…the natural world, and for many people it's a source of mystical experiences, even in childhood. 50 years ago, Sir Alistair Hardy, the Oxford zoologist, set up the Religious Experience Research Unit in Oxford to look at the natural history of mystical…

…at least in our country. When I took ford a dawning field, flock, and lonely tree, all seemed to gaze at me. That's Hardy talking. Yes, yes, that's Hardy. Like chest and children sit excited in a school. Oh, you've memorized it. Upon them stirs a…

…When I took ford a dawning field, flock, and lonely tree, all seemed to gaze at me. That's Hardy talking. Yes, yes, that's Hardy. Like chest and children sit excited in a school. Oh, you've memorized it. Upon them stirs a leaping smear as if one's…

…main reasons why he stopped painting after 1860 was that no longer could he see his beloved landscapes like that again. In the Hardy poem, which I just quoted, which is of course later, he conjures up this image of the beasts and the plants saying well…

…was being independently invented in other parts of Britain. So much so that the professor of biology at Oxford, Sir Alistair Hardy, suggested it must be happening by telepathy. That it was spreading too quickly. And the most interesting records are from…

…Britain and the rate of discovery accelerated in such a striking way that the professor of zoology at Oxford, Sir Alistair Hardy, came to the conclusion that something like telepathy might be involved. It seemed mysterious to many people at the time. But…

…was confined to a few medieval mystics in the Middle Ages. But in the 1970s, the Oxford biologist, Sir Alistair Hardy, decided that religious and spiritual experience should be treated like natural history. You should find out who had these experiences,…