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

Episódios

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  Astral Weeks. On the Planetary Order in the West 15.07.2026 52min

  In this episode we dive into the qualitative time propounded by western astrology. Following the trail of the planetary week, we are led to explore ancient gods, planetary orderings in antiquity, astrolatry, the planetary hours, and more.
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  Dorka Tamás on Sylvia Plath and the Supernatural 05.07.2026 40min

  We discuss the short life and extraordinary poetry of the American author Sylvia Plath. Dorka Tamás is our guide into the places where Plath's poetry, emerging from the `high disenchantment' of the American cold war era, strays into the magical fields where poets of all ages receive their inspiration. Featuring a cameo appearance from W. B. Yeats.
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  William Gallois on the Amuletic Qayrawān in the Colonial Era 22.05.2026 50min

  William Gallois was looking through hundreds of photographs of the city of Qayrawān, in modern-day Tunisia, from the period of French colonial occupation. He started to notice strange paintings in the backgrounds of these pictures ...
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  Krista Muratore on the Countercultural Antichrist 06.05.2026 1h 2min

  In this episode we discuss the figure of the Antichrist as he appears in a number of countercultural movements, notably the Christianities of Böhme and Blake. Krista Muratore is our guide to this troublous figure (who cannot figure out which side he's on) and his long career as a harbinger of the end of troubles. Come for the ancient apocalyptic literature, stay for the B-movies and AI-tycoons.
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  Crossing Over to the Unseen: Yousef Casewit on Ibn Barrajān 24.04.2026 1h 1min

  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, times, and writings, his extraordinary spiritual practice of ‘crossing over’ into the unseen, and his disquietingly-accurate prediction of the Muslim reconquest of Jerusalem.
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  Jason Ānanda Josephson-Storm on James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, and Western Esotericism 12.11.2025 50min

  Jason Josephson-Storm returns to the SHWEP to discuss one of the most influential thinkers on modern western esoteric movements – Sir James George Frazer, author of The Golden Bough – and where, precisely, J.G.F. might fit within western esotericism itself.
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  Daniel Harms on the People and Books Behind Early-Modern Fairy-Magic 08.10.2025 1h 1min

  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 social circumstances behind the texts and practices of fairy-magic.
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  Samuel Gillis Hogan on Fairies in English Ritual Magic and Occult Philosophy, 1400-1700 30.07.2025 52min

  Did you know that there is a whole practical and occult-philosophic corpus dealing with the summoning and controlling of faeries? Samuel Gillis Hogan tells us about his research in the archives of early-modern British faerie-magic.
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  Alan Moore on Magic 20.06.2025 49min

  Say no more.
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  Coming Back for More, Part XI: Håkon Fiane Teigen on Manichæan Reincarnation 14.06.2025 58min

  Manichæism had a very distinctive eschatological theory. Join us as Håkon Fiane Teigen leads us down the Three Paths trod by the Manichæan dead: one leading up to the heavens, one down to the hells, and a third back into incarnation again and again.
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  Coming Back for More, Part X: Joel Kalvesmaki on Origenism, Evagrios, and the Spectre of Christian Transmigrationism 12.06.2025 32min

  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-Origenism', and what might really have been going on as Orthodoxy tried to police its borders under Justinian.
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  Coming Back for More, Part IX: Joel Kalvesmaki on Evagrios of Pontos and the Transfer of Bodies 12.06.2025 31min

  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 of Pontos' Kephalaia Gnōsika which seem to pull in the direction of a doctrine of angelomorphic/daimonomorphic bodily transformation.
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  Coming Back for More, Part VIII: Jonathan Young on Origen of Alexandria 11.06.2025 1h 14min

  Jonathan Young is our guide into the tantalising evidence as to Origen of Alexandria's reincarnation-teaching. Expect almost-certainties, lacunæ in the evidence, and that kind of indeterminacy which seems to dog Origen's legacy through history.
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  Coming Back for More, Part VII: Reincarnation in Early Christianity 10.06.2025 48min

  We look at the evidence for reincarnationist ideas in the early Jesus-movement and into the fourth century, starting with Simon Magus (whose mistress Helen was the First Thought of god, trapped endlessly reincarnating in fleshly bodies) and finishing with Origen of Alexandria (who, if he didn't teach reincarnation, sure convinced a whole lot of people that he did). Featuring a cameo appearance from Paul of Tarsos, the world's best-known gnostic.
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  Coming Back for More, Part VI: The Roots of Christian Reincarnationism 09.06.2025 38min

  We set the stage for a detailed consideration of the evidence for early Christian reincarnationism. Featuring the Bible.
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  Coming Back for More, Part V: Sami Yli-Karjanmaa on Reincarnation in Philo and Josephus 08.06.2025 49min

  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. Philo of Alexandria and Josephus come under the metempsychotoscope.
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  Coming Back for More, Part IV: Reincarnation in Antique Judaism 07.06.2025 39min

  Moving on from the theories of the Pythagoreans, Platonists, and related folks, we turn in this episode to the question of Jewish reincarnation in antiquity. There doesn't seem to be any. And yet ....
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  Coming Back for More, Part III: Platonism and Reincarnation 06.06.2025 50min

  Having reviewed the roots of reincarnationism in the west, we move forward in time, looking at the Hellenistic and especially the imperial Roman eras. We then focus in on the inheritors of the Pythagorean/Platonic legacy, the Platonists.
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  Coming Back for More, Part II: Platonic Reincarnation 05.06.2025 1h 1min

  In Part II we discuss the reincarnational mythoi and logoi found in Plato's dialogues. These are, in many important ways, the foundational documents of western reincarnationism.
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  Coming Back for More: The Secret History of Reincarnation in the West, Part I: Pythagoras and the Orphics 04.06.2025 57min

  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 evidence, which clusters around two resonant names: Pythagoras and Orpheus.