The Intelligence of Matter

40^th Anniversary Edition
The present translation is based upon the 4th Romanian edition, revised and expanded, of The Intelligence of Matter (2021).
Translated by Vasile Andreica
Postface by Mircea Barbuceanu

Can you please tell Prof. Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan that I have read his extraordinary book, The Intelligence of Matter, and I offer him my profound admiration and gratitude. His work is stunning and breathtakingly beneficial in helping our species to understand itself, and Life Itself. I am struck by how deeply similar his academic investigations produce levels of awareness matching what I received through only spiritual revelation. Please let him know of my lasting appreciation.

                              Lovingly, NEALE DONALD WALSCH

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Prof. Dr. DUMITRU CONSTANTIN-DULCAN, MD, came to the attention of the general public especially after the publication, in 1981, of the first edition of this book, The Intelligence of Matter, which immediately became a bestseller. In 1992, the book was awarded the “Vasile Conta” Prize for Philosophy of  the Romanian  Academy.
An impressive volume of information, extracted from the foremost areas of knowledge, is admirably synthesized in a unified, easily accessible work, written in a clear and attractive style.
The path of matter from the first wave of light to the moment when, through the human brain, it can become self-aware – this is the content of the book The Intelligence of Matter. (?coala Ardeleana Publishing House)

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Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan:

Like humans, books also have their destiny, with a possible success upon appearance, a longevity according to the interest aroused, and a forgetfulness somewhere in the dust of a nook. My book’s constant persistence in the public consciousness was a surprise to me. Since its release, it has had a wide audience. The great accomplishment seemed to be the reception of the book by both fierce materialists and leading theologians. And that’s because, naturally, I did not intend to pass judgement, to answer all the questions to which I did not yet have an answer, but to call into question the relationship between science and religion in the modern world.
We are here, in this corner of the Universe, the ultimate expression of evolution. The hand of an intelligent and unseen architect took us out of the clay and built us according to a plan from which the uniqueness of the source, step by step, is transfigured to the level of the brain capable of thinking about itself.
Everything that happened has happened for us. We are the result of all the happy and sad events that preceded us and the cause of those that will follow us.
We are the ones who leave behind the splendors of the spirit and the ruins of nothingness, because man is the only being on Earth to whom it was given to be involved in nature’s endeavor through the extension of his intelligence. This is his responsibility of being. Man cannot just live, he cannot just have a passive existence. With or without his will, he engages in the physics of the Universe. Through thoughts, through action, through his good deeds, through his evil deeds. When this truth transfixes us, it is only then, in the astral moment of our becoming, that the light of intelligence that has found itself after a long wandering on the paths of the Universe will light up in ourselves.

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Reviews and opinions on The Intelligence of Matter

Prof. Dr. Petre Branzei, psychiatrist:

“A kind of work not realized in our literature so far, here is the volume The Intelligence of Matter. Elements from the fields of medicine, biology, genetics, chemistry, elementary particle physics, astrophysics, psychiatry, neurology, psychology, philosophy, botany, zoology, computer science, etc. are used …each of them self-contained, but in an integrative vision... The whole work can be considered a biography of the evolution of matter on this long and complicated journey of ‘intelligence’ and its cosmic adventure towards the high peak of human intelligence.” (Speech given at the presentation of the book in Iasi, as guest of the newspaper Cronica, 1981)

Acad. Zoe Dumitrescu-Busulenga, literary critic and historian:

“Until your book came out I had only one worldview, the one cultivated in school, because I had no other sources. While reading you, I understood that one could think differently.”

Vasile Constantinescu, poet, prose writer, and essayist:

“All the elements with which the author operates have a meaning that goes beyond the strict frameworks of the specialized fields, integrating into a unique vision with multiple and complex philosophical implications. A wide-ranging dialogue of ideas from the field of philosophy comes with this unusual work in the area of scientific pursuits in our country... an unexpected horizon of the connection of sciences, totally welcome and useful.” (Cronica, Iasi, No. 41, 9, 1981)

Sabina Draganel, author and translator:

“Dumitru Constantin managed the unusual performance of turning an informational mountain into a convincing demonstration of indisputable stylistic value.” (Romania literara, No. 9, 1986)

Valeriu Ghigeanu, psychologist and journalist:

“Reader of the great lesson of nature, builder of hypotheses, debunker of myths, the author makes an epistemological effort that satisfies any reader, regardless of profession.” (Muncitorul Sanitar, No. 20, 1981)

Acad. Solomon Marcus, mathematician:

“Dumitru Constantin systematizes a sum of facts that highlight an order and a cohesion of nature no different than those that man deliberately introduces into his environment. This is the motivation of the metaphor of the intelligence of matter.” (Viata Studenteasca, November 1981)

Prof. Dr. Ion Manzat, psychologist:

“Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan is convinced that every man can find his own way according to his own thinking. To really think is to be free. To be subjugated by foreign models is to be a slave.”

Prof. Dr. Dumitru Micu, literary historian and critic:

“The Intelligence of Matter is one of those books that are sold out in a blitz. Written by a neurologist, it addresses issues of maximum interest to the intellectual of any specialty, among the most diverse categories of readers. A succinct  synthesis of everything that has possibly been written on the subject of intimate study of the evolution and properties of living matter – the book is not only a repository of scientific information, an instrument for the initiation of the profane into the universe of biology, but it is at the same time an exciting, stimulating writing.” (Romania libera, 10 August 1981)

Dr. Valeriu Mihaila, physician, author, and publicist:

“Prof. Dr. Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan... managed to shape a true summa of knowledge about man, aptly titled  The Intelligence of Matter.” (Viata medicala, No. 16, 19 April 2002)

Prof. Dr. A. Paunescu-Podeanu, clinician:

“This book brings to the one who opens it not just a basketful of knowledge from the most varied fields, but also an organized system of data that goes along a clear line of thought, crystallizes into a coherent and logical flow, opens a new horizon and forces the penetration of thought into an area in which it had not dared to soar before. You have done a work of enlightenment of many minds through the book, you have done a work of courage designed to instill in others the audacity to think openly in a field so interesting and useful to our soul and life! The book makes you encounter ideas, thoughts, notions that are dear to you, that are troubling you, and you find them here expressed, interpreted, linked together in such a wonderful way, that it provokes a spiritual voluptuousness like upon hearing  the great symphonies or admiring the great artistic creations of the cultural heritage of mankind... Your work has become a bedside book for me.” (Letter to the author at the publication of the book in 1981)

Acad. Paul Popescu-Neveanu, psychologist:

“Readers’ interest in the volume The Intelligence of Matter is explained by the content of the book, by its wealth of information. Added to this is the scientific competence, the essayist virtues of the author, which make the volume one of the rare books worth turning your attention to... The book is a scientific essay dedicated to the noble cause of the human universe.” (Viata militara, No. 8, 1981)

Acad. Eugen A. Pora, zoologist, ecophysiologist, and oceanographer:

“It was a delight for my soul through everything that it exposits and especially through the logic of the phenomena exposed. Thank you for the five days when I’ve enjoyed your book. I rarely have the opportunity of such spiritual satisfactions today. I congratulate you with all my heart!” (Letter to the author at the publication of the book in 1981)

Prof. Dr. Ovidiu Predescu, jurist and publicist:

“For me, The Intelligence of Matter is the miracle that has essentially marked my scientific and spiritual evolution. This book, which I have read with pencil in hand, highlighting and emphasizing whole passages, is the noble product of an exceptional mind, belonging to a man of immense and solid culture, who has studied and deepened many areas of knowledge in order to finally prove the existence of an intelligence responsible for the entire edifice of the Universe, the evolution of the living and non-living world. This man is Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan, scholar, professor, neurologist, psychiatrist, researcher, philosopher of science and writer, one of the people chosen by God to understand His message, in order to bring mankind back to His world.”

Mirela Roznoveanu, literary critic and journalist:

“The meaning of life – Dumitru Constantin tells us – is the evolution, the improvement in our brain of the necessary information, so that the purpose of our life is knowledge. By the year 2000, profound mutations in human knowledge will remind people that we are all alike and every being, as a link of a cosmic chain, has the right to be able to evolve, to fulfill its deep aspirations. Life is communication, an island of intelligence in a coherent universe that is made up of matter, energy and information, although up from a certain point they substitute for each other. And the complex being named man must realize the synthesis of the forms of knowledge, of his own depths and of cosmic boundlessness.”

Prof. Dr. Aurel Sasu, literary critic and historian:

“The work of Professor Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan is the mirror of its own transparency as a biography and a narcissism of fulfillment. It is the happy projection of joy in the story of great ideas and the euphoria of their unfettered communication. Here is a way of being topical and saying that man learns the price of isolation and loneliness only to the extent that he accepts life as a prison of the spirit. Otherwise, his epistemological project is self-evident as a tribute to the value, the living imagination and community retrieval among those that surround us and those that, miraculously, turn into a shelter for our utopias.”

Maria Timuc, author and journalist:

“This book puts Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan in a unique position in the Romanian spiritual space, making him a pioneer of practical spirituality or New Spirituality.”

Doinel Tronaru, author and journalist:

“A knowledge that will renew ties with the Tradition of the Initiates of Antiquity, encompassing all the real post-Renaissance conquests of modernity – what can be more important and more pressing for the being called man? Unfortunately, it seems to me that the new paradigm of postmodernity tends to transform the scientist, as well as the artist, into a mere servant of momentary economic interests. Rewarded royally for the first time in history, they accept this state of affairs, which gives them a life on Earth once undreamed of, but makes them lose both posterity and access to the unseen essences. From now on, people like Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan will be fewer and fewer. If that’s the case, the straying of the human species will continue for a long time.”

Marius Vasileanu, historian of religions and publicist:

“The book The Intelligence of Matter was one of the most inspiring and subversive formulas for talking about the wonders of God in the midst of communism. Today, its author, a man of extraordinary vivacity and zest for life, Doctor and Professor Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan, continues to write with the same effervescence.”

Dorel Visan, actor and author:

“In the 1980s I read a book of his, The Intelligence of Matter, which had been in great vogue and was appreciated, as far as I know, with the prize for philosophy of the Romanian Academy. It took me decades of years and readings to understand a generous idea that followed me relentlessly from that wonderful book: ... the ultimate expression of evolution, man leaves behind the splendors of his spirit and the ruins of his nothingness...”

Acad. Romulus Vulcanescu, ethnologist:

“The Intelligence of Matter is unique in Romanian scientific literature for the amount of information presented in an integrative synthesis that honors yourself and Romanian culture. It was a real intellectual pleasure, marked by increasing interest with each new chapter... It’s a great honor for me to read you.” (Letter to the author, 13 July 1995)

Vasile Andreica, translator of the English edition:

“In the first years of the new millennium, this book made such a powerful impression on me that I began to type it on my computer, from the printed edition, word after word, comma after comma, just to understand it better, and it has certainly influenced my spiritual and intellectual formation. It is therefore a great honor to be its translator into English, knowing well that the reader will find here a treasure of research and thought. Perhaps it is, for me, a book of destiny. Perhaps it can be so for many others as well.”

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Mircea Barbuceanu, Physicist:

Through the vast problem approached, supported by the arguments of the informed scientist, by the wealth of information from extensive fields of knowledge, presented in an integrative vision and in an admirable essayistic form, not yet realized in the native literature, Prof. Dr. Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan has given us an original book, of wide interest, useful to the mind, soul and liberation from prejudice in a world that seems to have lost its meaning, becoming less and less secure about its life.

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Contents

Author’s Foreword to the english edition

Prologue

Chapter I: MATTER AND LIFE

BEGINNINGS...

Was there a beginning? — A light pierces the darkness — The first three minutes of the world — Questions... — Back to mythology? — Evolution... — ...and history — The Big Bang theory today — The void — The chaos theory — Dark matter and dark energy.

THE EMERGENCE OF LIFE – A COSMIC NECESSITY

Life – a cosmic finality — Life – a universal phenomenon — Necessary structures for the living — Unity in diversity — The model of the living world.

EVOLUTION AND CHANCE

Is it all random? — Genetic error = creation? — A logical finality — Does error mean progress? — Darwinism and neo-Darwinism today.

Chapter II: INFORMATION AND LIFE

INFORMATION – A CONDITION OF LIFE

Living beings – simple thermodynamic mech­anisms? — Biosystems — Life = negentropy — Life = an oscillation around an equilibrium point — Life = information processing.

THE CONCEPT OF INFORMATION IN BIOLOGY

Information and knowledge — Bioinformation — Small causes, great effects — Inherited programs and programs acquired through training — Both yes and no, or the significance of information.

STRUCTURES CAPABLE OF PROCESSING INFORMATION

A point of view — Who directs the functionality of a protozoan? — Between consciousness and instinct — A modicum of reason — Is the nervous system the only living structure capable of processing information? — Arguments — Current data on the involvement of information in the physiology of life — The current concept of “information deeper than the genetic”.

AN INFORMATIONAL MODEL OF THE LIVING WORLD

The Universe – an evolutive system — Same solutions to the same problems — Same genetic information, different forms and functions — Information and structure — The model or informational pattern of living matter.

Chapter III: ENERGY AND LIFE

THE PHYSICS OF LIVING

Biofields — Field interferences — The rhythms of life — The rhythm of life and death — Is there an energetic model of the living? — Biofield and electromagnetic field — An ocean of signals — Biocommunication — The scientist’s position — Interdisciplinarity – the key to knowledge — Rare phenomena — The energy of the living – electricity? — Physics of the living today.

BIOCOMMUNICATION – AN OBJECTIVABLE PHENOMENON

An experiment — Definitions — Thought – a force — Reception and acknowledgement — The impact of thought — Objective changes — The universal language or wordless thinking — Suggestion and energy field — Communication – a fundamental attribute of the living world — Telepathy – a pre-language? — Experimental telepathy by Russians — NASA and telepathy — Telepathy and the social life of insects — Conclusions on the phenomenon of biocommunication — Implications of the biocommunication phenomenon today.

IS THE SENSITIVITY OF THE VEGETAL WORLD A REALITY?

Precursors: Chandra Bose and Cleve Backster — The initiation of studies on plant biocommunication in Romania.

Chapter IV: THE INTELLIGENCE OF MATTER

THE ESSENCE OF LIFE

The disruption of the mineral silence — The essence of living – communication, intelligence — The intelligence of matter — The definitions of intelligence — The levels of intelligence — Human intelligence and basal intelligence — Certainty and error — The intrinsic and extrinsic intelligence — Universal informational field — The invisible brain — Intelligent information — Jung and Pauli’s conception — The Princeton Gnosis — Initiation or science? — The essence of life – as seen today — Back to the levels of intelligence — Between instinct and the intelligent deliberation.

THE INTELLIGENCE OF NATURE

Instincts and deliberate acts — Instincts = intelligent programs — Intelligent conduct — Slavery in insects — Mushroom cultivators — Urban comfort — Communication through dance — Surgeon wasps — Nature doesn’t waste intelligence — The great lesson of nature — The anticipatory intelligence — Living ships — A hunting party — A world of castes — The communication without articulated language — The chemical language — Communication through sounds — Ultrasound — Infrasound — The sounds — Imprinting — Song and communication — The galaxies of life — The firebird — Bioluminescence — The living radar — Communication through language — Are animals aggressive beings? — Vae victis! — We are not the only intelligent beings — The crime of killing for pleasure — Humans and animals — Life = “something” put into matter.

EROS AND THANATOS

Sexuality — Sublimation — Redundancy and failure — Thanatos or Memento mori — Other perplexities — Perfecting — Death – a rebirth — Carpe diem – Why death in a quantum universe?

Chapter V: MATTER AND THOUGHT

NEUROPHYSIOLOGICAL BASES OF CONSCIOUSNESS

The reticular formation — Vigilance = awareness — The sensory deafferentation — The cellular consciousness — Some useful clarifications today — Conscious, Subconscious, Unconscious — Functional models of the subconscious.

ARE THERE OTHER PSYCHOPHYSIOLOGICAL  DIMENSIONS OF HUMAN CONSCIOUSNESS?

Time — Biological time — Physiological time — Psychological time — The ecstasy — Jung’s “vision” — Conditioning and determination — Myth and ritual.

SELF-PROGRAMMING ON OPPORTUNITY OR FAILURE

The self-image — The psychological barrier — Reference models — Self-programming — For a new self-image — Programming the subconscious — Who we are — The science of mind and the mental and emotional self-control techniques today.

Chapter VI: THE UNIVERSE OF KNOWLEDGE OR THE PATH TOWARDS OURSELVES

SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Perception and knowledge — From certainty to uncertainty — “The world’s all gathered in a grain of sand” — The universal consciousness — Modern physics abolishes chance.

RELIGION AND KNOWLEDGE

Definition — Object — The history of revealed doctrines — The history of esoteric sciences or mystery science — The content of esoteric doctrines — Criticism of esoteric thinking — The moral values of religions — Is there a religion-science opposition?

Chapter VII: STEPS TOWARDS THE COSMIC ONENESS OF OUR BEING

The essential being’s desperation — To look and to see — The key to knowledge — The path to the gods — A statement over time — Necessary repetitions — The critical energy level — The effects of relaxation or alpha state — The physiology of relaxation — A practical method of relaxation — When we need to relax — Let’s stop the thought-producing machine for a moment.

STRESS IN THE MODERN WORLD

The poison of the fears in us — The phenomenon of “coping” — Type A and B behavior — Positive mental imagery — The positive mental imagery technique — The mental imagery technique nowadays — The feeling of being or the “joy of living” — The science and the art of being — The usefulness of a hobby — The ethical code of the brain.

Under the sign of The Intelligence of Matter (Postface by Mircea Barbuceanu)

Selective bibliography

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Prof. Dr. Dumitru Constantin-Dulcan, MD,

born in 1938 (Pitesti – Romania), neurologist and psychiatrist, former Chief of the Neuropsychiatry Clinic at the Central Military Hospital in Bucharest. Academic titles: doctor of medical sciences, Doctor Honoris Causa, Professor. Member of numerous Romanian and foreign scientific societies. Member of the International Society for Brain Studies. Member of the Romanian Society of Physician Writers and Publicists.
He is the lead author of 11 monographs, 4 university courses in the professional field, and over 300 scientific papers published in print or just communicated.
He published 8 volumes of essays or philosophy of science for which he received various distinctions: the Romanian Academy Prize (1992), the Romanian Academy of Scientists Award (2011), the Belgian Prize for Literary Criticism on the work of Maurice Careme (2003), the Goldability Medal of Excellence for promoting the science of spirituality (2014).
He has been awarded the National Order “Star of Romania” in the rank of Commander and the Order of “Sanitary Merit” in the rank of Officer.
He has participated in 6 international clinical trials.
He has 4 patents of inventions granted by OSIM (1975, 1977).
He is mentioned in 4 biographical dictionaries.