Mark Vernon: Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination

Tripp Fuller

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8d ago 1:19:30

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In this episode, we turn to the radical vision of William Blake with brilliant scholar and psychotherapist Mark Vernon. Mark argues that Blake isn’t just a historical curiosity—he’s a guide for rewilding our humanity in an age of spiritual flatness. We explore how Blake saw the collapse of cultural imagination coming 200 years ago, offering us a way out of what Mark calls the “narrow deadening” of modern life. Blake’s answer isn’t to retreat from the world, but to cultivate what he calls “innocence”—not naivety, but a kind of perceptual openness that can see angels, spirits, and the infinite in a grain of sand. We talk about his critique of the mechanistic worldview, his understanding of imagination as something that has us rather than something we have, and his deeply orthodox yet mystical Christianity that treats Jesus as the imagination itself. Mark shows us how Blake’s “hermeneutics of energy” offers a different way of relating to money, love, death, and the divine—one that moves from possession to participation, from control to collaboration with the creative force of reality itself.

Mark Vernon is a scholar, psychotherapist, and public intellectual who bridges the worlds of ancient wisdom and contemporary life. He works as a psychotherapist while writing extensively about philosophy, spirituality, and the intersection of psychological insight with religious tradition. Vernon has authored numerous books exploring figures like Plato, Dante, and most recently William Blake, approaching these thinkers not as historical curiosities but as living guides for navigating modern challenges. His work is characterized by a commitment to taking seriously the mystical and visionary dimensions of human experience, drawing from his background in both academic study (including a physics degree) and therapeutic practice. Based in South London, Vernon regularly contributes to public discourse through writing, speaking, and media appearances, offering what he calls a “porous” approach to wisdom traditions that remains rooted in particular lineages while open to insights from multiple sources. His latest book Awake!: William Blake and the Power of the Imagination presents William Blake as a prophet of re-enchantment for our disenchanted age. You can check out his previous visit to the podcast here.

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