‘The Non-Personal Universe of Being’

In what appears today a divided and unmoored world, in which religion is relied upon less and less to give guidance, "a substantial – and rising – share of the [USA] public (27% in 2017, up from 19% in 2012) call themselves spiritual but not religious" (Pew Research Center, 2017). What can these people do in such situation? Where can they turn to? In this small book a like-minded fellow traveler shares his reflections on how to confront these troubling times without a personal God and attempts to provide not only a coherent intellectual framework, but also consequent, general ethical guidelines, both based on the novel idea of the non-personal Universe of Being. This booklet is a reworking for a larger audience of separate articles dealing with various aspects of it. Four of them have been published in peer reviewed journals of philosophy and spirituality and one is new. Except for one chapter, the work is "philosophical" only in the very general sense of philosophy as "love of wisdom". It is better seen as an extended personal meditation, supported by philosophical ideas acquired during years of reading from many diverse sources. Paramount, however, is the influence of the great American psychologist, William James, with his The varieties of religious experience, and of one of the foremost neo-Thomistic philosophers of the last century, Jacques Maritain.

In what appears today a divided and unmoored world, in which religion is relied upon less and less to give guidance, "a substantial – and rising – share of the [USA] public (27% in 2017, up from 19% in 2012) call themselves spiritual but not religious" (Pew Research Center, 2017). What can these people do in such situation? Where can they turn to? In this small book a like-minded fellow traveler shares his reflections on how to confront these troubling times without a personal God and attempts to provide not only a coherent intellectual framework, but also consequent, general ethical guidelines, both based on the novel idea of the non-personal Universe of Being. This booklet is a reworking for a larger audience of separate articles dealing with various aspects of it. Four of them have been published in peer reviewed journals of philosophy and spirituality and one is new. Except for one chapter, the work is "philosophical" only in the very general sense of philosophy as "love of wisdom". It is better seen as an extended personal meditation, supported by philosophical ideas acquired during years of reading from many diverse sources. Paramount, however, is the influence of the great American psychologist, William James, with his The varieties of religious experience, and of one of the foremost neo-Thomistic philosophers of the last century, Jacques Maritain. Glauco Frizzera, M.D. is a retired academic pathologist (formerly at the University of Minnesota, New York University, the Weill Cornell Medical College, as well as the AFIP). In retirement, he has been looking for answers to essential questions about the human condition, first from a Catholic perspective, then from that of a 'spiritual but not religious' person. He believes he has found a reasonable, coherent and useful response to many of them in the central idea expounded here.

Glauco Frizzera was born in Ethiopia, then part of the fortunately short-lived AOI (Italian Oriental Africa), and grew up in the foothills of the Dolomites. After giving up an impulsive choice of a career in the Humanities (Literature or History), he graduated from, and trained in Pathology at, the Medical School of Bologna, Italy. After a two-year fellowship in hematopathology at the University of Chicago, with the most illustrious teacher of the time, Prof. Henry Rappaport, he moved to the USA in 1977, joining the faculty of the Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathology at the University of Minnesota, where he was lucky to work with one of the greatest surgical pathologists of the time, Prof. Juan Rosai. He was a Professor of Pathology at that University and, later, at two other Medical Schools (at New York University and, lastly, the Weill Cornell Medical College, both in New York City), as well as the Chairman of the Department of Hematopathology at the AFIP (Armed Forces Institute of Pathology) in Washington, DC. He has authored/co-authored numerous articles in hematopathology and contributed chapters to several medical books. He has lectured widely in this country, as well as in Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Korea, and Japan, where he spent his sabbatical year at the Saitama Cancer Center, in the Greater Tokyo Area. He has enjoyed working with and teaching a whole generation of bright and congenial residents and fellows. He has been retired for over 15 years, during which he has been looking for answers to essential questions about the human condition, first from a Catholic perspective, then from that of a 'spiritual but not religious' person. He has been interested especially in the nature of religion, wisdom traditions, natural theology and ontology, in addition to many areas of history and pre-history. This book, which merges four articles published in peer-reviewed journals and adds a new one, wraps up his 'philosophical' contributions, leaving him free to enjoy gardening, abstract painting and music in the beautiful island of Oahu, Hawaii.