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An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. The text of the talk is below… The new issue of VALA, the magazine of the Blake Society, is all about God. I’ve an article in it on Blake’s mystical knowledge of God. You can download VALA here… Continue reading “Enemies of the Human Race.” William Blake on how to know God

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. The resignation of the Archbishop of Canterbury has highlighted the horrendous nature of abuse in the church and also the church’s difficulties in dealing with these individuals. But is focusing on individuals enough or trying to address these… Continue reading The gospel, sexual desire and the abuse scandals in the church. What has the erotic to do with God?

An audio version of this talk can be found at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available on podcast feeds. Martin Shaw and Mark Vernon return for a second conversation following Martin’s embrace of Orthodox Christianity. The first conversation, entitled The Mossy Face of Christ, can be found on my YouTube channel. They discuss what is… Continue reading The Turning of the Tide. Martin Shaw on discerning the new Christian moment

An audio version of this conversation is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. One of the premises of modern science is that nature is devoid of purposes. Instead, purposeless explanations for phenomena are sought. And the strategy has proved hugely productive. Except that allusions to purpose never quite fade from the… Continue reading Purposes in nature and minds. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. The 1500th anniversary of the death of Boethius more than likely falls in 2024. He asks a key question: how to find true, lasting, reliable happiness? His answer, The Consolation of Philosophy, was a mediaeval bestseller, massively influencial,… Continue reading Does the Consolation of Philosophy offered by Boethius, still work, 1500 years on?

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. All Things Are Full Of Gods is David Bentley Hart’s philosophical case for an idealist and theist understanding of consciousness, understood as an intertwining of mind, language and life. As he puts it: “Mind and life, and language… Continue reading All Things Are Full Of Gods by David Bentley Hart. A summary and discussion

An audio version of this conversation is at my podcast, Dante’s Divine Comedy, available via podcast feeds. “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… Continue reading Is hell forever? The Inferno. Jason Baxter & Mark Vernon on Dante’s film noir

An audio version of this conversation is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available on podcast feeds. No one knows. Repeated experiments have failed to locate where memories are stored in the brain, casting doubt on the conventional assumption that memories are stored as material traces. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake… Continue reading How does memory work? A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake

Read the talk below. Have a listen above. What Socrates taught is, of course, the wrong question. For, if there is one thing that Plato is quite clear about, it is that Socrates taught nothing. Something else is going on when you encounter this figure – which is probably why he is still alive in… Continue reading What did Socrates teach? On understanding Plato

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available via podcast feeds. What has poetry to do with philosophy? Why might poetry particularly matter now? How did figures from Plato to Einstein value the poetic voice? Valentin Gerlier and Mark Vernon return for another conversation about the manner in which… Continue reading To see a world in a grain of sand. Poetry & philosophy for a civilisation in distress