Eccentric Circles

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Some periods, some cities give rise to ideas and circles of thinkers, that are both of the time and outside it. Machine Age London has had a deep legacy on all our lives - on matters as disparate as education, sex, drugs, yoga and rock ‘n’ roll.

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    Episode 14: Pub Post Mortem

    Stephanie and Fred head to the pub in Fitzrovia to carry out the post mortem on the series. Amongst other pressing matters, they ask how our subjects hold up against their more famous Bloomsbury contemporaries. How much should individuals be forgiven for being products of their time? And, is anyone too important to be cancelled? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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    Escape to the Future

    To wrap things up we return to conversations with several academics we heard from earlier.  We ask them why is it that our subjects are so much less known than their Bloomsbury Set contemporaries. We focus on the end of the Machine Age and its anticipation of the Space Age to come, and ask how our subjects fared in the run up to World War 2 when faced with a choice of mostly totalitarian futures. In particular, we return to the artist and writer Wyndham-Lewis and his short-lived sympathy… for Hitler. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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    Escape to the Past… or, Magic Bowmen and Scary Fairies

    Machen was a great influence on HP Lovecraft, and the development of the fantasy and horror genres. Stephen King is a fan.  There is a direct line from Machen's writing to Dungeons and Dragons, grail quests such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Game of Thrones.  Machen bemoaned modernity, the mechanised slaughter of the Great War and especially the dreary Church of England, which had lost all sense of magic. Instead he took refuge in the past, a fantastic and eternal realm of changelings, fairies and monstrous beings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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    Roadman

    Immensely talented and good looking, in the years leading up to the Great War Augustus John was a celebrity. London restaurants named dishes after him. But now he has faded into obscurity.  The man who might today have been as famous as Picasso was unable to live up to his artistic promise. Yet the bohemian lifestyle he led, his dress and commitment to non-conformity was his true great work and was hugely influential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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    Roman Road

    This time we eschew drugs and the occult, and instead focus on traditional christianity.  We take a look at two men whose faith was central to their being and work. They were the artists, Stanley Spencer and David Jones. Spencer was a painter, and Jones was an engraver, painter, printer, and poet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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    Yoga, Stars and Self.

    We round off our investigation into the ways the occult has impacted the present. Yoga was an “exotic” practice that percolated into the West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It re-emerged as a fringe New Age hippie craze, before becoming the global industry, valued at many billions of dollars, that it is today. These days yoga and  mindfulness are seen as central components of “self-care.” Yet it wasn’t long ago that the thought that our “selves” are unique and valuable and that we should express our special individuality, even in the face of  societal pressures, was itself radical, going against Victorian codes of morality, with their emphasis on control, repression, and duty.  But, as Aleister Crowley declared: “Every man and woman is a star.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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    Drugs... and Rock 'n' Roll

    The legal situation around drugs was very different in London at the turn of the 20th century from what it is now. Opium was a go-to painkiller. And cocaine and cannabis products were also very widely available. In 1896, London hosted its first hallucinogenic trip when Havelock Ellis boiled up some peyote buttons in his flat. For Bohemian London, the time was ripe for experimentation. Later on, drug taking became a less socially acceptable pastime. But that didn’t stop Aleister Crowley who relished the notoriety. He took every drug going and wrote about it. In so doing, he set the scene for the drug cultures that followed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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    Sex Magic

    Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare are partially responsible for the development of what is known as sex magic.  Crowley was, among other things, an occultist, an important figure in the propagation of yoga in the West, a conjurer of demons, and a heroin addict. He enjoyed a licentious, all encompassing sexuality. His law, “Do What Thou Wilt,” has arguably become the dominant way of seeing relationships between consenting adults today. Spare began his career as a child prodigy, an incredibly talented artist who as a teenager was exhibited in the Royal Academy. Yet he claimed to have been sexually initiated by a South London witch, a descendant of the Salem witch trials. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Some periods, some cities give rise to ideas and circles of thinkers, that are both of the time and outside it. Machine Age London has had a deep legacy on all our lives - on matters as disparate as education, sex, drugs, yoga and rock ‘n’ roll.

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    Eccentric Circles