Simon Wilson

Canterbury Christ Church University, Faculty of Arts, Humanities and Education, Faculty Member

Canterbury Christ Church University, School of Childhood and Education Sciences, Faculty Member

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Simon Wilson studied at St Catharine's College, Cambridge, and at the University of Hull. After more than 20 years in Germany, he returned to the UK in 2012, and has been teaching at Canterbury Christ Church University since 2014.

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Books by Simon Wilson

Earth Light, Earth Angel

Jack Hunter, Greening the Paranormal: Exploring the Ecology Extraordinary Experience (USA/UK: White Crow Publications) 169-179, 2019

This chapter argues that Paul Devereux's essentially mythopoeic writings on so-called 'Earth Ligh... more This chapter argues that Paul Devereux's essentially mythopoeic writings on so-called 'Earth Lights' show that the paranormal may be more successful than moral or political exhortation at transforming humanity's relationship with nature and the cosmos as a whole. Devereux's Earth Lights hypothesis is intended to account for UFO and other paranormal experiences by reference to geophysical forces. I demonstrate that his ideas in fact involve a complex interplay of forces which takes place on somatic, psychic, imaginal, emotional and spiritual levels, creating intricate reciprocal relationships which can transform the experiencer and the world itself. The piece draws on the work of Henry Corbin to argue that the UFO vision is thus a kind of sacrament, in which the witness is transfigured, the world becomes Eden, and all is shot through with the presence of the divine.

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Re-Enchanting the Academy: contents and sample chapter, 'Docere, Delectare, Movere': soul-learning, reflexivity and the third classroom'.

by Dr Angela Voss and Simon Wilson

IN THIS BOOK, sixteen authors encourage the modern academy to remember that portals to enchantmen... more IN THIS BOOK, sixteen authors encourage the modern academy to remember that portals to enchantment can be found in its hallowed halls, and indeed must be found, if education is to nourish and inspire both heart and mind, if it is to lead future generations of students out of the cave of policy-led bureaucratisation and financially-led consumerism into the creative freedom of their own souls. Our authors offer resistance to the domination of education ‘by belief in the facts revealed solely by mandated standards and standardized testing’ through an appeal to the imagination as primary and foundational, the source of connection to self, others, and world.

Enchantment catches us when we least expect it, not only through our thoughts, but through feelings, sensations, intuitions and instincts—and as Peter Abbs reminded us nearly forty years ago, if we want to promote ‘wholeness of being’ as an educational ideal then our schools and academies must embrace the full spectrum of human ways of knowing, in order to bring new, integrated perspectives to our conflicted world.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction
About the Contributors

PART ONE
Re-enchanting the Institution

1. Patrick Curry
The Enchantment of Learning and the Fate of our Times

2. Simon Wilson
Clutching the Wheel of St. Catherine; or a Visit to an Enchanted College

3. Linden West
Re-Enchanting the Academy: Popular Education and the Search for Soul in the Modern Academy

4. Eduard Heyning
Not to Explain the World but to Sing it: Panpsychism and the Academy

PART TWO
Re-enchanting the Curriculum

5. Angela Voss
Delectare, Docere, Movere: Soul-learning, Reflexivity and the Third Classroom

6. Robert Bowie
Stepping into Sacred Texts: How the Jesuits Taught me to Read the Bible

7. Lisa McLoughlin
Enchanted Engineering: Reintegrating the Roots

8. Julia Moore
On the Margins of the Academy: Séances, Sitter Groups and Academics

PART THREE
Re-enchanting the Mind

9. Anita Klujber
The Salutogenic Imagination

10. Judith Way
Enrichment and Enchantment: The Poetic Heritage of the Western Esoteric Tradition

11. Becca Tarnas
The Fantastic Imagination

12. Paul Stevens
Engaging the Non-linguistic Mind

PART FOUR
Re-enchanting Nature & Body

13. Chara & Joan Armon
Toward Re-Enchantment: Cultivating Nature Connection and Reverence through Experiential Learning

14. Laura Formenti & Silvia Luraschi
How do you Breathe? Duoethnography as a Means to Re-embody Research in the Academy

15. Laura Shannon
Women with Wings: Right-brain Consciousness and the Learning Process

16. Sonia Overall
The Walking Dead; or Why Psychogeography Matters

ABOUT THE EDITORS
Angela Voss, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the School of Childhood and Education Sciences, Canterbury Christ Church University, and programme director for the MA in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred. Her teaching and research centre on the role of the symbolic imagination in Western philosophical, spiritual and cultural traditions, and she has written extensively on the astrological music therapy of the Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino (Marsilio Ficino, 2006). She is a ‘walker between the worlds’ of esoteric practice and transformative learning.

Simon Wilson, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the School of Childhood and Education Sciences at Canterbury Christ Church University, where he teaches on the Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred MA and supervises PhD students. He is also a member of the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge. Simon has published widely on subjects such as the Grail, René Guénon, and the writings of Charles Fort. His current research interests include icons, the mystical theology of the Eastern Church, and fortean phenomena.

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Papers by Simon Wilson

René Guénon and the heart of the Grail

This article examines the French esoteric scholar Rene Guenon's concepts of tradition, the Ce... more This article examines the French esoteric scholar Rene Guenon's concepts of tradition, the Centre and the primordial state, and the symbols which he argues body them forth. In particular it discusses the symbolism of the heart and the Grail in Guenon's work. It uses a close reading of the earliest Grail romances to develop a critique of Guenon, and in particular of his concept of tradition and his attitude towards Christianity.

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"Clutching at the Wheel of St Catherine;" or A Visit to a Re-enchanted College

Angela Voss and Simon Wilson (eds), Re-enchanting the Academy (Auckland: Rubedo Press), 2017

This chapter argues that the obsession with metering, monitoring, benchmarks and outcomes in cont... more This chapter argues that the obsession with metering, monitoring, benchmarks and outcomes in contemporary education has depleted and disenchanted the process of learning. It finds that these phenomena are symptoms of a universal spiritual malaise, what the French thinker René Guénon called "the Reign of Quantity". Playfully and seriously, the chapter goes on to argue that in the twentieth century St Catharine's College, Cambridge resisted the Reign of Quantity, and became a centre for the re-enchantment of learning. It develops this argument by examining the teaching and charismatic presence of the college's Director of Studies in English, Thomas Rice Henn. It goes on to show that at least two of his students - Malcolm Lowry and Patrick Harpur - carried forward this enchantment in their works, albeit in very different ways. It is thus still available.

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"René Guénon and the Heart of the Grail"

Temenos Academy Review, 2015

This essay looks at the symbolism of the Grail and the Heart in the work of René Guénon. It proce... more This essay looks at the symbolism of the Grail and the Heart in the work of René Guénon. It proceeds to examine the early Grail Romances to develop a critique of Guénon's view of Christianity, and of the assumptions behind his assertion that there is only one path or one reality in the transcendent realm which he calls the unconditioned state.

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Drafts by Simon Wilson

The Fierce Urgency of Now and Forever and unto Ages of Ages: Study and the Restoration of Paradise on Earth

The purpose of this paper is to explore and evoke an old educational concept called 'study'. This... more The purpose of this paper is to explore and evoke an old educational concept called 'study'. This is learning which leads to love and love which leads to learning. it is a dynamic experience which engenders transformation whose telos is simultaneously endlessly knowable and unknowable. The paper argues that it unites humans with the world, the material world with the transcendent, speed with slowness, alignment with resistance, in a series of antinomic relationships which come together in the heart. Study, it is argued, should form the basis of true education and a truly sustainable relationship with the world. Design/Methodology/Approach: The paper's approach is informed by the Eastern Orthodox Christian theology of ecology, particularly its complex and holistic concept of the heart and perceiving with the heart. It revels in the antinomies fostered by this tradition. Findings: The paper's findings are inevitably provisional. They stress the need for beauty in educational practice, and indicate that the form of study described may foster an individual sense of vocation, which can transform self and the world. Originality: The paper hopes to contribute to a reorientation in education, sustainability, and ecology.

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Earth Light, Earth Angel

Jack Hunter, Greening the Paranormal: Exploring the Ecology Extraordinary Experience (USA/UK: White Crow Publications) 169-179, 2019

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Re-Enchanting the Academy: contents and sample chapter, 'Docere, Delectare, Movere': soul-learning, reflexivity and the third classroom'.

by Dr Angela Voss and Simon Wilson