Oddcast episodes – The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast (SHWEP)

Oct 29 2024 31 ep. 53 mins 448

Oddcast episodes – The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast (SHWEP) artwork

Exploring the forgotten and rejected story of Western thought

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Judith Noble on Magic and Artistic Practice

Oct 29 2024 59 mins

We explore the intersections of fine art practice and magic with artistic practitioner Judith Noble. Tricksterish subversion as standard.

Levan Gigineishvili on Ioane Petritsi and the Mediæval Georgian Proclus-Reception

Jul 10 2024 65 mins

We discuss the work of Ioane Petritsi (eleventh to twelfth centuries), a Georgian intellectual whose translation of, and commentary on, the Elements of Theology of Proclus is a historical anomaly in a number of ways. It turns out that everything in Proclus' metaphysics – even the henads – could and did make it through into a Christian work in twelfth-century Georgia. Come for t

Jonathan Greig on the East Roman Proclus Reception, Sixth to Fifteenth Centuries

Jul 02 2024 57 mins

We discuss the long, convoluted, and often tendentious reception of Proclus and Proclean ideas in the eastern Roman empire. From late-antique debates about the nature of being and participation, through medieval reappropriations of philosophy, through to the radical debates of Plethon and Scholarios in the final days of the empire, Proclus emerges as a curiously-persistent figure o

Sørina Higgins on Modernist Drama and Ceremonial Magic

Apr 30 2024 63 mins

We discuss the Occult in Modernist drama with Sørina Higgins. Yeats, Waite, Williams, Crowley, and a cast of supporting characters appear on the stage. The line between ceremonial magic and dramatic performance gets a thorough rinsing.

Peter Adamson on the Arabic Proclus

Apr 13 2024 58 mins

We discuss the translation, adaptation, and evolution of Proclus' Elements of Theology into and through the Arabic and Latin thought-worlds with Peter Adamson. Come for the monotheist Proclus who is Aristotle, stay for the digression on Plethon.

Alireza Doostdar on ‘Metaphysical Religion’ in Contemporary Iran

Feb 02 2024 58 mins

We speak with Alireza Doostdar on his field-research exploring alternative forms of spirituality in Iran. Come for the new-age exorcisms, stay for the the true spiritual significance of The Exorcist.

Karin Valis on Magic and Artificial Intelligence

Nov 08 2023 64 mins

In our second A House with Many Rooms interview, we discuss the intersections between AI and magic with machine learning engineer Karin Valis. Come for the divination, ensouled statues, golems, homonculi, and alphanumeric cosmology, stay for the techno-magical intervention at the end.

Noah Gardiner on the Pseudo-Bunian Shams al-maʿārif al-kubrā and the Corpus Bunianum

Sep 05 2023 31 mins

We discuss arguably the greatest magical book of the Islamicate tradition, the Shams al-maʿārif al-kubrā or Great Sun of Knowledge. Turns out it isn't by al-Būnī as everyone thought, though there is some Būnī in there; but it has so much to tell us about Islamicate culture, Sufism, and the ‘project of forgetting’ of esoteric Islām among both Muslims and scholars.

Noah Gardiner on Aḥmad al-Būnī and Islamicate Lettrism

Aug 23 2023 57 mins

We introduce Aḥmad al-Būnī, master sūfī and alphanumeric speculator, but most famous in the Islamicate world as an authority on magic. We sift the wheat from the chaff and get to the bottom of who al-Būnī was, what he really wrote, and what kind of reception he has had, both within and outside of Islam.

Morwenna Ludlow on Universal Salvation in Christianity

Jul 05 2023 50 mins

We discuss universal salvation, a perennial idea within Christianity – that all of humanity, or maybe even everything in the universe, will be saved through Christ's salvific atonement – with Morwenna Ludlow of the University of Exeter. Starting from Clement of Alexandria and ending with the current state of play in sometimes-unlikely Christian circles, we explore the long hist