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Mark Vernon

@askwilliamblake.bsky.social
437 followers 18 following 456 posts

Writer, psychotherapist, lover of William Blake - Plato, Dante and Owen Barfield, too. For more see www.markvernon.com

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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 27/09/2026
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?...
youtu.be
Unveiling Transcendence. William Blake and the Book of Daniel
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 26/09/2026
New essay at my Substack, A Golden String, on the linguistic spirits active in our lives. markvernon942268.substack.com/p/speak-dagg...
markvernon942268.substack.com
Speak Daggers
Blasphemy, Panics and the Power Of Words
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
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…
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
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...
markvernon942268.substack.com
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
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
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-...
markvernon942268.substack.com
The Logos In The Data Centre
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Words in Machine Learning
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 28/08/2026
The latest conversation with Rupert Sheldrake and myself. A perhaps surprisingly fecund subject… youtu.be/CikfKeYGypo?...
youtu.be
The very extraordinary life of plants. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 24/08/2026
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...
markvernon942268.substack.com
Bidding For The Soul Of Christian Britain
Ethics and identity, as liberals and nationalists respectively stress, miss the vastness of the human soul
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
The new Idler magazine! I am all at sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 29/07/2026
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
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Homer's Odyssey, Nolan's telling. Crucial losses in the movie version of nostos, homecoming
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 25/07/2026
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...
open.substack.com
When Gods Walked Amongst Mortals
Odysseus conversing with Athena is a perception shared by ancient Greeks and Hebrews
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churchtimes.bsky.social @churchtimes.bsky.social · 19/07/2026
“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
churchtimes.co.uk
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, ...
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 18/07/2026
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...
markvernon942268.substack.com
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
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
New post at my Substack, A Golden String - markvernon942268.substack.com/p/art-and-th...
markvernon942268.substack.com
Art and the Sacred Today
A Dialogue between Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 11/07/2026
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!
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
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...
open.substack.com
In Search of Lost Gods
On ancient Greek tales of sexual misadventure and priestly election
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 04/07/2026
#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🇺🇸
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Prof Bob Davis @rokewood.bsky.social · 26/06/2026
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.co.uk
BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Eccentrics & Outsiders
Matthew Sweet takes a sideways look at Englishness.
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 29/06/2026
New post at my Substack, A Golden String. open.substack.com/pub/markvern...
open.substack.com
Anteros: the forgotten brother of love
When Eros was an infant, his mother, Aphrodite grew troubled…
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 21/06/2026
#kierstarmer #andyburnham #primeminister #politics
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Hurst Publishers @hurstpublishers.bsky.social · 19/06/2026
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
On a yellow background is the book cover of 'Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination' by Mark Vernon, featuring a classical-style figure with celestial elements and a radiant background.
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 20/06/2026
New post at my Substack, A Golden String. open.substack.com/pub/markvern...
open.substack.com
The Art Of Dialogue. What would Plato say?
The public mood is discordant, politics chaotic, a wider imagination lost, though it can be refound
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
On their podcast…
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 13/06/2026
New on my Substack, A Golden String…
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 06/06/2026
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...
open.substack.com
Magnifica Humanitas In Temporibus Anxietatis
The Pope knows anthropology is key to contemporary troubles because Christianity redefined what it means to be human
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
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.
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 01/06/2026
I much enjoyed talking with Monika Beisner, the greatest living illustrator of Dante’s Divine Comedy, on her work and #Dante. youtu.be/9dPzcZYzRGE?...
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Illuminating Dante's Divine Comedy - A Dialogue between Monika Beisner & Dr. Mark Vernon
YouTube video by The King's Foundation School of Traditional Arts
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 30/05/2026
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...
open.substack.com
Under The Radar Mystics
The Cloud of Unknowing and why all shall be well
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 24/05/2026
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
youtu.be
How to read William Blake's "Jerusalem the Emanation of the Giant Albion"
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 23/05/2026
Jung was asked about God and said, he knew. But what did he know and why might that much matter? New essay at my Substack, A Golden String. substack.com/@markvernon9...
substack.com
Carl Jung’s Penultimate Concerns
Depth psychology illuminates modern phenomena from overwork to UFOs. But Jung's ambivalences need critique
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 09/05/2026
It's never not a good moment to contemplate the vital, engaged, felt qualities of our participation in life. New essay at my Substack, A Golden String. markvernon942268.substack.com/p/the-nature...
markvernon942268.substack.com
The Campaign For Real Intelligence
AI hype and reality is confusing, but also an opportunity
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 02/05/2026
Vegetal mysticism, the mind a plant, is not some shroom-head extravagance, but the very essence of contemplation. New essay at my Substack, A Golden String markvernon942268.substack.com/p/trust-your...
markvernon942268.substack.com
Trust Your Inner Plant, As The Mystics Say
Psychedelics dominate vegetal spirituality. But there is another herbaceous tradition
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 26/04/2026
A new episode of Philosphy Slam! the podcast just released. Two randomly generated words, “carpet” and “relieve”, turn out to have unexpectedly close connections… Do have a listen with Robert Rowland Smith and myself. youtu.be/clPoTLx7-Ag
youtu.be
Two Philosophers Riff on Carpet and Relieve
YouTube video by Philosophy Slam!
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
I like the idea that the man who fled naked from the arrest of Jesus, strangely detailed in the Gospel of Mark, was indeed Saint Mark. Fear strips us but is not the end of the story. Happy Saint Mark’s Day. Image: “The Betrayal of Christ”, Hendrick Goltzius
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 25/04/2026
New post at my Substack, A Golden String. markvernon942268.substack.com/p/what-is-me...
markvernon942268.substack.com
What is meant by health?
There is a field of existence maybe without solutions but with presence
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 21/04/2026
Congratulations to Simon Conway Morris for being awarded the 2026 Templeton Prize. To my mind, he is one of the most interesting Darwinian evolutionary biologists... markvernon942268.substack.com/p/simon-conw...
markvernon942268.substack.com
Simon Conway Morris on Owen Barfield, consciousness and the significance of language
The 2026 winner of the Templeton Prize and a fuller account of evolution
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Ismail Barakat @ismailbarakat.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
Wonderful reflections from Mark Vernon.
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 11/04/2026
The lunar trip, when back on Earth, wrecked the lives of Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and several others. Fame played a part in that, but more powerful was the destabilising aftermath of the overview effect. #artemis #splashdown markvernon942268.substack.com/p/splashdown...
markvernon942268.substack.com
Splashdown. Now Comes The Greatest Danger
Apollo astronauts suffered much after their lunar encounter. Will those on Artemis?
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 10/04/2026
New Idler magazine out now! I consider the flowers of the fields and the birds of the air…
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 02/04/2026
Ancient Egypt is much associated with the origins of perceptions of God. The links between the old gods of wisdom, Thoth and Hermes, became clear, in new explorations of the Logos, not least incarnated in Christ. Continuities with modern re-enchantment. youtu.be/8W7GuYIVitg
youtu.be
The Roots of Hermeticism. A walk with Thoth, Hermes and Christ at New Hermopolis, Middle Egypt
YouTube video by Mark Vernon
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 21/03/2026
Human beings had lived with the infinite scroll long before the electronic version was rolled out a couple of decades back. The earlier type took the form of illuminated manuscripts and they can teach us now. New essay at my Substack, A Golden String. markvernon942268.substack.com/p/is-there-a...
markvernon942268.substack.com
Is There A There There? Testing Re-enchantment
The play of the medieval infinite scroll evoked divine presence. Might it do so again?
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 16/03/2026
Just finished recording these lectures. And much appreciated the plunge into #Jung once more. Something distinctive and new emerged for me… Full details about the course @theparicenter Do join us from April 10. paricenter.com/event/an-arm...
paricenter.com
An Armchair Guide to Jung and God – The Pari Center
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 09/03/2026
Delighted to join founder Sharon Blackie and Vanessa Chamberlin on this quest for the love of wisdom - that is longing, receiving, befriending, resting, and more, through myth, imagination, discernment, and the thinking that is a joining of minds. Do have a look at nostos.institute
nostos.institute
Home - Nostos
The Nostos Institute integrates ancient Western philosophical traditions with tools and practices from contemporary depth psychology and related mythopoetic disciplines to trace a living, spiritual de...
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 07/03/2026
What is the best way to deal with the rhetorical and imagistic blitzkrieg? How to survive the psychological onslaught? An unexpected clue comes from religious and wisdom traditions. For they commonly advise on the arts of war, too. open.substack.com/pub/markvern...
open.substack.com
"I will not cease from Mental Fight"
Widening the war in the time of mercurial Trump and the monstrous mullahs
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Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 25/02/2026
Yes, we're live again at the Cockpit Theatre on March 2nd! Joining us: @natashadevon.bsky.social @johnmitchinson.bsky.social @askwilliamblake.bsky.social @mayeroflondon.bsky.social @jamesbloodworth.bsky.social Tickets: www.thecockpit.org.uk/show/the_lur...
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Byline Times @bylinetimes.bsky.social · 27/02/2026
Featuring the Byline Times editorial team and: Natasha Devon @natashadevon.bsky.social John Mitchinson @johnmitchinson.bsky.social Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social Catherine Mayer @mayeroflondon.bsky.social James Bloodworth @jamesbloodworth.bsky.social
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 28/02/2026
If you can bring the light of understanding into the darkest realms and not be overcome, and if you can tolerate the radiance of the most wonderful truths and not be overwhelmed, you transhumanize. New essay at my Substack, A Golden String. markvernon942268.substack.com/p/transhuman...
markvernon942268.substack.com
Transhumanize! Dante In A Technological Age
In prison, in mourning, in war, The Divine Comedy inspires
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
In the UK at least, there is, right now, really only one piece of news doing the rounds, which is the arrest of the former Prince Andrew. It set me thinking about why this is such momentous news. In a way, that’s obvious. But there’s a subtler point... www.markvernon.com/privileged-p...
markvernon.com
Privileged persons in the modern age. A thought on a momentous arrest – Mark Vernon
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 21/02/2026
One thing is necessary on any spiritual path, many traditions say. Or rather, that one thing is found in two ways which, at root, join together. The approaches are affirmation and negation. But which way is yours? New essay at my Substack, A Golden String. open.substack.com/pub/markvern...
open.substack.com
What is Your Spiritual Path?
Ways of affirmation and negation
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
New episode  @PhilosophySlam  - turns out the roots of plagiarism are of civilisational significance...
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Mark Vernon @askwilliamblake.bsky.social · 19/02/2026
That moment of joy when the Idler magazine lands on the doormat. (It can land in your shopping basket in newsagents, too). My column: on the ethical invention that now divides the world.
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