The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues

Support the podcast by subscribing on Substackhttps://rupertsheldrake.substack.comWatch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qbRW_iehUA0The mood has shifted. Subjects that were once taboo - like God - are now discussed openly. So if a new theism is abroad, what might it bring? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask why individuals engaged in pursuits from cultural critique to theoretical biology are now actively interested in traditions such as Christianity and Platonism. What is new about this turn and what is old? What does it mean in terms of understanding our humanity, the sciences and wider cosmology? And how can these new currents be best assessed and discerned?------Dr Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University, as a Fellow of Clare College, he was Director of Studies in biochemistry and cell biology. As the Rosenheim Research Fellow of the Royal Society, he carried out research on

The imagination is often regarded as a valuable but fanciful capacity. But what if imagination were not an optional extra, or even the possession of human beings alone, but a fundamental feature of reality? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon draw on the ideas of William Blake to explore Blake’s insistence that “nature is imagination itself!”. They discuss how the understanding of the imagination has contracted in recent times, though also how modern science is a remarkable exercise in the imagination. They consider matters from how the Platonic notion of ideas relates to cosmic and evolutionary novelty, to whether angels can be said to be imaginative and creative. Mark’s new book is Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination.

You may agree that the so-called hard problem of consciousness exposes the deep inadequacies of a materialist worldview. But the alternatives - various forms of panpsychism, panentheism and idealism - raise rich and fascinating questions too. In this episode of The Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore the leading edge of consciousness research, with Rupert just back from The Science of Consciousness Conference 2025 in Barcelona. They discuss the impact of Indian researchers in consciousness and the proposals of microchip inventor, Federico Faggin. They consider trainings in extra-ocular vision and questions thrown up by the hit podcast series, The Telepathy Tapes. One thing is clear: when the materialist paradigm passes, the science of consciousness will have only just begun.

The conviction that the natural world is obedient, adhering to laws, is a widespread assumption of modern science. But where did this idea originate and what beliefs does it imply? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the impact on science of the Elizabethan lawyer, Francis Bacon. His New Instrument of Thought, or Novum Organum, put laws at the centre of science and was intended as an upgrade on assumptions developed by Aristotle. But does the existence of mind-like laws of nature, somehow acting on otherwise mindless matter, even make sense? What difference is made by insights subsequent to Baconian philosophy, such as the discovery of evolution or the sense that the natural world is not machine-like but behaves like an organism? Could the laws of nature be more like habits? And what about the existence of miracles, the purposes of organisms, and the extraordinary fecundity of creativity?

Much of the modern world has become uncoupled from the transcendent in a cultural experiment Nietzsche called the death of God. But might this spiritual crisis prove to be a time of rebirth? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, recorded live at an event organised by the Temenos Academy, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the evolution of wisdom traditions from west and east alongside the great modern enterprise called science and its continuing development. As the materialist, progressive ideology that has dominated the sciences for two centuries wanes, and as scientific studies show that religious and spiritual practices have major benefits for physical and mental health, what insights might we cultivate, as we live in and through these times?

Watch: https://youtu.be/_ywyQIFMtQEDarwinian evolution shapes modern biology, but the notion of evolution has a wider history, too. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore linear and cyclical conceptions of human and cosmic evolution and ask what they can mean in the modern world, where innovation and evolution appear to be escalating. They consider the significance of two main principles within evolution, that of diversity and creativity, and how these elements can be embraced. They also ask about the difficulty of talking about evolution today, given the presence of intelligent design and creationism. An inability to discuss evolution in a wider context is a loss because evolutionary theory itself is sophisticated and interestingly contested, both in the realm of biology but spirituality: the so-called evolution of consciousness. The discussion includes the ideas of Pierre Tielhard de Chardin and Owen Barfield, Karl Popper and Henri Bergson.

Forms are all around us: clouds, flowers, creatures, even systems of thought and logical relations. And yet the nature of forms is rarely part of the modern scientific conversation. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the importance of forms and how they work. The need for form to account for life as we know it has been eclipsed by the mechanical philosophy of modern science that turned instead to forces, extrinsic causes and abstract laws. But the case can be made that science needs to revisit the notion of forms. Rupert’s own work draws much from that imperative. The existence of forms also matters in terms of explaining our relationship to others and the world around us. If the cosmos is more mind-like than matter-like than that means our sense of participation and communion is real. Indeed, it might be said that when we study and contemplate, our minds meet the intelligence implicit in all things, which itself arises from the divine intelligence that

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 scientific imagination. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore the ways in which the natural world is indeed full of purposes, both at the level of the so-called inanimate, as well as in the living world, and the reality we know most immediately and best, namely our own lives and consciousness. The discussion ranges over a range of matters, from the growth of embryos to the attractive nature of gravity and the tendency towards order and beauty. An implication of the presence of purpose in nature and minds is a need to rethink phenomena such as matter and power. And there is an obvious reason that purpose keeps reappearing in scientific accounts, namely that purposes are present in all things. Mark’s discussion of David

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 Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss various kinds of memory, from episodic memory to habits. They consider how memory is linked to emotion and place, drawing on insights from Aristotle to AN Whitehead. Rupert’s own work has led to the theory of morphic fields, within which all self-organising systems dwell. They also ask about Indian ideas of memory and how that is related to ideas about reincarnation and the possibility that everything that exists lives, in some way, in the memory of God.

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 coincidences? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the ways in which philosophers and scientists, ancient and modern, have imagined and explored notions of causality and sympathy in nature, alongside fortune and theurgy in relation to the gods. The ideas of Aristotle and Boethius provide a striking background against which to consider more recent scientific work. Rupert also demonstrates how fields can influence seemingly random effects using a Galton Board - a remarkably profound analogue for, say, practices such as prayer.

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 Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon consider the meaning of saying that stars have a lifecycle, and that rocks and atoms can be ascribed a biography, in that they undergo processes of becoming. They discuss A.N. Whitehead’s argument that so-called inanimate objects need to be considered as organisms and that life must also include the experience of being alive, which is to say consciousness and mentality. The powers of nature and the connection of all life, not least in terms of the idea of Gaia, lead them to ask how God can be said to be the origin and sustainer of life. Asking what life is dramatically expands the notion of life and the awesome nature of being alive.00:00 Introduction00:26 Criteria of Life01:19 Life Beyond Biology02:26 Life Cycle of

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 Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore how electromagnetic and gravitational, quantum and morphic fields shape modern science. They ask whether fields are a way that mechanistic understandings of nature have revived Aristotle’s notion of formal and final causes and look at the fact that fields aren’t energetic or material causes. They draw on ancient notions of soul to ask how fields can be part of an expansive notion of science, which has long drawn on entities that aren’t directly detectable to understand nature. Fields as realities in themselves are rarely discussed by scientists, the nature of fields hidden behind a fog of mathematics. But they fascinated figures like Faraday and Maxwell and might fascinate us again.

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 ideas from quantum physics, in which matter is frozen light, as the physicist David Bohm put it. They consider the relationship between matter and gravity, as well as matter and ancient notions of potentiality, which turn out to be surprising relevant today. The differences between quantity and quality offer another conversational thread, with the discussion also drawing in wider questions, such as the nature of matter within the philosophy of panpsychism, and also the etymological links between matter and mater, or mother, revealing factors about material of which most are unconscious today.------Dr Rupert Sheldrake, PhD, is a biologist and author best known for his hypothesis of morphic resonance. At Cambridge University, as a Fellow of Clare College, he was Director of S

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 of the idea and the word. In science, energy is a relatively recently notion, emerging in its current form in the 19th century, drawing much on mechanics. The word itself was coined by Aristotle, in the 4th century BCE, carrying a sense of vital actuality and living presence. That meaning is still remembered in Orthodox theology, which describes the energeia of God. The conversation ranges over the promiscuity of energy in the natural world to the spiritual notion of energy, including the subtle energies of the body. The implications of shaping the idea of energy through mechanical metaphors also has important ramifications, from the descriptions of economics and the efficacy of psychology to the experience of God. Further, the most recent physics argues that energy is

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 phenomena. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask just what gravity might be. The conversation begins with a feature of gravity that is typically overlooked by physicists, namely that gravity has a speed. According to the physicist Tom van Flandern, the speed of gravity is at least **20 billion times faster than light**!https://www.intalek.com/Index/Projects/Research/TheSpeedofGravity-WhattheExperimentsSay.htmThey consider how gravity might be linked to the notion of levity, a link that can be renewed again. Newton himself was inclined to regard gravity as the divine will in the cosmos and was also influenced by the belief in daemons, particularly the entity called Eros or love. These are go-betweens in the universe, in the

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? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss issues from the significance of consciousness to cosmic emergence in order to explore a vision of humanity in nature that goes well beyond our life being the meaningless byproduct of random processes. Humanity contributes to the diversification and beautification of the natural world, even as monocrops undermine that enrichment, too. Alternatively, religious traditions add a layer of meaning to natural processes that science alone can’t provide, from expressing divine creativity to returning that blessing in the praising of God. Panpsychism, strong emergence and Charles Darwin’s appreciation of the excessiveness of nature are other themes in the conversation, making a case for

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 mind theory, taking a lead from recent work of Rupert’s on the sense of being stared at, and also the problems that contemporary science has with understanding vision. The discussion considers new research carried out by Rupert and others, as well as the theories of A.N. Whitehead. The way in which science since Maxwell has considered light as moving backwards as well as forwards in time is explored, alongside the way that William Blake described how we see, which itself fits the ancient understanding, that seeing is an active process of engagement, not a passive mode of reception.Rupert references two published papers. One is on the nature of visual perception, co-written with Alex Gomez-Marin, online here:https://www.sheldrake.org/files/pdfs/papers/The-Nature-of-Visu

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.

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, how prayer can be practiced, and what prayer might be. They share personal practices of prayer and explore the agency of angels and saints. They ask about the entities that people report encountering when using psychedelics, alongside other questions such as how to pray for people and what can be expected from prayer. The desire to pray seems to be an almost universal human impulse. Much more might be made of it.

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 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 experienceshttps://www.sheldrake.org/eleLesley Kean's book Surviving Deathhttps://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/246583/surviving-death-by-leslie-kean/Dale Allison's discussion the resurrectionhttps://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/resurrection-of-jesus-9780567697561/