The Pari Center

The Future Mind - A conversation with Annika and Tristan
2024-11-13 18:00 - 19:30 (Europe/Rome)
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H5GZXAapxXk

A Conversation between Annika, Tristan and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday, November 139:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Annika and Tristan are two distinct persons that share a single body. Together over the last sixteen years they have learned to live in harmony with each other while overcoming the unique struggles and challenges their situation naturally brings. Today they are ready to share what they have learned from their experience of being “two souls in one brain” and what the existence of others like them may mean for science and the hard problem of consciousness. Recently interviewed by Dr. Jeffrey Mishlove and featured on “New Thinking Allowed”, Annika and Tristan’s case is unique and transcends the psychiatric and psychological literature. Their embodied experiences offer radical insights for neuro-diversity and have deep metaphysical implications for our everyday life.

Àlex Gómez-Marín is a Spanish physicist turned neuroscientist. He holds a PhD in theoretical physics and a Masters in biophysics from the University of Barcelona. He was a research fellow at the EMBL-CRG Centre for Genomic Regulation and at the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. His research spans from the origins of the arrow of time to the neurobiology of action-perception across species, from flies and worms to mice and humans. Since 2016 he has been the head of the Behavior of Organisms Laboratory at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, where he is an Associate Professor of the Spanish Research Council. Combining computational biology and continental philosophy, his current research concentrates on consciousness in the real world.

Book-a-Month Club - The Little Prince
2024-11-21 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

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

The Little Princeby Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Host: Beth Macy

Thursday, November 21, 20249:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

An informal monthly get-together to discuss books of significance for the Pari Center community.

After the Bible and then the Kuran, de Saint-Exupéry’s Le Petit Prince ranks as the third most read book in the whole world! What has made this short little children’s book have such popularity with both children and adults even eighty years after publication? Join Beth Macy to refresh the story of The Little Prince, to view some of de Saint-Exupéry’s original artwork that graces the book’s pages, to hear stories about Saint-Exupery’s own life, and to delve into that question of what has been the underlying essence of this story that has kept it vibrant for generations of readers and likely for you as well.

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 manufacturing, local to global. David Bohm’s dialogue and Carl Jung’s psychology been core to her research, writing and 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 process of dialogue. And beyond that, Beth is a big fan of de Saint-Exupéry’s writing, especially Le Petit Prince.

Pictures are taken from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Translated from the French by Richard Howard, published by A Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc. 2000.

Beyond Jung 2024: Living Synchronicity
2024-11-30 17:59 - 2024-12-15 19:30
with Richard Berengarten, Jean Bolen, Joe Cambray, Suzanne Gieser, Roderick Main, Rick Tarnas.Curated and Chaired by Roderick Main.

November 30 – December 15, 20249am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

6 two-hour sessions every Saturday and Sunday

All sessions are LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

Six seasoned explorers of synchronicity share their insight into the topic, including how synchronicity, as an experience or as a principle, plays a vital part in their professional work.

This is the inaugural set of talks in a new ‘Beyond Jung’ series hosted by the Pari Center, honouring the seminal work and inspiration of the Swiss psychiatrist C. G. Jung. Our title, ‘Living Synchronicity’, refers to both the vital contemporary importance of synchronicity and the possibility of our living more synchronistically. Beginning with this topic seems especially apt in view of the seminal contribution to the study of synchronicity by the founder of the Pari Center, the late David Peat.

Synchronistic experiences—meaningful coincidences—are often described as profoundly significant both personally and sometimes also at a more than personal level. Meanwhile, synchronicity as a principle—acausal connection through meaning—is often claimed to have radical implications for how we understand reality. Jung himself associated synchronicity with a unitary worldview, and he developed the concept as a form of holistic epistemology to address what he saw as the perilous one-sidedness of modern experimental science when decoupled from the realms of meaning and value.

In this series of talks, six seasoned explorers of the topic—from scientific, scholarly, psychotherapeutic, divinatory, and creative backgrounds—share some of their insights into the nature and importance of synchronicity and how it has played into their lives and professional work.

Sessions

‘Everything Breathes Together’: Synchronicity and Its Implications, Cosmological, Psychological, SpiritualWith Professor Rick TarnasSaturday 30 November

Splitting the Mirror: A Shard of Synchronicity from a Historical and Personal PerspectiveWith Dr Suzanne GieserSunday 1 December

The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the SelfWith Dr Jean Shinoda BolenSaturday December 7

Synchronicity and Jung’s Holistic EpistemologyWith Professor Roderick MainSunday December 8

An Arc of SynchronicitiesWith Dr Joe CambraySaturday December 14

Four Shillings and Sixpence: Synchronicity and Poetry With Richard BerengartenSunday December 15

Beyond Jung 2024 - ‘Everything Breathes Together’: Synchronicity and Its Implications, Cosmological, Psychological, Spiritual
2024-11-30 18:00 - 19:30
‘Everything Breathes Together’: Synchronicity and Its Implications, Cosmological, Psychological, Spiritual

with Professor Rick Tarnas

Saturday, November 30, 20249am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond Jung 2024, Session 1 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

The phenomenon of synchronicity represents a distinctive challenge to the dominant scientific world picture of our time: If synchronicity is real, the universe must be very different indeed from what is assumed by the mainstream modern scientific understanding with its fundamental conviction that the cosmos is a randomly evolving mechanistic phenomenon blindly indifferent to human concerns, with no intrinsic meaning or purpose outside of human subjectivity. Yet this paradigm conflict is not merely of possible theoretical interest to a few open-minded scientists and philosophers. The profound shift of horizon entailed by the ongoing fact of synchronicities occurring in countless individual lives carries existential implications at the most intimate as well as most cosmic levels of human concern. In today’s lecture, I hope to address some of these more practical implications as well as those that touch on the great metaphysical and epistemological issues at play.

Richard Tarnas, PhD, is Professor Emeritus at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he founded the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness. He has taught courses in the history of ideas, depth psychology, archetypal cosmology, cultural history, and the evolution of consciousness. He has also frequently lectured on archetypal studies and depth psychology at Pacifica Graduate Institute, and was formerly the director of programs and education at Esalen Institute. He is the author of The Passion of the Western Mind, a narrative history of the Western world view from the ancient Greek to the postmodern that is widely used in universities. His second book, Cosmos and Psyche, received the Book of the Year Prize from the Scientific and Medical Network. He is also the co-editor of Psyche Unbound: Essays in Honor of Stanislav Grof. Richard Tarnas is a past president of the International Transpersonal Association and was a long-time member of the Board of Governors for the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco.

Beyond Jung 2024 - Splitting the Mirror: A Shard of Synchronicity from a Historical and Personal Perspective
2024-12-01 18:00 - 19:30
Splitting the Mirror: A Shard of Synchronicity from a Historical and Personal Perspective

with Dr Suzanne Gieser

Sunday, December 1, 20249am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond Jung 2024, Session 2 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

The concept of synchronicity was developed by C. G. Jung and the physicist Wolfgang Pauli during the period 1946-1952 and finally published in the book The interpretation of Nature and Psyche, containing Jung’s essay on synchronicity and Pauli’s essay on the influence of archetypal ideas on the scientific theories of Kepler. For Pauli the book was in itself a synchronicity, a spiritual testament, almost like a holy book, whose content should never be ‘split’. Pauli’s personal experience of synchronicity was linked to the theme of accidents and the breaking of objects, the so called ‘Pauli-effect’, well known amongst his colleagues. With time it came to be more about the theme of mirroring, which also became important in the scientific field that he was working in. In my personal journey of 37 years of working with Pauli’s correspondence, there has been a peculiar parallel process of synchronicities also mainly expressing itself in objects splitting and systems breaking, as well as an emergence of a ‘mirroring’ theme. In my case the theme of splitting showed itself in a very numinous dream in 1982, long before I encountered the Pauli material. This lecture will probe into synchronicity from these angles.

Suzanne Gieser has a PhD in the History of Sciences (specialty history of psychiatry and psychotherapy) and is also a licensed psychotherapist and supervisor. She works both with a private practice and as employed at a specialist clinic for the sexually traumatized in Stockholm, Sweden. She has studied the psychology of C. G. Jung since 1981, especially the relationship between Jung and the physicist Wolfgang Pauli. Her book, The Innermost Kernel: Depth Psychology and Quantum Physics. Wolfgang Pauli’s Dialogue with C. G. Jung was published in English in 2005. She was a senior lecturer and associate professor for ten years at The Institute of Analytical Psychology (IAP), a private institute of Jungian scholarly studies in Stockholm, and has authored several articles and prefaces related to C. G. Jung and Wolfgang Pauli in Swedish and English, including the article on Jung in the Swedish National Encyclopedia. She is a member of the board at the Swedish C. G. Jung Foundation and is co-founder of the Swedish Association of Imago Therapy. She is the editor of Jung’s 1937 and 1938 seminars in Bailey Island and New York, published in 2019.

Beyond Jung 2024 - The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self
2024-12-07 18:00 - 19:30
The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self

with Dr Jean Shinoda Bolen

Saturday, December 7, 20249am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond Jung 2024, Session 3 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, MD, is the author of the seminal book, The Tao of Psychology: Synchronicity and the Self, now published internationally in eleven languages. The Tao of Psychology provides the key for each individual to interpret the synchronistic events in his or her life and gives fresh insight into the relationships, dreams, and flashes of perception that transform our existence. In this session, Dr Bolen will share her personal inspiration, insights, and experiences of synchronicity throughout her life as an international author, activist, psychiatrist, and Jungian analyst.

Jean Shinoda Bolen, M.D. is a psychiatrist, Jungian analyst, internationally known speaker, and author of thirteen influential books in over one hundred foreign editions: The Tao of Psychology, Goddesses in Everywoman, Gods in Everyman, Ring of Power, Crossing to Avalon, Close to the Bone, Goddesses in Older Women, Crones Don’t Whine, The Millionth Circle, Like A Tree, Urgent Message From Mother, Moving Toward the Millionth Circle, and Artemis: The Indomitable Spirit in Everywoman. She is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, a past Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California San Francisco, and a former board member of the Ms. Foundation for Women, the Association for Transpersonal Psychology, and the C. G. Jung Institute of San Francisco. She is a 2020-21 Lifetime Achievement Award honoree from Marquis Who’s Who. Look for the Spring 2025 release of her autobiography, Ever Widening Circles and Mystical Moments. Website: Jeanbolen.com

Beyond Jung 2024 - Synchronicity and Jung’s Holistic Epistemology
2024-12-08 18:00 - 19:30
Synchronicity and Jung’s Holistic Epistemology

with Professor Roderick Main

Sunday, December 8, 20249am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond Jung 2024, Session 4 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

Jung developed his concept of synchronicity to address the scientific, spiritual, and social crises he saw as stemming from the one-sided rationalism of modern Western culture and its concomitant ‘disenchantment’. With his concept of synchronicity, Jung provided a holistic approach to knowledge that aimed to undo disenchantment by reinstating mystery, meaning, and connection to the sacred at the heart of our scientific and scholarly as well as therapeutic and creative practices. In this presentation, I shall first clarify the holistic character of Jung’s proposed epistemological contribution with his concept of synchronicity. I shall then illustrate how this holistic approach to knowledge informed Jung’s scientific and scholarly work, including on synchronicity itself. Finally, I shall indicate some of the ways in which my own work as a researcher and educator has been influenced by holistic epistemological principles based on the concept of synchronicity.

Roderick Main holds a BA and MA in Classics from the University of Oxford and a PhD in Religious Studies from Lancaster University. He now works at the University of Essex, where he is Professor in the Department of Psychosocial and Psychoanalytic Studies and Director of the Centre for Myth Studies. His books include Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal (1997; edited); The Rupture of Time: Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture (2004); Revelations of Chance: Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience (2007); Myth, Literature, and the Unconscious (2013; co-edited); Holism: Possibilities and Problems (2020; co-edited); Jung, Deleuze, and the Problematic Whole (2021; co-edited); and most recently, Breaking the Spell of Disenchantment: Mystery, Meaning, and Metaphysics in the Work of C. G. Jung (2022).

Remembering Jacobo Grinberg at 30
2024-12-08 20:30 - 23:30
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHzede1Ho5M

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

Remembering Jacobo Grinberg at 30Back to the Future of a Science of the Sacred

Sunday December 8, 2024

Starting at 11:30am PST / 2:30pm EST / 7:30pm GMT / 8:30pm CET

Curated and Chaired by Àlex Gómez-Marín

The Mexican neurophysiologist and psychologist Jacobo Grinberg-Zylberbaum disappeared in strange circumstances exactly thirty years ago. His theoretical, empirical, and experiential work on space, the brain, and consciousness would still be considered beyond cutting-edge today. In this free online event, we will commemorate his legacy with a selected group of family, friends, and colleagues. Were Jacobo with us today, he would certainly enjoy such company of top scientists, creative artists, deep mystics, and original media curators.

Featuring:

Amit Goswami (head of Center for Quantum Activism) on communication without signaling

Estusha Grinberg (Jacobo’s daughter) on music and Jacobo’s theory

Iain McGilchrist (author of The Matter with Things) on brain hemispheres and coherence

Ida Cuéllar (director of The Secret of Dr. Grinberg) on film, science, and science fiction

Inés Urdaneta (researcher at the International Space Federation) on post-modern physics

Javier F. Alvarez-Leefmans (professor of neuropharmacology at Wright State University) on the beginnings of Jacobo’s career

Janine Rodiles (PhD in cognitive Sciences, clinical psychologist, writer, and Sufi whirling dervish) on wholeness and mysticism

Jeffrey Mishlove (creator and host of New Thinking Allowed) on healing and sensitive children

Jordi Imbert (head of Intuitu) on extra-ocular and intuitive vision

Lizette Arditti (Jacobo’s first wife) on painting and Jacobo’s life

Kehlan Morgan (creator and host at Formscapes) on phenomenology of space and perception

Manuel Delaflor (Jacobo’s former student and head of Metacognition Institute) on model dependent ontology

Marina Weiler (neuroscientist at the Division of Perceptual Studies of the University of Virginia School of Medicine) on anomalous teleportation and materialization

Natalia Rodríguez (editor at Penguin Random House) on books, science, and culture

Pavel Ibarra (host of Psicoativo Podcast) on media, science, and anomalous phenomena

Richard Silberstein (professor of neuroscience at the Brain Sciences Institute of Swinburne University) on brain-to-brain communication between twins

Robert Lawrence Kuhn (creator and host of Closer to Truth) on theories of consciousness

and more..!

Some related links:

The Brain and the Universe: The Jacobo Grinberg Story, with Alex Gomez-Marin & Jeffrey Mishlove

A Landscape of Consciousness (see 17.10), research article by Robert Lawrence Kuhnhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0079610723001128

The Secret of Doctor Grinberg, documentary by Ida Cuéllarhttps://www.imdb.com/title/tt11898888

Ciencia de la conciencia: un regreso al futuro, artículo de Alex Gómez-Marínhttps://www.razon.com.mx/el-cultural/2022/10/28/ciencia-de-la-conciencia-un-regreso-al-futuro

Leyendo a Jacobo Grinberg (introducción), con Alex Gómez-Marín

Beyond Jung 2024 - An Arc of Synchronicities
2024-12-14 18:00 - 19:30
An Arc of Synchronicities

with Dr Joe Cambray

Saturday, December 14, 20249am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond Jung 2024, Session 5 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

Across the span of my career as an analyst and academic, experiences with synchronistic qualities have challenged the world view of my first, scientific education. In this lecture I will detail a series of events, personal and professional, spanning my career that have led me to critically explore Jung’s synchronicity hypothesis on an on-going basis. Consequently, I have found it useful to reformulate the concept in terms of complexity theory with a focus on complex adaptive systems, which can spontaneously reorganize, exhibiting emergent properties. The reframing of several categories of synchronicities in this manner has facilitated examination of the implicit interconnectedness underlying these phenomena. As a result, a variety of cultural, historical, and environmental processes have been identified as having meaningful coincidence at multiple levels, including individual, collective and global dimensions, often overlapping. Numerous examples will be offered to ground theory in observation.

Joe Cambray, PhD, is Past-President-CEO of Pacifica Graduate Institute; he is also Past-President of the International Association of Analytical Psychology (IAAP) and has served as the U.S. Editor for The Journal of Analytical Psychology as well as being on various editorial boards. He was a faculty member at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital, Center for Psychoanalytic Studies, and former President of the C. G. Jung Institute of Boston. Dr. Cambray is a Jungian analyst currently living in the Santa Barbara area of California. His numerous publications include the book based on his Fay Lectures: Synchronicity: Nature and Psyche in an Interconnected Universe, several edited volumes: one with Leslie Sawin, Research in Analytical Psychology: Applications from Scientific, Historical, and (Cross)-Cultural Research,and another with Linda Carter, Analytical Psychology: Contemporary Perspectives in Jungian Psychology. He has published numerous papers in a range of international journals and books; he regularly teaches internationally.

Beyond Jung 2024 - Four Shillings and Sixpence: Synchronicity and Poetry
2024-12-15 18:00 - 19:30
Four Shillings and Sixpence: Synchronicity and Poetry

with Richard Berengarten

Sunday, December 15, 20249am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond Jung 2024, Session 6 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

As a working poet, Richard Berengarten is interested, both theoretically and practically, in how Jung’s theory of synchronicity—with all its connections of specificity in time and place—is entangled in our ideas and experiences of inspiration, imagination, discovery and creativity. This means that he’s interested in how Jung’s theory is intervolved in both the sciences and the arts, and as much in our day-to-day experiences and dream-life as in, say, religious and visionary experience. To explore his themes and ideas, and to broach some questions arising from them, he’ll read a small selection of his own poems connected with synchronicity, which he’ll open for discussion. He aims, too, to broach some conjectures about the fractal geometries and symbolic configurations of both four (as in the Christian cross and the quaternity favoured by Jung) and six (as in the hexagonal forms that often occur in nature, in the hexagrams of the I Ching, and in the Star of Solomon), and the ways in which configurations such as these connect with synchronistic experience.

Richard Berengarten (b. London, 1943) is a poet who lives in Cambridge UK. He has also lived in Italy, Greece, the USA, and former Yugoslavia. His poetry and poetics have been influenced by Jung for sixty years, especially vis-à-vis synchronicity and the imagination. His long poem, Changing (2016) is based on the I Ching and is a homage to this ancient classic. His ongoing series of chapbooks, Imagems (2013, 2019, 2025), presents succinct 12-point statements on poetics, and his monograph Keys to Transformation: Ceri Richards and Dylan Thomas (1980) engages with poetry and visual art in Jungian terms. He has published over 30 books and received many poetry awards, and his work has been translated into more than 100 languages. He is a Bye-Fellow at Downing College, Cambridge, Academic Associate of Pembroke College, Cambridge, and Fellow of the English Association.

The Future Mind - A conversation with Jonathan Rowson
2024-12-19 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfSBWupp2wg

A Conversation between Jonathan Rowson and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Thursday, December 199:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Jonathan is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Perspectiva, a publishing house and praxis collective based primarily in London. Perspectiva describes itself as an urgent one-hundred-year project to improve the relationship between systems, souls, and society in theory and practice. Jonathan is a philosopher and social scientist by academic training and has degrees from Oxford, Harvard and Bristol Universities. He has written extensively on the idea of metacrisis as our multi-faceted delusion, and he is increasingly focused on experiments in community and spiritual praxis to help shift socio-economic immunity to change. He is an Open Society Fellow and a Fellow at The Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity at the University of Surrey. In his prior role as Director of the Social Brain Centre at the Royal Society of Arts he authored influential research reports including A New Agenda on Climate Change, Money Talks, and Spiritualise, and curated and chaired related events. He is also a Chess Grandmaster and three-time British Champion (2004–6) and views the game as a continuing source of insight and inspiration. His book, The Moves that Matter – A Grandmaster on the Game of Life was published by Bloomsbury in 2019. He hails from Aberdeen in Scotland, and now lives in Putney, London, with his wife Siva, and their two sons, Kailash and Vishnu. You can find Jonathan on his substack, The Joyous Struggle.

Book-a-Month Club - Verifying Spiritual Reality
2025-01-09 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PbvK4NYrsZ0

Verifying Spiritual Realityby Robert Traer

Host: Dr Jeffrey Dunne

Thursday, January 9, 20259:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

An informal monthly get-together to discuss books of significance for the Pari Center community.

The precepts of materialism—that we are fundamentally a clever arrangement of particles and that consciousness is an emergent self-delusion—is a comparatively modern hypothesis, and one that does not hold up well in the face of evidence, neither logical nor experiential. Robert Traer’s newly released book, Verifying Spiritual Reality, brings together a wealth of information that disproves that hypothesis of materialism, painting a much older, enduring perspective on the nature of humanity: that we are spiritual beings within a much deeper reality, one grounded in love and interconnectedness. There are, of course, numerous books that relate experiences supporting that conclusion, but if one seeks a single, comparatively short overview, Traer’s book, which provides an overview/survey of the evidence, provides enough specific information to convince any reader that our spiritual nature is undeniable.

Dr Jeffrey Dunne is President of the International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL, www.icrl.org), an organization dedicated to understanding the nature of consciousness for the betterment of humanity. Beyond his work with ICRL and several decades of research at the Johns Hopkins University in fields ranging from acoustics to data science and AI, Dr. Dunne is an award-winning playwright and author. His recently published novel, Nexus, weaves the concept of syntropy with the implications of the nature of consciousness into a story that speaks to the challenges humanity is facing, sharing a vision for finding a healthier, more balanced future.

The Future World - A Conversation with John Vervaeke
2025-01-15 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

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

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

A Conversation between John Vervaeke and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday, January 159:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Dr. John Vervaeke, an award-winning professor of psychology, cognitive science, and Buddhist psychology at the University of Toronto, brings a wealth of academic expertise to his courses. With a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Toronto, Dr. Vervaeke served as the former Director of Cognitive Science and holds the position of Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology. He has won and been nominated for several teaching awards and has published articles on relevance realization, general intelligence, mindfulness, flow, metaphor, and wisdom. With expertise in both Eastern and Western philosophy, Dr. Vervaeke guides learners through a transformative journey, integrating ancient wisdom with modern scientific insights. Dr. Vervaeke’s courses are a captivating blend of theoretical knowledge and practical wisdom, and his dynamic teaching style engages students in exploring the depths of the mind and its implications for personal growth and societal change, illuminating the path to a deeper understanding of oneself and the world.

Spaced Out - Part 1
2025-01-16 18:00 - 20:00
Spaced Out

A Two-Part Series on that Nature of Space, Higher Dimensions and the Multiverse

With Jonathan Allday and Bernard Carr

Thursday January 16 and 23, 2025

9:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

A two-session series – each session will last two hours.

All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Part 1

Thursday January 16, 2025

A Gentle Introduction to the Physics of Space with Jonathan Allday

This talk is intended to be a grounding in the physicists’ conception of space. It will discuss the relativity of space and time, how we distinguish between spatial and temporal dimensions, space-time, the curvature of space and what we mean by (various) forms of higher dimensions.

Part 2

Thursday January 23, 2025

Spaced Out: A Conversation Between Bernard Carr and Jonathan Allday

The conversation is designed to be a follow-up to their earlier discussion ‘It’s About Time.’ Themes will include space-time, the curvature of space around a black hole, higher dimensions in their various forms, and the multiverse. We will also touch upon the anthropic principle, cosmology and Bernard’s conception of higher dimensions and the mind.

Bernard Carr is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary University of London. His professional area of research is cosmology and astrophysics and includes such topics as the early universe, dark matter, black holes and the anthropic principle. For his PhD he studied the first second of the Universe, working under the supervision of Stephen Hawking at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology. He was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1975 and moved to Queen Mary College in 1985. He has also held Visiting Professorships at Kyoto University, Tokyo University, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. He is the author of nearly three hundred scientific papers and the books Universe or Multiverse? and Quantum Black Holes. Beyond his professional field, he is interested in the role of consciousness in physics and in an expanded paradigm which accommodates mind. He also has a long-standing interest in the relationship between science and religion. He was President of the Society for Psychical Research in 2000-2004 and is currently President of the Scientific and Medical Network.

Jonathan Allday was born in Liverpool in 1960. He did his first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge in 1982 and then returned to Liverpool to complete a PhD in elementary particle physics. As part of this, he was fortunate to spend some time working at the European particle physics centre, CERN, in Geneva.

Also, during that time he was co-opted onto a working party looking at the teaching of particle physics in schools and universities. The upshot was a new syllabus in particle physics and cosmology to be added to UK A-level (16-18) physics qualifications. The first questions were set in 1992.

On the back of the work on this syllabus, Jonathan wrote his first book Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang, which was published in 1998 and is about to enter its fourth edition. Jonathan has also collaborated on a couple of textbooks and written his own books on Quantum Theory, General Relativity and the Apollo moon missions.

Professionally, Jonathan worked as a physics teacher for 30 years in a variety of independent day and boarding schools in the UK. He was a head of physics, a head of science and latterly an academic deputy head. He retired in 2020 and now runs a consulting company providing training and educational advice for schools.

Jonathan is married to Carolyn, and they have three sons all of whom are far better at sport than he was. Carolyn was a GB swimmer, which explains how come the boys can do sport. Jonathan and Carolyn live in a hamlet not far from Worcester in the UK. When not writing or consulting, Jonathan enjoys watching cricket, James Bond movies and Formula 1 races.

Is Idealism Enough?
2025-01-21 18:00 - 20:00
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr93mW3QmWo

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

Is Idealism Enough?A dialogue between Bernardo Kastrup and Rupert Sheldrake

Tuesday, January 21, 20259:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Rupert Sheldrake recently made a series of criticisms of Bernardo Kastrup’s Analytic Idealism on Curt Jaimungal’s Theories of Everything channel. Kastrup soon responded to Rupert’s points and subsequently Rupert sent Kastrup a rejoinder. Here, in a spirit of true collegiality and intellectual pursuit, we will turn this clash into an opportunity to better understand each other’s position and inquire further into the nature of reality itself. The trialogue between Kastrup, Sheldrake, and Gomez-Marin will be followed by Q&A from the audience.

Links

1. Sheldrake’s criticisms

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM_SoCa7t-c

2. Kastrup’s responses

https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2024/11/response-to-rupert-sheldrakes.html

3. Sheldrake’s rejoinder

https://www.bernardokastrup.com/2024/12/rupert-sheldrakes-rejoinder.html

Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author of more than 100 technical papers and twelve books, including Science and Spiritual Practices. A former Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he studied natural sciences at Cambridge University, where he took a Ph.D. in biochemistry, and philosophy at Harvard University, where he was a Frank Knox Fellow. He was a fellow of Clare College, Cambridge, and director of studies in cell biology. From 2005-2010 he was director of the Perrott-Warrick Project, funded by Trinity College, Cambridge, for research on unexplained human and animal abilities. He is currently a fellow of the Institute of Noetic Sciences, near San Francisco, and also of Schumacher College, in Devon. For more information, please visit https://www.sheldrake.org/

Bernardo Kastrup is the executive director of Essentia Foundation. His work has set off the modern renaissance of metaphysical idealism, the notion that reality is essentially mental. He has a Ph.D. in philosophy (ontology, philosophy of mind) and another Ph.D. in computer engineering (reconfigurable computing, artificial intelligence). As a scientist, Bernardo has worked for the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) and the Philips Research Laboratories (where the ‘Casimir Effect‘ of Quantum Field Theory was discovered). He has also been creatively active in the high-tech industry for almost 30 years now, having co-founded parallel processor company Silicon Hive (acquired by Intel in 2011) and worked as a technology strategist for the geopolitically significant company ASML. Bernardo has most recently started AI hardware company Syncthetics B.V., currently in stealth mode. Formulated in detail in many academic papers and books, Bernardo’s ideas have been featured on Scientific American, the Institute of Art and Ideas, the Blog of the American Philosophical Association, and Big Think, among others. Bernardo’s 11th book, coming in 2024, is Analytic Idealism in a Nutshell: A straightforward summary of the 21st-century’s only plausible metaphysics. For more information, freely downloadable papers, videos, etc., please visit www.bernardokastrup.com.

Àlex Gómez-Marín (Barcelona, 1981) is a Spanish scientist, a theoretical physicist turned neuroscientist investigating human consciousness. He holds a bachelor’s degree in physics, a masters in biophysics, and a Ph.D. in theoretical physics from the University of Barcelona (cum laude by unanimity and Outstanding Doctoral Thesis Award in 2009). He was then a postdoctoral research fellow at the Systems Biology Unit of the EMBL-CRG Center for Genomic Regulation and at the Neuroscience Programme of the Champalimaud Center for the Unknown in Lisbon. Since 2016, he has been the director of the Organism Behavior Laboratory at the Institute of Neuroscience in Alicante, where he is currently an associate professor at the Spanish National Research Council (CSIC). Since 2022, Alex is also the director of the Pari Center in Tuscany, Italy. Amongst other duties, Alex is an associate editor of Organisms: Journal of Biological Sciences, a member of the history committee of the Spanish Society for Neuroscience, a member of the science advisory committee of the Cobb Institute, a member of the scientific advisory board of the Dutch Brain Interface Initiative, a member of the Global Consciousness Project 2.0 research team, a team member of the Terminal Lucidity Research Group, a faculty member at the Icloby International Consciousness Lobby Foundation, a member of the research committee of the Wake Up Institute, an external advisor of UAP Digital, and a member of the postmaterialist Open Sciences group. His research encompasses the origins of the arrow of time (inert matter), neuroethological principles of action and perception across species from flies and worms to mice and humans (living matter), and robotic and artificial intelligence applied to human stupidity (so-called artificial life & mind). Alex had a near-death experience in March of 2021. He then decided to devote his research efforts to the scientific study of human minds in the real world, concentrating on what he calls “the edges” of consciousness – a wild, weird, wonderful field where great enigma meets gross stigma. In 2023 he was awarded the first Linda G O’Bryant Noetic Sciences Research Prize. In 2024 Alex was selected as one of the world’s most inspiring people by OOOM 100. He has recently been nominated as one of ten revolutionary scientists by Feed Your Head. Since 2005, Alex has published about one hundred research articles which have been cited over four thousand times in total. Alex has given countless talks and interviews too. You can find most of his material here: https://behavior-of-organisms.org/ Alex lives in sunny Alicante, Spain, with his wife, two daughters, and a cat.

Spaced Out - Part 2
2025-01-23 18:00 - 20:00
Spaced Out

A Two-Part Series on that Nature of Space, Higher Dimensions and the Multiverse

With Jonathan Allday and Bernard Carr

Thursday January 16 and 23, 2025

A two-session series – each session will last two hours.

All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Part 1

Thursday January 16, 2025

A Gentle Introduction to the Physics of Space with Jonathan Allday

This talk is intended to be a grounding in the physicists’ conception of space. It will discuss the relativity of space and time, how we distinguish between spatial and temporal dimensions, space-time, the curvature of space and what we mean by (various) forms of higher dimensions.

Part 2

Thursday January 23, 2025

Spaced Out: A Conversation Between Bernard Carr and Jonathan Allday

The conversation is designed to be a follow-up to their earlier discussion ‘It’s About Time.’ Themes will include space-time, the curvature of space around a black hole, higher dimensions in their various forms, and the multiverse. We will also touch upon the anthropic principle, cosmology and Bernard’s conception of higher dimensions and the mind.

Bernard Carr is Emeritus Professor of Mathematics and Astronomy at Queen Mary University of London. His professional area of research is cosmology and astrophysics and includes such topics as the early universe, dark matter, black holes and the anthropic principle. For his PhD he studied the first second of the Universe, working under the supervision of Stephen Hawking at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge and the California Institute of Technology. He was elected to a Fellowship at Trinity College, Cambridge, in 1975 and moved to Queen Mary College in 1985. He has also held Visiting Professorships at Kyoto University, Tokyo University, the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory and the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. He is the author of nearly three hundred scientific papers and the books Universe or Multiverse? and Quantum Black Holes. Beyond his professional field, he is interested in the role of consciousness in physics and in an expanded paradigm which accommodates mind. He also has a long-standing interest in the relationship between science and religion. He was President of the Society for Psychical Research in 2000-2004 and is currently President of the Scientific and Medical Network.

Jonathan Allday was born in Liverpool in 1960. He did his first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge in 1982 and then returned to Liverpool to complete a PhD in elementary particle physics. As part of this, he was fortunate to spend some time working at the European particle physics centre, CERN, in Geneva.

Also, during that time he was co-opted onto a working party looking at the teaching of particle physics in schools and universities. The upshot was a new syllabus in particle physics and cosmology to be added to UK A-level (16-18) physics qualifications. The first questions were set in 1992.

On the back of the work on this syllabus, Jonathan wrote his first book Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang, which was published in 1998 and is about to enter its fourth edition. Jonathan has also collaborated on a couple of textbooks and written his own books on Quantum Theory, General Relativity and the Apollo moon missions.

Professionally, Jonathan worked as a physics teacher for 30 years in a variety of independent day and boarding schools in the UK. He was a head of physics, a head of science and latterly an academic deputy head. He retired in 2020 and now runs a consulting company providing training and educational advice for schools.

Jonathan is married to Carolyn, and they have three sons all of whom are far better at sport than he was. Carolyn was a GB swimmer, which explains how come the boys can do sport. Jonathan and Carolyn live in a hamlet not far from Worcester in the UK. When not writing or consulting, Jonathan enjoys watching cricket, James Bond movies and Formula 1 races.

PSI: Back to the Future
2025-02-09 20:30 - 23:30
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ktRJ7PKF9ws&t=371s

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

PSI: Back to the Future

Sunday February 9, 202511:30am PST | 2:30pm EST | 7:30pm GMT | 8:30pm CET (and ending about four hours later)

Curated and chaired by: Alex Gomez-Marin

With: Damon Abraham, David Acunzo, Cedric Cannard, Dani Caputi, Adam Curry, Maaneli Derakhshani, Ed Kelly, David Luke, Jeffrey Mishlove, Julia Mossbridge, Roger Nelson, Dean Radin, Stephen Schwartz, James Spottiswoode, Mario Varvoglis, Marina Weiler, George Williams

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the recording.

The scientific study of psychic (or PSI) phenomena –which includes extrasensory perception, precognition, synchronicity, direct mind-to-mind communication, or mind-matter interactions– has been going on for more than a century now. Its results are fascinating, puzzling, and often controversial. In this event some of the greatest active researchers in the field will present their own work while reflecting on where PSI has been, where we think it is now, and where we wish it to go. We hope to create an unprecedented audiovisual gathering for current and future generations to get perspective, clarity, and inspiration.

The Future World - A Conversation with Michael Levin
2025-02-21 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWT3dMZrqw0

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

A Conversation between Michael Levin and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Friday, February 219:00am PST | 12:00pm EST | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Michael Levin is the Vannevar Bush Distinguished Professor of Biology at Tufts University, and associate faculty at Harvard’s Wyss Institute. He serves as the director of the Allen Discovery Center at Tufts (https://allencenter.ufts.edu/) and the co-director of the Institute for Computationally Designed Organisms at Tufts/UVM (https://icdorgs.org). He received dual B.S. degrees in computer science and biology, followed by a Ph.D. from Harvard with Clifford Tabin. He did post-doctoral training at Harvard School of Medicine in cell biology, and started his independent lab in 2000, developing the first molecular tools to read and write bioelectric prepatterns in non-neural tissue. The Levin lab studies the natural bioelectric gradients in tissue as the cognitive glue that holds together not only the neural Self but the somatic mind of the body.

His group at Tufts (https://drmichaellevin.org/) works to understand information processing and problem-solving across scales, in a range of naturally evolved, synthetically engineered, and hybrid living systems. They are interested in understanding how highly diverse minds are embodied in the physical world, and how cognition and intelligence scales and projects into new problems spaces. One of the model systems they use is morphogenesis during embryonic development and regeneration; by modeling this navigation of anatomical space as the behavior of a collective intelligence, they have developed novel applications in organ regeneration, birth defects repair, cancer reprogramming, and the engineering of novel living proto-organisms. Using tools from behavioral, life, and computer sciences, Dr. Levin seeks to develop an empirically useful conceptual framework for identifying and ethically relating to a very wide range of possible minds. This work impacts regenerative medicine, AI, and bioengineering, as well as deep questions about the origin and future of natural and artificial intelligence. Dr. Levin’s science outreach is at https://www.youtube.com/@drmichaellevin/videos, and his personal thoughts on these questions are at https://thoughtforms.life/.

Beyond the Looking-Glass
2025-03-01 17:59 - 2025-03-16 20:00
Beyond the Looking-Glass: Wholeness in Modern Science

With Jonathan Allday, Vasileios Basios, John Briggs, Jeff Dunne, Stuart Kauffman, Katherine Peil Kauffman, Paavo Pylkkänen.

March 1 – 16, 20259am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

6 two-hour sessions every Saturday and Sunday

An exploration of themes from the book Looking-Glass Universe by F. David Peat and John Briggs.

Looking-Glass Universe takes a fascinating look at the wholeness revolution in physics, mathematics, chemistry, biology and neurophysiology, and the scientists whose converging theories are changing our understanding of how the universe works. The series will explore how far the themes of the book Looking-Glass Universe have developed since it was first published.

The ‘looking-glass’ theories propose that we are at this very moment living in an Alice-in-Wonderland universe where each part is in fact the whole, where scientists conducting an experiment are themselves the experiment, and even inanimate objects contain consciousness. These theories give scientific meaning to the ancient mystical idea that the universe is One.

Looking-Glass Universe by John Briggs and F. David Peat will be released in a new edition this year with physicist Jonathan Allday filling in readers on how science has evolved in the 40 years since the book first appeared. He reviews the progress towards a looking-glass view of the universe and updating aspects of the text in line with current scientific thinking.

We are pleased to announce that two of the authors, John Briggs and Jonathan Allday, will be presenting during this series.

Sessions

Looking Glass UniverseWith Jonathan Allday and John BriggsSaturday March 1

David BohmWith Jonathan Allday and Paavo PylkkänenSunday March 2

Objectivity: The Mythical Border Between Science and ScientistsWith Jeff DunneSaturday March 8

Eppur Si Muove! The Sudden–and persistent–Vortex of Ilya Prigogine and their descendantsWith Vasileios BasiosSunday March 9

Heisenberg’s Potentia: Toward a Theory of ConsciousnessWith Stuart KauffmanSaturday March 15

The Tao of Emotional Sentience With Katherine Peil KauffmanSunday December 16

Beyond the Looking-Glass - Looking-Glass Universe
2025-03-01 18:00 - 20:00
Looking Glass Universe

with Jonathan Allday and John Briggs

Saturday, March 1, 20259am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond the Looking-Glass, Session 1 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

John Briggs and David Peat wrote Looking Glass Universe in the wake of publishing events such as The Tao of Physics. At the time, physics was cool and popular, especially among New Age adherents looking to science to provide a context for their beliefs. The authors wanted to take different approach—to show how a range of sciences, not just physics, were converging on a new way of viewing the world: as a whole. In this context, they wanted to pose and answer the question: is a science of wholeness possible?

Now that the book is about to be re-released, it is interesting to review how things stood at the time, with one of the original authors, so that progress, or lack of, since then can but seen in context.

This will act as an introduction to the whole series.

John Briggs, PhD, taught for 25 years at Western Connecticut State University. He has taught aesthetics, journalism, and creative writing and served as co-chair of the English Department; he was one of the founders of the Department of Writing, Linguistics and Creative Process and one of the principal developers of the MFA in Professional and Creative Writing. He is now Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Writing and Aesthetics at WCSU. Among his many publications are three books he co-authored with David Peat, Looking Glass Universe(1984), Turbulent Mirror: An Illustrated Guide to Chaos Theory and the Science of Wholeness (1989), and Seven Life Lessons of Chaos (1999). He lives in the New England town of Granville, Massachusetts.

Jonathan Allday was born in Liverpool in 1960. He did his first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge in 1982 and then returned to Liverpool to complete a PhD in elementary particle physics. As part of this, he was fortunate to spend some time working at the European particle physics centre, CERN, in Geneva.

Also, during that time he was co-opted onto a working party looking at the teaching of particle physics in schools and universities. The upshot was a new syllabus in particle physics and cosmology to be added to UK A-level (16-18) physics qualifications. The first questions were set in 1992.

On the back of the work on this syllabus, Jonathan wrote his first book Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang, which was published in 1998 and is about to enter its fourth edition. Jonathan has also collaborated on a couple of textbooks and written his own books on Quantum Theory, General Relativity and the Apollo moon missions.

Professionally, Jonathan worked as a physics teacher for 30 years in a variety of independent day and boarding schools in the UK. He was a head of physics, a head of science and latterly an academic deputy head. He retired in 2020 and now runs a consulting company providing training and educational advice for schools.

Jonathan is married to Carolyn, and they have three sons all of whom are far better at sport than he was. Carolyn was a GB swimmer, which explains how come the boys can do sport. Jonathan and Carolyn live in a hamlet not far from Worcester in the UK. When not writing or consulting, Jonathan enjoys watching cricket, James Bond movies and Formula 1 races.

Beyond the Looking-Glass - David Bohm
2025-03-02 18:00 - 20:00
David Bohm

with Jonathan Allday and Paavo Pylkkänen

Sunday, March 2, 20259am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond the Looking-Glass, Session 2 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

One of the key scientists featured in the book Looking Glass Universe was David Bohm. One of the original authors, David Peat, was a friend and collaborator of Bohm. The philosopher, Paavo Pylkkänen, also knew Bohm and has worked on developments of his ideas.

In this conversation, we will discuss Bohm’s life, his personality, important aspects of his work and view of wholeness and how the work continues to be developed. Inevitably, we will also talk about our mutual friend and Bohm collaborator, Basil Hiley, who died recently.

Jonathan Allday was born in Liverpool in 1960. He did his first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge in 1982 and then returned to Liverpool to complete a PhD in elementary particle physics. As part of this, he was fortunate to spend some time working at the European particle physics centre, CERN, in Geneva.

Also, during that time he was co-opted onto a working party looking at the teaching of particle physics in schools and universities. The upshot was a new syllabus in particle physics and cosmology to be added to UK A-level (16-18) physics qualifications. The first questions were set in 1992.

On the back of the work on this syllabus, Jonathan wrote his first book Quarks, Leptons and the Big Bang, which was published in 1998 and is about to enter its fourth edition. Jonathan has also collaborated on a couple of textbooks and written his own books on Quantum Theory, General Relativity and the Apollo moon missions.

Professionally, Jonathan worked as a physics teacher for 30 years in a variety of independent day and boarding schools in the UK. He was a head of physics, a head of science and latterly an academic deputy head. He retired in 2020 and now runs a consulting company providing training and educational advice for schools.

Jonathan is married to Carolyn, and they have three sons all of whom are far better at sport than he was. Carolyn was a GB swimmer, which explains how come the boys can do sport. Jonathan and Carolyn live in a hamlet not far from Worcester in the UK. When not writing or consulting, Jonathan enjoys watching cricket, James Bond movies and Formula 1 races.

Paavo Pylkkänen, PhD, is Senior Lecturer in Theoretical Philosophy and Director of the Bachelor’s Program in Philosophy at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He is also Associate Professor of Theoretical Philosophy (currently on leave) at the Department of Cognitive Neuroscience and Philosophy, University of Skövde, Sweden, where he initiated a Consciousness Studies Programme. His main research areas are philosophy of mind, philosophy of physics and their intersection. In his book Mind, Matter and the Implicate Order (Springer) he proposed that new notions emerging from quantum physics (especially Bohm and Hiley’s interpretation) provide new ways of approaching key problems in philosophy of mind, such as mental causation and time consciousness. In 2018-2020 working as the Vice Dean of Research at the Faculty of Arts he had the main responsibility for developing the new profiling area Mind and Matter for the University of Helsinki https://www2.helsinki.fi/en/mind-and-matter.

Paavo Pylkkänen has been a visiting researcher in Stanford University, Oxford University, London University, Charles University Prague and Gothenburg University and was a member of the Academy of Finland Center of Excellence in the Philosophy of Social Sciences (TINT).

Beyond the Looking-Glass - Objectivity: The Mythical Border Between Science and Scientists
2025-03-08 18:00 - 20:00
Objectivity: The Mythical Border Between Science and Scientists

with Jeffrey Dunne

Saturday, March 8, 20259am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond the Looking-Glass, Session 3 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

The premise of modern science is that it focuses on studying objective aspects of reality. It is on this basis that the scientific community claims that science is a sieve for fundamental ‘truth,’ i.e. establishing fact and weeding out subjective opinion. What has been forgotten along the way over the past few centuries is that the concept of the ‘objective’ is itself subjective. To wit, the measure of objectivity is consensus, i.e. things upon which the majority of people agree are considered ‘objectively true,’ with the remaining perspectives treated as ‘subjective,’ or even ‘subjectively biased.’ As a consequence, the defining of ‘objective truth’ and ‘objective reality’ is actually a process of sharpening the delineation between what is considered acceptable observations and experiences versus those which are rare and consequently shunned, even to the point of calling them false and claiming the people who have them must be either lying or insane. Yet uncommon experiences, whether one calls them anomalous or denies them entirely, continue to occur, and the body of documented evidence of their legitimacy is now overwhelming. If we are to move science forward—in fact, if we are to recover from the growing disfunction of a global society being told that people are nothing more than biological computers—we must open the aperture of what phenomena are deemed worthy of scientific study and recognize that the distinction between the objective and the subjective is nothing more than an arbitrary line in the sands of statistics.

Dr. Jeffrey Dunne is President of the International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL, www.icrl.org), an organization dedicated to understanding the nature of consciousness for the betterment of humanity. Beyond his work with ICRL and several decades of research at the Johns Hopkins University in fields ranging from acoustics to data science and AI, Dr. Dunne is an award-winning playwright and author. His recently published novel, Nexus, weaves the concept of syntropy with the implications of the nature of consciousness into a story that speaks to the challenges humanity is facing, sharing a vision for finding a healthier, more balanced future.

Beyond the Looking-Glass - Eppur Si Muove! The Sudden -and persistent- Vortex of Ilya Prigogine and their descendants
2025-03-09 18:00 - 20:00
Eppur Si Muove! The Sudden–and persistent–Vortex of Ilya Prigogine and their descendants

with Vasileios Basios

Sunday, March 9, 20259am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond the Looking-Glass, Session 4 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

Since Ilya Prigogine’s ‘sudden Vortex’ was reflected in the ‘Looking Glass Universe,’ complexity theory has advanced by leaps and bounds. From a marginal theory in the corners of physics, it has become the cornerstone of many advanced new sciences.

From physics, physical chemistry, biological systems and ecology to social networks and leadership in organisations, the very ideas he developed and put into practice—emergence, entropy, self-organisation, spontaneous symmetry breaking, bifurcations and chaos—are today’s bread and butter and central. The focus has shifted towards understanding how order and chaos lead to new structures and behaviours at higher levels of complexity, adaptivity and extended domains. We now know that Life is unpredictable, but not an accident. It cannot emerge from total randomness, nor can intelligence and consciousness.

We need to establish a new discipline: self-reflexive interdisciplinary studies of consciousness. Such studies will empower science by extending it beyond naive reductionism and to become more useful in exploring reality, both within and without. It will also empower society to shed more light on the root causes of some of its major problems, including suggestions on how best to deal with them.

Dr Vasileios Basios is a senior researcher in the Physics of Complex Systems at the University of Brussels, with over 25 years of experience in research and coaching. His interdisciplinary work focuses on self-organisation, emergence in complex matter, complementarity and the foundations of complex systems.

Mentored by Nobel laureates Ilya Prigogine and Grégoire Nicolis, Dr Basios received his Ph.D. from the University of Brussels after studying cybernetics with John S. Nicolis. His research interests include foundations of complexity science, emergence in complex matter, nonlinear dynamics and chaos in biological information processing, computability and the logic of extended Bayesian inference. Dr Basios has participated in several research initiatives, including the European Space Agency’s Complex Matter programme and EU projects such as Pythagoras I&II and Thales I&II.

He is deeply interested in the history of scientific ideas and their role in transforming science beyond the mechanistic worldview. His work aims to bring insights from complex systems science to consciousness studies, working towards an inclusive and self-reflexive interdisciplinary science of consciousness. In 2023, his research team received the inaugural Linda G. O’Bryant Noetic Sciences Research Prize for their study on detecting deviations from random activity as indicators of nonlocal consciousness correlates beyond the brain.

Dr Basios serves in various capacities, including as a speaker for the Scientific & Medical Network after a period as its co-Chair and board member, as a member of the Galileo Commission Steering Team, and as a Trustee of the International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL). By contributing to complexity and consciousness research in a variety of formats, from podcasts to books to peer-reviewed papers, he aspires to advance knowledge in this evolving field.

The Future World - A Conversation with Carissa Véliz
2025-03-12 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6DOEIowrG4

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

A Conversation between Carissa Véliz and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Wednesday, March 1210:00am PDT | 1:00pm EDT | 5:00pm GMT | 6:00pm CET

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Carissa Véliz is an Associate Professor in Philosophy at the Institute for Ethics in AI, and a Fellow at Hertford College at the University of Oxford. She is the recipient of the 2021 Herbert A. Simon Award for Outstanding Research in Computing and Philosophy. She is the author of the highly-acclaimed Privacy Is Power (an Economist book of the year, 2020) and the editor of the Oxford Handbook of Digital Ethics. She is a member of UNESCO’s Women 4 Ethical AI. She advises companies and policymakers around the world on privacy and the ethics of AI.

Beyond the Looking-Glass - Heisenberg’s Potentia: Toward a Theory of Consciousness
2025-03-15 18:00 - 20:00
Heisenberg’s Potentia: Toward a Theory of Consciousness

with Stuart Kauffman

Saturday, March 15, 202510am PDT / 1pm EDT / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond the Looking-Glass, Session 5 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

Werner Heisenberg in 1958 proposed that quantum states are ‘potentia standing ghost-like between a dream and reality.’ The proposal of ontologically real potentia not obeying Aristotle’s Laws of the Excluded Middle and Non-Contradiction provides an interpretation of superpositions and answers the six mysteries of Quantum Mechanics. This suggest that potentia are real and that quantum measurement converts Possibles to Actuals.

Radin’s work with colleagues is evidence at 6.49 sigma that mind can play a role in collapse of the wave function—the conversion of Possibles to Actuals. Qualia are never in superposition. These facts suggest that conscious qualia arise upon mind’s conversion of Possibles to Actuals.

Stuart Kauffman is an American medical doctor, theoretical biologist, and complex systems researcher who studies the origin of life on Earth. He was a professor at the University of Chicago, University of Pennsylvania, and Universitry of Calgary. He is currently emeritus professor of biochemistry at the University of Pennsylvania and affiliate faculty at the Institute of Systems Biology. He has a number of awards including a MacArthur Fellowship and a Wiener Medal. He is best known for arguing that the complexity of biological systems and organisms might result as much from delf-organization and far-from-equilibrium dynamics as from Darwinian natural selection, as discussed in his book Origins of Order (1993).

He has published over 350 articles and 6 books: The Origins of Order (1993), At Home in the Universe (1995), Investigations (2000), Reinventing the Sacred (2008), Humanity in a Creative Universe (2016), and A World Beyond Physics (2019).

In 2017, exploring the concept that reality consists of both ontologically real ‘possibles’ (res potentia) and ontologically real ‘actuals’ (res extensa), Kauffman co-authored, with Ruth Kastner and Michael Epperson, ‘Taking Heisenberg’s Potentia Seriously.’

Beyond the Looking-Glass - The Tao of Emotional Sentience
2025-03-16 18:00 - 20:00
The Tao of Emotional Sentience

with Katherine Peil Kauffman

Sunday, March 16, 202510am PDT / 1pm EDT / 5pm GMT / 6pm CET

Beyond the Looking-Glass, Session 6 of 6

This event is LIVE. All participants will receive the RECORDING.

Building upon Bohmian (and Kauffmanian) physics, the Eastern metaphor of The Tao is employed to introduce the new emotion science. In this context, emotional sentience—from its simple binary evaluations to its complex informational content—is not only central to the ‘self-regulatory’ behavioral hardware and learning software of living systems but may be integral to the in-forming and trans-forming process of reality creation itself. To distinguish emotion as a separate and more ancient system than ‘cognition’ proper, is to honor the ‘agent in the machine,’ to discover the untold wonders embodied in the physical organism, and to reclaim the divine attributes of human being and becoming.

Katherine T. Peil Kauffman is the founding Director of non-profit EFS International, whose mission is fostering global emotional wisdom. From a background in Pantheistic spirituality and clinical and social psychology, her lengthy interdisciplinary inquiry into the biophysical substrates of emotion led to the identification of its previously mysterious biological function: as an ancient ‘self-regulatory sense’—an evaluative perceptual mechanism through which living systems directly participate in self-organizing and evolutionary processes, and one that invites deeper inquiries into the physics of consciousness. This new science also casts light upon innate ‘biovalues,’ which scientific methodology has long avoided, as well as vital processes that in-form common spiritual experiences, and the healthy development of empathic moral conscience. It provides a biophysically informed vision of ‘naturalistic spiritualty,’ one that echoes the common wisdom across the great religious traditions, while challenging such time honored assumptions as ‘sin’ and the ‘good and evil’ dichotomy.A former affiliate of Northeastern University and the Harvard Divinity School, Ms. Kauffman has spoken internationally on the function, evolution, physio-chemical, and informational nature of emotion, as well as its central role in optimal health, human development, moral reasoning, universal spiritual experiences, and its informative value toward creating nonviolence in a global village.

Edge of Belief: Faith, Imagination, and Science
2025-03-23 20:30 - 22:30
Watch the recording

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCqy4UxmY88

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

Edge of Belief: Faith, Imagination, and Science

Sunday March 23, 2025

Starting at 12:30pm PDT | 3:30pm EDT | 7:30pm GMT | 8:30pm CET

Curated and chaired by: Àlex Gómez-Marín

With Robert Duncan and Brett Robinson

This event is LIVE online and FREE. All registered participants will receive the recording.

Science can explain many things about reality but the addition of theology, literature, and art deepens our understanding and makes for a much richer appreciation of life on this weird and wonderful planet. How can Religion respond to evolving scientific discoveries? How should the Church think about UFOs? What are the boundaries for Catholic belief? The McGrath Institute for Church Life is proud to present “Edge of Belief: UFOs, Technology & The Catholic Imagination”, a documentary short that explores the outer limits of belief.

“The Edge of Belief” is a documentary film about the interplay of faith, imagination and science. The film looks at the modern UFO phenomenon through the lens of the Catholic theological, scientific and literary tradition. This impactful documentary gives viewers a holistic framework for thinking about the mysteries of the universe and dealing with the claims that we are not alone in it. “The Edge of Belief” features interviews with CS Lewis scholar and Oxford professor Michael Ward, religious studies researcher and author of American Cosmic, Diana Pasulka, icon artist and host of “The Symbolic World,” Jonathan Pageau, Notre Dame theologian Christopher Baglow, and Chair of Astronomy at Cornell, Jonathan Lunine, among others.

Link to the film (31 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RA0ah6Xmqus

Schedule:

08:30pm CET – Introduction

08:45pm CET – Live film watch

09:15pm CET – Conversation between Robert, Brett, and Alex

10:00pm CET – Q&A from the audience

10:30pm CET – End

Robert Duncan, a native of North Carolina, is a filmmaker and communications professional who has spent over a decade producing documentaries and news videos on the Vatican and Catholic life in Rome. He has worked extensively as a journalist covering Vatican affairs and as a communications consultant for various non-profit religious organizations, particularly in the areas of fundraising and strategic media. Robert graduated from NYU’s film program and has consulted for the U.S. State Department, creating media for the U.S. embassies in Rome. He has lectured on communication strategy for Vatican employees and assisted with media projects for Pope Francis’ Laudato Si’. Robert lives near Rome with his family, enjoying hiking and sailing.

Brett Robinson, Executive Producer Brett Robinson serves as the Associate Director for Outreach and Associate Professor of the Practice at the McGrath Institute for Church Life. In his role, he oversees outreach efforts for the institute while conducting research at the intersection of religion, technology and culture. Brett studied marketing and English at the University of Notre Dame and received his Ph.D. in Mass Communication from the University of Georgia. He has taught media studies courses at Duquesne University, the University of Georgia, Saint Vincent College and Notre Dame. Brett is the author of Appletopia: Media Technology and the Religious Imagination of Steve Jobs and his essays and commentary on technology and culture have been featured in Wired Magazine, CNN, the LA Times and Catholic News Service.

Àlex Gómez-Marín, theoretical physicist turned neuroscientist studying the edges of consciousness in the real world. He is an associate professor at the Instituto de Neurociencias in Alicante, Spain, and director of the Pari Center in Tuscany, Italy.

The Future World - A conversation with Jeffrey Mishlove
2025-04-11 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/gtFdA6vh_QI?si=zUaCZ96DVKx71ZQ0

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

A Conversation between Jeffrey Mishlove and Àlex Gómez-Marín

Friday April 119:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

Host and producer of the New Thinking Allowed channel on YouTube, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, is also author of The Roots of Consciousness, Psi Development Systems, and The PK Man. He is the recipient of a doctorate in “Parapsychology” from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the Grand Prize winner of the Bigelow Institute essay competition regarding postmortem survival of human consciousness. He currently serves as Co-Director of Parapsychology Education at the California Institute for Human Science.

SURVIVAL: Re-Appraising the Evidence for Life After Death
2025-04-13 20:30 - 23:30
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/UrzcZfp-mV8?si=xAijmeVaHLNJDoWb

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

SURVIVAL: Re-Appraising the Evidence for Life After Death

Sunday April 13, 2025

11:30am PDT, 2:30pm EDT, 7:30pm BST, 8:30pm CEST (and ending about four hours later)

With: Alejandro Agudo, Eben Alexander, John Ballard, Stafford Betty, Bernard Carr, Jeff Dunne, Bruce Greyson, Stanley Krippner, Jeffrey Long, David Lorimer, Janice Miner Holden, Jeffrey Mishlove, Alexander Moreira-Almeida, Leo Ruickbie, Gary Schwartz, Steve Taylor, Stephan Schwartz, Pim Van Lommel, Helane Wahbeh, Marjorie Woollacott

In memoriam: Peter Fenwick (1935-2024), Charles Tart (1937-2025), and Allan Leslie Combs (1942-2025)

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the recording.

A Rigorous Open-Minded Exploration

Understanding whether consciousness continues after death is one of the most profound scientific and philosophical questions of our time. A rigorous, evidence-based, but also open-minded, exploratory, approach to this mystery has the potential to revolutionize our understanding of human identity, the nature of consciousness, and the boundaries of life itself. What, if anything, survives bodily death? In what form, and for how long? These are questions that demand a trans-disciplinary investigation, not just for their scientific implications but for their profound impact on culture, ethics, and human experience. SURVIVAL: Re-Appraising the Evidence for Life After Death brings together world-renowned experts to explore the latest research, theories, and firsthand accounts that challenge conventional assumptions. This online event is an essential opportunity to engage with cutting-edge insights into what might lie beyond the final frontier.

A Bold New Conference Format

We are pioneering a dynamic, high-impact online conference format via Zoom that maximizes efficiency and engagement. These live-recorded events feature a series of fast-paced, 15-minute “science nuggets”—concise, content-rich presentations from leading researchers, with or without slides, without lengthy introductions or Q&A. This streamlined approach keeps the momentum strong, allowing us to cover in a few hours what a traditional in-person conference might take a week to accomplish. The result? A free, to-the-point, and comprehensive snapshot of the latest advancements in our field, offering a pluralistic advanced testament to where we stand—and where we’re headed.

Martin Buber’s I and Thou
2025-04-14 18:00 - 19:30
Watch the recording

https://youtu.be/WDObxvA5xvg?si=pw8AIiDYK3ecVgdf

Donate to the Pari Center

We could not exist without the generosity of our supporters, sponsors and friends. Donate even a small amount, to help support us financially and enable us to continue our work.

By clicking on the Donate button, you will be taken to the payment screen.

Martin Buber’s I and Thou

Host: Nicholas Colloff

Monday, April 14, 20259:00am PDT | 12:00pm EDT | 5:00pm BST | 6:00pm CEST

This event is LIVE and FREE. All registered participants will receive the RECORDING.

An informal monthly get-together to discuss books of significance for the Pari Center community.

Martin Buber wrote, ‘There is something that can only be found in one place. It is a great treasure, which may e called the fulfilment of existence. The place where this treasure can be found is the place on which one stands.’ HIs first attempt to lay out a pathway to this fulfilment was in his seminal book, I and Thou, written in six weeks under an intense sense of inspiration, and which he would spend the next forty years developing into the practice of living dialogue, revealing that ‘all real living is meeting.’ But what does it mean to be truly present in the world, engaged in relationships of wholeness and meaning? How does this relate to the equal imperative to know about the world and to use it to achieve our specific purposes? And what might either have to do with God or ultimate reality?

For those familiar with the work of Ian McGilchrist, we could frame this as how might my Master and my Emissary achieve a more harmonious relationship in the light of a deeper unity waiting to address me, now, just where I am, standing in a world that waits to greet me? I have now been reading Buber for forty years—and whether it is mastering my impatience in the queue at the Sainsbury checkout, answering a colleague’s question openly and honestly, making a decision with hoped for love and justice or thinking about the nature of God, I found that Buber is part of the weft on which my thinking and acting has been woven. I hope to share something of his life, the book’s meanings and why they might matter deeply.

NICHOLAS COLLOFF, when not posting art on Facebook or walking through the woods, is the Director of the Argidius Foundation, a Swiss family foundation that helps develop social and environmental enterprises, principally in Africa and Latin America. He studied theology, philosophy and the psychology of religion at university, after which he helped found the Prison Phoenix Trust that teaches meditation and yoga to people in prison, and from this discovered a gift for starting things (and leaving them in better hands so they flourished). This has included a microfinance bank in the Balkans, a charity focused on community mental health in poor communities in the Global South and a social investment fund. In between launches, he is also to be found in contemplative communities recovering!
