Oddcast episodes – The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast (SHWEP)
Episodes
Krista Muratore on the Countercultural Antichrist
06 May 2026
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode we discuss the figure of the Antichrist as he appears in a number of countercultural movements, notably the Christianities of Böhme a...
Crossing Over to the Unseen: Yousef Casewit on Ibn Barrajān
24 Apr 2026
Contributed by Lukas
We are joined by Yousef Casewit to discuss one of the lesser-known spiritual masters of the Andalusian tradition, Ibn Barrajān. We explore his life, ...
Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm on James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, and Western Esotericism
12 Nov 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jason Josephson-Storm returns to the SHWEP to discuss one of the most influential thinkers on modern western esoteric movements – Sir James George F...
Daniel Harms on the People and Books Behind Early-Modern Fairy-Magic
08 Oct 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Having laid out fairy-magic as a genre, and discussing some of its characteristics, we are delighted to speak with Daniel Harms about the people and s...
Samuel Gillis Hogan on Fairies in English Ritual Magic and Occult Philosophy, 1400-1700
30 Jul 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Did you know that there is a whole practical and occult-philosophic corpus dealing with the summoning and controlling of faeries? Samuel Gillis Hogan ...
Alan Moore on Magic
20 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Say no more.
Coming Back for More, Part XI: Håkon Fiane Teigen on Manichæan Reincarnation
14 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Manichæism had a very distinctive eschatological theory. Join us as Håkon Fiane Teigen leads us down the Three Paths trod by the Manichæan dead: on...
Coming Back for More, Part X: Joel Kalvesmaki on Origenism, Evagrios, and the Spectre of Christian Transmigrationism
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Part II of our interview with Joel Kalvesmaki we explore the evidence for what really went on at the Second Council of Constantinople, its ‘anti-...
Coming Back for More, Part IX: Joel Kalvesmaki on Evagrios of Pontos and the Transfer of Bodies
12 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We are delighted to welcome Joel Kalvesmaki back to the SHWEP for an epic two-part third round. In Part I we discuss intriguing passages in Evagrios o...
Coming Back for More, Part VIII: Jonathan Young on Origen of Alexandria
11 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathan Young is our guide into the tantalising evidence as to Origen of Alexandria's reincarnation-teaching. Expect almost-certainties, lacunæ in t...
Coming Back for More, Part VII: Reincarnation in Early Christianity
10 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Part VII we explore our earliest evidence for Christian reincarnationism: we try to get a picture of the first four centuries, starting with SImon ...
Coming Back for More, Part VI: The Roots of Christian Reincarnationism
09 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We set the stage for a detailed consideration of the evidence for early Christian reincarnationism. Featuring the Bible.
Coming Back for More, Part V: Sami Yli-Karjanmaa on Reincarnation in Philo and Josephus
08 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We dive deeper into the evidence for Jewish reincarnation around the time of the Temple's destruction with Sami Yli-Karjanmaa, who has done the work. ...
Coming Back for More, Part IV: Reincarnation in Antique Judaism
07 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Moving on from the theories of the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and related folks, we turn ion this episode to the question of Jewish reincarnation in an...
Coming Back for More, Part III: Platonism and Reincarnation
06 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
Having reviewed the roots of reincarnationism in the west, we move forward in time, looking at the Hellenistic and especially the imperial man eras. W...
Coming Back for More, Part II: Platonic Reincarnation
05 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Part II we discuss the reincarnational mythoi and logoi found in Plato's dialogues. These are, in many important ways, the foundational documents o...
Coming Back for More: The Secret History of Reincarnation in the West, Part I: Pythagoras and the Orphics
04 Jun 2025
Contributed by Lukas
In Part I of a thematic series, we begin to explore the long secret history of reincarnation in the west. In this episode we consider our earliest evi...
James Russell on the Hypnerotomachia in Esoteric Tradition
07 May 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We penetrate further into the dream-labyrinth of the Hypnerotomachia with James Russell, exploring the book's many early readers. These include a pope...
The Strife of Love in a Dream: James O’Neill Introduces the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili
23 Apr 2025
Contributed by Lukas
We introduce one of the strangest and most nigglingly-intriguing esoteric books of the Italian Renaissance, the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili. James O'Nei...
Charles Stang and Jason Josephson-Storm on Theosophy and the Study of Religions
08 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
What if the scientific study of religions, a.k.a. Comparative Religions, History of Religions, and so forth – the academic discipline wherein the ac...
Sebastián Moro Tornese on Anagogic Music in Ancient Platonism
27 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Music was seen as a crucial tool for the elevation and transformation of the human soul in ancient esoteric philosophy from Pythagoras to Olympiodorus...
Michæl Griffin on the Virtues in Ancient Platonism: Painters, Dancers, and Godlike Sages
06 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In the first of a short series of synoptic episodes looking at the esoteric in ancient Platonism as a whole, we approach the scale of virtues, the lad...
Judith Noble on Magic and Artistic Practice
30 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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
10 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the work of Ioane Petritsi (eleventh to twelfth centuries), a Georgian intellectual whose translation of, and commentary on, the Elements o...
Jonathan Greig on the East Roman Proclus Reception, Sixth to Fifteenth Centuries
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the long, convoluted, and often tendentious reception of Proclus and Proclean ideas in the eastern Roman empire. From late-antique debates ...
Peter Adamson on the Arabic Proclus
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the translation, adaptation, and evolution of Proclus' Elements of Theology into and through the Arabic and Latin thought-worlds with Peter...
Sørina Higgins on Modernist Drama and Ceremonial Magic
30 Apr 2024
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the Occult in Modernist drama with Sørina Higgins. Yeats, Waite, Williams, Crowley, and a cast of supporting characters appear on the stag...
Alireza Doostdar on ‘Metaphysical Religion’ in Contemporary Iran
02 Feb 2024
Contributed by Lukas
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...
Karin Valis on Magic and Artificial Intelligence
08 Nov 2023
Contributed by Lukas
In our second A House with Many Rooms interview, we discuss the intersections between AI and magic with machine learning engineer Karin Valis. Come fo...
Noah Gardiner on the Pseudo-Bunian Shams al-maʿārif al-kubrā and the Corpus Bunianum
05 Sep 2023
Contributed by Lukas
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 is...
Noah Gardiner on Aḥmad al-Būnī and Islamicate Lettrism
23 Aug 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We introduce Aḥmad al-Būnī, master sūfī and alphanumeric speculator, but most famous in the Islamicate world as an authority on magic. We sift t...
Morwenna Ludlow on Universal Salvation in Christianity
05 Jul 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss universal salvation, a perennial idea within Christianity – that all of humanity, or maybe even everything in the universe, will be saved...
Jason Josephson Storm on the Myth of Disenchantment
15 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the widespread idea of the ‘disenchantment’ of the modern world – the idea that ‘we don't believe in magic any more’ – with Jas...
Magic, Technology, Art, and Enlightenment: Gillian McIver on Philippe-Jacques de Loutherbourgh
08 Feb 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss Philippe-Jacques (or ‘Philip James’) de Loutherbourgh, accomplished eighteenth-century painter, polyglot socialite, alchemist, Occultis...
Ferdinando Buscema on Magic, Illusion, and the Question of a Reality
04 Jan 2023
Contributed by Lukas
We speak about illusion, magic, and reality with magical experience designer Ferdinando Buscema. He can make stuff disappear, find your card anywhere ...
Tzvi Langermann on the Sefer Yetsira: Cosmology, Science, and Kabbala
16 Nov 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the extraordinary reception-history of the extraordinary text known as Sefer Yetsirah, the ‘Book of Formation‘. The Sefer Yetsirah woul...
Bojana Radovanović on the Bogomils
27 Jul 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We speak with Dr Bojana Radovanović on the Bogomils, a widespread Christian ‘heresy’ – dualist, demiurgic, docetist, ascetic, and esoterically-...
Juan Acevedo on Alphanumeric Cosmology
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
One of the most fundamental and intriguing questions in the philosophy of language is that of the relation between signs and the realities they signif...
Dylan Burns on the Birth of Free Will in Late Antiquity
10 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Is ‘free will’ a given, a constant of the human condition? It might seem that way, but as Dylan Burns argues in this interview, the idea that huma...
Dylan Burns on Providence, Fate, and Dualism in Antiquity
03 Nov 2021
Contributed by Lukas
In Part I of a two-part series, we interview Dr Dylan Burns of the Universiteit van Amsterdam on the subjects of providence and fate in Greek philosop...
Gyrus on the Rise and Fall of the Polar Cosmos, Part II
11 Aug 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We continue our interview with Gyrus, starting from Copernicus' demolition of the polar cosmos and exploring the aftermath of this radical decentering...
Gyrus on the Rise and Fall of the Polar Cosmos, Part I
27 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We talk cosmology with Gyrus, a man who has looked deeply into the patterning of space across time and culture. Moving from ‘horizontal’, landscap...
John Dillon on Stephen MacKenna and Plotinus
21 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Professor Dillon returns to the SHWEP to talk about the life and times of Stephen MacKenna – Irish radical, Modernist literateur, amateur of the con...
Peter Grey on the Babalon and Antichrist Workings
07 Jul 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the magickal activities of Jack Parsons, (Marjorie) Cameron, and L. Ron Hubbard in 1940's California with Peter Grey. Rockets fly, yachts s...
Bink Hallum on ‘Magic Squares’
16 Jun 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss those ‘magic squares’ that we find in esoteric texts from Indonesia to London, curious grids of numbers often used as astral-magical ta...
Philosophising the Occult: Michael Noble on The Hidden Secret of Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī
19 May 2021
Contributed by Lukas
Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī was a Persian universal scholar and theologian, particularly well-known for his tafsīr or work of Qur'ānic interpretation, a...
Tatiana Bur on Living Statues, Then and Now
24 Mar 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We speak with an expert on the (religious) use of automata in the classical world, in an attempt to enter into the thought-world and technological pra...
Sasha Chaitow on Joséphin Péladan
10 Feb 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the life and work of Joséphin Péladan (1858-1918), art-critic, Occultist, playwright, and generally creative freak. Dr Sasha Chaitow is o...
Marina Alexandrova Introduces Madame Blavatsky
06 Jan 2021
Contributed by Lukas
We discuss the life and adventures of Yelena Petrovna Blavatskaya, co-founder of the Theosophical Society and one of the most (in)famous and influenti...
RAW! Erik Davis on Robert Anton Wilson (with Eddie Nix)
23 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We introduce Robert Anton Wilson under the guidance of Erik Davis, whose recent book High Weirdness is the most important fnord scholarly approach to ...
Allegra Baggio-Corradi on Niccolò Leonico Tomeo
21 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Allegra Baggio-Corradi of the Warburg Institute guides us through the life and thought of a leading figure of the forgotten esoteric Renaissance, the ...
Emily Selove on the Magical Book of al-Sakkākī
21 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
Emily Selove shares her current work on the fascinating Sirāj al-Dīn al-Sakkākī, well-known Arabic grammarian and little-known sorcerer. We discus...
Amy Hale on the Magical Life and Art of Ithell Colquhoun
21 Dec 2020
Contributed by Lukas
We speak with Amy Hale, anthropologist, folklorist, and writer of weird and wonderful pieces, on the life, art, and legacy of Ithell Colquhoun, one of...