The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues

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Synopsis

Dr Rupert Sheldrake is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. Mark vernon is a psychotherapist and author. Together they discuss: consciousness, prayer, angels, science and spiritual practices, magic, dreams, hell, the unconscious, rituals, enlightenment, atheism, materialism, and more.

Episodes

  • The Nature of Energy

    01/03/2024 Duration: 36min

    Energy is a key organising principle in modern science, the conversation of energy being a grounding and universal law. But what is energy? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon examine the history of the idea and the word. In science, energy is a relatively recently notion, emerging in its current form in the 19th century, drawing much on mechanics. The word itself was coined by Aristotle, in the 4th century BCE, carrying a sense of vital actuality and living presence. That meaning is still remembered in Orthodox theology, which describes the energeia of God. The conversation ranges over the promiscuity of energy in the natural world to the spiritual notion of energy, including the subtle energies of the body. The implications of shaping the idea of energy through mechanical metaphors also has important ramifications, from the descriptions of economics and the efficacy of psychology to the experience of God. Further, the most recent physics argues that energy is

  • The Speed of Gravity

    26/01/2024 Duration: 32min

    Isaac Newton is best known for his theory of gravity. And yet, the great scientist also insisted: "the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know.” In other words, notions like gravity, and force in general, are deeply mysterious phenomena. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask just what gravity might be. The conversation begins with a feature of gravity that is typically overlooked by physicists, namely that gravity has a speed. According to the physicist Tom van Flandern, the speed of gravity is at least **20 billion times faster than light**!https://www.intalek.com/Index/Projects/Research/TheSpeedofGravity-WhattheExperimentsSay.htmThey consider how gravity might be linked to the notion of levity, a link that can be renewed again. Newton himself was inclined to regard gravity as the divine will in the cosmos and was also influenced by the belief in daemons, particularly the entity called Eros or love. These are go-betweens in the universe, in the

  • Humanity’s role in nature. Are we more than just a problem?

    20/12/2023 Duration: 35min

    Environmental degradation caused by technological progress is in the news almost everyday. So can any sense be made of an ancient intuition that human beings are not just part of nature but have a distinctive and positive role to play in nature? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss issues from the significance of consciousness to cosmic emergence in order to explore a vision of humanity in nature that goes well beyond our life being the meaningless byproduct of random processes. Humanity contributes to the diversification and beautification of the natural world, even as monocrops undermine that enrichment, too. Alternatively, religious traditions add a layer of meaning to natural processes that science alone can’t provide, from expressing divine creativity to returning that blessing in the praising of God. Panpsychism, strong emergence and Charles Darwin’s appreciation of the excessiveness of nature are other themes in the conversation, making a case for

  • The Extension of Mind Through Space and the Sense of Being Stared At

    10/11/2023 Duration: 42min

    Do our minds reside solely inside our heads, or perhaps bodies? Or do they extend into the wider world, perhaps even reaching to the stars? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the extended mind theory, taking a lead from recent work of Rupert’s on the sense of being stared at, and also the problems that contemporary science has with understanding vision. The discussion considers new research carried out by Rupert and others, as well as the theories of A.N. Whitehead. The way in which science since Maxwell has considered light as moving backwards as well as forwards in time is explored, alongside the way that William Blake described how we see, which itself fits the ancient understanding, that seeing is an active process of engagement, not a passive mode of reception.Rupert references two published papers. One is on the nature of visual perception, co-written with Alex Gomez-Marin, online here:https://www.sheldrake.org/files/pdfs/papers/The-Nature-of-Visu

  • Can we do without organised religion?

    22/10/2023 Duration: 37min

    Churches are in decline, certainly in the western world. People tend not to turn to a priest for spiritual insight or advice. But is a lived relationship with the sacred and wisdom traditions denuded as organised religion disappears? In this Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon talk about religious institutions for good and ill. Rupert picks up on a new book by Alison Milbank, Once and Future Parish, to ask how churches can maintain connection with the seasons, place and community, and speak to the whole of our humanity in its rituals and rites of passage. The conversation explores why many people are wary of organised religion, and are inclined to treat religion more as a threat than a visionary promise. The perils of a privatised spiritual questing are set alongside the paucity of contemporary church life, though if it can be hard to live with organised religion, it seems also hard to live fully without it.

  • How to Teach Prayer

    02/08/2023 Duration: 38min

    Prayer, alongside meditation, is an integral part of religious traditions. God can be prayed to but also saints and angels. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark ask whether and why prayer is not widely discussed, how prayer can be practiced, and what prayer might be. They share personal practices of prayer and explore the agency of angels and saints. They ask about the entities that people report encountering when using psychedelics, alongside other questions such as how to pray for people and what can be expected from prayer. The desire to pray seems to be an almost universal human impulse. Much more might be made of it.

  • End of Life Experiences

    02/06/2023 Duration: 39min

    Watch on YoutubeTerminal lucidity is the phenomenon of individuals who are dying receiving a surge of life, perhaps to say goodbye, as their death approaches. So what is the nature and meaning of such well-attested experiences? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon use Rupert's recent paper examining terminal lucidity in animals, to open up a discussion of phenomena from post-mortem contacts to the resurrection of Jesus.Rupert's paper on end of life experienceshttps://www.sheldrake.org/eleLesley Kean's book Surviving Deathhttps://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246583/surviving-death-by-leslie-kean/Dale Allison's discussion the resurrectionhttps://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/resurrection-of-jesus-9780567697561/

  • In Praise of Praise

    28/03/2023 Duration: 43min

    Why do people offer praise and gain from it? Does God require, even demand praise? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark discuss what can be wrongly implied by praise and what it might mean as an immensely rich practice. Mark confesses to having been put off the notion, as if adulation were demanded by a divine narcissist, which Rupert responds to by considering the etymology of praise, shared by words such as appreciation and interpretation. The discussion develops to consider how praise is a disclosing activity, arising from a spontaneous perception of wholeness, beauty and existence itself. They consider how praise is linked to attending, and the ways in which we reach out to see the world, even as the world reaches back to us, much as William Blake described when seeing "heaven in a wild flower". And they address the question of why and how God is associated with praise. Praise, it turns out, is highly praiseworthy.------During the discussion the Boyle Lecture 2023 b

  • Objectivity–An urgently needed new approach

    14/01/2023 Duration: 29min

    68Objectivity has come to be regarded as a prime ingredient of reliable knowledge. But what is objectivity, how has it arisen, and is the notion in need of reform? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark consider the recent work of the philosopher, Richard Gunton. With colleagues, Richard examines older understandings of objectivity in science and proposes an alternative which is truer to scientific work. In particular, the reductive idea that links objectivity with replication seems increasingly untenable, given the replication crisis in science. Instead, linking objectivity to representation provides a fruitful way forward.Rupert and Mark consider facets of the history of science, not least the difference between so-called primary and secondary qualities, as well as how science is actually carried out, with the role that imagination and aesthetics bring to innovation and insight. Might a new notion of objectivity be not only good for science but also become part of overcoming mode

  • Humanism as Heresy: Testing the thesis of Tom Holland

    06/12/2022 Duration: 32min

    The secular historian, Tom Holland, has made the case that atheistic humanism is, at heart, an off-shoot of Christianity. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask how that can be so. After all, contemporary humanists are inclined to blame Christianity for all ills, not thank Christianity for seeding values they share. Rupert and Mark agree that there is much in what Holland argues. For example, the tendency to evangelise for western values, as well as fall into dispute over what they might be, mirrors Protestant Christianity. But Mark is also wary of Holland’s theory, both as history and also because it risks presenting Christianity is a moral creed, not a revelation of the relationship between the human and divine. (A recent speech that Holland gave outlining his ideas can be found at Unherd.com and the website of the think tank, Theos.)

  • Rewilding Christianity

    07/10/2022 Duration: 39min

    A renewed interest in Christianity? Old traditions of myth and place revived? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon consider the significance of recent conversions, as confessed by figures such as Paul Kingsnorth and Martin Shaw, as well as the prominence given to Christianity by writers such as Marilynne Robinson and Jordan Peterson. They explore what has been called the “rewilding” of Christianity and whether traditional approaches have run out of steam. Are surprisingly common religious encounters with divine and supernatural presences becoming more acceptable? What of the challenge to mainstream forms of Christianity coming from the pens of Radical Orthodoxy and, unexpectedly, C.S. Lewis? And what might full strength Christianity invite and promise? This ripple of fresh encounters with Christianity won’t stop the general decline of church-going in the West. But maybe that very decline is making space for reinvigorated spiritualities.Dr Mark Vernon is a writer

  • Science With Soul: Reflecting on Rupert Sheldrake’s 80th Birthday Celebration

    14/07/2022 Duration: 39min

    The Scientific and Medical Network organised a gathering on Friday 8th July to mark Rupert’s 80th birthday and reflect on his work. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark Vernon discuss the day, recalling remarks made by speakers including Merlin Sheldrake, Jill Purce, David Lorimer and Pam Smart. They discuss a variety of themes seminal to Rupert’s work, from science as the calling to share in a living cosmos to the business of coping with sceptics, which is not without its amusing as well as tricky moments. The conversation celebrates the richness of an engaged and free approach to the study of the natural world, with its many mysteries, often active immediately around us everyday.

  • Dante’s Paradiso, Awakening to the Light

    24/06/2022 Duration: 44min

    This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues continues Rupert and Mark's exploration of Dante’s Divine Comedy, taking a lead from Mark’s book, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey. Dante is now guided by Beatrice through the heavenly spheres and into the Empyrean. It is a journey into the abundance of infinity and eternity, which immediately struck Rupert as akin to a DMT trip. Mark and Rupert explore how that is an apt analogy with Dante enabling us to incorporate the visionary into everyday life and understand how deeper perceptions of being can inform different times and cultures. The conversation moves over the relationship between the one and the many, the universal message of Christianity, the ways in which love and intellect work in tandem, and how Dante can aid various quests for knowledge today.Dr Mark Vernon is a writer and psychotherapist. He contributes to programmes on the radio, writes and reviews for newspapers and magazines, gives talks and podcasts. His books have c

  • Dante’s Purgatorio, How to Be Transformed

    02/03/2022 Duration: 36min

    This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues continues Rupert and Mark's exploration of Dante’s Divine Comedy, taking a lead from Mark’s book, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey. Dante and Virgil have found the way out of hell and a new adventure begins on Mount Purgatory. They first encounter souls who are shocked by their deaths and bemused by the afterlife. Then, the transformative ascent up the various terraces of the mountain begins. On each, souls are reckoning with the part of themselves marked by pride and envy, anger and lust, as well as other feelings and desires that must be cleansed in order to open their perception to the divine life that draws them. Finally, Dante and Virgil reach the earthy Eden, where Dante experiences a surprising, even shocking, encounter with the love of his life, Beatrice.Dr Mark Vernon is a writer and psychotherapist. He contributes to programmes on the radio, writes and reviews for newspapers and magazines, gives talks and podcasts. His books

  • Dante’s Inferno Part 2, The Dangers of Spiritual Seeking

    18/12/2021 Duration: 38min

    This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues is the second part of a conversation between Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon on the Inferno of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Deeper regions of hell are explored, in which individuals aren’t just confused about life but have become wedded to their confusions and the seeming power they bring. The deep ramifications of the worship of Mammon and worlds built on money is part of that addiction, as are the huge risks of spiritual seeking that arise directly from the tremendous goal of the spiritual quest, which is conscious participation in divine life. The conversation draws on Mark’s book, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey. Future talks will consider the path Dante charts next, through Purgatory and Paradise!

  • Dante’s Inferno Part 1, The Meaning of Descent

    12/11/2021 Duration: 30min

    The Divine Comedy by Dante is one of the great spiritual works of the Christian tradition. But how can it be read and what does it mean? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the first part of Dante’s cosmic pilgrimage. It takes Dante through the circles of hell, until he reaches the lowest point of reality, the region furthest from God. It becomes clear that descent into darkness is a key part of personal transformation because it helps the individual discern the dark side of experiences such as love, anger and fame, in order that the light they also bring might be discerned. This also explains why the Inferno can comfort as well as disturb: troubling experiences and spiritual emergencies can be as much a part of enlightenment as those that are delightful and satisfying. Rupert and Mark will talk about the Purgatorio and Paradiso in future discussions.

  • Gnosticism Then and Now

    08/10/2021 Duration: 29min

    The label “gnostic” is used to recommend and condemn. So what is, and what was, Gnosticism? This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, with Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, takes a lead from a series of fascinating essays exploring the ancient movement and its modern forms by the philosopher, David Bentley Hart. Gnosticism was originally a set of cosmologies which shared the sense that the created order was blocked from the celestial spheres by angelic and demonic powers. It was remarkably widespread amongst early Christians of all kinds. They turned to Christ, in the hope of redemption or escape. Nowadays, it is used in different ways, often to express a sense of yearning or hope. As Rupert and Mark discuss, Gnosticism may offer the promise of a re-enchanted cosmos, freed from the Archons of the machine and mammon. Properly understood, it might offer a key for our times.

  • What Can the West Learn from the East?

    17/08/2021 Duration: 36min

    Meditation, yoga, vegetarianism. Eastern practices have become a feature of western life. But what do we learn from them? This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, with Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, is prompted by a sense that the western way of life is being challenged, if not facing a full-on crisis. As Rowan Williams puts it in his new book, Looking East In Winter, climate change and environmental degradation are leading to a sense of needing not a programme or an ideology but an epiphany, which might renew our perception of reality. They discuss how eastern Christianity, as well as traditions in India, are based on participating with life and on the cultivation of conscious. They ask how this relates to insights such as the Christian Trinity and movements such as romanticism, as well considering the emergence of mechanistic science, which itself arose from western religious perceptions.

  • Matters of Life and Death

    16/06/2021 Duration: 34min

    Covid has brought the reality of death into the centre of our lives, but what can we learn about death in response? This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, with Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, is prompted by a sense that part of the anxiety arising from the pandemic is living in a culture that has forgotten how to know death in life. Rupert outlines some recent work on the role of death in plant life, and how that is not only of biological interest but can be spiritually resourcing. They discuss how wisdom traditions don’t dissolve death but understand it as a process that leads to more life, and therefore to be embraced and undergone. Both reflect on personal experiences of death and dying as well, in what they hope is a helpful as well as interesting conversation.

  • Animals That Talk

    23/04/2021 Duration: 32min

    Why do matters as seemingly unconnected as children’s stories and shamanic encounters feature talking animals? This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, with Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, is prompted by the book, Roland In Moonlight by David Bentley Hart. It relates long conversations between the Eastern Orthodox philosopher and his pet dog, generating fascinating thoughts on all sorts of liminal experiences, from telepathy to panpsychism. How might a re-enchanted world appear to us in the future? What does that have to do with ancient perceptions and modern science? Rupert and Mark discuss matters from pets to symbiosis, and the way that the living world participates in divine life.

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