Applied cosmic Anthropology: understanding the human person
Last May 31, I reached a significant milestone in my academic journey as I completed my Doctor of Philosophy in Applied Cosmic Anthropology (ACA) program at the Asian Social Institute (ASI).
“Cosmic what?” This I heard countless times from people who were intrigued by my field of study and assumed that it was all about the heavenly bodies. I have had to reply, “No, we don’t study astronomy,” before explaining what my program was about.
ACA is not about stars, planets, or zodiacs. It’s an interdisciplinary study that explores the human person as it exists within the much larger living reality—the cosmos. It brings forth a worldview in which nothing exists in isolation. Human beings exist in relationships with the self, communities, culture, nature, the Earth, and the universe.
In Anthropology, we ask, “Who are humans?” In ACA, we ask, “Who are humans within the whole of creation, and how does this understanding guide a just and humanistic action?”
What truly sets ACA apart is its insistence that knowledge must find its way back to people. The “applied” dimension calls on its students and graduates to engage with society’s pressing concerns. It challenges them not only to understand the world but also to participate in its transformation, ensuring that scholarship remains grounded, creative, participatory, and ultimately liberating for the communities it seeks to serve.
ACA is a pioneering postgraduate program offered only at ASI, which was founded in 1962 by the Dutch missionary priest Rev. Fr. Francis Senden. A philosopher, sociologist, and theologian whose vision of education was deeply rooted in social justice, he established ASI as a Social Science graduate school that would immerse students in the lived realities of marginalized communities. ASI’s enduring legacy over six decades continues to thrive as it remains faithful to its mission, producing leaders, scholars, community builders, and changemakers, who make significant contributions in their respective fields.
In this spirit, ASI celebrated its foundation last Oct. 3, with a thanksgiving Mass and a lecture titled: “Gintong Pamana: Celebrating the Wealth of the Filipino Soul.” The lecture was highlighted by two distinguished Filipino scholars, professor Felipe de Leon Jr., the country’s champion of Philippine culture and the arts, and Dr. Dido Villasor, Ph.D., a pioneer of Jungian Psychology in the Philippines. De Leon’s lecture tackled “Cultural Understanding through Analogical Thinking,” while Villasor examined the Filipino psyche through “Archetypal Responses in the Filipino Psyche During Crises.”
These lectures offered complementary pathways and a rich dialogue between cultural understanding and Filipino psychology.
The cosmos is the greater reality of which we are all a part. ACA has taught me that scholarship is never merely an intellectual pursuit; it carries a responsibility to listen deeply, to accompany communities, and to ensure that knowledge becomes a force for personal and social transformation, moving the world toward a more compassionate, just, and life-giving future.
Laeilani Arocha,
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