It is fair to say that there is a feeling of activity and liveliness with everything that touches on Owen Barfield at the moment. Maybe what will turn out to be important in this in the long run is the connections that may be formed between people interested in Barfield’s writing and thinking about thinking. That is not at all to say that the thinking merely underwrites the forming of communities and the friendships that may happen. Rather it is to bring home that the final participation Barfield sought is not finally a private matter for individuals. The phrase collective representations was after all not randomly chosen. Pursuing Barfield’s intuitions is a matter of social life. So, here below is news of two opportunities to learn about Owen Barfield and to meet others, in person and online, also interested in his work. Also worthy of attention recently is a review of The Silver Trumpet.
Symposium inspired by Owen Barfield. London, Sunday 9th November 2025
A symposium has been organised under the auspices of the Temenos Academy called “Poetic Imagination and the Rediscovery of Meaning”. It will have some terrific speakers.
The Temenos Academy website describes the event as follows:
Meaning and imagination are two intertwined themes throughout the writing career of philosopher and poet Owen Barfield, whose ideas inspired the likes of C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and T. S. Eliot. This symposium will explore these two central themes of Barfield’s work, his debt to spiritual traditions from Neoplatonism to Rudolf Steiner’s Anthroposophy and his relevance to contemporary issues such as the meaning crisis and the secular age.
Details are as follows:
- Time: Sunday 9th November 2025, 2:30 p.m. – 6 p.m.
- Place: Marylebone Theatre, Rudolf Steiner House, 35 Park Road, London, NW1 6XT
- Speakers: Mark Vernon; Jeffrey Hipolito; Ben Okri; Hilary Davies
- Further Details: See the Temenos Academy website (worth visiting for details of the speakers)
- Tickets: available here. £25 general admission, or £15 for students with ID and Temenos Academy members
Online discussion group reading through The Rediscovery of Meaning
The Urphänomen reading group will be reading through this essay collection of Barfield’s starting on 16th September 2025 until May 2026, meeting every fortnight. This is an initative in particular of Ashton Arnoldy, who recently completed his Ph.D. on Barfield, and of Matthew Segall, who has engaged with Barfield for many years. They have previously held reading groups on various works of Rudolf Steiner. It is a welcoming and friendly group, while also being intellectually stimulating. People can join without having to say much, but are also encouraged to contribute and even to kick off the discussion with a detailed summary if they so wish. In other words, this is a great opportunity to learn through reading and discussing Barfield’s work.
Further details, including a Zoom link to join the discussions and the schedule until May 2026, are on the Urphänomen Substack page.
A nice review of The Silver Trumpet
The Summer 2025 edition of New View contains an appreciative review of The Silver Trumpet by Vibhusha Delamore, to mark the publication of the new edition by the Barfield Press this year. The review is not online, and readers should anyway get a copy of the magazine, which contains much else besides of interest. But here is an excerpt:
An intriguing aspect of the book is the presence of classical fairytale motifs contained within the story. Barfield has woven some of the strongest symbolic images from traditional fairytales into his text. Christening wishes, secluded towers, fairy godmothers and toads have their place bringing with them the powerful soul pictures that stand behind the classic fairytales. These tales were originally told to adults as pictures of the soul’s spiritual journey through life towards a place of transformation and union. As such one could recommend The Silver Trumpet not just for a 9 year old child but for a mature individual with a love of whimsy and romance and a desire to find the path to one’s own true heart’s joy.