The topic of the sacred is immense, as I confirmed to myself when I wrote a very long chapter on it in The Matter with Things. I have chosen to approach it here by directing our attention, as it might seem at first, to one side: on the soul. I will argue that the sacred exists not simply in this or that thing—an object, a place, or an act—but in the relationship between whatever it is beyond ourselves that we recognise as sacred and that part of our being that has been traditionally referred to as the soul; that this relationship is one of the reasons for evolved beings such as ourselves to have come into existence; that whatever else it may be, the soul is a faculty, like intellect or eyesight, but much more than, and more important than, either; and that our sense of the sacred is both driven by, and in turn drives, the actively receptive attention paid by the soul. I suggest that the soul is in process, and that it is one task of our lives to grow the soul—an important task, because much depends on it: we can, like attentive or neglectful gardeners, nourish, stunt the growth of, or extinguish, that soul. I suggest that therefore we need first to attend to our souls if we are to recover the sacred, and I make a few exploratory forays into what we can (and cannot) say about the soul, and how it might be integrated into a new cosmology.

To mark the one year since the publication of The Matter with Things, this free online event will reflect on its first year of being in the world. Dr. McGilchrist will be interviewed by the publisher of the book, Perspectiva’s Jonathan Rowson, followed by a discussion with experts for the sciences and humanities. The final part of the event will give you a chance to put a question to Dr. McGilchrist.

In this installment of The Future Scientist we will draw attention to the roots, falsehoods, and perils of “post-truth” in the context of the so-called fourth industrial revolution — to distract and confuse, to discipline and punish, such are the means of totalitarianism, now overpowered by digital media. If not dark, the mirror of science has become rather blurred. Who to trust, and why? The post-pandemic challenges of global control and dehumanization apply not only to science, but also to education, health, and the economy. Despite the accelerated proliferation of scientism (and precisely because of this), science still has a vital role to play.

To celebrate the release of his new book Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps, we have invited Mark Vernon, to talk about his new work. Mark’s book will be out in time for Christmas (December 9) and would make an excellent gift. He will be in conversation with Beth Macy followed by Q&A and discussion from the audience. 

We will inaugurate the series on Wednesday 15th of February of 2023 with Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal. Our conversation will orbit around “The Superhumanities”.

In this talk I will explore the theoretical aspects of entanglement, keeping the technicalities to a minimum but providing an adequate grounding for the other presentations to come. The work of John Bell will be discussed, as he provided a means of experimentally showing exactly how counter to classical expectations quantum entangled systems really are. The experiments that have been carried out based on Bell’s work will also be covered in outline.

In January 2013 Rupert Sheldrake gave a talk at TEDx Whitechapel entitled “The Science Delusion” where he questioned ten fundamental beliefs of mainstream science. The event was called “Visions for Transition: Challenging existing paradigms and redefining values (for a more beautiful world)”. After protests from two militant materialists, P.Z. Myers and Jerry Coyne, and in consultation with an undisclosed Scientific Board, TED declared: “we feel a responsibility not to provide a platform for talks which appear to have crossed the line into pseudoscience.” 

In his recently published book, Nexus, Jeff brings unites three decades of scientific experience with four decades of pursuits in philosophy and metaphysics to weave a story that introduces the principle of syntropy and its importance of finding balance at every scale – personal, societal, and global.  Jeff’s driving passion is to help transform our world such that materialism gives way to the recognition of the crucial role that consciousness plays in the formation of reality.

Plants can be knocked out using the very same drug that your vet might use to put your pet to sleep. Although demonstrations of “plants under anaesthesia” provides the perfect blank slate from which to begin to view plants in an entirely new way, this just the beginning. Take sleep; do plants sleep? Or can plants suffer from jet lag? Most people would assume I am talking metaphorically in my hot off the press Planta Sapiens. And yet, planta sapiens is not unlike Harari’s Sapiens, if you see what I mean.

People half our age will someday soon confront us with two questions: when you were my age, did you know what was happening (or what could happen)? And so, what did you do?
The most bearable answer: we had no idea. The state of the world would then seem more tolerable if failure by naive ignorance was actually the case. But was it? If it wasn’t, this would entail a kind of intolerable inheritance. We’d quickly become the ancestral monsters no one would claim as their own. It’ll be a psychic DNA whose indelible stain won’t be amenable to cosmetic fixes.