Podcast episode
Episode 28: Christopher Gill on Plato’s Atlantis
Christopher Gill, Emeritus Professor of Ancient Thought at the University of Exeter, takes us deep into the territory of Atlantis, one of Platoās most puzzling creations.
Podcast episode
Christopher Gill, Emeritus Professor of Ancient Thought at the University of Exeter, takes us deep into the territory of Atlantis, one of Platoās most puzzling creations.
Podcast episode
The Jews in antiquity were busy doing rituals of all sorts, many of which scholars want to call magical. They were also seen by their neighbours as especially skilled at various ritual arts which the neighbours called magical. Naomi Janowitz discusses Jewish magic and the āJewish Magiā in antiquity.
Podcast episode
Kocku von Stuckrad, Professor of Religious Studies at the Universiteit van Groningen, reflects on the methodological issues involved in the study of (what is called) western esotericism, and on the academic field devoted to it in the larger academic context.
Podcast episode
We trace the rise of the Hellenistic divinatory art of astrology through the Roman Republic into the first century of the Empire, and investigate how an esoteric science became a matter of highest concern to the Roman state. Expect uprisings, assassinations, and executions. Astrology used to be really exciting.
Podcast episode
In the first of a two-episode series exploring the relationship between state power and esoteric ideas in the late Roman Republic and early empire, we look at what it meant to be esoteric at Rome, and investigate some upper-class Roman esotericists.
Podcast episode
We explore the Theolegoumena arithmeticƦ, the āTheology of Arithmeticā, our most complete extant arithmological treatise from antiquity. It tells us a lot about Neopythagorean theory of number in the Greek āalphanumeric ageā, it may be by Iamblichus, and it informs us that the Dyad is āDaringā.
Podcast episode
We explore the Dream of Scipio, Cicero's cryptic work in which one Scipio appears to another Scipio in a dream and instructs him in astral religion, numerical/astrological cosmology, the fate of just souls in the astral afterlife, and much more. Not bad for a lawyer.
Podcast episode
We are moving with astral ineluctability toward the birth of true astrology in the Hellenistic period. But first we need to get from Mesopotamian astronomy to the Greek world. This episode bridges the gap between middle-eastern astral science and the Hellenistic flourishing of Greek astronomy.
Podcast episode
We look at the fascinating figure of Thrasyllus: astrologer, power-player in the imperial Roman court of Tiberius, philosopher ā¦ and editor of the works of Plato.
Oddcast episode
Is āfree willā a given, a constant of the human condition? It might seem that way, but as Dylan Burns argues in this interview, the idea that humans possess a faculty of un-coerced decision-making actually arises at a specific time ā late antiquity ā and in a specific context ā early Christian philosophy.
Podcast episode
With papyrologist Korshi Dosoo as our guide, we explore the world of first-millennium Christian magic as it is found in the papyrus-records, both published and unpublished. Along the way we learn more about Christianity than we expected.
Podcast episode
In this episode Professor John J. Collins introduces a fascinating product of Second Temple Judaism, and a fertile vehicle for esoteric speculation beyond the bounds of Jewry ā apocalyptic literature. All will be revealed!
Podcast episode
We discuss the life, work, and thought of Zosimus of Panopolis, greatest alchemist of late antiquity, with Professor Matteo Martelli. All is One!
Podcast episode
In the first part of a two-part episode we explore the textual, theological, and other intricacies of interpreting the āfifth gospelā with Ivan Miroshnkov, Coptologue, historian, and man of parts. Featuring a cameo appearance by ABBA.
Podcast episode
We discuss Augustine the anti-esotericist, who denies that Christianity has any esoteric dimensions. He employs the esoteric to do so. Can you trust a guy who does that?
Oddcast episode
We discuss the extraordinary reception-history of the extraordinary text known as Sefer Yetsirah, the āBook of Formationā. The Sefer Yetsirah would eventually become a foundational text for the Kabbalist movements of the high middle ages, but it was (and is) much more than that. Professor Langermann lays out the evolutions in reading this text from Saāadia Gaon to Aryeh Kaplan.
Podcast episode
We dive into the fascinating life and thought of Synesius of Cyrene, Platonist philosopher and student of Hypatia of Alexandria, and Orthodox bishop of PtolemaĆÆs. Committed Christian or pagan bishop? We'll see ....
Podcast episode
Platoās Republic is the worldās first utopia. But what is a utopia, exactly, and how does it differ from the other invisible worlds we encounter in western esoteric traditions, the otherworlds and inner worlds? We survey types of esoteric space.
Podcast episode
We look at Plutarch's tour de force of esoteric hermeneutics, the On Isis and Osiris. Egyptian myth meets Greek esoteric Platonism, and something new is born.
Oddcast episode
Emily Selove shares her current work on the fascinating SirÄj al-DÄ«n al-SakkÄkÄ«, well-known Arabic grammarian and little-known sorcerer. We discuss SakkÄkÄ«'s extraordinary grimoire, the quest for the universal Perfect Man, a theory of language which might unite grammar and magic, and the identity of the mysterious āPeacock the Greekā.