Ancient Futures

Apr 09 2025 56 ep. 33 mins 16
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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  Society & Culture  Religion & Spirituality
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Identity Crises – Michael Holden

Apr 09 2025 68 mins  
Life can be both physically and mentally fragile – as Michael Holden explores with candid humour. His most recent book, The Reluctant Carer, describes moving in with his ailing parents, and trying to look after them while navigating multiple personal setbacks.One of these – not featured in the book – involved being handcuffed and taken to hospital from a meditation retreat. H

Spiritual Cannabliss? – Karan Madhok

Mar 26 2025 70 mins  
What makes it holy to get really stoned? This is an unavoidable question in India, where smoking cannabis is banned but done by dreadlocked devotees. Meanwhile, weed smoothies are frequently drunk at religious festivals.The writer Karan Madhok investigates this paradox – along with many others – in his new book Ananda, subtitled “An Exploration of Cannabis in India”. It als

Yoga for Adults – Paul Bramadat

Mar 12 2025 99 mins  
What if the most important yogic posture was curiosity? That’s how Paul Bramadat, a scholar and practitioner, approaches research on a personal passion. He describes his new book Yogalands as “a skeptical but devoted insider’s perspective” on postural yoga and its place in the world.As we discuss, this involves nuanced thinking on its practical benefits, the role of religio

The Rest is Poetry – Lindsey Hilsum

Feb 25 2025 60 mins  
Are there limits to what can be said in factual prose? Might poets sometimes do a better job of conveying deeper meaning and emotional truth? Lindsey Hilsum has reported on conflicts for more than 30 years. Her latest book, I Brought the War with Me, juxtaposes poetry with frontline experiences.Our conversation explores her reflections on a wide range of topics, including:* Why poe

Political Yoga – Sunila Kalé and Christian Lee Novetzke

Feb 12 2025 67 mins  
How closely connected are yoga and politics? Many people today try to keep them apart, but an ancient tradition sees yoga as politics. Although its theories might be distinct from yogic philosophies and mind-body disciplines, they’re nonetheless part of a broader understanding of what yoga means.A new book called The Yoga of Power, by Sunila Kalé and Christian Lee Novetzke, unpa

Historical Prediction – Michelle Pfeffer

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 Pfeffer (formerly Aroney) is a historian at Magdalen College, Oxford, and co-curator – with David Zeit

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 34 mins  
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.comWhat 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 pe

Slowing Down – Elliot Cohen

Dec 18 2024 30 mins  
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.com"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 digit

Why History Matters – Philipp Maas

Dec 04 2024 31 mins  
This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit ancientfutures.substack.comN.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 expla