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

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

Exploring the forgotten and rejected story of Western thought

  1. 14 MAR

    Introducing the Qur’ān, Part I: Revelation, Text, and History

    We cover some basic territory in introducing the Qur'ān, the holiest text of Islām. We introduce the text, discuss the traditional story of the Qur'ān's revelation, the modern text-critical enterprise of Qur'anic studies, and try to pin down the elusive character of this book-that-is-not-a-book.

    57 min

  2. 7 FEB

    Fred Donner on the History of Early Islām

    We discuss what little we know and how much we don't know about the nature of the early ‘Believers' movement’, the nature and origins of the Qur'ān, the curious case of the so-called Constitution of Medinah, and what went on during the earliest decades of the Arab conquests. Fred Donner is our guide into unknown territory.

    54 min

  3. 21 JAN

    Matthew Melvin-Koushki on Islam, ‘the West’, and Western Esotericism

    We welcome Matthew Melvin-Koushki back to the show to discuss how we might improve our historical picture of western esotericism by including the vast majority of the surviving historical dossier of western esotericism. There's only one problem: in order to do this, we need to embrace the Islamicate world as a major part of the west.

    1h 4m

  4. 3 JAN

    Introducing Islām

    With Episode 200 the SHWEP has reached a milestone of sorts. We are in the seventh century, and the world-order suddenly changes irrevocably as a new political force arises from Arabia: the Believers. We discuss three main respects in which the history of Islam is the history of western esotericism.

    1h 13m

  5. 25/12/2024

    Paul Pasquesi on the Book of the Holy Hierotheos

    We discuss one of the lesser-known, but most esoterically-important, classics of Syriac spiritual literature, the Book of the Holy Hierotheos. Hierotheos was said to have been the teacher of Dionysius the Areopagite, but he wrote in Syriac, and taught a suspiciously-Evagrian practice of ascent to god.

    58 min

  6. 22/12/2024

    The Pseudo-Dionysios, the Esoteric, and (Christian) Mysticism

    We turn to the questions: What is ‘mystical’ in the Corpus Dionysiacum? What is esoteric? The answers we come up with involve pretty much every aspect of the western esoteric traditions, and, after all the initiatory liturgy, esoteric scriptural hermeneutics, and theandric activity are cleared away, there remains the ascent to ‘the ray of the divine shadow’.

    1h 6m

  7. 18/12/2024

    Naming Divine Nothingness: Introducing the Pseudo-Dionysios

    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.

    1h 9m

  8. 22/10/2024

    One Empire, Many Names: Reading “Byzantium” with Anthony Kaldellis

    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.

    1h 22m
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Exploring the forgotten and rejected story of Western thought

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