Insight and Illusion in Bohmian Psychology
2020-08-08 18:00 - 20:00 (Europe/Rome) | Online
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Insight and Illusion in Bohmian Psychology

with David Moody

August 8 at 18:00 (CEST) for a 2-hour live session

David Bohm is known primarily for his work in physics and cosmology, but his contributions to the field of psychology were equally profound and significant. His understanding of the nature and dynamic structure of consciousness, and their relevance to the ordinary affairs of daily life, had several sources. His views were shaped in part by his experience with members of the scientific community and his disillusionment with their independence of mind and objectivity. He also drew upon the work of Hegel and Piaget, among others. The greatest influence upon his outlook on psychology, however, was the philosophy of J. Krishnamurti, and the quarter-century of dialogue and collaboration between the two men.

In Bohm’s approach to psychology, the role of thought occupies a central position in consciousness, including our common misconceptions about thought and the illusions that thought generates. The remedy for these illusions is insight, which represents a form of seeing or intelligence that transcends the limitations of thought. These views closely parallel those of Krishnamurti, but Bohm expressed them with his own gift for language and colourful metaphors. In this presentation, we will examine the basic elements of Bohmian psychology with special reference to the work of Krishnamurti and the nature and quality of the relationship between the two men.

David Edmund Moody, PhD author and educator

David Edmund Moody, PhD, is the author of An Uncommon Collaboration: David Bohm and J. Krishnamurti. He worked closely with Bohm and Krishnamurti in his capacity as director of the Oak Grove School, founded by Krishnamurti in Ojai, California, in 1975. Moody’s relationship with the two men is described in his previous book, The Unconditioned Mind: J. Krishnamurti and the Oak Grove School.

Moody is currently completing a biography of Krishnamurti that presents his philosophy in a new light. Krishnamurti in America: New Perspectives on the Man and His Message is scheduled for publication in October 2019.

Moody facilitated a series of seminars conducted by Bohm at Oak Grove School, in which Bohm described his views on consciousness and the human condition. He conducted several recorded dialogues with Bohm, three of which are included as appendixes in An Uncommon Collaboration.

He took his PhD in education at UCLA in 1991. His doctoral research investigated the logical structure of high school biology textbooks and their effects on student understanding of the theory of evolution. Moody is the author of numerous articles in popular and professional journals on topics related to biology and science education, including Gaia theory and the development of a curriculum based on the cultivation of insight.

To see the full Summer Series and list of speakers click here

Understanding Quantum Reality and Consciousness
2020-08-09 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
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Understanding Quantum Reality and Consciousness

with Paavo Pylkkänen

August 99:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 6:00pm CEST for a 2-hour live session

Paavo Pylkkänen, PhD, Philosopher of Mind, Helsinki University, Finland

Paavo is Senior Lecturer in Theoretical Philosophy and Director of the Bachelor’s Program in Philosophy at the University of Helsinki. He is also Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy (currently on leave) at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skövde, where he initiated a Consciousness Studies Program.

His main research areas are philosophy of mind, philosophy of physics and their intersection. The central problem in philosophy of mind is how to understand the place of mind—and especially conscious experience—in the physical world. Pylkkänen has explored whether this problem can be approached in a new way in the framework of the new holistic and dynamic worldview that is emerging from quantum theory and relativity. He has in particular been inspired by the physicists David Bohm and Basil Hiley’s interpretation of quantum theory and has collaborated with both of them.

In his 2007 book Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order (Springer) he proposed that Bohmian notions such as active information and implicate order provide new ways of approaching key problems in philosophy of mind, such as mental causation and time consciousness. The overall aim of his research is to develop a scientific metaphysics. Paavo Pylkkänen has been a visiting researcher in Stanford University, Oxford University, London University, Charles University Prague and Gothenburg University and is a member of the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence in the Philosophy of Social Sciences (TINT).

To see the full Summer Series and list of speakers click here

Tracing the Story of David Bohm and Dialogue
2020-08-15 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
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Tracing the Story of David Bohm and Dialogue

with Beth Macy

August 159:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 6:00pm CEST for a 2-hour live session

How is it that one of the world’s most gifted and innovative theoretical physicists would stray from his primary calling of uncovering the secrets of the universe? What so captivated his interest that, with that same intense creativity brought to his science, he would divert his exploration to uncovering the basis of human thought and the roots of social discord? Using David Bohm’s own words and those of his associates, we will plumb these queries by tracing the stories of his experience that called him to this deep practice of dialogue.

Beth Macy, PhD, organizational consultant, Bohmian dialogue practitioner

The common thread weaving through Beth’s career has been change, having been a manager, leader, consultant or participant in organizations experiencing difficult issues: organizations from small to large, private to public, non-profit to profit, health care to oil and gas, local to global. David Bohm’s dialogue has been core to her research, writing, consulting and teaching for nearly three decades. Living in the USA (Texas) she is completing a book on the ideas and individuals who influenced Bohm’s methodology of dialogue.

To see the full Summer Series and list of speakers click here

Beyond Dialogue
2020-08-16 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/POs-PghoovY?si=zsNRyE2yW3RCFQf3

Beyond Dialogue

with Lee Nichol

August 169:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 6:00pm CEST

2-hour live session

Over the years that David Bohm presented his vision of dialogue, he pointed to three aspects of the human being—the individual, the collective, and the cosmic. While the individual and collective aspects have been much studied and practiced, the cosmic aspect has received little attention. In this presentation we will open up what this cosmic aspect might mean, and, of equal importance, what is involved in conducting such an investigation. The first hour will consist of laying out the terrain involved. The second hour will be discussion and question and answer. There will be no attempt to conduct a dialogue.

Lee Nichol, Bohm collaborator, editor, educator

Lee Nichol is the editor of David Bohm’s On Dialogue; On Creativity; and The Essential David Bohm. From 1980-1992 he collaborated with Bohm on various aspects of dialogue, consciousness, and education.

He has been on the faculty of the Arthur Morgan School in Celo, NC; of the Oak Grove School in Ojai, CA; of the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, CA; and of Denver University in Denver, CO.

To see the full Summer Series and list of speakers click here

Beyond the Known Dimension
2020-08-22 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
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with David Schrum

August 22 at 9:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 6:00pm CEST for a 2-hour live session

David Bohm spoke of an implicate order, a subtle, hidden order that lies within mind and matter. While we will consider both the physical and mental dimensions of this order, our focus will be greatly on our inner human dimension.

In our time together, we will challenge ourselves to open an exploration into these inner depths and to uncover the implicate within ourselves. We will go into the question of what sort of inner observation will bring us into a deep participation of our own in this subtle realm and, thus, to first-hand appreciation and understanding of this hidden order. This is a journey of exploration together that begins with our surface consciousness and that offers an opening to that which lies beyond the known dimension.

David C. Schrum, PhD. Quantum theorist

David Schrum received his PhD in quantum theory from Queen’s University, Canada (1971), after which he spent two years in post-doctoral studies with David Bohm at Birkbeck College, London. At Birkbeck, Schrum entered the world of Bohm’s creative and subtle philosophical approaches to physics, and of his enquiry into the structure of consciousness and what may lie beyond. He was also introduced to his professor’s interest in the philosopher J. Krishnamurti. David Schrum continues engagement in these areas.

From 1974 until retirement he taught at Cambrian College, Sudbury, Canada. Present areas of focus are relativistic quantum theory derived from a new application of the quantum principle, and exploration and development of David Bohm dialogue as a process of shared enquiry into mind.

He is a board member of the Pari Center, Italy.

To see the full Summer Series and list of speakers click here

All sessions will last for approximately 2 hours, and will be held over zoom.us. The session structure may vary from speaker to speaker, but in general participants will have the opportunity to ask questions of the presenter and in some cases there will be breakaway discussion groups.

Each session will be hosted by a member of the Pari Center Team, to ensure that the call is running smoothly and assist anyone experiencing technical problems.

All sessions will be recorded for archival purposes. The recordings will not include the possible breakout-room discussions, but only the speaker’s presentation, follow-up discussions and Q&A. If a participant does not feel comfortable being recorded, we invite that participant to turn off their video and audio throughout the session. These recordings are available to anyone who has purchased a ticket for an attended session, or for a session they have paid for but were unable to attend. If a participant would like to access to the recording, please email us at: eleanor@paricenter.com

Nonlocality, Interconnectedness, and the Quantum Observer
2020-08-23 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
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Nonlocality, Interconnectedness, and the Quantum Observer

with Jan Walleczek

August 239:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 6:00pm CEST for a 2-hour live session

Dr. Jan Walleczek Director of Phenoscience Laboratories

Jan Walleczek, Director of Phenoscience Laboratories, Berlin, Germany, and Director of the Fetzer Franklin Fund of the John E. Fetzer Memorial Trust, USA. Previously, he was Director of the Bioelectromagnetics Laboratory at Stanford University Medical School, USA. Jan Walleczek was a doctoral fellow at the Max-Planck-Institute for Molecular Genetics, Berlin, and post-doctoral fellow at the Research Medicine and Radiation Biophysics Division of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, University of California at Berkeley. His scientific publications cover the fields of biology, chemistry, engineering, and physics. His recent work concerns the foundations of quantum mechanics and applications to living systems of concepts such as quantum coherence, emergent dynamics, and the flow of information, a long-standing interest that he summarized as an edited volume for Cambridge University Press titled ‘Self-organized Biological Dynamics and Nonlinear Control.’ In 2019, he co-edited the book titled Emergent Quantum Mechanics—David Bohm Centennial Perspectives for MDPI Press. In addition to metascience and advanced methodology, his professional interests include the philosophy and foundations of science.

To see the full Summer Series and list of speakers click here

Entering Bohm's Holoflux
2020-10-04 19:00 - 2020-10-25 21:00 | Online
Entering Bohm’s Holoflux

Four Sundays in October – 4, 11, 18, 25 – 202010:00 am PST, 7:00 pm CEST

Each Sunday session will be followed by a one-hour Wednesday discussion group11:00 am PST, 8:00 pm CEST.

An experiential, experimental approach to David Bohm’s holoflux: the flowing movement of all that is, the ground of our being, the mysterious domain in which mind, matter, and meaning are an organic whole.

Bohm proposed that human beings hold the potential to manifest the holoflux as living reality. What access points might we already have to this potential? What aspects of our personal and cultural lives thwart this access? Through presentation and extensive participant interaction, these questions will guide our inquiry.

Sunday October 4: The Enfolding/Unfolding HumanOur contemporary identity—the self-image—follows a pattern of ‘enfolding’ and ‘unfolding’ that we find articulated throughout Bohm’s cosmos. But this self-image filters out the deep, living currents of the holoflux, in favour of enfolding recycled thought patterns, values, and images. Bohm often referred to the bright lights of Las Vegas, which blot out the light of the stars: ‘When you turn off the electric lights, then the universe comes through.’ Can we move through this analogy, and into the living cosmos it points to? This holds the key to what Bohm referred to as true individuality—the undivided human.

Sunday October 11: Thought as a System & the Pain BodyWe will examine the manner in which awareness, thinking, and feeling deteriorate into ‘thoughting’ and ‘felting.’ This process permeates our individual lives, as well as collective global culture, and is at the root of reflexive defensiveness and isolation. The result is what has been called the ‘pain body,’ a uniquely apt term for our modern condition. We will inquire into the various manifestations of the pain body, and how this blockage to the deep currents of the holoflux might be undone. We will explore how interoception—our interpretation of the sensations within our bodies—can help us understand the grip and extent of the thoughting/felting vortex.

Sunday October 18: Liberating the Explicate Order & and the Prospect of DialogueIf we can release somewhat the impulses of thoughting, felting, and the pain body, we can begin to sense untapped aspects of consciousness that are innately in motion, rather than fixed and rigid. As inner rigidities dissolve, this is reflected in the ‘outer’ world. It is this affinity for movement that allows us to sense and engage in a new way with the explicate order—the world of cars, rivers, people, stars. Such ‘liberating’ of the explicate order is central to deep engagement in dialogue—when multiple participants allow the flux and flow of assumptions and presuppositions, we find the seeds of a new level of participatory consciousness.

Sunday October 25: Flux & TransformationFor 40,000 years or more, indigenous people have been attuned to what David Bohm referred to as the holoflux, and its attendant implicate orders. Our guest Leroy Little Bear (Blackfoot) will discuss how these perceptions relate to the fixities and rigidities of the modern world. Can our categories of ‘reality’ become fluid? More deeply, can fluid, evolving categories—our framings of reality—help us align with the movements of the holoflux? Is such activity itself the expression of the holoflux, manifesting in human beings? Are we willing to entertain the prospect of perpetual transformations?

Lee Nichol, Bohm collaborator, editor, educator

Lee Nichol is the editor of David Bohm’s On Dialogue; On Creativity; and The Essential David Bohm. From 1980-1992 he collaborated with Bohm on various aspects of dialogue, consciousness, and education.

He has been on the faculty of the Arthur Morgan School in Celo, NC; of the Oak Grove School in Ojai, CA; of the Nyingma Institute in Berkeley, CA; and of Denver University in Denver, CO.

David Bohm Dialogue: Is There a Different Way to Talk Together
2020-10-31 18:00 - 2020-12-05 18:00 | Online
David Bohm Dialogue: Is There a Different Way to Talk Together

Saturday, October 31 – December 5, 2020Six Saturday Sessions of 2 hours and 30 mins18:00 CEST / 13:00 EST on October 31, thereafter 12:00 EST

with Sally Jeffery, Manfred Kritzler, Beth Macy, Caroline Pawluk and David Schrum

Register early as this program has a limit of 16 participants.

Dialogue works at several levels. At the deepest level it is about the development and transformative power of the collective mind. At another it provides a ‘display’ of thought, slowing down its movement and allowing its observation. It allows the expression of many alternative views on a particular topic, some of which are presented in non-negotiable ways. Thanks to the group process these differences do not lead to confrontation but are held together in a creative tension. Rather than trying to resolve opposing positions through compromise, it is possible to move to an ‘order between and beyond.
David Bohm

The Dialogue Program

This dialogue program is an invitation both to those new to dialogue and those who have participated previously. It is a journey together, without leaders or followers. Registrants and convenors enquire as co-participants, as we explore the movement of conscious mind and touch into what may lie beyond.

Each week a presenter will offer a brief introduction to a dialogue theme. Group dialogues of about two hours will follow. All convenors will participate in each session. Through this series, our weekly introductory focus will progress—beginning from (1) a general overview, then moving to (2) self, (3) the other, (4) the group as a whole, (5) silence and (6) the dialogic field. In practice, however, our intention is that every session may bring in all these aspects and that we explore without boundaries, in freedom.

Topics and presenters are listed below, each followed by a quotation/quotations by David Bohm that touch on the week’s focus:

Week 1 – Dialogue – A Journey Together – with David Schrum

What is it to discover the roots of our common human consciousness? Through David Bohm’s approach to dialogue, we will open an enquiry into this question as we begin our journey together.

The object of dialogue is not to analyze things, or to win an argument, or to exchange opinions. Rather, it is to suspend your opinions and to look at the opinions—to listen to everyone’s opinions, to suspend them, and to see what all that means.

I suggest that there is a potential for self-awareness of thought—that the concrete, real process of the movement of thought could be self-aware, without bringing in a “self” who is aware of it.

Week 2 – The Art of Listening – with David Schrum

Deep listening is a transformative process for the listener. As we listen to both the voices of others and the voice within, we enter into an exploration together. Through intimate listening consciousness flowers, to reveal its inner structure.

If you see other people’s thought, it becomes your own thought, and you treat it as your own thought. And when an emotional charge comes up, you share all the emotional charges, too, if they affect you; you hold them together with all the thoughts.

Week 3 – Suspension and Moving Together – with Manfred Kritzler

Through suspension of assessment and judgement, whatever thoughts are arising in me have the same value as the thoughts of others. This gives us the opportunity to move together beyond the limitation of thought.

If each of us in the room is suspending, then we are all doing the same thing. We are looking at everything together.

Accordingly, a different kind of consciousness is possible among us, a participatory consciousness….Everything can move between us. Each person is participating, is partaking of the whole meaning of the group and also taking part in it. We can call that true dialogue.

The point of suspension is to help make proprioception possible, to create a mirror so that you can see the results of your thought. You have it inside yourself because your body acts as a mirror and you can see tensions arising in the body. Also, other people are a mirror, the group is a mirror.

Week 4 – Facilitation – with Sally Jeffery

This process of dialogue, as David Bohm proposes it, is not easy. Perhaps there are ways to support its emergence. It begins with seeing the need for this kind of dialogue.

On the whole you could say that if you are defending your opinions, you are not serious. Likewise, if you are trying to avoid something unpleasant inside of yourself, that is also not being serious. But in dialogue you have to be serious. It is not dialogue if you are not—not in the way I’m using the word.

Week 5 – Silence and Listening – with Caroline Pawluk

The beauty of silent listening is that we just watch and listen, doing nothing about what we observe.

But in a participatory view, the suggestion is that we have the unlimited as the ground of everything—that our true being is unlimited.

So we can see there is no “road” to truth. What we are trying to say is that in dialogue we share all the roads and we finally see that none of them matters. We see the meaning of all the roads, and therefore we come to the “no road.”

Week 6 – Sensing the Field – with Beth Macy

Listening intently to the silence that is beyond our personal thought, what seeks to emerge from that field of common consciousness? What inklings of new meaning are arising?

I am proposing, however, that the field of thought is limited. I am also suggesting that there is the “unlimited,” which contains the limited. This “unlimited” is not just in the direction of going to greater and greater distances out to the end of the universe; but much more importantly, it is also going into more and more subtlety.

SALLY JEFFERY was introduced to the teachings of J. Krishnamurti while an undergraduate in Sociology. Through involvement with his school in England, she met and was impressed by David Bohm (a founding trustee of the school) and became committed to his work with dialogue. Over more than three decades, she has participated in dialogue in many settings including prisons and her local (Lancaster) dialogue group.

MANFRED KRITZLER was born in Nürnberg, Germany. He was a partner in a German tax consultant firm in Stuttgart and a member of an international group of chartered accountants. He specialized in international taxes and transferring firms to the next generation. Having left the partnership some years ago, he is now a self-employed coach based mainly on David Bohm‘s holographic worldview. Manfred is presently in the process of creating a workshop with the title, ‘Trust in the Unknown.’

BETH MACY has followed a career interwoven with a common thread—change. She has been a manager, leader, consultant or participant in organizations experiencing difficult issues: organizations from small to large, private to public, non-profit to profit, health care to oil and gas, local to global. David Bohm’s dialogue has been core to her research, writing, consulting and teaching for nearly three decades. Living in the USA (Texas) she is completing a book on the ideas and individuals who influenced Bohm’s methodology of dialogue.

CAROLINE PAWLUK has been involved in a local dialogue group in Sudbury, Canada over the past twenty years and in various international forums in the United States and Europe during the past eight years. She is presently engaged with four online dialogue groups.

DAVID SCHRUM has been involved in dialogue for over thirty years. His experience includes dialogues extending across approaches that arise from David Bohm’s work, Krishnamurti’s teachings, Ojibway spiritual traditions, and other forms.

Online Pari Community Conversations: What is ‘I’? with Yuriko Sato
2020-11-08 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8wy91SDXQA

Online Pari Community Conversations: What is ‘I’?

with Yuriko Sato

Sunday November 8, 202012:00 EST / 18:00 CET

The Jungian analyst, James Hillman, wrote, ‘There is only one core issue for all psychology. Where is the “me”? Where does the “me” begin? Where does the “me” stop? Where does the “other” begin?’ In other words, ‘What is I?’ When we dream at night, is ‘I’ dreaming or being dreamed? Is it also ‘I’ who appears in someone else’s dream? In the Japanese language, there are different words to express ‘I’ according to relationship and occasion. So, what is ‘I’?

On Sunday November 8, Yuriko will open our monthly Community Call with a short presentation on the fascinating topic of ‘What is I’? This will be followed by breakaway discussion groups with the community coming back together for comments and Q&A.

This event is open to everyone!

Join our Zoom meeting via the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85232321129

If you would like to participate, have any questions or need any help just contact Eleanor Peat: eleanor@paricenter.com

Yuriko Sato is a Japanese Jungian analyst and psychotherapist, and a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute Zürich. She studied medicine and worked as a psychiatrist in Osaka and Kyoto. She has private psychotherapy practices in Zürich and Bern, and is a training/supervising analyst at ISAPZURICH (International School of Analytical Psychology Zürich), where she teaches on topics such as the Eastern (Japanese) psyche, narcissism, and psychiatry.

Flickering Reality: Exploring Alex Garland’s “Devs” with James Peat Barbieri
2020-12-13 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbzND6KzXYM

Flickering Reality: Exploring Ideas in Film and Television

Exploring Alex Garland’s “Devs”

with James Peat Barbieri

Sunday December 13, 20209:00am PST | 12:00 pm EST | 6:00pm CET

A monthly get-together to examine the thought-provoking, the philosophical, and the ones that take risks.

Quantum Physics, Free Will and Faith in Devs

James Peat Barbieri will explore the ideas that arise from Alex Garland’s Devs (2020). This 8-part series follows the story of the secret department of a high-tech company, which is developing a quantum computer that will be able to determine the past and the future by analysing data from the present. This session will take a look at the ideas in physics used in the show, such as Bohm and Everett’s interpretations of Quantum Mechanics, the philosophical implications of living in a deterministic world, and the meaning of faith in science and in the creators of visionary technologies.The session will be followed by Q&A and discussion.

To watch this series: Devs is available on the BBC in the UK, on Hulu in the US, FX in Canada and Binge in Australia. If you live elsewhere and you have problems finding a streaming platform that includes Devs, send me a message and I’ll see if I can help!

This series is free and open to everyone!

Join our Zoom meeting via the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/8533220379

If you would like to participate, have any questions or need any help just contact Eleanor Peat: eleanor@paricenter.com

What do Films and Television say about our world? What ideas can be examined through the moving image? From Science Fiction, to Comedy, Drama and Documentaries, the Seventh Art has been a mirror of our society, from the stories they portray to the method in which they’ve been produced, a mirror that is sometimes difficult to understand.

This monthly series will reveal the message behind different Films and TV Series, exploring the themes through the lens of physics, psychology, philosophy and sociology. Each session will have a guest speaker who will analyse these themes, which will then be discussed with our community, and lead us to a better understanding of film and reveal the deeper truths of our world.

What Breakthroughs in Science Can We Reasonably Predict?
2021-01-16 18:00 - 20:00
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/Aet1N1eskNI?si=hP3Q6RSTFM-JsfAI

with Olival Freire Jr.

Saturday January 16, 20219:00 PST | 12:00 EST | 18:00 CET

It is much easier to talk about advances in the field of science in the past than to guess about its future. The case of Lord Kelvin’s 1900 statement concerning the two little clouds that still obscured the sky of physics, and that would eventually be resolved into revolutionary theories—special relativity and quantum mechanics—is a well-known example of this. While risky, guesses about the future of science are appealing. Indeed, dramatic change is a recurrent theme in science studies as illustrated by Thomas Kuhn’s ideas on shifting paradigms in scientific revolutions as well as by several other authors who elaborated different views on the subject. Informed guesses about the future of science breakthroughs will be the subject of our conversation.

This online talk will be followed by questions and answers and discussion.

This event has a fee of €10,00 a participant, €9.00 for Friends of The Pari Center.

Professor Olival Freire Jr., professor of physics and history of science

Olival Freire Jr. is Professor of Physics and History of Physics at the Universidade Federal da Bahia, Brazil. In Brazil, he was trained in Physics (UFBA), he earned a PhD in History (USP) in 1995 and is fellow at the CNPq in History of Science.

He founded the Graduate Program in Science Teaching, History and Philosophy of Science at UFBA, in Brazil. He served as President of the Sociedade Brasileira de História da Ciência, the Commission on the History of Physics at DHST and as a member of the council of History of Science Society.

He was researcher at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science, MIT, Harvard, Université de Paris VII, University of Maryland, and Center for History of Physics at the American Institute of Physics.

He has published a number of articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as books and book chapters. He wrote The Quantum Dissidents—Rebuilding the Foundations of Quantum Mechanics 1950-1990, Springer, 2015, and David Bohm—A Life Dedicated to Understanding the Quantum World, Springer, 2019.

Horror and the Role of Terror: The Antithesis of Being Glad to Be Alive
2021-01-30 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6iHRFsnpVlE

Flickering Reality: Exploring Ideas in Film and Television

Horror and the Role of Terror: The Antithesis of Being Glad to Be Alive

with Christopher Hauke

Saturday January 30, 20219:00 am PST | 12:00 pm EST | 6:00 pm CET

A monthly get-together to examine the thought-provoking, the philosophical, and the ones that take risks.

Would Christianity have taken off as successfully if Christ had been imprisoned and died out of sight? The horrific image of a nearly naked man, nailed to a cross and bleeding from his hands, feet, forehead and stomach has had greater impact. What is the relationship between horror, its images and the sublime?

From the ancient through the mediaeval to Victorian and contemporary forms of the genre, horror, and terror, have been used to impress upon us the frailty of humanity and, often, the value of a spiritual alternative. In one era, the paintings of Bosch or the original German folk tales could terrify their audience, while in the present day the horror film and its digital game equivalent offer a corresponding function.

Jung was aware of how myth and archetypal imagery took on modern forms when included in contemporary visual media—and yet the psychological impact remained. Jung maintained that evil was a real entity in the world. In their stories, horror writers and filmmakers rely on such an assumption. Christopher Hauke will be discussing a Jungian perspective on horror, the sublime and the role of terror with wide-ranging examples from literature and especially film. You may want to keep the light on…

Christopher Hauke is a Jungian analyst in private practice and Senior Lecturer emeritus at Goldsmiths, University of London interested in the applications of depth psychology to a wide range of social and cultural phenomena including film. His books include Jung and the Postmodern: The Interpretation of Realities, (2000); Human Being Human. Culture and the Soul (2005) Visible Mind. Movies, Modernity and the Unconscious.(2013). He has co-edited two collections of Jungian film writing: Jung and Film. Post-Jungian Takes on the Moving Image (2001) and Jung and Film II – The Return (2011).

His short films, documentaries One Colour Red and Green Ray and the psychological drama Again premiered in London venues and at congresses in Barcelona, Zurich and Montreal.

In addition to new film projects he is now researching the limits of rationality, and the place of the irrational in our lives.

www.christopherhauke.com

This series is free and open to everyone!

Join our Zoom meeting via the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81879261698

If you would like to participate, have any questions or need any help just contact Eleanor Peat: eleanor@paricenter.com

Suggested reading:

Jung discusses evil in many passages. Start with Collected Works Vol. 9 Pt ii. Aion (orig. 1958). Chap. ll: ‘The Shadow’ paras. 13-19; and Chap. V: ‘Christ, A Symbol of the Self’ paras. 68-126

Here’s a good modern horror writer with archetypal qualities:

Ligotti, Thomas (2009) My Work Is Not Yet Done. Three Tales of Corporate Horror. London, Virgin Books.

How do we view horror films? Try this piece of research:

Johnston, Diedre D. (1995) ‘Adolescents’ Motivations for Viewing Graphic Horror. ‘Human Communication Research Vol. 21. Issue 4. Pp. 522-552. June 1995

A good article on film horror and its literary forebears:

Davis, Rhidian (2013) ‘Shadowlands and Roger Corman “The Poe Complex.”’ Sight and Sound. Vol 23. Issue 11. Pp 24-30. November 2013.

Books for further reading:

Hanich, Julian (2010/2011) Cinematic Emotion in Horror Films and Thrillers. New York and Abingdon: Routledge

Tan, Ed S., (2011) Emotion and the stricture of narrative film. Film as an emotion machine. New York and Abingdon: Routledge

Suggested viewing:

Try these quite recent horror films and think about their different styles:

Get Out (Jordan Peele, 2016. USA)

Ghost Stories (Dyson and Nyman, 2017. UK)

Triangle (Christopher Smith, 2009. UK)

What do Films and Television say about our world? What ideas can be examined through the moving image? From Science Fiction, to Comedy, Drama and Documentaries, the Seventh Art has been a mirror of our society, from the stories they portray to the method in which they’ve been produced, a mirror that is sometimes difficult to understand.

This monthly series will reveal the message behind different Films and TV Series, exploring the themes through the lens of physics, psychology, philosophy and sociology. Each session will have a guest speaker who will analyse these themes, which will then be discussed with our community, and lead us to a better understanding of film and reveal the deeper truths of our world.

Synchronicity, Mind and Matter
2021-02-13 17:59 - 2021-03-07 20:00
Synchronicity, Mind and Matter

With Allan Combs, Roderick Main, Mathew Mather, Cruz Mañas Sabbadini, Remo Roth, Shantena Sabbadini, Yuriko Sato, Jean-François Vezina and special guest poet, Richard Berengarten

8 two-hour online sessions, one every Saturday and Sunday

February 13 – March 7, 20219:00 PST | 12:00 EST | 18:00 CET

All sessions are live, recordings will be available for any sessions you can not attend.

The term ‘synchronicity’ was introduced by C.G. Jung to denote those experiences in which a coincidence of inner and outer events appears to be particularly significant, transcending causal explanation and carrying a message that often has a remarkable, sometimes numinous, impact on the person experiencing it.

When confronted with such experiences we are drawn to look at physical and psychic events as subtly interconnected, perhaps even as manifestation of a common underlying reality. Such an intuition resonates with the findings of quantum physics, in which the description of physical processes inevitably involves the notion of an observer, and was the overarching theme of the correspondence Jung entertained with the Nobel prize winning physicist Wolfgang Pauli over a quarter of a century.

In this course we will focus on synchronicity as a gate to a deeper understanding of the relationship between mind and matter and as a guide to read the archetypal energy configurations we encounter in our daily life. This experiential approach to synchronicity will use the I Ching, the ancient Chinese oracle, as a tool for ‘inviting synchronicity’.

We are very fortunate to have poet Richard Berengarten as part of our Synchronicity series. Richard will be reading from two of his collections: Notness which includes a section of ten sonnets entitled ‘On Synchronicity,’ and his ambitious Changing,a homage to the I Ching.Richard will briefly introduce himself and his work and each session will begin with his reading from these two works.

Saturday February 13: Synchronicity Questwith Remo Roth

Experiencing synchronicities is the observation of spontaneous incarnation phenomena in our consciousness.

Beginning with Jung’s Scarab Synchronicity, I show the conscious preconditions for the experience of synchronicities. Or in other words: What change of our consciousness is necessary for the observation of a multiplication of synchronicities?

Sunday February 14: Necessary Chances: Synchronicity in the Encounters that Transform Uswith Jean-François Vezina

People often enter our lives in mysterious ways. We have all met ‘by accident’ a person who crossed our path and radically altered our trajectory and opened a new door that helped us to enter a new universe. What predisposes us to such meetings? Who are these Trickster’s messengers—not necessarily people, as they can also take the forms of books or movies—that lead us to cross a new threshold?

In the light of the new sciences and cinema, this presentation introduces more than 20 yeas of research trying to understand the fascinating question of synchronistic encounters.

Saturday February 20: Numinous Matter: Synchronicity and the Reanimation of the Physical Worldwith Roderick Main

In this session we shall explore the implications of synchronicity for our experience of and relationship to the physical world. The presumption of disenchanted science is that matter is in itself inherently inert and devoid of meaning. Contrary to this, with the concept of synchronicity as well as his use of alchemical symbolism, Jung proposed that meaning and numinosity, as expressions of the psychoid archetype, could be inherent properties of not only the psyche but also matter. Such a view arguably fosters a more participative and respectful, rather than instrumental and exploitative, relationship to the physical world. We shall examine some of the experiences and underpinning philosophical assumptions that have been invoked in support of this view.

Sunday February 21: Synchronicity: A Common Reality in Japanwith Yuriko Sato

Since time immemorial, before C.G. Jung named the phenomenon, synchronicity has been perceived by people of various cultures. In the modern Western world view, mind and matter are clearly separated. Synchronistic phenomena, which cross the boundary between and connect these two distinct categories of reality, are therefore intriguing. However, in places where older world views have been retained in some way, such as in Japan, people seem to be less curious than Westerners about why and how synchronistic events happen; they seem to think of them more as natural occurrences—“just so” and “it happens.” I will approach synchronicity from these perspectives, using the Japanese psyche as an example, to explore its nature.

Saturday and Sunday February 27 – 28: I Ching and Synchronicity Workshopwith Shantena Sabbadini and Cruz Mañas Sabbadini

The intention of this workshop is to give you an experiential taste of reading events in a synchronistic perspective. Opening up to the experience of synchronicity is the essence of all divinatory practices. The divinatory practice we will explore in this workshop is the consultation of the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes.

We suggest to approach divination not as a way to predict the future, but as a way to allow unconscious knowledge to emerge in order to illuminate a problematic situation or a specific question.

Due to the constraint of meeting online rather than in person, we ask you to do your I Ching consultation in advance of the workshop, so that the workshop time can be fully devoted to the interpretation of the answers.

Saturday March 6: Tarot and Synchronicity: Reading the World as Symbol with Mathew Mather

After a brief elaboration on the history of the Tarot and its use as a divinatory tool, Mathew will relate a number of synchronistic experiences. Based on this he will describe how the Tarot can be used as a divinatory method allowing for an understanding and appreciation of the mytho-poetic language of the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World. In this space, the possibility emerges of being initiated into a stitching together of the microcosm of our individual life myth within the macrocosm of the Anima Mundi.

The second part of the session will include an interactive Tarot workshop in which participants will be invited to respond in word and image to a ‘random’ selection of a card, individually chosen, from the major arcana. This will be followed by sharing in groups, and then a final discussion. Note that a pack of Tarot cards will not be required. Please have a sheet of sketch paper and a few pens (art materials) available during the session.

Sunday March 7: The Trickster Inside and Outwith Allan Combs

The trickster is a shadow figure, a dynamic archetype, hidden in every human psyche. It arises uninvited as impulses that urge us to “play the devil” with our own rational side and behavior. But it can also manifest as a sense of playfulness, when one becomes a clown in an otherwise “serious” situation. The trickster is projected in myths and stories of virtually every traditional culture, from the Native American crow and coyote, to the closely related Mexican/Aztec dancing Huehuecóyotl (or Ueuecoyotl), and on to the African spider trickster, Anansi, and Renard the trickster fox, popular throughout Europe during the late Middle Ages; and includes great trickster gods such as the Chinese monkey king, the Norse Loki, and the Greek Hermes, said to be the “friendliest of the gods to men.”

I show this with the help of some of my most important synchronicities, which, so to speak, talked about how they work, their mode of operation, and in this way led me to the method I call today Synchronicity Quest.

The trickster protects us as individuals, and society as a whole, form taking ourselves too seriously, and from growing rigid and inflexible in our traditional ways. Often by the event of synchronicities that trip us up at first, and make us stop and examine ourselves. If we are open to these seeming stumbling blocks, we often discover them to be treasures in hiding; gifts from the trickster to enrich our lives.

This lesson will encourage each of us to explore our personal experiences of synchronicity, share them with others, and question how they reflect the work of the archetypal trickster, often to our consternation at first, but ultimately facilitating our own growth and transformation.

Synchronicity Quest with Remo Roth
2021-02-13 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/E2iBB1h5Aeo?si=TZjSnVdClrlYX8w_

Synchronicity Quest with Remo Roth

with Remo Roth

Experiencing synchronicities is the observation of spontaneous incarnation phenomena in our consciousness.

Beginning with Jung’s Scarab Synchronicity, Roth outlines the conscious preconditions for the experience of synchronicities. In other words: What change in our consciousness is necessary for the observation of a multiplication of synchronicities?

With the help of some of his most important synchronicities, Roth will demonstrate how they work, their mode of operation, and the way in which they led him to the method he calls Synchronicity Quest.

Remo F. Roth, was born in 1943 and lives in Zurich, Switzerland. He is a researcher in the field of psychophysical reality (W. Pauli) or unus mundus (C.G. Jung), the magical unified world of Hermetic alchemy, Daoism and Tantrism that is behind, or even beyond, the split into the outer world of physics and the inner world of Jung’s depth psychology. Roth was a former student and collaborator of Marie-Louise von Franz. Today he is working as an interpreter of synchronicity and archetypal dreams, and as a healing practitioner.

With Pari Publishing he published three books on this subject; see http://www.paripublishing.com/authors/remo-f-roth/

Necessary Chances: Synchronicity in the Encounters that Transform Us
2021-02-14 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Buy the recording

Necessary Chances: Synchronicity in the Encounters that Transform Us

with Jean-François Vezina

People often enter our lives in mysterious ways. We have all met ‘by accident’ a person who crossed our path and radically altered our trajectory and opened a new door that helped us to enter a new universe. What predisposes us to such meetings? Who are these Trickster’s messengers—not necessarily people, as they can also take the forms of books or movies—that lead us to cross a new threshold?

In the light of the new sciences and cinema, this presentation introduces more than 20 yeas of research trying to understand the fascinating question of synchronistic encounters.

Jean-François Vézina is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Québec and a musician. He was the president of the Jungian Society of Quebec for 7 years and has recently created the Cercle Jung de Tequenonday and The Hilbert Hotel, a psycho-philo-poetic experience exploring the multiverse. He has published several books translated in various languages such as Necessary Chances by Pari Publishing, The Love Adventure and Dancing with Chaos on the Trickster archetype. Web Site: www.hilbert-hotel.com

Numinous Matter: Synchronicity and the Reanimation of the Physical World
2021-02-20 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmB9tP-Km70

Numinous Matter: Synchronicity and the Reanimation of the Physical World

with Roderick Main

In this session we shall explore the implications of synchronicity for our experience of and relationship to the physical world. The presumption of disenchanted science is that matter is in itself inherently inert and devoid of meaning. Contrary to this, with the concept of synchronicity as well as his use of alchemical symbolism, Jung proposed that meaning and numinosity, as expressions of the psychoid archetype, could be inherent properties of not only the psyche but also matter. Such a view arguably fosters a more participative and respectful, rather than instrumental and exploitative, relationship to the physical world. We shall examine some of the experiences and underpinning philosophical assumptions that have been invoked in support of this view.

Roderick Main, works at the University of Essex, UK, where he is Professor in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies and Director of the Centre for Myth Studies. He is the author of The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture and Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience, the editor of Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal, and co-editor of Myth, Literature, and the Unconscious. He was Principal Investigator in the Arts and Humanities Research Council-funded project ‘“One world”: logical and ethical implications of holism’ (2016-18).

Synchronicity: A Common Reality in Japan
2021-02-21 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg8do4IsW2E

Synchronicity: A Common Reality in Japan

with Yuriko Sato

Since time immemorial, before C.G. Jung named the phenomenon, synchronicity has been perceived by people of various cultures. In the modern Western world view, mind and matter are clearly separated. Synchronistic phenomena, which cross the boundary between and connect these two distinct categories of reality, are therefore intriguing. However, in places where older world views have been retained in some way, such as in Japan, people seem to be less curious than Westerners about why and how synchronistic events happen; they seem to think of them more as natural occurrences—“just so” and “it happens.” I will approach synchronicity from these perspectives, using the Japanese psyche as an example, to explore its nature.

Yuriko Sato is a Japanese Jungian analyst and psychotherapist, and a graduate of the C.G. Jung Institute Zürich. She studied medicine and worked as a psychiatrist in Osaka and Kyoto. She has private psychotherapy practices in Zürich and Bern, and is a training/supervising analyst at ISAPZURICH (International School of Analytical Psychology Zürich), where she teaches on topics such as the Eastern (Japanese) psyche, narcissism, and psychiatry.

I Ching and Synchronicity Workshop
2021-02-27 18:00 - 2021-02-28 20:00
I Ching and Synchronicity Workshop

with Shantena Sabbadini and Cruz Mañas Sabbadini

February 13 – March 7, 2021

The intention of this workshop is to give you an experiential taste of reading events in a synchronistic perspective. Opening up to the experience of synchronicity is the essence of all divinatory practices. The divinatory practice we will explore in this workshop is the consultation of the I Ching, the ancient Chinese Book of Changes.

We suggest to approach divination not as a way to predict the future, but as a way to allow unconscious knowledge to emerge in order to illuminate a problematic situation or a specific question.

Due to the constraint of meeting online rather than in person, we ask you to do your I Ching consultation in advance of the workshop, so that the workshop time can be fully devoted to the interpretation of the answers.

Shantena Sabbadini graduated from the University of Milan in 1968 and was awarded his PhD in physics from the University of California in 1976. In Milan he researched the foundations of quantum physics, laying the base for what is currently known as the decoherence interpretation of quantum physics. At the University of California, he contributed to the theoretical work behind the first identification of a black hole, the X-ray source Cygnus X-1. In the 1990s he was scientific consultant for the Eranos Foundation, an East-West research center founded under the auspices of C.G. Jung in the 1930s. In that context he produced various translations and commentaries of Chinese classics in Italian and English, including the Yijing and the trilogy of Daoist classics, the Laozi, the Zhuangzi and the Liezi. From 2002 onwards he collaborated with F. David Peat running the Pari Center for New Learning and in 2017 he succeeded his friend and colleague as director of the center.

Shantena leads workshops and courses on the philosophical implications of quantum physics, on Daoism, and on using the Yijing as a tool for introspection. His most recent book in English, Pilgrimages to Emptiness: Rethinking Reality through Quantum Physics, was published by Pari Publishing in 2017.

Cruz Mañas Sabbadini, is a clinical psychologist. She researched mental illness and gave treatment in jails. She works as a psychotherapist with a Jungian orientation and gives I Ching seminars with Shantena Sabbadini. She founded El Cortijo de Gaia, a deep psychology center in Lanjaron (Granada). She is author of the book Simplicidad Consciente and of a number of poetry books, among which Todo lo Sabe la Tierra, Mar de Fondo, Noveno Planeta, La Zarza Incandescente.

Tarot and Synchronicity with Matthew Mather
2021-03-06 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/bZ1_-k-NvRI?si=oDn_Opwl0EQCiYMI

Tarot and Synchronicity with Matthew Mather

with Matthew Mather

After a brief elaboration on the history of the Tarot and its use as a divinatory tool, Mathew will relate a number of synchronistic experiences. Based on this he will describe how the Tarot can be used as a divinatory method allowing for an understanding and appreciation of the mytho-poetic language of the Anima Mundi, the Soul of the World. In this space, the possibility emerges of being initiated into a stitching together of the microcosm of our individual life myth within the macrocosm of the Anima Mundi.

The second part of the session will include an interactive Tarot workshop in which participants will be invited to respond in word and image to a ‘random’ selection of a card, individually chosen, from the major arcana. This will be followed by sharing in groups, and then a final discussion. Note that a pack of Tarot cards will not be required. Please have a sheet of sketch paper and a few pens (art materials) available during the session.

Mathew is a graduate of the University of Essex, where he specialised in Jung and Alchemy. He is a lecturer at Limerick School of Art and Design, course director of the Certificate in Jungian Psychology with Art Therapy and the postgraduate Certificate in Art, Psyche and the Creative Imagination. Mathew regularly presents at international conferences, is a guest lecturer at ISAP Zurich and runs workshops with his wife Lyn for the Jung in Ireland programme. His interests include dream interpretation, synchronicity, art, alchemy, astrology, the environment, as well as personal and cultural mythologies. He is author of The Alchemical Mercurius: Esoteric Symbol of Jung’s Life and Works (Routledge, 2014).

The Trickster Inside and Out
2021-03-07 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/4xP6AWt-93o?si=u45XuarfY1tu1jxt

The Trickster Inside and Out

with Allan Combs

The trickster is a shadow figure, a dynamic archetype, hidden in every human psyche. It arises uninvited as impulses that urge us to “play the devil” with our own rational side and behavior. But it can also manifest as a sense of playfulness, when one becomes a clown in an otherwise “serious” situation. The trickster is projected in myths and stories of virtually every traditional culture, from the Native American crow and coyote, to the closely related Mexican/Aztec dancing Huehuecóyotl (or Ueuecoyotl), and on to the African spider trickster, Anansi, and Renard the trickster fox, popular throughout Europe during the late Middle Ages; and includes great trickster gods such as the Chinese monkey king, the Norse Loki, and the Greek Hermes, said to be the “friendliest of the gods to men.”

The trickster protects us as individuals, and society as a whole, form taking ourselves too seriously, and from growing rigid and inflexible in our traditional ways. Often by the event of synchronicities that trip us up at first, and make us stop and examine ourselves. If we are open to these seeming stumbling blocks, we often discover them to be treasures in hiding; gifts from the trickster to enrich our lives.

This lesson will encourage each of us to explore our personal experiences of synchronicity, share them with others, and question how they reflect the work of the archetypal trickster, often to our consternation at first, but ultimately facilitating our own growth and transformation.

Allan Combs is Professor of Consciousness Studies at the California Institute for Integral Studies. He is author or coauthor of over 200 publications on consciousness, including Synchronicity: Science, Myth, and the Trickster; The Radiance of Being, best-book award-winner of the Scientific and Medical Network; Consciousness Explained Better: An Integral Understanding of Consciousness; and Thomas Berry: Dreamer of the Earth.

Flickering Reality: May the Force Be with Us
2021-03-14 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B48F_L8VS5k

Flickering Reality: Exploring Ideas in Film and Television

May the Force Be with Us: The Archetype of the Hieros Gamos in the Star Wars Mythology

with Jean-Francois Vezina

Sunday March 14, 202110:00 am PDT | 1:00 pm EDT | 6:00 pm CET

A monthly get-together to examine the thought-provoking, the philosophical, and the ones that take risks.

Jean-François Vézina will be looking at the full spectrum of archetypical dynamics in the Star Wars series. The core of the last episode of the series contains a great expression of the archetype of the Hieros Gamos that Jung and Pauil talked about in their correspondences. Facing the dark side of fear, symbolised by the Star Wars’ character Palpatine and experienced in our times with Covid-19, we need to be courageous and imaginatives in the reconciliation of our opposites, and Star Wars offers a great path to this collective and personal individuation. Jean-François will divide his presentation into four 20-minute parts leaving plenty of time for community Q&A and discussion.

‘May the Force be with me’. (Trilogy 1-3) Egotic dimension of the Force

‘May the Force be with you’ (Trilogy 4-6) Heroic dimension of the Force

‘May The Force be with us’ (Trilogy 7-9) Hiero Gamic dimension of the Force.

‘Baby Yoda, a symbol of the sacred child’

Jean-François Vézina is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Québec, an author and a musician. He was the president of the Jungian Society of Quebec for 7 years and has recently created the Cercle Jung de Tequenonday and The Hilbert Hotel, a psycho-philo-poetic experience exploring the multiverse.

He has published several books translated in various languages such as Necessary Chances by Pari Publishing, The Love Adventure and Dancing with Chaos on the Trickster archetype.

Web Site: www.hilbert-hotel.com

This series is free and open to everyone!

Join our Zoom meeting via the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82772844869

If you would like to participate, have any questions or need any help just contact Eleanor Peat: eleanor@paricenter.com

What do Films and Television say about our world? What ideas can be examined through the moving image? From Science Fiction, to Comedy, Drama and Documentaries, the Seventh Art has been a mirror of our society, from the stories they portray to the method in which they’ve been produced, a mirror that is sometimes difficult to understand.

This monthly series will reveal the message behind different Films and TV Series, exploring the themes through the lens of physics, psychology, philosophy and sociology. Each session will have a guest speaker who will analyse these themes, which will then be discussed with our community, and lead us to a better understanding of film and reveal the deeper truths of our world.

The Practice of the I Ching
2021-03-27 18:00 - 20:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E6Lad9o5wME

The Practice of the I Ching

with Shantena Sabbadini and Cruz Mañas Sabbadini

Saturday March 2710:00am PDT | 1:00pm EDT | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

Online Pari Dialogue

The practice of the I Ching oracle is a form of introspection bridging different dimensions, unconscious and conscious, imaginal and rational, heart and mind. The wild images from a shamanic tradition three thousand years old are framed in the rigorous system of yin and yang. And the intuitive practice of ‘rolling the words in one’s heart’ is grounded in the exact discipline of handling the forty-nine yarrow stalks or the three coins and reading one’s answer in the book.

In this webinar we will explore the practice of consultation in detail, answering, as far as possible, all the questions concerning this mysterious activity, from the appropriate formulation of the question to the specific function of the various sections of a hexagram in the answer.

The webinar is addressed both to newcomers and to ‘old I Ching hands.’ Our main reference will be the Eranos I Ching, translated by Rudolf Ritsema and Shantena Sabbadini, but you are welcome to keep at hand your favourite I Ching and to compare passages. Often the ancient Chinese of the I Chingallows for multiple meanings.

On Saturday March 27, Shantena and Cruz will open our monthly Community Call with a presentation and followed by discussion and Q&A.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!

Join our Zoom meeting via the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/82002877500

If you would like to participate, have any questions or need any help just contact Eleanor Peat: eleanor@paricenter.com

Shantena Sabbadini graduated from the University of Milan in 1968 and was awarded his PhD in physics from the University of California in 1976. In Milan he researched the foundations of quantum physics, laying the base for what is currently known as the decoherence interpretation of quantum physics. At the University of California, he contributed to the theoretical work behind the first identification of a black hole, the X-ray source Cygnus X-1. In the 1990s he was scientific consultant for the Eranos Foundation, an East-West research center founded under the auspices of C.G. Jung in the 1930s. In that context he produced various translations and commentaries of Chinese classics in Italian and English, including the Yijing and the trilogy of Daoist classics, the Laozi, the Zhuangzi and the Liezi. From 2002 onwards he collaborated with F. David Peat running the Pari Center for New Learning and in 2017 he succeeded his friend and colleague as director of the center.

Shantena leads workshops and courses on the philosophical implications of quantum physics, on Daoism, and on using the Yijing as a tool for introspection. His most recent book in English, Pilgrimages to Emptiness: Rethinking Reality through Quantum Physics, was published by Pari Publishing in 2017.

Cruz Mañas Sabbadini, is a clinical psychologist. She researched mental illness and gave treatment in jails. She works as a psychotherapist with a Jungian orientation and gives I Ching seminars with Shantena Sabbadini. She founded El Cortijo de Gaia, a deep psychology center in Lanjaron (Granada). She is author of the book Simplicidad Consciente and of a number of poetry books, among which Todo lo Sabe la Tierra, Mar de Fondo, Noveno Planeta, La Zarza Incandescente.

The Great Re-Think
2021-04-17 10:59 - 2021-04-24 17:00 | Online
Buy the recording

A four-part series of webinars led by Colin Tudge

hosted by The Pari Center,The Scientific and Medical Network, and the College for Real Farming and Food Cultur

With special guests Andrew Fellows, Denise Walton, Ian Rappel and Ruby Reed

2 Sessions each Saturday – April 17 and 24, 202110:00 – 12:00 pm BST and 3:00 – 5:00 pm BST11:00 – 1:00 pm CEST and 4:00 – 6:00 pm CEST

All sessions are live, recordings will be available for any sessions you can not attend.

Though the world is now in a dreadful state and popes and scientists warn of impending collapse, humanity and our fellow creatures could still be looking forward to a long and glorious future: at least a million years of peace and personal fulfilment with abundant and diverse wildlife. But to achieve this we need to re-think everything we do and take for granted from first principles—those of morality and ecology, both rooted in the all-but forgotten discipline of metaphysics which embraces both science and religion. The re-think and re-structuring amount to nothing less than a Renaissance—more far-reaching than the Renaissance that ended the European Middle Ages. Furthermore, this new Renaissance must be brought about by us—people at large: Ordinary Joes and Jos. The dominant oligarchy of governments, corporates, financiers, and their chosen intellectual and expert advisers are not on the case. They remain focused on wealth and power. It’s a tall order—but there is good news. Many millions of individuals and organizations worldwide are already showing the way. What’s needed now is coordination, underpinned by a coherent philosophy. The Great Re-Think does not presume to provide sure-fire formulae. It does aspire to point the necessary discussions in the right directions. Colin will be discussing the whole thesis with expert guests, and invites all participants to join in a lively discussion, ask questions or add comments.

Saturday April 17The Goal with Andrew Fellows

Saturday April 17Actionwith Denise Walton

Saturday April 24Infrastructurewith Ian Rappel

Saturday April 24Mindsetwith Ruby Reed

The Great Re-Think: A 21st Century Renaissance by biologist and science writer Colin Tudge.

Winner of the Scientific and Medical Network Book of the Year Award, 2020

Colin examines why we must re-think everything we do and take for granted—the biosphere, agriculture, food, technology, governance, the economy, law, science, metaphysics, the arts—and start again from first principles. If we want the Renaissance to happen, then we, people-at-large, ‘Ordinary Joes and Jos,’ have to take control.

Buy the companion book to the series from bookstores or Pari Publishing.To buy Colin’s Book: https://www.paripublishing.com/books/the-great-re-think/

Colin Tudge is a biologist by education (Peterhouse, Cambridge) and a writer by inclination and by trade. For some decades he worked for World Medicine, Farmers Weekly, New Scientist, and the much-missed Agricultural and Food Research Council, and then had his own science programme on BBC Radio 3 before becoming a full-time author in 1990. In 2010 he co-founded the Oxford Real Farming Conference which in 2021 becomes ‘ORFC Global’; and he is now helping to set up the College for Real Farming and Food Culture to develop and disseminate the ideas outlined in The Great Re-Think: A 21st Century Renaissance, which was named Book of the Year 2020 by the Scientific and Medical Network.

The Goal - The Great Re-Think
2021-04-17 11:01 - 13:00 | Online
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDtSyZAOFqg

The Goal

Session 1 of The Great Re-Think

with Colin Tudge and special guest Andrew Fellows

Saturday April 1710:00am BST | 11:00am CEST

All sessions are live, recordings will be available for any sessions you can not attend.

First we need to decide what we want to achieve—which Colin suggests should be to create:

Convivial societies—with personal fulfilment! —within a flourishing biosphere

Governments rarely spell out properly what they are actually trying to achieve. They rely on slogans—as in ‘Make America Great Again’ or ‘Take Back Control.’

We need to achieve the necessary turn-around not merely by Reform, or by out-and-out Revolution—but by Renaissance—re-birth: creating the world we want to see in situ, and leaving what we don’t need to wither on the vine.

But powers-that-be—an oligarchy of governments, corporates, financiers, and their selected intellectual advisers—are not going to do what’s needed. In large part they are leading us in the opposite direction. So we—people at large—need to make the Renaissance happen for ourselves.

Always we need to be guided by the twin principles of morality (what is it right to do?) and of ecology (what is necessary and what is possible?). Both are rooted in the much neglected discipline of metaphysics. Good science is vital but commensurately we need to restore the sense of the sacred. ‘Re-enchantment’ is required.

** All is ripe for discussion. Most basically: does everyone agree with the stated goal? And is it really possible to take care of humanity and our fellow creatures? (Yes, is the answer, but only with truly radical change—brought about by people at large.)

Andrew Fellows is a Jungian Analyst, Program Director and Training Analyst at ISAP Zurich, independent researcher and author, and deep ecologist. He holds a Doctorate in Applied Physics, and enjoyed two decades of international engagement with renewable energy, sustainable development and environmental policy before moving to Switzerland.

He is currently extending Jungian Psychology with Gaia theory, dual-aspect monism and deep ecology to address global environmental problems.

His first book, Gaia, Psyche and Deep Ecology: Navigating Climate Change in the Anthropocene was joint winner of the Scientific & Medical Network 2019 Book Prize. Andrew lives over three thousand feet above sea level in rural Switzerland without a car.

Action - The Great Re-Think
2021-04-17 16:00 - 18:00
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n6k7JYaLPaU

Action

Session 2 – The Great Re-Think

with Colin Tudge and special guest Denise Walton

Saturday April 173:00pm BST | 4:00pm CEST

All sessions are live, recordings will be available for any sessions you can not attend.

All technologies are pertinent: both ‘high’—emerging from science; and ‘low,’ aka artisanal or traditional—based on craft. Above all, as E.F. Schumacher said, all technologies must be appropriate—one reason why we need to spell out what we are really trying to achieve!

Beyond doubt, though—if we truly aim to crate convivial societies while respecting our fellow creatures—the most important technologies and crafts are those of food: agriculture and cooking.

The kind of agriculture that really could help us to achieve ‘convivial societies in a flourishing biosphere’ is what Colin calls ‘Enlightened Agriculture,’ aka ‘Real Farming.’ It is guided by the ideas of agroecology and food sovereignty. Both lead us towards mixed (polycultural), low-input (organic) farms that perforce are complex and so must be skills-intensive (plenty of farmer and growers) and so in general should be small to medium-sized. This is the precise opposite of the vast, high-input, minimum-to-zero labour monocultures that governments and corporates now promote (at our expense!). Clearly, it requires wholesale economic overhaul. The market economy cannot deliver.

Now for a great serendipity: there is a perfect one-to-one correspondence between Enlightened Agriculture, sound nutrition, and the greatest of the world’s cuisines as found on an axis from Italy to China. So all we really need to solve the world’s food problems (including much of the world’s problems of health and wildlife conservation) is to farm properly and to re-learn how to cook. Ersatz and veganism are not necessary. All will be revealed.

In short: the whole economy and social life should be built around (enlightened) farming and good cooking. At the moment both are subservient (like everything else) to the grand cause of maximizing and concentrating material wealth (in the forms of real estate and money).

** Among many obvious points for discussion are: Why does craft matter in the age of mass manufacture? What should be its role(s)? And: should we all be vegetarian? And—can we really produce high quality food for everyone? What about the cost? Etc.

Denise Walton, Farmer, Food Producer and Ecologist, lives in the Scottish Borders where she farms with her husband and son. Irish by nationality, Denise was born and bought up in Central Africa. She studied horticulture in her native Ireland followed by degrees (to post-graduate level), in Environmental Science and Landscape Ecology at the University of London. She had her own practice for some 20 years as a Landscape and Ecological Advisor, during which she also lectured on conservation and wildlife management at Borders College for 9 years. In professional practice she was a member of both the Chartered Institute of Ecology and Environmental Management and the Landscape Institute. She is now fully involved as a partner in the farm business, in which she is Managing Partner with main responsibility for the diversification and development of food production from the farm’s livestock through the on-farm butchery and for the farm’s ecological management. She is a Soil Association Farmer Ambassador for Agroecology; On the Scottish steering group of The Nature Friendly Farming Network and a member of the PFLA Research Advisory Group.

Infrastructure - The Great Re-Think
2021-04-24 11:00 - 13:00
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xT11J1jCvMU

Infrastructure

Session 3 – The Great Re-Think

with Colin Tudge and special guest Ian Rappel

Saturday April 2410:00am BST | 11:00am CEST

All sessions are live, recordings will be available for any sessions you can not attend.

Enlightened agriculture (with corresponding cuisine)—and the grand cause of conviviality, personal fulfilment, and a flourishing biosphere—cannot come about without an appropriate, supportive infrastructure—compounded of the government, the economy, and the law. The economy is ‘the matrix of our lives.’ It is in practice the medium through which we translate our aspirations into material reality. So it is vital to have the right aspirations—and to devise an economy that really does help us to meet our needs and fulfil our dreams (insofar as our dreams are compatible with the bedrock principles of morality and ecological reality).

The economy that now prevails worldwide—that of neoliberalism—is the precise opposite of what’s needed. It is inveterately materialist (money is its only ‘value’); it idealises competition which leads to inequality and strife; it promotes excess which must lead to mass extinction; and ‘the market,’ which has no morality, becomes the moral arbiter.

Instead we need Green Economic Democracy: the ‘tripartite mixed economy’ (public, private, and community ownership, with all financial endeavours conceived as social enterprises). Governments are not going to make this happen so we, people at large, must do what needs doing despite them. We surely have the power to do so, if we choose to grasp the nettles.

We must make democracy work—difficult but necessary—and those we elect to government must follow the guidelines that Jesus suggested according to St Mark (10: 42-44): ‘whoever would be first among you must be servant to all.’

The scope for discussion is clearly endless. What are the implications of all this for humanity as a whole and for the political parties in particular? How significant are the many uprisings worldwide? (the US, Hong Kong, Russia, Belarus, Myanmar, India? What can they achieve?) And so on.

Ian Rappel is a geographer and ecologist by background, working in conservation for NGOs and in academia since 1993. He is currently helping with the development of the College for Real Farming and Food Culture, and also works as the Wales Development Manager for the National Association of AONBs. He is a curriculum advisor to the Black Mountains College, and lives in Talgarth on the northern fringes of the Black Mountains in Wales.

Mindset - The Great Re-Think
2021-04-24 16:00 - 18:00
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_N_1zQrG9M

Mindset

Session 4 – The Great Re-Think

with Colin Tudge and special guest Ruby Reed

Saturday April 243:00pm BST | 4:00pm CEST

All sessions are live, recordings will be available for any sessions you can not attend.

‘Mindset’ is the sum of all the ideas, preconceptions, prejudices, predilections and aversions in ‘the basement of our minds’ that we take for granted and rarely pull out for inspection—but inspection is at least salutary and indeed is necessary. The Great Re-Think discusses mindset under four headings: science, morality, metaphysics, and the arts. Very briefly:

Science is wonderful and necessary (of the right kind) but it can only ever be ‘the art of the soluble,’ as Peter Medawar put the matter. Emphatically, it is not the royal road to truth, or the only game in town. Without dumbing down science should be seen and taught primarily as an aesthetic and spiritual pursuit—not as the means to control or indeed to ‘conquer’ nature but as an exercize in appreciation. Its role as a provider of high tech—some of which can help to achieve the goals of conviviality, fulfilment, and care of the Earth—is a definite bonus but not the raison d’etre.

Morality should be an exercise not in utilitarian thinking as now, but in virtue ethics, as embraced by all the great religions. The bedrock principles are those of compassion, humility, and reverence for nature (underpinned by the concept of oneness and a sense of the sacred).

Metaphysics asks what many have called ‘the ultimate questions’ which here are taken to be: What is the universe really like (is it just ‘stuf,’ as materialist-atheists maintain, or what)? What is the basis of goodness? How do we know what’s true? And, How come? Science and standard western philosophy provide partial answers but metaphysics offers further insights—including the vital notion of transcendence and the sense of the sacred. Metaphysics is the core of all bona fide religions—and is very similar in all of them.

The Arts are the jokers in the pack. Follow the imagination and see where it leads.

In all this there are enough points for discussion to last a great many lifetimes—including ‘What, in practice, can we do?’ Colin has ideas on this—but what does everyone else think?

Ruby Reed co-founded transformative education initiative Advaya in 2015, bringing people together to explore links between ecology, society and wellbeing. In 2019 she co-founded educational platform EcoResolution, linking social movements with new audiences, and in 2021 co-founded ecosystem restoration charity Initiative Earth. Ruby is a Trustee of Resurgence Trust, Talks Curator for Medicine Festival, and excited to be part of BeTheEarth Foundation’s flow-funding network. In 2018-2019 she supported Extinction Rebellion, curating programmes at London protests and Rebel Retreats across the UK. Ruby previously worked with art collectors and has a MA in the Renaissance Body from Edinburgh and a MA in Countercultural Art in Latin America from the Courtauld. She is a Freediver and Yoga Therapist with eight years training in yoga, pranayama & Ayurveda.

Flickering Reality: Persona: Masks that Conceal, Masks that Reveal
2021-05-02 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTfvfb_3G4c

Flickering Reality: Exploring Ideas in Film and Television

Persona: Masks that Conceal, Masks that Reveal

with Kevin Lu

Sunday May 2, 20219:00 am PDT | 12:00 pm EDT | 6:00 pm CEST

A monthly get-together to examine the thought-provoking, the philosophical, and the ones that take risks.

In this session, we will use three films as our springboard to exploring Jung’s notion of the persona: Wall Street (1987), The Mask (1994) and The Farewell (2019). While each film highlights the potentially pathological relationship one can have with one’s personas, they also convey the important role played by this archetypal imperative in personality development. As with all archetypes, the persona is bipolar in nature and entering into a more integral relationship with its various qualities and characteristics is central to the project of individuation.

Kevin Lu, BA (Hons) (University of Toronto); MA (Heythrop College, University of London); PhD (University of Essex), is a Senior Lecturer and Director of the MA Jungian and Post-Jungian Studies in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies, University of Essex. He is a former member of the Executive Committee of the International Association for Jungian Studies and a member of Adjunct Faculty at Pacifica Graduate Institute. Kevin’s publications include articles and chapters on Jung’s relationship to the discipline of history, Arnold J. Toynbee’s use of analytical psychology, critical assessments of the theory of cultural complexes, sibling relationships in the Chinese/Vietnamese Diaspora, racial hybridity, and Jungian perspectives on graphic novels and their adaptation to film.

This series is free and open to everyone!

Join our Zoom meeting via the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/88085841173

If you would like to participate, have any questions or need any help just contact Eleanor Peat: eleanor@paricenter.com

What do Films and Television say about our world? What ideas can be examined through the moving image? From Science Fiction, to Comedy, Drama and Documentaries, the Seventh Art has been a mirror of our society, from the stories they portray to the method in which they’ve been produced, a mirror that is sometimes difficult to understand.

This monthly series will reveal the message behind different Films and TV Series, exploring the themes through the lens of physics, psychology, philosophy and sociology. Each session will have a guest speaker who will analyse these themes, which will then be discussed with our community, and lead us to a better understanding of film and reveal the deeper truths of our world.

Ancient Wisdom Transforming Tomorrow
2021-05-08 17:59 - 20:30 | Online
Ancient Wisdom Transforming Tomorrow

4-part series: Saturday May 8, 15, 22, 299:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST | 6:00pm SAST

Each session is 2.5 hours

with Gavin Andersson, Rutendo Ngara and Godelieve Spaasand special guests Ela Manga and Keith Mparana

This programme features meditation, drawing, music, stories, dialogues and experiences and is limited to 20 active participants.

We find ourselves in a world in crisis. While theories abound, to some humanity is at the edge of the apocalypse. We are at a time of reckoning, a time of turning. We are both actors and spectators in the time foretold by ancient prophecy.

There has been no greater symbol of this in recent history than the global health emergency due to Covid-19. As a consequence of the virus, borders have been closed, millions of sources of livelihood have been lost, systems have been stifled, economies have suffered, and all the ills of the world have been accentuated. At the peak of the pandemic, the world was stopped in its tracks and activity—as we knew it—and was locked down. Some point out that this may just be the first such pandemic, and that it is merely a harbinger of the crises to come with climate change.

At this watershed moment humanity is asked to re-think, re-imagine, re-define, re-act, re-store, re-generate and re-new.

Can the current Western economic thinking solve everything? What lessons can we learn from Ancient Wisdom?

This series of dialogues aims to bring to light concepts from African Indigenous Knowledge Systems as catalysts for reimagining how to approach issues in our current reality in an interrelated and unbounded way.

By enlarging the space, we can move beyond the existing dominant paradigms and rethink the fictions that shape the modern world. We explore four different Indigenous principles, allowing other ways of knowing to expand our ways of doing—our activity. We create a container for unbounded organising in a time of transition. We traverse the bridge between remembering and imagining and paint the world as we would wish it to become.

Each session addresses one principle:

Ubuntu (Southern Africa)Ubuntu is the principle of interrelatedness, interconnectedness and interdependence. It asserts that: ‘A person is a person through other persons. I am because you are. You are because we are. We are because it is. It is because All that is is.’ This is the root of identity.

Sankofa (West Africa)Sankofa tells us to ‘go back and fetch it.’ It is a concept of ‘historical recovery,’ moving us to reflect on and reclaim Indigenous cultural ideas and principles in order to advance towards a co-created future.

Kemetic Tree of Life (Ancient Egypt)The Tree of Life tracks the process of creation from the Void to All That Is. It is a cosmological principle describing the ancient wisdom about the nature of the cosmos: from the unmanifest to the manifest, the infinite to finite.

Ancestors (throughout)African spirituality holds that there is no separation between the living, those who have walked before and those who are to come. Death is a complementary of life and the beginning of the communication between the visible and the invisible worlds.

How do we look back to move forward, what new insights seek to emerge and what transformative activity fractals can we manifest?

Pre-readingGavin Andersson (2021) ‘Unbounded Organising’ Pari Perspectives, Issue 7, ‘The Common Good’

Gavin Andersson, PhD, is a development practitioner and activity theorist whose life work has focused on strengthening community organisation, and leadership development within civil society.

Gavin was founder and co-ordinator of CORDE, which worked with farmer groups and community enterprises in Botswana. He later consulted in organisational development across southern Africa and in the Caribbean. Returning to South Africa at the inception of democracy he led a development advocacy organization and worked in the fields of corporate social responsibility, civil accountability, and leadership development. Gavin has helped to develop methodologies for citizen-based monitoring of government programmes.

Gavin is an executive coach, senior fellow of the Chair for Social Change at the University of Johannesburg and was a distinguished fellow of the Chair in Development Education housed at the University of South Africa UNISA. He is Adjunct Professor at the Graduate School of Business of the University of Cape Town where he hosts critical conversations on Macroeconomics, Ethics and Organizing. Gavin lives with three of his five children, is passionate about agroecology, and follows African spirituality.

Rutendo Ngara is an African Indigenous Knowledge Systems practitioner and transdisciplinary researcher whose professional interests have spanned from clinical engineering, healthcare technology management, socio-economic development, mathematics, leadership and fashion design; to the interface between science, culture, cosmology and paradigms of healing. With a passion for integrating art, science and spirituality towards healing of the Collective and restoration of the Whole, she is a spiritual coach, priestess and counsellor, who engages several modes of healing. She consults in workshop facilitation in areas such as leadership, personal development, health and wellness. Rutendo is a co-founder of Ancient Wisdom Africa, a forum that seeks to gather knowledges and voices of Ancient Wisdom and see how these can illuminate the present; as well as a member of the Assegaia Alliance—a cross-cultural and interdisciplinary group of experts dedicated to the protection of the Earth’s Sacred Natural Sites. She serves on a number of boards, advisory and convening committees, including the Credo Mutwa Foundation, the South African Wushu Federation, Earthrise Collective and Umphakatsi Peace Ecovillage. Rutendo is a practitioner of a number of physical disciplines, including Wushu/Kung Fu/Tai Ji for which she has represented South Africa as an international silver medallist. She holds a BSc in Electrical Engineering, an MSc in Medicine in Biomedical Engineering, and is pursuing a doctorate in Philosophy of Education. The quest for harmony, co- existence and complimentarity underpins her endeavours.

Godelieve Spaas is a professor of Sustainable Strategy and Innovation at Avans University of Applied Science in the Netherlands. She is a researcher and also creates and makes performances and podcasts about new ways of entrepreneurial organizing where ecology, society, and the economy all benefit from and interact seamlessly with each other. Her aim is to increase diversity in organizational and entrepreneurial models and realities with a view to the development of a fairer, more sustainable and robust entrepreneurial space. She combines art, science, entrepreneurial practices and indigenous knowledge.

Godelieve also creates new businesses that are collaborative, inclusive and work in harmony with nature. She is associate Director of the Pari Center and a regular guest in Pari, a place where she writes, participates in dialogues, and follows and gives courses.

Dr Ela Manga is an integrative medical doctor with an ancient vision for the future. Amongst the gifts she offers, she is a specialist in energy management, author and speaker who uses Breathwork as a tool for self-empowerment, healing and transformation. For those who have had the privilege of experiencing the transformative power of the breath under her facilitation, it was a source of inspiration and expiration. Last year she ran a podcast series called ‘Threads of Healing,’ where she expanded the notion of healing through different voices and wove it back together into a tapestry of beauty. Apart from her medical practice, she is the Founder of Breathwork Africa.

Keith Mparana is an avid student of African-based systems of knowledge that he translates into artwork through studying the thought processes that are depicted in ancient cosmologies.

Hope and Delusion
2021-05-16 18:00 - 19:30 | Online
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogTF4n-mRXM

Hope and Delusion: Critical Storytelling for Difficult Times

with Robert Norris

Sunday May 169:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

When we realise just how much hangs on our attitudes towards the various forms of crisis we are exposed to, we may come to see what our work really is. Hope has a curious story to tell. It reminds us of the wealth we carry within us, but also of how easily we are persuaded to give it all up. This talk attempts to string together disparate stories relating to, but not necessarily about, hope, and aims specifically to raise more questions than it answers. Accompanying the talk there will be breakout and plenary sessions in which participants will be able to articulate their thoughts and responses.

On Sunday May 16, Robert will open our monthly Community Call with a presentation and followed by discussion and Q&A.

THIS EVENT IS FREE AND OPEN TO EVERYONE!

Join our Zoom meeting via the following link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84842167052

If you would like to participate, have any questions or need any help just contact Eleanor Peat: eleanor@paricenter.com

When asked once to provide a blurb for a book on the philosophy of language, the question of how to describe Robert professionally had to be addressed. It was decided to describe him as an independent researcher, and this is more or less how Robert has viewed himself ever since. Robert teaches English as a foreign language, but his interests and experience are wide-ranging. Born to British parents in Modena, Italy, he studied Classics at school, English at Aberdeen University and General Linguistics and Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford. He has travelled and worked in various parts of Europe, the Middle East, the Far East, Southeast Asia, Australasia and the United States. In 2014, he completed a Permaculture Design Course in Vang Vieng, Laos, and holds a second degree black belt in the art of aikido. He is indebted to many teachers in the fields of aikido and meditation, especially Vipassana meditation, and in 2018 completed a Mindfulness Teacher Training Course at the Mangalam Meditation Centre in Germany. He now lives with his beloved wife in Zürich, Switzerland, where he plans to embark on training as a Jungian Analyst at the International School for Analytical Psychologists.
