Inner Life, Talks and Thoughts

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022.This is a short thought on step one, which concerns the big history that we tell ourselves about ourselves. In short, the dominant big story is driven by a crude Darwinism that writes out spiritual intelligence, though there is good reason from the science to conclude that's wrong.For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intelligence-in-seven-steps

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022.This is a short thought on step seven, which is about different types of time. Chronos, or clock time, dominates the world today. But there are other kinds, including kairos, which sees every moment as revelatory and is needed in times of change.For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intelligence-in-seven-steps

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022.This is a short thought on step six, which is about how spiritual intelligence understands the value of virtue over ethics or morality. This preference is because virtues don't primarily tell us what to do, but rather connect must fully with the nature of things.For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intelligence-in-seven-steps

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022.This is a short thought on step five, which is about death. Any wisdom tradition worth considering will have much to say about death, both as an end to mortal existence and as a daily experience.For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intelligence-in-seven-steps

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022.This is a short thought on step four, which is about how beneath and through the ups and downs of everyday life, that vitality which can be called our soul, can be detected a wider being, which can be called spirit.For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intelligence-in-seven-steps

Spiritual Intelligence In Seven Steps is my new book, released December 2022.This is a short thought on step three, which is concerned with how our sense of individuality, or oneness, can be known as a mirror of the unity of all things. This perception, in turn, facilities awareness of an abiding simplicity running through all complexity.For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intelligence-in-seven-steps

Spiritual Intelligence in Seven Steps is my contribution to aiding the recovery of the full range of human capabilities and consciousness. Artificial, rational, even emotional intelligence are not enough to ground us, valuable though they be. We need not just know-how, but know-that our lives are grounded in a spiritual commons.The steps I outline here, and explore fully in my book, are to do with story, freedom, simplicity, soul, death, virtue and time.For more on the book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/spiritual-intelligence-in-seven-steps.

The secular historian, Tom Holland, has made the case that atheistic humanism is, at heart, an off-shoot of Christianity. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask how that can be so. After all, contemporary humanists are inclined to blame Christianity for all ills, not thank Christianity for seeding values they share. Rupert and Mark agree that there is much in what Holland argues. For example, the tendency to evangelise for western values, as well as fall into dispute over what they might be, mirrors Protestant Christianity. But Mark is also wary of Holland’s theory, both as history and also because it risks presenting Christianity is a moral creed, not a revelation of the relationship between the human and divine. (A recent speech that Holland gave outlining his ideas can be found at Unherd.com and the website of the think tank, Theos.)For more in our longstanding series of dialogues see https://www.sheldrake.org/audios/sheldrake-vernon-dialogues andhttps://www.markvernon.com/talks

Peter Owen Jones is a writer, broadcaster and priest. His new book is Conversations With Nature.We discuss falling in love with the natural world once again, what difference this might make to the climate crisis, how Christianity has failed to respond in any significant way to environmental collapse, though also has an answer, if we are prepared to give no thought for the morrow, value the falling sparrow, and follow the way.William Blake's sense of participation, imagination and divine return are also in the mix.For more on Peter's book, Conversations With Nature, see https://www.clairviewbooks.com/viewbook.php?isbn_in=9781912992416For more on Mark Vernon, see www.markvernon.com

The Last Judgement, William Blake argued, is not a terrifying forthcoming rapture but an awakening present moment, “Whenever any Individual Rejects Error & Embraces Truth".For more on William Blake, Dante and other things see www.markvernon.com