Storytime: Reading Hierocles on the Golden Verses, Part II
We continue our read-through of Hierocles' Commentary, focusing in detail on the treasure-trove that is Chapter XXVI. The telestic was never so initiatory (or is it civic?)!
Podcast Episodes Themed "Divinisation"
Episode 183: The Great God Pan Lives: Introducing the Athenian Academy
We turn to the final flowering of polytheist Platonist philosophy, centred on Athens (and Alexandria). We review some useful historical data, discuss the history of ‘the Academy’ as a notional ‘school’ in antiquity, and introduce Plutarch of Athens and Syrianus, teachers of the great Proclus.
Episode 182: Ↄ. Martiana on Martianus Capella and the Marriage of Philology and Mercury
We discuss Martianus Capella and his extraordinary and vexing philological ascent-account, the Marriage of Philology and Mercury. Ↄ. Martiana guides us through a geocentric kosmos where liberal arts are planetary spheres, gods are physical elements, the planets are daimones, but absolutely nothing is as it seems.
Episode 181: Macrobius and the Commentary on Scipio’s Dream
We explore the rich seam of late-antique esoteric lore that is Macrobius' Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. We discuss who Macrobius was, what he wrote, what he wrote about, and introduce who read him later on. He emerges as a crucial transmitter of astrologised, arithmologically-informed Platonism to the Latin west in the middle ages.
Mateusz Stróżyński on Spiritual Practices in Augustine
We continue our discussion of Augustine, turning to Prof Stróżyński's fruitful approach to spiritual practices as recorded (but often ignored) in the texts of Plotinus and Augustine. It emerges that there is a quiet but insistent thread of divinisation ‘hiding’ in the text of the Confessions, and that the human self may be, in a sense, god.
Storytime: Reading Synesius On Dreams
The On Dreams of Synesius of Cyrene is one of the finest pieces of esoteric writing to survive from antiquity. It preserves fragments of the Chaldæan Oracles, conveys fully fleshed-out theories of veridical imagination, dream-divination, and magic based on kosmic correspondence, and gives us other valuable details of antique occult lore. It is also self-consciously an esoteric piece of writing, and seems to be suggesting that it is a polytheist message-in-a-bottle to be read by future generations, once the dark times of Christian persecution have passed. So we read it.
Episode 171: ‘Visibly a Goddess’: Heidi Marx on Sosipatra of Pergamum
We discuss Sosipatra of Pergamum, an otherwise-unknown late polytheist holy woman and philosopher, depicted by her biographer Eunapius as a living goddess as well as a philosophic teacher in the lineage of Iamblichus. Come for the Late Platonist resistance to Christianity in the fourth century, stay for the mysterious Chaldæan strangers.
Episode 166: Joel Kalvesmaki on Evagrius’ Kephalaia Gnōstika: Philosophy, Scripture, and Apophatic Mysticism
In Part II of our discussion with Joel Kalvesmaki we explore the philosophy and mysticism of the Kephalaia Gnōstika, Evagrius' masterwork of mind-bending metaphysical aphorisms.
Into the Darkness with Michæl Motia
In a special episode, we ask Michæl Motia some more questions about Gregory of Nyssa. Come for the apophatic theology, stay for the apophatic anthropology.
Episode 164: Theology, Politics, and Radiant Darkness: Michæl Motia on Gregory of Nyssa
Having introduced the Cappadocians, we must of course explore the thought of the Divine Gregory of Nyssa. Michæl Motia is our expert guide through the territories both of late-antique religious politics and the illuminated darkness of divine unknowing at the heart of Christian mysticism.
Episode 162: Father Sergey Trostyanskiy on the Cappadocian Fathers, Part I
We discuss the great theologians, ascetics, and philosophers of fourth-century Christianity, the Cappadocian Fathers with Father Sergey Trostyanskiy. Come for the Philokalia, the collection which smuggles Origenistic and other anathematised ideas into the very bosom of orthodoxy, stay for the presence of divine darkness to the soul.
Into Syriac Spirituality in Theory and Practice with Paul Pasquesi
In an extended interview, Paul Pasquesi discusses the Makarian Homilies – an influential set of texts which is one of the key ingredients in the cultural synthesis later known as ‘Christian mysticism’ – the work of Isaac of Ninevah, and many other texts and ideas from the late-antique Syriac ascetical movement.
Episode 126: Porphyry’s Gods: The Metaphysics and Physics of Divinity
We discuss the universe of Porphyry, which is crawling with gods, powers, and daimones, and some of the ways a human being might expect to navigate such a place. The episode features a long discursus on the theory of metempsychosis and a brief discursus on divine possession.
Charles M. Stang Doubles Down
Further musings with Charles M. Stang on the thought and importance of Henry Corbin, on the fate of the divine double in the modern period, and on the necessity of keeping Christianity weird.
Episode 124: Charles M. Stang on the Divine Double in Late Antiquity
We discuss the motif of the divine twin, angelic counterpart, personal daimōn, and other forms of higher, divine self with Charles Stang. We may not be who we think we are, but that's good news.
Episode 122: Radcliffe G. Edmonds III on the ‘Mithrasliturgie’
We discuss PGM IV 475-824, the famous ‘Mithrasliturgie’, with Radcliffe G. Edmonds III. Come for the immortalisation, divinisation, and visionary cosmic ascent, stay for the magical crocodile-surfing.
The Secret (Life) of the One
We explore Plotinus' One and the (human) self's encounter with the One. ‘Naked with stillness, on the edge of dawn she stays.’
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.
The Secret Life of the Undescended Self
We discuss Plotinus' controversial doctrine that some aspect of the human being never descends into the materialised kosmos, but remains eternally in the noetic. More importantly, we discuss Plotinus' descriptions of what it is like to be that higher aspect of the human being. Dig eternity!
Episode 112: We are the One: Plotinus’ Participatory Metaphysics
Plotinus' universe is uniquely full of the human self, which extends all the way from the sucking mud of matter's non-existence to the ultimate profundity of the One's non-existence, and all the existent bits in-between. We discuss some of the ways in which this human metaphysical terrain is explored in the Enneads.
