Inner Life, Talks and Thoughts

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 matters through safeguarding and moral injunctions?Those elements are no doubt necessary. But I think also not sufficient. Recent events have reminded me of the extreme naivety around sex that exists in conservative Evangelical circles. And no doubt in other contexts as well.That can conceal deviant behaviour but is also a failure to understanding the nature of gospel, in my view.In these thoughts, I explore how in mystical Christian traditions, as well as those with an interest in inner life and the path to God, the erotic is understood as a key mode of awakening and energy. For if sex is about wanting to have and be had by another, that is but a reflection of the yearning to be one with God, the true promise of the gospel: “oneing” with the divine, as Mother Julian and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing put it.I turn to the insights of Plato, Origen, Dante and William Blake to draw out these themes. And also consider the parables of Jesus and his encounters with various individuals in the gospels as expressions of this deeper yearning, which he seems to have released in them and which might be foster in us, too - with discernment, honesty and wisdom.0:00 My experience of Christian evangelical camps2:50 Sex as a symptom of erotic desire for God6:05 Plato’s insights about the body and why that is discarded11:09 Origen on God’s kisses14:09 The mystics understanding of “Onening”15:05 Dante’s transformation of his desire for Beatrice17:05 Blake on the erotic discovery that all things are holy21:05 The erotic in the gospels and the notion of philia21:40 Jesus’s encounters and his parables as desire for God29:26 The abuse crises call for a lost Christianity

Martin Shaw, a storyteller and teacher known for his focus on myth and story, joins Mark Vernon to discuss the evolving landscape of modern Christianity. They explore the resurgence of interest in faith, the complex legacy of Christianity, and the rise of the New Christians. Shaw shares insights from his transformative journey towards Orthodox Christianity, emphasizing participation in spiritual life and the power of beauty. They also reflect on being present in the world while nurturing genuine connections with the divine amidst contemporary challenges.

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 scientific imagination. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore the ways in which the natural world is indeed full of purposes, both at the level of the so-called inanimate, as well as in the living world, and the reality we know most immediately and best, namely our own lives and consciousness. The discussion ranges over a range of matters, from the growth of embryos to the attractive nature of gravity and the tendency towards order and beauty. An implication of the presence of purpose in nature and minds is a need to rethink phenomena such as matter and power. And there is an obvious reason that purpose keeps reappearing in scientific accounts, namely that purposes are present in all things. Mark's discussion of David Bentley Hart’s book, All Things Are Full Of Gods, mentioned in the discussion can be found as an early post on this podcast.

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, and is also very readable.So what do Boethius and, in particular, Lady Philosophy tell us?

Explore David Bentley Hart's thought-provoking critique of materialism and its impact on consciousness. Discover the connection between beauty and intentionality, and how they shape our perceptions of existence. Delve into the role of higher intelligence in the emergence of mind and language. Uncover the transformative dialogue between nature and humanity, urging a shift towards recognizing our spiritual essence. This discussion invites listeners to rethink their understanding of reality and the divine interplay that surrounds us.

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 and Mark Vernon discuss various kinds of memory, from episodic memory to habits. They consider how memory is linked to emotion and place, drawing on insights from Aristotle to AN Whitehead. Rupert’s own work has led to the theory of morphic fields, within which all self-organising systems dwell. They also ask about Indian ideas of memory and how that is related to ideas about reincarnation and the possibility that everything that exists lives, in some way, in the memory of God.

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. So what is it?In this talk I look first at common errors concerning Plato, such as that he pitched body against soul or thought poets were best banned. Other mistakes include treating his philosophy as a training in eudaimonia and reading his dialogues as stages in his philosophical development - the early ones being close to the historical Socrates, the middle ones being the mature Plato, the late ones being the disillusioned Plato. Similarly, Socrates did not seek definitions.The irony, given the sensitivity to this charge often from philosophers who misread Plato, is that this is a colonial reading of Plato. Scholars like Julia Annas have shown that reading Plato changed during the period of the British empire, when texts like Plato’s Republic came to be treated as a manifesto for young minds in public schools being preparing to rule the world. Before that, Plato Plato was understood not to have a message but instead a path. Roughly speaking, the aporetic dialogues - the ones that end in radical uncertainty - offer a preparation in the form of an undoing. Then, next, into that space, the visionary dialogues speak. I'm indebted to the scholar Sara Ahbel-Rappe for so clearly stating that Socrates stands for a mode of being, thereby imparting a taste for it, stirring a love of it. Socrates can't give that presence, because it is already within you. This awareness actually already belongs to us, and we sense a distant yearning for it because of feeling separate from it, through ignorance or forgetting. The way back is to clear the space that makes us more ready to know it once more.This is the meaning of the message Socrates received from the Delphic oracle: knowing yourself means knowing yourself, at base, to know nothing because all your theories or assumptions or certainties will turn out to be limited or straightforwardly wrong. Take that on board and then, regarding yourself as poor, come to know the richness of life, which is not eudaimonistic but rather theotic: a participation by contemplation, or theoria, in God.That divine end, stressing the inadequacy of an isolated sense of our humanity, must be the fundamental reason why Plato is so widely dissed. He ready does offend, though in Socrates saw why that disquiet is so wonderfully worth undergoing.

Valentin Gerlier, a thinker at the crossroads of poetry and philosophy, delves into the vital role poetry plays in today's world. He and Mark Vernon explore how figures like Plato and Blake viewed the poetic voice as essential for deeper understanding. They discuss why we are drawn to poets like Shakespeare and examine the paradoxes in human experience that both poetry and philosophy reveal. The conversation encourages a fresh perspective on profound texts, suggesting that a deeper engagement with poetry can transform our understanding of existence.

Just Stop Oil and the imprisonment of Roger Hallam and others has provoked an outcry, on both sides of the dispute. And the heightened emotions have made me think. What's going on here? What is at stake?I suspect that what’s being missed is something fundamental to human society and how we participate in a wider environment, and that can be discerned more fully by considering the true nature of freedom of speech.I draw on a talk given by Joseph Milne at the excellent Temenos Academy. The archive of talks can be found here - https://www.temenosacademy.org/main-lecture-archive/The approach is to consider what freedom of speech meant to our ancestors, so as to cast a light on the present. Aristotle's thoughts in the Politics is key, as speech for him is what makes human society - speech understood as a sharing the wider rationality and intelligence of the animate cosmos.Justice, then, is an exercise in the bonds of friendship, which is very different from an exercise in rights and the will to power. The limits of social contract theories, the mainstay of modern understandings, are on display. And what we need to recover are other ways of speaking freely - modes of dialogue and discourse that aren't primarily about proposition or facts, but commitments, relationships, devotions, celebrations.

Randomness and luck, fate and providence. How do these facets of life relate to one another? Or is everything, actually, mechanically determined with synchronicities, say, being no more than coincidences? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the ways in which philosophers and scientists, ancient and modern, have imagined and explored notions of causality and sympathy in nature, alongside fortune and calamities. The ideas of Aristotle and Boethius provide a striking background against which to consider more recent scientific work. Rupert also demonstrates how fields can influence seemingly random effects using a Galton Board - a remarkably profound analogue for, say, practices such as prayer.