Tuesday, September 15, 2026
Books, silence and sacred listening paper proposal acceptance
While I waited last night to talk about my knitting research on Radio New Zealand’s The Panel, an email arrived with good news in relation to another research project. My paper proposal for the 2026 Centre for the Book Symposium has been accepted.
The 2026 theme for this annual conference, hosted by the Otago Centre for the Book, is “Books and Silence.” Since I have done action research on spiritual practices, including lectio divina as a movement between reading Scripture aloud and holding silence, I decided to pop in a proposal.
Books, silence and the transgressive complexity of sacred listening
Silence and the reading of books have a complicated history. Reading from books was originally a vocal activity, and the cost made reading a shared and social experience. This paper explores the entanglement of silence and reading by focusing on the practice of sacred listening, or lectio divina.
The paper begins by tracing in history the valuing of the heart as a structure of cognition in monasticism, along with the development of reading aloud in Benedictine monasteries. It observes the shift from reading as a regulated community exercise to an individual activity focused on intellectual study.
The paper then presents empirical action-research conducted in 2025 in Ōtepoti Dunedin, in which participants (n=20) from two religious communities spent eight sessions exploring lectio divina as a form of sacred listening. This involved repeated movements between reading aloud, silence and communal sharing. Pre- and post-intervention psychological measures of listening, socio-emotional connection and religious intensity were used to gather quantitative data. Observation, participant research diaries and focus groups were used to gather qualitative data.
The findings suggest that entangling silence with reading aloud has a disruptive yet generative impact. Participants described new insights that fit the definition of “experiential reading,” defined by Natalie Depraz (in Steinbock 2022) as speaking to the heart in ways that invite hearers to enter the experiences described in the text. Silence disrupts. It opens a transgressive space, challenging scientific forms of knowing and the privileging of rational approaches to reading.
Rev Dr Steve Taylor, Director AngelWings Ltd, Research Affiliate, University of Otago | Ōtākou Whakaihu Waka
My paper will share findings from when I was a Fellow in the Psychology Cross-Training for Theologians Project, delivered by the University of Birmingham and funded by John Templeton, including a coffee conversation with Dr David Leech, Senior Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion, University of Bristol during the biennial International Association for the Psychology of Religion last year. David was researching different ways of knowing including how the Christian mystics described their encounters with God and gave me some helpful ideas that made sense of some of my empirical research.
I’m looking forward to trying to join the dots on November 27, 2026 at Books and Silence.
)
