Radical Visions

A week-long celebration dedicated to examining the legacy of the two Davids with a gathering of former colleagues and friends who will not only illuminate the wide-ranging work and interests of the two physicists but will also share their personal stories and anecdotes. 

Speakers 

Jonathan Allday, Harald Atmanspacher, John Briggs, Basil Hiley, Paul Howard, Melissa Nelson, Paavo Pylkkänen, Shantena Augusto Sabbadini, Godelieve Spaas

Virtually: Àlex Gómez-Marín, Lee Nichol, David Schrum

Chaired by: Melissa Nelson

Ticket Prices

Private Accommodation
Price: 2175.00 euros

Shared Accommodation – Private Room with shared bathroom
Price: 1875.00 euros

Prices include:

• a 7-night stay;
• breakfast, lunch and dinner at the local restaurant featuring locally sourced produce and traditional dishes;
• water, wine, and coffee are provided with lunch and dinner;
• programmed lectures, activities and materials.

There is a limited amount of accommodation in Pari and you will be placed on a first-come, first-served basis. We will also be using accommodation just outside of the village—within 3 kilometres. If you are housed outside Pari, a shuttle to and from the village will be provided.

The event starts on Friday May 23 at 19:00 with a welcome dinner and ends on Friday May 30 after lunch.

Download information, terms and conditions for this course.

About the Event 

This week-long celebration will be a gathering of former colleagues and friends of the two Davids who will not only illuminate the wide-ranging work and interests of the two physicists but will also share their personal stories and anecdotes. It will be a week dedicated to examining the legacy of both Davids.

Included are two special evenings with the outdoor screening of Infinite Potential: The Life and Ideas of David Bohm and Quantum Convergence with filmmaker Paul Howard.

David Bohm was the maverick physicist who proposed an alternative approach to the conventional version of quantum theory, as well as suggesting that a new Implicate Order lay behind what could be thought of as our surface perception of reality. But Bohm’s ideas extended well beyond theoretical physics and included reflections on the nature of creativity and the order of society and the individual. The presenters we have gathered will also look at the personal life of David Bohm, his relationship with J. Robert Oppenheimer, his encounter with the House Un-American Activities and his subsequent exile to Brazil; his friendship with Krishnamurti which led to a series of discussions between the two men and is considered one of the most important encounters of his life; the dialogue process he proposed which he felt could bring about a transformation in the individual and society; and his crucial meeting with the indigenous people of North America at the end of his life.

F. David Peat was a researcher in theoretical physics when he opted to take a life-changing sabbatical year with David Bohm at Birkbeck College, University of London. From that time on he was profoundly influenced by the work of David Bohm, their relationship deepened, and the Peat and Bohm families became friends. This led to Bohm and Peat’s Science, Order and Creativity and Peat eventually writing the biography of Bohm Infinite Potential. Peat also wrote more than 20 books and numerous essays on a wide range of topics. In 2000 he founded the Pari Center as a congenial location where people can meet to think, learn and explore while advancing the integration of knowledge, the arts, science, ethical values, community and spirituality within the ambience of a medieval village.

This will be an informal meeting with presentations by experts followed by roundtable discussions.

Participating in an event at the Pari Center means not only meeting with scholars and experts but living for a week in a medieval village, mingling with the tiny local population, eating local dishes and drinking local wines, appreciating the beauty of the surrounding countryside, and participating in a very gentle way of life far from the frenzy of work and city living. David Peat compared Pari to an alchemical vessel—a place where transformation can come about—as well as an opportunity to pause for a moment and re-assess one’s life. It’s a unique opportunity open to everyone. 

David Bohm

DAVID BOHM has been described as one of the most significant and original thinkers of the twentieth century whose interests and influence extend well beyond the fields of physics to include philosophy, psychology, language, religion, art, dialogue, thought and education. Underlying his innovative approach to these many different disciplines was the fundamental idea that beyond the visible, tangible world there lies a deeper, implicate order of undivided wholeness.

As a physicist Bohm’s radical theories challenged the orthodox Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Theory and in its place made the alternative proposal of Hidden Variables, as well as his later developments of the Quantum Potential. He was also an explorer of mind and consciousness, language, perception, creativity and dialogue. He had close relationships with the Indian teacher Jiddu Krishnamurti and, later in life, the Dalai Lama, who called him his ‘science guru.’ In the 1960s, he exchanged four thousand pages of correspondence with the American abstract artist Charles Biederman that discussed the nature of the creative process and questions of order, perception and consciousness. In the final year of his life, he was invited to join a circle of Native American elders and Western scientists. This meeting was of great significance for Bohm. As he listened to the First Nations’ participants describing their strongly verb-based Algonkian family of languages, he recognized that here was a society that practiced what he had envisioned for his ‘rheomode’—a hypothetical verb-based language. He was also struck by their process-based worldview of constant flux and change whose metaphysics strongly mirrored his own.

Finding Cartesian duality limited, he believed that the same principles which underlie the behaviour of matter also operate in the realms of consciousness, society and culture. In 1980 he published his seminal work Wholeness and the Implicate Order in which he suggested that all the phenomena that appear in the world—whether fundamental particles or thoughts in the mind—emerge out of a deeper order of reality, their character varying according to the context. At its deepest level, he maintained, reality is an ‘unbroken whole,’ and he made this the basis of his work in every sphere. In later life he felt that transformation in society could be brought about by dialogue and today Bohmian dialogues are held throughout the world.

F. David Peat

F. DAVID PEAT was a theoretical physicist, writer, and teacher who founded the Pari Center in 2000. He wrote more than 20 books on such diverse topics as quantum physics, synchronicity, superstrings, artificial intelligence, film and reality, creativity, chaos theory, indigenous knowledge, and his original concepts of Gentle Action and Creative Suspension, a new form of intelligent, compassionate and mild action that flows from the entire field of meaning in which a particular individual, society or organization is a part. His books have been translated into 24 languages and his numerous essays and articles are freely available in the online library on the Pari Center website.

He was a researcher at the National Research Council of Canada when he spent a sabbatical year, 1971-72 with David Bohm at Birkbeck College, University of London. Thereafter his research focused on the foundations of quantum theory and a non-unitary approach to the quantum measurement problem. Bohm and Peat became friends and colleagues and eventually co-authored the book Science, Order and Creativity and were working on a second book, The Order Between and Beyond, at the time of Bohm’s death.

Peat continued to promote the work of David Bohm in seminars and courses at the Pari Center and in his writings. In 1997 he published the biography Infinite Potential: The Life and Times of David Bohm and subsequently worked hard to obtain funding for a film based on the biography. In 2020 with the generous sponsorship of the Fetzer Foundation the film, Infinite Potential: The Life and Work of David Bohm, was brought to fruition by Paul Howard and Imagine Films of Dublin. Peat did not live to see its release, but he is acknowledged as the co-writer of the script and the film is dedicated to him.

While living in Canada, Peat organized discussion circles between Western scientists and Native American Elders to which David Bohm was invited. While living in London he spent much of his time talking to artists and psychologists and organized a conference between artists and scientists which was instrumental in his founding of the Pari Center. The Center, housed in a medieval village in Tuscany, fosters an interdisciplinary approach linking science, arts, ethics, community and the sacred.

Peat was adjunct professor at the California Institute of Integral Studies, a Fellow of the World Academy of Art and Science, Fellow of the International Futures Forum, Distinguished Fellow at the University of South Africa, and a corresponding Member of the European Academy of Arts, Science and the Humanities. David Peat died in Pari in 2017 and is buried in the village cemetery.

Please contact Eleanor if you would like more information about this event at: eleanor@paricenter.com