
AUTUMN PROGRAMME 2020
01/09/20 ‘Spirits Over Spirits’ by Professor Lance Butler and Charlie MacLean
08/09/20 ‘The Mind Beyond the Brain’ by Dr Rupert Sheldrake
15/09/20 ‘Why Now’s the Time for Mind-Body-Spirit’ by Liza Horan
22/09/20 ‘Gnosis in a Future Science of Consciousness’ by David Lorimer
29/09/20 ‘Psi Wars: Data Communication vs Beliefs’ by Dr Callum Cooper
06/10/20 ‘Recent Developments in Parapsychology’ by Professor Chris Roe
13/10/20 ‘The School of Nothing Buttery’ by Dr Iain McGilchrist
20/10/20 ‘Magic and the Gothic’ by Professor David Punter
27/10/20 ‘Is Consciousness Everywhere?’ by Dr Philip Goff
03/11/20 ‘Spirit World’ by John Pickering and Katie Hall
10/11/20 ‘Two Enlightenments’ by Professor Lance Butler
17/11/20 ‘Dark Messiah’ by Brian Allan
01/12/20 ‘Bringing Physical Mediumship Up to Date’ by Nick Kyle
Tuesday Talks
The Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Centre hosts informative talks every Tuesday evening. We provide a platform for the world’s leading thinkers and philosophers to share their ideas with our community. We host one talk physically at the centre per month and a weekly online talk streamed through Zoom.
Tickets are £5 except where indicated that admission is free.
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Recordings Available
Recordings are now available. To purchase a recording, click or tap on ‘purchase recording’ and we will send you the link. If you are a season pass holder or you have purchased tickets to a specific event but missed it or want to watch it again, please email us or call us on 0131 625 0700 to request the recording.
Confirmed Speakers
1st September 2020. 'Spirits Over Spirits' by Professor Lance Butler and Charlie MacLean. 7.30pm. £3.
8th September 2020. 'The Mind Beyond the Brain' by Dr Rupert Sheldrake. 7.30pm. £5.
We have been brought up to believe that minds are located inside heads. But there are good reasons for thinking that this view is much too limited. People can influence others at a distance just by looking at them, even if they look from behind and if all sensory clues are eliminated. Animals can be affected by human looks, and vice versa. People’s intentions can also be detected telepathically by animals from miles away. Recent tests have also shown that some people can tell who is calling them before they pick up the phone. Our minds seem to extend out beyond our brains both through attention and intention.
15th September 2020. 'Why Now’s the Time for Mind-Body-Spirit' by Liza Horan. 7.30pm. £5
Never before has the opportunity for individuals and society to benefit from mind-body-spirit disciplines been so great. This year has conjured ‘a perfect storm’ highlighting the demand for complementary and alternative medicine, natural health therapies, spiritual healing and growth, and personal development. The mind-body-spirit movement is gaining strength, and whether you are a seeker, a healer or just curious, each of us has a role to play.
22nd September 2020. 'Gnosis in a Future Science of Consciousness' by David Lorimer. 7.30pm. £5.
The classical scholar Peter Kingsley has argued in a series of books that the origins of Western philosophy are to be found in direct experiences of mysticism and gnosis rather than in Socratic dialogue and reasoning, which was a later development. We have lost our roots and centre represented by the Self, and our identity is primarily shaped by outer factors corresponding to the third person and quantitative perspective of modern science.
29th September 2020. 'The Psi Wars: Data and Communication vs. Beliefs' by Dr Callum Cooper. 7.30pm. £5.
Parapsychology, as with all sciences, is forever observing and questioning its theories, methods, and data through the sceptical lens. However, how the media may portray research into ‘psi’ is another matter of serious concern, especially for today’s generation and how we learn. This talk will examine psi data, how this is communicated and how as humans we see this ‘evidence’ fitting within our worldviews.
6th October 2020. 'Recent Developments in Parapsychology' by Professor Chris Roe. 7.30pm. £5.
Professor Chris Roe will pick out some highlights of the contemporary parapsychology research effort and draw some conclusions concerning what it might tell us about human capabilities. Professor Roe is President of the Society for Psychical Research and the International Affiliate for England of the Parapsychology Foundation.
13th October 2020. 'The School of Nothing Buttery' by Dr Iain McGilchrist. 7.30pm. £5.
There is a strong reductionist element in popular science and some brands of philosophy which presents itself as speaking for science and the thinking person. It doesn’t. As a mode of approach to the world it is severely limited, enabling us to exploit the world while putting us in a poor position to understand what it is we are in the process of destroying. This take on the world is in fact the product of being blind to what the more intelligent and insightful part of our mind and brain is able to tell us.
20th October 2020. 'Magic and the Gothic' by Professor David Punter. 7.30pm. £5.
The Gothic, often known as the ‘literature of terror’, and magic have had a long association. Professor David Punter talks about a few twentieth and twenty-first-century Gothic novels, by writers like Aleister Crowley, H.P. Lovecraft, Denis Wheatley, Shirley Jackson, Iain Banks, M. John Harrison, Susanna Clarke and F.G. Cottam.
27th October 2020. 'Is Consciousness Everywhere?' by Dr Philip Goff. 7.30pm. £5.
According to our standard view of things, consciousness exists only in the brains of highly evolved organisms, and hence consciousness exists only in a tiny part of the universe and only in very recent history (cosmically speaking). According to panpsychism, in contrast, consciousness pervades the universe and is a fundamental feature of it.
3rd November 2020. 'Spirit World' by John Pickering and Katie Hall. 7.30pm. £5.
The ‘Spirit world’ generally refers to a place after our life on this world is over. Katie and John would ask you to consider an alternative perspective. Today our planet is in deep trouble: the human world is divided against itself and disconnected from the Earth. From any perspective, this is an unsustainable situation.
10th November 2020. 'Two Enlightenments' by Professor Lance Butler. 7.30pm. £5.
17th November 2020. 'Dark Messiah' by Brian Allan. 7.30pm. £5.
1st December 2020. 'Bringing Physical Mediumship Up to Date' by Nick Kyle. 7.30pm. £5.
Physical mediumship has been a life-long area of interest for Nick Kyle. From when he attended Noah’s Ark Society seances and the Scole Experiments of the 1990s, Nick spent a decade trying to replicate the physical phenomena that he witnessed, before he found repeated success in seances and even well-lit restaurants in Glasgow.
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