December 25, 2024

The Seventh Annual Report of the SHWEP

Happy Christmas!

It is that time again, gentle friends; the time when we gaze back at the year that has been and prognosticate about the year to come.

Those who have been following these yearly reports for some time will know the long-running Proclus-based strain of humour, wherein every year since 2019 I have been confidently predicting that next year, NEXT YEAR we would finally cover the great Athenian scholarch. It wasn’t meant as a joke initially, but became one on its own. Turns out, the SHWEP sort of expands to take up as much time as I’ll let it take, or, put another way, there is really a lot of crucial esoteric thought in late antiquity, and, since we can’t just skip it, we gotta cover it, and it takes a long time. But, boy, was it worth it. Anyway, in 2024 we got to Proclus! So we’ll need to find a new running gag ….

Here’s what we said last year at the solstice: ‘In Episode 100 we introduced Hermes and the Corpus Hermeticum, long-time listeners will recall; we have a similarly-momentous – and post-Proclean – topic set aside for Episode 200. We are about to post Episode 181 on Macrobius; we thus need to fit in a number of crucial thinkers, including Proclus, Damascius, and the Pseudo-Dionysius, into the next twenty episodes. Proclus and the Pseudo-D are going to need multiple episodes. Then there are many important late Platonist thinkers whom we must cover, even if only in a single episode: Plutarch of Athens, Syrianus, Hierocles, Olympiodorus, Simplicius, Philoponus, and more. Then there are late-antique esoteric Christians aside from the pseudo-D. We shall do our best to cover all of these currents and more between now and Episode 200. We shall need to up our conciseness game.’

Well, here we are nearing 2025, and set up to release Episode 200! So those blithe predictions pretty much came true. We kind of squeezed some things (that Olympiodorus et al. episode, in particular, was absolutely crammed), and some stuff just got skipped (it would have been great to have covered Boethius, and there is some more cool stuff happening in late-antique Christianity – an episode or two on Evagrianism, Origenism, and so on would have been useful), but I still feel like we have reached a pretty natural end-of-the-old-era, beginning-of-a-new-era point at the SHWEP. To wit:

For me, there’s something about sevens, and this brings us to a nice, round, seven-year period of the podcast. That feels like it’s time for something new, like the 7th century.
Today, Christmas day, we released episode 199 on the Book of the Holy Hierotheos, a tome laying out a noetic Christological ascent practice. What could be more Christmas-y?
Then, next Wednesday, it’s new year’s day, and we are looking forward to the return of Esoteric Island Discs, after a few years’ silence from the island.
Then, that Friday, we release Episode 200: the first episode of 2025, the first episode to cover, ahem, this particular topic we have been planning to cover for some time now, and also, in a certain sense, the first episode with late antiquity in the rear-view mirror. Put another way, we are about to get – in full knowledge of the limitations, anachronisms, and regional infelicities imposed by certain periodisations – medieval on yo ass.

At this point, a huge thank you is in order to all our members, who make this project possible, but I’d like to give a special shout-out to the Seven-Year Supporters, those few, proud, élite members who got on board at the beginning and have been supporting us ever since. Huge, huge appreciation from us.

We diversified a bit in 2024, and there were some new things at the SHWEP. The planned online shop came online in February. Friendly people have been asking for ‘merch’ for years, so we made some ‘merch’. For those who have not been following the nail-biting climax of the greatest contest of our time, I can now reveal that the ‘Iamblichus was Right’ limited-edition t-shirts outsold the ‘Plotinus was Right’ ones by two shirts. Then the final Plotinus ones went: so now we know that both men were right, but that Iamblichus was perhaps slightly more right. Another first was the new series ‘Roots of Magic’: also in February I interviewed Daniel Schwemer from the MagEIA project at the University of Würzburg, just introducing the project (which is ridiculously amazing) and talking about the academic study of magic more generally. But then they got back to me and asked if I would like to interview every single person working on the project about their work! Would I? Such an undertaking demanded a new series, because a lot of the material we shall be discussing comes before the west even exists – things like Hittite magic, Sumerian magic, the really old stuff. It ain’t western esotericism, but it’s very relevant to the cross-cultural and diachronic study of magic in the eastern Mediterranean region, which means we are more than delighted to look at it on the podcast. I wanted to record a new theme tune for this series, so I expanded on the ‘mystic chord’ of Scriabin using the singing saw. Look for more Roots of Magic in the coming year! 2024 also saw our first SHWEP book review. I have another, exceedingly beautiful and delicious book waiting on the ‘to review’ table, which, deo volente, we shall be getting to in 2025. Oh! And one other minor first was the Late Platonism Chart! I had tons of fun making that. I also have notes for an earlier, Plotinus-through-Iamblichus’-disciples chart; I know better than to promise anything in a time-bound way, but I’d love to put that together this year as well. Diagrammes are cool and helpful.

Then, from my perspective, 2024 had a few highlights. I loved deepening my knowledge of the Athenian Academy, and the final dénouement of polytheist philosophy in the sixth century. There is so much of value, and so much that is esoteric, in these final Platonist authors. For me, a stand-out interview in this realm was Danielle Layne on Proclus. When Layne talks about Proclus you don’t need to ask if maybe Proclus is a thinker who might have a few useful insights for modern people; the question becomes more, How can I become a Proclean initiate like this lady? And I need to do it NOW. Actually, thinking back over the year, some of the most inspiring interviews we did were clustered around the great Proclus: Edward Butler brought the passionate theological engagement, Stephen Rego brought the exquisitely-detailed noetic vistas, and, right at the end of the year, we had two superb contributions from Michæl Griffin on the virtues in ancient Platonism – not just Proclus, true, but there was an undercurrent, an esoteric soupçon if you will, of the Proclean about what he was doing. It was actually a year of really superb interview-guests, so I feel bad singling out a few for special praise – how about that beautifully-spoken and incisive Edward Watts, that exquisitely-merciless Kevin van Bladel, or the wide-ranging, inquisitive mind of Anthony Kaldellis? – but I’ll let my shortlist stand, as a selection of people whose work combines the best of scholarship with the best of genuine engagement with the material they study. Actually, we need to add Judith Noble to that list as well. Great stuff. Many thanks to all the scholars who contributed this year!

What’s to come in 2025? At some point we still have I think six or seven more special episodes to go back and do in late antiquity (the two promised explorations of the Pseudo-Dionysios, an episode on the Anonymous Prolegomena for you lovers of late Alexandrian Platonism, and a few other essential deep cuts). Aside from this slight retrograde motion, however, we shall be moving forward, exploring the esoteric developments of the seventh century. Do join us in the 7th century in 2025!

Extra shout-outs for 2024: thanks to the Larioses (Larii?) for technical help offered in the true esoteric Christmas spirit. Thanks to the International Neoplatonist Massive. Big love to the Hazen crew.

All the best for an esoteric 2025!