This essay is published by Beshara Magazine. The pandemic is said to have exposed modern society to its vulnerabilities. Nowhere is this exposure clearer than in relation to death. Covid has revealed that, nowadays, most people have inadequate ways of relating to this fact of life. The weakness is doubly striking as wisdom and religious… Continue reading William Blake and learning from Covid. On dying before you die
Author: Mark Vernon
Defending the Spiritual Commons. A short talk at Idler Drinks
An MP3 version of this talk is at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available on your podcast feed. 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… Continue reading Defending the Spiritual Commons. A short talk at Idler Drinks
Wrestling with Christianity. A Medicine Path podcast conversation with Brian James & Mark Vernon
An MP3 of this conversation can be found at my Talks and Thoughts podcast available via your podcast feed. 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,… Continue reading Wrestling with Christianity. A Medicine Path podcast conversation with Brian James & Mark Vernon
Dante on Idealism. Or Dante in dialogue with Bernardo Kastrup and others
An audio version of this talk can be found in my podcast Dante’s Divine Comedy available via podcast feeds. 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… Continue reading Dante on Idealism. Or Dante in dialogue with Bernardo Kastrup and others
The Spiritual Path of the Soul – a Stoic conversation with The Walled Garden
The conversation as audio is on my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available on podcast feeds. 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… Continue reading The Spiritual Path of the Soul – a Stoic conversation with The Walled Garden
Forging Golgonooza. William Blake on how to do politics & religion
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?… Continue reading Forging Golgonooza. William Blake on how to do politics & religion
The Evolution of Religion – our shared sacred story
An audio version of the conversation is online at my Talks and Thoughts podcast, available via your podcast feed, and also at the Church Times podcast on soundcloud. 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… Continue reading The Evolution of Religion – our shared sacred story
The Attack On Life and Understanding Our Times. A conversation with Iain McGilchrist and Mark Vernon
An MP3 version of this talk is on my podcast, Talks and Thoughts, available on your podcast feed. 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… Continue reading The Attack On Life and Understanding Our Times. A conversation with Iain McGilchrist and Mark Vernon
Why Paradise? Part 3 of 3 talks on Dante’s Divine Comedy
An MP3 version of this talk is at my podcast, Dante’s Divine Comedy, available via your feed. 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… Continue reading Why Paradise? Part 3 of 3 talks on Dante’s Divine Comedy
How meaning might be found in suffering
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 with so much of it around. A written… Continue reading How meaning might be found in suffering