After the final Pythagorean died, all was quiet. And then, suddenly, people started going around calling themselves Pythagoreans. Growing long beards. Hailing Pythagoras as an ancient magus-sage. Positing a monad as the ultimate source of reality. Welcome to Neopythagoreanism.
The Stoics had a naturalistic physical theory which, strangely, had a huge influence both on esoteric spirituality and on occult sciences. In this, our final episode on Stoicism, we discuss three key terms from Stoic physics and their surprising afterlives in western esotericism.
At the heart of western esotericism lies a space where logic becomes something that transcends logic; Plato's dialogue the Parmenides is perhaps the first work to occupy that space. Join us for a look at Plato's most baffling work.
How can we even talk about mysticism, if we define mysticism as a phenomenon involving ineffable experiences? This episode negotiates the mind-bending terrain of the study of mystical texts with the aim of getting our terminology straight.
The idea of a soul, a unified centre of consciousness, arises at a specific time and in specific places which we can locate historically. But what if this was not an invention, but a discovery of what had always been there? Dr Robert Bolton discussed the a priori reasons which might lead one to know that the soul is real.
A lightning summary of key major elements of western esotericism from late antiquity up to the middle ages, featuring a foray into the esoteric art of imaginal cocktail-mixing.
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