy and matter. As we evolve, we will begin to chart the
unseen universe much as astronomers are now charting the visible universe. The
exploration of the interior of the universe is a massive endeavor reaching far
beyond our current intellectual concepts of time, space, and energy. The
exploration of the unseen dimensions is a task that all of us will eventually
confront, for it is our birthright and our destiny to explore beyond our
primitive biological vehicles and experience the magnificence of our true home
within the multidimensional universe.”
It seems to me that
Giordano Bruno was a martyr for science, a martyr for individual spiritual
authority and a martyr for conscious dreaming.
I take a moment to thank the stars for his life and his work. I’m very glad he lived so courageously the
path his dreams challenged him to live, despite the consequences, and I hope
that if he chooses another physical life, it goes a lot easier for him.
Image: Flammarion Woodcut 1888
Wikimedia Commons
Wikimedia Commons
