SINCE the age of 24, when he left a nascent career in banking, David Lorimer has spent four decades in what might be called wisdom education, as a writer, lecturer, and editor. He is a former president of the Swedenborg Society and the Wrekin Trust, a founder of Character Education Scotland, and is currently programme director of the Scientific and Medical Network — an organisation dedicated to bridging spirituality and science, not least with the Galileo Commission, which challenges the materialist assumptions that underlie modern science.
This impressive CV is worth sketching, because it provides a sense of what is on offer in Lorimer’s collection of essays and talks, A Quest for Wisdom. The book reads as a lived primer in various debates and teachings that have shaped spiritual questing in recent decades, typically outside the Church. Matters from near-death experiences to the perennial philosophy are examined. Issues from the impact of technological tracking to the spirit of Gnosticism are aired. Thought leaders from to Dag Hammarskjöld to David Bohm are considered.
One figure stands out: that of Peter Beunov, son of a Bulgarian Orthodox bishop, who dedicated his life to the renewal of Christianity by developing novel practices as well as renewing older teachings. The reality of divine love lies at the heart of Beunov’s philosophy, and he invited his followers to know it directly, not least in their bodies.
Take the sacred dance Paneurthythmy, which is performed before sunrise, in an echo of the yoga practice of sun salutation. Lorimer has been a follower of Beunov since the 1980s and writes: “The processes for self-transformation are simple, but challenging in that they require willpower and perseverance.” The promise is a reliably felt awareness of the energy also called spirit, and the seeming strangeness of the exercises is, no doubt, part of their appeal, as a form of resistance to the pervasive secularism of modern life.
The essays are the product of a mind continually reading from eclectic sources, in no small part so as to engage with pressing current concerns. They hang together because of the urgency with which Lorimer feels that we need a new ecological and spiritual world-view, coupled to his conviction that we have the resources required to forge it.
Dr Mark Vernon is a writer and psychotherapist. His latest book is Dante’s Divine Comedy: A guide for the spiritual journey (Angelico Press, 2021).
A Quest for Wisdom: Inspiring purpose on the path of life
David Lorimer
Aeon Books £29.99
(978-1-91-350476-2)
Church Times Bookshop £26.99
