Inner Life, Talks and Thoughts

A walk through the labyrinth at Penpont, with thanks to William Blake.

A talk give at St Matthew's Church, Wimbledon, London on 12th July 2022.

The Scientific and Medical Network organised a gathering on Friday 8th July to mark Rupert’s 80th birthday and reflect on his work. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert and Mark Vernon discuss the day, recalling remarks made by speakers including Merlin Sheldrake, Jill Purce, David Lorimer and Pam Smart. They discuss a variety of themes seminal to Rupert’s work, from science as the calling to share in a living cosmos to the business of coping with sceptics, which is not without its amusing as well as tricky moments. The conversation celebrates the richness of an engaged and free approach to the study of the natural world, with its many mysteries, often active immediately around us everyday.

I was delighted to meet David Wengrow at the Idler Festival. His coauthor, David Graeber, was a great friend of the Idler.David Wengrow and I spoke about their revolutionary, fascinating and inspiring book, The Dawn of Everything. It challenges the concensus history and prehistory of humanity, as found in writers such as Steven Pinker and Noah Yuval Harari.As one questioner from the audience stressed, this is so important for freeing ourselves from their deterministic anticipations of the future.But I have critiques of the new story as well. David Wengrow's responses to them were illuminating, I felt, and I hope my thoughts were interesting to him.My fuller discussion of the book itself can also be found on this podcast.

Jerusalem by Jez Butterworth, starring Mark Rylance, is brilliant. But what can be made of its violence and passion, humour and hedonism, tragedy and emptiness?Returning to the source of the famous words after which the play is named provides a clue. William Blake is right to invoke. He has something to say...

0:00 Vedantic Christianity in the Bible, as the gospel7:58 The natural is already supernatural, our desire is for the infinite18:26 The Trinity and nondualism as the circle of glory23:07 Jesus and the Incarnation29:08 Salvation as theophany33:34 Paul and the Spirit of God within us36:58 Creation is in eternity, returning in time40:32 More on how we might know these things45:03 Worship as beauty, reverence, longing, delight47:43 Suffering and living in a violent world55:22 Eschatology as our eternal Yes to God57:58 The immanence of transcendence in Christian life1:05:57 Guarding against inflation and emergent notions of God in history1:16:05 Judgment, action and freedomA set of reflections liberally drawing on You Are Gods by David Bentley Hart (Notre Dame Press, 2022).Bentley Hart says that the book could equally have been subtitled, Studies in Vedantic Christianity, which I take as a lead. What might traditional Christian themes such as God and Jesus, Salvation and Spirit, Creation and Grace, Worship and Judgment look like within such a perspective?A summary might be that the gospel is the discovery and realisation that, as Jesus puts it, You are gods. And that the kingdom is not here or there, but within.As Bentley Hart puts it himself: “We are nothing but created gods coming to be, becoming God in God, able to become divine only because, in some sense, we are divine from the very first.”But what might that mean, what does that look like, how can we know?

0:00 Imagination and the Imaginal in the modern world7:20 Different kinds of power: agency, allure, contraries10:40 The revival of myth-telling but in the first person singular15:30 Martin’s rediscovery of Christianity21:40 The mossy face of Christ and what happened34:04 People’s reactions to Jesus: contraction and expansion39:04 Martin’s discovery of mystery in an Orthodox Church46:27 What does this rediscovery of Christianity mean to him?51:56 What does this mean for the “Christian curious”?54:50 The shamanistic presence of Malcolm Guite58:28 Mark’s journey in and around Christianity with Owen Barfield1:05:25 A turn to William Blake1:08:10 The transcendent possibility bubbling up again1:12:57 The diversity of traditions and the entry of spiritIt's often remarked that the age of New Atheism has passed. But what is emerging in its stead?In this wide-ranging conversation, Martin Shaw discusses, for the first time, his recent encounter with the figure of Jesus and steps towards a form of Christianity very different from his evangelical upbringing.Power and freedom, history and myths, the Inklings and the imagination are explored en route. And we ask what kind of Christianity might be evolving in our times.To find out more about Martin Shaw - https://drmartinshaw.comTo find out more about Mark Vernon - https://www.markvernon.comTo find out more about Malcolm Guite - https://malcolmguite.wordpress.comTo find out more about Owen Barfield - https://www.markvernon.com/consciousnessTo find out more about The Temenos Academy - https://www.temenosacademy.org

It is often noted that the ancient Greeks had an advantage in possessing several words for love. Eros, philia, agape and others allowed them to be nuanced about love and navigate its differences. So is there benefit in considering how love has been understood in different wisdom traditions, too? This conversation, hosted by the Pari Center, explores how love has been understood in various faith contexts and across time, looking at Christian, Sufi, Platonic and other insights. The aim will be to tease out similarities and differences so as to deepen and refresh the felt presence of love in our lives.Jane Clark is a teacher and independent researcher who has been studying the Islamic mystical tradition for more than forty years. She is a Senior Research Fellow of the Muhyiddin Ibn ʿArabi Society, and also the editor of Beshara Magazine.For more on Mark Vernon - www.markvernon.com00:03:29 Four kinds of ancient Greek love00:09:13 Four kinds of love within Islam00:15:34 Love and spiritual paths in Neoplatonism00:25:34 Love and the Sufi path00:32:48 Love and suffering within Christianity00:38:20 The fire of love in Ibn ‘Arabi and Dante00:40:56 Is creation God’s act of love in Plato and Christianity00:46:57 God making a hidden treasure known in Sufism00:52:20 Is God love? Is God beauty?00:57:13 The unconditional love of God00:58:30 Charity, pastoralia and hospitality01:03:58 The imperative for sacrificial love after the Reformation01:10:30 Devotion, love of saints and idolatry01:13:43 Attitudes to sex and sin across traditions01:19:07 Attitudes to friendship across traditions01:26:23 What about love and suffering?01:32:38 Is there hope in collective movements of love?

A quick thought on the deep, inner, even esoteric history and significance of the Platinum Jubilee in the UK.The full story of monarchs and the birth of individual consciousness is part of the story told in A Secret History of Christianity: Jesus, the Last Inkling and the Evolution of Consciousness - https://www.markvernon.com/books/a-secret-history-of-christianity

There is a kind of love which brings consolation in crises. But there is also another kind of love which appears in times of crisis; indeed, can only be known through crises.This is worth considering because love is often use in nebulous or ill-defined ways, which means that its nuanced perceptions and mature forms can be hard to grasp. The need for a deeper awareness of love because particularly acute in times of crisis, though times of crisis also offer moments to understand love move fully. This talk was given at the Pari Centre. I explore the links between love and personal, spiritual and civilisational development; different types of power, and its relationship with freedom and mind; as well as erotic yearning, suffering and loss; and so also to the knowledge of the ways in which reality itself is shaped by transcendent love.