Storytime: Reading the Solomonic Hygromanteia, Part II
We read through Solomon's magical recipe book in BL MS Harleianus 5596. This is spirit-summoning as metier.
Podcast Episodes Themed "Astral Magic"
Storytime: Reading the Solomonic Hygromanteia, Part I
In a two-part episode, we explore the family of Solomonic addressative texts known as the Hygromanteia. In Part I we look at the range of MSS and scholarship and the Solomonic tradition which provides the context for this extraordinary manual for angelic and demonic manipulation.
Episode 149: Exploring the Sefer ha-Razim
We explore the earliest-known Jewish ‘magic book’, the Sefer ha-Razim or Book of Mysteries. Angel-magic meets addressative practices aimed at old friends like Helios and Hermes, while Hellenistic astral cosmology collides with fiery heavenly palace-firmaments of the apocalyptic and Hekhalotic stamp.
Episode 116: Plotinus on Astrology with Marilynn Lawrence
We speak with Marilynn Lawrence, authority on Platonism, Hellenistic astrology, and the intersection of the two, about Plotinus' theoretical writings on the science of the stars.
Episode 114: Plotinus the Magician? Ritual Practice and Power in Platonism
We discuss Plotinus on ‘magic’, in theory, and, yes, in practice. Come for magic as applied physics, stay for the apotropaic chickens.
Episode 109: Christian Bull on the Way of Hermes in Antiquity
In our final episode in the Hermetica series, we discuss the way of Hermes in antiquity with Christian Hervik Bull. Come for the renunciation, immortalisation, and hypercosmic ascent, stay for the animated statues.
Episode 88: Claudius Ptolemy and the Tetrabiblos
We discuss Claudius Ptolemy (no relation), synthesiser of Hellenistic astronomy/astrology to the mediæval world and beyond, and his two great works, the Almagest and the Tetrabiblos. Come for the naturalistic account of astral causation, stay for the planetary talismans.
Episode 42: Chris Brennan on Hellenistic Astrology
Historical discussions often fail to help us 'get inside' the subject we are looking at. In this episode we talk to Chris Brennan, Hellenistic astrologer and historian, for some theoretical and practical light on the realities of ancient astrology.
Episode 41: Fate and Foreknowledge: Toward Hellenistic Astrology
The synthesis of Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greek sciences of the stars gave rise to the art of astrology in Hellenistic Egypt. Astrology went on to become a defining aspect of western culture, and the master-discipline of western esotericism. We look at how it happened.
