Thaddeus Golas


Thaddeus Stanley Golas was an American writer and the author of The Lazy Man's Guide to Enlightenment, a blending of ontology, traditional physics and spirituality based on his central idea “we are equal beings and the universe is our relations with each other”. He begins with the idea that the universe is not one big mind, but a vast number of equal and identical minds/beings. It has been in continuous publication since 1971 and has been translated and published in French, Spanish and Japanese.
From the book: “enlightenment doesn’t care how you get there”.
Golas refined and clarified his ideas in his last book Love and Pain where he backs up his ideas with an integrated map of reality.
Golas posits there is no such thing as empty space. What is called space is actually a vital substance generated by living beings who are highly intelligent, identical and equal. They are quite tangible yet they are invisible to our senses and our instruments except in their effect on energy/matter. Golas suggests these beings generate a strong expansive force which pressurizes space thereby creating gravity since the pressure of space pushes us toward the Earth. Therefore, space is far denser and more forceful than the thinly spread arrays of atomic particles and photons we perceive as materials and energies; space is substantial and energy/matter is ghostly. This model offers a solution to the problem of “The Missing Matter”.
Golas believed that energy/matter is these same beings in an alternate behavior of physically vibrating; alternating between expanding and contracting.
Golas emphasizes that energy/matter and any structures of energy/matter have consciousness and feelings but no teleology other than to seek immediate comfort by adjusting rates of vibrations to harmonize with any others in proximity. This is panpsychism with a crucial provision: vibrating beings appearing as energy or mass have a significantly attenuated intelligence such that their behavior appears to us to be automatic rather than intelligent.
Golas believed that beings who are not vibrating have no cognizance of energy/matter or its formations.

Early life

Golas was the youngest of five children. His parents were born in Poland and met in the United States. His first ten years he lived in Paterson, New Jersey. His father died when he was four, and his mother remarried when he was ten. At this point the family moved to a farm in Pennsylvania with no electricity or indoor plumbing. The stepfather died four years later. Soon the family returned to Paterson where Mr. Golas attended and graduated from Central High School. An avid reader from a young age, he elected for journalism classes and by 1939 he was working in editing and publishing for the school paper "The Tatler", for the "Colt Press" and "The Paterson Evening News". During his childhood and adolescence he had very little advice, assistance or emotional support from family or community and was forced to be self motivated.

Education and career

Golas volunteered for military service in late 1942 and was made Corporal of the 604th Engineer Camouflage Battalion billeted at Camp Campbell in Kentucky. He shipped off to Cardiff, Wales, was stationed in England until August 1944 and then in France and Belgium where he served until December 1944. He briefly saw hostilities in the days preceding the Battle of the Bulge. He returned to the United States after being discharged honorably because of health concerns. He attended New York's Columbia University where he studied under Jacques Barzun and earned a B.A. Degree in 1948. He first worked as a proofreader for Betty Ballantine and then became an editor for Redbook Magazine. Later he worked at Harper & Row as a book representative. He held several publishing related jobs in the Midwest. He relocated to San Francisco where he also had publishing related jobs while writing "The Lazy Man's Guide".

Publications

Seed Center Books, Even Lazier Publishing, an independent publishing company in Encino, California, publishes Golas work.