Category: News and Events

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38th SPR annual international conference

The SPR’s 38th International Annual conference will be held at the University of York between Friday 5 and Sunday 7 September 2014. SEE PROGRAMME AND REGISTRATION – NOW OPEN.

The SPR’s 38th International Annual conference will be held at Vanbrugh College, at the University of York between Friday 5 and Sunday 7 September 2014. University of York is on the edge of the city centre and has very easy links to transport and all the attractions of this historic city, so we hope you will enjoy the location. As always, our full conference programme will address a broad range of topics, covering both spontaneous cases and laboratory research. In addition to the talks, conferences are a marvellous opportunity to network and share views, and there will be time to socialise over lunch and the regular coffee breaks, not to mention during the President’s drinks reception on Friday evening and Saturday’s conference banquet. Speakers will come from all over the UK, as well as from Europe and around the world, making it truly an international event. Those who attend, whether this is their first conference or their thirty-eight, can be sure of having both an informative and a very enjoyable time. We look forward to seeing you in York!

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SPR LECTURE – TERENCE PALMER – THE SCIENCE OF SPIRIT POSSESSION

May 1st, 2014 6:35 PM   through   9:00 PM

 

Lecture Hall of the Kensington Central Library
Campden Hill Road
Kensington
London
W8 7RX
United Kingdom
Phone: 020 7937 8984

Spirit Release Therapy, as a clinical alternative to religious exorcism and traditional shamanistic practice is largely unknown by mainstream medical practice and psychiatry.   This is due to several interrelated factors.  Primarily, materialistic science does not recognise any concept of a spirit world and doctors are therefore not yet trained in SRT principles and techniques.   SRT sits uncomfortably between the disbelief of a materialist secular society and the subjective experience of spirit possession: whether that experience is a symptom of psychosis, symbolic representation, socio-cultural expectation or a veridical manifestation.  In contrast to the monism of mechanistic science, every culture and religious belief system throughout human history has its traditional beliefs of spirit possession in some form or another with corresponding rituals for the release or exorcism of spirit entities.   It is common knowledge that Christianity has its angels, devils and demons (although the majority of modern so-called Christians probably don’t believe they really exist). Islam has its Jinns and the Hindus have a variety of evil spirits.

The conflict between the epistemologies of modern science and religion lies in the conceptual differences in perception that are arrived at through empirical data and radical empirical experience.  In short, it is a difference between what we believe to be true and what we know to be true.

Society for Psychical Research

 

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A call for an open, informed study of all aspects of consciousness

  • Department of Psychology, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

Science thrives when there is an open, informed discussion of all evidence, and recognition that scientific knowledge is provisional and subject to revision. This attitude is in stark contrast with reaching conclusions based solely on a previous set of beliefs or on the assertions of authority figures. Indeed, the search for knowledge wherever it may lead inspired a group of notable scientists and philosophers to found in 1882 the Society for Psychical Research in London. Its purpose was “to investigate that large body of debatable phenomena… without prejudice or prepossession of any kind, and in the same spirit of exact and unimpassioned inquiry which has enabled Science to solve so many problems.” Some of the areas in consciousness they investigated such as psychological dissociation, hypnosis, and preconscious cognition are now well integrated into mainstream science. That has not been the case with research on phenomena such as purported telepathy or precognition, which some scientists (a clear minority according to the surveys conducted http://en.wikademia.org/Surveys_of_academic_opinion_regarding_parapsychology) dis-miss a priori as pseudoscience or illegitimate. Contrary to the negative impression given by some critics, we would like to stress the following:

Access full article here

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Action on mental health could help save London up to £26 billion a year

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The scale of mental ill health in London is costing the capital around £26 billion a year, a new report commissioned by the Mayor Boris Johnson has revealed today.
In any given year, an estimated one in four Londoners will experience a diagnosable mental health condition. A third of these will experience two or more conditions at once. According to a Department of Health report, the impact of mental ill health is greater than cancer and cardiovascular disease. It represents around 22.8% of the total, compared to 15.9% and 16.2% respectively .
Close to £7.5 billion is spent each year to address mental ill health in London. This includes spending on health and social care to treat illness, benefits to support people living with mental ill health, and costs to education services and the criminal justice system. However, these costs are only part of the total £26 billion lost to London each year through such issues as reduced quality of life and productivity.
The Greater London Authority report provides a range of data, highlighting the direct and indirect costs of mental ill health to the city’s economy. For example, at least one in 10 children is thought to have a clinically significant mental health problem, and the impact of childhood psychiatric disorders is estimated to cost the capital’s education system approximately £200 million per year.
In social care costs alone, London boroughs spend around £550 million a year treating mental disorder, and another £960 million is spent each year on benefits to support people with mental ill health.
The report shows how London’s businesses are also affected – it is estimated that a staggering £10.4 billion is lost each year, including £7.2 billion due to increased worklessness. £920 million alone is lost annually to sickness absence, and a further £1.9 billion is lost to reduced productivity.
The Mayor of London Boris Johnson said: ‘This report is a rallying cry to increase yet further our response to this very pressing and pervasive issue. There are still many misconceptions about what mental ill health is, how it happens and what can be done about it. The result is that those struggling with mental ill health often go unnoticed and unsupported. It affects our relationships with others, limits educational achievement and increases sickness absence and worklessness. Indeed, the effects of mental ill health impact upon each and every aspect of our lives.’
Launching the new report London Mental Health – The Invisible Costs of Mental Ill Health, Deputy Mayor Victoria Borwick said: ‘This timely report reveals how far-reaching the effects of mental ill health are, not just on individuals and their loved ones, but on wider society and indeed the economy. It shows that this is not just an issue for health and social care professionals, but also for politicians and business leaders. It is vital that we work together to support people living with mental ill health and to mitigate the wider impacts which are so costly to London’s economy.’
Professor Martin Knapp, Professor of Social Policy, London School of Economics, who was on the report’s working group, said: ‘The fact that mental health problems have enormous consequences is well known, but the findings in this report illustrate just what a pervasive impact they have on the capital’s population. £26 billion a year is far too high a price to the city, and much of it is because we are not addressing individual and social needs properly. Those costs will continue to rise if we do nothing. I want the findings of this report to spur the wider London community to help meet those needs.’
Mental ill health is one of the priority areas identified by the London health Board, and the Mayor is keen that it is an issue that will be considered through the London Health Commission led by Lord Ari Darzi. The Deputy Mayor Victoria Borwick will also advocate for the issue, including representing the Mayor at the Pan-London Dementia Action Alliance and by acting as a mental health champion as part of the Local Authority Mental Health Challenge. Mental health will also be integrated better into the well-being activities being coordinated through the Mayor’s Healthy Schools London programme. Mental health is also one of the issues tackled by the Mayor’s Workplace Health Charter, which was set up to encourage and support employers that create a health enhancing workplace.
The report is available to download from – www.london.gov.uk/mentalhealth.
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Consciousness and the Experience of Time

MYSTICS AND SCIENTISTS
4 April 2014 – 6 April 2014

Venue: University of Warwick

The Mystics and Scientists conferences have been held every year since 1978, and are dedicated to forging a creative understanding of the complementary roles of scientific and mystical approaches to reality. The conferences always provide a highly engaging and creative opportunity to come together with like-minded people in a spirit of exploration and dialogue. This year we are looking at various aspects of our conscious experience of time, drawing on physics, neuroscience, philosophy, phenomenology, psychology and parapsychology. Bernard Carr, Natalie Depraz and Barbara Magnani have different approaches to the relationship between physical and psychological time, while Jacob Needleman considers the spiritual mystery of time in relation to the practical problem of time. David Luke asks if we can in some sense transcend time in precognition. James d’Angelo and David Lorimer offer an experience of music, rhythm, movement and dance. We greatly look forward to your participation.

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ACISTE 2013 2nd Annual Conference

Therapeutic Issues of Spiritually Transformative Experiences

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Conference: October 3rd – to Oct 5th, 2013
Certification Workshop: October 6th

About the Conference

ACISTE provides education and certificate training for mental health professionals, pastoral counselors, spiritual counselors and other professionals who wish to increase their competency and develop their expertise in working with clients who may have psychological, spiritual or mental health challenges related to their spiritually transformative experiences (STEs). STEs may include, but are not limited to, near-death or similar experiences, spiritual emergencies,out-of-body, kundalini, after-death communications and anomalous, paranormal or exceptional human experiences, etc. The conference brings together top researchers, experiencers and practicing professionals to present their expertise and insight into in this growing field of specialization and awareness.

Audience:

  • Psychologists
  • Psychiatrists
  • Psychotherapists
  • Clinical Social Workers
  • Marriage and Family Therapists
  • Professional Counselors
  • Addiction Counselors
  • Pastoral Counselors
  • Spiritual Directors
  • Spiritual Life Coaches
  • Psychiatric Nurses
  • Psychological Assistants

 For a complete conference schedule, click here.

 

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Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence

My contribution is Chapter Eight.

Editor: Angela Voss and William Rowlandson
Date Of Publication: Jun 2013
Isbn13: 978-1-4438-4726-1
Isbn: 1-4438-4726-7
DaimonicImaginationFrom the artistic genius to the tarot reader, a sense of communication with another order of reality is commonly affirmed; this ‘other’ may be termed god, angel, spirit, muse, daimon or alien, or it may be seen as an aspect of the human imagination or the ‘unconscious’ in a psychological sense. This volume of essays celebrates the daimonic presence in a diversity of manifestations, presenting new insights into inspired creativity and human beings’ relationship with mysterious and numinous dimensions of reality. In art and literature, many visual and poetic forms have been given to the daimonic intelligence, and in the realm of new age practices, encounters with spirit beings are facilitated through an increasing variety of methods including shamanism, hypnotherapy, mediumship and psychedelics. The contributors to this book are not concerned with ‘proving’ or ‘disproving’ the existence of such beings. Rather, they paint a broad canvas with many colours, evoking the daimon through the perspectives of history, literature, encounter and performance, and showing how it informs, and has always informed, human experience.
William Rowlandson is Senior Lecturer in Hispanic Studies at the University of Kent, and former co-director, with Angela Voss, of the Centre for the Study of Myth at the University of Kent. He has recently completed a book entitled Borges, Swedenborg and Mysticism, which examines the relationship between Borges’ own recorded mystical experiences and his appraisal of Swedenborg and other mystics. William’s work on Cuban poet and novelist José Lezama Lima concentrated on Lezama’s equation of poetry and the numinous. His published articles concern various areas of Latin American studies, including the history of Guantánamo Bay and Gitmo detention centre, rendition, torture, Cuba during the War on Terror. He has also published analyses of Borges, Lezama Lima, Cabrera Infante and Rulfo.

Angela Voss was a Lecturer for ten years in the Theology and Religious Studies section at the University of Kent, teaching on the MA in Mysticism and Religious Experience, and directing an MA programme in the Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination. From January 2014, she will be teaching on a new MA at Canterbury Christ Church University: Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred. Angela is an honorary Lecturer for the MA in the Study of Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter, a tutor in Community Arts and Education at Canterbury Christ Church University, and a practising astrologer and tarot reader. Her research interests centre on the Western esoteric traditions and the symbolic imagination, and she has published extensively on the astrological music therapy of the Renaissance magus Marsilio Ficino.

Price Uk Gbp: 54.99
Price Us Usd: 82.99

Sample pdf (including Table of Contents)

 

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