Inner Life, Talks and Thoughts

Owen Barfield was the friend of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. He championed the importance of imagination and poetry. But what can be missed is the transformative depth of his ideas. They can revolutionise our perception of everything.  Landon Loftin and Max Leyf are the authors of What Barfield Thought: An Introduction to the Work of Owen Barfield. In this conversation with Mark Vernon they ask how B...

Terminal lucidity is the phenomenon of individuals who are dying receiving a surge of life, perhaps to say goodbye, as their death approaches. So what is the nature and meaning of such well-attested experiences?  In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon use Rupert's recent paper examining terminal lucidity in animals, to open up a discussion of pheno...

Safety, confidentiality and trust are key parts of psychotherapy. That almost goes without needing to be said. But what is enabled by these qualities of the frame? How do they open up less conscious thoughts and feelings?  In this second conversation about psychotherapy, Robert Rowland Smith and Mark Vernon explore this space of real encounter, which is paradoxically safe so as to allow the less s...

The anxiety about AI has reached hysterical proportions. Luminaries are declaring that every last human being is at risk. Which suggests a panic not about the future, whatever it may bring, but about the present, and what has already been lost. What has vanished, for some, is a living sense of what it is to be human. As William Blake knew, when machine ways dominate, human beings flip from hope to...

William Blake was against the monarchy. But might his Georgian loathing of the homogenising, conforming tendency of tyrannical rule have been utterly transformed by the coronation that opens the Carolean era? My piece at The Idler, "The Marvellous Oddity of the Coronation" is here - https://www.idler.co.uk/article/the-marvellous-oddity-of-the-coronation/ For more on Idler Drinks - https:...

Therapies of various kinds are routinely in the news. And there is much to be said for the ease with which people talk about mental ill-health.  But psychotherapy, in particular, can also received critique. What works on the couch? How do different traditions and techniques foster change? And is all that can happen to us well viewed through the lens of trauma? Clearly, there is trauma in the world...

Why do people offer praise and gain from it? Does God require, even demand praise? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark discuss what can be wrongly implied by praise and what it might mean as an immensely rich practice.  Mark confesses to having been put off the notion, as if adulation were demanded by a divine narcissist, which Rupert responds to by considering the e...

A review and discussion of Decoding Jung’s Metaphysics by Bernardo Kastrup, considering what’s conscious and unconscious, personal and collective, caused and evoked, and also asking about the tradition of German Idealism, within which Bernardo persuasively situates Jung.

There is a myth that science and religion are locked in conflicted.  And it's a battle that science must win. The physicist, Carlo Rovelli, is an eloquent purveyor of the myth and uses the Ancient Greek philosopher, Anaximander, to perpetuate the confrontation. However, Rovelli has a problem. His case rests on a set of assumptions that look increasingly untenable and untrue, and even undesira...

So you've bought into the great insights of Iain McGilchrist, as explored in The Master and His Emissary, and also, The Matter with Things. You understand that the key ability is “presencing the world” - comprehending, not merely calculating - experiencing, not merely modelling - attuning, not merely measuring - understanding, not merely manipulating - living and dying, not merely being on or...

Objectivity has come to be regarded as a prime ingredient of reliable knowledge. But what is objectivity, how has it arisen, and is the notion in need of reform? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark consider the recent work of the philosopher, Richard Gunton. With colleagues, Richard examines older understandings of objectivity in science and proposes an alternative w...

Prince Harry is caught in a media storm. But within the mix of sympathy and loathing lie transatlantic differences in psychological and psychotherapeutic traditions. What is sometimes called Self Psychology plays a bigger role in the US, focusing on the healing potential of empathy, idealisation and narrative. This shapes therapeutic and cultural styles. It seems as if Harry has, in part, turned t...

To celebrate the release of his new book, Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps, the Pari Center invited Mark Vernon, to talk about his new work with Beth Macy. They discuss the notions of spiritual intelligence, the spiritual commons, the Axial revolutions, the presence of suffering, and whether we are in a new Axial Age now. For more on Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps see - https://www.mar...

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022. This is a short thought on step one, which concerns the big history that we tell ourselves about ourselves. In short, the dominant big story is driven by a crude Darwinism that writes out spiritual intelligence, though there is good reason from the science to conclude that's wrong. For more on the book see - https:/...

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022. This is a short thought on step two, which asks about the nature of our freedom. Spiritual intelligence understands that, whilst good to have, freedom is not ultimately about choice or voice, but aligning with what's good, beautiful and true. This is where true freedom is found. For more on the book see - https://ww...

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022. This is a short thought on step three, which is concerned with how our sense of individuality, or oneness, can be known as a mirror of the unity of all things. This perception, in turn, facilities awareness of an abiding simplicity running through all complexity. For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/book...

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022. This is a short thought on step four, which is about how beneath and through the ups and downs of everyday life, that vitality which can be called our soul, can be detected a wider being, which can be called spirit. For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intelligence-in-seven-steps

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022. This is a short thought on step five, which is about death. Any wisdom tradition worth considering will have much to say about death, both as an end to mortal existence and as a daily experience. For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intelligence-in-seven-steps

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022. This is a short thought on step six, which is about how spiritual intelligence understands the value of virtue over ethics or morality. This preference is because virtues don't primarily tell us what to do, but rather connect must fully with the nature of things. For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com...

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022. This is a short thought on step seven, which is about different types of time. Chronos, or clock time, dominates the world today. But there are other kinds, including kairos, which sees every moment as revelatory and is needed in times of change. For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intel...

Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps is my contribution to aiding the recovery of the full range of human capabilities and consciousness. Artificial, rational, even emotional intelligence are not enough to ground us, valuable though they be. We need not just know-how, but know-that our lives are grounded in a spiritual commons. The steps I outline here, and explore fully in my book, are to do wit...

Peter Owen Jones is a writer, broadcaster and priest. His new book is Conversations With Nature. We discuss falling in love with the natural world once again, what difference this might make to the climate crisis, how Christianity has failed to respond in any significant way to environmental collapse, though also has an answer, if we are prepared to give no thought for the morrow, value the fallin...

The secular historian, Tom Holland, has made the case that atheistic humanism is, at heart, an off-shoot of Christianity. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask how that can be so.  After all, contemporary humanists are inclined to blame Christianity for all ills, not thank Christianity for seeding values they share. Rupert and Mark agree that there...

The Last Judgement, William Blake argued, is not a terrifying forthcoming rapture but an awakening present moment, “Whenever any Individual Rejects Error & Embraces Truth". For more on William Blake, Dante and other things see www.markvernon.com

For more on John-Paul Flintoff - https://flintoff.org.  And his latest book - https://spckpublishing.co.uk/london-psalms. For more on Mark Vernon & Owen Barfield - https://www.markvernon.com/consciousness.