Into the divine darkness of a hyper-non-existent god walks the Pseudo-Dionysios. In this episode we join many esoteric currents from the antique and late-antique past into a new synthesis which will forever shape western esotericism going forward.
We are delighted to speak with Anthony Kaldellis about ‘Byzantium’, fabled empire full of Greek-speaking Romans which never fell until the fifteenth century, and which plays an outsize role in the history of western esotericism. Come for the historiographical debates about the term ‘Byzantine’, stay for the ‘Byzantine’ court astrology.
Plotinus said that our task is not to be good, but to be god. In this interview we explore what that meant to later Platonists, from Iamblichus to Olympiodorus and taking in a host of thinkers in-between. The answer given is apophatic, but we also learn that divinisation may be closer than we suspect.
We welcome Dylan Burns back to the podcast to discuss the life, works, and philosophy of Proclus the Successor. ‘All in all, but appropriately to each’
We are delighted to welcome Prof Stróżyński back to the podcast to deepen our understanding of Augustine's engagement with Platonist philosophy. The saint emerges as, in some ways, a model Plotinian thinker, in other ways something totally different from that, and, above all, as a philosophic thinker struggling with the reality of daily life in the collapsing western Roman empire.
The podcast turns from the eastern Roman empire to its western reaches, now falling into strife and decline as we move into the fifth century. In this episode we look at languages, especially Latin and Greek, and discuss how their intelligibility declined in the respective halves of the now-sundered empire. And we discuss the fate of Plato and Platonism in western Europe as we move into a series of episodes discussing late-antique esotericism in Latin.
We are delighted to speak with David Hernández de la Fuente on Nonnus of Panopolis, one of the last great epic poets of the Græco-Roman tradition, and a man with a lot to tell us about the interplay between Christianity and ‘paganism’ in late antiquity. Come for the indeterminate religiosity, stay for the esoteric Orphic lore.
Part I of a discussion of Evagrius of Pontus – ascetic, philosopher, developer of Origen's thought, and mystical writer – with Joel Kalvesmaki. In this episode we cover the life and work of the great sage, in particular his ‘gnostic trilogy’, and discuss the ‘Second Origenist Controversy’ which would decide the fate of his opinions vis à vis Orthodoxy in the sixth century.
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.
We talk about theurgy: what, where, when, and, indeed, how? It's more complicated than we thought. Come for the Chaldæan Oracles, stay for the Technical Brutal Death Metal.
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.
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