Mark Vernon
@askwilliamblake.bsky.social
Writer, psychotherapist, lover of William Blake - Plato, Dante and Owen Barfield, too. For more see www.markvernon.com
I so hope that the forthcoming Blake 200 year is one in which people hear more than William Blake was brilliant but crazy, inspiring but confusing. Help make that so! youtu.be/PNVvhX2HvZM?...
William Blake: A Golden String. A short film with Mark Vernon
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
youtu.be
The Nazis were keen on the Cathars. The detail brought me up short. I was vaguely aware that the Cathars were unlikely to have been a Languedocian para-church, so who were they? Or, as it turns out, better still: were they at all? markvernon942268.substack.com/p/the-mists-...
The Mists of Tyranny
Cathar Lessons and the Albigensian Crusade
markvernon942268.substack.com
Unveiling Transcendence. William Blake and the Book of Daniel. What if apocalyptic biblical literature is not best interpreted through historical events, or through the symbolic? Instead, these texts are educations in imagination, reorientating readers to the vision of God. youtu.be/4mzmKfMao5o?...
Unveiling Transcendence. William Blake and the Book of Daniel
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
youtu.be
New essay at my Substack, A Golden String, on the linguistic spirits active in our lives. markvernon942268.substack.com/p/speak-dagg...
Speak Daggers
Blasphemy, Panics and the Power Of Words
markvernon942268.substack.com
Psychologists don’t call it idling, of course, but “spontaneous thought”, and there’s big disagreement on whether its good for happiness or not. But, hey, that’s psychology. New @idlermagazine out now! My slot for the month…
An extract from “History in English Words” by Owen Barfield, marking its centenary, first published in 1926. At my Substack, A Golden String, markvernon942268.substack.com/p/the-norman...
The Norman Conquest in English Words
We refer to “oxen” and “sheep” in the field, so why “beef” and “mutton” on the table? Owen Barfield’s fascinating reflection on the linguistic influx that followed 1066
markvernon942268.substack.com
The extraordinary brilliance of LLMs is often a cause for alarm. But theology suggests a less melodramatic and more marvellous understanding. New essay at my Substack, A Golden String, on the unreasonable effectiveness of words in machine learning. markvernon942268.substack.com/p/the-logos-...
The Logos In The Data Centre
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Words in Machine Learning
markvernon942268.substack.com
The latest conversation with Rupert Sheldrake and myself. A perhaps surprisingly fecund subject… youtu.be/CikfKeYGypo?...
The very extraordinary life of plants. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
youtu.be
Ethics and identity, as liberals and nationalists respectively stress, miss the vastness of the human soul. New essay at my Substack, A Golden String. #Christianity #Nationalism #Humanism markvernon942268.substack.com/p/bidding-fo...
Bidding For The Soul Of Christian Britain
Ethics and identity, as liberals and nationalists respectively stress, miss the vastness of the human soul
markvernon942268.substack.com
The new Idler magazine! I am all at sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.
There's something not quite being got at in the discussion of Nolan's #Odyssey. And it has to do with the knock-on effects of flatlanding the gods. A psychological worldview, a moral one, even when filled out with the nuance in #Homer's original, isn't enough for we humans. youtu.be/UkkLVuCCLjs
Homer's Odyssey, Nolan's telling. Crucial losses in the movie version of nostos, homecoming
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
youtu.be
I’ve been reflecting on the discussion of the gods in The Odyssey, following the release of Christopher Nolan’s film, unsatisfied by what is made of the awareness of deities. There is another story to tell. New article at my Substack, A Golden String. open.substack.com/pub/markvern...
When Gods Walked Amongst Mortals
Odysseus conversing with Athena is a perception shared by ancient Greeks and Hebrews
open.substack.com
“A minority secular world-view has captured the agenda . . . more than 80 per cent of the world’s population have a sacred world-view" The Sustainable Development Goals are restricted by a secular world-view, argues @askwilliamblake.bsky.social #SDGs #Sacredness #UN #UnitedNations
Human flourishing requires the sacred
ALL beauty is an echo of God’s beauty. This statement and others like it have been made by Christians across the ages, alongside theists from other traditions. “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you, ...
churchtimes.co.uk
This telling of the #Odyssey epic is Nolan's epic telling. The opening title reads: “A time of apparent magic”, which is a clear signal. But the original tale asks more: who are we, not merely, how should we behave? markvernon942268.substack.com/p/sing-for-o...
Sing For Our Time Too! The Divine Song Of The Odyssey
The spiritual way was the original way of reading Homer's tale of homecoming
markvernon942268.substack.com
Year 529 AD. Saint Benedict establishes the Abbey of Monte Cassino. The Platonic Academy in Athens closes after 900 years. A spiritual handing on of the baton. Happy Saint Benedict’s day!
Reflections on Mary Beard's Being Greek radio series and the ramifications of god-blind discussions of premodern worlds. At my Substack, A Golden String, open.substack.com/pub/markvern...
In Search of Lost Gods
On ancient Greek tales of sexual misadventure and priestly election
open.substack.com
#WilliamBlake had mixed feelings about American Independence. He shared his friend Thomas Paine’s championing of liberty, but knew, too, that revolution can become caught in endless cycles of violence: an incomplete apocalypse, or revelation, ruled by Urizen, not Eternity. #fourthjulyweekend🇺🇸
A lot of ground surveyed in this lively BBCFreeThinking. Chunky generalisations on subversive Englishness were less persuasive than STW novel @drmatthewsweet.bsky.social talks to @tweedpipe.bsky.social Jade Munslow Ong, Sophie Scott-Brown @askwilliamblake.bsky.social www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...
BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Eccentrics & Outsiders
Matthew Sweet takes a sideways look at Englishness.
bbc.co.uk
There's still time to support your local indie bookshop this #IndieBookshopWeek! Get your copy of 'Awake: William Blake and the Power of the Imagination' by @askwilliamblake.bsky.social at @pgwells.bsky.social in Winchester. #ChooseBookshops
The imagination available to embrace contemporary troubles, particularly when they are threaded with fatalism and declinism, rests much on the richness, or paucity, of the vision held about what it is to be human. New essay at my Substack, A Golden String, open.substack.com/pub/markvern...
Magnifica Humanitas In Temporibus Anxietatis
The Pope knows anthropology is key to contemporary troubles because Christianity redefined what it means to be human
open.substack.com
The @idlermagazine arrives. And relax. My piece this month on mundane ecstasy, such as guided #Bowie in “boring Bromley”. Available from idler.co.uk and in good newsagents.
I much enjoyed talking with Monika Beisner, the greatest living illustrator of Dante’s Divine Comedy, on her work and #Dante. youtu.be/9dPzcZYzRGE?...
Illuminating Dante's Divine Comedy - A Dialogue between Monika Beisner & Dr. Mark Vernon
YouTube video by The King's Foundation School of Traditional Arts
youtu.be
I talk with Tim Nash at Nomad Podcast on why, I feel, the apophatic way offerings something like no other… open.substack.com/pub/markvern...
Under The Radar Mystics
The Cloud of Unknowing and why all shall be well
open.substack.com
How to read William Blake's "Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion." Brilliant to talk with Susanne Sklar about this great, epic poem. #WilliamBlake #Jesus #Christianity youtu.be/EkBcFrygTKY
How to read William Blake's "Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion"
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
youtu.be
