How to Live like William Blake!

13/06/2025 55 min
How to Live like William Blake!

Listen "How to Live like William Blake!"

Episode Synopsis

A conversation from History with Chris Harding.In Mark Vernon's new book "Awake!", he argues that we’re missing something from our view of the great visionary artist William Blake.It’s that word - ‘visionary.’Mark argues that Blake’s extraordinary art reveals an expanded experience of the world that Blake lived with every day: angels, fairies, realms beyond our own. Blake wasn’t, in other words, making it all up…Mark says that we shouldn’t be afraid of the ‘supernatural Blake.’ We should embrace him - and even aspire to live a little as he did.00:00 Introduction to William Blake02:45 Blake's Life and Context04:32 Blake and India08:45 The Nature of Perception13:06 Childhood Experiences and Spirituality19:50 Blake's Relationship with Institutional Christianity24:43 The Role of Forgiveness in Jesus' Teachings26:05 Blake's Vision of the Human Form Divine28:00 The Sacrificial Nature of Spiritual Awakening29:28 Blake as a Social Critic 31:30 Blake and Science35:21 The Dangers of Abstraction 36:19 Blake and consumerism43:06 What does Blake offer us now?

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