David Lorimer – NEW BOOK OUT IN MARCH 2021
A Quest for Wisdom brings together 25 of David Lorimer’s highly acclaimed essays. Perceptive and illuminating, they examine the nature of life and death, questions of meaning and purpose, and the challenge of how we can live more harmoniously together. David hopes that readers will be inspired, as Dr Albert Schweitzer put it, in our common task ‘to become more finely and deeply human.’
The Soul Can Choose to Leave the Body Before a Fatal Accident
"Our soul-consciousness is very much ahead of our physical-consciousness. So, when instant death occurs through an accident, the soul is aware of what is about to happen a split second before the impact occurs and leaves the body. The soul having left, no pain is felt...These sudden transitions appear tragic and ghastly to the onlooker, but to the person who has just died, death is always wonderful."
Imaginal Inspirations with David Lorimer – Larry Dossey
Larry Dossey is a physician and author of nine books. He has become an internationally influential advocate of the role of the mind in health and the role of spirituality in healthcare.
The Economics of Biodiversity: the Dasgupta Review | The Royal Society
The Prince of Wales and Sir David Attenborough join economist Professor Sir Partha Dasgupta and Nobel-prize winning biologist Sir Venki Ramakrishnan to mark the publication of The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review.
Avi Loeb: ‘It would be arrogant to think we’re alone in the universe’
When Harvard professor Avi Loeb discovered possible signs of extraterrestrial activity, it caused a scandal in the research community. Is fear and conservatism stopping science from considering plausible evidence that there are aliens out there?
03/02/2021 – Tom McLeish on The Rediscovery of Contemplation Through Science
ISSR is pleased to announce that the 2021 Boyle Lecture will be given by Professor Tom McLeish, Professor of Natural Philosophy at the University of York, on the subject of “The Rediscovery of Contemplation Through Science”. The lecture will be given at 6.00 pm on Wednesday 3rd February 2021. However, due to the ongoing global pandemic, this year’s lecture will be available only online.
Imaginal Inspirations with David Lorimer – Marilyn Schlitz
Marilyn Schlitz is a social scientist, author, and speaker. Her clinical, laboratory and field-based research centres on consciousness, human transformation, and healing. Her latest book Death Makes Life Possible was accompanied by a film of the same title and explores the idea that facing our mortality inspires us to live our lives more fully.
Anthony Judge – Reframing Fundamental Belief as Disinformation
How is misinformation to be distinguished from any information with which authorities disagree or prefer to have suppressed?
What is Scientism? – Thomas Burnett
It is one thing to celebrate science for its achievements and remarkable ability to explain a wide variety of phenomena in the natural world. But to claim there is nothing knowable outside the scope of science would be similar to a successful fisherman saying that whatever he can’t catch in his nets does not exist. Once you accept that science is the only source of human knowledge, you have adopted a philosophical position (scientism) that cannot be verified, or falsified, by science itself. It is, in a word, unscientific.
Imaginal Inspirations with David Lorimer – Iain McGilchrist
Iain McGilchrist is writer, lecturer and former Consultant Psychiatrist. He is committed to the idea that the whole of our physical and spiritual existence and wider human culture helps to mould, and in turn is moulded by, our minds and brains. His latest work, The Matter With Things, a book of epistemology and metaphysics, will be published by Penguin/Random House. You can read written pieces by Iain and watch videos of him on Channel McGilchrist.
Attention, Intention, and Will in Quantum Physics – Henry Stapp
How is mind related to matter? This ancient question in philosophy is rapidly becoming a core problem in science, perhaps the most important of all because it probes the essential nature of man himself. The origin of the problem is a conflict between the mechanical conception of human beings that arises from the precepts of classical physical theory and the very different idea that arises from our intuition: the former reduces each of us to an automaton, while the latter allows our thoughts to guide our actions. The dominant contemporary approaches to the problem attempt to resolve this conflict by clinging to the classical concepts, and trying to explain away our misleading intuition. But a detailed argument given here shows why, in a scientific approach to this problem, it is necessary to use the more basic principles of quantum physics, which bring the observer into the dynamics, rather than to accept classical precepts that are profoundly incorrect precisely at the crucial point of the role of human consciousness in the dynamics of human brains.
18/01/21 – Chris Roe – Sceptical of scepticism: an appraisal of the counter-advocate position
In this talk I’ll reflect on modern-day criticism to explore whether it is fit for purpose; to what extent are the criticisms justified and require a response from researchers in terms of modifying research designs or tempering claims, and to what extent are they rhetorical devices that seem persuasive but lack substance when scrutinised more closely.
Imaginal Inspirations with David Lorimer – Elisabet Sahtouris
Elisabet Sahtouris is an internationally known evolution biologist, futurist, professor and author. Her latest book Gaia's Dance: The Story of Earth & Us explores the earth not as a machine, but as a living being. She tells the story of its evolution over billions of years and includes research on bacterial cooperatives and maturation cycles. She has also written and spoken about the significance of imaginal cells and their transformative power.
Webinar (30 Jan): Holism, Dao and Quantum Physics – Dr Shantena Sabbadini
Shantena will illustrate the fundamental challenge to our materialist world view presented by the proven phenomena of quantum physics. Correlating this to Holistic Principles he will introduce the arcane wisdom of the Dao and its practical implications for human practice and becoming.
Where Airy Voices Lead
The important point made by the author, though, is that there is no conclusive proof for any particular view, including the materialist scientific view. He further argues that rationality is present in views dismissed by materialists as irrational and unintelligible, since ‘they are all grounded in perfectly legitimate metaphysical philosophies about the nature of reality and how the world might work.’ He rightly highlights that the key issue is that psychic and transcendent experiences ‘do not fit into the materialist framework, which is only one of several possible worldviews’ – there is no unbiased standpoint without presuppositions from which one can arrive at an impartial view. Hence, he writes that the question of immortality ‘is not a clash of evidence, but of worldviews and their interpretation.’
Dr Iain McGilchrist discusses his new book, ‘The Matter With Things’
Dr Iain McGilchrist, author of The Master and His Emissary, Galileo Commission adviser and author of the foreword to the Galileo Commission Report, discusses some of the themes of his new book, titled 'The Matter With Things', due for publication in 2021.
Rupert Sheldrake – Inteview on The Science Delusion and Morphic Resonance
A detailed and revealing interview with the renowned author, scientist and Galileo Commission adviser Rupert Sheldrake, whose work on telepathy, intuition and ‘morphic resonance’ has challenged rampant scientism.
Remote Viewing the Future with Stephan A. Schwartz
Stephan Schwartz discusses a project in which he was engaged from 1978 through 1996, asking individuals who attended his workshops and conferences to envision life in the year 2050. He describes the care that he took to avoid suggesting answers himself. The results consistently described situations that turned out to be true, but were hard for him to accept at the time -- including the disappearance of the Soviet Union. He suggests that, in our future, virtual reality will become an accepted substitute for air travel.
The Science of Divinity – A. K. Mukhopadhyay
The world has been taking a new turn. Humanity has been crossing the threshold to emerge as Homo spiritualis! Spiritual quest of a large number of scientists has been taking the science beyond materialism; science with space time matter and visible energy. Galileo Commission of Scientific and Medical Network, UK has been working hard to extend the scope of science by extending its horizon, by pushing the envelope.
Pim van Lommel – Infinite Consciousness & NDEs
Dutch cardiologist Dr. Pim van Lommel is very well known for his more than 30 years of scientific research in the field of Near-Death-Experiences (NDE), his publications and his books. In this speech at the World of Consciousness Conference 2018, Dr. van Lommel talks about that consciousness is not merely manifactured in the brain. He has investigated 100s of NDE cases that he presents in this talk.
Harald Walach on the Conversations Beyond Science and Religion podcast
As Philip and Dr. Walach discuss on this show, eventually the tipping point will be reached and materialism, the doctrine that the world consists only of impersonal particles and forces, with no purpose, meaning, or goal, will pass away into history.
The Layman’s Guide to the Galileo Commission Report
When the Galileo Report was first published, it became clear that the scientific format was difficult for the general public to follow. The layman’s guide was created to bring the wisdom contained within the report to a wider audience. We are at a critical time in the history of humanity. The ideas contained within the report provide solid evidence on what is needed to expand science and help humanity evolve in the face of its current challenges.
SPR Zoom event 12th Dec – PSI and Post-materialist Science
The old-fashioned materialistic paradigm was overthrown a century ago with the advent of relativity and quantum theory and more recent developments across a variety of academic disciplines point to a new “post-materialist” paradigm which could accommodate a host of phenomena – including consciousness – previously considered beyond the domain of science. This is the theme of the recent ground-breaking Galileo Commission Report, written by Harald Walach and initiated by the Scientific and Medical Network. This (virtual) Study Day will bring together four people (including Harald himself) who have played a crucial role in advocating and promoting this new paradigm. The day will end with a general discussion and audience participation.
Bridging Science and Spirit
We arrive at a conclusion that science is a path to self-knowledge and that ‘Science and Spirit are a necessary unity.’ At the time of writing, people are coming together to meditate whereby we create a field ‘raising the symmetry of space’ and creating an atmosphere that is coherent and palpable in sacred places. In the case of advanced saints and sages like Padre Pio, this may even result in the physical body becoming incorruptible, somehow transforming the very matter normally subject to entropic decay. All this gives pause for thought, while the book as a whole points way beyond our current conceptual limits.
The Oxford Research Centre In The Humanities Discusses Iain McGilchrist’s Work – 26th November
The Oxford Research Centre In The Humanities has announced that on Thursday (26th November 2pm-3pm GMT) there will be a book reading which will focus on a discussion of the book by Commission adviser and author of the Foreword of the Galileo Commission Report Iain McGilchrist's The Master and His Emissary.