The biology of hope: how the World Transformation Movement is inspiring Global – and European – conversation 

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Humanity has an extraordinary capacity for kindness and collaboration. Yet we remain mired in conflict and division. A growing global movement suggests the solution lies not in moral philosophy or political reform, but in a deeper understanding of our biology. 

A Timeless Question for All Civilisations 

From Plato’s philosophical dialogues in ancient Athens to the psychological revolutions of Vienna’s Sigmund Freud and Budapest’s Sándor Ferenczi, European thinkers have long sought to unravel the paradox of the ‘human condition’. How can a species that dreams of harmony, creates beauty, and drives innovation also build the machinery of war and destruction? 

Australian biologist Jeremy Griffith offers a daring, biologically grounded answer to this enduring question. 

Praised internationally for its originality and rigor, Griffith’s treatise – disseminated through the non-profit World Transformation Movement (WTM) – views the contradictions in human behaviour as stemming from a fundamental conflict between our innate instincts and conscious intellect. 

‘The Human Condition’: When Instinct Meets Intellect 

In his book FREEDOM: The End of the Human Condition, Griffith reinterprets human evolution in strikingly simple terms. 

He explains that when our distant ancestors gained self-awareness, our conscious intellect began to question, reflect, and experiment – a revolutionary evolutionary step. Yet our instincts, honed over millions of years of natural selection, could not fathom this newfound independence. To the instinctive self, these experiments were simply behavioural breaches; and so it pushed back, in effect condemning the intellect’s efforts. 

This fundamental clash, Griffith argues, produced the inner conflict that defines the human condition. Feeling judged and misunderstood by its own instincts, the intellect became insecure and defensive. This gave rise to the anger, egocentricity, and alienation that have plagued humans for millennia. 

Yet this insight carries a transformative promise: once the mind understands the true source of its inner turmoil, the need for these defensive behaviours disappears.  

Science and Spirit in Dialogue 

Such a claim might seem audacious or even overly idealistic – yet it has attracted serious attention from scientists and thinkers worldwide. 

• Professor Friedemann Schrenk, a paleobiologist at Goethe University Frankfurt, remarked, “I have never heard of anything comparable before.” 
• Professor Harry Prosen, a former President of the Canadian Psychiatric Association, hailed FREEDOM as “the book that saves the world.” 
• Professor David Chivers, biological anthropologist at Cambridge University, called it “the necessary breakthrough in the critical issue of needing to understand ourselves.” 
• Professor Charles Birch, biologist and Templeton Prize laureate, praised Griffith for offering “a genuinely original and inspiring way of understanding ourselves and our place in the universe.” 
• And Hungary’s own Professor Mihály Csíkszentmihályi, the renowned psychologist who introduced the concept of ‘flow’, wrote that Griffith’s work “might help bring about a paradigm shift in the self-image of humanity – an outcome that in the past only the great world religions have achieved.” 

For Europeans, Griffith’s synthesis of biology and psychology echoes a rich tradition of uniting science and humanism, from Erasmus and Goethe to Hungary’s János Selye, whose groundbreaking work on stress connected body, mind, and meaning. 

A Global Movement Reaching European Shores 

Founded in Sydney, the World Transformation Movement has grown into a global network with centres across the world – including in Austria, Germany, France, Finland, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland and the Netherlands are fostering dialogue around Griffith’s ideas. These hubs foster open, cross-cultural discussions about the biological roots of human behaviour and how self-understanding can nurture emotional well-being and societal harmony. 

In a time marked by polarisation, ecological strain, and existential unease, the WTM’s message feels both timely and timeless: to heal the world, we must first make peace within ourselves. 

A Hopeful Vision for Hungary and Beyond 

For Hungary, a nation with a deep intellectual heritage and a resilient spirit, Griffith’s biology of hope offers a thought-provoking perspective – one that bridges East and West, science and spirit, reason and empathy. 

Whether or not one agrees with every aspect of his theory, it sparks a conversation Europe has long cherished: about who we are, why we struggle, and how understanding might lead, at last, to peace. And within that understanding, lies not only freedom from our conflicts, but the dawn of a more compassionate civilisation. 

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