“If there is Oneness, what are the Many? Are they the same? What do we mean? I suggest that the coincidence of opposites is a truth of unsurpassed importance, but that we have been educated into believing that it is, quite simply, nonsense; and that this plays a neglected role in our failure to make sense of the world.”

Iain McGilchrist is “a psychiatrist, neurologist, philosopher and writer whose seminal work, The Master and His Emissary (2009) presented the notion that the two hemispheres of the human brain approach the world in two very different ways. He argues passionately for the importance – often overlooked in the modern world – of the right hemisphere, which sees the world as a unified, living process. In his most recent book, The Matter with Things (2021) (see this review) he further explores the philosophical implications of this idea. The book is a magnus opus of some 1,500 pages which amounts to a very strong argument, supported by an extraordinary range of evidence,

The Beshara Lecture is an event organised by the Beshara Trust, usually annually. A speaker is invited to present a paper on the ways in which a deep understanding of unity illuminates different areas of human knowledge, informing their research, practice or personal contemplation.

Photo: Stones in the Zen garden/rock garden at the Ryōan-ji temple in Kyoto, Japan.

Photographer: Bjørn Christian Tørrisen