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If Coronavirus turns Christian leaders into exemplary citizens, the gospel is lost Will Covid-19 change our way of life, our politics, maybe even our civilisation? Personally, I doubt it. Business and political leaders are already charting a course back to familiar waters. But Eastertime is a festival of novelty. It celebrates spiritual liberation not social… Continue reading Easter And The End Of Christianity

I’m proposing to have a discussion about Dante’s Inferno on Saturday 11th April at 5pm BST. If that’s of interest, do email me, mail@markvernon.com, and I’ll get back to you.

What we lose in online meetings and how to survive them. Zoom drinks and Skype dinners were fun at first. And essential. Office life now revolves around online meetings. But as the coronavirus crisis lengthens, and the lockdown extends from days to weeks or more, what might we lose to virtual communication? At one level,… Continue reading Zoom fear and Skype fatigue

For some, probably most, the Covid-19 pandemic is a question of massive mitigation. The aim is to learn lessons and return to business as usual, as soon as possible. For others, it’s different. It’s not just a disaster to get through, but a moment to seize and change the world. The latter response interests me.… Continue reading The plague that changed the world

This piece was written for the Idler. The monastery has come to us. Life has gone on retreat. For the next period, we’ll be living in the refectory and cloister. And, as transpires when you go on retreat, strange things will happen. Part of that will be anxiety. There are those for whom Covid-19 gives… Continue reading Freedom in a time of crisis

The world is in a collective panic. The coronavirus Covid-19 is the understandable cause. Crises precipitate shared alarm when the groups to which we belong, from family to nation, realise that the terms of engagement have suddenly, unexpectedly, dramatically shifted. The group then regresses into primitive states of anxiety at not knowing who’s in control,… Continue reading How to survive a group panic

Download MP3 here. All the great wisdom traditions tell us that death is an opportunity to reflect on life. Leaning into death reveals more about life, including the perception that life is underpinned by what’s deathless. Today, all around the world, death seems close. Many of the distractions that can keep us free of such… Continue reading Plato and the Music of Death. A talk in a time of crisis

Psychotherapies that work, though with no agreement about how they work, are becoming mainstream. For example, EMDR is widely used in the treatment of trauma. So what can be said about their efficacy and what, if anything, do they have to do with subtle energies, morphic resonance, quantum phenomena or even the soul? In this… Continue reading Subtle energies and healing

This thought piece was written for Perspectiva. Here’s a pub quiz question. Which piece of British legislation was on the statute books longer than any other? Answer: The Charter of the Forest. It was signed in 1217 and lasted 754 years. The follow-up question is, do you know what it secured? And the answer to… Continue reading Regaining our spiritual commons

This piece was written for The Idler. To join me on the journey through the Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso click here. The first group of the damned that Dante meets upon entering hell are running en masse “as an interminable train”. They can’t stop scampering and press together as an aimless collective. Dante looks closer… Continue reading The Divine Comedy at 700