Bestselling author and coach. Find more at carlvernon.com
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Assorted reflections on matters mostly to do with inner life, including spirituality and psychotherapy, consciousness and the divine. For more on see www.markvernon.com
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0:00 / 19:22 What did Socrates teach? Or why you only understand Plato if he is decolonised
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What Socrates taught is, of course, the wrong question. For, if there is one thing that Plato is quite clear about, it is that Socrates taught nothing. Something else is going on when you encounter this figure. So what is it? In this talk I look first at common errors concerning Plato, such as that he pitched body against soul or thought poets were…
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To see a world in a grain of sand. Poetry & philosophy for a civilisation in distress. A conversation with Valentin Gerlier
49:50
49:50
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What has poetry to do with philosophy? Why might poetry particularly matter now? How did figures from Plato to Einstein value the poetic voice? Valentin Gerlier and Mark Vernon return for another conversation about the manner in which we humans are gifted with symbolic as well as cognitive imaginations. They ask why we keep returning to poets such …
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Hallam v the State, and free speech. The Just Stop Oil desecrations are calling to our humanity
26:52
26:52
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Just Stop Oil and the imprisonment of Roger Hallam and others has provoked an outcry, on both sides of the dispute. And the heightened emotions have made me think. What's going on here? What is at stake? I suspect that what’s being missed is something fundamental to human society and how we participate in a wider environment, and that can be discer…
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Chance and accidents, indeterminism and prayer. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
38:19
38:19
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Randomness and luck, fate and providence. How do these facets of life relate to one another? Or is everything, actually, mechanically determined with synchronicities, say, being no more than coincidences? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the ways in which philosophers and scientists, ancien…
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Cultural Christianity kills. Taking Blake's Christianity seriously. William on Jesus
51:06
51:06
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At one level, Blake is clearly Christian. It’s even trivial to say so. And yet, his identification with Jesus is often sidelined, even written out, of accounts of the poet's work today. There are many reasons for this neglect: an understandable disillusionment with Christianity; the replacement of participative Christianity with cultural Christiani…
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Trans activism, transhumanising, economic transition. Proxies for vision & the lost soul of politics
17:40
17:40
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Three “trans” issues seem to be proxies for vision in contemporary politics, feeding the sense of despair and disillusion. Trans activism, which is not the same as trans pathology. Transhumanising, the techno-utopian dream of tomorrow. Transitioning the economy, moving from extractive consumption. All three are about qualities of relationship: - to…
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Cut off in the literal age. Owen Barfield & Carl Jung on alienation and political disillusionment
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18:47
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There is a link between rising levels of mental-ill health and political disillusionment. Feeling cut off is not just an economic and psychological problem, but is a symptom of a wider alienation arising from modern consciousness. Owen Barfield argued that contemporary political problems are fundamentally due to estrangement not only from others bu…
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To Generalise is to be an Idiot. William Blake on politics, disillusionment and abstraction
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William Blake lived during the period in which the modern world was born. A prophet, he detected the tendencies that now powerfully shape our age. The love of abstraction was high on his list of troubles. Such generalisations profoundly shape politics today. Politicians sell themselves on whether they will boost the economy, drive up growth, fight …
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God, sexuality & the psyche. CS Lewis and Sigmund Freud tabletalk. Thoughts on Freud’s Last Session
22:49
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The new movie Freud’s Last Session is well worth a watch, particularly if either man is of interest. The issues you might expect are aired between them, not least belief in God. But also the more shadowy sides to their lives - Lewis’s relationship with Janie Moore, Freud’s with his daughter Anna. I enjoyed it, though also wondered if they might hav…
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The fullness of life. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
34:29
34:29
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At school, we learn that being alive is to possess certain functions, from respiration to reproduction. But what is life and why can the word “life” be used more widely than referring only to biological life? In the latest episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon consider the meaning of saying that stars have a li…
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Rendering to Caesar. Jesus on politics and the kingdom that is within
13:31
13:31
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I've been thinking about politics and disillusionment that seems most characteristic of now, in the West at least, and thinking about the prepolitcal - what politics needs to work well. I've thought about Plato on beauty and Aristotle on ethics in previous posts. Now a third guide, Jesus on... which isn't immediately easy to say. And that's the poi…
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Beauty and the failure of politics. An election dispatch from ancient Athens
11:40
11:40
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Disillusionment with politics is probably the most obvious feature of the current mood. This is, in part, because politics has collapsed onto anxiety about material improvement and lost sight of much more. In a secular society in which this facet of wellbeing is increasingly hard to deliver, politics appears therefore to be failing. So now is a goo…
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Ethics and the failure of politics, or why ethics is part of the problem. A dispatch from Athens
12:57
12:57
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Disillusionment with politics is probably the most obvious feature of the current mood. This is, in part, because politics has collapsed onto anxiety about material improvement and lost sight of much more. In a secular society in which this facet of wellbeing is increasingly hard to deliver, politics appears therefore to be failing. So now is a goo…
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Force Fields. Behind the fog of maths. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
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37:38
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Einstein remarked that there was physics before Maxwell and physics after Maxwell, the difference being the introduction of field theory. So what difference did fields make and, more to the point, what are they? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon explore how electromagnetic, gravitational and quantum…
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The enchanted vision. An invitation to read about love
5:27
5:27
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To read the essay, go to Aeon magazine's website, or https://aeon.co/essays/in-the-beginning-there-was-love-we-can-move-with-its-powerBy Mark Vernon
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Matter is frozen light. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake & Mark Vernon
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40:07
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The everyday stuff called matter turns out to be both more fascinating and stranger than we usually assume. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask just matter is, beginning with contemporary ideas from quantum physics, in which matter is frozen light, as the physicist David Bohm put it. They consider…
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Whose revival? Which Christianity? CS Lewis & Owen Barfield on the renewed interest of belief in God
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There is much talk of a revival of Christianity amongst secular intellectuals, at least in my cultural bubble. That may or may not be sociological significant and church attendence figures stay in marked decline. But what interests me is not so much the numbers as the spirit of the renewed interest. What is the feel of the Christianity being discus…
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Strangeness is the new real. Martin Shaw & Mark Vernon in conversation
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1:14:26
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A couple of years back, Martin Shaw had a visionary experience that led him to Christianity. We talked about it as the Mossy face of Christ - https://youtu.be/8luN8bDDRBs?si=c7jHUt-Ih5xKlVWq So it was great to talk again about what's been happening. Which is much. The conversation ranges over what might be happening now with Christianity, Martin's …
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Christspiracy. The documentary's claims about Jesus & Christianity put to the test, w Kameron Waters
1:34:11
1:34:11
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The makers of Seaspiracy and Cowspiracy are back. Christspiracy is another profoundly disturbing film detailing the industrial abuse of our animal kin. Expect more horrific carelessness and exploitation on a mass scale. Only this time, Kip Andersen and Kameron Waters not only go global but look back in time. “This is plausibly the most significant …
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The Nature of Energy. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake & Mark Vernon
36:31
36:31
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Energy is a key organising principle in modern science, the conversation of energy being a grounding and universal law. But what is energy? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon examine the history of the idea and the word. In science, energy is a relatively recently notion, emerging in its current form…
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Participation renewed. Discussing The Riddle of the Sphinx, new essays from Owen Barfield
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1:20:51
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I talk again with Landon Loftin and Max Leyf about the genius insight of Owen Barfield. The Riddle of the Sphinx (Barfield Press) is a new collection of talks and essays about the great friend of CS Lewis and JRR Tolkien. We discuss Barfield's take on analysis and analogy, Darwinian and other kinds of evolution, the significance of Rudolf Stein, an…
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Apocalypse? It's now! Good news & secular salvation, climate crisis & time. With Gunnar Gjermundsen
1:23:09
1:23:09
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How can Christianity address the climate crisis? Isn’t the objectifying of nature and the drive to improve our lot a secular legacy of Christendom? And isn’t individual conversion more or less irrelevant in a time of systemic crisis? I was delighted to be sent an essay by Gunnar Gjermundsen that asks these questions and more. His insights are wide-…
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Practicing paradise, or refusing wretchedness in Lent
7:46
7:46
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Western liturgies are obsessed with sin. "There is no health in us", or words to that effect, begin and end most services, particularly in Lent. Jesus's wilderness experience was actually about something else - practicing paradise, to use to the phrase of Douglas Christie. It's a time to reorientate attention, not wallow in guilt and re-embed shame…
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The Speed of Gravity. A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
32:23
32:23
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Isaac Newton is best known for his theory of gravity. And yet, the great scientist also insisted: "ye cause of gravity is what I do not pretend to know.” In other words, notions like gravity, and force in general, are deeply mysterious phenomena. In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon ask just what gravi…
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How rituals of love can aid death and dying. A conversation with Madeleine Pennington
42:24
42:24
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The rituals around death and dying are changing in the UK and across the developed world. Medical care advances, which is for the good, though can mean to a loss of other kinds of wisdom about this facet of life. People’s beliefs and convictions about death are also in a state of flux. The think tank, Theos, has extensively researched this changing…
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Nondualism & enchantment, acting & UFOs (Rupert Spira & Meister Eckhart too). Talk with Jamie Robson
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1:04:16
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A conversation with actor, Jamie Robson, whom I met through the work of Rupert Spira. 00:00 Meeting through Rupert Spira 03:26 Nondualism and Christian mysticism 06:02 Nondualism and acting 15:00 Being and doing 19:40 Detachment and Meister Eckhart 26:48 Two modes of perception in Iain McGilchrist and others 32:43 Double vision and a re-enchanted w…
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Love at the meeting of cultures. A conversation with Chine McDonald
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Born in Nigeria and raised in the UK since the age of 4, Chine McDonald is well placed to explore love in different cultural contexts, and what happens when differences meet. We talked about how differences show up particularly in relation to the practicalities of loving, from house design to how people talk at funerals, as well as wider questions …
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Humanity’s role in nature. Are we more than just a problem? A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
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Environmental degradation caused by technological progress is in the news almost everyday. So can any sense be made of an ancient intuition that human beings are not just part of nature but have a distinctive and positive role to play in nature? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss issues from …
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On the Incarnation or the real meaning of Christmas. Conversation with Russell Jefford & Mark Vernon
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Christmas risks losing its meaning not only because of the commercial frenzy but because of the way it is talked about in churches. In this conversation, Russell Jefford talks about his discovery of the understanding of the incarnation conveyed in the writings of the early church fathers. They were unknown to him as an evangelical Christian and hav…
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Loving and knowing in indigenous ways of life. A conversation with Melissa Nelson
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“A worldview that understands indigeneity is a paradigm of regeneration, a worldview rooted in enduring values in what we call our original instructions, common themes of reciprocity, of gratitude, of responsibility, of generosity, of forgiveness, of humility, of courage, of sacrifice, and of course love. But these values are not just words, we nee…
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What can love look like in an era of crisis and fear? With Clare Martin, St Ethelburga's Centre, London
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Clare Martin is co-director of the St Ethelburga’s Centre for Reconciliation and Peace, located in the heart of the City of London. In this conversation, we spoke about what love can look like in the public square, particularly in contexts of crisis and conflict, and how encounters between peoples can be designed so as to foster love as a resource …
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Jesus the Imagination. Taking William Blake’s Christianity seriously. Essay at blakesociety.org
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VALA can be downloaded as a pdf here - https://blakesociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/VALA-04.pdf My essay is at p60 For more on Mark - www.markvernon.comBy Mark Vernon
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Love, power and public life. A conversation with Claire Gilbert & Mark Vernon
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What is the role of love in public life? Can it have a place given the scrutiny faced by leaders and the processes of bureaucracies? Or is love what we need to face the huge challenges of today, from distrust of public institutions to the environmental crisis? Claire Gilbert is the author of several books, a fellow of Jesus College, Cambridge, has …
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Principles of love and the wisdom of constellations. With Robert Rowland Smith & Mark Vernon
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39:42
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Constellations, also called family systems, is a way of visualising the dynamics of love that operate in any group that has to do with creativity or life. A constellation workshop brings people together to look at predicaments with which people are wrestling, be they personal or organisational. The goal is to find a design that releases and acknowl…
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When your head hits the pillow at night, do you sleep soundly? Maybe you need to consider how much you would pay for peace of mind.By Carl Vernon
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Sometimes, those coincidences aren't stunning or beautiful.By Carl Vernon
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The extension of mind through space and the sense of being stared at. Conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
42:37
42:37
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Do our minds reside solely inside our heads, or perhaps bodies? Or do they extend into the wider world, perhaps even reaching to the stars? In this episode of the Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogues, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon discuss the extended mind theory, taking a lead from recent work of Rupert’s on the sense of being stared at, and also the pro…
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How to make friendship work. A conversation with Robin Dunbar
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1:14:03
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Robin Dunbar is an Oxford evolutionary psychologist who has written extensively about friendship, amongst other things, not least in relation to “Dunbar’s Number”. We talked about what friendship is, and how it differs from other loves. We explored the varieties of friendship that people experience, and why metaphors such as “circles of friends” ar…
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Desire is the way. Thoughts on Bishop Barron at ARC in London
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Bishop Barron is another figure I think worth listening to, who spoke at ARC in London, alongside Jordan Peterson. Like Peterson, he simultaneously leaves me as wary as enthused. I’ve explained where that took me with Peterson in another short talk. Here’s where I’ve ended up in response to Barron, which interesting is also, in my view, with a rich…
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Faith & responsibility or love & response. Thoughts on Jordan Peterson at ARC in London
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All in all, there is much to consider in Jordan Peterson’s latest passionate suggestions. I think he is right to present a vision of the human good coming from the future, thereby calling us and shaping a meaningful life now. The human self needs a sense of itself that exceeds an otherwise atomised, lonely individualism. However, in may view, Peter…
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We're not dissimilar to chickens. We need our space. We need nature!By Carl Vernon
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Loving AIs. Reducing risk & building intelligence. Mark Vernon talks with Eve Poole
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45:25
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Thinking carefully, not just apocalyptically, about AIs requires a combination of skills - technological, sociological, psychological, philosophical, organisational. So I was delighted to talk with Eve Poole, who is a rare individual capable of bringing all these elements into her work. Our central question was how to build AIs so as to design out …
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Rather than try to beat your problem or challenge, accept it – with one caveat. You'll be surprised how effective the change in mindset can be.By Carl Vernon
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Comedian Abi Roberts talks about the journey when you begin speaking your mind and how the death of her husband gave her the courage to break through the fear barrier.By Carl Vernon
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How did I miss it?By Carl Vernon
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Can we do without organised religion? A conversation with Rupert Sheldrake
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Churches are in decline, certainly in the western world. People tend not to think to turn to a priest for spiritual insight or advice. But is a lived relationship with the sacred and wisdom traditions denuded as organised religion disappears? In this Sheldrake-Vernon Dialogue, Rupert Sheldrake and Mark Vernon talk about religious institutions for g…
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Natural health expert Clive de Carle talks about beating colds and flu and staying fit and healthy as the colder weather sets in.By Carl Vernon
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Evil doesn’t want you making plans.By Carl Vernon
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At the beginning of Idler Drinks (see www.idler.co.uk), I offer a thought. Here's the one from this week.By Mark Vernon
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Stand-up comedian Alistair Williams talks about the link between current affairs and end times prophesied in the bible and his journey with Jesus and Christianity.By Carl Vernon
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