Author: Oliver Essame

Oliver Essame

Oliver Essame is a retired cabinet maker. Raised as an Anglican, educated in that tradition at boarding schools. His parents, however, were looking elsewhere and he went with them to summer schools at Combe Springs, where he was introduced to the works of George Gurdjieff, JG Bennett and Subud. Nevertheless, he briefly succumbed to the charms of Anglicanism and went to Oxford. Then, armed with his theology degree, became a stage manager for a while and then a teacher for a year at a school in India. He learnt there that the practical life suited him and when he came home he retrained as a woodworker. His mother gave him Taking Leave of God for his birthday in 1981 and asked him to accompany her to the Sea of Faith Conference in 1995 and he has been an active member ever since.

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The Sea of Faith Steering Group

At the 2024 Sea of Faith AGM a motion changed the ‘tag line’ statement of purpose of the network. For the health of the network, it would be good for more members to engage with...

11 April 2025

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Revisiting: Oliver Essame revisits Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

I read Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley’s Frankenstein for the first time when I was a student. I knew the plot, of course, I had seen Boris Karloff in the 1931 film and Peter Cushing in the...

1 September 2017

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SOF Sift: A Gold Prospector or a Gardener?

Oliver Essame, Brackley, Northamptonshire I may not be properly qualified to contribute to this column as I don’t feel as though I have been on a quest, and I can’t recall that I ever did....

1 March 2012

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Working with Wood

Sofia 99 March/April 2011 In the corner of my workshop, on top of the cupboard next to the lathe and waiting patiently to be refinished, is a fruitwood salad bowl that I turned in a...

1 March 2011