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

Episodi

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  Three Ancient Sages: On East Roman Magical Books 13.05.2026 55min

  Looking through the lens provided by three central figures of the western esoteric tradition -- Hermes Trismegistus, Apollonios of Tyana, and King Solomon -- we discuss three important East Roman magical books whose influence echoes from the end of late antiquity until the present day.
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  Gerasimos Merianos on East Roman Alchemy in Late Antiquity and Beyond, Part II 01.04.2026 38min

  We delve further into the laboratories, workshops, and even state coffers of East Rome with Gerasimos Merianos. East Roman alchemy becomes mathematised. The parameters of alchemical secrecy change. We encounter our first alchemical con-men. And Michæl Psellos showcases his ability to see which way the wind is blowing, this time in the realm of high-stakes alchemical politics.
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  Gerasimos Merianos on East Roman Alchemy in Late Antiquity and Beyond, Part I 25.03.2026 45min

  In Part I of a two-parter we explore the contours of East Roman alchemy from the seventh century onward. Gerasimos Merianos is our guide to the many and varied authors writing in the alchemical genre aside from (but including) the great Stephanos. The roots of the western alchemical tradition lie in the east.
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  The Horoscope of Islām and The Alchemical Stone: Maria Papathanassiou on Stephanos of Alexandria, Part II 04.03.2026 32min

  In Part II we explore two of Stephanos' works: the astrological piece entitled Apotelesmatikē pragmateia, with its katarchic ‘Horoscope of Islam’, and his influential, vexing, and beautiful alchemical work, On the Great and Holy Art of Gold-Making.
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  Philosophy and Occult Sciences at Constantinople: Maria Papathanassiou on Stephanos of Alexandria, Part I 25.02.2026 41min

  We speak with Maria Papathanassiou about Stephanos of Alexandria: the last known Platonist/Aristotelean philosopher trained at Alexandria, a politically-connected courtier at Herakleios' Constantinople, a Christian, an astrologer, an alchemist, and more.
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  Esoteric Orthodoxy in East Rome: Jonathan Greig on Maximus the Confessor 07.12.2025 1h 12min

  We head back to Constantionple with Jonathan Greig at the controls, to discuss the quintessentially Orthodox mystic, Maximus the Confessor. Late-Platonist apophasis meets hard-core ascesis, and Maximus follows the theology where it wants to go, sometimes to his own cost.
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  Introducing the Apocalypse of the Pseudo-Methodios, with Christopher Bonura 26.10.2025 1h 11min

  Christopher Bonura introduces us to the Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodios, a seventh-century Syriac prophetic universal history. Come for the Arab conquests reflected in Christian revelation, stay for the apocalyptic Roman emperor.
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  Jewish Apocalypse in the Seventh Century: Martha Himmelfarb on the Sefer Zerubbabel 27.09.2025 47min

  In this interview we explore a crucial document of seventh-century Judaism: the Sefer Zerubbabel, an apocalyptic ‘future history’ allegedly written in the past. The Temple will descend, the evil Armilus (son of Satan and a statue) will wreak havok, and two messiahs will arise to redeem Israel.
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  Touraj Daryaee on Zoroastrianism in the Seventh Century and Beyond 13.09.2025 43min

  With the Arab conquest of Sasanian Persia, a new religion enters the west. Once the great religious Other to the Græco-Roman world, the Zoroastrians are now part of the story of western esotericism. We explore their extraordinary religion with Touraj Daryaee.
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  Ahab Bdaiwi on the Rise of Shī‘ī Esotericism 25.07.2025 29min

  In Part I we looked at the political events leading up to the formation of the Shi'a. In Part II we see that it did not take long for things to get very esoteric. Come for the programmatic esoteric hermeneutics, stay for the occult sciences.
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  Ahab Bdaiwi on ‘Alī ibn Abī Ṭālib, his Family, and the Origins of Shī‘ī Islam 18.07.2025 38min

  We pick up from our last episode, where geopolitics and esotericism met in the crucible of Roman, Sassanian, and Arab political struggles. Ahab Bdaiwi threads the labyrinth of the earliest historical sources for the birth of the movement within Islām which came to be known as the Party of ‘Alī, or the Shi‘ā.
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  Seventh-Century History for Students of Western Esotericism 13.05.2025 55min

  We return to the history of late antiquity in the eastern Mediterranean and central Asia. Momentous events occur, empires rise and fall, and Jews, Christians, and Muslims all suddenly develop new apocalyptic notions. Come for the dry historical exposition, stay for the esoteric divine kingship.
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  Introducing the Qur’an Part III: Qur’ānic Texts vs. the Qur’ān 02.05.2025 55min

  We discuss some of the history of how the Qur'ān came to be ‘the Book’: it started in the oral milieu of the high-octane early Believers' movement, and ended up in written form as something called the ‘Uthmanic recension. Many esoteric things happen along the way.
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  Introducing the Qur’ān, Part II: Ambiguity and Esoteric Themes 18.04.2025 1h 11min

  We begin to explore the esoteric side of the Qur'ān, examining several case-studies in terms of ambiguity and esoteric themes. It turns out that every letter of the Qur'ān is an esoteric text.
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  Introducing the Qur’ān, Part I: Revelation, Text, and History 14.03.2025 57min

  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.
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  Fred Donner on the History of Early Islām 07.02.2025 53min

  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.
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  Matthew Melvin-Koushki on Islam, ‘the West’, and Western Esotericism 21.01.2025 1h 4min

  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.
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  Introducing Islām 03.01.2025 1h 13min

  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.
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  Paul Pasquesi on the Book of the Holy Hierotheos 25.12.2024 57min

  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.
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  The Pseudo-Dionysios, the Esoteric, and (Christian) Mysticism 22.12.2024 1h 6min

  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’.