Meditation and mindfulness are supposed to help us become more compassionate, to heal various mental health problems in adults and children, to work for the mind like going to the gym works for the body, to very rarely have side effects, and to be a recipe for a happy life according to most spiritual traditions. It just seems to be good to be true. In this talk, I will unpack these beliefs, trace their development, and tease out what is fact from fiction about the effects of meditation and mindfulness.

Dr Miguel Farias is an experimental psychologist and co-author of ‘The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You?’. He studied and lectured at the University of Oxford and is the founder of the Brain, Belief, & Behaviour Lab at Coventry University. In 2017 he received the William Bier Award from the American Psychological Association for his contributions to the study of psychology and spirituality. His work on meditation and other topics has been reported by the BBC, New Scientist, and National Geographic.

Tickets: £3.00 advance / £5.00 on the door

       

Buy His Book: 
The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You? 

Useful Links:
https://miguelfarias.co.uk/ 

Our systems are failing. Old models – for education, healthcare and government, food production, energy supply – are creaking under the weight of modern challenges. As the world’s population heads towards 10 billion, it’s clear we need new approaches. Futurologist Mark Stevenson sets out to find them, across four continents.

From Brazilian favelas to high tech Boston, from rural India to a shed inventor in England’s home counties, We Do Things Differently travels the world to find the advance guard re-imagining our future. At each stop, he meets innovators who have already succeeded in challenging the status quo, pioneering new ways to make our world more sustainable, equitable and humane.

Mark has also written for The Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, Intelligent Life, The Irish Times, The Irish Independent, The Daily Telegraph, and The New Statesman. His key skill is an ability to take complex or abstract concepts and make them understandable by non-specialists without trivialising the subject matter.

Mark is also an occasional comedy writer. His work has been performed on Radio 4 and his play (co-written with Jack Milner) Octopus Soup comes to London in January 2018.

Tickets: £3.00 advance / £5.00 on the door

Buy the Book: 
We Do Things Differently: The Outsiders Rebooting Our World

Useful Links:
markstevenson.org

A Skeptic’s Guide to Ghost Hunting offers an entertaining, funny and at times scary introduction to the world of modern paranormal research. Audiences have laughed, gasped and even cried...

Lifting the lid on sham ghost-hunting claims, showcasing the latest not-so-amazing paranormal evidence, and exposing the tricks of the trade, paranormal researcher Hayley Stevens will show how not all is what it seems when it comes to things that go bump in the night.

Described as 'the Scully end of the Mulder-Scully X-Files spectrum' by The Times, Hayley Stevens has been investigating ghosts and monsters for over a decade, ever since she was a teenager. She has entertained audiences all across Europe with her talks on investigating the paranormal and her writing can be found in Skeptical Inquirer, The Skeptic, Paranormal Magazine and on her award-winning blog, 'Hayley is a Ghost'.

'Knows what [she] is talking about' Dr Steven Novella, Skeptics Guide To The Universe

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Useful Links:
hayleyisaghost.co.uk

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The Zombie Institute for Theoretical Studies proudly presents: ‘Zombie Science: Genes of the Damned' - the next in the spoof lecture series from the world's leading zombieism research facility.

In this lecture, theoretical zombiologist Dr. Smith asks whether you will know what to do when the Zombie Apocalypse occurs and you find yourself in your own real-life zombie horror film. See how we can learn lessons from disease outbreaks through history. Draw inspiration from today's popular television and film zombie documentaries. Discover who is most likely to be affected and find out how modern medical technology could be used to help the survivors.

It'll make you laugh, it'll make you cry, it'll make you think. It'll also make you feel quite ill, possibly.The outcome of the show will be decided by the audience ... how will you deal with the Damned?

Dr. Smith has been giving talks on the science of zombies for many years from Brighton to Unst, informing and inspiring over 20,000 people. When not lecturing, he works for the Zombie Institute for Theoretical Studies, where he and his colleagues prepare for the Zombie Apocalypse. With the motto "love the zombie, hate the zombieism", the group focuses on how the condition could come about and how it could be prevented and treated. He is often asked if he has ever seen a real zombie, but, thanks to the groups preventative measures, none has yet been forthcoming.

After the talk, we will be airing the Zombie-classic: Night of the Living Dead (1968) to mark 50 years since the films release! The film runs for approximately 1hr and 36m, so we will aim to finish by 11pm.

Tickets: £3.00 advance / £5.00 on the door
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Useful Links:
www.zombiescience.org.uk

 The traditional use of psychoactive plants in spiritual and shamanic rituals has continued for thousands of years, apparently, while the use of these substances recreationally, scientifically and therapeutically in the developed world has also grown steadily in the last century as ever more plants are discovered and new synthetic chemicals are created. Since the earliest clinical, anthropological and anecdotal reports of the use of these powerful psychoactive substances they have been associated with all manner of strange and anomalous experiences, ranging from the mystical to the downright weird. With the recent return to academic research of these substances with humans after a 40-year hiatus the question arises as to what to make of these highly prevalent anomalous experiences and what can be gained from studying them clinically, psychologically, neuroscientifically, and indeed ontologically. 

Dr David Luke is Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the University of Greenwich where he has been teaching an undergraduate course on the Psychology of Exceptional Human Experience since 2009. His research focuses on anomalous experiences and altered states of consciousness, especially via psychedelics, having published more than 100 academic papers in this area, including seven books, such as Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience (2017) and the co-authored textbook Anomalistic Psychology (2012). David is also director of the Ecology, Cosmos and Consciousness salon at the Institute of Ecotechnics, London, and is a cofounder and director of Breaking Convention: International Conference on Psychedelic Consciousness. He has given over 200 invited public lectures and conference presentations, won both teaching and research awards, organised numerous festivals, conferences, seminars, retreats and expeditions, has studied techniques of consciousness alteration from South America to India, and he lives life on the edge, of Sussex.

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Buy David's Book: 
Otherworlds: Psychedelics and Exceptional Human Experience

Anthony Warner somehow managed to complete a Biochemistry Degree at Manchester University before deeply disappointing his parents by deciding that the heat of the professional kitchen was the career for him. After ten years in restaurants, hotels and events-catering he became a development chef in the food manufacturing industry and has spent the last 11 years working on some of the UK’s best-known brands and products.

In 2016, driven by frustration at the clearly unscientific messages being spewed out by a new breed of healthy eating celebrities, he started the Angry Chef blog, intended to appeal to a few similarly frustrated food industry professionals. Despite frequent attempts to alienate his readers, the blog has grown in popularity, forcing a middle-aged man to reluctantly engage with social media. Terrified at the prospect of being described as a ‘food-blogger’, Anthony has tried in vain to keep Angry Chef anonymous, but has sadly failed to do so as newspapers and magazines continue to approach him in the hope he might say something controversial about Jamie Oliver.

He now writes regularly for New Scientist, The Pool and the Sunday Times, and his first book, The Angry Chef - Bad Science and the Truth about Healthy Eating was published by Oneworld in July. He has appeared on Inside Science, The Food Programme and was once asked if he would be happy to eat his own dog on The Moral Maze.

Anthony does not have a food philosophy. He is a pretty decent cook, but is not an expert in anything. He is merely curious and determined to get to the truth. He loves food, loves science and is ambivalent about Marmite. He lives in the Nottinghamshire countryside with his wife, daughter and a slightly unbalanced Springer Spaniel.

Tickets: £3.00 advance / £5.00 on the door
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Buy the Book:
Bad Science and the Truth About Healthy Eating

Useful Links:
angry-chef.com