The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
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.
Episodes
91 episodes
Purposes in Nature and Minds
One of the premises of modern science is that nature is devoid of purposes. Instead, purposeless explanations for phenomena are sought. And the strategy has proved hugely productive. Except that allusions to purpose never quite fade from the sc...
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Season 11
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Episode 91
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30:06
How does memory work?
No one knows. Repeated experiments have failed to locate where memories are stored in the brain, casting doubt on the conventional assumption that memories are stored as material traces. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert...
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Season 11
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Episode 90
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39:32
Randomness and Indeterminism
Watch on YouTube https://youtu.be/_TZ-8RMPHM8Randomness and luck, fate and providence. How do these facets of life relate to one another? Or is everything, actually, mechanically determined with synchronicities, say, being no more than ...
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Season 11
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Episode 89
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38:19
The Fullness of Life
At school, we learn that being alive is to possess certain functions, from respiration to reproduction. But what is life and why can the word “life” be used more widely than referring only to biological life? In the latest episode of the Sheldr...
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Season 11
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Episode 88
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34:29
Force Fields, Behind the Fog of Maths
Einstein remarked that there was physics before Maxwell and physics after Maxwell, the difference being the introduction of modern field theory. So what difference did fields make and, more to the point, what are they? In this episode of the Sh...
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Season 11
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Episode 87
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37:05
Matter is Frozen Light
The everyday stuff called matter turns out to be both more fascinating and stranger than we usually assume. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask just matter is, beginning with contemporary idea...
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Season 11
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Episode 86
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40:07
The Nature of Energy
Energy is a key organising principle in modern science, the conversation of energy being a grounding and universal law. But what is energy? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon examine the history ...
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Season 11
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Episode 85
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36:31
The Speed of Gravity
Isaac Newton is best known for his theory of gravity. And yet, the great scientist also insisted: "the cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know.” In other words, notions like gravity, and force in general, are deeply mysterious phenome...
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Season 11
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Episode 84
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32:23
Humanity’s role in nature. Are we more than just a problem?
Environmental degradation caused by technological progress is in the news almost everyday. So can any sense be made of an ancient intuition that human beings are not just part of nature but have a distinctive and positive role to play in nature...
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Season 11
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Episode 83
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35:47
The Extension of Mind Through Space and the Sense of Being Stared At
Do our minds reside solely inside our heads, or perhaps bodies? Or do they extend into the wider world, perhaps even reaching to the stars? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the extended...
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Season 11
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Episode 82
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42:37
Can we do without organised religion?
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 Sh...
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Season 11
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Episode 81
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37:59
How to Teach Prayer
Prayer, alongside meditation, is an integral part of religious traditions. God can be prayed to but also saints and angels. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark ask whether and why prayer is not widely discussed, h...
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Season 11
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Episode 80
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38:20
End of Life Experiences
Watch on YoutubeTerminal 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 s...
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Season 11
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Episode 79
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39:35
In Praise of Praise
Why do people offer praise and gain from it? Does God require, even demand praise? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark discuss what can be wrongly implied by praise and what it might mean as an immensely rich prac...
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Season 11
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Episode 78
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43:09
Objectivity–An urgently needed new approach
68Objectivity has come to be regarded as a prime ingredient of reliable knowledge. But what is objectivity, how has it arisen, and is the notion in need of reform? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark consider the ...
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Season 11
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Episode 77
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29:05
Humanism as Heresy: Testing the thesis of Tom Holland
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, con...
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Season 10
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Episode 76
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32:15
Rewilding Christianity
A renewed interest in Christianity? Old traditions of myth and place revived? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon consider the significance of recent conversions, as confessed by figures such as P...
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Season 10
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Episode 75
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39:07
Science With Soul: Reflecting on Rupert Sheldrake’s 80th Birthday Celebration
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 mad...
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Season 10
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Episode 74
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39:17
Dante’s Paradiso, Awakening to the Light
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 t...
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Season 10
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Episode 73
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44:05
Dante’s Purgatorio, How to Be Transformed
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 and Virgil have found the way out o...
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Season 10
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Episode 72
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36:40
Dante’s Inferno Part 2, The Dangers of Spiritual Seeking
This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues is the second part of a conversation between Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon on the Inferno of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Deeper regions of hell are explored, in which individuals aren’t just confused...
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Season 9
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Episode 71
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38:57
Dante’s Inferno Part 1, The Meaning of Descent
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 ...
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Season 9
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Episode 70
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30:24
Gnosticism Then and Now
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 an...
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Season 9
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Episode 69
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29:30
What Can the West Learn from the East?
Meditation, yoga, vegetarianism. Eastern practices have become a feature of western life. But what do we learn from them? This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, with Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon, is prompted by a sense that the wes...
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Season 9
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Episode 68
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36:55
Matters of Life and Death
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 a...
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Season 9
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Episode 67
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34:41
