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How does poetry work? What does the poetic release in us? My favourite theory comes from Owen Barfield, the great friend of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. He has a proposal about the magic of poesy and it has to do with the energy of words. A new essay at my Substack, A Golden String.

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.” Thus wrote William Blake, making the doors of perception one his best known metaphors. Jim Morrison named a band after it, Aldous Huxley a book, and nowadays it is cited in contexts ranging from game theory to psychedelics.… Continue reading Cleanse the Doors of Perception! But what did William Blake mean?

Thinking about the way that AI dazzles and misenchants us is crucial, given the runaway fears about the presumed superintelligence of tomorrow. For intelligence is not about calculation but comprehension, not about silicon power but the capacities we have for being present to imagination, intuition, inspiration. Become alert to the way the material imagination forges… Continue reading Misenchantment and the dazzle of AI. Intelligence remembered, with the help of William Blake

The talk can be downloaded here. Mark Vernon provides a fresh route into Blake, taking him at his word. Exploring his writings, artwork and life, Vernon illuminates Blake’s vivid worldview and shows how his thinking is still relevant for us today. Please note that the ideas expressed in this lecture do not necessarily represent the… Continue reading William Blake and the Power of the Imagination. A talk at L’Abri

You may agree that the so-called hard problem of consciousness exposes the deep inadequacies of a materialist worldview. But the alternatives – various forms of panpsychism, panentheism and idealism – raise rich and fascinating questions, too. In this episode of The Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore the leading edge of consciousness research,… Continue reading What is really known about consciousness? A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake

An audio version of this talk is at my podcast, Inner Life, available via podcast feeds. In my book, I want to draw out two facets of William Blake, which I think get routinely sidelined now. My conversation with Jane Clark and Nikos Yiangou enabled us to explore these dimensions. One is that Blake was… Continue reading Awake! William Blake and the Power of Imagination. A conversation with Jane Clark and Nikos Yiangou

A new essay at my Substack, A Golden String.

An audio version of this conversation is at my podcast, Inner Life, available via podcast feeds. James Harpur’s new book, “Dazzling Darkness: The Lives and Afterlives of the Christian Mystics”, begins with an account of a mystical experience that happened to him – “an implosion of light”, as he describes it. That led to his… Continue reading An implosion of light. Talking mystical experiences with James Harpur and Mark Vernon

Marks of the mystic’s way There’s a new essay at my Substack, A Golden String, looking at William Blake’s love of Teresa of Avila and Dante, as well as Thomas Merton’s love of William Blake.

  William Blake on tools for a time of turbulence. A new post at my Substack, A Golden String. It’s become a commonplace that liberals are struggling to understand contemporary politics. Individuals such as Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin escape rational analysis. These presidents don’t obey the rules when it comes to international relations or… Continue reading Real Worlds of Imagination, Collapse and Chaos