Podcasts about Ancient Greece

On this episode of Thelema Now!, host Harper Feist speaks with Italian contemporary witch, Priestess, teacher, and archaeologist Giulia Turolla about witchcraft, ancient religion, and the often-misunderstood world of Ancient Greece. Giulia's work sits at the intersection of scholarship and magical practice. With a background in Classical Letters and Archaeology and Cultures of the Ancient World, she researches ancient magical and religious traditions while practicing witchcraft as an indigenous form of shamanism. Her approach explores the relationship between people, spirits, gods, place, and tradition—and how those connections can inform magical practice today. Harper and Giulia take a wide-ranging look at some of the common misconceptions surrounding Ancient Greek religion and mythology, separating modern assumptions from what historical and archaeological evidence can tell us about the religious and magical lives of ancient people. They also discuss Giulia's book, The Key to Ancient Greek Religion: A Source of Academic Knowledge for Practitioners, which brings contemporary academic research together with the needs of modern practitioners. The conversation explores how scholarship can deepen magical practice without reducing ancient traditions to modern stereotypes—and how practitioners can approach the Gods, spirits, magic, and religious practices of the ancient Mediterranean with greater context and understanding. A fascinating conversation about witchcraft, archaeology, ancient Greek religion, and the sometimes complicated relationship between historical research and modern magical practice. Visit her website at boscodiartemisia.academy/en/

Join Spencer for a deep dive into The Astrology of October 2026, finding meaning through an exploration of Decanic Tarot, Fixed Stars, and the I-Ching. . #astrology #decan #decans #tarot #divination #traditionalastrology #fixedstars #iching #spencermichaud #libra #scorpio #spookyseason #AstrologyofOctober #mythology . Visit Spencer: https://www.spencermichaud.com/ . Visit Third Coast Mojo: https://thirdcoastmojo.etsy.com . Decan Walk 26-27: https://www.spencermichaud.com/2026/09/registration-now-open-decan-walk-26-27.html . AstroMythography of Ancient Greece: https://www.spencermichaud.com/2026/09/new-class-series-astro-mythography.html . Finding value in these videos? Help Spencer keep creating content by buying him a coffee! Thank you for your support! :) . Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/spencermichaud . Venmo: @spencermichaud . PayPal Me: http://www.paypal.me/spencermichaud . Thank you for supporting your local astrologer! : ) . Book a reading / tutoring session: https://spencermichaudastrology.as.me/ . Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://www.spencermichaud.com/p/subscribe.html#.YC2Gu157lp8 . Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spencermichaud/ . Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/spencermichaud.bsky.social . Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/.../spencer.../id1498982837 . Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1BZBpFaFRUBeUVrdPtRZ5X?si=kuKimd0wSr66qCUAQ6rzNw . Soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/spencermichaudastrology . Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/spencermichaudastrology . https://youtu.be/qLPIna1Cu-4

Emperor Manuel II Palaiologos stands at the head of a dying empire, trapped behind the walls of Constantinople while Sultan Bayezid tightens his grip around the city. But the arrival of the legendary French knight Marshal Boucicaut gives the Romans one last chance to strike back. Together they take the war across the Bosphorus, raid the Ottoman coast, and finally bring an end to the bitter feud between Manuel and his nephew John VII. With Constantinople temporarily secure, Manuel makes an extraordinary decision: the Roman Emperor will leave his empire behind and travel personally into the West. From Venice and the courts of Italy to Paris and finally London, Manuel appeals directly to the kings of Europe for an army capable of saving Constantinople. He is welcomed with celebrations, gifts, promises, and all the ceremony befitting an emperor—but the soldiers never come. Then, just as Manuel begins to lose hope, astonishing news arrives from the East. Bayezid has abandoned the siege, marched into Anatolia, and confronted a conqueror even more terrifying than himself: Tamerlane.https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/byzantine-and-modern-greek-studies/article/abs/byzantine-grand-embassy-to-russia-in-1400/B1AD163E0D67F667C474BD6ED3C53044https://cappellarecords.com/assets/uploads/2022/12/753459828328_Booklet.pdfThe History of Modern Greece Podcast covers the events from Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, to the years under the Ottoman Empire, and 1821, when the Greeks fought for independence... all the way to the modern day.EMAIL US: historyofmoderngreece@gmail.comWebsite: www.moderngreecepodcast.comSOCIAL MEDIA: Go here to chat with us. https://www.instagram.com/historyofmodern%20greece/https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578023316172Music by Mark Jungerman: www.marcjungermann.com

Tonight on America At Night with McGraw Milhaven, Sultan Meghji, co-founder and CEO of Frontier Foundry, Senior Technical Expert at CSIS, and the FDIC's inaugural Chief Innovation Officer, examines whether the U.S. banking system is prepared for a post-quantum future. As quantum computing advances, financial institutions face new questions about cybersecurity, encryption, and protecting sensitive financial information. Then, author Stephen Talty joins McGraw to discuss The American School of Spies: The Archaeologists Who Fought the Nazis and Saved the Treasures of Ancient Greece. Talty reveals the remarkable story of archaeologists who became involved in espionage during World War II and worked to protect Greece's priceless cultural heritage from the Nazis. Two very different stories—but both explore the people working to protect something of enormous value, from America's financial infrastructure to the treasures of the ancient world. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Links For The Occult Rejectshttps://linktr.ee/theoccultrejectsOccult Research Institutehttps://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/Substackhttps://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-pageCash Apphttps://cash.app/$theoccultrejectsVenmo@TheOccultRejectsBuy Me A Coffeebuymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejectsPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejectsGreek and Roman Primary SourcesAristotle. Generation of Animals. Translated by A. L. Peck. Loeb Classical Library 366. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1942.Galen. On Semen. Edited and translated by Phillip De Lacy. Corpus Medicorum Graecorum V 3, 1–2. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1992.Galen. On the Usefulness of the Parts of the Body. Translated by Margaret Tallmadge May. 2 vols. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1968.Hippocrates. Generation, Nature of the Child, Diseases IV. Translated by Paul Potter. Loeb Classical Library 520. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012.Hippocrates. On the Seed and the Nature of the Child. In Hippocratic Writings, edited by G. E. R. Lloyd and translated by J. Chadwick and W. N. Mann. London: Penguin, 1978.Soranus. Soranus' Gynecology. Translated by Owsei Temkin. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956.Greek and Roman Medicine, Gender, and SexualityConnell, Sophia M. Aristotle on Female Animals: A Study of the Generation of Animals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016.Dean-Jones, Lesley. Women's Bodies in Classical Greek Science. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994.Flemming, Rebecca. Medicine and the Making of Roman Women: Gender, Nature, and Authority from Celsus to Galen. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.King, Helen. Hippocrates' Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece. London: Routledge, 1998.Laqueur, Thomas. Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1990.Lloyd, G. E. R. Science, Folklore and Ideology: Studies in the Life Sciences in Ancient Greece. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.Mattern, Susan P. The Prince of Medicine: Galen in the Roman Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.Nutton, Vivian. Ancient Medicine. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2013.Ayurveda, Kāma, and South Asian Sexual TraditionsDoniger, Wendy, and Sudhir Kakar, trans. Kamasutra. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.Flood, Gavin. The Tantric Body: The Secret Tradition of Hindu Religion. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006.Meulenbeld, G. Jan. A History of Indian Medical Literature. 5 vols. Groningen: Egbert Forsten, 1999–2002.Sanderson, Alexis. “The Śaiva Age: The Rise and Dominance of Śaivism during the Early Medieval Period.” In Genesis and Development of Tantrism, edited by Shingo Einoo, 41–350. Tokyo: Institute of Oriental Culture, University of Tokyo, 2009.White, David Gordon. Kiss of the Yoginī: “Tantric Sex” in Its South Asian Contexts. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003.White, David Gordon. The Alchemical Body: Siddha Traditions in Medieval India. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.Wujastyk, Dominik. The Roots of Ayurveda: Selections from Sanskrit Medical Writings. 3rd ed. London: Penguin, 2003.Chinese Medicine and Daoist CultivationDespeux, Catherine. Taoism and Self Knowledge: The Chart for the Cultivation of Perfection. Leiden: Brill, 2018.Furth, Charlotte. A Flourishing Yin: Gender in China's Medical History, 960–1665. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999.Kohn, Livia. Daoist Body Cultivation: Traditional Models and Contemporary Practices. Magdalena, NM: Three Pines Press, 2006.Lo, Vivienne. “The Influence of Nurturing Life Culture on the Development of Western Han Acumoxa Therapy.” In Innovation in Chinese Medicine, edited by Elisabeth Hsu, 19–50. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.Pregadio, Fabrizio, ed. The Encyclopedia of Taoism. 2 vols. London: Routledge, 2008.Schipper, Kristofer. The Taoist Body. Translated by Karen C. Duval. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.Wile, Douglas. Art of the Bedchamber: The Chinese Sexual Yoga Classics Including Women's Solo Meditation Texts. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.Comparative and Methodological StudiesFoucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Vol. 2, The Use of Pleasure. Translated by Robert Hurley. New York: Vintage Books, 1990.Hopwood, Nick, Rebecca Flemming, and Lauren Kassell, eds. Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E., and Mathew Kuefler, eds. The Cambridge World History of Sexualities. Vol. 2, Systems of Thought and Belief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball. 

Spencer discusses the Full Moon in Aries I, finding meaning through an exploration of Decanic Tarot, Fixed Stars, and the I-Ching. Registration for the Decan Walk 26-27 Session is now open, plus the NEW AstroMythography of Ancient Greece series! Check out our FREE Open House Previews of Decan Walk this Sat. 9/16 & AstroMythography Wed. 9/30. : ) . #astrology #decan #fullmoon #aries #libra #decans #decanwalk #tarot #astromythography #mythography #mythology #greekmythology #divination #traditionalastrology #36faces #36secrets #faces #fixedstars #divination #iching #spencermichaud . Decan Walk 26-27 Sign Up for Free Open House/Preview 9/19: https://spencermichaudastrology.as.me/decan-walk-open-house-9-19-26 . Register for Decan Walk 26-27: https://www.spencermichaud.com/2026/09/registration-now-open-decan-walk-26-27.html . AstroMythography of Ancient Greece Sign Up for Free Open House/Preview 9/30: https://spencermichaudastrology.as.me/astromythography-of-ancient-greece-open-house-9-30-26 . Register for AstroMythography: https://www.spencermichaud.com/2026/09/new-class-series-astro-mythography.html . Visit Spencer: https://www.spencermichaud.com/ . Visit Third Coast Mojo: https://thirdcoastmojo.etsy.com . Finding value in these videos? Help Spencer keep creating content by buying him a coffee! Thank you for your support! :) . Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/spencermichaud . Venmo: @spencermichaud . PayPal Me: http://www.paypal.me/spencermichaud . Thank you for supporting your local astrologer! : ) . Book a reading / tutoring session: https://spencermichaudastrology.as.me/ . Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://www.spencermichaud.com/p/subscribe.html#.YC2Gu157lp8 . Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spencermichaud/ . Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/spencermichaud.bsky.social . Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/.../spencer.../id1498982837 . Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1BZBpFaFRUBeUVrdPtRZ5X?si=kuKimd0wSr66qCUAQ6rzNw . Soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/spencermichaudastrology . Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/spencermichaudastrology . https://youtu.be/B5a4xZUsEYo

Explore the intersection of Ancient Greece and early ritual practices. We analyze the historical evidence behind these ceremonies.The podcast traces a path from the iconography of historical processions to the study of early spiritual traditions. By examining archaeological artifacts and contemporary accounts, we consider how specific substances may have influenced the religious experiences of the time. This inquiry bridges the gap between historical record and subjective interpretation.Our investigation into psychedelic history focuses on the possibility of ritualized botanical use as a catalyst for insight. We move through the evidence—from ancient imagery to modern scientific inquiry—to understand the nature of this mystical journey. This is for those interested in the cultural frameworks that have shaped human perception of the sacred throughout history.Subscribe for weekly explorations of the human mind and the traditions that shape our reality.If you enjoyed this episode, the best way to support the show is to subscribe, leave a rating or review, and share it with someone who might find it interesting. You can find new episodes, links, and more at robbcast.com. Just a quick note: this podcast is for informational and educational purposes only. Nothing here is medical advice, and exploring altered states always comes with real risks and responsibilities. Until next time — stay curious.

How can you teach yourself anything, even when it challenges the way you see the world? And how can you organise what you learn so it turns into books your readers will find? J. Daniel Sawyer shares his self-education toolkit after decades as a largely self-taught author. In the intro, Spotify for Authors has expanded AI-assisted creation of audiobooks [Spotify]; Who is Narrating the Future? [Publishing Perspectives; 9 ways AI will disrupt authors and publishing from 2019]; Author Voice, Creativity, and Building a Career as an Intuitive Author-Entrepreneur [How Women Write]; A fallow season [Systems and Soul]; How to Write, Publish, and Market Short Stories – Joanna Penn. Today's show is sponsored by Bookfunnel, the essential tool for your author business. Whether it's delivering your reader magnet, sending out advanced copies of your book, handing out ebooks at a conference, or fulfilling your digital sales to readers, BookFunnel does it all. Check it out at bookfunnel.com/thecreativepenn This show is also supported by my Patrons. Join my Community at Patreon.com/thecreativepenn J. Daniel Sawyer is the author of over 30 books across science fiction, fantasy, crime, short stories, and nonfiction, as well as being a podcaster and filmmaker. His latest book is Reclaiming Your Mind: An Autodidact's Bible. You can listen above or on your favorite podcast app or read the notes and links below. Here are the highlights and the full transcript is below. Show Notes What is an autodidact, and why school doesn't teach you how to learn How to triage information in a world of way too much How to recognise fear in your body and turn it into excitement for learning Sandboxing dangerous ideas so you can learn without threatening your worldview How to organise research and check quotes when writing nonfiction Why you should never publish a book dead You can find Dan at JDSawyer.net, and The Autodidact's Bible is out now on Kickstarter. Transcript of the interview with J. Daniel Sawyer Jo: J. Daniel Sawyer is the author of over 30 books across science fiction, fantasy, crime, short stories, and nonfiction, as well as being a podcaster and filmmaker. His latest book is Reclaiming Your Mind: An Autodidact's Bible. So welcome back to the show, Dan. Dan: Hello, Joanna. It's great to be back. Jo: Yes, indeed. You were only on the show a few months ago, which is rare I have somebody twice in the same year, so that is quite exciting. We talked about voice mastery last time, very different to the topic of today. But because we did talk a bit more about your background last time, we're going to jump straight into the book. So what is an autodidact, and why write a book on it? Dan: Well, an autodidact is someone who teaches themselves things rather than taking a course. It's not incompatible with being taught by others, of course, but there's a set of skills for being able to pick up new information, new disciplines, new hobbies, whatnot, that's really useful to have. I wrote the book because I was mentoring a friend's kid through high school. They weren't teaching her anything, and she was having a hell of a time figuring out how to get an education in a school that was just not interested in providing one. The process of the conversations over the course of a year forced me to surface all of the tools that I had developed, starting as a child, that allow me to pick up all of those disciplines you were talking about before, plus blacksmithing and academics and other stuff like that. While I have had access to a lot of amazing teachers in my life, I'm largely self-taught, and have become the world expert on a couple of topics as a result. I realised that the tools that you need to teach yourself and the tools that you get in school no longer overlap very much, at least in the US. The old style of classical education, and then the middling style of early school education, both gave you those tools so that when you left school, you were able to continue through the world growing. Nobody does that anymore, so I realised I needed to write a book about all this stuff while it was fresh in my mind, so I did. Jo: I love that. I don't know if it always was like that for some people, too. We all know now more about neurodivergence. Back in the day, when you and I went to school, that wasn't really talked about. It was like if you couldn't learn stuff in the way that it was thrust at you, then you were just dumb, maybe. Dan: Well, what you and I got in school was the very late end of the German model. The German model of education is what arose in the industrial era, and its job is to create good, obedient workers, not necessarily to create independent citizens who can think for themselves and who can move through a world that's changing and learn things. That kind of education came from an older tradition, but it wasn't well suited to pulling people out of the hinterlands and putting them in the factories in a way that they could understand what they were supposed to be doing. So the Germans developed a regimented system that was built around memorisation exclusively, rather than processing. Memorisation and repetition. Whereas a more classical approach would have you do memorisation as part of repetition, processing, evaluation, and creativity. So when you go to school, you get some of the toolkit you need, but not all of it. Jo: Yes, and then I think some people were just so bashed over the head with stuff that they didn't enjoy the process of learning, and maybe just moved away from it now. I want to come back on something you said there, that it didn't enable the independence, the thinking for yourself. We're living in this really weird time now where we're almost in a splintered world where you can find information on anything you want, but a lot of people are finding information, say, on TikTok or in AI-generated books with no rigorous fact-checking. So how can you think for yourself in a world where there's almost way too much now? Dan: Well, one of the most foundational skills of thinking is information triage. The world has always been full of unreliable information, if for no other reason than the state of the art in any given field at any given time is guaranteed to be about 80% wrong. So even if you're being very careful about only hewing to the most accepted body of facts, facts change over time, partly as we learn more and partly as the world changes underneath us. Thinking is different than knowing. Thinking is the ability to evaluate the information you're coming into contact with and figure out what's likely to be useful, and then to check yourself based on what you are more inclined to believe because of the way that you're made up emotionally. It's being able to curb your impulses with an error-checking layer so that you don't get sucked down into a very nasty rabbit hole, which everybody's prone to on one front or another. So that explains the how and why, but the what is things like knowing your basic logic, knowing the informal logical fallacies that everybody's prone to, things like the bandwagon fallacy. We're partly herd animals. We tend to want to join a group for protection and identity. So if we're in a group that believes a certain thing, we're likely to believe it out of fashion, which is great for group solidarity. It's not so great for actually knowing if what you think you know is correct. I've got a whole section of the book devoted to the top 30 or 40 most common informal reasoning fallacies. Knowing how to do basic critical reasoning is one of the things you have to do if you're going to be learning in a way that's useful to you. Then of course, there's another reasoning kit, which is the non-rational reasoning kit, which I also talk about. That's something that you and I as fiction authors use all the time. Jo: Explain more about that [non-rational reasoning kit] then, because people might not know what that is. Dan: All right. So rational reasoning involves logic. If X is true and Y is true, then Z must also be true. That's basic deduction. It basically lets you figure out what's implicit in the body of knowledge you already know. Then subsidiary to that is induction, which is, if X is true and Y is true, what might also be true that could explain X and Y? That's the scientific method. It's less reliable than deduction, but it actually grows your knowledge rather than just revealing it. Non-rational reasoning is things like reasoning through analogy, reasoning through metaphor, reasoning through intuition. These are all reasoning modes that allow you to bring something foreign into your understanding, or to deepen your understanding of something you're already familiar with, in a way that incorporates not just logical propositions, but also emotional truth and relational truth and things like that. Frequently it can generate things you can then subject to logical evaluation and pull new information about the world out of. A really good example of where this happens in science is in visionary experiences. The periodic table, for example, came out of someone's dream. Now, the fact he dreamed it doesn't mean it's true, but what happened while he was dreaming is he had a non-rational reasoning chain that brought him this vision, which he then brought out into the real world and started doing experiments on to see if it would work, and it did. Jo: In that case, yes, I can picture the periodic table, and I often see images of things that help me organise information. So that to me makes sense in terms of somebody who had certain amounts of knowledge, who had some kind of picture in their brain and then was able to prove that. I wanted to circle back. You were talking about critical things, rational things. You mentioned logic, and you did briefly mention emotion and intuition. Coming back to where we are at this point in history, so much emotion is being triggered through the media, whether that's social media or traditional media or whatever, that all of those logical, reasoned things can be almost triaged immediately by a big emotional response to something. So how can we understand that that emotional response perhaps has to be part of the triage? Dan: Well, simply by stating it outright. What you just said is exactly correct. I've got a model in the book where I talk about the difference between feelings and emotions. Feelings, in this model, are your interpretive layer. That's, I feel angry or sad or excited or depressed or whatnot. Those are your feelings. The emotions are the base physiological states that those feelings are laying over. So elevated heart rate, increased skin conductance, things like that are associated with any excitable state, like anger, sexual arousal, anticipation, fear, that kind of thing. Then depressed heart rate and whatnot, those are associated with depression, relaxation, and a whole bunch of other things. Learning to recognise the base physiological layer within yourself that's being stimulated allows you a certain amount of freedom about interpreting that base physiological state. That can help you separate your reaction to your own physiological state from your rational evaluation of what's going on around you. One of the things that our world runs on right now is fear, and there's reasons for this. If you read Edward Bernays' Propaganda, he lays it all out. Fear shifts your mind into a survival mode. You're less likely to take time to think through things. You're more likely to be easily steered because, as far as your physiology knows, there's an active threat to you, and you've got to take care of that. You've got to get away from it. If you stimulate fear in somebody, you can direct who they hate, who they love, who they trust. Very, very useful for anyone who wants to build a cult or sell a product or get elected. If you learn to recognise in yourself that the physiological state associated with fear is the same one associated with excitement over something new, then you can train yourself, to a certain extent, and it's a learned skill, to do an end run around the fear part and concentrate on the excitement. Then you can deal with whatever it is that's stimulating you in the way that you would a new piece of information, a new bit of learning, a new adventure. Instead of fear, which closes you down, adventure opens you up, and that's a much better state to engage in learning and exploration than fear is. Jo: When you said, “That opens you up,” this is exactly what I look for, what is expansive for me. I often reflect on this. When do I feel expansive, and when do I feel like I'm being reduced? When do I feel like I'm hunkered down? When I'm working with AI tools, I feel expansive, I feel more creative, I feel excited. I feel all these things where I just see so many possibilities, and the horizon is off out there in the distance. Yet I know other people, some people listening, will feel that that crushes them, that even mentioning it just makes them reduce into themselves and shrink because of fear, I guess. I also think that a lot of people are feeling those things because they haven't learnt enough perhaps. They are just responding to emotions. So how can we change those things so we're more open to learning? Dan: Well, one of the things you run into with creative types is we've all got something weird in our background that makes us do this. We're not just inclined to be creative, because you can meet welders and electricians who are very creative people. They just apply their creativity in a limited domain. People who go into the arts tend to be either people who grew up in incredibly open conditions, or people who grew up in incredibly closed conditions and had to fight against them. People who grow up in closed conditions and fight against them tend to be a little better at sticking around for the long haul of an arts career, which can be punishing financially and emotionally. One of the reasons they can stick around is that they had a lot of practice in sticking around through horrible situations when they were younger. So they're going to have a negative bias when they come up against things that they don't understand. If you have a negative bias with something you don't understand and it turns out to be wrong, you're not going to lose very much. But if you have a negative bias when you come up against something you understand and it turns out to be right, you're going to survive that thing. Whereas a more open person might just walk into the jaws of the shark, right? To change that and make your experience better, and give you access to all the advantages that the person who's got a more open temperament has, you've got to find a way to make it safe to experiment with the dangerous thing. For every dangerous thing, and probably for everyone who's encountering it, it's going to be a little bit different. With AI, people are worried about the market eroding to the point where nobody cares about human creativity anymore. In fact, my first publishable short story, which is called We Create Worlds, was actually about a novelist trying to outwrite the AI novels. It's become weird. Jo: What year did you write that in? Dan: That was in 1999. Jo: Awesome. Dan: It's still a great short story. I did do it in podcast form, which you can find on my website at jdsawyer.net, and it's also in ebook on Amazon, and it's part of the Sculpting God short story collection. But the fear is that humanity gets crowded out of the market in the face of the relentless onslaught of the machines. It's not a ridiculous fear, especially if you look at the history of artisanship. Everybody and their brother used to have an artisanal business, and now we've got machines that weave socks and make just about everything in our world. So people like me, who spend half my day every day in a blacksmith's forge making hooks that you could just make by machines way cheaper, are kinda crazy. But there's a market for that. Humans like things that were touched by other humans, as long as they can afford them or justify making a luxury. On the other hand, the people that adopt tools early and figure out how to make them work for them, those are usually the people that win at scale over the long haul. So, AI is coming for our jobs, guys, but you know what? You can keep it out of your creativity and build agents that help you deal with your scheduling and your bookkeeping and your marketing, all the other stuff that takes up your time as an author. Then instead of threatening your creativity, it gives you more space to be creative. Jo: So it's reframing things a lot of the time. Dan: A lot of the time, yes. Jo: I think that's true of everything. Reframing can help you learn. Reframing things can give you a reason to learn, I guess, when in the past, maybe at school, you hated learning… Dan: Yes. Jo: Now by reframing it into a reason why. Dan: That really helps, and it also helps the second big problem with learning, which is worldview threat. I think I open the book with an entire section on how worldviews work and how that limits us, and how we can't get away from them even though they limit us. Your worldview is the matrix through which you experience everything around you, and it's not a window, it's like a lens. It distorts everything, it filters everything, because it's the reflexive layer that helps you make sense of the world, and it's built out of your experience and inflected by your personality and other things like that. There are things you can learn, and for everyone it's going to be a little bit different, that threaten everything about your worldview. That's a problem, because your mind experiences your worldview not as an interpretive matrix, but as a survival tool. As far as your deep mind goes, your worldview is perfectly okay because you're still alive. Its job is to keep you alive. So if you learn something, or come close to learning something or thinking something that could unspool a big part of your worldview, you'll just emotionally go blank. You'll shut down. The information you're encountering will not register, or it will make you angry and you'll steer away from it. This isn't very good if you're wanting to learn things or grow. So there's a set of metacognitive tools you can use to help you push past that and navigate the existential crises that can sometimes ensue without crushing you entirely. I spend a section of the book talking about that as well, and detailing what some of those tools are. Jo: Better give us a tool. Give us one useful tool. Dan: All right, so one of the basic tools is one that anyone who's a developer in the audience will be familiar with, and it's basically sandboxing. You create a little playpen where it's okay to play with this dangerous idea, and you make yourself the promise that until you're really familiar with the dangerous idea, you're not going to connect it to anything else in your worldview. Then you've got the option later on to decide whether to integrate it or not. But you've got to play with this scary tool. For someone who comes out of a fundamentalist religious background like I do, one of the big ones here was textual criticism, where you learn about all the manuscript traditions that make up the New Testament especially, and the development of Christian scripture. I had to know about this stuff because I had a paid writing gig that required me to know about it. But I was a biblical literalist and believed that it all came straight out of God's mouth, and I couldn't even go near it without going, “Ah,” because intuitively some part of me recognised this could be a threat to what you believe. So I made myself a sandbox. I said, “This is a literary project. If I actually believe in the doctrines of my religion, then this can't be a threat, because even if the words themselves were changed all over the place, the Holy Spirit would have ensured that the important parts of the theology got through unscathed.” So I had a sandbox. I didn't really have to think about it. I could just learn the topic, and I got through. It was a two-year project, I had a fabulous time, and I came out knowing more about textual criticism than anyone ever should need to. I actually got to know someone, a friend of my father's, who actually makes the Greek New Testament from the surviving original sources. I learned all sorts of things about biblical translation and about classical literature. It was great stuff. I sandboxed it until I understood it, and then I decided whether or not to integrate it, and I did integrate it. It didn't actually have anything to do with me ending up being an atheist now. That was because of my research into mythopoetics several years later. When you sandbox something like that, you give yourself an imaginary play space. This is something you do any time that you go to a movie and you cheer for characters who are doing horrible things that you would never do or condone in real life. It's a fantasy play space that allows you to explore other aspects of life that you can't touch in real life. When you're learning, you can use that same set of skills of fantasy play and fantasy role play for trying out and exploring topics that might threaten the way you see the world. Jo: Well, that actually brings up a good reason to do this, and one of the reasons I love to learn new things is to turn them into books. You mentioned earlier your short story about AI, for example. That's a great way of sandboxing and playing with a dangerous idea. I'm actually writing a lot of, I guess we would call them science fiction, in the science fiction genre. I've never written science fiction before, and suddenly… Dan: Welcome to the party. Jo: Yes, exactly. I'm now writing science fiction. I haven't published any of it yet, but it's possible that I'm moving into science fiction because I am weighing up a whole load of these things as I'm learning about it, and I'm like, “Okay, how would I play with that idea?” So that is one way to use what we learn, or even, like we said, reframing it. One good reason to drive the learning in the first place, I guess. But in that way, I wanted to ask you, because your books are very detailed. How are you structuring knowledge as you learn it, in a way that is useful for turning it into something else later? Dan: Okay. Associatively. The way that the brain stores knowledge, it looks a bit like a spiderweb, or like a map of galaxies in the universe. That's probably too geeky. Let's stick with a spiderweb. Everyone's seen a spiderweb. You don't record discrete tabulated facts like a spreadsheet or a database. You actually record associative memories, and everything you know is associated not just with other things that fact might be associated with in a library catalogue. It's associated with the smell that you were smelling when you learned that thing, and the emotional state you were in when you learned that thing. The more associative connections you can make to any bit of knowledge, the easier it is to record. When I sat down and wrote The Autodidact's Bible, I literally wrote it front to back without an outline. There have been some books I've done this with where I had to rearrange afterwards. With this one, I didn't have to, because this is one of the places I live, so I've just got a good structure for the information in my head. I knew that if I wanted to convey this toolkit and all the things associated with it, I needed to start with what is knowledge and memory, and how does understanding work? Then move into worldview and the way that emotions affect the way that we learn, and developmental psychology, which has to do with the way the human being is designed to learn from the get-go. We start off with raw input. I call this in the book type zero learning. We get a fire hose of information we don't know how to make sense of, and our brain adapts itself to the inputs. Then there's type one learning, where we play around with things and we experiment and we see what they do. It's the “what's this button do?” approach to learning. Then there's type two learning, which is someone else who knows something already tells us things or shows us things, and we pick that up. All three of these systems are involved at every stage of the learning process. Actually, it's hierarchical. So you can do type zero learning without doing type one or type two. If you're doing type two, which is what you're doing in school, or when you're learning from a mentor, or when you're listening to a podcast, then if the information is going to stick, you are also involved in type zero learning, which is just taking in a bunch of stuff, and type one learning, which is practising and doing trial and error. Even if, as you're listening to this podcast, you're just reacting with things like, “Oh, now that's an interesting idea,” and you're having a little fantasy about, “What if I did this?”, that's a version of experiment and repeat, and that solidifies the learning in your knowledge web in your head. Then the trick is figuring out how to go back and find those things. Jo: Well, this is what I wanted to talk about. In the book, you do have stuff on memory and that kind of thing. I have definitely found, and this has got worse with menopause, and this is a completely normal thing with menopause for women, the brain fog that means things don't seem to stick so well, and then the recall is also almost harder. I'm often reaching for things, and I can't get them back. I've always been somebody who writes everything down anyway, but I now do it even more. As you know, I sent written questions for this. I now rely on written stuff so much more. So when I'm writing a book, or like I've just been doing with this master's and a lot of research, I have to write everything down. So I guess my question was more about, for people listening who want to learn things in order to write books from that— What recommendations do you have for organising your research so that when you write the book, you can reference it in a good way? Dan: Well, writing things down is great, because that is part of the repetition that helps it stick in your head, and then you've got an external place where, as long as you can remember where you put it, you know where to get it. The more connections you can make to any piece of information, the easier it is to find. I do take notes, and I have a strictly hierarchical file tree where I know where to find manuscripts and files full of notes and whatnot. What often happens with me is I will make notes on something, and then I'll forget I did it, and then a few years later I'll write the book and then discover the notes again afterwards, and the book basically matches the notes. I think the reason that happens is that when I get an idea in my head and write it down, I just start subconsciously playing with the idea, and I play with it and play with it until it's well developed. Every time you take an idea out, or a memory, and play with it, everything that you're thinking or feeling at that point in time gets reconnected to it. So you actually alter a bit of what you're remembering, but you're also multiplying the mental paths you can use to get to it. So you've got a very strict external system to help you beat the brain fog. The analogy to do it without the external system is you create that kind of system in your head. You practise actually walking the system like it's a library or a museum. If you're a very visual person, and this doesn't work if you have aphantasia, you can close your eyes and you can walk through the museum in your head, and you can turn to the left and see a room that's associated with everything you know about biology, and then you can start picking things up in that room. I'm actually being semi-literal here. I sometimes actually do this like I'm working in virtual reality. Most of the time it's not that concrete, but if I'm trying to find something and I get stuck, I will actually close my eyes and go into the museum and find the room. The other trick is you don't chase a particular bit of information too hard. All you're looking for is something that's in the neighbourhood. Because once you start working mentally in the neighbourhood, all of that knowledge map comes back to you as a side effect of being in that area. Let's say you're in England, and you knew neighbourhoods in Nottingham really well, and you wanted to go visit a friend in Nottingham. When you get on the road to go, and you're not using a map, you don't have the whole map loaded into your head. All you know is, I'm going to go that way on this road, and then you see the exit off the M1, or whatever it is, that you recognise. “Oh, this is the exit I take,” so you take that exit. All the other information in between, you kinda know it, but you drop it. You don't really actively search for it. Then when you get into the general area of your friend's house, you start to recognise landmarks and you go there. Memory of non-physical spaces works the same way, and you can actually develop the ability to engage it as if it's a physical space. The technique is called the mind palace. It was discovered in Ancient Greece, and it still works. Jo: Yes, and I agree with that, and I still have that kind of experience in a way. When we're writing nonfiction, and you have selected footnotes in this book, for example, although not to the extent of academic text, which is what I've been doing with my master's dissertation this week. As an example, I knew that Stephen King had said something like, “Writing is a form of telepathy,” but could I remember where it was? No. hTen I was like, okay, well, it's very likely it's in either one of his introductions or it's in On Writing, his memoir of the craft, because that is an iconic book. But in order to actually get the right quote, because if you're quoting people, obviously it has to be an exact quote as opposed to a made-up thought. Then if you're doing a proper footnote, for example, it does need what book it is and what edition and what page number and all of that kind of thing. So when you're writing the nonfiction books, are you doing the memory palace thing, writing the stuff, and then going back and finding where you got it from? Dan: Yes, and anything that's vague, I just put hard brackets around it. I don't remember all the people I quoted, but let's say I quoted Schopenhauer. If I was going to be quoting Schopenhauer and I could remember what he said, but I couldn't remember the words, I'd just put brackets around it and say, “Find the place where Schopenhauer said this,” and then put the quote here. I don't use hard brackets anywhere else in my writing, so I can then just Control + F, find the hard bracket, and retroactively do the research. Jo: Yes, exactly. I think that is the point I was trying to get to, which is it's all very well having the memory palace, but I can bet you that some of these quotes are not correct. Dan: Yes, always check quotes. Now with AI, there's search engine techniques where you can actually start from a paraphrase and then refine the search stepwise until you can get the exact quote with a reference, and then you can check it against the manuscript online. I use a lot of those when I don't have the book that I'm thinking of in my hands. Now of course with AI, I'm like, “Where did this author say this thing…” Jo: Roughly? Dan: Yes, roughly. The AI will come back with, “Well, he said this in these words in that book, and these words in that book.” And I'm like, “Oh, boy, I get to pick which one works better for what I'm writing.” Jo: It's very good. Coming back to what you were writing, I think you have balanced footnotes and source material, but you haven't gone as far as the academic footnoting of every single sentence, which is where I am at the moment. So for general nonfiction that is trying to reach a broader audience, where would you say the balance lies? Because I just feel now that we don't do enough of this in the indie community. I read a lot of nonfiction books which need a heck of a lot more attributions. Dan: First of all, I subscribe to the Terry Pratchett school of footnotes, which is that footnotes are places for long asides that need to be there, but that interrupt the flow of the text. I'm sure you noticed. Also, for me, it's really important, wherever I can remember where I got an idea, to point it out so that the reader can follow that rabbit trail if they want to. As a nonfiction writer, I feel like I'm in the business of providing value to the curious person. So anywhere I can point them where they might have fun exploring further is a value add. That's something I try to do, but I don't always remember, because in the heat of composition, you don't really realise where the ideas are coming from all the time. The second thing is, if I'm directly quoting or paraphrasing someone, there's always at least an attribution to the author, if not in the footnotes, then in the body text. You know, as Harlan Ellison used to say about being paid as a writer, or whatever. The great glory, and this is at least partly an aesthetic thing in my head, the great glory of nonfiction is that it taps you into an entire universe of conversations that have been going on as long as there's been a written word. To pretend that you're not participating in that conversation, okay, it might make you look cool to the novice reader, but you're really depriving your reader of even just the bare awareness that he's dipping his toe in a rich stream that he could follow forever. Especially in our world where we live in a TikTok world, but before that, we lived in a soundbite world, and before that, we lived in the newspaper world. These are all formats that try to pretend that they exist outside of time and culture, even though they're the most temporally dependent and culturally fickle sorts of entertainment there are. We've gotten used to the experience of encountering something that feels like it could just be from anywhere, and that's not the way it really works. Every TikTok video comes out of someone's experience, which is embedded in a culture, which is embedded in a tradition that's full of controversies that goes back to the beginning. It's not just full of controversies, but it's accompanied by stories, fictional stories, mythic stories, where those controversies get fought out and explored. I think as a nonfiction author, if you want to be really selfish about it, it makes you look better if you're also pointing at the tradition that you're standing in than if you're pretending that it's all coming from you. Jo: Yes. It makes you look better if you are citing things. I feel like that's such a good reframe. I was reading a book the other day, and I was like, all these ideas are coming from all these other people that I know about. This person would look a lot better if they actually accredited those ideas to the people they came from. My opinion of that person went down because they were not attributing. So, yes, I think it's so important, and that's the fun bit. Let's circle back to the fun bit of learning. Dan: Before you get onto that, I should point out that in my writing, I don't do this with academic rigour. I do it as it occurs to me. I write a weekly nonfiction article dealing with philosophy and history and arts and everything, and I don't always think, “Oh, the readers might not know where this comes from,” and stick it in there. But over the course of reading those articles, you get all the citations. They're just not always in every article. Jo: Oh, no, I've read your stuff, Dan. You do a good job. Obviously not to the academic attribution detail, but I do think this book in particular, Reclaiming Your Mind: An Autodidact's Bible, has a lot of references so people can learn more. So I do briefly, before we finish, because you and I could talk about this forever, but I do want to ask about Kickstarter. So you're using Kickstarter to launch this book. You've done a couple of campaigns, but not for a while. So why use Kickstarter for this, and what are the pros and cons? Dan: Well, as far as I've been able to work out, doing a Kickstarter is the one way you can make sure that you don't publish a book dead. Are you familiar with this term from old publishing? Jo: You can expand on it. Dan: Okay. So in traditional publishing, there's a term called publishing dead, which is where the publishing house buys a book, they go to the trouble of laying it out and printing it, and then they just kinda drop it on the market with an entry in the bookseller's catalogue. There's no publicity, no fanfare, no attempt to get advance buzz going, and it just kinda sits there. Occasionally someone who buys for a bookstore will get a couple of copies, and they'll sit on the shelves, and a customer will walk by and buy one. Books that are published dead tend to sell 500 copies over a 30-year lifetime. It's not much. Jo: That's probably a lot of indie books as well. Dan: That's how most indie books are done. The first 10 years of my career, I was doing fiction podcasting, so everything I was publishing got published live, and they did really well. Then fiction podcasting kinda died at the same time that my life got really complicated, and so I decided just to let my podcast die with the wave. At just the same time, my personal fiction productivity went through the roof. I went from writing one, maybe two books a year to writing four or five. I was dropping these four or five books on the world and nothing happened, and all the sales were drying up anyway from the older stuff that had been supported by the podcast. So I decided I wanted to find a way to stop publishing things dead. I had done a Kickstarter for an audiobook years ago that I produced for Gail Carriger, and so when I was writing Secrets of the Heinlein Juvenile, I decided there's a lot of Heinlein fans out there, so even if I don't personally have the name recognition, this is something that I could launch pretty well on Kickstarter. It did great, and I decided at that point that I was never going to publish another book dead. I was always going to have some kind of occasion to launch with, even if I had to manufacture it. In the years since, I've published very little, because I've been trying to figure out how to do that. I've got a big stack of books that are coming out now that I've figured it out. I realised that things like debuting in a book bundle, doing a Kickstarter, or finding a way to time a release with a news cycle, which is appropriate for some science fiction particularly, these are ways to publish a book without publishing it dead and then having to try to figure out why nobody's noticing it. So that's why I'm doing the Kickstarter. Jo: I also agree. What I like is doing the two-week campaign. I normally do two-week campaigns, because then I can just focus my energy before the campaign and then during those two weeks, and then I'm basically done, and then I put it up on all the platforms and everything. I focus most of my energy into that couple of weeks beforehand and then the two weeks of the campaign. Like you, I mean— We don't want to be spending all our time marketing, but to try and make it an occasion just helps us put a bit more effort into it, doesn't it? Dan: It really does. And the other thing it does, and this took me a while to figure out, but I've come to understand that most people's relationship with their favourite writers isn't like my relationship with my favourite writers. I've got about 70 writers I like, but I've got about 10 where I don't care what happens, I will buy and immediately read what they've done. I realised that for most people, their relationship with most of the writers they like is more at arm's distance. They stumble across, “Oh, I didn't know this guy had something new. I'll pick it up,” rather than being like, “I love the way this person's mind works, and I want to see what it goes at next.” So the bread and butter as an author has got to be in making sure that those people find you. It's not in serving the core base, the core 1,000 fans. They're really important, and you want to do that, but if you want the career to sustain and build, you've got to find ways to help people in that second group, the arm's-length fans, stumble over what you're doing. Because everybody's got more important things in life than your books. But if you've got excuses to be stumbled upon that don't involve standing right up and waving a sign saying, “Buy my book, buy my book,” then you're more likely to build momentum, because people talk about the book they just read and that they love. If they don't talk to someone in the first few days after they read that book, then unless it was one of the books that changes their life, they're never going to talk about it again. So you want to get as many people talking about the cool book they read last week at the same time as possible, to build momentum. Jo: Indeed. Right. So where can people find your cool book, as well as all your other books, online? Dan: Reclaiming Your Mind: An Autodidact's Bible is currently Kickstarting. You can find a link on the top post at my website at JDSawyer.net. You can find all my books at JDSawyer.net/book-list, and you can find my weekly articles on maker stuff, philosophy, creativity, and history at jdanielsawyer.substack.com. Jo: Brilliant. Well, thanks so much for your time, Dan. That was great. Dan: It was a pleasure, as always. The post Reclaiming Your Mind: How To Teach Yourself Anything With J. Daniel Sawyer first appeared on The Creative Penn.

A goddess offers Odysseus immortality. He says no.Eight years on Calypso's island. Paradise, more or less. And he spends his days sitting on the beach, weeping for a rocky little kingdom he may never see again.Welcome to Part 2 (of 6!) of our series on Homer's great epic.Part 2 covers Books 5 to 8. We finally meet the man himself, and he arrives naked, half drowned, and buried under a pile of leaves. Why would anyone choose death over eternal life? And why does the greatest hero of the age get home on charm rather than force?Follow Odysseus as he builds his own raft, survives Poseidon's wrath, and talks his way into the most powerful household on the island of the Phaeacians. Meet the women who hold the real power: Calypso, the princess Nausicaa, and Queen Arete, honored like no woman of Homer's own day. Plus King Alcinous, and the blind bard Demodocus, whose song brings Odysseus to tears.Christopher Nolan cut three of these four books from his film. They may be the ones that tell you most about who Odysseus really is.Timestamps:00:57 Women, Power and Odysseus03:19 Hermes Visits Calypso05:25 Odysseus Trapped and Weeping06:14 Zeus Orders Release11:03 Calypso's Final Offer14:07 Why Mortality Matters17:45 Raft Building and Agency20:32 Poseidon's Storm and Shipwreck23:29 Phaeacia's Backstory24:10 Nausicaa's Dream28:10 Nausicaa Meets Odysseus30:54 Winning Nausicaa's Trust39:47 Athena Guides Odysseus40:53 Bronze Age Heroic Lens43:48 Arete and Royal Honor46:32 Palace Splendor and Supplication49:19 Clothes Test and Charm52:53 Cleos and the Bard56:12 Feast and Demodocus Song01:02:04 Games and Odysseus Flexes01:06:46 Aphrodite and Ares Trap01:13:03 Gifts and Nausicaa's Farewell01:14:56 Trojan Horse Song and Tears01:22:43 Closing ThoughtsCallouts:Special thanks to Dr. Richard Johnson for his longtime support of the show. You are Caesar and Odysseus's Top Guy!Special thanks also to the team at ZCash, who are building a digital network to transfer money with complete privacy. I've used their wallet Zodl, and it's worth checking out.In tribute to the life and aspirations of Savitha Shanmugasundaram, a University of Texas at Austin honors student who died tragically in the March 1 mass shooting, her parents have established the Savitha Shan Endowed Scholarship at UT Austin. The fund is intended to extend Savitha's legacy by supporting the educational journeys of future UT Austin students. Please consider donating if you can. 

Links For The Occult Rejectshttps://linktr.ee/theoccultrejectsOccult Research Institutehttps://www.occultresearchinstitute.org/Substackhttps://substack.com/@theoccultrejects?r=7auau0&utm_campaign=profile&utm_medium=profile-pageCash Apphttps://cash.app/$theoccultrejectsVenmo@TheOccultRejectsBuy Me A Coffeebuymeacoffee.com/TheOccultRejectsPatreonhttps://www.patreon.com/TheOccultRejectsBIBLIOGRAPHYEpisode One: Before the Brain ScanModern Sexual Response and Neuroscientific FramingBasson, Rosemary. “Human Sex-Response Cycles.” Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy 27, no. 1 (2001): 33–43.Georgiadis, Janniko R. “Doing It… Wild? On the Role of the Cerebral Cortex in Human Sexual Activity.” Socioaffective Neuroscience & Psychology 2 (2012): 17337.Georgiadis, Janniko R., and A. A. T. Simone Reinders. “Men versus Women on Sexual Brain Function: Prominent Differences during Tactile Genital Stimulation, but Not during Orgasm.” Human Brain Mapping 30, no. 10 (2009): 3089–3101.Kaplan, Helen Singer. 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Wiesner-Hanks and Mathew Kuefler, 43–62. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.Peled, Ilan. Masculinities and Third Gender: The Origins and Nature of an Institutionalized Gender Otherness in the Ancient Near East. Münster: Ugarit-Verlag, 2016.Parpola, Simo, and Robert M. Whiting, eds. Sex and Gender in the Ancient Near East. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2002.Stol, Marten. Women in the Ancient Near East. Translated by Helen Richardson and Mervyn Richardson. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2016.Westenholz, Joan Goodnick. “Tamar, Qĕdēšā, Qadištu, and Sacred Prostitution in Mesopotamia.” Harvard Theological Review 82, no. 3 (1989): 245–266.Wiggermann, Frans A. M. “Sexualität: In Mesopotamien.” In Reallexikon der Assyriologie und Vorderasiatischen Archäologie, vol. 12, edited by Michael P. Streck and others, 410–426. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010.Mesopotamian Medicine, Reproduction, and the BodyBöck, Barbara. The Healing Goddess Gula: Towards an Understanding of Ancient Babylonian Medicine. Culture and History of the Ancient Near East 67. Leiden: Brill, 2014.Geller, Markham J. Ancient Babylonian Medicine: Theory and Practice. Chichester, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.Horstmanshoff, H. F. J., Marten Stol, and Cornelis Tilburg, eds. Magic and Rationality in Ancient Near Eastern and Graeco-Roman Medicine. Studies in Ancient Medicine 27. Leiden: Brill, 2004.Scurlock, JoAnn, and Burton R. Andersen. Diagnoses in Assyrian and Babylonian Medicine: Ancient Sources, Translations, and Modern Medical Analyses. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.Steinert, Ulrike. “Fluids, Rivers, and Vessels: Metaphors and Body Concepts in Mesopotamian Gynaecological Texts.” Le Journal des Médecines Cunéiformes 22 (2013): 1–23.Steinert, Ulrike. “Concepts of the Female Body in Mesopotamian Gynecological Texts.” In The Comparable Body: Analogy and Metaphor in Ancient Mesopotamian, Egyptian, and Greco-Roman Medicine, edited by John Z. Wee, 275–357. Leiden: Brill, 2018.Stol, Marten. Birth in Babylonia and the Bible: Its Mediterranean Setting. Cuneiform Monographs 14. Groningen: Styx Publications, 2000.Broader Comparative and Methodological StudiesBudin, Stephanie Lynn. “Phallic Fertility in the Ancient Near East and Egypt.” In Reproduction: Antiquity to the Present Day, edited by Nick Hopwood, Rebecca Flemming, and Lauren Kassell, 31–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018.Faraone, Christopher A., and Laura K. McClure, eds. Prostitutes and Courtesans in the Ancient World. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006.King, Helen. Hippocrates' Woman: Reading the Female Body in Ancient Greece. London: Routledge, 1998.Stol, Marten. “Women in Mesopotamia.” Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 38, no. 2 (1995): 123–144.Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E., and Mathew Kuefler, eds. The Cambridge World History of Sexualities. Vol. 2, Systems of Thought and Belief. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2024.Also want to remind people about the website, if you're into reading we have tons of information by multiple contributors, and we got t-shirts up on the site if you're interested. Fun fact, the art is all based on the eyeball. 

What in the world do we do about slavery in the Bible?We shouldn't rush to William Wilberforce and the Christian abolitionists so quickly that we gloss over an uncomfortable fact: Christians really did use the Bible to keep slaves in their place.Secular thinkers defended slavery using science, philosophy, politics, economics, and pragmatism. But there's no doubt many Christians provided moral cover by quoting passages from the Old Testament that seem to endorse slavery, and passages from the New Testament that, at the very least, seem to put up with it.Professor Esau McCaulley and our friends at International Justice Mission join us for this last Undeceptions episode of the season to try and untangle this tricky topic.FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERECREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership.Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains John's wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Our voice actors today were Yannick Lawry and Dakotah Love.Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com - letting the truth out.

Join Spencer for a special preview of our 26-27 Classes! In addition to previewing our next Decan Walk Session, we are excited to announce AstroMythography of Ancient Greece! In our livestream, we will give you all the details of both offerings, discuss the current decanic astrology & mythology, demonstrate what a typical class might be like, and open the floor for your questions! . #astrology #decan #decans #decanwalk #tarot #astromythography #mythography #mythology #greekmythology #divination #traditionalastrology #36faces #36secrets #faces #fixedstars #traditionalastrology #divination #iching #spencermichaud #virgo #virgoseason #newmoon . Visit Spencer: https://www.spencermichaud.com/ . Visit Third Coast Mojo: https://thirdcoastmojo.etsy.com . Decan Walk 26-27: https://www.spencermichaud.com/2026/09/registration-now-open-decan-walk-26-27.html . AstroMythography of Ancient Greece: https://www.spencermichaud.com/2026/09/new-class-series-astro-mythography.html . Finding value in these videos? Help Spencer keep creating content by buying him a coffee! Thank you for your support! :) . Buy me a coffee: https://www.buymeacoffee.com/spencermichaud . Venmo: @spencermichaud . PayPal Me: http://www.paypal.me/spencermichaud . Thank you for supporting your local astrologer! : ) . Book a reading / tutoring session: https://spencermichaudastrology.as.me/ . Subscribe to the Newsletter: https://www.spencermichaud.com/p/subscribe.html#.YC2Gu157lp8 . Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/spencermichaud/ . Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/spencermichaud.bsky.social . Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/.../spencer.../id1498982837 . Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1BZBpFaFRUBeUVrdPtRZ5X?si=kuKimd0wSr66qCUAQ6rzNw . Soundcloud: http://www.soundcloud.com/spencermichaudastrology . Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/spencermichaudastrology . https://youtu.be/xHgLYEf4zpM

Contemporary artist Asad Raza performs within the industrial infrastructures and ecologies of East Germany, conducting the development of electricity from Ancient Greece through the German Democratic Republic (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, DDR) in the 20th century, via the dramaturgy and exhibition, Electricity (2026).Asad Raza: Electricity is at E-WERK Luckenwalde until 25 April 2027. This episode was recorded in advance of Berlin Art Week 2026.Asad Raza's commission for the new Art Hall at Tate Liverpool opens in 2027.Read about Asad Raza: Plot at Museoin in Bolzano (2023), and collaboration with Lydia Ourahmane, a participant in Biennale Gherdëina 10: Future Paradise Gardens, in Observer: observer.com/2026/08/arts-interview-samuel-leuenberger-curator-biennale-gherdeina-10/Listen to composer and artist Raven Chacon on their composition for organ, Voiceless Mass (2021), performed with the Scottish Ensemble at St. Giles' Cathedral as part of Edinburgh Art Festival (EAF) 2025: pod.link/1533637675/episode/MDA5MGQ3OGYtYWM4ZC00NjQ3LTg0YzktNjE2ODBmZDAwYmU5Listen to filmmaker Saodat Ismailova on spirituality, dissent, and environmental extraction around the Aral Sea in post-Soviet Uzbekistan and Central Asia, in their film Melted into the Sun (2024) in Nebula, produced by Fondazione In Between Art Film, as part of the Venice Biennale in 2024: pod.link/1533637675/episode/Y2IxOWI2YTUtMTI4MS00NzdiLWEyZmUtYmMyYTQ0NmQxMTQ2Listen to Manthia Diawara, filmmaker, cultural theorist, and co-curator of The Trembling Museum at the Hunterian in Glasgow, recorded live in conversation with EMPIRE LINES as part of PEACE FREQUENCIES, a 24 hour live radio broadcast to mark International Human Rights Day in December 2023, and 75 years of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: pod.link/1533637675/episode/YjBhYmU2MzMtN2ZiNi00MDE0LTgyM2MtZmM5NWMwZGRhMTBmFor more about Édouard Glissant, sound, and vibration as ‘trembling', listen to contemporary artist Libita Sibungu on their installation, ZED LOVE (2026), recorded live at Newlyn Art Gallery & The Exchange in Penzance in July 2026: pod.link/1533637675/episode/Y2EwOGJlN2QtZTY4Ny00ZmRlLThhOWQtZTU3NjlhODBhYmQ3And listen to Paul Gilroy live at the Black Atlantic Symposium in Plymouth, marking the 30th anniversary of his formative text in 2023: pod.link/1533637675/episode/90a9fc4efeef69e879b7b77e79659f3fPRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic.Follow EMPIRE LINES on Instagram: ⁠⁠⁠instagram.com/empirelinespodcast⁠⁠⁠Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: ⁠⁠⁠patreon.com/empirelinesEMPIRE LINES is a project within the ecosystem of Radical Ecology (2026-2027).

 The year is 1396. A crusading army from across Europe gathers to halt the Ottoman advance into the Balkans. At its heart is the young French Marshal Boucicaut, eager to win everlasting glory. But when the crusaders meet Sultan Bayezid outside the walls of Nicopolis, overconfidence and disunity turn triumph into disaster. Discover the story behind one of the last great crusades of the Middle Ages—and the man whose adventures were only just beginning. The History of Modern Greece Podcast covers the events from Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, to the years under the Ottoman Empire, and 1821 when the Greeks fought for independence... all the way to the modern-day.EMAIL US: historyofmoderngreece@gmail.comWebsite: www.moderngreecepodcast.comSOCIAL MEDIA: Go here to chat with us. https://www.instagram.com/historyofmodern%20greece/https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578023316172Music by Mark Jungerman: www.marcjungermann.com

Pericles of Athens was a complicated man, a man of twists and turns. Born into a lineage of Athenian aristocrats, he became a champion of democracy and indeed a masterful demagogue. A teenager by the end of the Persian Wars, he was one of the architects of an Athenian empire designed to ensure that Persia never again advanced westward. Possibly his earliest public act as an Athenian citizen was to sponsor four plays by Aeschylus, beginning a lifelong association with the artistic life of the city. And while he married as an Athenian aristocrat was expected to marry, his later domestic life proved, by Athenian standards, strikingly unconventional.These are only some of the many facets of Pericles that Paul Cartledge examines in his new book Pericles: Statesman, Demagogue, Eccentric. Along the way he also traces the afterlife of Pericles himself—from the hostile portrayals of his contemporaries to Victorian admiration and even the appropriations of twentieth-century dictators.Paul Cartledge is A. G. Leventis Senior Research Fellow at Clare College, University of Cambridge, and Emeritus A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge. One of the world's leading historians of ancient Greece, he has written extensively on Sparta, Athens, Alexander the Great, and Greek political thought. His many books include Thebes: The Forgotten City of Ancient Greece, discussed on Historically Thinking in Episode 177, and his newest work, Pericles: Statesman, Demagogue, Eccentric.

As part of an ongoing series, V Rogish joins the show to discuss "esoteric Christianity," and defend the Christian faith in general, while being presented with hard questions about the not-so-unique universality of Christian doctrine. *The is the FREE archive, which includes advertisements. Subscribe to remove ads. The show has no sponsorship and has been banned countless places. 

What do we do when we discover our so-called ‘Christian heroes' did abhorrent things? What's the difference between the soul and the spirit? Where does the idea of being a ‘missionary' come from? Is the God of the Old Testament just a conglomeration of the gods from other cultures that came before? It's our seasonal Q&A, and John Dickson is in the hot seat answering your questions. FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERECREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership.Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains John's wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Our voice actors today were Yannick Lawry and Dakotah Love.Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com - letting the truth out.

We have a troubled relationship with disability. Even the term ‘disability' is contested.Perhaps disability is something to inspire us. Or something that calls for our compassion. Or simply something to accept and let be.How should we think about disability? Should we be trying to cure it? And what about disability in Heaven?In this episode of Undeceptions, we're unpacking our assumptions about disability, dignity, suffering and difference—and asking what it means to be fully human.FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERECREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership.Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher. Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains John's wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Our voice actors today were Yannick Lawry and Dakotah Love.Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com - letting the truth out.

If we believe there is no qualitative distinction between animals and humans, are we more likely to protect human life or devalue it? On this episode of ID The Future out of the vault, guest host Eric Anderson talks to historian Dr. Richard Weikart about his latest book, Unnatural Death: Medicine's Descent From Healing to Killing, now available from Discovery Institute Press. The book is a wide-ranging history of euthanasia and assisted suicide from Ancient Greece to today. How did we get to the point we are at today, and how do we turn the tide to promote the sanctity of human life? Tune in to find out. Source

The "divine feminine" is no more, or less, important than the "divine masculine." The veiled goddess has in every society been a personification of the mysteries of nature. Only the immortal can unveil her honestly--meaning that only once one acknowledges the essence of the soul, and abandons the ego, can a pier upon her naked body triple since the truth that all things are alive with spiritual essence. Hence MA-Rhea, the feminine principle flowing through all things. But the masculine is also present, too be it the sky or the Earth, and the goddess the Earth or the sky. We are born of the mother and dissolved into the father.*The is the FREE archive, which includes advertisements. If you want an ad-free experience, subscribe below. 

Ancient Greek lives on in our culture in surprising ways. Sometimes funny - the word for an actor, hupokrites, gives us 'hypocrite'; sometimes beautiful - an astronaut is literally a sailor of the skies. And that's before we get to the myths which gave us our Achilles heel or our Midas Touch. And what about crocodile tears, which comes from the Greek's belief that crocodiles cried while eating their victims! Greek To Us: The Fascinating Ancient Greek That Shapes Our World (Bloomsbury, 2026) is a learned but always entertaining journey through the world of the Ancient Greeks, their extraordinary language and how it has shaped our own understanding of the world today. After all, what is language but the frame through which we understand the world? Davie aims to bring more than just humour, he seeks to trace the thread of ancient Greek thought that runs through our own civilization, always with the lightness of touch and fascinating etymology. We meet Eros and Aphrodite, Alexander the Great and Oscar Wilde, the stoics, Epicurus and Sparta.While this is a book about language and the touching and illuminating presence of the ancient Greeks in our current words, it's also about how Ancient Greece shapes our culture today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Ancient Greek lives on in our culture in surprising ways. Sometimes funny - the word for an actor, hupokrites, gives us 'hypocrite'; sometimes beautiful - an astronaut is literally a sailor of the skies. And that's before we get to the myths which gave us our Achilles heel or our Midas Touch. And what about crocodile tears, which comes from the Greek's belief that crocodiles cried while eating their victims! Greek To Us: The Fascinating Ancient Greek That Shapes Our World (Bloomsbury, 2026) is a learned but always entertaining journey through the world of the Ancient Greeks, their extraordinary language and how it has shaped our own understanding of the world today. After all, what is language but the frame through which we understand the world? Davie aims to bring more than just humour, he seeks to trace the thread of ancient Greek thought that runs through our own civilization, always with the lightness of touch and fascinating etymology. We meet Eros and Aphrodite, Alexander the Great and Oscar Wilde, the stoics, Epicurus and Sparta.While this is a book about language and the touching and illuminating presence of the ancient Greeks in our current words, it's also about how Ancient Greece shapes our culture today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

Love is the Message returns from our summer break just in time for the Bank Holiday Weekend, which in London means one thing: Carnival. In this episode Jeremy and Tim cover the history of Notting Hill Carnival, the largest such event in Europe. They discuss patterns of Caribbean migration to the UK, traditions of carnival from Ancient Greece to Trinidad and Rio, and the particular story of Notting Hill, with its steel bands, dub sound systems, parade and party. They return to Lovers Rock, consider legendary stages like Aba Shanti, Good Times and Saxon, and interrogate how Bakhtinian and Deleuzian ideas can be applied to this unique expression of Black British culture. Plus: David Mancuso in Trinidad, and a young Jeremy tries to buy Pass the Dutchie. If you're going to Carnival this weekend, enjoy yourself and take plenty of water!Patreon.com/LoveMessagePodLoveisthemessagepod.co.ukProduced by Matt HuxleyTracklist:Laurel Aitkin - Boogie in my Bones Hells Gate Steel Orchestra - Ah Love It Here Sir Coxson - King of the Dubb Rock Louisa Mark - Caught You in a Lie ASWAD - Concrete Slaveship Smiley Culture - Cockney Translation Papa Levi - Mi God Mi King Ted Taylor - Ghetto Disco (Norman Jay Edit) Cajmere - Brighter Days Aba Shanti-I - Zulu Warrior Moliy x Shenseea x Skillibeng - Shake It To The Max 

Ancient Greek lives on in our culture in surprising ways. Sometimes funny - the word for an actor, hupokrites, gives us 'hypocrite'; sometimes beautiful - an astronaut is literally a sailor of the skies. And that's before we get to the myths which gave us our Achilles heel or our Midas Touch. And what about crocodile tears, which comes from the Greek's belief that crocodiles cried while eating their victims! Greek To Us: The Fascinating Ancient Greek That Shapes Our World (Bloomsbury, 2026) is a learned but always entertaining journey through the world of the Ancient Greeks, their extraordinary language and how it has shaped our own understanding of the world today. After all, what is language but the frame through which we understand the world? Davie aims to bring more than just humour, he seeks to trace the thread of ancient Greek thought that runs through our own civilization, always with the lightness of touch and fascinating etymology. We meet Eros and Aphrodite, Alexander the Great and Oscar Wilde, the stoics, Epicurus and Sparta.While this is a book about language and the touching and illuminating presence of the ancient Greeks in our current words, it's also about how Ancient Greece shapes our culture today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ancient Greek lives on in our culture in surprising ways. Sometimes funny - the word for an actor, hupokrites, gives us 'hypocrite'; sometimes beautiful - an astronaut is literally a sailor of the skies. And that's before we get to the myths which gave us our Achilles heel or our Midas Touch. And what about crocodile tears, which comes from the Greek's belief that crocodiles cried while eating their victims! Greek To Us: The Fascinating Ancient Greek That Shapes Our World (Bloomsbury, 2026) is a learned but always entertaining journey through the world of the Ancient Greeks, their extraordinary language and how it has shaped our own understanding of the world today. After all, what is language but the frame through which we understand the world? Davie aims to bring more than just humour, he seeks to trace the thread of ancient Greek thought that runs through our own civilization, always with the lightness of touch and fascinating etymology. We meet Eros and Aphrodite, Alexander the Great and Oscar Wilde, the stoics, Epicurus and Sparta.While this is a book about language and the touching and illuminating presence of the ancient Greeks in our current words, it's also about how Ancient Greece shapes our culture today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Ancient Greek lives on in our culture in surprising ways. Sometimes funny - the word for an actor, hupokrites, gives us 'hypocrite'; sometimes beautiful - an astronaut is literally a sailor of the skies. And that's before we get to the myths which gave us our Achilles heel or our Midas Touch. And what about crocodile tears, which comes from the Greek's belief that crocodiles cried while eating their victims! Greek To Us: The Fascinating Ancient Greek That Shapes Our World (Bloomsbury, 2026) is a learned but always entertaining journey through the world of the Ancient Greeks, their extraordinary language and how it has shaped our own understanding of the world today. After all, what is language but the frame through which we understand the world? Davie aims to bring more than just humour, he seeks to trace the thread of ancient Greek thought that runs through our own civilization, always with the lightness of touch and fascinating etymology. We meet Eros and Aphrodite, Alexander the Great and Oscar Wilde, the stoics, Epicurus and Sparta.While this is a book about language and the touching and illuminating presence of the ancient Greeks in our current words, it's also about how Ancient Greece shapes our culture today.Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/european-studies Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We return to the 100 Years' War to wrap up the end of the fighting in the first phase of the war, which ends when both France and England are fully exhausted. The Plague, poor crops, and endless fighting and raiding have utterly destroyed the countryside, and both sides simply need to stop the war and take a break. The Truce signed in Luelingham has come to be known as the Long Truce. And once there is a truce and the fighting stops with England, the Knights are now free to go on crusade. And crusading they went.The History of Modern Greece Podcast covers the events from Ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and the fall of Constantinople in 1453, to the years under the Ottoman Empire, and 1821 when the Greeks fought for independence... all the way to the modern-day.EMAIL US: historyofmoderngreece@gmail.comWebsite: www.moderngreecepodcast.comSOCIAL MEDIA: Go here to chat with us. https://www.instagram.com/historyofmodern%20greece/https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61578023316172Music by Mark Jungerman: www.marcjungermann.com

Ben Truska, an independent scholar and ancient Greek hoplite reenactor, joins Lexie to discuss shifting from history to a history/classics double major, citing favorite classes like Sexuality in Ancient Greece and Age of Augustus, pursuing an archaeological approach to warfare, developing a master's thesis on the socioeconomic evolution of Greek arms and armor, and his interest in re-enactment and experimental archaeology debates, including testing the hoplite othismos or “push” theory. So tuck in your togas and hop aboard Trireme Transit for this week's exciting odyssey! Don't forget to follow us on Bluesky, Facebook & Instagram or visit our website www.theozymandiasproject.com! Originally recorded June 6, 2026. Check out his YouTube channel Historia Hellenike: https://www.youtube.com/@Historia-HellenikeFind his article in Ancient Warfare Magazine (sadly it is paywalled): https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/en-gb/products/ancient-warfare-106?variant=54075847573833 Check out the Greek Phalanx re-enactment group: https://www.thegreekphalanx.org/ Custom music by Brent Arehart of Arehart Sounds and edited by Dan Maday. Want a transcript of the episode? Email us at theozymandiasprojectpodcast@gmail.com and we can provide one. Ancient Office Hours is a proud member of Mnemosyne: The Memory Collective, a podcast network and creator collective for historians, archaeologists, artists, and other creators and educators dedicated to sharing content about and featuring the ancient world that is accurate, accessible, and inclusive. To learn more about the collective and its contributors, check out collectivemem.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Author and classicist Daniel Mendelsohn was teaching a university class on Homer's The Odyssey, when his elderly father decided to enrol in it.Daniel became fascinated by the stories of the ancient world as a child and grew up to study the classics and then write books and essays to share his knowledge with the wider world.Eventually he began teaching the Ancient Greek epic, The Odyssey, to first year university students at Bard College in New York State.But when his elderly father Jay asked to sit in on the course, it led to a big change in their relationship.This episode was first broadcast in 2020Further informationAn Odyssey: A father, a Son, and an Epic is published by KnopfDaniel's latest book is The Odyssey: A New Translation This episode was first broadcast in 2020.It explores the Ancient World, Homer, The Odyssey, the Classics, translation, poetry, writing, teaching, parents, family, fathers, students, New York State, memoir, Odysseus, hero, storytelling, siblings, Winnie the Pooh, emotions, love, books.

In this episode, Stephan Talty, NY Times bestselling author, discusses his newest book “The American School of Spies: The Archaeologists Who Fought the Nazis and Saved the Treasures of Ancient Greece”. The book shares how the OSS used a group of unlikely spies in Greece during World War II to fight the Nazis and protect their homeland. Led by Rodney Young, the “Greek Desk” used their knowledge and connections to hide valuable artifacts and trick the Nazis with fake ones. When these efforts were no longer enough, Greek American soldiers joined the fight against the Nazis. Overall, the book shows how intelligence, courage, and teamwork helped protect both Greece and its history. Interview date Thursday, 28 May 2026. Interviewer Paul Hollingsworth PhD, former Senior CIA Officer and Analyst, President, AFIO and Co-Host James Hughes, President Emeritus, AFIO.

Christianity has a bit to say about ‘forgiveness', both on a theological and a sociological level.In short, God forgives us, and Christians are therefore called to extend this forgiveness to those who've wronged them.But this raises a lot of questions.What does forgiveness actually mean? How does it work? Does it involve forgetting wrongs? Can you forgive someone who isn't sorry? What about profound abuse and injustice?The Christian emphasis on forgiveness has shaped our civilisation. But does it still make sense?FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERECREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership.Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher. Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains John's wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Our voice actors today were Yannick Lawry and Dakotah Love.Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com - letting the truth out.

John Lennox is one of Christianity's greatest living “Undeceivers”. His Irish charm, kindness, and general approachability defuse even the most intense debates - and he's had many intense debates in his lifetime (Dawkins! Hitchens!)Through it all, Lennox has had one great aim … and it's the aim of our podcast … to uncover the truth and beauty of Christianity in a world that doesn't know what to make of it.FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERECREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership.Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher. Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains John's wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Our voice actors today were Yannick Lawry and Dakotah Love.Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com - letting the truth out.

Are you sure there is a single, "real" version of Achilles, Helen, or the Odyssey?In this episode, classicist and author Emily Hauser (creator of Mythica) joins Paul Bavill to dismantle one of the biggest misconceptions in classical literature: the search for a single, definitive "truth" behind ancient myth. From Homer's Iliad and Odyssey to modern cinematic interpretations, myth was never meant to be a static rulebook. It is a living, flexible oral tradition shaped by who is telling the story, why they are telling it, and which voices—especially those of women—are written into or out of the narrative.Together, Emily and Paul explore how figures like Penelope, Cassandra, Helen, Briseis, and Andromache offer richer, more complex insights into the ancient world than any rigid timeline ever could. They unpack the ancient concept of Xenia (guest-friendship), the tragedy of divine curses, and why asking "why was this myth told this way?" is far more powerful than chasing a "canon" that never existed.Key Takeaways & Discussion HighlightsThe Myth of the "Correct" Myth: Why searching for the "real" Achilles or Helen misses the core purpose of fluid, evolving oral storytelling.The Silencing of Women: How Telemachus's rebuke of Penelope in Book 1 of the Odyssey marks one of the earliest Western literary examples of silencing female speech—and how female writers resist it.The Real Meaning of Xenia: Why host-guest relationships act as the social glue of ancient Greece, and how both the suitors and Odysseus himself violate these sacred rules.Agency and Curses: The tragic dimensions of Cassandra's truth-telling curse, Helen's balance of agency and divine intervention, and how Briseis evolved from Homer to Shakespeare.Featured Guest: Dr. Emily HauserDr. Emily Hauser is a classicist, academic, and author of Mythica: A New History of Homer's World Through the Women Written Out of It.Book: Buy Emily's book Mythica at the official History Rage Bookshop:https://uk.bookshop.org/a/10120/9781804992791Gloucester History Festival: Emily is speaking live at the festival on Thursday, 17th September at 6:00 PM. The Gloucester History Festival runs from 12th – 20th September. Get your tickets here:https://www.gloucesterhistoryfestival.co.ukRelated History Rage EpisodesContinue exploring Ancient Greece, historical myths, and classical voices with these recommended episodes:Episode 257: Natalie Haynes rages that Greek myth is a lot less male-centric than we think.Episode 305: Adrian Goldsworthy rages that Ancient Greece is not all poets and philosophers.Follow, Contact & Support History RageFollow & Contact:Website: https://www.historyrage.comX / Twitter: https://x.com/HistoryRageInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/historyrageSupport the Podcast: Enjoying the rage? Help keep the thunderbolts raining down by becoming a History Rager! For £5 per month, Patreon supporters receive ad-free episodes, early access, exclusive monthly live streams, and the official History Rage mug.Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/historyrage Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Bible is full of tough texts that can be off-putting to the curious sceptic.But at its best, Christianity stands smiling in the ring of history, science, culture, ethics, and all the rest, and invites anyone to take a swing.Don't let these tough texts put you off; treat them as an entry point to the Bible and, just maybe, you'll be surprised by what else you find.FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERECREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership.Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher. Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains John's wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Our voice actors today were Yannick Lawry and Dakotah Love.Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com - letting the truth out.

What do voyeurs want? What can the Greeks teach us about love? Why do we pursue those who we now are going to hurt us?Despite our longing for lasting connection, love often falters on the rocks of misunderstanding and unmet expectations. Philosopher and founder of The School of Life, Alain de Botton, explores how romantic ideals mislead us and why emotional maturity, not chemistry, holds the key to enduring intimacy. Drawing on philosophy and psychology, he examines how our childhood shapes desire and how love, far from being a mystical or ethereal force, is a demanding skill we must patiently and consciously learn."One of our most consistently illuminating writers on contemporary culture." — John GrayAlain de Botton is the bestselling philosopher redefining how we understand love, work, and meaning in the modern world. He first rose to prominence with Essays in Love, a novel-philosophy hybrid that became an international bestseller. He has since authored several bestselling works that blend literary elegance, psychological insight, and philosophical depth.Don't hesitate to email us at podcast@iai.tv with your thoughts or questions on the episode!To witness such talks live buy tickets for our upcoming festival: https://howthelightgetsin.org/festivals/And visit our website for many more articles, videos, and podcasts like this one: https://iai.tv/You can find everything we referenced here: https://linktr.ee/philosophyforourtimesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's Only Fwends! Every fortnight, between interviews, we thwee Fwends have a little natter. In this episode, it's Georgia's time of the year! We discuss a wild surprise event in Canberra (the home of wild events), buying raffle tickets in the hope of winning property, and Kyran's big gay trip to Europe. Weee!CONTACTVoicemail - speakpipe.com/fwendspodEmail - fwendspod@gmail.comFWENDS WITH BENEFITSGet ad free listening and access to the Simply Marvellous archive! (Simply Marvellous both the perfect adjective and also actually just the name of the old show). Plus other fun stuff!Apple: Subscribe above!Not Apple: https://fwends.supercast.comRATE AND REVIEWIf you'd be so kind, we'd absolutely love you to leave a charming rating and review? In whatever podcast app you're in right now...a little 5 stars will do?FOLLOW FWENDS ON INSTAGRAMGeorgia MooneyKyran NicholsonRhys NicholsonComedy Republic Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Almost everyone can remember the exact moment they gave up on mathematics.But for those who persist, many don't just find maths useful; they find it beautiful.Some even go so far as to claim that mathematics is the ‘language of God'.FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERECREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne and directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership.Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher. Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains John's wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Our voice actor today was Yannick Lawry.Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com - letting the truth out.

The Superhero Show #632Fantastic Four: The Mask of Doom, Part 3The Superhero Show — The Mask of Doom, Part 3This week, The Superhero Show wraps up one of the longest story arcs in the 1994 Fantastic Four animated series with "The Mask of Doom, Part 3." Before diving into the cartoon, however, the hosts take a detour into the Marvel Cinematic Universe to discuss the newly released Avengers: Doomsday trailer. From first impressions and standout moments to what the trailer reveals about Doctor Doom's future on the big screen, the hosts share why the latest preview left them genuinely excited and cautiously optimistic that Marvel may have another major hit on its hands.Then it's back to 1994 as the hosts conclude Doctor Doom's animated saga with one of the strangest adventures the series has delivered yet—an unexpected trip to Ancient Greece filled with mythology, Persian armies, time travel, and a quest for a legendary power source.The Mask of Doom, Part 3: Avengers: Doomsday Trailer ReactionsBefore discussing the animated series, the hosts break down the brand-new Avengers: Doomsday trailer.They share their reactions to the footage, discuss what stood out most, and talk about how the trailer has changed their expectations for the upcoming film. After several years of mixed feelings about Marvel Studios' recent output, the trailer gives the hosts renewed confidence that the studio may finally be building toward another truly exciting event film.The conversation naturally turns toward Doctor Doom, comparing the intimidating comic book villain fans know and love with the more theatrical version they've been watching in the 1994 animated series.The Mask of Doom, Part 3: A Quest Through Ancient GreeceThe hosts then shift their focus to "The Mask of Doom, Part 3," picking up immediately after Reed Richards, Johnny Storm, and Ben Grimm are transported back to Ancient Greece.Tasked with recovering the legendary Coffin of Argos before Doctor Doom can claim it, the Fantastic Four find themselves caught in the middle of ancient history. Along the way, they rescue Greek soldiers under attack by the Persian army, seek guidance from an oracle high atop a temple, and eventually discover the mysterious coffin that Doom believes contains an ancient source of unimaginable power.The hosts discuss just how unexpected this premise feels, especially considering it began as a fairly traditional Doctor Doom story before transforming into a full-blown mythological adventure.The Mask of Doom, Part 3: Battles, Captivity, and the Coffin of ArgosAs the adventure escalates, Reed, Ben, and Johnny are captured by Persian forces before managing to escape and join the Greek army in a climactic naval battle.The hosts recap the large-scale conflict and discuss how unusual it is to see the Fantastic Four participating in what is essentially a historical war. While the action sequences are entertaining, they also laugh at how dramatically the story shifts genres, embracing mythology, history, and comic book science fiction all at once.By the end of the battle, however, the coveted power source hidden inside the Coffin of Argos has been lost forever, leaving the heroes with nothing but an empty relic.The Mask of Doom, Part 3: Outsmarting Doctor DoomReturning to the present, the Fantastic Four realize their only chance of rescuing Sue Storm is to bluff Doctor Doom.The hosts discuss how Reed uses the empty Coffin of Argos as part of an elaborate deception, convincing Doom that his plan has succeeded long enough to create an opening to rescue Sue. It's another example of the Fantastic Four relying on intelligence and teamwork rather than brute force to overcome their greatest enemy.The hosts appreciate the clever resolution while also noting that Doom once again falls victim to his own arrogance—a recurring theme throughout both the animated series and the comics.The Mask of Doom, Part 3: An Ambitious Ending That Doesn't Always WorkTo close out the discussion, the hosts reflect on the three-part storyline as a whole.While they appreciate the series attempting a larger, more ambitious adventure, they agree that stretching the story across three episodes ultimately hurts the pacing. Several scenes feel padded out, and the Ancient Greece detour, while entertaining, never quite connects to Doctor Doom in the way they expected.The hosts also discuss how this version of Doom continues to be more theatrical than intimidating. Rather than reinforcing him as Marvel's greatest villain, the series often leans into his exaggerated personality and increasingly bizarre schemes. Although that creates plenty of entertaining moments, it sometimes comes at the expense of making Doom feel like the terrifying threat he should be.Even so, they acknowledge that the sheer unpredictability of the story makes it one of the more memorable arcs of the first season.Final Thoughts — The Mask of Doom, Part 3By the end of The Mask of Doom, Part 3, The Superhero Show has officially wrapped up one of the wildest storylines in the 1994 Fantastic Four animated series. Between a promising Avengers: Doomsday trailer, an unexpected journey through Ancient Greece, naval warfare, mythical artifacts, and another showdown with Doctor Doom, the episode offers plenty for the hosts to discuss.While the three-part arc may overstay its welcome and never fully establish Doom as the fearsome villain he deserves to be, The Mask of Doom, Part 3 remains a wonderfully unpredictable slice of 1990s Marvel animation that perfectly captures both the ambition and the delightful absurdity of the era.Are You a Research Nerd Who's Looking For More?Here are some links for all your research wants and needs!1994 Fantastic Four Animated SeriesRyan North's Fantastic FourJoin the discussions online! 1994 Fantastic Four Animated Series, Ryan North's Fantastic FourCatch Up On Past Episodes!Missed any of our past episodes? Catch up hereRead Along With Us!Want to watch read with us? Of course you do! Here's a link Ryan North's Fantastic Four (Purchase Necessary)

Thomas Thorogood unpacks the meaning of ‘The Odyssey' (2026 movie), written and directed by Christopher Nolan and starring Matt Damon, Anne Hathaway, Tom Holland, Robert Pattinson, Lupita Nyong'o, Samantha Morton, Zendaya and Charlize Theron. It's an adaptation of Homer's Odyssey from around the 8th century BC. How does the movie handle the fantastical elements of the story? And does its outlook on war owe more to Christianity than Ancient Greece?Thomas' film review YouTube channel: youtube.com/stirandfrySend us your mini-revelations, stories, disagreements, questions and hot takes: podcast@speaklife.org.uk_____________________________Enjoy seeing life through the lens of Jesus? Here's where to find more Speak Life content: 321course.com // YouTube // Instagram // WebsiteSupport the show

This week: Thulio becomes a gay cowboy ghost-story extra, free LA archery turns him into Katniss Everdeen, Rubén finds artistic hope at a queer film night at Akbar, Comic-Con throws every Ryan into the MCU, and Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey somehow makes Ancient Greece straight. Plus a Punch-Up on the gay guide to escalator etiquette... and late-stage capitalism turning everyone at LAX into the villain. La Lista Podcast host Rubén Mendive and writer Thulio DaSilva ditch the formal interviews and hop on the mic for quick, unfiltered conversations about their chaotic creative lives — covering new writing projects, hot takes on industry trends, dating disasters, and whatever discourse the algorithm served them that morning. Instagram - @lalistapodcast Music: Sunny Side - Airstream

It's high time for an episode on the fabulous Hildegard of Bingen.This remarkable 12th-century nun's work covered a vast amount of ground: she wrote about ecclesiastical history, science, medicine, botany, mineralogy and petrology, zoology and theology, mysticism, music, painting, and monastic architecture.She was also a travelling preacher, visionary, and geopolitical manoeuvrer.She's now revered as a ‘Doctor of the Church' - one of only 38 people awarded the title for their profound and lasting impact on Christian teaching.Other Doctors include Augustine of Hippo, Gregory the Great, and the Venerable Bede. So, Hildegard is in good company.FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERE CREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne, directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher.Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership. Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains my wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Our voice actors for this episode were Yannick Lawry and Dakotah LoveUndeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com – letting the truth out.

Greg Jenner is joined in ancient Greece by historian Dr Emily Hauser and comedian and actor Kiell Smith-Bynoe to learn about the epic poems the Iliad and Odyssey. Traditionally attributed to the poet Homer, these works tell parts of a legend that has fascinated us for centuries: the story of the Trojan War. Featuring a cast of unforgettable characters – Achilles, Odysseus, Paris, Helen, Hector and Agamemnon – the war between ancient Greece and Troy has inspired writers, artists and filmmakers for over a millennium. But the Iliad and Odyssey only recount episodes of this much bigger story. The Iliad, focusing on the hero Achilles, takes place in the closing stretches of the war. And the Odyssey tells the tale of Odysseus's perilous voyage home after the Greeks have triumphed. In this episode, we trace the origins of the poems in the 8th century BCE, looking at whether Homer really wrote them and how these originally oral tales came to be written down, before exploring the fantastical tales they tell. Along the way, we also look at whether or not the Trojan war really happened, how the ancient Greeks defined heroism, and examine the role of gods and monsters in the poems and the lives of their heroes.If you're a fan of fantastical myths and legends, heroes behaving badly, and ancient Greek culture, you'll love our episode on the Iliad and Odyssey.If you want more from Kiell Smith-Bynoe, listen to our episode on Viking explorer Leif Erikson. And for more historical epics, check out our episodes on the Legends of King Arthur, and the Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh.You're Dead To Me is the comedy podcast that takes history seriously. Every episode, Greg Jenner brings together the best names in history and comedy to learn and laugh about the past.Hosted by: Greg Jenner Research by: Auréliane Perrin Written by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow, Dr Emma Nagouse, and Greg Jenner Produced by: Dr Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Audio Producer: Steve Hankey Production Coordinator: Gill Huggett Senior Producer: Dr Emma Nagouse Executive Editor: Philip Sellars

What do actual historians think about the Thucydides Trap? Does our 'low T' discourse all just come back to the movie 300? How the did ancient Greeks fight and why does Homer still keep us coming back 2700 years later? To discuss we have on the excellent Roel Konijnendijk, professor at Oxford and author of Classical Greek Tactics: A Cultural History. Tony Stark and Justin McIntosh join. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What happens when a poet who survived prison sits down with the world's oldest war story--and reads it in three sleepless, wandering days? In this second episode of the EconTalk Book Club on the Iliad, Dwayne Betts and EconTalk host Russ Roberts trade their impressions of the Iliad, discovering it's less about war than about fathers, friendship, and the stubborn dignity people find inside fates they can't escape. Betts connects Achilles's rage and grief to his own experience of incarceration and depression, while Roberts marvels at Homer's cinematic style and the strange tenderness between enemies. Together they unpack the shield of Achilles, the ransom of Hector's body, and how an ancient poem about war still cracks readers open today. It's a conversation about reading as communion--and how a 2,800-year-old story became, unexpectedly, a way of connecting to each other.

The West might be becoming less ‘religious', but according to many it's becoming a lot more 'spiritual'.In fact, “spiritual but not religious” is described as a “rapidly growing faith group” in America, with as many as 20 per cent of people falling into the category.And yet, there's nothing new about being spiritual but not religious; it's been Christianity's dancing partner – or maybe sparring partner - for thousands of years.FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERE CREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne, directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher.Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership. Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains my wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com – letting the truth out.

For millennia, the legend of Medusa has haunted the human imagination, a creature so terrifying that a single glance could turn the living to stone. While most dismiss her as pure mythology, some researchers point to serpentine monsters appearing independently across ancient cultures and ask: were they all describing the same thing? But look closer at Medusa's story, and something shifts. Because some say she wasn't born a monster; she was made into one.  For a full list of sources, please visit: sosupernaturalpodcast.com/mystical-medusa Did you know you can listen to So Supernatural ad-free? Join the Crime Junkie Fan Club! Visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/fanclub/ to view the current membership options and policies. So Supernatural is an Audiochuck and Crime House production. Find us on social! Instagram: @sosupernaturalpod Twitter: @_sosupernatural Facebook: /sosupernaturalpod Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Beginning with the invasion by Mussolini's army in October 1940, Greece was pulled into the Second World War and with it came a band of archeologists, classicists, and intellectuals who risked their lives to protect the country's great antiquities. Writer Steven Talty sits down with True Spies producer Morgan Childs to tell the extraordinary tale. From SPYSCAPE, the home of secrets. A Cup And Nuzzle production. Series producer: Joe Foley. Produced by Morgan Childs. Stephan Talty is the author of The American School of Spies: The Archeologists Who Fought the Nazis and Saved the Treasures of Ancient Greece. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is there any truth in the Odyssey, and what does it all mean? We know it's a story where a man convenes with monsters and gods, ghosts and mythological beings, but the Odyssey actually does tell us a lot about Ancient Greece - about traditions, anxieties, storytelling, geography, values and what it is to be human.In this episode, Dan is joined by world-leading classicists Professor Dame Mary Beard and Professor Edith Hall to break down Homer's epic poem to make sense of its history, characters, the mythology, what is based in truth and what we do and don't know about its elusive author.Produced by Mariana Des Forges and edited by Dougal PatmoreYou can enjoy more history from Mary Beard in her podcast Instant Classics.We need your help! Let us know what you want from Dan Snow's History Hit by filling in our anonymous survey here: https://forms.gle/PvgayWLkWGjYT4St6Dan Snow's History Hit is now available on YouTube! Check it out at: https://www.youtube.com/@DSHHPodcastSign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.You can also email the podcast directly at ds.hh@historyhit.com. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

High performers - athletes, business professionals, artists, and the like - inspire and motivate us. They give us benchmarks to strive for and show us what sort of life we might lead if we were the “greatest of all time” in a given field.But is striving to be the “greatest” actually good for us? Or does it do more harm than good?FOR FULL SHOW NOTES - CLICK HERE'CREDITSUndeceptions is hosted by John Dickson, produced by Kaley Payne, directed and edited by Mark Hadley. Alasdair Belling is a writer and researcher.Sophie Hawkshaw is on socials and membership. Siobhan McGuiness is our online librarian. Lyndie Leviston remains my wonderful assistant. Santino Dimarco is Chief Finance and Operations Consultant. Undeceptions is the flagship podcast of Undeceptions.com – letting the truth out.

Ego, pride, wrath, fear, gods, superheroes, mortals, and lots of killing. Welcome to Homer's Iliad, which reads at times like a script for a Tarantino film or the latest installment of the Avengers franchise. In the first episode of the EconTalk Book Club on the Iliad, Ido Hevroni of Shalem College speaks with EconTalk's Russ Roberts about the surprising relevance of a 2800-year-old epic poem. Hevroni also provides useful background for first-time readers and what it's like to read the Iliad with combat veterans.