The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon
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.
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Top 10 The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Dante’s Inferno Part 1, The Meaning of Descent
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
11/12/21 • 30 min
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.
2 Listeners
Gnosticism Then and Now
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
10/08/21 • 29 min
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.
2 Listeners
End of Life Experiences
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
06/02/23 • 39 min
Watch on Youtube
Terminal 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 experiences
https://www.sheldrake.org/ele
Lesley Kean's book Surviving Death
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246583/surviving-death-by-leslie-kean/
Dale Allison's discussion the resurrection
https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/resurrection-of-jesus-9780567697561/
1 Listener
The Evolution of Religion
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
10/14/19 • 30 min
The origins of religion lie deep in the story of human evolution. But as Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss in this new episode of The Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, the scientific study of our encounter with other worlds is changing. It has been proposed that humans believe in gods because punishing presences keep individuals in check, but that's discredited. New research is turning back to an older idea that our ancestors developed the ability to enter altered states. It’s fascinating partly because new evidence puts spiritual questing in the driving seat of human evolution. It also takes us back to reflections made by Darwin that qualities like beauty are active right across the animal kingdom.
1 Listener
Can we do without organised religion?
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
10/22/23 • 37 min
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.
1 Listener
Matters of Life and Death
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
06/16/21 • 34 min
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.
1 Listener
Humanism as Heresy: Testing the thesis of Tom Holland
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
12/06/22 • 32 min
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.)
1 Listener
Science With Soul: Reflecting on Rupert Sheldrake’s 80th Birthday Celebration
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
07/14/22 • 39 min
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.
Animals That Talk
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
04/23/21 • 32 min
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.
Dante’s Paradiso, Awakening to the Light
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
06/24/22 • 44 min
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 covered themes including friendship and God, ancient Greek philosophy and wellbeing. He has a PhD in ancient Greek philosophy, and other degrees in physics and in theology, and works as a psychotherapist in private practice. He used to be an Anglican priest.
http://www.markvernon.com
Mark's latest book is...
Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide For The Spiritual Journey
https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book?svd=73
Dr Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University he worked in developmental biology as a Fellow of Clare College. He was Principal Plant Physiologist at the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics and From 2005 to 2010 was Director of the Perrott-Warrick project, Cambridge.
https://www.sheldrake.org
Rupert's latest book is...
The Science Delusion: 2020 Edition
https://www.sheldrake.org/books-by-rupert-sheldrake/the-science-delusion-science-set-free?svd=73
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FAQ
How many episodes does The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues have?
The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues currently has 92 episodes available.
What topics does The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues cover?
The podcast is about Society & Culture, Spirituality, Religion & Spirituality, Podcasts and Philosophy.
What is the most popular episode on The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues?
The episode title 'Dante’s Inferno Part 1, The Meaning of Descent' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues?
The average episode length on The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues is 31 minutes.
How often are episodes of The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues released?
Episodes of The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues are typically released every 39 days, 23 hours.
When was the first episode of The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues?
The first episode of The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues was released on Dec 22, 2012.
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