Awakening To the Crimson Dawn

Journey Through Neohumanism, Grace, and Transformation

Book review by Shermon Cruz

If there is one resounding message in Marcus Bussey’s Neohumanism, Yearning and Becoming, it is that we stand at a pivotal moment of transformation—a threshold where old worlds are crumbling, and new rhythms of life are calling us forward. Past, present, and future are converging in this moment, forming a crossroads of possibilities. As Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar, his spiritual mentor, describes it, we are witnessing a crimson dawn—a time of profound awakening and renewal. This dawn is not merely symbolic; it is a call to radical transformation, a moment that demands courage, devotion, and a willingness to co-create a world rooted in justice, love, and planetary care.

In this spirit, Bussey’s book serves as both a guide and an invocation, urging us to step into this moment with clarity and purpose, rekindle a sense of wonder in the world, and infuse our lives with deeper meaning, connection, and love. At its core, the book calls us to radically expand our understanding of what it means to be human—to embrace becoming, to think relationally, and to cultivate learning that does more than sustain; it transforms.

A Collection of Essays on Education and Spirituality

Neohumanism, Yearning and Becoming is not a conventional monograph but a collection of essays exploring the intersections of education, spirituality, and planetary consciousness. Drawing on years of scholarship, teaching, and personal practice, Bussey brings together writings previously published in journals such as the Journal of Futures Studies, Futures, Práxis Educativa, and The Neohumanist Review. The book spans decades of thought and experimentation, capturing the evolution of Neohumanist education, the role of critical spirituality, and the necessity of reimagining limits.

Some notable essays in the collection include:

• “Towards a Poetics of Possibility: Critical Spirituality as a Resource for Framing Sustainable Futures” – Exploring the anticipatory dimension of futures thinking and the role of spirituality in shaping sustainable futures.

• “Fatal Logic and the Neohumanist Response” – A critique of modernity’s self-destructive rationality and how Neohumanism provides an alternative path beyond extractivism and ecological collapse.

• “Tantra as Episteme: A Pedagogy of the Future” – Examining how Tantric wisdom can serve as an alternative foundation for educational futures.

• “Navigating the Ruins of the Future” – A meditation on how individuals and societies can reorient themselves amidst the collapse of dominant paradigms. 

Each chapter unfolds like an extended meditation, seamlessly moving between personal anecdotes, philosophy, inquiry, reflections, and futures thinking.

Grace as an Active Force: A Disruptive Call to Transformation

One of the most profound themes in Bussey’s work is his redefinition of grace. Unlike conventional interpretations that frame grace as passive or bestowed from above, Bussey sees it as a dynamic, disruptive force that shatters conditioned realities and opens up new ways of knowing. He describes Neohumanism itself as a grace hack, explaining that it “starts out as an idea, but it quickly asserts a phenomenological dimension into our lives.” (Bussey, 2025, p.19).

Grace, he argues, is deeply embodied and relational, inseparable from both the chemistry of our emotions and the conditioning of our experiences:

“Grace is deeply chemical—it is all mixed up with hormones and our responses to them. This means grace as a phenomenological category, as an uncanny epistemology, cannot be separated from the body and its sensorial habitus. Culture and all that goes with it is written, encoded into every cell in our body and engraved on the skin.” (Bussey, 2025, p. 21)

Grace, in this sense, is often suppressed by fear, habit, and social conditioning. To break free, we must actively engage in grace hacks—intentional disruptions that allow for new levels of consciousness. Bussey has experimented with these disruptions in his teaching, using dance, movement, storytelling, and the arts to rupture assumptions and create spaces of radical possibility.

Beyond its disruptive nature, grace is also tied to gratitude and relationality. He writes:

“The privilege of thinking is a form of grace in itself. Yet we often take it for granted. Similarly, the sharing of thinking, the co-walking we do as we read others’ words, share in conversations over coffee, or via email or Zoom is also an act of grace.” (Bussey,2025, p. 20)

Through this lens, Bussey frames the crimson dawn—the pivotal transition moment he describes in the book—as a moment suffused with grace. It is disruptive yet filled with potential, messy yet profoundly reliable. It is in these ruptures, in the willingness to embrace the unfamiliar and step beyond conditioned realities, that we find the possibility of transformation.

A Language of Intimacy: Bussey as Poet, Scholar, and Futurist

What makes this book deeply intimate is its language. Bussey writes not just as a scholar but as a poet and futurist. His prose does not merely inform; it unfolds like a dance, inviting readers to enter spaces of reflection and possibility. His chapters move seamlessly between the personal and the planetary, between analysis and wonder, between critique and devotion.

He does not simply present ideas; he invites us to play with them, to step into a space of not knowing, to surrender to the fluidity of imagination. Reading this book feels like being gently led into a state of expanded awareness, where new insights emerge not as conclusions but as open-ended invitations.

A Book to Be Experienced, Not Just Read

If you are looking for a book that will challenge, inspire, and shift the way you think about education, spirituality, and the future—this is it. Neohumanism, Yearning and Becoming is not just a book to be read; it is a book to be experienced.

Neohumanism is a living, breathing practice. The question is: are we ready to become?

Shermon Cruz is UNESCO Chair on Anticipatory Governance and Regenerative Cities, 
Northwestern University, Philippines
Founding Chair, Global South Futures Community
Chief Futurist, Center for Engaged Foresight 
engagedforesight.com | dreamsanddisruptions.com

Published in Neohumanist Review, Issue 5, September 2025, pp 54-56.