SPECIAL ONE-HOUR NEW DIMENSIONS CAFÉ: SCIENCE SET FREE with DR. RUPERT SHELDRAKE

British biologist Rupert Sheldrake asks questions that most scientists haven't thought of or have been discouraged from asking. He is best known for his morphic-field theory, which explores aspects of reality that are unexplained in terms of current physics and biology. In this talk, he proposes setting science free from its most constricting dogmas and unexamined assumptions

Dr. Sheldrake studied natural sciences at Cambridge and philosophy at Harvard, took a Ph.D. in biochemistry at Cambridge and is the author of more than eighty scientific papers. He is the author of several books including: A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance (J.P. Tarcher 1995), Dogs That Know When Their Owners Are Coming Home: And Other Unexplained Powers of Animals (Three Rivers Press 2001) and Science Set Free (Deepak Chopra Books, 2012), also published in the UK as The Science Delusion (Coronet 2012)

Recording Date: 9/7/2012 Tags: Rupert Sheldrake, Ph.D., morphic fields, morphic resonance, morphogenetic fields, brain, science, Science, Social Change/Politics, Philosophy

Alan Briskin, Ph.D. earned his doctorate in organizational psychology and is a pioneer in the field of organizational learning. He is co-founder of the Collective Wisdom Initiative and has been consultant to many large corporations including Lucasfilm, Sutter Health, Kaiser Permanente, and the Goi Peace Foundation. His books include The Stirring of Soul in the Workplace (Berrett-Koehler 1998),The Power of Collective Wisdom and the Trap of Collective Folly (co-authors, Sheryl Erickson, Tom Callanan, and John Ott)(Berrett-Koehler 2009) and Daily Miracles: Stories and Practices of Humanity and Excellence in Health Care (co-author Jan Boller) (Sigma Theta Tau International; 1st edition 2006)

Mary V. Gelinas, Ed.D. is an organizational development consultant devoted to the art of conscious social change. As an educator and consultant with more than forty years of experience working in brain research, contemplative practices, social psychology, and systems thinking. Her organizational redesign projects focus on innovative and inclusive solutions for business, government, health care, and education, for such diverse clients as the Global Covenant of Mayors for Climate and Energy and Vanderbilt University Medical Center. She is the author of Talk Matters: Saving the World One Word at a Time. (Friesen Press 2026)

Briskin and Gelinas are the co-authors of Space is Not Empty: How Hidden Fields Are Shaping Your Life and Our World (Friesen Press 2025)

Interview Date: 11/14/2025 Tags: Alan Briskin, Mary V. Genlinas, Personal fields, Social fields, Noetic fields, wondering, curiosity, David Bohm, Carl Rogers, shifting the norm, fields are permeable, group disruption, noticing, certainty, uncertainty, body wisdom, Personal Transformation, Psychology, Science, Social Change/Politics

Glenn Aparicio Parry, Ph.D. is an educator, an ecopsychologist, and an author known for integrating indigenous wisdom and holistic thinking into contemporary society. He's the founder and past president of Seed Institute, where he facilitated landmark dialogues between Native American elders and Western scientists. He currently serves as president of The Circle For Original Thinking and host of its weekly podcast. His books include Original Thinking: A Radical Revisioning Of Time, Humanity And Nature (North Atlantic Press 2015), Original Politics: Making America Sacred Again (SelectBooks 2020), and Original Love: The Timeless Source Of Wholeness. (SelectBooks 2026).

Interview Date: 1/10/2025 Tags: Glenn Aparicio Parry, feminine wisdom, Leroy Little Bear, Dan Moonhawk Alford, Jean Gebser, two-eyed seeing, Yom Kippur, atonement, original thought, deep listening, Personal Transformation, Psychology, Indigenous Wisdom

Glenn Aparicio Parry, Ph.D. is an educator, international speaker, entrepreneur, and visionary whose life-long passion is to re-form thinking and education into a coherent, cohesive whole. He’s the founder and past president of the SEED Institute, and is currently the president of the think tank: The Circle for Original Thinking. Parry organized and participated in the groundbreaking Language of Spirit Conferences from 1999 – 2011 that brought together Indigenous Native Elders and Western scientists in dialogue. This series of conferences was moderated by Leroy Little Bear. Parry is an avid outdoorsman and makes his home in the foothills of the Sandia Mountains in Albuquerque, NM, with his wife, dog, and cat. He is the author of Original Thinking: A Radical ReVisioning of Time, Humanity, and Nature (North Atlantic Books 2015).

Interview Date: 8/18/2015 Tags: Glenn Aparicio Parry, Original thought, thoughts, intent, Hopis, hydraulic cycle, David Bohm, fragmented thinking, Grandfather Leon Secatero, The Circle for Original Thinking, assumptions, vision quest, conspiracy with nature, Native Americans, Language of Spirit Conference, brain, David Bohm, Leroy Little Bear, Dan Moonhawk Alfred, sacred ratio, golden mean, map story, rational thinking, rational thought, New Mexico, Navajo, Grandfather Leon, Orlando Secatero, campfire, spirit dialogues, Science, Self Help, psychology, Ecology/Nature/Environment

Cynthia Spring is a media producer and for 20 years was deeply involved in local ecology in the San Francisco Bay area. Her most recent book, is a collaboration beyond the veil of death between herself and the late Dr. Francis Vaughan who passed from this life in 2017. Cynthia's books include The Wave and The Drop: Wisdom Stories About Death and Afterlife (Wisdom Circles Publishing 2018) and Seven Questions About Life After Life: Book One (with Frances Vaughan)(Wisdom Circles Publishing 2019)

Interview Date: 9/30/2019 Tags: Cynthia Spring, Dr. Frances Vaughan, Matthew McKay, death, Nirvana, soul, loss, grief, other side of death, animal companions that have did, Michael Toms’ Mother’s death story, Grateful Dead, learning doesn’t stop at death, our perilous time in history, Omnipresence, Joseph Campbell, Huston Smith, direct experience, a greater reality, contacting loved ones across the veil, Personal Transformation, Death & Dying, Parapsychology/Paranormal, Intuition/Psychic, social change/Politics

Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist, environmentalist, and award-winning author. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her work is widely taught and anthologized around the world. On the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, Ms. Williams received the Sierra Club’s John Muir Award honoring a distinguished record of leadership in American conservation. She currently is the writer in residence at Harvard Divinity School and divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Castle Valley, Utah. She is the author of many books including: Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (Pantheon 1991), Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert (Vintage Books 2002), An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field (Vintage Books 1995), Leap (Vintage 2001), Red: Patience and Passion in the Desert (Vintage Books 2002), The Open Space of Democracy (The Orion Society 2004), Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Pantheon 2008), When Women Were Birds (Sarah Crichton Books: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2012), The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks (Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2016), Erosion: Essays of Undoing (Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2019)

Interview Date: 12/13/2019 Tags: Terry Tempest Williams, erosion, public lands, oil and gas industry, coal industry, Bears Ears, seeing, Mormon, Mormonism, Creation Myths, Marie-Louise van Franz, Adam and Eve, Fazal Sheikh, State of Utah, gospel choir, Follow the Drinking Gourd, Big Dipper, Assault on American Lands, hidden violence, Nuclear bombs, uranium tailings, war games in the desert, coal and copper mines. Grand Staircase-Escalante, radioactive waste, President Donald J. Trump, Senator Orrin Hatch, Lamanites, Racism. Book of Mormon, Environmental racism is the outcome of bad stories, Ecology/Nature/Environment, Meditation, Spirituality, Social Change/Politics, Personal Transformation, Peace/Nonviolence, Community, Mythology

Jenny Odell is a multi-disciplinary artist and writer based in Oakland, California who teaches at Stanford University. She has been an artist-in-residence at such places as the San Francisco dump, Facebook, the Internet Archive, and the San Francisco Planning Department, and has exhibited her art all over the world. She is the author of: How To Do Nothing: Resisting The Attention Economy (Melville House Publishing 2019).

Interview Date: 8/30/2019 Tags: MP3, Jenny Odell, technodeterminism, age of soylent, The Dump art installation, Recology San Francisco, David Hockney, A Bigger Exhibition, slow art, Ellsworth Kelly,Blue Green Black Red, attention, shallow attention, reactive attention, impatient attention, bird watching, sustained attention, ego-dissolving attention, angry tweet mob, crows, fear, anxiety, bioregion, loneliness, Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweet Grass, Social Change/Politics, Art & Creativity, Philosophy, Technology, Money/Economics