For over 400 years conventional views of science and nature have prevailed. But, as we look at the many ecological challenges we now face, isn’t it time we properly considered the alternatives?
During this three-week course students will join the teachers from the learning community of Schumacher College and meet inspiring speakers and thinkers including Colin Campbell, Rupert Sheldrake and Merlin Sheldrake.
Students will be taken on guided experiences both indoors and outdoors to explore how synchronistic patterns and events connect us with the deep psyche of the world, with ‘mind in nature’.
This immersive exploration of holism in science, of mind in nature, acknowledges the intelligence of the fungal world and the organising properties of primordial sound. It reveal the thinking behind ‘morphic resonance’, the radical proposal that memory is the key driver in the evolution and development throughout the world of nature. It also examines perspectives from the English Pagan tradition and from southern African indigenous worldviews.
This course is an opportunity to foster and integrate direct experiences of mind in nature with rigorous intellectual enquiry based on an integration of experiential practices with recent developments in science and philosophy.
Week One : Stephan Harding and Rupert Sheldrake who explore the unbroken lineage of panpsychist thought (which sees mind and matter as inseparable) beginning with the Orphic tradition, to key philosophers of ancient Greece to more recent versions of this understanding in various contemporary thinkers. We learn from Rupert about ‘morphic resonance’, his radical proposal that memory is the key driver in the evolution and development throughout the world of nature, and we explore how biology is gradually accumulating evidence that animals, plants, fungi and single-celled organisms are minds in nature, displaying traits such as feeling and intelligence similar in kind (but not necessarily in intensity) to these qualities in ourselves.
Week Two: We continue our exploration of mind in nature with Merlin Sheldrake, who will share his expert knowledge of the intelligence of the fungal world and his insights into the organising properties of primordial sound. Also in this week we will explore the astonishing world of symbiosis in nature with Phoebe Tickell, focusing on the relationships between animals and their microbiomes. Also in this week we’ll move into a more experiential mode with Andy Letcher, who will open up perspectives from the English Pagan tradition combined with short pilgrimages to particular sites around Schumacher College and the Dartington Estate to experience how mind in nature can be found in the very landscapes that surround and enfold us.
Week Three: We broaden our experiential enquiry into mind in nature with Colin Campbell with whom we’ll explore how aspects of the shamanic traditions of Southern Africa can help us to encounter the soulful life of nature through carefully guided experiences both indoors and outdoors, revealing how synchronistic patterns and events connect us with the deep psyche of the world.
This course is an elective on our postgraduate programme. It is open to external participants who would like to deeply explore this subject material and can join us for the whole three-week programme.
*The Booking Deadline gives us an accurate idea of course participant numbers at approximately 6 weeks before the course is due to run, at which point we confirm the course, add additional time for people to book on or cancel the course. We encourage people to register early for courses as places are limited.