About this Event
What has the modern world lost sight of, and where does that leave us now? What is the imagination, and could it be more than fantasy or escape? As the old world falls into crisis, can the imagination help us see beyond our current predicament? And what are we fighting for?
In this closing event of the Hinterland Pilot Festival, psychotherapist and writer Mark Vernon and Buddhist writer and teacher Vishvapani come together in conversation, facilitated by festival director Sanghadhara. Drawing on their own journeys through science, religion, spiritual life and psychotherapy, they’ll explore the limits of the present world, the power of the imaginal, and what engaging with it could mean for how we relate to each other, to nature and to culture.
You’ll then have the chance to join in, with questions for the speakers and discussion with one another as a group. We’ll close the festival with a shared ritual, calling on the powers that may help us bring a new society into being.
Stay afterwards to buy the speakers’ books and have them signed.
--- About the Guests.
Mark Vernon
Mark Vernon is a psychotherapist, writer and speaker. His work explores ancient philosophy, spirituality and inner life, and his writing ranges over friendship, belief, wellbeing and how to live spiritually today. His recent books cover William Blake, spiritual intelligence, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Christianity as seen by Owen Barfield, the Oxford Inkling and friend of C.S. Lewis. His books have been translated around the world.
As a psychodynamic psychotherapist, Mark has a private practice in London and has worked in a personality disorder service at the Maudsley Hospital. He is a regular voice on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. His journalism has appeared with the BBC and in Aeon, the Church Times and The Tablet, and he writes a regular column for The Idler.
Mark teaches on spiritual writers and traditions with The Temenos Academy, where he sits on the Academic Board. He also leads workshops at the Pari Centre and Sarum College. He hosts the podcast Inner Life and a long-running YouTube series of conversations with Rupert Sheldrake. He has been Philosopher in Residence at Broughton Sanctuary and has worked with the International Society for Science and Religion and with Royal College of Art designers on a project funded by the Fetzer Institute. He has spoken at festivals including Hay, How The Light Gets In, Greenbelt and Dartington.
He studied physics at Durham, theology at Oxford, and took a PhD in philosophy at Warwick. He began his career as a Church of England priest.
Vishvapani
Vishvapani is a writer, speaker and teacher of Buddhism based in Cardiff, Wales. Vishvapani’s work centres on Buddhism and the modern world: what the tradition offers when it meets contemporary life, and what happens when its insights are taken seriously rather than decoratively. That work has included biography and cultural commentary, broadcasting, and teaching meditation and the Dharma. More and more, it also explores where Buddhism meets myth, imagination and the arts.
Vishvapani has practised Buddhism since the age of fifteen. Over four decades, Vishvapani has been involved in many of the organisations and initiatives that shaped Buddhism’s presence in Britain, working across traditions, with policymakers and within the wider mindfulness movement. A member of the Triratna Buddhist Order since 1992, Vishvapani teaches widely at centres, on retreat, and at festivals and events in the UK and abroad. Recent work includes leading a Buddhist pilgrimage for Tricycle and creating content for meditation apps such as RoundGlass.
Vishvapani’s books include Gautama Buddha: The Life and Teachings of the Awakened One (Quercus) and Reimagining Buddhism: Understanding Sangharakshita’s Life and Teachings (Windhorse, 2025). A new book, Buddhism and Myth: The Country of Undefined Meaning, is in progress. Vishvapani writes regularly for Tricycle: The Buddhist Review and The Guardian, and is a voice on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day. Vishvapani also works as a structural editor on Buddhist and mindfulness books.
Event venue & nearby stays
Hinterland Alcohol-Free Bar and Cafe, 16-20 Turner Street, Manchester, United Kingdom
Concerts, fests, parties, meetups — all the happenings, one place.