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

The text known as 1 Enoch is perhaps the greatest work of apocalyptic literature, and a kind of esoteric scripture withi... Read more

Professor Wouter J. Hanegraaff, head of the Centre for the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents at the Un... Read more

We speak with papyrologist Korshi Dosoo about the history, interpretation, and makeup of the body of documents known now... Read more

Judaism starts to get seriously esoteric in the time known as the Second Temple period. This episode gives some basic hi... Read more

The Phædo depicts Socrates' final hours, spent in philosophical discussion with his circle of friends. Socrates argues t... Read more

Building on our previous episode, where we introduced 'Middle Platonism', in this interview we investigate the middle Pl... Read more

Apollonius of Tyana was a first-century wandering philosopher-sage, famous in later tradition as a great Pythagorean and... Read more

We continue our survey of the history of western esotericism, from the medieval era to modern times. More esoteric cockt... Read more

When looking for esoteric wisdom in a text, you need esoteric hermeneutics to find it. We discuss ancient techniques of ... Read more

We explore the philosophy of Numenius, in which we see the stirrings of a new type of apophatic discourse of transcenden... Read more

We introduce Christianity. Just how did this movement get started in the first place? The crazy thing is, no one knows.

Professor Michael Williams leads us on a tour of ‘Gnosticism’, both as a term (used and misused by ancient heresiologist... Read more

In this episode we explore further the amazing work 1 Enoch, taking in along the way ruminations on the history of the w... Read more

The historical journey from a holy man specialising in soul-manipulation to a fertile philosophic movement innovating in... Read more

The idea of an inner self, a soul, arises more or less simultaneously in Greece and India in the sixth century BCE. Why?... Read more

Pythagoras of Samos is revered in the western esoteric traditions as the founder of mathematical mysteries, the discover... Read more

The Jews and Judaism are at the very core of western cuture and of western esotericism. This episode touches on the hist... Read more

So what is magic, anyway? If you think the way magic works is mysterious and occult, try defining what the word ‘magic’ ... Read more

Before there was the high magic of the western esoteric tradition, there was good old pre-western magic. Daniel Ogden, a... Read more

In this episode Professor John J. Collins introduces a fascinating product of Second Temple Judaism, and a fertile vehic... Read more