Downloadable Courses & Lectures

Summer School 2021

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.

Enchantment with Patrick Curry – 14th September 2021 – 6.30pm-8pm (UK time) – via Zoom – £10

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

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.

Leonardo da Vinci – The Last Supper, with Angela Voss £10

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.

From Renaissance Magic to Baroque Nostalgia – 4 Part Course with Angela Voss – £40 – DOWNLOAD

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

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.

Imaginary Gardens and Real Toads with Victoria Field – 2nd November 2021 – 6.30pm-8pm (UK time) – via Zoom – £10

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.

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