Glastonbury Pilgrim Reception Centre Presents...

A Series of Talks and Presentations

Venue: The Avalon Room, Isle of Avalon Foundation, Glastonbury Experience Courtyard, 2 - 4 High Street, Glastonbury, BA6 9DU

(Please note: These times are for guidelines only and the length of each talk will depend on the speaker but no longer than specified above.)

Cost: £5.00

13th September - Glastonbury’s Dark Age? The idea of Glastonbury since the Reformation

With Dr. Adam Stout

High politics, religious rivalries and romanticism combined to create a very unusual reputation for Glastonbury in the centuries after the Abbey was dissolved.

Adam examines what the idea of Glastonbury meant to people before the Avalonians came to town.

11th October - Walking Between the Worlds: Links between Shamanism, the Psychic and the Psychotic.

With Dr. Serena Roney - Dougal

The pineal gland, the seat of our third eye, makes chemicals that are virtually identical to the ayahuasca tea used by Amazonian shamans for out-of-body and clairvoyant experiences. Her latest research explores how these chemicals work, linking them both with our every night altered state of consciousness, dreaming, and also with the experience Western culture calls a psychotic breakdown. People who have a similar sort of breakdown in cultures without a wage economy usually recover completely, or they may become the shaman's apprentice, learning to harness their gifts and consciously, with complete control, walk between the worlds.

Serena Roney - Dougal did a PhD thesis in Parapsychology at Surrey University and is the author of "Where Science and Magic Meet" and "The Faery Faith". She has spent over 35 years studying and experiencing scientific, magical and spiritual aspects of the psyche, and has lectured and taught courses, seminars and workshops in America, Europe and India. For six years she researched the relationship between meditation and psychic awareness with Yogis and Tibetan Buddhists in India, and is now continuing this work at Samye Ling Tibetan Centre in Scotland.

11th October - 'A Creature of Many Moods': Glastonbury and the Spirit of Place

With Penny Billington

Glastonbury and its Tor is widely acknowledged as a powerful presence - and not just by any one particular section of the local or national population. But current nature-centred spirituality holds the whole world sacred; so what is the enduring appeal of 'the Holieste Erthe in England'? This talk takes a look at Glastonbury in the context of Celtic sacred landscape, as a pilgrimage centre and attractor of myth and hope.

Penny Billington is editor of Touchstone, the magazine of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids. She is the author of the ‘Gwion Dubh, Druid detective’ series and has appeared at Literary Festivals and the Dion Fortune Conference in Glastonbury. As a Druid celebrant she speaks regularly and leads workshops on all aspects of Druidry. Her latest book, ‘The Path of Druidry: walking the Ancient Green Way’, was published by Llewellyn in July 2011.

Past Talks

12th July 2011

'The Mythtory of Labyrinths' with Rev. Sig Lonegren

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9th August 2011

'Katherine Maltwood & the Secret British Tradition' with Yuri Lietch

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