Downloadable Courses & Lectures
Introduction to Goethean Enquiry – DOWNLOAD with Louise Livingstone – £15 for full recording and handouts
In this seminar we will learn more about Goethe and his imaginal method of enquiry, exploring why his method is so important for the world we are living in today.
Botticelli Birth of Venus – DOWNLOAD with Angela Voss and Mary Attwood – £15 for full recording and handouts
Following our popular session on Botticelli’s Primavera, here we offer an in-depth contemplation of its sister painting, The Birth of Venus. We study the mythology and cosmology behind this iconic image, and consider it in the context of the revival of the divine feminine in Renaissance Florence.
Summer School 2021
We are excited to announce that the Centre for Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred is celebrating its first birthday! Over the past twelve months, via our online lectures, seminars and talks, we have had the pleasure of connecting with large numbers of you over Zoom; meeting old friends and making new ones. Each day (from Monday to Thursday), we will be releasing an online lecture for you to watch/listen to. On Friday 30th, we will be hosting an on-line, celebratory coffee morning via Zoom at 11am (BST), where Angela, Mary and Louise will be available for informal chat.
Dante’s Illumination: An Introduction to the Divine Comedy – Dr Mark Vernon – Talk with Q&A – £10 – DOWNLOAD
This talk was recorded on 27th April 2021. In this session, Dr Vernon reflects on the Divine Comedy and the great art it has inspired. It considers themes from the links between descent and ascent, the nature of freedom, the intelligence of light, and the transformation Dante himself undergoes that widens his perception.
Mother Mary & the Mystery of Divine Conception – Marguerite Rigoglioso, PhD – Talk with Q&A – £10 – DOWNLOAD
In this talk, Dr. Rigoglioso calls upon one of the Virgin Mary’s forgotten gospels, the Infancy Gospel of James, to reveal a truth that has been suppressed for nearly two millennia: that Mother Mary was not a passive bystander to her own pregnancy but an advanced member of a sacred order of women trained in divine conception.
Botticelli Primavera with Angela Voss and Mary Attwood – £15 – DOWNLOAD
In this session celebrating the Spring Equinox, Angela and Mary introduce you to one of the most famous and iconic of Renaissance paintings by Botticelli, one of only four of his paintings inspired by pagan themes.
Calling and the Inner Imaginarium – Sharon Blackie talk with Q&A – £10 – DOWNLOAD
Sharon’s talk took place on 23rd February 2021. This package contains the full recording of both Sharon’s talk and the Q&A afterwards. In this talk, Sharon explores the idea that each soul has a unique way of being, a unique purpose, which is essential not only to its own growth, but to the world’s own becoming.
Dreams and the Sacred – 4 part course with Simão Cortês – £40 – DOWNLOAD
In this course, Simão explores some of the core issues around dreaming and the relationship between the dreamer and her dreams. Each session focuses on a specific set of approaches to dreams, both religious and psychoanalytic, private and communal, creative and playful.
From Renaissance Magic to Baroque Nostalgia – 4 Part Course with Angela Voss – £40 – DOWNLOAD
DOWNLOAD. This course investigates a rich and dynamic period of cultural history, exploring how the newly discovered esoteric philosophy of Hermeticism and Neoplatonism influenced 15th century practices of musical and astral magic.
Enchantment with Patrick Curry – 14th September 2021 – 6.30pm-8pm (UK time) – via Zoom – £10
My subject is the fundamental human experience of wonder. With a mixture of personal examples and respectful theory, we will consider what it is and isn’t: its characteristics, conditions, limits, and dynamics. We shall also try to find out what we can learn from enchantment, with particular reference to the concerns of the Centre such as myth, magic and the sacred. It also has significant implications for how to best go about contesting the ruling ideologies of our time.
Beyond Flatland – Discussion Day – Recordings DOWNLOAD
Reductionism and literalism are often acknowledged as problems bequeathed to us by the 18th century Enlightenment. They foster tyrannical attitudes that disqualify ways of knowing widely enjoyed by our ancestors.
Owen Barfield called it “camera consciousness”: the ability to look at but not into things. It has become so powerful that even those pursuing imaginative and intuitive modes of perception can run aground on the rocks of spiritual materialism, which can be defined as the tendency to collapse life’s multiple dimensions onto a flatland of mechanical existence.
The Art of Seeing background lecture Part 1 with Mary Attwood – £10
In Part One of this series of lectures on The Art of Seeing, Mary provides a more theoretical overview to the experiential and practical monthly ZOOM sessions on The Art of Seeing.
Wholeness: perceiving dynamic unity, with Louise Livingstone – £5
20 minute downloadable lecture. What is wholeness? In this talk, Louise attempts to illuminate the difficulty that this question poses and aims to reframe the idea of wholeness
Transforming the heart: from biological pump to producer of knowledge, with Louise Livingstone – £5
20 minute downloadable lecture. This lecture presents the idea that the heart is far more important and complex than our dominant way of generating knowledge about the world makes possible
Creating safe spaces for the heart in relation to global challenges, with Louise Livingstone £5
20 minute downloadable lecture. This lecture is based on a paper written for a sustainability conference. In it, Louise discusses the idea that the heart’s wisdom and benevolent qualities cannot gain traction at the level at which decisions are made in our society
Research Lecture – The heart speaks: reimagining the heart for contemporary times, with Louise Livingstone £10
60 minute downloadable lecture. In this lecture, Louise introduces her PhD research that makes a case for heart knowing as a vitally important human capability which has, over the course of many hundreds of years, been divorced from, and rendered subservient to, knowledge about the world as generated through the brain.
Leonardo da Vinci – The Last Supper, with Angela Voss £10
72 minute downloadable lecture. In this lecture, I focus on the possibility of a hidden meaning within the fresco The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci, painted between 1495 and 1498. I want to ask whether he intended to hide a cosmic dimension behind or within this portrayal of a pivotal episode in Christian history, and if so, why.
Renaissance Music and Magic with Angela Voss – £10
Downloadable Podcast. In this session on Renaissance Music and Magic Angela Voss discusses her love of playing and studying the music of 15th-17th centuries, and talks about how the newly-discovered esoteric philosophy of hermeticism and Neoplatonism influenced 15th century practices of musical and astral magic.
The Law of Nature and the Law of Drama with Dr Joseph Milne – 19 September 2021 – 3pm-4.30pm (UK time) – via Zoom – £15
In Shakespeare’s England there continued a consciousness of a correspondence between the order of Nature and the human order, inherited from the Middle Ages. Human events and a universal unfolding of time were connected. This understanding is reflected in the heated debates over Church and state at that time, and in the jurisprudence debates over written and unwritten law.
What is in a Shakespeare Sonnet with Philip Marvin – 26 September 2021 – 3pm-4.30pm (UK time) – via Zoom – £15
A Shakespeare sonnet is only 14 lines long yet it can carry many hidden, mysterious depths within it. In this session we will go through a particular sonnet (or two) in detail and see what we can discover in terms of its subtle structure, inner meaning and emotional impact.
You Are Because Yew Is with Louise Livingstone – Sunday 17th October 2021 – 3pm-5pm (UK time) – via Zoom – £15
Reciprocal relationship/co-creative partnership embraces both parties in the wholeness of their being and creates the possibilities for a world where all beings can live within the fullest expressions of their own nature. This idea applies not just to human-to-human relationships, but also human-to-more-than-human relationships.
Taking the lead from nature: why creativity matters in research – with Angela Voss – £5
This lecture was originally given at Christ Church Canterbury University in 2017 as the opening of a research day on creativity in research. In it Angela discusses combining the two ways of knowing – the objective and the intuitive
Imaginary Gardens and Real Toads with Victoria Field – 2nd November 2021 – 6.30pm-8pm (UK time) – via Zoom – £10
In this interactive talk, Victoria Field will explore some of the ways in which the poetic can enhance our lives and expand our sense of connection with ourselves, the world and the transcendent. Mindful reading of poems and writing in response can offer solace, pleasure, new insights and even awakening experiences. We will look specifically at how metaphor, form and rich ambiguity work in poems. No previous experience or knowledge is required. Please bring a notebook and something to write with.
