Dante's Divine Comedy

Dante encounters seven popes in the Divine Comedy, five in hell, one in purgatory and one in paradise - that last being Saint Peter. His condemnation of individual popes and, I think, the papacy is extraordinarily strong and discomforting to relate.  But was it all revenge? Did he fall for the politics too? Or was his message one of renewal, revival and reunion with God? Dante was concerned about...

This talk was first given to Idler Drinks. For more on Mark's work on Dante - https://www.markvernon.com/dantes-divine-comedy

“Circles of hell" has become commonplace in language. But what was Dante trying to show us when he wrote the inferno? What has been lost in translation, with this first canticle in Dante’s trilogy now part of a secular culture? Jason Baxter talks about his new translation of the Inferno with Mark Vernon. They discuss what Dante could convey in language and why the text never ceases to offer f...

Rowan Williams and Jesse Armstrong talked at The Idler festival, partly around the idea, caught in the expression, “boring as hell”. But is that right, they asked, when a drama like Succession so clearly appeals to us? The question is fundamental, for an age inclined to regard hell as appealing or intriguing, is one on the way to being lost.  Drawing on Dante and William Blake, two great diagnosti...

Dante lived through a period of almost total social collapse. Civil war and city-state terror, practiced by the church as much as secular powers, drove him into exile for the last 20 years of his life. For a while, he lost everything. But then, through the trauma, he regained a ground and rediscovered the fullness of life. The Divine Comedy is the product of that transformation. The journeys throu...

Dante's imagery, particularly in the Paradiso, offers powerful prompts to developing the sense of what it is to be intelligent. He wrote for modern times, he said. And now, as AI becomes more pervasive, he can help us understand how machine learning and human intuitions are very different capacities. This was part of a talk given at the Scientific and Medical Network - https://scientificandme...

Reason fails before the greatest spiritual truths. That much is not news. But part of the genius of Dante is his conjuring of images that reach beyond the impasses of paradox and seeming contradiction. I consider 8 such moments when Dante sees the unsayable and offers images of the ineffable. - how darkness leads to light - how appearances can be the opposite of the truth - how the immediate eclip...

What is the meaning of Easter? How might Holy Week be more than an occasion for its retelling? Can death and resurrection live today, as they once did, 2000 years ago? Dante’s journey, in the Divine Comedy, begins on Maundy Thursday, 1300. It continues through the inferno, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, before he enters purgatory on Easter Sunday morning, at dawn.  The climb up Mount Purgatory,...

Dante would seem to be a key candidate for infernalism, the doctrine of endless punishment in hell for sinners who failed to turn to Christ. He’s said to be medieval and isn't that what they believed then? And doesn’t his Divine Comedy clearly, indisputably say as much? But Dante’s whole point is that nothing is as it seems to the unawakened eye. I think what Dante is doing is taking evil com...

The Divine Comedy is all about guides - finding guides, following guides, conversing with guides. Virgil and Beatrice are the best known, but there are other modes of guidance that Dante seeks and explores. Angels, dreams and myths accompanying Dante, even in the darkest moments. He learns to be present to them and trust that whilst in one encounter they can bring fear or shame, in another they in...

Dante coined the word "transhumanise" in the Divine Comedy, 700 years ago. "Trasumanar" is the transformation he will undergo in order to share in the life of paradise. Today, the word has associations that are strikingly related to Dante's; partly quite similar, though changed in subtle but crucial ways. Understanding those differences illuminates the dangers of transhuma...

A joy to speak again with Brian, this time on Dante's Divine Comedy. We talked about what happened to Dante, what happened to Mark that opened up the Divine Comedy, how the poem works as an initiation, what it reveals about Christianity, what happens to Virgil, the nature of paradise, amongst other things. For more on Brian see http://brianjames.ca For more on Mark see https://www.markvernon....

Bernard Carr is a leading cosmologist who worked with Stephen Hawking and now investigates time, multidimensionality and consciousness, amongst other things.  Bernardo Kastrup cites him as at the vanguard of the great task to integrate matter and mind. So I was delighted to get the chance to ask Bernard about images from Dante.  We talked about relational cosmologies as advocated by Carlo Rovelli,...

This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues continues Rupert and Mark's exploration of Dante’s Divine Comedy, taking a lead from Mark’s book, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey.  Dante is now guided by Beatrice through the heavenly spheres and into the Empyrean. It is a journey into the abundance of infinity and eternity, which immediately struck Rupert as akin to a D...

Various human experiences are deepened and resolved as Dante travels through hell, purgatory and paradise. The Divine Comedy can be read as an examination of this transfiguring of perception. From the alienation of hell, through the transforming time of purgatory, to the ever-expanding awareness of paradise: Dante show us how time & love, seeking & suffering, telepathy & transhumanisin...

This is a contribution to recent dialogues on idealism between Bernardo Kastrup, John Vervaeke, Matt Segall, Philip Goff and others, including myself. I draw particularly on: - Dante's account and analysis of his journey to the heart of consciousness in all its fullness - source and manifestation - in the Divine Comedy - how minds as we know them not only dissociate but also project and intro...

Paradise. Destiny for a chosen few? Dismissed today by many. Or might it be the end for us all? Dante tells us to follow closely in the richest, subtlest and most expansive part of the journey conveyed in the Divine Comedy. He shows us how to develop paradisal perception, the way to know this experience of reality now, and to become ready for it in the hereafter. Paradise is when the deepest truth...

The mode of life called purgatorial is a medieval superstition, according to some, and the very purpose of mortal life, according to others. So what did Dante make of Purgatory and what has it to teach us now? In the Purgatorio, the essence of the spiritual path is shown in encounters and discussions. Purging itself, for example, is not about being rid of what we don't like, an activity that...

The liberal world and western churches increasingly seem to suffer from the lack of a sophisticated understanding of erotic love - an approach not merely governed by morals but arising from insight into who we are and our deepest nature. Erotic love can be felt on nearly every page of the Divine Comedy, in perverted and desperate forms, as well as in free and joyous souls. He understood that eros...

The notion of hell is delighted in by some and causes offence in others. So why did Dante write about this infernal domain on his journey through reality? What is its meaning? What might be learnt from it? The inferno illuminates how desires go awry, the nature of our being is misunderstood, perceptions narrow, and how societies, even civilisations, become lost. This is the first of three talks, o...

This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues continues Rupert and Mark's exploration of Dante’s Divine Comedy, taking a lead from Mark’s book, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey.  Dante and Virgil have found the way out of hell and a new adventure begins on Mount Purgatory. They first encounter souls who are shocked by their deaths and bemused by the afterlife. Then, t...

Dante’s Divine Comedy famously opens with the poet wakening in a dark wood. His life has seemingly taken a wrong turn. But why must he embark first on a journey through hell, before ascending Mount Purgatory, only then entering paradise? What has the way into darkness to do with the way into light?  He learns to say ‘yes’ to all of reality, and that the light includes the darkness, even as tragedy...

John Vervaeke, Paul VanderKlay and Paul Anleitner asked what "God" means, with John challenging the Pauls to talk about God via Light, Love, Logos and Life, so as not to hide behind the "g" word. Drawing on Dante, I offer some thoughts... The original conversation is here - https://youtu.be/UGq34dLXrFI More about Dante and my work - http://www.markvernon.com

The Dante exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, for the 700th anniversary year of 2021, brought together some of the Divine Comedy’s greatest illustrators, living and dead, from Monika Beisner to William Blake and Sandro Botticelli. Here are my reflections on these studies in line and light depicting darkness and life. Modern works discussed include those by Monika Beisner, Dante and Beatrice in the...

Audible have released the audiobook of Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey. I hope you enjoy the first chapter, Inferno 1. For more information go to Audible. And for more on the book as a whole see my website - https://www.markvernon.com .