THE BESHARA LECTURES
The Beshara Lecture is an event organised by the Beshara Trust, usually annually. A speaker is invited to present a paper on the ways in which a deep understanding of unity illuminates different areas of human knowledge, informing their research, practice or personal contemplation.
Speaker: Iain McGilchrist
Delivered online on 9th July 2023
If there is Oneness, what are the Many? Are they the same? What do we mean? Iain McGilchrist suggests that the coincidence of opposites is a truth of unsurpassed importance, but that we have been educated into believing that it is, quite simply, nonsense; and that this plays a neglected role in our failure to make sense of the world.
Iain McGilchrist is “a psychiatrist, neurologist, philosopher and writer whose seminal work, The Master and His Emissary (2009) presented the notion that the two hemispheres of the human brain approach the world in two very different ways. He argues passionately for the importance – often overlooked in the modern world – of the right hemisphere, which sees the world as a unified, living process. In his most recent book, The Matter with Things (2021) he further explores the philosophical implications of this idea. See this review by Beshara Magazine.
Beshara Lecture 2022
Unity in Humanity? Where Two Hands Meet
Presented by: His Royal Highness Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan
Introduced and chaired by Hugh Tollemache
Delivered online on 29th May 2022
“Love can only consist in failure on the fallacious assumption that it is a relationship. It is not. It is a realisation of truth.” (Alain Badiou)
Truth should be adhered to in presenting historical facts, while at the same time concentrating on the values of love, peace and respect, so that we can raise a generation that believes in coexistence with others and respect of their values. This is a project that requires our concerted efforts in order to contribute to the making of our history based on dialogue, cooperation and integration, rather than on conflict and clashes.
Beshara Lecture 2019
Ecosystems as Love Processes: From Biological War Ideology to Understanding Reality as Alive
Speaker: Andreas Weber
Introduction: David Hornsby
Delivered 16th November 2019 at the Royal Asiatic Society, London
PART 1
PART 3: Q&A
Andreas Weber is a Berlin-based philosopher, biologist and writer, who teaches philosophy at Leuphana University, Lüneburg, and at the University of Fine Arts, Berlin. Read an interview with Andreas in Issue 7 of Beshara Magazine.
Beshara Lecture 2017
Nothingness and Gratitude: Themes in Spiritual Life
Speaker: Prof George Pattison
George Pattison (1640 Chair of Divinity at the University of Glasgow) explores nothingness as one of the key terms of the Western mystical tradition.
Beshara Lecture 2016
Opening The Eye of the Heart in the Mirror of Religious Truth
Speaker: Prof. Alan Williams
Professor Alan Williams (University of Manchester) shows how Rumi, of all spiritual teachers, gives perhaps the greatest emphasis to the transformative and healing power of love as a divine ‘incarnation’ in the human heart.
Beshara Lecture 2015
Is a New Consciousness Emerging? Reflections on the Impact of an Integral Perspective
Speaker: Nikos Yiangou
Every era embodies a perspective or worldview. In a time of profound change, what is the worldview that describes our current era? As we look back at the stages of our development in history with an ever-sharper lens and contemplate our present and our future, Nikos asks: is a new consciousness emerging as we transition to an increasingly inclusive and holistic worldview? Nikos reviews some of the ideas of thinkers such as Ken Wilber, Jean Gebser, Michael Murphy, Teilhard de Chardin and Sri Aurobindo, and suggests further ways of advancing integral thought by reviewing the work of one of the greatest early integral thinkers, Sufi mystic and spiritual giant, Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi, and his teachings on the Logos as a principle for emergence.
Beshara Lecture 2014
A Heart Capable of Every Form: Atheism, Agnosticism and Belief
Beshara Lecture 2012
Human Being / Being Human: Awareness, Ascension and the Attainment of True Happiness
Speaker: Stephen Hirtenstein
Stephen Hirtenstein is editor of the Journal of the Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi Society [/] and co-founder of Anqa Publishing [/]. This recording is of a talk at Chisholme House [/] in March 2013, which was slightly different to the 2012 Beshara Lecture delivered in London and Edinburgh.
Beshara Lecture 2010
Educating the Heart: Establishing a Spiritual Perspective in the Modern World
Speaker: Jane Clark
Jane Clark has been studying Muhyiddin Ibn ‘Arabi’s thought for nearly thirty years and is particularly interested in the way that his ideas have spread throughout the world. She is most concerned with the universal appeal of his writings, especially as revealed in his Fusus al-hikam.
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