I don’t see a distinction between the physical and the metaphysical. The sacred is physical and metaphysical. Bernardo Kastrup makes a compelling argument that “materialism is baloney”.
“Childishly emboldened by the technological success achieved by our civilization, many scientists have begun to believe that the scientific method suffices to provide us with a complete account of the nature of existence – that is, with a complete ontology. In doing so, they have failed to see that they are simply assuming a certain metaphysics – namely, materialism – without giving it due thought. They have failed to see that the ability to predict how things behave with respect to one another says little about what things fundamentally are”.
He goes on to describe that what things fundamentally are is consciousness. Recent evidence indicates that no physical entity or phenomenon can be explained separately from, or independently of, its subjective apprehension in consciousness. This evidence was published in the prestigious science journal
Nature in 2007. As Kastrup describes
“If this is true, the logical consequence is that consciousness cannot be reduced to matter – for it appears that it is needed for matter to exist in the first place – but must itself be fundamental”.
His argument aligns with many spiritual traditions, describing how we are consciousness that manifests itself in a limited, subjective form to experience itself, also referred to as idealism. As Daniel Pinchbeck summarises it
“According to this philosophy, consciousness, not matter, is the fundamental reality, the "ontological primitive.” Each of us, individually, is a dissociated projection or “alter” of an underlying consciousness that is indivisible, instinctive, timeless, spaceless, without boundaries. The philosophy of idealism is rapidly gaining popularity".
Pinchbeck goes on to say that “if humanity is going to have a future on this planet — or elsewhere — we must, first of all, make the paradigm shift from materialism to idealism”.