40th Mystics and Scientists Conference
April 7 – 9, 2017
The Continuing Quest for Unity and Integration. How we are reconciling science and spirituality.
Organised by The Scientific and Medical Network
Venue: De Vere Horsley Estate, Surrey
Conference Description
The Mystics and Scientists conferences have been held every year since 1978, and are dedicated to forging a creative understanding of the complementary roles of scientific and mystical approaches to reality. The conferences always provide a highly engaging and creative opportunity to come together with like-minded people in a spirit of exploration and dialogue. The theme of unity and integration applies not only to science and spirituality but also to the integration we seek within ourselves. The speakers bring together world views from physics, biology, philosophy, psychology and spirituality, and they will address the theme from their various angles of expertise.
The quest for unity and integration applies not only at the theoretical level in science, philosophy and psychology, but also to our own lives, especially in a spiritual sense, to the journey from separation to wholeness, from self to Self. In this sense it is important for a so-called theory of everything to include consciousness, as Max Planck stated as far back as 1931 – ‘everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.’ The process continues, there is no final point of arrival but a constant cycle of transformation that involves living with presence in the Now.
The conference will be brought to a close by Isthmus Theatre, who appeared in December at the International Conference of the Mystical Theology Network, hosted this year by Glasgow University. The Chair of the Conference, George Pattison, Professor of Theology at Glasgow and Canon of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, said of Isthmus Theatre’s performance:
‘Paul Finegan’s and Anthony Mulligan’s performance was a wonderful way to bring our international conference to an end. It was funny, entertaining, thought-provoking, and beautiful by turn. The performance combined comedy with readings of some of the world’s most poetic mystical texts, and responded to the intellectual content of the conference in a way that reminded us of some of the human dimensions of what we had been talking about, and that a purely academic discourse can too easily gloss over.’
Paul and Anthony have formed Isthmus Theatre to continue to explore ways of presenting an understanding of the Unity of Existence and the mystical potential of humanity, through poetry and theatre pieces which may speak directly to the human heart, as the receptive place of spiritual inspiration and integration.
The Scientific & Medical Network
The Scientific and Medical Network was founded in 1973 by George Blaker, Dr. Patrick Shackleton, Dr. Peter Leggett and Sir Kelvin Spencer. The founders believed that neither orthodox religion nor conventional science was sufficient to answer pressing questions about human existence and the cosmos, and that new ways of thinking were needed.
The Network provides interdisciplinary education exploring the frontiers of science, consciousness and spirituality. It draws on a worldwide community of scientists, doctors, psychologists, engineers, philosophers and theologians to provide events, publications, and courses that link insights from the spiritual traditions and the arts, with the study and application of science and medicine.
The Network assumes that there are many ways of knowing the world and ourselves, of which science is just one, albeit one highly effective and reliable, way of gaining knowledge. In order to do justice to the full spectrum of human experience and the complexity of the cosmos, it encourages dialogue and interaction between the spiritual, the scientific, the philosophical and the arts in open-minded enquiry.
More Information & Booking
For more information, programme, speakers and booking click here
Course / Event location
Ockham Rd S, East Horsley, Leatherhead KT24 6DT, UK
