Religion & SpiritualityChristianitySpirituality

Dante's Divine Comedy

Mark Vernon

I invite you to experience the odyssey, by accompanying me as I discuss each canto. My book, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide For The Spiritual Journey, is published by Angelico Press for the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death on 13th September 2021. For more information see - www.markvernon.com

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May 4, 2025 · 48 min
Pimps, remorse and blood. Dante's Divine Comedy and the critique of the Papacy
Dante encounters seven popes in the Divine Comedy, five in hell, one in purgatory and one in paradise - that last being Saint Peter. His condemnation of individual popes and, I think, the papacy is extraordinarily strong and discomforting to relate. But was it all revenge? Did he fall for the politics too? Or was his message one of renewal, revival and reunion with God? Dante was concerned about salvation, the role of women and friars, the love of the gospel, and the fate of Christianity. His critique presages the Reformation. His vision matters today. For more on Mark's guide to the Divine Comedy see - https://www.markvernon.com/dantes-divine-comedy 0:00 The context of Dante's critique 6:22 Celestine V and holiness: the resigning pope 9:04 Anastasius II, Aristotle and authority 10:48 Simony: the curse and crime of the church - Nicholas III & Boniface VIII 16:32 Pope Francis and Luke's icon of the Virgin and Child 18:33 The conversion of Constantine and ecclesiastical power 19:54 Dante's mothers - the church or the pagan Virgil? 21:12 Adrian V in purgatory 24:20 The beguines as guides and the whore of Babylon 28:26 Saint Peter's condemnation in paradise 30:04 Beatrice's last words condemning Clement V 32:24 Dante's political conclusions 36:36 Dante's ecclesiastical conclusions 39:14 A Christianity beyond Christianity
Mar 11, 2025 · 5 min
The way down is the way up. Dante on how to live in turbulent times. Lessons from The Divine Comedy
This talk was first given to Idler Drinks. For more on Mark's work on Dante - https://www.markvernon.com/dantes-divine-comedy
Oct 4, 2024 · 59 min
Is hell forever? The Inferno. Jason Baxter & Mark Vernon on Dante’s film noir
“Circles of hell" has become commonplace in language. But what was Dante trying to show us when he wrote the inferno? What has been lost in translation, with this first canticle in Dante’s trilogy now part of a secular culture? Jason Baxter talks about his new translation of the Inferno with Mark Vernon. They discuss what Dante could convey in language and why the text never ceases to offer fresh insights. How can we understand his encounters with figures from Virgil to Ulysses? What is it truly to be trapped in a hellish state? Why is the road down the necessary precursor to the road into God’s presence? Jason’s new translation is published by Angelico Press - https://angelicopress.com/products/the-divine-comedy-inferno Mark’s introduction and guide is too - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book 00:00 What Dante could do with language 9:05 Dante and the infernal landscape of today 12:50 Distraction and seeing the truth of ourselves 19:18 Intelligence as reason and love 26:33 Why must Dante descend into hell? 36:08 What was Virgil’s ultimate destiny? 41:30 The fulness of divinity we are called to 48:07 Jason’s translation of the famous opening line 56:20 Jason’s future plans
Jul 11, 2024 · 32 min
Is hell really boring? Rowan Williams & Jesse Armstrong, Dante & William Blake
Rowan Williams and Jesse Armstrong talked at The Idler festival, partly around the idea, caught in the expression, “boring as hell”. But is that right, they asked, when a drama like Succession so clearly appeals to us? The question is fundamental, for an age inclined to regard hell as appealing or intriguing, is one on the way to being lost. Drawing on Dante and William Blake, two great diagnostic writers about different states of mind, this talk explores how the passions of the soul, to use Williams’s expression, can hinder and help us on our way. I then think about how various facets of life change when known from within hellish, purgatorial and paradisal perspectives - movement, words, love, time, memory, possessing, faces, wonder. Hell is boring, not from its own perspective, which knows nothing else, but from that of purgatory and paradise. A time that thinks hell is the most interesting place to be is in hell; one that can still say “boring as hell” has at least a flicker of hope. See Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book
Jun 13, 2024 · 14 min
Dante and civilisational decline. A dispatch on disillusionment in politics
Dante lived through a period of almost total social collapse. Civil war and city-state terror, practiced by the church as much as secular powers, drove him into exile for the last 20 years of his life. For a while, he lost everything. But then, through the trauma, he regained a ground and rediscovered the fullness of life. The Divine Comedy is the product of that transformation. The journeys through hell, purgatory and paradise hold nothing back, be that terrible tortures of extraordinary delights. He wrote for himself, for his readers including us, but also as a warning to his time and future times, such as our ours. So what has Dante got to say to now? What does his analysis illuminate? Much, I think, as I explore in this thought. For more on Dante and my own book see - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book My earlier thoughts on Plato, Aristotle and Jesus are at my podcast, Talks and Thoughts.
Nov 25, 2023 · 42 min
What is intelligence? Dante in an age of AI
Dante's imagery, particularly in the Paradiso, offers powerful prompts to developing the sense of what it is to be intelligent. He wrote for modern times, he said. And now, as AI becomes more pervasive, he can help us understand how machine learning and human intuitions are very different capacities. This was part of a talk given at the Scientific and Medical Network - https://scientificandmedical.net/webinars/ For more on Mark's work, particularly on Dante, see www.markvernon.com
Aug 5, 2023 · 22 min
Seeing the Unsayable. Dante’s ineffable images
Reason fails before the greatest spiritual truths. That much is not news. But part of the genius of Dante is his conjuring of images that reach beyond the impasses of paradox and seeming contradiction. I consider 8 such moments when Dante sees the unsayable and offers images of the ineffable. - how darkness leads to light - how appearances can be the opposite of the truth - how the immediate eclipses wider perspectives - how all faces are the divine face - how “I” and “we” coincide - how divine and creature are one - how consciousness expands - how relationship is unity, many is one, movement is the unchangable. For more on my book Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey see http://www.markvernon.com/dantes-divine-comedy
Apr 6, 2023 · 27 min
Dante and the Meaning of Easter
What is the meaning of Easter? How might Holy Week be more than an occasion for its retelling? Can death and resurrection live today, as they once did, 2000 years ago? Dante’s journey, in the Divine Comedy, begins on Maundy Thursday, 1300. It continues through the inferno, on Good Friday and Holy Saturday, before he enters purgatory on Easter Sunday morning, at dawn. The climb up Mount Purgatory, then, takes until Easter Wednesday when, finally, Dante reaches paradise. Though that is really another beginning, as he becomes more capable of knowing the light of Christ in him, and so knowing that light in all that surrounds him. In other words, the Divine Comedy invites us to consider the story of Easter not as an historical event but as a pattern and path which makes sense of our lives, if we dare to live them deeply. Augustine once remarked that the joy of being Christian is being a Christ. Easter, then, is not primarily a remembrance of things that happened, but a recollection of who we are called to be. That is the meaning of Easter, needed if Christianity is to live in people’s lives now.
Mar 6, 2023 · 26 min
Dante and Eternal Damnation
Dante would seem to be a key candidate for infernalism, the doctrine of endless punishment in hell for sinners who failed to turn to Christ. He’s said to be medieval and isn't that what they believed then? And doesn’t his Divine Comedy clearly, indisputably say as much? But Dante’s whole point is that nothing is as it seems to the unawakened eye. I think what Dante is doing is taking evil completely seriously and showing why eternal damnation not only isn't, but can’t be the final result. And yet, this can only be seen when the darkness itself is fearlessly, fully seen.
Dec 23, 2022 · 16 min
Angels, Dreams & Myths. Dante on times of transition
The Divine Comedy is all about guides - finding guides, following guides, conversing with guides. Virgil and Beatrice are the best known, but there are other modes of guidance that Dante seeks and explores. Angels, dreams and myths accompanying Dante, even in the darkest moments. He learns to be present to them and trust that whilst in one encounter they can bring fear or shame, in another they inspire wrestling and struggle, and then in another again bring divine light and insight. For more on Mark's book, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey see - https://www.markvernon.com/dantes-divine-comedy For more on Mark see - https://www.markvernon.com
Aug 28, 2022 · 34 min
How can we transhumanise? And why we need to
Dante coined the word "transhumanise" in the Divine Comedy, 700 years ago. "Trasumanar" is the transformation he will undergo in order to share in the life of paradise. Today, the word has associations that are strikingly related to Dante's; partly quite similar, though changed in subtle but crucial ways. Understanding those differences illuminates the dangers of transhumanism today and how it might limit, not expand, our humanity. I consider this constriction across half a dozen areas on the transhumanism agenda: telepathy, happiness, intelligence, stellar living, the superman, and death. Transhumanising is a religious promise. It becomes a modern threat when that transcendent perspective is eclipsed and lost.
Jul 14, 2022 · 1 hr 20 min
Understanding Dante. A second Medicine Path podcast with Brian James
A joy to speak again with Brian, this time on Dante's Divine Comedy. We talked about what happened to Dante, what happened to Mark that opened up the Divine Comedy, how the poem works as an initiation, what it reveals about Christianity, what happens to Virgil, the nature of paradise, amongst other things. For more on Brian see http://brianjames.ca For more on Mark see https://www.markvernon.com
Jul 10, 2022 · 12 min
Dante, cosmology, and a conversation at Rupert Sheldrake's 80th do
Bernard Carr is a leading cosmologist who worked with Stephen Hawking and now investigates time, multidimensionality and consciousness, amongst other things. Bernardo Kastrup cites him as at the vanguard of the great task to integrate matter and mind. So I was delighted to get the chance to ask Bernard about images from Dante. We talked about relational cosmologies as advocated by Carlo Rovelli, who has talked about being inspired by Dante, and whether alternative images from the Divine Comedy might illuminate his own approaches, as well as our understanding.
Jun 24, 2022 · 44 min
Dante’s Paradiso. Awakening to the Light. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
This episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues continues Rupert and Mark's exploration of Dante’s Divine Comedy, taking a lead from Mark’s book, Dante’s Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey. Dante is now guided by Beatrice through the heavenly spheres and into the Empyrean. It is a journey into the abundance of infinity and eternity, which immediately struck Rupert as akin to a DMT trip. Mark and Rupert explore how that is an apt analogy with Dante enabling us to incorporate the visionary into everyday life and understand how deeper perceptions of being can inform different times and cultures. The conversation moves over the relationship between the one and the many, the universal message of Christianity, the ways in which love and intellect work in tandem, and how Dante can aid various quests for knowledge today.
Jun 7, 2022 · 37 min
Dante's transfiguration of time & love, seeking & suffering, telepathy & transhumanising
Various human experiences are deepened and resolved as Dante travels through hell, purgatory and paradise. The Divine Comedy can be read as an examination of this transfiguring of perception. From the alienation of hell, through the transforming time of purgatory, to the ever-expanding awareness of paradise: Dante show us how time & love, seeking & suffering, telepathy & transhumanising can change to reveal divine life without limit. For more on Mark's book on the Divine Comedy - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book
May 1, 2022 · 45 min
Dante on Idealism. Or Dante in dialogue with Bernardo Kastrup and others
This is a contribution to recent dialogues on idealism between Bernardo Kastrup, John Vervaeke, Matt Segall, Philip Goff and others, including myself. I draw particularly on: - Dante's account and analysis of his journey to the heart of consciousness in all its fullness - source and manifestation - in the Divine Comedy - how minds as we know them not only dissociate but also project and introject, and what meaning this might have for Bernardo's thesis - trinitarian understandings of oneness, and the dynamics of creation. I start with some concerns that I have with Bernardo's account of analytic idealism, much as I value all that he does. They focus on his sense of mind at large, or God, and his use of the phenomenon of dissociation. I'm struck that Dante's discovery of his true nature in God goes hand in hand with the increase of his individuality and personhood. Also, he not only experiences dissociation, or a sense of separateness, but projection and introjection - two further mechanisms that minds deploy, which I think are key. This takes me to trinitarian understandings of oneness, in its eternal and infinite form. In divine life, kenosis is ecstasis; giving is receiving; knowing and unknowing are a mutual unfolding; longing is satisfaction; expansion is the expression of what already is. If the meaning of our life is the discovery of our nature in theosis, that might add to the model. Beatrice conveys this movement to Dante, overcoming his separateness by discerning his projections, and offering them back to him as introjections of the truth of himself, others and God. Finally, I raise questions of suffering, the nature of life, and why we experience separateness at all, before the discussion concludes with the hadith beloved by Sufis, another idealist expression of genius: “I was a Treasure unknown then I desired to be known so I created a creation to which I made Myself known; then they knew Me.”
Apr 12, 2022 · 1 hr 1 min
Why Paradise? Part 3 of 3 talks on Dante's Divine Comedy
Paradise. Destiny for a chosen few? Dismissed today by many. Or might it be the end for us all? Dante tells us to follow closely in the richest, subtlest and most expansive part of the journey conveyed in the Divine Comedy. He shows us how to develop paradisal perception, the way to know this experience of reality now, and to become ready for it in the hereafter. Paradise is when the deepest truths become clear, the most intimate participation with life is known as divine. This is the third of three talks, originally hosted by the Fintry Trust. The talk draws on Mark's book, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book
Apr 5, 2022 · 1 hr
Why Purgatory? Part 2 of 3 talks on Dante's Divine Comedy by Mark Vernon
The mode of life called purgatorial is a medieval superstition, according to some, and the very purpose of mortal life, according to others. So what did Dante make of Purgatory and what has it to teach us now? In the Purgatorio, the essence of the spiritual path is shown in encounters and discussions. Purging itself, for example, is not about being rid of what we don't like, an activity that is another form of vanity. Rather it is about becoming clearer of that which hinders our sight of God and so limits the expansion of our being. Purgatorial living cleanses the doors of perception. This is the second of three talks, originally hosted by the Fintry Trust. The talk draws on Mark's book, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book
Apr 3, 2022 · 25 min
Sexual Mores & Divine Eros: Why we need Dante to teach us about love
The liberal world and western churches increasingly seem to suffer from the lack of a sophisticated understanding of erotic love - an approach not merely governed by morals but arising from insight into who we are and our deepest nature. Erotic love can be felt on nearly every page of the Divine Comedy, in perverted and desperate forms, as well as in free and joyous souls. He understood that eros has a goal as it draws us towards God, though that goal is readily thwarted as we traverse its energies. Rules minimally help because love must be combined with light and learnt about from within experience and reflection. Love fills the cosmos. It will not let us go. So how can a path be navigated from the passions that can trap us to the delight that is connection with all? For more on Mark's book, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey, see here - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book
Mar 30, 2022 · 51 min
Why Hell? Part 1 of 3 talks on Dante's Divine Comedy by Mark Vernon
The notion of hell is delighted in by some and causes offence in others. So why did Dante write about this infernal domain on his journey through reality? What is its meaning? What might be learnt from it? The inferno illuminates how desires go awry, the nature of our being is misunderstood, perceptions narrow, and how societies, even civilisations, become lost. This is the first of three talks, originally hosted by the Fintry Trust. Why Purgatory and Why Paradise follow. The talk draws on Mark's book, Dante's Divine Comedy: A Guide for the Spiritual Journey - https://www.markvernon.com/books/dantes-divine-comedy-book

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