Inner Life, Talks and Thoughts

Mar 21 2025 172 ep. 36 mins 56

Inner Life, Talks and Thoughts Podcast artwork

Reflections from Mark Vernon on soulful matters including spirituality and psychotherapy, science and religion, consciousness and the divine. For more on see www.markvernon.com

Religion & Spirituality

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Christ the turning point. Owen Barfield in a secular age. A conversation with Ashton Arnoldy

Mar 21 2025 92 mins

Owen Barfield was the genius Inkling, said CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. But why does he so much matter today? They consider how Owen Barfield addresses the idea of secularism developed by Charles Taylor and why that might matter in a cultural moment that feels like a folk in the road. They speak personally of how Barfield touched them and why his insights might matter to the psychedel

Living in an Age of Spiritual Crisis. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake & Mark Vernon

Mar 05 2025 57 mins

Much of the modern world has become uncoupled from the transcendent in a cultural experiment Nietzsche called the death of God. But might this spiritual crisis prove to be a time of rebirth? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, recorded live at an event organised by the Temenos Academy, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the evolution of wisdom traditions from w

The Abolition of Man, That Hideous Strength, Till We Have Faces. CS Lewis as prophet of dark times

Feb 14 2025 78 mins

A discussion with Jason Baxter, Nicholas Colloff and Mark Vernon. The Abolition of Man is a series of three lectures given by C.S. Lewis in defence of objective value, arguing that modernity has undermined our humanity by uncoupling intellect from instinct. With hearts divorced from minds, first the world empties of presence, then life empties of meaning and people become “men wi

Evolution. From natural selection to omega point. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake

Jan 29 2025 35 mins

Darwinian evolution shapes modern biology, but the notion of evolution has a wider history, too. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore linear and cyclical conceptions of human and cosmic evolution and ask what they can mean in the modern world, where innovation and evolution appear to be escalating. They consider the significanc

Physics and reality. Francis Lucille on the nature of matter, the flaws of panpsychism & God

Jan 23 2025 77 mins

Francis Lucille is teaching of Advaita Vedanta who brings together nonduality with science, amongst other subjects, his past having been in physics. Here, he talks with Mark Vernon about the universality of consciousness and how that fits with modern physics, theories of consciousness and the inspiration of wisdom traditions. For more on Francis see - https://francislucille.com For

On Mysticism. With Simon Critchley on his new book, inc. figures from Mother Julian to Annie Dillard

Jan 17 2025 82 mins

Mysticism is a modern word, as Simon Critchley discusses in his tremendous new book, On Mysticism. And its novelty is not a happy intervention in the history of mystics and their significance, Fundamental aspects of the insights pursued by figures such as Mother Julian and Meister Eckhart are obscured by the focus on peak or exceptional experiences. Our discussion seeks to gain a s

In Search of Wild Gods. Reflections on Nick Cave and Tom Holland in conversation about Christianity

Jan 11 2025 30 mins

Nick Cave and Tom Holland discussed Christianity in an event organised by Unherd entitled In Search of Wild Gods on Thursday 9th January 2025. Chaired by Freddie Sayers, the conversation revolved around whether and why there is renewed interest in Christianity. Tom Holland’s book Dominion has become a staple of learned comment, with its thesis that pretty much all the values that

Meister Eckhart's Christmas Sermon One. Where is the Word born and how?

Dec 14 2024 33 mins

Sermon One (in Walshe, Complete Mystical Works) has become known as capturing the essence of Meister Eckhart’s thought. “Here, in time, we are celebrating the eternal birth which God the Father bore and bears unceasingly in eternity, because this same birth is now born in time, in human nature.” And why does this lofty thought matter? “What does it avail me that this birth

Forms and the Reformation of Science. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake

Dec 06 2024 39 mins

Forms are all around us: clouds, flowers, creatures, even systems of thought and logical relations. And yet the nature of forms is rarely part of the modern scientific conversation. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the importance of forms and how they work. The need for form to account for life as we know it has been eclips

"Enemies of the Human Race." William Blake on how to know God

Nov 29 2024 11 mins

The new issue of VALA, the magazine of the Blake Society, is all about God. I've an article in it on Blake's mystical knowledge of God. "I am in you, you are in me, mutual in love divine." Blake could hardly have been stronger in his views that naturalistic explanations for religion, and what would now be called non-real theologies, are inadequate - and, indeed, insufficient in acc