The Pari Center

An Armchair Guide to Jung and God
2026-04-10 08:00 - 2026-04-29 17:00 (Europe/Rome)
The Armchair Guide to Jung and God

Presented by Mark Vernon

What did Carl Jung really think about God, religion, and the inner life?

In this thought-provoking 9-session course, Mark Vernon brings Jung’s most powerful ideas to life—exploring the unconscious, symbols, synchronicity, and spiritual experience in a way that’s accessible, challenging, and deeply relevant to modern seekers.

Course Format

The course includes 9 sessions:

6 one-hour recorded lectures

3 live group conversation and Q&A sessions

Beginning April 10, two recorded lectures will be released each week for you to view at your own pace. These talks provide the foundation for deeper reflection and discussion.

The weekly live group conversations are an opportunity to:

Reflect on the week’s two lectures

Ask questions

Explore your own responses and insights

Learn from the perspectives of others

Live Group Conversation Dates:

Wednesdays: April 15, 22, 2910am PDT/1pm EDT/6pm BST/7pm CEST

Carl Jung was born in 1875, just over 150 years ago. His impact upon psychology is immense, with notions such as extroversion and introversion, archetypes and synchronicities. But what lies at the heart of his psychology and how compatible is it with theistic convictions?

The course will examine the fundamentals of Jung’s depth psychology, paying particular attention to its significance for religious belief. Jung felt that psychoanalysis had emerged to fill a vacuum in the western world, with churches losing the ability to address the pressing issues of inner life.

Why is this important?

He endured a substantial crisis in the earlier part of his life, known now in his so-called Red Book, in which he describes encounters with various entities and the zeitgeist. He strove to bring the insights he gained to the wider world, in various phases of work, including personality types and alchemical concepts. He also engaged with other thinkers such as Nietzsche and Darwin and, of course, Freud.

In other words, Jung wanted to make a difference and, by any measure, he has. But his ideas about religion, and Christianity in particular, are contested. Towards the end of his life, he described not believing in God but knowing of God’s existence. He also disagreed with the classical conception of God held in traditions including the Christian. So what can be made of his work now?

Who Is This Series For?

This course will appeal to:

Students and practitioners of psychotherapy and depth psychology

Religious professionals interested in psychological flourishing and how Jung might inform their work.

Those considering psychotherapy or spiritual direction as a second career

People who enjoy reading about spirituality and have a spiritual practice

Anyone who enjoys reflecting on religious questions and the inner life

How will this presentation differ?

Assuming no prior knowledge, this course will return to basics, which is, in fact, the best way to make an assessment of Jung’s insights. There will be plenty of opportunity for QnA and discussion.

Lecture Titles

Lecture 1A Call From The UnconsciousAn outline of Jung’s life and how he came to see his vocation.

Lecture 2After The Split With FreudJung’s own analytical psychology in outline.

Lecture 3The Spiritual Problem of TodayHow Jung understood psychotherapy to be a response to a modern crisis.

Lecture 4The Failure of ReligionJung had a sharp critique of the failures of Christianity.

Lecture 5The Fabric of RealityPhenomena like synchronicities suggested a complete metaphysic to Jung.

Lecture 6Jung and GodAn exploration of Jung’s theology: its genius and constraints.

Dr Mark Vernon is a psychotherapist, teacher, podcaster and writer of journalistic articles as well as books. He has a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy, and degrees in theology and physics. His books include Carl Jung: How To Believe, A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness; Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey and most recently Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination.

He teaches with a variety of informal adult education projects, both online and in-person, covering the mystical traditions of theistic traditions and the interface between science and religion. He was recently Philosophy in Residence at Broughton Sanctuary and is a contributor to the BBC, particularly on programmes such as the Moral Maze and Thought for the Day. He has a regular column in the Idler magazine and is also a director of the Realisation Festival, a gathering that brings together ideas and music to resource the soul for our times. He used to be a priest in the Church of England and lives in south London. For more see www.markvernon.com

Experiencing Consciousness: Storytelling and Consciousness
2026-04-12 19:00 - 20:30
International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL) and The Pari Center present:

Experiencing Consciousness: Storytelling and Consciousness

with Robin Rice

Sunday April 12, 202610:00AM PDT | 1:00PM EDT | 6:00PM BST | 7:00PM CEST

This event is restricted to 40 participants. There will be no recording.

How we tell our stories – to ourselves and others – shapes our lives and defines the boundaries of our world. To fully explore consciousness, we must examine the stories that hold us. Join Robin Rice, Master Storyteller and Alchemist, as she guides you through deconstructing three of your personal life stories to see what they hide and reveal. You’ll then practice a “cleaner” and more integrated storytelling process. You will also learn how consciousness itself can be invited to become a character in your narrative. Expect a lifting of old burdens and a revitalization of your stories going forward.

No background in storytelling or writing in general is required for this workshop, only an interest in trying something different in a safe, welcoming online group setting.

Robin Rice is an AGI Strategist, serving as a trusted partner to C-suite leaders navigating the ethical frontiers of emerging technologies. Bridging the gap between code and consciousness, she helps her clients align their efforts with the betterment of humanity. She is the author of 11 books and a Story Strategist behind multiple high-profile bestsellers. Her interest in conscious narrative is largely due to her 28 years of personal inquiry into the “hard problem” of consciousness—a journey sparked by a profound personal awakening at age 35. Her latest project, the audiobook Stories About Stories with Robin Rice, explores these intersections and is available for free on YouTube and all major podcast platforms. Learn more at RobinRice.com.

Experiencing Consciousness: Storytelling and Consciousness on ICRL website

Spaces are limited – Register now to reserve your spot!

As you will see in the registration form, there are three options for registering. The normal ticket price is $15 for the session. There is also a free option for students and others who cannot afford this registration fee, and this is possible thanks to the incredible generosity of Neal Grossman, who has provided a scholarship fund to ensure that money never stands in the way of people expanding their horizons. Lastly, if you are like Neal and are motivated to contribute a little more to help others, there is also a Supporting Angel ticket for $30 that will make another free ticket available for future participants.

Note: Please do not sign up for the free slots if you are not a student or financially disadvantaged, as you are taking away an opportunity from someone who really needs it.

Note: We use a service called Zeffy to handle registrations because it eliminates credit card fees. However, the system defaults to including a 17.5% donation to Zeffy at the same time. That fee is not required and can be easily eliminated or adjusted by simply selecting ‘Other’ in that section.

You will also have the option to include an additional donation on top of the ticket price. Despite what it says on the form (which, alas, cannot be changed), any additional donations are divided equally between the Pari Center and ICRL.

Experiencing Consciousness: Metaphor and Consciousness
2026-05-03 19:00 - 20:30
International Consciousness Research Laboratories (ICRL) and The Pari Center present:

Experiencing Consciousness: Metaphor and Consciousness

with Jessica Ball

Sunday, May 3, 202610:00AM PDT | 1:00PM EDT | 6:00PM BST | 7:00PM CEST

There will be no recording.

Many people overlook the deeply metaphorical nature of our language, thought, and action. Metaphor can help us access deeper levels of consciousness, connecting to more universal and creative aspects of what it means to be human and revealing the interrelationships with each other and the world around us. This creative workshop will guide participants through a series of Clean Language* questions to facilitate an imaginative process that will allow each person to create (by drawing, annotating and speaking in response to the questions) a personal metaphor, grounded in their own physical, cultural and creative experience. The starting point will be to imagine a vessel, as an invitation to connect to individual and shared meaning and experience of what it means to be in participatory and reciprocal relationship with other humans and the more-than-human world.

*Clean Language is a method of questioning that removes all assumptions and biases from the questioner. Through a set of 12 simple questions, it draws on the power of metaphor to allow people to develop meaning and clarity that can support them to bring about personal or group change. Jessica Ball is an experienced facilitator with over a decade of expertise in Bohm Dialogue. The principles of a dialogue practice provide a grounding in all aspects of her facilitation work. As founder of Creating Meaning, she works with purpose-led organisations, supporting them to navigate complexity and change and strengthen the human skills that make transformation possible. Alongside her facilitation work she is researching a PhD in ecolinguistics and regenerative language. Enriched by her background in art and design, Jessica weaves theory and practice to create meaningful and creative dialogues and workshops that aim to transform how people communicate and relate to themselves, each other and the world around them.

As you will see in the registration form, there are two options for registering. However, thanks to the generosity of Neal Grossman, we are able to offer reduced (or even free) registrations to ensure that money never stands in the way of people expanding their horizons. If you are like Neal and are motivated to contribute a little more to help others, please selected the Supporting Angel ticket to make another free ticket available for future participants.

If you would like to receive a free or discounted registration, please just get in touch! eleanor@paricenter.com

Note: We use a service called Zeffy to handle registrations because it eliminates credit card fees. However, the system defaults to including a 17.5% donation to Zeffy at the same time. That fee is not required and can be easily eliminated or adjusted by simply selecting ‘Other’ in that section.

You will also have the option to include an additional donation on top of the ticket price. Despite what it says on the form (which, alas, cannot be changed), any additional donations are divided equally between the Pari Center and ICRL.

Matter, Mind and Multiverse
2026-05-15 16:00 - 2026-05-18 15:00 | Pari, Italy
Matter, Mind and Multiverse: Incorporating Mind into Physics

Pari, Italy – May 15-18, 2026

Speakers: Bernard Carr with Jonathan Allday

The event will start on Friday May 15 at 16:00 and end on Monday May 18 after lunch.

Price: 825.00 euros, which includes:

programmed activities and materials;

a 3-night stay in private accommodation;

breakfast, lunch and dinner at the local restaurant featuring locally sourced produce and traditional dishes;

water, wine, and coffee are provided with lunch and dinner.

Please read the Terms and Conditions.

Physics has built a hugely impressive picture of the world. We have a broad understanding of structure from the microverse within the atom to the universe of galaxies and clusters. The evolutionary history of the cosmos is also well mapped, right back to the earliest moments of the Big Bang.

There is, however, one conspicuous absence from this grand design—us. Much of the success of physics, and science in general, has come from deliberately excluding the subjective. The physicist’s universe is a rather arid lunar landscape devoid of the colour that comes with consciousness, mind and spirit.

Most physicists believe that this is fine. It’s not their job to deal with messy and unreliable emotions, qualia and subjective experience. Some go even further and say all our personal life is an illusion.

Meanwhile, a significant number of people have experiences that are mystical, anomalous, synchronistic and personally transformative. The plural of anecdote is data: these events are happening, and they contain important clues to the nature of reality.

It is time to seriously discuss how physics might be extended to accommodate consciousness, mind and spirit.

In this series of conversations and workshops with Professor Bernard Carr and Dr. Jonathan Allday, we will explore the bounds of current physics from M-theory in the microscopic domain to the multiverse in the macroscopic domain, probe the nature of space and time, push into the esoteric worlds of cosmology and black holes, and ask whether some final theory which amalgamates relativity and quantum mechanics can accommodate consciousness and associated anomalous phenomena. We speculate that physics will need to take a broader view of reality if it is ever going to complete its mission.

Professor Carr has been at the forefront of this movement for most of his career. With a well-respected research profile in cosmology, black holes and the anthropic principle, he is well-placed to speak with authority on the nature of current physics. Bernard has also had a long-standing interest in Buddhism, psychical research and spiritual experience. He’s been President of the Society for Psychical Research and is currently President of the Scientific and Medical Network.

Participating in an event at the Pari Center is more than joining a program, it is entering an experience unlike any other. This is no ordinary conference in a city hotel, nor a retreat hidden within a bustling resort. Instead, it is an invitation to step into an unspoilt medieval village in the Tuscan hills, where time slows and life unfolds at a rhythm that allows you to think, feel, and reconnect.

At the Pari Center, learning becomes a way of being. David Peat often described Pari as an alchemical vessel—a transformative space designed for reflection, renewal, and personal growth. It is a rare and welcoming environment for anyone seeking something deeper.

You will share traditional Tuscan meals and conversation with presenters and fellow participants, taste local wines, mingle with the village’s tiny community, and take in the beauty of the surrounding countryside. All of this unfolds within a gentle way of life, far removed from the hurry of work and the noise of city living.

The Pari Center gathers world-renowned thinkers, scholars, and innovators from diverse disciplines and traditions. Our mission is to explore the mysteries woven into everyday life: the subtle, essential questions that shape who we are and who we are becoming. Through rigorous inquiry, creative dialogue and participatory activities, we aim to illuminate the origins, nature, and possibilities of human experience.

We invite you to discover why so many visitors regard the Pari Center not only as a place of learning, but as a place of personal transformation.

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 is a retired teacher with 30+ years’ experience teaching physics working in a range of boarding and day schools in the UK. He was a head of department, head of faculty and an academic Deputy Head. His last post had the gloriously pompous title ‘Director of Digital Strategy,’ although this did not make the IT work any better for him.

After attending the Liverpool Blue Coat School, he took his first degree in Natural Sciences at Cambridge, then in 1989 a PhD in experimental particle physics at Liverpool University. During that time, he found one of David Peat’s books in the University Bookstore. Discovering that David was also a Liverpudlian fostered Jonathan’s ambition to write about physics.

Shortly after his PhD, Jonathan started work on his first book Quarks Leptons and the Big Bang, now published by Taylor & Francis and available in its third edition. It has been in print for over 25 years.

Since then, he has also written Apollo in Perspective, Quantum Reality (now in its second edition), Space-time, and Introduction to Entropy: The Way of the World, written with an old school friend, Professor Simon Hands. In addition, Jonathan is co-authoring a successful textbook (Advanced Physics) and a volume in the Oxford Encyclopaedia for Young Scientists. Most recently, Jonathan contributed to the updated edition of the Looking-Glass Universe by F. David Peat and John Briggs.

In various other projects, Jonathan has produced articles and teaching materials on the philosophy of science and the interface between science and religion. He has contributed to Physics Review magazine and has been an editor of Physics Education.

During COVID, Jonathan started researching what the Pari Center was up to and made his first trip to Italy for the ‘Enchanted Universe’ conference in 2022. Since then, he has adopted Pari as a spiritual home.

His physical home is with his wife Carolyn in Worcestershire. They have three grown boys, one of whom actually did a degree in physics at Bristol University, (not a bad strike rate…) and is now a software engineer. The others read psychology and philosophy and fell to the dark side and became accountants.

All of them can do sport, which Jonathan can’t but his wife could (very well).

In January 2026, Jonathan became Director of the Pari Center.

Paths to Knowing Consciousness and Reality: From the Indigenous to the Academic
2026-05-20 17:00 - 2026-05-27 14:00 | Pari, Italy
Thanks to the generous funding from a European foundation, we now have the opportunity to offer three full scholarships, preferably to young minds, for this event. For more information:

Scholarship Programme

SCIENCE OF CONSCIOUSNESS SERIES

Paths to Knowing Consciousness and Reality: From the Indigenous to the Academic

May 20–27, 2026

Speakers: Jonathan Allday, Vicente Arraez, Vasileios Basios, Apela Colorado, Alvaro Doethiro Tukano, Ruro Caituiro Monge, Aimee Morgana (virtually), Robin Rice, Francisco Rivarola.Curated and Chaired by: Jeff Dunne

Location: Pari, Italy

Ticket Prices:

Private AccommodationPrice: 2175.00 euros

Shared Accommodation – Private Room with shared bathroomPrice: 1875.00 euros

which includes:

a 7-night stay;

breakfast, lunch and dinner at the local restaurant featuring locally sourced produce and traditional dishes;

water, wine, and coffee are provided with lunch and dinner;

programmed lectures, activities and materials

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

Event: The event starts with on Wedensday May 20 at 17:00 and ends after lunch on Wednesday May 27.

Download information, terms and conditions for this course.

About the Event

The exploration of consciousness, as a direct goal or as reflected in our desire to understand the natural universe, is central to every culture throughout history. In this event we consider how this quest has been pursued through both modern western intellectualism and the older indigenous paths of experiential knowing, and ultimately ask whether such approaches can be complementary.

Humanity’s recent evolution has seen an increase in anxiety of epidemic proportions, and a prevailing assessment is that it is strongly correlated with our growing sense of disconnection—disconnection with others, of course, but also disconnection from the world, and even from ourselves at the individual level. It is quite possible that the relatively recent resurgence of interest in understanding the nature of ourselves and our connection to the universe is in response to these pressures; whether at a conscious or subconscious level, we sense that this growing sense of isolation is at the core of our dis-ease manifesting at spiritual and emotional levels, and ultimately manifesting as literal disease in the physical.

We say resurgence because understanding the nature of self in relation to the world has been an enduring priority throughout most of human history, only diminished—particularly in western societies—over the last few hundred years. Modern science is now seeking these answers by exploring our prevailing models of reality (such as quantum mechanics) through the language of mathematics, but we must recognize that this intellectual path is only one approach, and quite nascent. For many thousands of years, indigenous cultures have been approaching these same questions, but along an experiential path, i.e. understanding our connection to the world (and each other) by focusing on the experience of those connections.

What is consciousness? What is reality? How are they connected? In this conference, we will not provide an answer to such questions; instead, we will provide many answers. But that is not our goal. These answers, offered from the diverse perspectives of a diverse set of presenters, are the candles with which we will examine the methods that produce such answers.

During the seven days of May 20-27th—as nature transitions from awakening into full function… as the Gemini Threshold encourages increase cognition and the urge to converse and explain… as Indigenous cultures offer first harvest blessings and elders speak the season into the people—we will come together to explore the potential for integrating intellectual articulation with experiential knowing. A group of eight speakers will share insights on topics such as:

The history of western science’s approach to understanding the universe, and where the scientific world stands today;

How the process of connecting with nature has been developed over thousands of years of living with nature, and where it stands today;

The evolution of ancient energetic traditions such as Qigong and Shamanism into modern practices;

Alternate experiences of reality—or even alternate realities—that can be experienced through dreaming and other ways of experiencing; and ultimately…

How we can leverage all of this into a set of coherent practices and worldviews.

But more than an opportunity to listen, this conference is an opportunity to engage. Participants will be more than individuals; they will be part of the conference community. Supported with tools, conversations, and a safe, welcoming environment, they will be challenged to make their own connections, find their own answers, and then (if they so choose) to contribute their insights as part of something bigger.

Please be part of the science, the magic, the experience.

Participating in an event at the Pari Center is more than joining a program, it is entering an experience unlike any other. This is no ordinary conference in a city hotel, nor a retreat hidden within a bustling resort. Instead, it is an invitation to step into an unspoilt medieval village in the Tuscan hills, where time slows and life unfolds at a rhythm that allows you to think, feel, and reconnect.

At the Pari Center, learning becomes a way of being. David Peat often described Pari as an alchemical vessel—a transformative space designed for reflection, renewal, and personal growth. It is a rare and welcoming environment for anyone seeking something deeper.

You will share traditional Tuscan meals and conversation with presenters and fellow participants, taste local wines, mingle with the village’s tiny community, and take in the beauty of the surrounding countryside. All of this unfolds within a gentle way of life, far removed from the hurry of work and the noise of city living.

The Pari Center gathers world-renowned thinkers, scholars, and innovators from diverse disciplines and traditions. Our mission is to explore the mysteries woven into everyday life: the subtle, essential questions that shape who we are and who we are becoming. Through rigorous inquiry, creative dialogue and participatory activities, we aim to illuminate the origins, nature, and possibilities of human experience.

We invite you to discover why so many visitors regard the Pari Center not only as a place of learning, but as a place of personal transformation.

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

Information

Terms and conditions (PDF)

Additional Information about the Pari Center (PDF)

Creation and Life Itself
2026-09-01 19:00 - 2026-09-08 14:00 | Pari, Italy
Science, Art and the Sacred Series

Creation and Life Itself

September 1 – 8, 2026

Speakers: Sarah Churchwell, Lauren Cole, Nicholas Colloff, Isabel Hawkins, Angie Hobbs, Karina Miotto, Shelly Valdez. Curated and Chaired by: John Pickering

Location: Pari, Italy

Ticket Prices:

Private AccommodationPrice: 2175.00 euros

Shared Accommodation – Private Room with shared bathroomPrice: 1875.00 euros

which includes:

a 7-night stay;

breakfast, lunch and dinner at the local restaurant featuring locally sourced produce and traditional dishes;

water, wine, and coffee are provided with lunch and dinner;

programmed lectures, activities and materials

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

Event: The event starts with dinner on Tuesday September 1 at 19:00 and ends after lunch on Tuesday Setpember 8.

Download information, terms and conditions for this course.

About the Event

At its best, being ‘human’ means being creative. Here, ‘creative’ means more than just poetic language or beautiful images. It speaks to something primordial in nature, since life itself is creation. Our meeting will look at the complementary ways in which science, the humanities and spiritual traditions recognise this and how that might inform the lives we lead, singly or collectively.

All human cultures have Creation stories. They reflect our wonder at life itself and the enchanting diversity of Creation that it brings forth. To tell and re-tell the stories is part of being human.

Science is sometimes accused of disenchanting Creation; in fact, it has enhanced it, since the wonder remains. Scientists like David Attenborough express as much love for living things as poets or mystics have done down the ages and as people living in animistic cultures do now.

Animistic Creation stories are of a transformative relation between beings of all kinds that continually and reciprocally bring one another into existence. So, in that view, simply living and being human is to be creative, where ‘creative’ means more than just making poetic language or beautiful images.

Luckily, we live in a time when science, the humanities and the arts are becoming more open, in complementary ways, to recognising this. Our meeting will look at how that might inform the lives we lead, singly or collectively.

We will investigate what ‘being human’ and ‘being creative’ might have meant in the past, what it means in our time. We will look at creativity in science, in the arts and humanities and in spiritual traditions, paying particular attention to women’s voices, those heard and those not. We will, for example, hear from speakers on Hildegarde of Bingen and Julian of Norwich, as well mystical traditions from South American cultures.

Being human, all too human, is difficult. Being more than human, particularly so. Creativity in some sense extends, even transcends the human condition, and we will explore what philosophy and the humanities have to say about that.

Now is a particularly appropriate time to do it, as both creativity and what it is to be human are brought into question by the rise of the machine.

Participating in an event at the Pari Center is more than joining a program, it is entering an experience unlike any other. This is no ordinary conference in a city hotel, nor a retreat hidden within a bustling resort. Instead, it is an invitation to step into an unspoilt medieval village in the Tuscan hills, where time slows and life unfolds at a rhythm that allows you to think, feel, and reconnect.

At the Pari Center, learning becomes a way of being. David Peat often described Pari as an alchemical vessel—a transformative space designed for reflection, renewal, and personal growth. It is a rare and welcoming environment for anyone seeking something deeper.

You will share traditional Tuscan meals and conversation with presenters and fellow participants, taste local wines, mingle with the village’s tiny community, and take in the beauty of the surrounding countryside. All of this unfolds within a gentle way of life, far removed from the hurry of work and the noise of city living.

The Pari Center gathers world-renowned thinkers, scholars, and innovators from diverse disciplines and traditions. Our mission is to explore the mysteries woven into everyday life: the subtle, essential questions that shape who we are and who we are becoming. Through rigorous inquiry, creative dialogue and participatory activities, we aim to illuminate the origins, nature, and possibilities of human experience.

We invite you to discover why so many visitors regard the Pari Center not only as a place of learning, but as a place of personal transformation.

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

Speakers and sessions

Click on a title to expand

Finding Meaning with Medieval Women Mysticswith Lauren Cole

It may seem on the surface that our modern secular society has little in common with the stringent religious culture of medieval Europe. As the story goes, we have moved from a “Dark Age” of superstition to an enlightened age of reason. But look a little closer, and we find that in trying to make sense of the world, we inevitably fall back on the same tools.

In this session, we examine these sense-making tools in the writings of medieval women mystics and their counterparts today. The writings of mystics such as Hildegard von Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, and Mechthild of Magdeburg provide us with frameworks for environmentalism, feminist thought, and natural medicine today. Parallels we will explore include Hildegard von Bingen’s lapidary and today’s crystal healing, beguines’ practices of care and today’s care homes, and mystical astrology and today’s horoscopes. Ultimately, this session will consider what we have already learned from medieval women mystics, and what we can continue to learn.

Lauren Cole is a PhD History Candidate and Presidential Fellow at Northwestern University. Her research centres on medieval mystics, medicine, and manuscripts in Europe, with a particular focus on Hildegard von Bingen. Lauren is also a public historian, creating videos on medieval history for over 95’000 followers on her Instagram and TikTok accounts (@MedievalLauren). Lauren splits her time between London, Mainz, and Chicago. You can find more on her website: https://medievallauren.wordpress.com

Seeing with the Eye of the Heartwith Nicholas Colloff

Both the painter, Cecil Collins, and the poet, Edwin Muir, enjoyed paradisial childhoods, which, though rudely interrupted, provided a sustaining sense of innocence and wonder through which they subsequently beheld the world and wove artistic practices that sought to widen and deepen consciousness into a ‘second, renewing innocence’ that was a paradise regained, which Collins referred to as the “great happiness”.

They both employed artistic, spiritual practices that deepened attention, reverenced, and used dreams and other imaginal states, and cultivated good memory to develop works of great originality and of gently transforming power that they felt could take people on a pilgrimage to their originating light, where “that strange quarry you scarcely thought you sought” would reveal itself and you would find “Yourself, the gatherer gathered, the finder found.”

Both worked, broadly, within the ‘Western tradition’, but with an openness to the Spirit that bloweth where it will, and both were sustained, nurtured, and challenged in their long, loving marriages to Elizabeth Collins and Willa Muir, both themselves artists. Both in their practices and their work, they have much to inspire us about the potential for a creative, spiritual life.

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 that 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. Through the auspices of Temenos and the friendship of the poet and Blake scholar, Kathleen Raine, he was privileged to meet and know Cecil Collins in the latter years of his life, and through Kathleen to know one of Edwin and Willa Muir’s closest friends.

Plato and the Pregnant Philosopherwith Angie Hobbs

Plato stimulates creative thought in a variety of ways, all aimed at stimulating our non-rational as well as our rational faculties. In order to explore fundamental ethical questions about how to live and what sort of person to be, he creates dialogues involving a vibrant cast of characters (never himself), and the conversations invite us to see the connections between belief, character and life. We are enabled to form a sense of the shape, structure and narrative of a life — both models to emulate and models to avoid. The dialogues often deploy vivid imagery — such as the Allegory of the Cave in the Republic — and in much of this imagery Plato plays with gender expectations, such as the pregnant philosopher (male as well as female) in the Symposium and philosophical statecraft as the art of weaving in the Statesman. In several dialogues imaginary utopias also encourage us to envisage different ways of thinking, living and being. It is intriguing how often this agent-centred, dialogic approach, which embeds individuals in their social contexts, has appealed to women philosophers, particularly during the last 70 years, and this is a topic we shall explore.

Angie Hobbs is Professor of the Public Understanding of Philosophy Emerita at the University of Sheffield. She gained a degree in Classics (First Class) and a PhD in Ancient Philosophy at the University of Cambridge, and her chief interests are in ancient philosophy and literature, and ethics and political theory from classical thought to the present, and she has published widely in these areas, including Plato and the Hero; Why Plato Matters Now was published by Bloomsbury in 2025. She contributes regularly to TV, radio, podcasts and other media around the world, including 27 appearances on In Our Time on Radio 4. She works in a number of policy sectors, including the U.K. Civil Service, National Health Service and Health Research Authority. She has spoken at the World Economic Forum at Davos, the Athens Democracy Forum, the Symi Symposium, the Houses of Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and Westminster Abbey, and been the guest on Desert Island Discs and Private Passions. She was a judge of the Man Booker International Prize 2019 and was on the World Economic Forum Global Future Council 2018-9 for Values, Ethics and Innovation.

Through the Fire: How Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects Saved My Activist Heartwith Karina Miotto

In her talk in Paris, Karina Miotto will share her powerful journey as an environmental activist in the Brazilian Amazon — a path shaped by purpose, but also by burnout and PTSD after years of frontline work. She will speak about the transformative role Joanna Macy’s Work That Reconnects played in her healing, restoring not only her strength but also her faith in humanity. Karina will also share personal conversations she had with Joanna, highlighting how this body of work continues to deeply influence her life, her worldview, and her approach to changemaking.

Her presentation will be both motivational and inspiring. As part of her session, Karina will guide the audience through a simple experiential practice from the Work That Reconnects, inviting participants to reconnect with themselves, with each other, and with the living Earth. She believes Joanna Macy’s work offers essential tools for this moment in human history, and her talk aims to open a space of clarity, courage, and collective renewal for all who attend. Karina will also explore the vital role of Systems Thinking in the Work That Reconnects — showing how a systemic view of life deepens our understanding of interdependence, resilience, and the complexity of the times we are living through.

Karina Miotto is a journalist, eco-philosopher, changemaker mentor, and speaker coach. She lived for many years in the Amazon Rainforest in Brazil and worked with major NGOs. As editor of the website O Eco, she covered the nine countries of the Amazon Basin. She studied the Deep Ecology movement directly with pioneers such as Satish Kumar, John Seed, and Stephan Harding. She studied The Work That Reconnects directly with Joanna Macy.

She holds a Master’s degree in Holistic Science from Schumacher College, England. In her dissertation, titled “Reconnecting the Amazon: Awakening Deep Feelings for the Rainforest,” she developed ten different pathways to help people emotionally connect with the forest. Her findings can be applied to any landscape or environment on the planet. Her name has been cited in books and scientific articles around the world.

Karina has given talks in countries such as England, the United States, Germany, New Zealand, Chile, Australia, Portugal, Spain, and Brazil, impacting hundreds of people worldwide. Deep Ecology is currently the foundation of all her work. She lead a project on climate adaptation and community resilience in the Australian Alps using as methodology WTR and Deep Ecology for La Trobe University, Melbourne.

In 2024, she published her first book: Changemakers – the courage to transform the world: it’s beautiful, challenging, and possible to do without burning out, released by Bambual Editora (Brazil). In 2025, the same book was published in Portugal under the title A coragem de mudar o mundo – changemakers, by the same publisher.

During the same year, she collaborated with The Wellbeing Project, supporting line up curation and speaker preparation for the Hearth Summit, a global event for 1,200 changemakers from 89 countries.

Being Human: Enlarging Lifewith Sarah Churchwell

Our culture treats innovation as self-justifying—as if speed, scale, and automation were enough to define progress. The humanities center imagination instead, asking not only what we can do, but what we are becoming as we do it. Through literature, philosophy, history, art, they enlarge the inner life, teaching us how to live with complexity without collapsing into cynicism or fantasy.

When John Adams wrote during the American Revolution that he studied war and politics so later generations could study philosophy and poetry, he was sharing an Enlightenment logic: the humanities as the point of self-government, not a luxury. The same settlement produced mass literacy, the modern university, the professional middle class, and the novel—a form that trained readers in moral judgment and imaginative recognition. These developments sustained one another.

That settlement is now under assault. The “dark enlightenment” and its tech patrons explicitly call for replacing democracy with neo-feudal hierarchy, governed like a corporation and insulated from public accountability. AI sits at the center of this program: prediction in place of judgment, privatized platforms in place of public institutions, and the enclosure of knowledge as a condition of power.

Imaginative literature makes the stakes legible. Poets from Coleridge onward distinguish world-making imagination from mechanical recombination, a useful lens for generative AI. Novelists like Charlotte Brontë and F. Scott Fitzgerald make imagination the predicate of liberty and autonomy, and trace what happens to hope in cultures structured by injustice. Philosophers like Hannah Arendt supply the political hinge: imagination is a precondition for politics, because politics depends on the ability to envision alternatives.

In a world of accelerating technologies and shallow attention, how do the humanities enlarge human life—and what would it take to rebuild the conditions that let them flourish?

Sarah Churchwell is Chair of Public Humanities and Professor of American literature at the School of Advanced Study, University of London, where she directs the UK’s national festival of humanities research, the Being Human Festival.

She is the author of several acclaimed books, most recently The Wrath to Come: Gone with the Wind and the Lies America Tells (2022). She comments widely on politics, culture, and art in print, television, radio, and film. She has been a winner of the Eccles British Library Writer’s Award, longlisted for the Orwell Prize for Journalism and named one of Prospect magazine’s Top 50 World Thinkers.

She is co-host with historian David Olusoga of the Goalhanger podcast Journey Through Time.

Information

Terms and conditions (PDF)

Additional Information about the Pari Center (PDF)

Inscendence: A Participatory Enquiry into Awareness, Presence and Place
2026-09-10 19:00 - 2026-09-17 14:00 | Pari, Italy
Inscendence: A Participatory Enquiry into Awareness, Presence and Place

September 10 – 17, 2026

Speakers: Jonathan Code and Alistair Duncan

Location: Pari, Italy

Ticket Prices:

Private AccommodationPrice: 1800.00 euros

Shared Accommodation – Private Room with shared bathroomPrice: 1650.00 euros

which includes:

a 7-night stay;

breakfast, lunch and dinner at the local restaurant featuring locally sourced produce and traditional dishes;

water, wine, and coffee are provided with lunch and dinner;

programmed lectures, activities and materials

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

Event: The event starts with dinner on Thursday September 10 at 19:00 and ends after lunch on Thursday September 17.

Download information, terms and conditions for this course.

About the Event

Why Inscendence?

In a time riven by fragmentation, dislocation and conflicting narratives, this programme invites a collaborative enquiry into ways of knowing and thinking that will delve deeply into the field where land, body and consciousness meet.

Inscendence proposes an opportunity for re-orientation by attending to participative awareness, heightened sensory perception and the wisdom of the body-mind.

In resonance with Pari, its landscape, history, and community, we will engage with many of the Center’s core themes seeking to open up a creative ground from which new forms of insight, relationship and action can emerge.

Inscendence—the impulse not to rise above the world but to climb into it, to seek its core.Thomas Berry, via Robert Macfarlane

Programme Themes and Practices

Over the course of a week in Pari, we will engage with:

Embodied and Perceptual Investigation:

Explorations into how breath-work, movement and posture can expand and transform perceptual awareness

Working with our experience of the traditional elements of nature: earth, water, fire, air and ether in a contemporary way

Heightening the sensitivity of our physical senses: sight, sound, touch, taste, smell, as entry points into deeper experience

Understanding the body-mind as a phenomenological instrument

Fieldwork in the More-than-Human World:

Immersive sessions engaging with the plants, stones, weather and landforms of the Tuscany landscape

Exploration of a range of ways of knowing including Goethean observation and nature-connection practices

Attending to artefacts, stories and built structures as relational presences

Creative and Collaboratives Explorations:

Creative writing, journaling, and drawing as practices of attending to lived experience

Sitting in Council / dialogue will allow us to share insights and integrate personal experience into collective understanding.

Conversational ‘tutorial-style’ sessions will be used to explore the intersection between experience and theory

Daily Rhythms—each day will include four main elements:

Outdoor sessions exploring a range of practices and experiences

The seeding of ‘micro-practices’ that will provide the opportunity for moments in the day to become an opportunity for conscious awareness

Sitting in Council, ‘tutorial’ circles and creative sessions to collectively reflect on our unfolding experience and its implications

Personal reflection time supported by the quiet rhythms of the village

Theoretical Context:

With an emphasis on experiential forms of enquiry, Inscendence is nevertheless inspired by the insights and practices of a wide range of thinkers from both East and West. These perspectives provide lenses through which our lived experience can be shared and articulated.

Some of these sources of inspiration include:

The Implicate / Explicate / Holoflux (David Bohm)

The implications of brain hemisphere modes of attention (Iain McGilchrist)

The nature of participatory consciousness (Owen Barfield,)

The idea of Authentic Wholeness (Henri Bortoft, J.W. Goethe)

The unity of Mind and Matter from (Gregory Bateson)

The explorations of language, sensory perception and the new animism (David Abram, Robin Kimmerer)

Philosophical Taoism

Non-dual Shaiva Tantra

What May Emerge:

A refined capacity for attentional flexibility and resonance

A deeper sense of participation in the implicate wholeness of the cosmos

Insight into how perception constructs (and reconstructs) the world

A felt understanding of new grounds for coherent action and relationship

A more integrated experience of self within the context of a conscious whole.

Our aim is not to provide answers to the complex challenges of our time but to cultivate a new ground of exploration—a place from which thought, relationship and creativity may unfold with greater coherence and sensitivity.

Participating in an event at the Pari Center is more than joining a program, it is entering an experience unlike any other. This is no ordinary conference in a city hotel, nor a retreat hidden within a bustling resort. Instead, it is an invitation to step into an unspoilt medieval village in the Tuscan hills, where time slows and life unfolds at a rhythm that allows you to think, feel, and reconnect.

At the Pari Center, learning becomes a way of being. David Peat often described Pari as an alchemical vessel—a transformative space designed for reflection, renewal, and personal growth. It is a rare and welcoming environment for anyone seeking something deeper.

You will share traditional Tuscan meals and conversation with presenters and fellow participants, taste local wines, mingle with the village’s tiny community, and take in the beauty of the surrounding countryside. All of this unfolds within a gentle way of life, far removed from the hurry of work and the noise of city living.

The Pari Center gathers world-renowned thinkers, scholars, and innovators from diverse disciplines and traditions. Our mission is to explore the mysteries woven into everyday life: the subtle, essential questions that shape who we are and who we are becoming. Through rigorous inquiry, creative dialogue and participatory activities, we aim to illuminate the origins, nature, and possibilities of human experience.

We invite you to discover why so many visitors regard the Pari Center not only as a place of learning, but as a place of personal transformation.

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

Jonathan Code

During a childhood and youth spent in Southern Ontario, regular immersion in and on the freshwater lakes of Frontenac Park fostered in me a deep ecological and place-based awareness of the natural world. I am to this day never more at home than in a canoe on a lake at dawn, paddling out as the sun rises and the loons call forth the day.

My ecological interests grew and deepened through encounters with the work of Goethe, Schumacher, Vine Deloria Jr., and Steiner—whose contributions to education, medicine, human development, and agriculture (Biodynamic farming) continue to inform my teaching, research, and writing to this day.

I am particularly interested in the contribution that Goethe can make to ecological thinking (which I addressed in a study of Goethe’s method of exact imagination as applied to the Showy Milkweed (Asclepias speciosa)) and in how the Biodynamic preparations are not only stimulants for good composting processes but are also catalysts for a deepening of agricultural consciousness (which I address in Muck and Mind: Encountering Biodynamic Agriculture, 2014).

I am currently engaged in a study of traditional fire-craft and its affordances for educational philosophy and praxis. This study grows out of a deep concern for education in the twenty first century (see Crafting: Transforming Materials and the Maker, 2019)—a concern that what is too often left out in many of our educational endeavors is a sense for who a human being is…and what we can (potentially) become.

Alistair Duncan

After a first career as a systems programmer, architect and programme manager in technology for a couple of global corporations, fifteen years ago I jumped ship. Since then I have worked as an eco-psychologist, workshop facilitator/educator and therapist across a number of contexts particularly in universities, disadvantaged communities and with conservation organisations.

My passion is weaving together concrete practices from contemporary psychology, embodiment modalities and therapies as well as the spiritualities of east and west. Then, using them to make experiential and practical, the insights that arise from a range of fields across philosophy, science and spirituality.

To define my context with a few names. I would cite David Bohm, Owen Barfield, Martin Heidegger, Gregory Bateson, Henri Bortoff, Michael Washburn, David Abram and Kenneth White as my current key co-ordinates. And I am drawing practices from a wide palette, but the core is found in indigenous tracking methods, Non-dual Shaiva Tantrism, Taoism, and Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP).

I have a first degree in Biology and a Masters in Philosophy, and have trained in several coaching and therapeutic modalities.

Everything I do nowadays is based in nature. It’s my current conviction that exploring a deeper sensorial resonance and reciprocity between the human body-mind and the more-than-human cosmos is the starting point for a lived experience of wholeness and a connection into the deep consciousness of the cosmos. And that, from there, we may be able to discern a better way to live in these times.

Information

Terms and conditions (PDF)

Additional Information about the Pari Center (PDF)
