Ancient Futures

Jan 29 2025 51 ep. 33 mins 12

Ancient Futures Podcast artwork

Timeless wisdom for modern dilemmas, combining yoga philosophy, practical insight and critical thinking. Hosted by Daniel Simpson.

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Historical Prediction – Michelle Aroney

Jan 29 2025 63 mins

How do people cope with uncertainty? What differentiates ways of predicting the future from scientific study of patterns – be that in epidemiology or forecasting weather? Might techniques of divination reveal as much about the past and the present as what happens next?Michelle Aroney is a historian at Magdalen College, Oxford, and co-curator – with David Zeitlyn – of an exhib

Catastrophe Ethics – Travis Rieder

Jan 15 2025 68 mins

How can we address global problems – such as catastrophic climate change – when individual actions make very little difference? What’s the right thing to do when there aren’t easy answers? Is it wrong to do nothing? Is everything relative, or are there better ways to think about solutions?As Travis Rieder writes in Catastrophe Ethics, we need our own frameworks for making d

Who Am I? – Robert Rowland Smith

Jan 01 2025 60 mins

What does it mean to be human, and how can one access one’s innermost self? Robert Rowland Smith writes popular books about practical philosophy, including a memoir that discusses what he’s learned from his relationships – as well as a career as an Oxford don, a strategic adviser and a personal coach, among other things…Our conversation explores the extent to which people c

Slowing Down – Elliot Cohen

Dec 18 2024 65 mins

"What are we doing wrong that requires us all to be so resilient so often?” That’s the basic question that frames a new book by Elliot Cohen. The Psychology of Slow Living investigates ways to avoid being frazzled by a culture of urgency fuelled by quests for instant gratification via digital technology and overconsumption.Drawing on ideas from Buddhist, Hindu, Daoist and Jewis

Why History Matters – Philipp Maas

Dec 04 2024 68 mins

N.B. for more on this topic, see this article.What if the text known as the Yoga Sūtra never existed – at least not to start with? Philipp Maas is a scholar of Patañjali’s yoga, whose work suggests its teachings were originally transmitted as part of a larger philosophical text with explanations.We discuss how this accompanying commentary (bhāṣya) interprets the sūtras, a

Lost in Translation – Dorothy Figueira

Nov 19 2024 64 mins

What do Heinrich Himmler and Mohandas Gandhi have in common? Both were inspired by the Bhagavad Gītā. As Dorothy Figueira explains, what they found in it were mental projections. So Gandhi saw promotion of non-violence, while Himmler thought it justified killing for an avatar of God called Adolf Hitler.These interpretations – among many others – are the subject of Dorothy’s

Disaster Nationalism – Richard Seymour

Nov 05 2024 104 mins

A shift in focus for the podcast this week to discuss a new book by Richard Seymour. Subtitled “The Downfall of Liberal Civilization”, Disaster Nationalism investigates “a struggle for our collective soul”, along with the psychology of far-right movements.As Richard warns, these can take many forms – including the perversion of liberal and leftist agendas into authoritari

Life and Breath – Isabel Tew

Oct 22 2024 29 mins

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.comIs prāṇāyāma the same thing as breath-work? Both labels are commonly used to teach similar techniques. They’re also increasingly hard to distinguish, because of ongoing changes in methods and objectives. This conversation with Isabel Tew examines the overlaps as well as distinctions betw

Yogic Flashbacks – Daniel Simpson

Oct 09 2024 31 mins

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.comThis is a different sort of podcast, featuring interviews I did half my life ago. I originally planned to make a radio documentary, but the audio wound up on MiniDiscs gathering dust.In 2001, I was a foreign correspondent searching for answers. I hoped I might find some in India at the world’

From Me to We – Thomas Legrand

Sep 24 2024 30 mins

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.comWhat might it look like to live in a world that combines ancient wisdom with newer ideas about sustainable development? In his recent book Politics of Being, the social scientist Thomas Legrand explores the potential for shifts in perspective that could help us to face converging challenges.At