The 2011 Beshara Lecture: a personal response

The 2011 Beshara Lecture by Richard Twinch has proved so popular that Richard has been asked to present it, in varied forms, five times so far. He is currently preparing an audiovisual package of the presentation, and in the meantime we are delighted to present his personal response to giving it.

It was a great honour and privilege to be asked to deliver the Beshara Lecture in 2011, and its reverberations continue.

It was in June or July last year that I was asked by Elizabeth Roberts, the Chair of the Beshara Trust, to give the lecture. In one sense it was 'out of the blue', in another sense not surprising, as already a couple of people had asked me to give talks – 'What would you say?', they asked. So this was the third time of asking and, following some sound advice (given in a lecture by Tim Smit, chief executive and co-founder of the award-winning Eden Project, who said he made it a point of principle to take up the third invitation – whatever and wherever it came from), it was one that had to be accepted. I was also just engaged in doing the 'Inspiration' pages on my architectural website – following who and what had inspired me in my life.

So what did it mean, accepting this challenge, agreeing to come under the order of Beshara which is a constant pouring of revelation – 'good news' – onto the hearts of those who face their reality without intermediary? An awesome task if seen as something that you can do yourself, but made light in recognising that the source of action and the action itself were one and the same. All I had to do was ask, watch, wait and respond when the path was made clear. So jumping into the unknown yet again, I said Yes.

As for subject matter, over the previous two years I had been drawn back to the world of science, which had been explored with Jane Clark and others during the Beshara Magazine years at the end of the 80s, early 90s – when new ideas and paradigm shifts were taking place. Another period when such shifts seemed to be imminent was now upon us and the world. I had been collecting books and reading articles – science, maths – and watching all available TV programmes. Probably the fact that my son Oliver was simultaneously doing science documentary programmes was an added stimulus.

I had a dream in which I had seen a pen being used for writing. I asked 'What was the name of the pen?' I was told 'coga nova', which – loosely transferring the dream image into Latin – I took as an indication that what was necessary was to 'think anew'. Architectural work was quiet, so I plunged into my books: the proof of E = mc2 by Brian Cox and Jeff Forshaw using Pythagoras' Theorem, and Marcus du Sautoy's Symmetry, which follows the history of mathematical symmetry, including a fascinating chapter on the 'spinning' of the tile patterns in the Alhambra.

But the universe was conspiring with me: the Large Hadron Collider in Cerne had been got up and running, and data were emerging that would prove, or disprove, the accepted theories of the past 40 years – with either result changing the way we were to think of the universe and our place in it. Then, out of the blue in mid-September, the Opera Experiment from Italy produced the results of an experiment that showed that neutrinos could possibly be travelling faster than light, a result which if corroborated would question the very fundamentals of Relativity Theory that had underpinned our understanding for 100 years. The media picked this up and fundamental science was suddenly in the spotlight, reflecting in the scientific world the uncertainty and turmoil that was being found in financial markets and in social unrest – particularly the 'Arab Spring' (Guardian article 'Photo of the Year', November 2011 – the week of the London lecture).

I was also drawn back to look at the impetus behind the Beshara Magazine, and by reading back issues (many of which are just as relevant today as they were then) rediscovered the questions that were being left 'hanging' – and which now with some hindsight could be readdressed – in particular Bulent Rauf's seminal article 'To suggest a Vernacular' from Issue 1. His 'conversation in print' was with a young scientist called Paul Davies whose books summed up the 'new physics' in the 1980s. Davies was a young man then, but is now an eminent scientist, author of The Goldilocks Enigma (2006) and other books.

Trying to collect all these disparate thoughts, ideas and impressions was to prove a further revelationary experience in which the universe – particularly Wikipedia and YouTube – rushed to my aid. I found that there were videos which could be downloaded and embedded in a Powerpoint presentation that would speak much louder and clearer than text or even diagrams. 'The Medium is the Massage (message)' said Marshall Mcluhan in 1967 – and it was no truer then than it is today. With moving images came music that demanded its own 'place' in the presentation!

I cannot say it wasn't extremely hard work – but very exciting – questions were being raised and answered in 'real' time. Also it was only in the process of putting the talk together that I found out what I wanted to say – or perhaps what the universe wanted to say by way of 'beshara': good news.

I also had the privilege of being asked to give the lecture on several other occasions (London, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oxford and Edinburgh) where the ideas became refined and clarified, like the process of adding egg white to soup. Not only did the lecture change and evolve but it morphed into another lecture entirely: 'the One and the Many' given in Murcia, Spain as part of IBAFF (Ibn 'Arabi Film Festival), after which we bumped literally into Marcus du Sautoy – who had provided inspiration at the beginning – at Gatwick Airport. We greeted and conversed with my companions, Stephen and my wife Cecilia (who had provided much helpful advice throughout the whole process). The conversation between 'mystics' and 'scientists' that had been looked forward to in the lecture had begun!

Richard Twinch, Oxford, May 2012