Putting mind before matter with the eternal wisdom

‘It is crucial to acknowledge the primacy of consciousness.’ Dr Edi Bilimoria.

The perennial philosophy brings notions of a metaphysical truth about the non-dual nature of ultimate reality which is found in mystical experience and where the secrets of creation lie and the mystery of our true identity can be unravelled.

This eternal, or ancient, wisdom comprises a coherent intellectual stream rooted in metaphysics, cosmology and religion, and has a particularly optimistic quality in that it suggests age-old wisdom traditions revive from time to time to revitalise the spiritual condition of humankind. It’s recognised by the Western esoteric tradition, that body of truth teachings traced to varying degrees in all wisdom and religious systems.

It’s described as ‘perennial’ because it’s found in the earliest of surviving human texts and probably dates from even more distant times. A common trove of universal spiritual and philosophical truth which has always recognised the inestimable value of consciousness and knowing, it’s capable of restoring purpose and meaning to the universe denied by materialism.

And now we have a new book Consciousness Came First: Revealing evidence for universal intelligence and mind beyond the brain, by Dr Edi Bilimoria (Iff Books, April, 2026), a comprehensive introduction to the perennial philosophy and its implications for the understanding of consciousness, couched in a polemic against scientific materialism.

A rewarding read for anyone who wishes to inquire into the mysteries of life and existence, it’s a prime example and major exposition of the ‘new metaphysics’, which confronts materialism head-on.

The ‘old metaphysics’ was dismissed summarily by science and philosophy, but such peremptory brush-off is no longer possible, especially now that quantum science has invalidated the postulates of materialism, revealing the interconnectivity (unity) of everything in the universe, and undermining any notion of consensus reality in the quotidian.

The stated central message of Consciousness Came First is that the so-called laws of nature are anything but blind or mechanical in character, and that humans and the universe, down to the minutest particle of matter, are imbued with consciousness, goal-orientated evolution and purpose.

Indian-born Bilimoria, a student of the perennial philosophy for more than half a century, and a former Theosophical Society education manager, argues that, once the human state is understood, each one of us will realise our unique role in a purposeful universe guided by love and intelligence.

Consciousness Came First is a condensation into a single volume — produced by writer, journalist and esotericist Tim Wyatt — of Bilimoria’s award-winning four-volume Unfolding Consciousness: Exploring the living universe and intelligent powers in nature and humans, published in 2024 after being researched and written over twenty years.

Wyatt, in his foreword to Consciousness Came First, says the title is the book’s core assertion, that mind creates the material world, not that the material world has first to create the mechanisms required to generate and receive consciousness. But surprisingly, that key concept — that consciousness preceded humanity — is not expanded upon, as such.

Surprise because I was drawn to the book due to my long-held belief that consciousness came first. In November, 2018, in my Medium article, ‘Inspiration, metaphysics, consciousness and the writer’s romantic quest’, I wrote:

‘My theory is that as we are all connected by a quantum substrate, which reveals a participatory structure of energy fields, including our conscious and unconscious minds, inspiration arises from the collective unconscious …’

And in January, 2019, in my Medium article ‘Pioneering thinkers who point us towards a non-materialistic explanation of consciousness’, I wrote:

‘So if consciousness is thought of as a fundamental property of nature or, indeed, as the very ground of existence, then its participatory nature becomes apparent: human evolution has increasingly participated in it. Consciousness then ceases to be seen as a function of the brain, and instead becomes a gestalt, a uniting human experience rather than one subjective only to the individual.’

Stating that ‘consciousness came first’ or, in other words, that ‘consciousness is an element’, Bilimoria believes consciousness to be the quintessential principle, irreducible, not the product of anything else, not a plurality. It’s the source from which everything emanates, a non-physical phenomenon originating and working beyond the brain.

Bilimoria is in that line of thinkers who have taken a non-materialist stance on consciousness, including Viktor Schauberger, Itzhak Bentov, Stanislav Grof, Ervin Laszlo and Amit Goswami, and those who have emphasised the importance of the perennial philosophy, including Helena Blavatsky and her acolyte Annie Besant, Aldous Huxley, Geoffrey Ashe, P T Mistlberger and David Katz.

Mystery Teachings and the paranormal

Indeed, Blavatsky, the primary founder of theosophy, the religious and occultist movement, is a major influence on Bilimoria, who draws heavily on foundational theosophy. Indeed, the first half of Consciousness Came First is to do with the Mystery Teachings and the paranormal, not specifically with the nature of consciousness itself but rather the relation of mainstream science to it.

Even a hazy understanding of occult science is preferable to ‘the cul-de-sac of materialistic hypotheses’, Bilimoria asserts.

Blind faith in scientism — the belief that science is the only way to determine reality and truth — as an exclusive explanatory framework for understanding reality, has seriously hindered investigation into the subjective and spiritual dimensions of the universe and human experience, thereby diminishing our understanding of our place in nature and of ourselves: who or what we truly are.

Edi Bilimoria was educated at the universities of London, Sussex and Oxford, blending experience in the fields of science, the arts and philosophy.

Professionally, he was a consultant engineer to the petrochemical, oil and gas, transport and construction industries. He was project manager and head of design for major projects including the Channel Tunnel, London Underground systems and offshore installations. He also worked in safety and environmental engineering and management for several Royal Navy projects.

He has given courses and lectured extensively internationally, and has organised and chaired conferences to encourage the cross-fertilisation of ideas in the fields of science, religion and practical philosophy. He worked as education manager for the Theosophical Society in Australia as well as supervising the research library, national media library, national members’ lending library and the development of a website.

For many years, Bilimoria was a board director of the Scientific and Medical Network (SMN), and now serves as a trustee of the SMN and in an advisory capacity to both the board and the SMN’s Galileo Commission, a project set up to find ways to expand science and open up public discourse.

In 2023, his work Unfolding Consciousness won the SMN’s Grand Prize, and in 2007 his book The Snake and the Rope was awarded the SMN Book Prize. He has published many articles and papers in the disciplines of science, engineering and esoteric philosophy