The Sheldrake Vernon Dialogues
Biologist Dr. Rupert Sheldrake and psychotherapist Mark Vernon explore the frontiers where rigorous science meets life's deepest mysteries. Through original research and thoughtful dialogue, they investigate consciousness, memory, spiritual practices, and the nature of reality itself—questioning the materialist assumptions that have dominated science for centuries. Their conversations bridge empirical investigation with ancient wisdom, offering fresh perspectives on everything from prayer and dreams to the extended mind and humanity's role in nature.
Episodes
100 episodes
Making Sense of the Resurrection of the Body
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yU1CQIE4T10Many people report apparitions of their loved ones after death, and even of loved dogs and cats. But how do these after-death communications align with the Christian teaching of the resurrection...
Patron Saints
Watch on YouTube: https://youtu.be/274OwKLCsFMSupport the show on Substack: https://rupertsheldrake.substack.comSaints and genii locorum, or spirits of place, are the names in various wisdom traditions given to guardian beings who...
The Quiet Revolution
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...
The Wisdom of the Imagination
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-Vern...
What is really known about consciousness?
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. I...
Does nature obey laws?
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 Sheld...
Living in an Age of Spiritual Crisis
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, re...
Evolution: From Natural Selection to Omega Point
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 cycli...
Forms and the Reformation of Science
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 Shel...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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 ...
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...