The Future of Wisdom and Intelligence – A Four-Part Series

In partnership with the World Community for Christian Meditation

“Humanity is now too clever to survive without wisdom”

– EF Schumacher

This new series of webinars follows up on our 2022 collaboration on the theme The Future of Intelligence. Consistently with E. F. Schumacher’s observation above, the need for wisdom to balance our cleverness is now more apparent than ever. As far back as 1975, the historian Arnold Toynbee wrote, ‘Technology gives us material power – the greater our material power, the greater our need for the spiritual insight and virtue to use power for good and not for evil. The ‘morality gap’ means that, since we first became human, we have never been adequate spiritually for handling our material power. Today it is greater than ever.’ His ‘today’ was nearly 50 years ago!

Wisdom in Latin is sapientia, whose root is sapere, meaning to taste. This means that wisdom is derived from direct experience, ultimately of the Divine Ground within, as mystics throughout the ages have attested. Such gnosis is the deepest form of knowing by identity where we realise that the I Am in you is the same as the I Am in myself. We are ultimately expressions of the One Life, the One Mind, the One Love. This insight forms the living ethical basis of a harmonious and integrated culture and intelligence, a word whose roots show us that it means to ‘read between’ (inter-legere).

When we look at the symptoms of the present crisis it is hard not to say “how foolish we can be in wasting our intelligence and our opportunities.”​ The fear is lurking in many minds that we may be becoming little more than consumers controlled by algorithms derived from artificial intelligence. But there is a way forward through this impasse: a new integrated intelligence. We hope that the stimulating conversations with the major minds we will meet in this series will awaken this insight and elaborate its practical implications.

In this series of round table dialogues, we will explore this integral intelligence: the several balanced and unified forms of intelligence that humanity is endowed with. We will begin with a session on the topical issue of AI, moving on to embodied intelligence, heart intelligence and finally ethical intelligence. This integration of intelligences is needed to co-create a humane, heart-centred and ethical world for future generations. We look forward to your participation in these reflective sessions.

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Broad format and itinerary:

(All times UK, BST)

18:30 – 19:00 Meditation (optional)

19:00 – 19:30 Speaker (30 min)

19:30 – 19:40 Respondent 1 (10 min)

19:40 – 19:50 Respondent 2 (10 min)

19:50 – 20:05 Discussion between Speaker and Respondents (15 min)

20:05 – 20:10 Break (5 min)

20:10 – 20:55 Q&A (45 min)

May 23 – Artificial

Prof Ilia Delio

— Bishop Rowan Williams FBA

— Peter Russell

July 25 – Embodied

Prof Guy Claxton

— Phyllida Anam-Áire

— Giselle Genillard

September 19 – Heart

Prof Scherto Gill

— Dr Anne Baring

— Andrew Harvey

December 12  – Ethical

Satish Kumar

— Dr Tess Lawrie

— Inge Relph

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About our guest speakers:

Prof Ilia Delio, OSF, holds the Josephine C. Connelly Endowed Chair in Theology at Villanova University. Her area of research is Systematic-Constructive theology. She obtained a doctorate in Pharmacology from Rutgers University, Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and a doctorate in Historical Theology from Fordham University. She is the author of twenty-four books including The Hours of the Universe: Reflections on God, Science and the Human Journey which won the 2022 Gold Nautilus Book Award, Making All Things New: Catholicity, Cosmology and Consciousness, a finalist for the 2019 Michael Ramsey Prize and The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution and the Power of Love, which won a 2014 Silver Nautilus Book Award and a 2014 Catholic Press Association Book Award. She is founder and Director of the Center for Christogenesis, an online spiritual and educational resource for the integration of science, religion and culture.

Right Revd and Rt Hon Lord Rowan Williams, PC, FBA has recently retired as Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, and before that was Archbishop of Canterbury from 2002 to 2012. He has written widely on theology, spirituality and literature, and his most recent books include Candles in the Dark and (with Mary Zournazi) Justice and Love: A Philosophical Dialogue. He has a long history of engagement with WCCM.

Peter Russell is a leading thinker on consciousness and contemporary spirituality. He coined the term “global brain” with his 1980s bestseller of the same name in which he predicted the Internet and the impact it would have on humanity. He is the author of ten other books, including Waking Up in Time, From Science to God, Letting Go of Nothing and his most recent, Forgiving Humanity. His mission is to distil the essential wisdom on human consciousness found in the world’s various spiritual traditions, and to disseminate their teachings on self-liberation in contemporary and compelling ways.

Prof Guy Claxton is an applied cognitive scientist. His research explores the nature of optimal (real-life) intelligence, the psychological barriers to achieving it, and practical ways of developing such intelligence through educational, psychotherapeutic and spiritual pursuits. He holds a ‘double first’ from Cambridge in Natural Sciences and a DPhil in Experimental Psychology from Oxford, and has taught at Oxford, University College London, King’s College London, Winchester and Bristol Universities. His nearly forty books include Hare Brain, Tortoise Mind: Why Intelligence Increases when You Think Less, The Wayward Mind: An Intimate History of the Unconscious, and Intelligence in the Flesh: Why Your Mind Needs Your Body Much More than it Thinks. He lives in Sussex, England, with his wife, the curator and biographer Judith Nesbitt.

Phyllida Anam-Áire is a mother/grandmother, former Irish nun, writer, poet, traditional Irish singer, psychotherapist and teacher of Sacred Ritual. She is the author of four published books and two poetry books. Her book “A Celtic Book of Dying” is now included in reading list for palliative care workers.

Giselle Genillard is the founder of SOS International (SOSI) and combines her training as a somatic therapist with the art of midwifery. She has worked internationally in trauma outreach teams in South-East India post-tsunami, New Orleans post-Katrina and post-colonial South Africa post-independence. Giselle introduced Peter Levine’s Somatic Experiencing (SE) trainings in England and France and specialises in working with post-traumatic stress in childhood, adolescence, war situations and high stress.

Prof Scherto R. Gill is Founding Director of Global Humanity for Peace Institute, University of Wales Trinity St David, where she coordinates the UNESCO Collective Healing Initiative. She teaches on MA in Peace Studies, and MA in Intercultural Understanding, and is interested in mentoring doctoral researchers who are keen to embark on interdisciplinary inquiries into positive peace, harmony, deep dialogue, and holistic well-being. Scherto is the author and co-author of many books, including Lest We Lose Love, an exploration of Love in Western philosophy.  She is a Life Fellow of the Royal Society of the Arts (FRSA), and a laureate of the 2022 Luxembourg Peace Award. 

Anne Baring MA Oxon, PhD in Wisdom Studies Ubiquity University 2018, is a Jungian Analyst, author and co-author of seven books including, with Jules Cashford, The Myth of the Goddess; Evolution of an Image; with Andrew Harvey, The Mystic Vision and The Divine Feminine; with Dr. Scilla Elworthy, Soul Power: an Agenda for a Conscious Humanity. Her book The Dream of the Cosmos: a Quest for the Soul was awarded the Scientific and Medical Network Book Prize for 2013. Her most recent book is Messages from a Transcendent Dimension. The ground of all her work is a deep interest in the spiritual, mythological, shamanic and artistic traditions of different cultures. Her website is devoted to the affirmation of a new vision of reality and the issues facing us at this crucial time of choice. www.annebaring.com

Andrew Harvey is Founder & Director of the Institute for Sacred Activism, an international organization focused on inviting concerned people to take up the challenge of our contemporary global crises by becoming inspired, effective, and practical agents of institutional and systemic change, in order to create peace and sustainability. Sacred Activism is a transforming force of compassion-in-action that is born of a fusion of deep spiritual knowledge, courage, love, and passion, with wise radical action in the world. Andrew has written and edited over 30 books.

Satish Kumar was the Editor-in-Chief of Resurgence (now with the Ecologist) Magazine for 43 years and was the Founder of Schumacher College in Dartington. At nine years of age, Satish renounced the world and joined the brotherhood of Jain monks. At the age of eighteen, he left the monastic order and became a campaigner working to turn Gandhi’s vision of a peaceful world into reality. He undertook an 8,000-mile peace pilgrimage, walking without any money, to deliver packets of ‘peace tea’ to the leaders of the four nuclear powers. Satish is the author of a number of books, most recently Radical Love. He received the 2022 Goi Peace Prize.

Dr Tess Lawrie (MBBCh, PhD) is the Director of the Evidence-based Medicine Consultancy Ltd, and EbMCsquared CIC, a non-profit community interest company. Tess worked as an external consultant to the World Health Organisation from 2012 to 2021. Her clinical and research expertise and experience, derived from both developing and developed countries, uniquely positions her to envision a Better Way for Global Health. Tess is a founder member of the World Council for Health https://worldcouncilforhealth.org/, founder of BiRD International www.bird-group.org and convenor of the Better Way Conference https://betterwayconference.org/

Inge Relph is Executive Director and co – Founder of Global Choices, a USA and UK non for profit working in innovative ways to protect the Global Commons, prioritizing protection of the Central Arctic Ocean sea ice. Female led and genuinely intergenerational, Global Choices mentors a network of 30+ Arctic Angels, wise young climate leaders active in 25 countries, educating on the ice crisis. Known as a thought leader and policy innovator around systems change and global governance, Inge knows a bit about clean tech and climate finance and has advised governments internationally and was Policy Advisor to The Elders during the landmark Paris COP and the SDG agreements. She has held executive roles in business, founded several international NGO’s and has a passion for climate justice as the most marginalized and the poorest, especially women are the ones needing most help to manage climate change.

Laurence Freeman OSB With Irish and English roots, Laurence Freeman was educated by the Benedictines and studied English Literature at New College, Oxford University. Before entering monastic life, he worked with the United Nations in New York, in Banking and Journalism. He is Director of The World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) a global, inclusive contemplative community. Fr. Laurence Freeman is a monk of the Benedictine Congregation of Monte Oliveto Maggiore. He is the director and spiritual guide of the World Community for Christian Meditation. John Main was his teacher and Fr. Laurence assisted him in establishing the foundations of the Community. Fr. Laurence is the author of a number of books on Christian Meditation. He travels extensively giving presentations and leading Christian Meditation Retreats.

David Lorimer is a visionary polymath who is Global Ambassador and Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, Editor of Paradigm Explorer and Chair of the Galileo Commission. He has been creating the Mystics and Scientists conferences for 35 years and is the originator of the Beyond the Brain conferences. His most recent books are A Quest for Wisdom and his collection of poems, Better Light a Candle.

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