Inner Life, Talks and Thoughts

" More! More! is the cry of a mistaken soul, less than All cannot satisfy Man," wrote William Blake.  How we might participate in the All, without consuming more and more, can serve as a summary of Blake's vision and vocation. All he did was, in a way, an increasingly extended, expansive reflection on how to live in the presence of infinity. The mistakes we make, when confusing this...

The reality TV star, Tyler Henry, became famous with his celebrity readings. His new Netflix series, Life After Death, is a chance to consider what he does in a different light. My sense is he is one of the relatively rare highly gifted clairvoyants, who have impressed investigators like William James. I'm also struck by how his way of working resonates with psychotherapeutic phenomena like c...

The land commons are the shared material resources that nobody in particular might own, and everyone might have, though they are routinely taken from us. Land and forests, water and minerals. The spiritual commons are the being of life itself that nobody owns and everyone has. And arguably, they are being taken from us even more carelessly and callously.... For more on Idler Drinks see - https://w...

A conversation on wrestling with Christianity - or perhaps more accurately, the Christianities that swirl around the figure of Jesus - at the Medicine Path podcast, #87, with Brian James. For more on Brian - http://medicinepathpodcast.com, http://brianjames.ca For more on Owen Barfield and his take on Christianity - https://www.markvernon.com/consciousness

Modern Stoicism is more diverse than I knew, I learnt when I spoke with Simon Drew, Kai Whiting and Sharon Lebell. In particular, the divine element in ancient Stoicism, which was central, has not been discarded by everyone involved in the recent Stoic revival. In this conversation, we talk about Stoicism, the Logos, the cosmos, Christianity, and the spiritual path of Dante’s Divine Comedy. I hope...

Politics and religion is a question of our times. The role of the church and Christianity is contested in both Russia and the liberal West. William Blake was aware of the failure of politics in his time, recognising it wasn't ultimately a failure of leadership or practical solutions but of vision. What politics is for? What role do religious institutions play in it? What has been lost in the...

The scientific study of religion has produced numerous accounts for the evolutionary origins of a sense of the numinous in Homo sapiens. Robin Dunbar, Professor of Evolutionary Psychology at Oxford, is in the vanguard of plausible theories, not least as explored in his new book, How Religion Evolved and Why It Endures. In this interview, for the Church Times podcast, we explore his ideas and their...

The two hemispheres hypothesis, championed by Iain McGilchrist, has become well-known. But what light does it cast on modern society and our direction of travel? The nature of overweening bureaucracy, technologies of control, and the narrowing of freedom are explored in this conversation between Iain and Mark Vernon. They discuss issues from the legacy of the Covid pandemic to the story that moder...

Each week, on Thursdays, we meet for Idler Drinks online, at which I give a short talk. We're not meeting over Easter, so this is an extra, reflecting on the Isenheim Altarpiece and the extraordinarily moving experience of Marian Partington, to ask how pain might be born when so much of it surrounds us. A written version of the reflection is online here - https://www.idler.co.uk/article/mark-...

Is the resurrection a miracle? Are the events of Golgotha a mystery? And what of the resurrection of the body and attempts to prove what happened as an historical fact? William Blake argued passionately that treating Easter as a miracle or a mystery entirely misses its significance, which is visionary - a moment when perceptions are cleansed and eternal life becomes manifest. In this talk, I exami...

This conversation is part of the Living Mirrors podcast, hosted by neuroscientist James Cooke, exploring topics like consciousness, science, spirituality, meditation and the renaissance in psychedelic research.

A discussion of two new books on human evolution by leading evolutionary biologists, Robin Dunbar and Simon Conway Morris. Dunbar offers a revisionary account of the emergence of religion in Homo sapiens. Conway Morris considers widespread myths in Darwinian evolution, of which he is a leading researcher and advocate. Put together, the books suggest a fascinating glimpse into not only the religiou...

I turned to William Blake seeking hope and found a remarkably accurate account of our times and his, lived during the Napoleonic Wars.  Albion despairs, but Blake does not. He sees a pathway, denying nothing, towards renewed inspiration.

The second part of my conversation with Jonas Atlas, host of Revisioning Religion about spiritual development.  Mark Vernon's latest book takes a deep dive into Dante's Divine Comedy, a classic masterpiece, which, after many centuries, still provides many helpful insights for those who find themselves on a spiritual journey. We place Dante's work in a longer lineage that can be trac...

A conversation with Jonas Atlas, host of Revisioning Religion about spiritual development.  Mark Vernon's latest book takes a deep dive into Dante's Divine Comedy, a classic masterpiece, which, after many centuries, still provides many helpful insights for those who find themselves on a spiritual journey. We place Dante's work in a longer lineage that can be traced to the philosophe...

Witnessing so many Ukrainians responding courageously to the Russian invasion is moving and impressive. There is violence and suffering and death.  And yet, in the midst of the undoubted tragedy, there can be detected the distinct presence of hope. Points of light outshine the darkness. What is the source of this faith and powerful resilience? I think it must be the deepest type of liberty, to ali...

Perception is cleansed in the struggles of life, William Blake realised, as his own life was lived between heaven and hell, innocence and experience, vision and labour. Opposites are the energy that bring the power to see through surfaces to Eternity. Blake offers maps that chart the transformation from the narrow sight of Ulro to the full embrace of divine vision. In this talk I consider Blake&ap...

The recent work of the psychiatrist and philosopher, Iain McGilchrist, allows us to bring the role of dualities in spiritual perception right up to date. He has shown how brain lateralisation facilitates two types of perception. They are asymmetric, both required in right relation for the fullest awareness of the world, which is so often lacking in our times.  In this session we will weave in insi...

Much is now known about Stonehenge. Wonderful artefacts have been recovered, a welter on display at the British Museum's gobsmacking 2022 show.  But much mystery remains. How to interpret the past? Why do stone circles still draw us? What did our ancestors know?  They participated in life differently. They weren't waiting to be us, though we yearn to hear from them, via the sciences of a...

A talk as part of the Dualities series with the Pari Centre, running through February 2022. For more information see - https://paricenter.com/event/dualities/2022-02-06/ In this talk, I discuss dualities in Plato. The ancient Greek is often accused of dualism, though the word itself didn’t exist at the time, which points to a subtler and crucial reassessment of what the philosopher was driving at....

What might Christianity have for us today? How might it stories still speak? Where to find what’s right in the tradition? I was delighted to speak with Paul Kingsnorth, whose substack and other writings since his conversion to Christianity, are helping to galvanise a new debate about religion in our society. We explore the need for more than cultural Christianity and its moral imperatives, to ask...

he hard problem of consciousness. Imagination as an "overheated brain". A future in the Cloud or Metaverse.  William Blake was a thinker as well as poet and artist. His prophetic punch comes from seeing through the mode of living he saw developing in his times, that so powerfully shape our own. In this talk, I use five of his great sayings, as well as the insights of contemporary philoso...

How can we find a way through conflicts in and around science? What about experts and simplifications, uncertainties and advice, control and its consequences? Tensions are only going to get worse as the fallout and impact of Covid becomes clearer. In this talk, I consider two notions of power, as explored in the New Testament: dunamis, which might be thought of grace and space power or the power o...

William Blake died in the apartment he shared with Catherine Blake on Sunday 12 August 1827. A contemporary letter reports: "He died ... in a most glorious manner. He said He was going to that Country he had all His life wished to see & expressed Himself Happy, hoping for Salvation through Jesus Christ – Just before he died His Countenance became fair. His eyes Brighten'd and he burs...

Rupert Spira and I met for a second conversation, beginning with one of William Blake's great exclamations of nondual awareness: “Awake! awake O sleeper of the land of shadows, wake! expand! I am in you and you in me, mutual in love divine I am not a God afar off, I am a brother and friend; Within your bosoms I reside, and you reside in me: Lo! we are One” We discussed the meanings of sufferi...