David Lorimer, MA, PGCE, FRSA is a writer, lecturer, poet, and editor who is a Founder of Character Education Scotland, Programme Director of the Scientific and Medical Network, and former President of Wrekin Trust and the Swedenborg Society. He has also been editor of Paradigm Explorer since 1986 and completed his 100th issue in 2019. He was the instigator of the Beyond the Brain conference series and has co-ordinated the Mystics and Scientists conferences every year since the late 1980s.

Originally a merchant banker then a teacher of philosophy and modern languages at Winchester College, he is the author and editor of over a dozen books including Radical Prince: The Practical Vision of the Prince of Wales. His new book of essays, A Quest for Wisdom comes out in March 2021.

David is the originator of the Inspiring Purpose Values Poster Programmes, which has reached over 350,000 young people all over the world.

David is also Chair of the Galileo Commission which seeks the widen the science of consciousness beyond a materialistic world view.

Books:

Resonant Mind: Life Review in the Near-Death Experience
Radical Prince: The Practical Vision of the Prince of Wales
Quest for Wisdom: Inspiring Purpose on the Path of Life
Prophet for Our Times: The Life & Teachings of Peter Deunov

In this conversation, we discuss whether consciousness fundamental or an epiphenomenon of brain functioning. If it is fundamental (our view), how can this become the accepted paradigm? If it did so, how would this change the world?

Topics covered include:

Does the brain produce consciousness or do the brain and everything else emerge from consciousness? What does the research say?
How do NDEs help answer this question?
If consciousness is a fundamental field, is it intelligent – a ‘transcendental universal mind’?
How did the scientific assumption that consciousness arises from matter become predominant?
How did the Church retard scientific progress?
The Galileo Commission – so named because just as Galileo’s critics refused to look through his telescope, modern scientists refuse to look at evidence suggesting that consciousness is fundamental.
Scientists are often unaware of the broader assumptions underpinning their work.
Historical tension between religious mystics and administrators.
If the primacy of consciousness were widely understood and experienced, we would realize our essential oneness. This would transform politics and all other fields of human endeavor. Lacking this knowledge and experience, people, corporations, and politics tend to be ‘excessively individualistic’ - placing self-interest before the good of the whole. This includes short-sightedness, denying or ignoring slow-moving catastrophes such as climate change.
Quantum physics undermined materialism a century ago, but other sciences such as biology have maintained it.
Mind and matter emerge from a deeper reality – a coherent field that can be accessed through mystical experience.
Discussion on the importance of experiential understanding of consciousness in education and opposition from religious fundamentalists.
In most cases, paradigm shifts start with a creative minority (5%) and gradually grow to become the norm.
Humanity is now too clever to survive without wisdom.

Discussion of this interview in the BatGap Community Facebook Group.

Interview recorded December 19, 2020

Video and audio below. Audio also available as a Podcast.