Ever wondered how mysticism, quantum theory, and consciousness are intertwined? Well, get ready to unlock some mind-bending insights with our special guest, David Lorimer. An acclaimed writer, poet, and spiritual activist, David takes us on a journey through his unique upbringing and career, deeply influenced by his grandfather, Sir Robert Lorimer, a renowned architect and mystic.
We dive into a profound exploration of consciousness and its crucial role in science. Bouncing off the theories of iconic physicists from the 1930s to modern thought-leaders, we explore the paradoxical interface of the brain and consciousness. Prepare to be fascinated by our deep dive into the Hindu concept of the 'witness', and the intricate relationships between the soul, spirit, and body. A stimulating debate on love, freedom, personal responsibility, and the concept of an afterlife awaits you!
In our final act, we present David's work under the microscope, celebrating his commitment to pushing boundaries and exploring new territories. From the impact of the exchange of ideas and knowledge to the profound influence of Reverend Norman Coburn on David's life, we cover it all. So, are you ready to challenge your world view, disrupt your thought patterns, and embark on an intellectual rollercoaster ride with us? Join in for an episode that’s sure to inspire and provoke your thoughts in equal measure.
If you liked this podcast
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/contributors/thomas-r-verny-md
Ever wondered how mysticism, quantum theory, and consciousness are intertwined? Well, get ready to unlock some mind-bending insights with our special guest, David Lorimer. An acclaimed writer, poet, and spiritual activist, David takes us on a journey through his unique upbringing and career, deeply influenced by his grandfather, Sir Robert Lorimer, a renowned architect and mystic.
We dive into a profound exploration of consciousness and its crucial role in science. Bouncing off the theories of iconic physicists from the 1930s to modern thought-leaders, we explore the paradoxical interface of the brain and consciousness. Prepare to be fascinated by our deep dive into the Hindu concept of the 'witness', and the intricate relationships between the soul, spirit, and body. A stimulating debate on love, freedom, personal responsibility, and the concept of an afterlife awaits you!
In our final act, we present David's work under the microscope, celebrating his commitment to pushing boundaries and exploring new territories. From the impact of the exchange of ideas and knowledge to the profound influence of Reverend Norman Coburn on David's life, we cover it all. So, are you ready to challenge your world view, disrupt your thought patterns, and embark on an intellectual rollercoaster ride with us? Join in for an episode that’s sure to inspire and provoke your thoughts in equal measure.
If you liked this podcast
https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/contributors/thomas-r-verny-md
future. So good morning or good afternoon to you, david. This is Pushing Boundaries, a podcast about pioneering research, breakthrough discoveries and unconventional ideas. I'm your host, dr Thomas Arvione. My guest today is David Larimer, ma, pgce, frsa you will have to explain to me what those things stand for is a writer, lecturer, poet, editor and spiritual activist who is a founder of Character Education Scotland. He's former president of the Wrecking Trust and the Svedenborg Society program. Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, chair of the Galileo Commission Since 1986, he has been editor of Paradigm Explorer, expanding horizons at the interface between science, consciousness and spirituality.
Speaker 1:He was the instigator of the Beyond the Brain conference series in 1995, and he has coordinated the mystics and scientists conferences every year since the late 1980s. He's also author and editor of a dozen books, including A New Renaissance, transforming Science, spirit and Society, science, consciousness and Ultimate Reality Survival was a question mark. Thinking Beyond the Brain, whole in One, the Near-Dest Experience and the Ethics of Interconnectedness, and the Beautiful Book of Poetry Better Light, a Candle, published last year. David lives in I'm not quite sure how to pronounce it, but I will give it a shot. David lives in St Colombe, sir Leur's, which I believe is in the south of France, close to the Spanish border. Am I right in that?
Speaker 2:Yes, saint Colombe. Sir Larce, if you're using the French pronunciation.
Speaker 1:You do it so much better, thank you. So, david, did I say anything that you would like to correct or edit, or am I more or less correct?
Speaker 2:No, absolutely. The one thing I just note with amusement is that the Recon Trust, it's the Recon Trust because it's the Recon. Mountain, sir George Trevelyan, who was a mentor of mine. He used to tell the story. He was the founder president of Recon Trust and he said an American friend used to say well, george, how's your wrecking trust?
Speaker 1:The wrecking trust. So you don't pronounce the W.
Speaker 2:No, exactly it's Recon, it's Recon Trust. But you wouldn't know that unless you knew about the Recon Mountain and the Recon area. But it was just amusing, because in some ways it was a wrecking trust. It was something, it was new and unconventional and it promoted holistic ideas in the 1970s.
Speaker 1:Right? Well, going back to Recon, let's start way back in your life, david. I understand that your grandfather was Sir Robert Lorimer KBE. What does KBE stand for? Oh, that's a knight of the British Empire, Ah okay, and he was a famous architect and you grew up on his estate in Gibleston in Fife and Scotland. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:Yes, that's right, he bought the. He bought this estate. Sounds slightly grand, but he bought the place in 1916, during the First World War. He had originally intended to design his own house, but that became impractical during the First World War, and then afterwards he became one of the chief architects of the Imperial War Grace Commission.
Speaker 1:So the reason I raised this is because I understand that in some family papers you found a phrase which is the sense of another and greater world which surrounds us, which, though unknown to you, you have written has been a central theme of your own work. Can you tell me more about that please?
Speaker 2:Yes, so my grandfather. I suppose I haven't thought of it exactly like this, but I suppose he was a mystic, in that he had a very strong sense for nature and his architecture and his furniture indeed, because I'm sitting at a desk that he designed and on a chair that he also designed.
Speaker 2:He used to get his guests up to listen to the dawn chorus in May and June if people came to stay for the weekend, and that's very early that's about 4.30 in the morning, so you really have to go back to bed if you're going to get enough sleep. So I think he was really at home in nature and I think probably Gibleston was sort of retreat for him, although in fact it's only two miles from Kelly Castle, where he was brought up and where his father, james Lorimer, restored the castle and the garden, and so he was very familiar with the area.
Speaker 1:So was that about the same time that the Spanish architect who is so famous with all his kind of nature-like buildings, like there in Barcelona, is it Gaudi, gaudi, yes.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's an interesting question, because my grandfather's really a traditionalist and as was his brother, the artist John.
Speaker 1:Henry.
Speaker 2:Lorimer, so a traditionalist in the best sense of trying to maintain the continuity and particularly an emphasis on crafts and craftsmen. So he was part of the arts and crafts movement and he had a lot of craftsmen working with him and in fact one of the biographies of him is called Lorimer and the Edinburgh craftsmen.
Speaker 1:So did your father then in some way followed his example? What did your father's career?
Speaker 2:Well, initially, yes, because he in fact read architecture at Cambridge. But his father was quite an authoritative figure and he didn't think he was doing enough work, and so he really found him a job which involved eventually him going out to Burma, and so he was, as it were, taken away from Cambridge and stuck, stuck in to do some hard work. So that's what happened.
Speaker 2:This was the 1920s, and then he went to Burma in 1926 and then the Japanese invasion happened in 1942. And so he walked out. He didn't get caught up in the Japanese prisoners, but he and he had. What the other interesting thing about that was that he had a huge collection of Burmese weights, which were birds, mainly birds of different sizes. His father, when he went to Burma, his father said to him Christopher, you should collect something. And so when he arrived in Burma, he found that this was a quite an inexpensive item to collect, and so I think he had about 100 of these weights in the end, and most of them are in the Gulbenkian Museum at Durham University and then a small number are in the Oriental Department at Cambridge as well, as he was at Cambridge. As I was saying in the 1920s.
Speaker 1:So then you yourself started as a banker. Is that correct?
Speaker 2:I did yes, and my father thought that was a very good thing because he was really a businessman himself.
Speaker 1:So what made you switch from banking into a whole other area?
Speaker 2:Well, I think you know at that age, unless you're someone, like maybe yourself, who had a vocation for medicine, in an early age, you're still trying to find out who you are and what best, what activity?
Speaker 2:you're best to pursue. And so I went into I did partly read economics at St Andrews, and so I was kind of prepared for going into banking in that sense. And then I found that really it wasn't didn't suit me at all, and a key moment was when I went to visit a flatmate who was teaching at Charterhouse School and I thought to myself well, this is much more the kind of way of life that I'd like to be able to lead and, you know, get be involved in education. And so after about 18 months I started to make some plans and I then got into Cambridge to do the education course which is the PGCE element.
Speaker 2:Oh, that's the PGCE, the letters postgraduate certificate of education, but I got in for the year afterwards because I wanted to spend a year abroad.
Speaker 2:And this year abroad was absolutely critical part of everything that's happened to be since because I took, I recorded all my favorite music and put it onto cassette tapes as one used in those days, and then I took four boxes of books and I read all of those books while I was on. That. Van der Jaar, as the Germans would say, yes, yes, and that really set the tone for my approach, my interdisciplinary, my interest in large number of different fields. So it was really a critical year and a critical decision to make. And I spent part of the year in Germany and then part of it in France, and as I'd already worked at the Champagne House, moëté Chandon, they were kind enough to invite me back in September 1976. And in fact, when I received the letter saying that there was a space for me, I resigned from the bank the next day, because it was just a sign for me, because, as it happened, someone else had canceled being able to go, and so it was your job.
Speaker 1:What was your job at Moëté Chandon?
Speaker 2:Oh, I was showing tourists around the cellars and so I was basically a guide and I would do three to five tours a day, and the rest of the time I was reading the books.
Speaker 1:I was there and I was shown around, and that was all about 15 years ago. You would not have been there by that time, right?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, I was there 50 years ago, okay.
Speaker 1:Wonderful place and they explain everything to you and how they turn the bottles every couple of days and all that kind of stuff, right?
Speaker 2:That's right. That's the remouage it's called, and I don't know whether they I mean I think it's pretty much automatic now, but in my day it was all done manually and the remouer would turn 60,000 bottles a day.
Speaker 1:Amazing. So, going back then still to your childhood, I understand that one key book that you read in your 20s, when you were still working for a bank, was Testimony of Light by Helen Greaves. Can you tell us more about how that changed your life?
Speaker 2:Yes, that was a very important book, and the reason for it was that it introduced me to this idea of a blueprint that we have. We each have an inner blueprint to our lives, which is a sort of thread, and when I reflected on this I asked myself a question what kind of person do I want to be when I'm 70? And I've reached that milestone, in fact gone slightly past it now and immediately I realized it wasn't an ex-merchant banker, I wanted to do something else. I wasn't cut out really for that, and it gave me a sense that you sort of tune into the opportunities, and so in a way, that story I just told about the letter arriving at the right time was an example of that.
Speaker 2:Another example was when I saw the advert to go to apply to a teacher at Winchester College, and as soon as I saw the advert I knew I was going there. I knew that was the next step. And as soon as George Blaker, when I joined the Scientific and Medical Network 40 years ago, he said you're just the kind of person we're looking for to run the network, I knew that was the next step. And so that's an example, and I'm sure some of your listeners will have similar experiences that of knowing that something is going to come into your life, and then you get the sense that you're on track. And I think that's very important, because it's easy to go off track and if we get a sense intuitively that we're on track and I'm sure this applies to you as well it's important.
Speaker 1:Yes, it applies to me, luckily, but it does not seem to apply to the majority of people. Like, the majority of people that I have met in my life just seem kind of lost and hate the job that they have and have no idea what they would really like to do, except that they would like to leave their jobs. So what happened to those people? How come they don't have a blueprint?
Speaker 2:Well, they probably do, because the thing is to ask yourself a question and tune into that. And, of course, I suppose in the majority cases they wouldn't have the opportunity of having read or even come across this book, and so the whole idea would be foreign. But I mean, I think the closest you can get to it, which does apply to a lot of people, is this sense of vocation and being called. And I think a lot of priests, a lot of medical people and I think they have a sense of being called to do some particular kind of work. And I tried to foster this in young people through my inspiring purpose program, because I was encouraging people to look inside themselves these are 10 to 15 year olds and ask what sort of person they were, what do they really want to achieve and contribute in life and how are they going to do this? And that involves thinking about yourself, thinking about what you're suited to do and then setting some goals about how you're going to go about achieving these aspirations.
Speaker 1:That makes a lot of sense. That makes a lot of sense In thinking beyond the brain, one of your finest books although they're all fine, it's difficult to pick one that's better than the others, but the one that sort of appeals to me you wrote I regard consciousness as fundamental Matter is derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing postulates consciousness. There is no matter as such. It exists only by virtue of a force bringing the particle to vibration and holding it together in a minute solar system. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind. That's a lot to digest.
Speaker 2:Well, that's Max Planck, isn't it? It's Max. Planck, that's not you, that's Max Planck, no no, no, if I'd said that, that would have been extraordinary, and I was quoting Max Planck, you were you are right.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry. Thank you for pointing that out, but you totally believe in that, isn't that?
Speaker 2:right? Well, I think it's an extraordinary statement, especially when you think that it was made in 1931.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, At the same time he wasn't alone among the physicists of the day. You know Schrodinger, heisenberg, pauley they all arrived at some version of this of consciousness being fundamental, and they wrote about this. James Jeans was another one. And what I find really interesting is that they were having these thoughts, which is a reflection of where, in some ways, you could say, consciousness studies has now got to. But they were having these thoughts in the 1930s.
Speaker 2:And if you look at Ken Wilbur's book, for instance, quantum Questions, then he was looking at this 25, 30 years ago and that's the title of one of his books where he's comparing mystical writings with writings. The great physicist David Bohm would be another one. And if you did a kind of test, is this written by a mystic or a physicist? Sometimes it's actually quite difficult to know. It's a kind of turing test for the mind-brain issue. So I think that's also another point to make. I think is that this is a much more natural thought for a physicist to have than a biologist, and because I think biology and medicine to some extent, in the sense that it's related to biology, is much more mechanistic in the way it thinks of things.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And this is Ian McGilchrist says that a left hemisphere capture, that the way of thinking is mechanistic and indeed manipulative, as Ian would say and I think physicists that that was all blown out of the water by relativity and quantum theory because they had to think more widely. And then the idea that the observer might collapse, the wave function, I mean this is unthinkable and sort of equivalent in biology, even if it's a controversial statement. So I think it's easier for physicists to think in this way than it is for biologists.
Speaker 1:So of course I totally understand matter and energy and particles. But consciousness, like what is it? What is consciousness?
Speaker 2:Well, many people have asked themselves that question, and of course, it's a question that you can only, in a way, answer reflexively, but because the difference between and I was just rereading an article we're going to print by David Bentley Hart in the next issue of the journal that consciousness is something that we have an immediate experience of, and indeed, without consciousness, we couldn't be having this interview together, as Max Planck points out, and so it's not like an object in the world, which is what the rest of science is about. So you could take a third-person view of the brain, but you can't take a third-person view of your own consciousness. The only way you could do this would be in terms of what the Hindus would call the witness, and they're meditators, and I include myself in that category. I often have the experience of witnessing my consciousness, and therefore they're not being a content to that witnessing, because it's a wider and deeper perception, if you like, and so consciousness for me is my sense of awareness.
Speaker 2:This is the subjective aspect of it, but of course, consciousness with a capital C is a kind of topic for philosophical discussion. You can start giving some definitions if you want to go down that route.
Speaker 1:Right, yeah, but I'm not in any way being critical. I'm truly trying to understand this concept, Like it is so abstract. Consciousness, you and I can agree, is awareness, Like I know who I am. I'm conscious when I'm anesthetized or when I'm sleeping. I'm not aware of who I am, although I'm still alive. But consciousness for me now means that I'm speaking with you. I'm sitting in this chair, All these kinds of things are part of my consciousness. But how can there be a consciousness outside of me? That's what I'm trying to understand.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe it's an inside job, if I can put it that way, because the kind of outside, inside is already a categorization, and so I think this applies to out-of-body experiences. Quote, unquote, because what seems to happen is you have to. By definition, you're not in the same space, you're not in physical space, you seem to be in a parallel space which has enough similarity with physical space for you to be able to draw some true inferences about, or have perceptions about what's going on. But I think the way if you were to talk philosophically for a moment, then traditionally, if you go back into the history of philosophy, you say well, what's the relationship between the soul and the body, or the spirit in the body? That was formulated, and then you've got the question of what's the relationship between the mind and the body, the mind-body problem. Quote unquote.
Speaker 2:And then that was sharpened up by a Descartes and has been the object of much discussion and debate ever since. And then, more recently, you've got the consciousness-brain interface, the brain-consciousness interface, which is how we would is. That's the issue we want to know about now. And so a lot of neuroscientists would say well, there's no such thing as the soul, it's just an outdated category, we don't need it anymore. And some people would say there's no such thing as the self either. Right, and Susan Blackmore, for instance, they would say that. But that's from a Buddhist perspective. And again, there is a spectrum of possibilities here.
Speaker 1:Right. But going back to Max Planck, when he says I regard consciousness as fundamental, matter is derivative from consciousness. I just can't unpack that. I don't see how matter could come out of something that is so abstract as consciousness. Is consciousness another word for God? I can't hear you, sorry, you're muted. Somehow you got muted. Yeah, muted.
Speaker 2:Sorry, I don't know how that happened. I think I must have hit something. Yeah, yes, no, I understand exactly what you're saying there and I think, if I think about it, then probably I would go more for a dual aspect view, that there is something beyond both matter and consciousness which is refracted into the inner and the outer, if you like. But at the same time, I do think that there is what the new thought thinkers would say is a universal mind or universal consciousness, and that's called an idealist position, isn't it the idea that consciousness is primary and the matter is secondary or derivative from it? There is a classic statement of idealism and there are many people who take that view, even though it's hard for other people to find that intelligible because it doesn't really. You know, you can't make sense of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah right.
Speaker 2:So I suppose, if I really think about it, I would. I'd be looking for something, for a principle you know beyond what a plank calls consciousness and saying that matter is derivative from consciousness. But Bernhard Castrat would probably agree with that, and maybe also Ebben Alexander, because they do take a sort of full blown idealist view.
Speaker 1:So in the scientific and medical network that you are you still involved with that? Oh, absolutely.
Speaker 2:No, I'm very involved.
Speaker 1:Okay, so let's pivot to that for a moment. So what is that about? What kind of work does the scientific and medical network do?
Speaker 2:Well, we just we're just celebrating 50 years of work this year. So the network was founded in 1973 by senior academics and physicians and civil servant senior civil servant, and the reason that it was founded was that it was. It was felt that scientific materialism didn't give an adequate account of reality and epistemology and ways of knowing, and that was partly because each of the founders themselves had a mystical experience or had multiple mystical experiences, and so they knew personally at least this was the inference that they drew, if you're being really critical they knew personally that there was more to life and reality than was on the surface, and it couldn't be accounted for by a reductionist, matter based view of the world. And why this matters as well is that it's a question of values and it doesn't provide an adequate base for values, as I think we were very aware now, and they were concerned that particularly the young scientists and medics were being, as it were, indoctrinated into this view of mechanistic materialism that mind is unconsciousness or entirely derived from the physical and the brain, when, if you go back as far as William James, he was already questioning this in the 1890s, and then.
Speaker 2:So there are two aspects to the network. There's a, an outer facing aspect, which is our program, and then there's an inner facing aspect, which provides a safe space for people to have important conversations and share experiences that they've had, which they might not want to share too widely, and especially with skeptical colleagues. So our work is really at various interfaces of science and consciousness, science and spirituality, science and mysticism, science and esotericism, and and but not so much science and theology, or science and Christianity and so well, or even science and philosophy you could say you know would be another interface and so we're really interested in these sort of interdisciplinary interfaces and and in in encouraging an open minded but critical attitude to things in general and research in particular.
Speaker 1:And these conferences that you have beyond the brain. Is that part of the network? Is that part of the medical and scientific network?
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely. And and so so those, the Mystics and Scientists Conference, that those go back to 1978. And so this year was number 45. And and they were initially. They were initiated by the Scientific and Medical Network at the time and ReconTrust, which I mentioned before. Yes, then they were run exclusively by ReconTrust for a number of years.
Speaker 2:And then the network came back in jointly in in 19, in 1980s, late 1980s, and then ReconTrust dropped out and and then so we've been carrying the torch since then. So that's the Mystics and Scientists Conferences, then the Beyond the Brain Conferences. These were set up in 1995, following a meeting I had with Willis Harmon and the Institute of Neolithic Sciences in 1994, as I went to their meeting in Chicago and we decided to launch this jointly, the first conferences in Cambridge in August 1995. And we had Stan Groff and Willis Harmon and Charlie Tartt was also there and we had we had capacity audience of 300 people coming to Cambridge for three days.
Speaker 1:So? And the Galileo Commission? How does that fit into this whole movement, so to speak?
Speaker 2:Yes, the Galileo Commission is a project of the scientific and medical network focused particularly on science of consciousness, but also on expanding the philosophical assumptions beyond a purely scientific, materialist view. And the reason it's called the Galileo Commission is that, like Galileo, we are asking people to look through the telescope and the evidence there is for consciousness and conscious experiences in mind being more than can be confined to brain function. And that's already the realisation that James had. So James, in his 1898 Ingersoll Lecture on Immortality, he said there are three ways that you can think of the relationship between the brain and consciousness. The first is it generates and produces consciousness, and this is still the majority view, as you know from neuroscience, philosophy and psychology and academics generally. The second second is that it transmits consciousness in some sense like a transceiver filter. And the third is that it it permits certain types of consciousness or structures consciousness in a way. And Ian McGillchrist defends the third of these views and because he thinks that makes the most sense of the scientific research that he's looked at.
Speaker 2:So for me, reading that book, which I have behind me in fact, was absolutely seminal moment, and that took me back to one of the sources of William James, which is Riddles of the Sphinx. A book that came out was written by an Oxford Don called FCS Schiller in 1891. And he didn't publish it under his own name. He was published it under a troglodyte, which is a cave dweller and therefore a reference to Plato's parable of the cave, the Republic. So the interesting thing is he didn't think that, given the views of his Oxford colleagues, that he could actually publish that book with impunity.
Speaker 1:I know that feeling. Yes yes, indeed, I know that you know some of my colleagues. What cellular intelligence are you nuts? What are you talking about? You know that kind of stuff I hear often, often. But coming back to you then Do you have any children?
Speaker 2:Yes, I have two children, charlotte and George. They're in their 20s. Charlotte is a writer as well, and she does some marketing communications work for Starling Bank, which is an online bank. And then my son, george, is a chef and actor, and so he had a pizza slice company for a while, which he worked in, and he's done a lot of other cooking jobs, and at the moment, he's just finished his first year at Bristol L Vic acting school, and so that's his track at the moment.
Speaker 1:So have you asked your children the questions that we were discussing at the beginning of our meeting here today about what their blueprint is for life, how they see themselves at 70?
Speaker 2:I have. I'm not sure I've done it directly, but I've told them the story myself and I've always taken the view to leave my children as much latitude as possible to be who they are and become who they are. And I've always say to them I'll support you in anything you decide to do. And I think that both of them are doing what they are here to do and I think they know that and they've often certainly George has said to me that you know, lord of his friends, have just gone straight into a currency or banking and they just, they've just sort of stepped onto their career ladder without really thinking, as we were saying before, is there something unique that I can do and a contribution that I can make? And I've been there myself because the reason I went into the merchant bank was because that was the kind of thing that people in my background were expected to do and I sort of gradually dawned on me that this really wasn't the right place for me to be.
Speaker 1:Yes, I understand that, but they're not following in your footsteps, so to speak. They don't seem to be interested in philosophical, mystical consciousness experiences.
Speaker 2:No, I wouldn't say that they were. They're not uninterested, but it's just not their thing.
Speaker 1:Now reading about your biography, I came across your friendship with the Reverend Norman Cockburn.
Speaker 2:Yes, Coburn, quite oddly enough, that's how it's pronounced, like in Coburn's port.
Speaker 1:Right, so tell me a little bit about that, because that seemed to have a big impact on your life.
Speaker 2:Yes, you're absolutely right. When I was in my 20s, I was thinking about whether I should go into the Church of England as a priest or the Swedenborg Church, and I was already on the Council of the Swedenborg Society, and so one of the people who was working there said well, you should meet Norman Coburn. He'll be able to give you advice on this, because he was a priest himself. And so I arranged that and I spent many hours talking to Norman in his and I stayed at his house in New Maldon on multiple occasions and he gave me a large proportion of his library, which was extraordinary.
Speaker 2:So I've made complete works of Jung, the Catholic Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, jg Fraser's Golden Bau, complete works of Swedenborg, complete works of Steiner, sacred books of the East, and then the whole of Toin B's study of history and a few other books besides, and so those are still in my library in Scotland. Those books and he was a person of the similar wide interests to what was budding. And the story that I just want to relay, because I think it's an important one, is when I asked him what are the most important things in life and he said love and freedom, and I still think that's a really excellent answer.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's pretty good. That's pretty good. Can't do much better than that. Love and freedom, did you say?
Speaker 2:Yes, love and freedom In that order, he said.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree with that. I'm not quite sure what did he mean, or what do you mean by freedom?
Speaker 2:Well, I don't know what he meant by it.
Speaker 2:But I think the part of the context, the way I think about this now, is the five principles of Peter Dunof, which love, wisdom, truth, justice and goodness. And so he always said the truth will make you free. He said this is what Jesus has reported to us, said as well, and the salvation in Eastern religions is liberation, it's freedom, and so I think it's important for the flourishing of the human being to be able to develop freely, to express your opinions, to, obviously, to listen to others, to be considerate and all of that. And I think in terms of Western democracies, it really developed very considerably in the 18th century the American Constitution and the amendments, the American Constitution, the textbook influences there, and I think just over the last period that these democratic freedoms are under threat from authoritarian views which say there's any one way of thinking, it's our way of thinking, and if you don't think as we do, then we will use whatever means we can to make sure that your views aren't hurt.
Speaker 1:Right, right, right. So, having done all the studying that you have done, do you believe in some kind of an afterlife?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm just going to say one more thing about freedom, and then I'll come around to that question For me. I also studied at university. I studied existentialism, and they had they have an emphasis on personal freedom or philosophy of freedom. But and this is the important point I wanted to make- it implies responsibility.
Speaker 2:Yes, implies responsibility, and I think one without the other is incomplete, but yeah. So, coming on to your question of the afterlife, or an afterlife what? Obviously, when I wrote survival, I wrote it when I was 30. And so that's over 40 years ago now, and so in a way it's a young man's book. And what I was trying to do with survival was I was looking at the history of the mind body issue, you know, going right back to indigenous societies. They're saying what happens at death. This is a big question does death, extinction or
Speaker 2:death a transition or a transformation, Right. And, of course, if you, if you take the view that we were talking about earlier, that the brain produces consciousness, then there can't be, in principle there cannot be, any consciousness or life beyond the death of the body. It's simply category error. You can't, can't get it from that. And so you, and then I looked at the different lines of evidence, and so there's the, the, and this is also influenced by Swedenborg, and I have a chapter on Swedenborg and also chapter on evidence and evidence in relation to logic, right. And then I have a chapter on apparitions, on outer body experiences, near death experiences and ostensible communications from deceased people describing what it's like to die. And the interesting thing about those communications are that they, they, they, they are very consistent with the description and near death experiences that something leaves the body and and and, so that outer body experiences into like a temporary form of death.
Speaker 2:Yes death is a permanent outer body experience Right Now. The next question is is what is it that survives, right? I mean, I think so, I, I would be. I mean, of course, I won't know if I don't survive death in my body, I won't know that I haven't survived it, so because there'll be nothing to think right or no awareness.
Speaker 2:But but if I, if I do, then I expect to continue to evolve in, in my sense of who I am, and I also, I also think that it's possible that we have deeper levels of identity which are currently in the, in the unconscious, and which can be accessed in some sometimes therapeutic circumstances. And and so the personality that I am now in terms of my heredity, my physical, my physical body and so on, and I think that is a is a more temporary manifestation of some deeper level of identity which which may reappear, as Benjamin Franklin said. He said I expect to reappear in a new and improved edition. And then you're back to the question of what is consciousness, again, right, and and so so. So I, I think that my sense of myself and will survive the death of my body, but I'm not sure how things are going to develop from there.
Speaker 2:And, and I think what's also interesting in this respect is the meeting party idea, because if you look at deathbed experiences, or even experiences and reports from hospices of dying people, and then there's a lot of reports, there are a lot of reports of a welcoming party, and who's the welcoming party? The people you love, yes, they, as it were, come and take you away and, and this, this, I think, is I think this is very interesting, and it's also interesting in relation to terminal lucidity, which is a whole other topic, and and that seems that so that the people, obviously the people who come to take you away and are recognizable as the people they were, otherwise they wouldn't be recognized and so it seems that the, the, that whoever it is that comes to take you away, is in a sense a continuation of the personality that you were maybe 20 or 30 years before. But these are very difficult questions and we should keep them open. As CD Broad said, I will either wait and see or, alternatively, wait and not see.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not very satisfying, but I guess it's the best thing we can come up with right.
Speaker 2:Well, I think you just need to be cautious in how much you extrapolate.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:And so if you say point blank, is there an afterlife? I would say yes, but what I've been saying in the last few minutes is to try and give some nuance to what that might mean and therefore our sort of expectations when the time comes.
Speaker 1:Well, david, this has been fascinating, very interesting, very exciting really. We will have a transcript so that anyone who follows this podcast can also read it, because there's a lot of very deep, important ideas that we discussed here. I certainly will give it a lot of thought. Would you please put me on your mailing list for these conferences beyond the brain and the mystics, because I would really like to know more about them, david.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, you should be on our list already, but.
Speaker 1:I will check. Okay, I get the paradigm.
Speaker 2:Yes, and you should be on a list that receives notification of our conferences. If you haven't received a beyond the brain invitation in the last week or 10 days, then obviously you're not on the right list. So I'll look into that.
Speaker 1:Put me on the right list and I will feel right about myself. David. Anyone who wants to learn more about David Lorimer or more about his work, which is like incredibly exciting and truly pushing boundaries. His website is davidlorimerco. Have I got that right?
Speaker 2:It's couk, but it's co, not anything else it's co, as in company that's couk.
Speaker 1:Co for company. Okay, I will say it one more time David Lorimer, one word dot couk. David, thank you so much. It's been really a pleasure.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for having me on this podcast, thomas, and I look forward to our reciprocated Reciprocation.
Speaker 1:Me too. Thank you, david, be well, bye-bye.