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

We enter the interconnected webwork of a reality where signs are things, things are signs, and everything means everything, but appropriately. Come for the visionary semiotics, stay for the occult sigils.

We look further into Proclus' esoteric doings, as a sage whose privileged status is marked by inspirations and epiphanies, omens and miracles. We then attempt a (shamefully oversimplified) summary of some important aspects of his (meta)physics.

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 discuss Hierocles of Alexandria, strudent of Plutarch of Athens made good. He wrote an esoteric commentary on the poem known as the Golden Verses of the Pythagoreans. The poem is full of good advice and the Commentary tells us a lot about the nature and purification of the luminous subtle body.

We turn to the final flowering of polytheist Platonist philosophy, centred on Athens (and Alexandria). We review some useful historical data, discuss the history of ‘the Academy’ as a notional ‘school’ in antiquity, and introduce Plutarch of Athens and Syrianus, teachers of the great Proclus.

We discuss Martianus Capella and his extraordinary and vexing philological ascent-account, the Marriage of Philology and Mercury. Ↄ. Martiana guides us through a geocentric kosmos where liberal arts are planetary spheres, gods are physical elements, the planets are daimones, but absolutely nothing is as it seems.