The Club of Budapest: Transhumanism's Spiritual Gurus
"Religion is regarded by the ignorant as true, by the wise as false, and by the rulers as useful." - Seneca, Roman philosopher, statesman, and dramatist (4BC – 65AD)
Upon first inspection, it no doubt appears that the rapid advance of transhumanism, both as a field of study as well as a more amorphous political doctrine, represents a purely secular phenomenon. Certainly, listening to its most vocal proponents, the Ray Kurzweils and Yuval Noah Hararis of the world, it is clear that many within the movement regard spirituality as either a hopelessly outdated relic from our evolutionary past or, more deleterious still, a fear-driven delusion antithetical to civilizational progress. Yet, for all their atheistic bluster and claims of unwavering empiricism, there remains embedded within such rhetoric, a palpable undercurrent of religiosity — a quasi-messianic conviction that their agenda is not just practically necessary and scientifically guided, but in some perverse, incomprehensible way, righteous.
This is hardly surprising. After all, given the avowed goals of transhumanism – biomechanical engineering and artificially augmented intelligence, cyber-utopias and ultimately, digital immortality – it seems inevitable that advocates would one day be confronted with the same ethical dilemmas that were once pondered through the lens of the Divine. Already, this has birthed a slew of obscure new techno-faiths, from The Church of Perpetual Life in Florida to the AI-worshipping cult Theta Noir, however, at its ideological core, the transhumanist crusade has been conferred moral and even spiritual legitimacy by one of the globalist network’s lesser-known outgrowths, the Club of Budapest.
What is the Club of Budapest?
Although officially established in 1993, the organization can in fact trace its origins back some fifteen years earlier, to conversation between Aurelio Peccei, founder of the infamous Club of Rome, and one of the think tank’s more quietly influential members – a Hungarian philosopher and concert pianist by the name of Ervin Laszlo. It was the pair’s shared contention that only hope of addressing humanity’s ever-mounting litany of problems – problems they both saw as increasingly globalized – lay in nothing short of the comprehensive overhaul of all modes of ethical and intellectual thought, erecting in their place, a far more holistic sense of cosmic interconnectedness.
This they dubbed, “The Cosmopolitan Consciousness.” By the time Laszlo eventually conducted the Club of Budapest’s inaugural meeting, he had developed this mindset into a fully functioning metaphysical dogma – a dogma which sought, through the creative application of both systems theory and quantum mechanics, to schematize (or perhaps more accurately, to westernize) the Hindu concept of the Akasic Field. What this posited, in its simplest serviceable terms, was that the universe exists as an integrated whole, with all observable and non-observable phenomena emanating from a single substructure of energy and information. Unlike most Eastern-inspired philosophies however, which generally espouse a predominantly personal transformation, Laszlo’s interpretation came with not just a cultural but also a political dimension, the group’s manifesto asserting:
“The Club of Budapest is … dedicated to the basic mission of facilitating and providing direction to a “global shift” toward a more peaceful, equitable, and sustainable world. [This] philosophy … is based on the realization that the enormous challenges that humanity is currently facing can only be overcome through the development of a global cultural consciousness with a global perspective. The Club perceives itself as a builder of bridges between science and art, ethics and economy, between old and young, as well as between the different cultures of the world… [and as] an informal international association dedicated to developing a new way of thinking and a new ethics that will help resolve the social, political, economic, and ecological challenges of the 21st century.”
Needless to say, that what Laszlo is here endorsing, beneath all his characteristically florid obscurantism, is the same Malthusian credo the Club of Rome outlined in their 1972 publication, The Limits to Growth. But rather than infiltrating the traditional areas of banking, business and politics, as its parent organization had done so adeptly, The Club of Budapest would instead disseminate its ideas through the more esoteric realms of art, philosophy, and new-age spiritualism - their quest for a “peaceful, equitable, and sustainable world” guided by four unifying principles:
“Promoting the Growth of Planetary Consciousness’
The most foundational of these, Laszlo maintains, is the cultivation of what he calls a “planetary consciousness.” This, in essence, reiterates his faith in the fundamental interrelatedness of all things, our actions, no matter how ostensibly localized, producing energetic ripples which radiate throughout existence. In order to awaken to this vast spiritual synthesis, he argues that humanity must first embrace a kind of ethical renaissance, the distinctions between nations, cultures, and individuals rendered obsolete by a spirit of unbounded empathy. Within the Club of Budapest’s own literature, this is framed (as technocratic objectives invariably are) as the next stage in our collective evolution, a step beyond the superficial divisions of the past into a future defined by personal enlightenment, global cooperation and ecological harmony. Or to quote Laszlo directly:
“As we have already glimpsed and will continue to discover, we are able to expand our awareness beyond the perceived limitations of our own person and access the dimensions of a transpersonal consciousness. As we open ourselves to the realization of the in-formed universe, this shift in our collective awareness heralds a resolution of the schisms that have divided us for so long—both among and within us. This is the dawn of a new kind of consciousness, a planetary consciousness that transcends the narrow, self-serving view of the world that has led to our current crises. It is a consciousness that recognizes the interdependence of all life and the need for a profound, collective effort to bring about the global transformation required for a sustainable and harmonious future."
It is not difficult to see why such sentiments have found considerable favor among the innovators of Silicon Valley. It might even be said that notions of Oneness and Divine Union, once the domain of yogis, Gnostics, and Christian mystics, have today been commandeered by corporations like Neuralink and Google DeepMind - Sam Altman, Peter Thiel, and most notoriously Elon Musk, all confidently proclaiming the inevitability of cybernetic convergence and an AI-driven Singularity.
Naturally, for adherents of the Abrahamic faiths, such a backdoor path to eternity may seem offensive, if not downright heretical, offering as it does, the prospect of salvation without any of the attendant responsibilities. Even among those with no religious objection, this degree of technological transcendence remains reassuringly implausible and yet, it is just such obstacles which the Club of Budapest hope to overcome.
Through their coterie of Oprah-promoted prophets such as Deepak Chopra and Bruce Lipton, Don Miguel Ruiz and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (all of whom are honorary members) the committee have already succeeded in injecting their theosophical teachings into the western zeitgeist, a directionless, Wi-Fi-tethered youth proving particularly receptive. This is only to be expected. Raised in an era of cynical materialism and moral neutrality, entire generations of deracinated young people are at last being granted some semblance of spiritual sustenance, one which comes palatably presented inside the only framework they’ve been taught to venerate: science. Few, of course, will recognize from where such beliefs stem. Fewer still will take the time to discover the wholly terrestrial agenda they serve, in effect, forming a conceptual bridge, just as Laszlo and his acolytes intended, between man’s search for The Sublime and the most deranged excesses of transhumanism.
“Interconnecting Generations and Cultures”
While the Club of Budapest typically takes pains to obfuscate its political ambitions, relying instead on euphemism and innuendo, every so often, an opportunity comes along – or rather, is actively precipitated – that throws these into unmistakable focus, the society’s 2020 pandemic declaration the most explicit illustration of their aims:
“In a way, [COVID-19] is a blessing in disguise. It made us realize that we are a single global family: an interdependent and either co-evolving or co-devolving living system… It is not “our people, our nation first”—not even all of humanity first. It is the web of life first, as it exists and evolves on Earth. When that web is safe and sound, we are safe and sound… Now the way is open to creating a better world, a world that lives up to the power and the potential of the human spirit. When the pandemic subsides and passes into history, creating a better world will be our epochal task.”
The reader has presumably heard this “pandemic as opportunity” mantra before. Alongside the WHO, the IMF, the World Economic Forum and other such supranational entities who’ve uttered it, the Club of Budapest remain diligently tight-lipped, at least in public, as to what this “better world” would look like. For most, however, this has become all too apparent. With “unprecedented public health measures” long since exhausted as a pretext for lockdowns, travel restrictions, digital IDs, and traumatizing of the populace, the establishment narrative has since shifted to the ever-impending eco-apocalypse, governments around the world advocating we re-adopt the same borg-like conformity of the covid years to now fight the equally fictious menace of climate change.
Laszlo’s has long been an ardent supporter of such measures. Indeed, he might even be considered one of the chief architects of modern environmentalism, the Club of Budapest providing the stage for Al Gore, the movement’s original figurehead, to launch his so-called Marshall Plan – a then unprecedented set of proposals striving to hold western nations responsible for “sustainable economic progress” in the Third World while simultaneously sabotaging their domestic industries vis-à-vis Green Energy. As goes without saying, such diktats would amount to civilizational suicide. Even if one were to grant Gore’s motives an unduly charitable interpretation, his solutions to the alleged climate crisis nonetheless demonstrate the same disdain for “our people, our nation” as does Laszlo, every law introduced under the guise of environmentalism, seemingly intent on reducing our species to a state of uniform serfdom.
But Laszlo’s efforts to “interconnect cultures” are more extensive still. Throughout his five decades among technocracy’s self-professed nobility, the soft-spoken polymath has charted a steady ascent up their hierarchy, much of his 1970s and 80s spent as a consultant for an assortment of UN enterprises. During this period, he was also appointed President of the World Futures Studies Federation, a UNESCO-affiliated committee charged with devising transnational governance strategies, while not even three years later, Laszlo had garnered sufficient status to establish the General Evolution Research Group, just one of the many, many, many think tanks he has either chaired, founded, or participated in, designed to lend intellectual validity to the overarching globalist cause.
“Integrating Spirituality, Science and the Arts”
At the philosophical heart of the Club of Budapest’s manifesto, is their claim that all expressions of human creativity - no matter whether in theoretical physics or landscape gardening, evangelical Protestantism or absurdist theatre - are but incarnations of the same underlying force. As such, practitioners of outwardly divergent disciplines, Laszlo contends, must form alliances in order to tap into this infinite reserve of potential, thus ushering in an age of untold scientific and spiritual advancement. Or as he puts it:
“One can find meaning in poetry as well as in science in the contemplations of a flower as well as in the grasp of an equation. We can be filled with wonder as we stand under the majestic dome of the night sky and see the myriad lights that twinkle and shine in its seemingly infinite depths. We can also be filled with awe as we behold the meaning of the formulae that define the propagation of light in space, the formation of galaxies, the synthesis of chemical elements, and the relation of energy, mass and velocity in the physical universe. The mystical perception of oneness and the religious intuition of a Divine intelligence are as much a construction of meaning as the postulation of the universal law of gravitation.”
One can hardly deny that Laszlo has a way with words. But while we all know what it means to be rendered awestruck by a passage in a book, the splendor of a sunset, or the innocence of a newborn child, it is patently impossible – not to mention, nakedly tyrannical – for any man or manmade institution to designate themselves arbiters of the truth such beauty articulates.
Nevertheless, it is precisely this power which the Club of Budapest are seeking to acquire. Over the last several years, only the most willfully oblivious can have failed to notice the wholesale ideological homogenization occurring across virtually every sphere of creative endeavor, science constituting perhaps the most egregious example. Still heralding itself as the only reliable gauge of reality, the field today exists primarily as a mean to justify the pre-determined goals of its benefactors, celebrity scholars like Bill Nye, Neil de Grasse Tyson, and Club of Budapest stalwart Jane Goodall, merely providing the window dressing.
The association’s influence is even more evident in the arts. Boasting some of the most renowned classical musicians of the modern era, the Club of Budapest likewise enlists performers with more broad-reaching appeal, actress Sharon Stone, former Genesis frontman Peter Gabriel, Hollywood director Milos Forman and even famed children’s entertainer Raffi all utilizing their platforms to propagate and sentimentalize globalist aspirations. Spirituality, however, remains its principal vehicle for subversion. In addition to its army of new-age thinkers, the Club of Budapest also conscripts leaders from within more time-honored religious traditions, the Dali Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu two of the most prominent to have joined the chorus amplifying Laszlo’s message.
“Fostering Learning Communities Worldwide”
As is customary within globalist circles, the Club of Budapest has been aggressively expansionistic in pursuit of its objectives. At present, the organization encompasses some 25 branches in as many countries, each chapter, regardless if it is based in the US or Japan, Germany or Australia, tasked with permeating schools and universities in an bid to attract a new recruits. But the group has also impacted academia in a more general sense. Partnering with NGOs like the Earth Charter Initiative and Green Cross international, the Club of Budapest has positioned itself at the fore of shaping educational curricula around the world, while perhaps its most lucrative collaboration in this regard has come with UNESCO - Harvard, Princeton, and Oxford just a few of the institutions to have since incorporated “planetary consciousness” and “global citizenship” into their study programs.
Despite this stranglehold, however, as well as the immense reach afforded by his discipleship of scientists, CEO’s and heads of state; artists, activists, and religious leaders, it seems unlikely, at ninety-two years old, that Laszlo will live to see his vision become a reality. Nevertheless, what the Club of Rome operative has succeeded in doing, as per his directives from Peccei, is laying the foundations of a doctrine which will one day form, if we allow it, the moral and philosophical underpinnings of the New World Order.
Some may even view this as the most graphic exposition of The Cabal’s power-lust to date. After all, while most of its iterations propose society be subjugated on a strictly physical level – carving the world up into districts, subdividing those districts into 15-minute prison ghettos; surveilling, curtailing, and culling inhabitants at will – the control The Club of Budapest desires is yet more insidious still. Theirs is a future in which not even the silent protest in your soul will be permitted. It is a future, far from spiritual rebirth it is presented as, in which even our own sense of wonder has been weaponized against us, where death is conquered not through communion with the Divine but rather a ghoulish transhumanist rapture and yet, so too is a future that the Club of Budapest will continue to advance long after its founder returns, via a far more conventional route, to the Great Cosmic Consciousness.