I think the single most important contribution that Vernon makes to the literature is his choice at the outset to take Blake’s visions, his encounters with angels, apostles, prophets, and even God himself, seriously: to take Blake at his word and to see where that word leads us. So many writers on Blake never leave the modern secular mind-set, and so they patronise Blake rather than learn from him. They psychologise or medicalise his visions and speculate about migraines or psychotic episodes, and, likewise, they treat his poetry as an aesthetic or literary artefact rather than, as Blake intended, a call to awaken from sleep and see the world anew.
Given Vernon’s expertise and experience as a psychotherapist, one might have feared that he would do the same. Not so. By taking Blake seriously as a visionary, a prophet, and a teacher, he has written an exciting and refreshing book, which offers us what he calls “a Blakean education” in how to live well, which he summarises under four headings: “first, savvy innocence, second, perceptual openness, third, confident imagination, fourth, fearless critique”.
These approaches to life are set out in a series of chapters that skilfully combine biography of the poet with close reading of the works that he was writing at the various stages of his life.
”…the Blakean insights that Vernon sets out so lucidly in this book are prophetic for our own age… he unveils the deeper powers at work and shows us a way out.” Thanks @malcolmguite for a great review @ChurchTimes https://t.co/OMPgQEDBcR
— Mark Vernon (@platospodcasts) August 1, 2025