Thread by @Jonathan_Rowson

.@Perspecteeva just posted 11 great videos from The Realisation Festival in early July.

Only 30 people attended due to COVID restrictions, so we are all the more grateful for the excellent work of @saintgiles and Charlie Moore and Alex Townley.

youtube.com/channel/UCr0bT…

First, an overview of the Festival, and promissory note for future years where it will be larger.

The philosophical background concerns Perspectiva & St Giles House's shared connection to #Bildung.

We call it "A Festival of Unlearning and Reimagining".

Second, Perspectiva did our inaugural public antidebate at the festival. This process is still in development, and seeks a hybrid form of dialogue and debate.

The question we alighted on and examined was:
"Is Masculinity the Problem?"

We did more than talk, but have 11 talks to share.

Day one was about the under-examined role of beauty in our societal/historical context.

One of the co-organisers @MsAfropolitan spoke about her book on Sensuous knowledge and wha "Doing beauty" means.

Amisha Ghadiali on ceasing to work on conventional political change, and the creation of her podcast:
"The Future is Beautiful".

Far from being about naive positivity or spiritual bypassing, it's a deeper grasp of what beauty includes and invites.

Bayo Akomolafe begins by discussing the meaning of soul, a key theme of the festival, but goes on, in vintage mythopoetic style, to speak about why we are stuck, how to disassemble, and why 'meeting the monster' is a precondition for sanctuary.

.@indraadnan spoke from the authority of her newly published book by the same title: The Politics of Waking Up.

"I'm always asking myself: Am I waking up, or am I talking about waking up...What is this?"

Mazviita Chirimuuta contended directly with the aspiration to reimagine beauty in society and explored three mental habits that militate against achieving that: beauty considered 'subjective'; the sublime is undervalued, permanence in beauty is overvalued

At the start of day two I spoke directly to the idea of realisation at the heart of the festival.

I see it as 3 main patterns:
Insight: to realise something is the case.
Soul: the process of self-realisation.
Manifestation: to realise a dream or project.

Anthea Lawson spoke to the core themes in her new book, The Entangled Activist.

"I think one of our greatest entanglements is in an individualist culture that denies we're entangled."
@anthlawson1

Former Director of Theos, @ESOldfield spoke personally about what it means to be Christian, and why, if we're going to contend with spirituality and/or religion, there's a case for speaking from that particular tradition, and for rediscovering it.

Artist and novelist Xiaolu Guo spoke about the idea of authenticity in an algorithmic age, illustrated through a video, and her experience of how some forms of classical western art are perceived in a particular place in China.

.@IAmPippaEvans shared the genesis of The Sunday Assembly, co-founded with Sanderson Jones in 2013, which became a huge phenomenon very quickly, before she really knew what it was.

She said the talk could also be called:
"Be careful what you wish for."

.@platospodcasts spoke about what history knows and from the perspective of his 'inner conservative'.

He explained that it can be a great relief to accept that you can't 'save the world', and that by realising that, you can relate to it much better.

We will soon be sharing a written rationale for The Realisation Festival, and there will be an event in 2022. For now, please share these videos far and wide, and see the website for further information: realisationfestival.com

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