William Blake and the Rediscovery of the Imagination
With Mark Vernon
In the modern world, imagination is often regarded as a private possession, as if a creative person has more of it than a more prosaic soul. This contracted understanding can be traced back to the understanding of the mind developed by philosophers like John Locke.
But another account of the imagination is available to us through figures like William Blake, who understood that imagination is not something we possess but is, rather, the very activity of our being and all beings. "Nature is imagination itself!" he declared - also realising that imagination is divine.
So how can Blake help us participate in this wider flow and link us back to figures like Ibn 'Arabi for whom the imagination was the transcendent known immanently, and so foster a renewed connection with the active presence called God? These questions and others will be explored during this seminar with presentation and discussion.
Mark Vernon is a psychotherapist and writer, with a keen interest in ancient philosophy, as well as the illumination of inner life. He contributes to and has presented a number of programmes on the radio and writes as a journalist. He has facilitated an online course on Dante for the Beshara Trust. His writing covers subjects from friendship and beliefs, to wellbeing and living in the modern world. Recent books are on spiritual intelligence, Dante’s Divine Comedy and Christianity, as understood by the Oxford Inkling and friend of C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield. Most recently he has published “Awake! William Blake and the Power of the Imagination”. A podcast concerning this book for the Beshara Magazine is here.
Picture: Angel of the Revelation, from the Book of Revelation. Watercolour by William Blake.
