Podcasts about Apuleius

How did Plato influence St. Augustine? Today on Ascend: The Great Books Podcast, Dcn. Harrison Garlick and Dr. Chad Pecknold of the Catholic University of America discuss Plato's influence on St. Augustine.Check out our account on X for daily postings on the great books!Check out our library of written guides to the great books!Check out FIRE ON THE ALTAR by Dr. Chad Pecknold.The discussion begins with the historical evolution of Platonism—from the original Academy of Socrates and Plato, through Middle Platonism (with figures like Plutarch and Apuleius), to the late or Neoplatonism of Plotinus and others—showing how it became increasingly religious, mystical, and hierarchical in the Roman Empire, complete with daemons (intermediary spiritual beings) and a strong emphasis on the soul's ascent to the divine.St. Augustine, after years as a Manichaean and skeptic, encountered Platonic texts (likely including Plotinus) in Milan around 385–386 AD through Christian Platonists like Bishop Ambrose and Simplicianus. These writings played a crucial role in his intellectual conversion: they revealed a transcendent, immaterial God as Being itself, the eternal Word/Logos, and the soul's capacity for contemplative ascent beyond the material world—ideas strikingly parallel to the prologue of John's Gospel.Yet St. Augustine recognized Platonism's crucial limitation: it allowed him to "catch the fragrance" of God but not to "feast" through union, because it lacked the Word made flesh—the incarnate Christ as the true mediator who bridges the gap between the divine and humanity, solving the problem of mediation and purification that Platonism itself raised but could not resolve.Ultimately, Pecknold presents Platonism as a providential praeparatio evangelica—a promise that raises the restless heart's longing for God, truth, beauty, and eternal happiness—but one fulfilled only in Christianity. St. Augustine adopts and transforms Platonic elements (such as the ideas/forms residing in the divine mind, now identified with the Logos/Christ, and the soul's ascent through purification) while critiquing its errors, especially its inadequate mediators and inability to address incarnation, bodily resurrection, and grace. In this way, St. Augustine shows that Plato comes closest among philosophers to Christianity, yet only the Word made flesh satisfies the hunger Plato so powerfully articulated.Plato on St. Boethius is up next week!

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The Liturgical Year is a work written between 1841 and 1875, by Dom Prosper Gueranger, abbot of the French Benedctine abbey of Solesmes. It is a rich theological reflection on the various feasts and seasons of the Church's liturgical cycle. Please consider donating to help keep this podcast going by going to buymeacoffee.com/catholicdailybrief Also, if you enjoy these episodes, please give a five star rating and share the podcast with your friends and family

Url to TweetNick Jeffery and John Granger focus their Hallmarked Man Week Three conversation around the mythological content of Strike 8, a subject prompted by Rowling's 8 September tweet above. They briefly review the author's background in mythology, from her study in school to her use of it in Harry Potter, Fantastic Beasts, and Cormoran Strike. John explains the relationship of myth with Rowling's ‘triple play' combination of Shed tools and her ‘G-spot' Lake and Shed wizardry that has enchanted readers for the last 25 years.The heart of this week's conversation, though, is John's work since 2021 in explaining the centrality of the myth of ‘Cupid and Psyche' to the Cormoran Strike series. Nick and John discuss its role in understanding the otherwise mysterious Hallmarked Man, especially the murder of Tyler Powell and the imprisonment of Sapphire Neagle, the various trials of Psyche in the myth and correspondences with Robin's agonies, and the critical distinction between ‘Eros' and ‘Anteros' as it plays out in the lives and relationships of Cormoran and Robin. John theorizes that the Ramsay Silver murder in the vault had to take place where it does, Strike's location “necessity,” not for any logical reason but for a profoundly allegorical one.Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.It's a relatively brief conversation, but to get the importance of ‘Cupid and Psyche' — and Rowling is either hat-tipping, confirming sans acknowledgement, or having some fun about John's exegesis of this myth — there is a lot of material on the subject to read! Enjoy the review or first reading of this material via the links provided and let us know what you think in the comment boxes below.Paid subscribers to Hogwarts Professor have already received an only-in-book-form essay I wrote about the mythological template of Harry Potter, Paul Diel's treatment of the Eros and Psyche myth per ‘Banalization' and ‘Sublimation,' and their invitations to a Q&A session about Hallmarked Man. If you're a free rather than a paid subscriber, please consider upgrading that subscription to join the Hogwarts Professor Moderator Backchannels!Referenced ‘Cupid and Psyche' Posts:Rowling Points to Myth of Cupid and Psyche in order to Console Strike Fans Disappointed with Hallmarked Man (8 September 2025, Nick Jeffery)Nick shares the context of Rowling's tweet (fan disappointment!) and the background information about the illustration she chose for it.The Most Pleasant and Delectable Tale of the Marriage of Cupid and Psyche (Apuleius)A translation of the Silver Age Latin tale from Apuleius' Golden Ass.A Mythological Key to Cormoran Strike? The Myth of Eros, Psyche, and Venus (22 April 2021, John Granger)The first post to discuss Rowling's use of this specific myth within Cormoran Strike, it is essential reading and comes in four parts:* a discussion of Rowling's stated beliefs about the soul and how it is the focus of her story-telling,* a review of her psychological artistry in Potter and the post Potter novels and screenplays,* a synopsis of the Eros and Psyche myth, and* a point to point look at the parallels in the story thus far with speculation about novels to come.Robin's Two Perfumes: The Meaning of Philosychos and Narciso (9 June 2021, John Granger)The names of Robin's baseline perfume, Philosychos, and the one she and Strike choose at story's end, Narciso, both point less to the bedroom than to Robin's allegorical, psychological, and mythological role as Psyche in the series.Erich Neumann in his Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine describes this discipline as a “prohibition against pity” which “signifies Psyche's struggle against the feminine nature.” …Psyche's last trial involves her having to confront death, a “marriage” to which she was condemned as a sacrifice at the story's start, a meeting she can only survive by transcending her feminine qualities of nurturing and pity. She must become, if only temporarily, a narcissist to pass through Hades and return to the world of the Sun and to Cupid. The myth, in Jungian lights, is about her transcending the accidental self, here her feminine and sexual relation to Eros or Cupid, for “ego-stability” leading to “individuation,” ascent to the greater, immortal Self.Robin as resident psychologist and loving soul is the Psyche-cipher of the Strike mysteries. She differs from the relatively passive Human Beauty of the myth in her active and determined “struggle against the feminine nature,” her “What. I. Do!” She not only wrestles with her desires for domesticity and maternity in her thinking but stands up to Strike-Cupid in their Valentine's Day Street Fight and demands his respect or at least more considerate behavior. But she is still struggling with her difficulty to be the narcissist rather than the Great Mother when circumstances and her heroine's journey of psychological individuation demand that.Ink Black Heart: The Mythic Backdrop (10 September 2022, John Granger)What Rowling is depicting in Robin's journey through the events and mystery of Ink Black Heart include a trap set by Venus, one that takes Robin to a personal and professional underworld or hell, her survival and endurance of every temptation by her determination to be steely rather than empathetic, especially with respect to a certain “lame fellow” (!), and her re-surfacing from hell a changed person, one worthy of begrudging Venereal approval (or Zeus' intervention — Rokeby!).Ink Black Heart: Strike as Zeus to Robin's Leda and Cupid to Mads' Psyche (10 November 2022, John Granger)These traditional portrayals of the every person's human and divine aspects, soul and spirit as man and woman in dynamic, cathartic relationship — think Romeo and Juliet, Redcrosse Knight and Una, Cupid and Psyche — are perhaps, with her alchemical symbolism, sequencing, and coloring, Rowling's greatest literary ‘reach' and achievement in the Strike series, albeit one largely lost on her her vast reading audience. The deliberate conjunction-melange of archetypal psychology, mythology, and spiritual allegory in these novels is, especially in combination with her hermetic artistry, intertextual playfulness (Aurora Leigh!), and chiastic structures, testimony to the author being one of the most accomplished and challenging writers of the age in addition to the most popular (and least well understood, even by her fans).Hallmarked Man: Freemasonry and J. K. Rowling (7 February 2024, Nick Jeffery)The Royal Arch degree is unique in England for including the ceremony of “Passing the Veils” symbolising the path to enlightenment that a mason undergoes as he progresses in the craft. Given Peter Rowling's upward social mobility from working class apprentice to engineer and moving from the Bristol suburbs to middle class Tutshill, it isn't beyond reason to wonder if Peter might have been tempted by the social and career advantages that freemasonry might have offered him and exposed a young Joanne to some of the symbolism.Edinburgh, as well as being the home of the Grand Lodge of Scotland, is also home to if not the oldest lodge in the world, then at least the one with the oldest records. Lodge of Edinburgh (Mary's Chapel) No. 1 has minutes of meetings from 31st July 1599. There have long been arguments between this Lodge and the one in Kilwinning on the other coast of Scotland as to which is the oldest. (see IVº of the Rite of Baldwyn above)J. K. Rowling's ‘G-Spot' and ‘Triple Play:' The Lake & Shed Secret of Her Success (21 September 2024, John Granger)I want to try tonight to explain as succinctly — and as provocatively — as possible why I think Rowling's ‘Lake and Shed' metaphorical explanation of how she writes offers a compelling reason for both why she writes and why readers around the world love her novels the way they do. I call this her ‘G-Spot' and ‘Triple Play' because it is her point of singular genius, the defining quality that separates her from contemporary story-tellers, which involves ‘Shed' artistry of three particular literary tools, all subliminal, which work together to achieve her aims.The Hallmarked Man's Flood of Names, Characters, and Plots (22 September 2025, John Granger)Rowling's seven Shed tools — psychomachia, literary alchemy, ring composition, misdirection towards defamiliarization, Christian symbolism, mythology, and inter-intratextuality (writing about reading and writing) — are all about the transformation of the human soul by cathartic experience in the imaginative heart, i.e., our spiritual reorientation. These traditional tools alone don't do it, of course; her capacity for creating archetypal characters that we care about in profound fashion is what gives the tools their grip on the heart.But, if a writer uses these tools in his or her Shed, the game being played and its stakes are not in question. Everything Rowling has written to date, with greater or lesser success (largely dependent on her control of the final product, cough*Warner Brothers*cough), shares this aim. Her global popularity testifies that much more often than not she hits her target to the delight of her readers.I assume this was her aim in Hallmarked Man. It's early days on the full exegesis of Strike8 in light of Rowling's Shed tools, Lake springs, and Golden Threads, but there are encouraging signs. My third reading of the book included my first ‘Aha!' moments with respect to the mythological template of the series, the Shed tool Rowling was openly urging her readers to think about in her recent Cupid and Psyche tweet.Jungian Interpretations of ‘Cupid and Psyche:'* Erich Neumann: Amor and Psyche: The Psychic Development of the Feminine (A Commentary on the Tale by Apuleius)* Paul Diel: Symbolism in Greek Mythology: Human Desire and Its Transformations (A “psychological study of the symbols condensed in the fate of the mythological hero”)* Robert A. Johnson: SHE: Understanding Feminine Psychology (An interpretation based on the myth of Amor and Psyche and based on Jungian mythological principles)* Marie-Louise von Franz: Golden Ass of Apuleius: The Liberation of the Feminine in Man (originally A Psychological Interpretation of The Golden Ass of Apuleius)Hogwarts Professor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to Hogwarts Professor at hogwartsprofessor.substack.com/subscribe

This week, we take on Apuleius' The Golden Ass, a hilarious surprise from Ted Gioia's Immersive Humanities Course. Written in the mid-300s A.D., this is the very first Latin prose novel, penned by Algerian-born Apuleius. Lucius, our hero, is a young man who meddles in magic, transforms into a donkey, and embarks on wild adventures before returning to human form. We were so captivated that note-taking fell by the wayside, much like with Herodotus' Histories. This rollicking tale, brimming with late-Roman-Empire themes, proved both hilarious and profound.Unlike Aristotle's structured tragedy guidelines (see Week 5's Poetics), The Golden Ass defies unity of action, place, and time, weaving a tapestry of digressions and sub-stories. Lucius' transformation serves as a spine for tales like “I heard…” or “So they told me…,” echoing the nested narratives of The Odyssey and The Aeneid. The standout sub-story is the myth of Cupid and Psyche, the earliest known version, which stunned us as the inspiration for C.S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces. Its late appearance for a myth feels significant, reflecting a decadent, fatigued Roman worldview. Fortune, personified as in Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, reappears, underscoring this era's preoccupations.Sarah Ruden's translation is a triumph, preserving Apuleius' puns, alliteration, and bawdy humor. This farce, second only to Lysistrata in humor, is delightfully NSFW, with outrageous scenes that shocked even our son Jack. Ruden notes comparisons to modern humorists like Wodehouse or George MacDonald Fraser's Flashman series, and we see parallels to Forrest Gump—Lucius stumbles through events without driving the plot. The book's influence extends to A Confederacy of Dunces, sparking new reading threads for us, exactly why we joined this course.We paired this with Scott Joplin's ragtime, evoking The Sting's lively vibe. Initially, the rags blended together, but subtle differences, like occasional piano percussion, emerged over time, enriching our listening. Next week, we continue with more narrative, music, and art, including Vincent van Gogh's works, in this eclectic journey. Join us next week as we travel east and read The Arabian Nights.LINKTed Gioia/The Honest Broker's 12-Month Immersive Humanities Course (paywalled!)My Amazon Book List (NOT an affiliate link)O Brother Where Art ThouCirceRagtime (The Sting, YouTube)Young Gun Silver FoxTed's "New" Yacht Rock postCONNECTTo read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com.Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ LISTENSpotify -

I'm reading and talking about Ted Gioia's "Immersive Humanities Course," 52 weeks of World Classics.Before we start, though, we talk about graduation speeches...and share the graduation speech we wish we'd heard.Next, we journey from Western literature back to ancient China to explore two timeless texts: Lao Tzu's Tao Te Ching (c. 500 B.C.) and Sun Tzu's The Art of War (c. 400 B.C.), roughly contemporary with Confucius and Plato. After a lukewarm experience with Confucius' Analects in Week 4, we adjusted our approach to these aphoristic works, splitting each into five parts and interleaving them daily. While this didn't make reading easier, it encouraged comparisons between the two.The Tao Te Ching offers a serene philosophy of “the Way,” advocating a life of detachment and flow, like a leaf on a stream. Key insights include prioritizing essence over form (e.g., the space within walls over the walls themselves), embracing hands-off leadership, and avoiding rules or weapons that may incite vice or war. But it's passive: retreating rather than advancing in the face of evil feels challenging, especially compared to active resistance like Gandhi's. The Tao's detachment felt isolating, distinct from the interconnected self-emptying of the Dhammapada or Boethius' Christian-Stoic blend.In contrast, The Art of War is a ruthless manual of military strategy. Sun Tzu, who famously beheaded two concubines to prove his methods to King Ho Lu, emphasizes deception, swift victory, and avoiding prolonged conflict. Key takeaways: defensive measures prevent defeat but don't ensure victory; desperate soldiers fight hardest; and spies are a humane, cost-effective tool. We ponder the status of Sun's soldiers (free or enslaved?), recalling Herodotus' Spartan-Persian debates on free men's ferocity. The texts seem to clash: the Tao's passivity versus Sun's calculated control, though Sun's strategic setups might align with the Tao's inevitable flow.We noted a cultural contrast: Chinese texts lack the narrative epics of Western heroes like Odysseus or Gilgamesh, hinting at differing worldviews. Unlike Confucius' moral focus, neither text emphasizes goodness, which surprised us. Our Tao edition (Stephen Miller's) felt overly modernized, while our unannotated Art of War was dry but tactically insightful, especially for business or military studies. Pairing it with Herodotus or Machiavelli could be illuminating.Don't skip the music! Three albums each from the Beatles and The Rolling Stones...when was the last time you listened to one all the way through?Next week, we return to narrative with Apuleius' Golden Ass, explore Scott Joplin's ragtime, and admire van Gogh's art. LINKTed Gioia/The Honest Broker's 12-Month Immersive Humanities Course (paywalled!)My Amazon Book List (NOT an affiliate link)CONNECTTo read more of my writing, visit my Substack - https://www.cheryldrury.substack.com.Follow me on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/cldrury/ LISTENSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/5GpySInw1e8IqNQvXow7Lv?si=9ebd5508daa245bdApple Podcasts -

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Anna Blennow beskriver sitt sökande efter biblioteket som har tillhört den man som tros ligga bakom 1600-talspseudonymen Skogekär Bergbo. Och funderar över bokryggarnas mystiska verkan. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna.Klockan på väggen tickade. Sekund för sekund blev synlig, oändligt lång, som om sekundvisaren tvekade för varje slag. Tiden i den predigitala eran kunde vara så totalt tom, det ensamma rummet, möblerna som stod stilla på sina platser. Den enda vägen ut ur tiden var via bokstäverna. Böckernas ryggar i bokhyllan var som brev från en framtid, ett liv som kanske skulle komma att bli mitt eget när jag blev vuxen. ”Ekelöfs nej”. ”Brott och straff”. ”Rutiga kokboken”. Jag läste titlarna om och om igen, så att orden förlorade sin betydelse och blev besvärjelser som skulle hjälpa mig genom den tomma tiden.När jag långt senare kom att öppna böckerna vars ryggar var så välbekanta blev jag ofta besviken. Innehållet kunde inte mäta sig med de drömmar som de kortfattade titlarna hade skapat i mig. Det var alltså inte där livet fanns. Kanske var det i stället ensamheten som bodde i bokbanden, sökandet efter betryggande svar och fasta strukturer.”Siste quisquis ante portam es. Stanna, vem än du är, framför porten. Knacka inte på dörren och ge inte ett ljud ifrån dig. Den här platsen är helig. Detta är de gudomliga och mänskliga vetenskapernas helgedom. Här är de dödas rådsförsamling och dyrkan. Härifrån må alla arbetets mödor, allt larm och de som är okunniga om litteratur vika hädan. Stör inte ägarens ensamhet och frid.”Så stod det skrivet på latin ovanför dörren till ett av författaren Schering Rosenhane den äldres bibliotek. Länge visste man inte mer om hans boksamling än att den funnits. I en lista över de inventarier den noggranne Rosenhane förvarat på sitt kontor förtecknades boklistor från alla hans gods: Torp och Tistad i Södermanland, Säby i Järfälla, det Rosenhaneska palatset på Riddarholmen, och hans ståthållarvåning på slottet Tre Kronor. Men listorna själva är inte bevarade, och boksamlingen skingrad. Det var i samband med mitt forskningsprojekt om Rosenhane som den troliga författaren bakom diktarpseudonymen Skogekär Bergbo som jag påbörjade jakten på hans böcker.Schering Rosenhane var ämbetsman under drottning Kristinas regering på 1600-talet, ofta på statliga uppdrag utomlands. Men var han än befann sig var han på jakt efter böcker. I Paris fick han som ung student utan pengar låna till sig den läsning han längtade efter. När han sändes till de Westfaliska fredsförhandlingarna köpte han redan på väg dit, visar räkenskaperna, en hög med böcker – och en luta, för att kunna spela och dikta på lediga stunder. I Münster bodde han hos den beryktade boksamlaren Bernhard Rottendorff, vars ”sköna bibliotek” han fick begagna. Ur den svenska stormaktstidens krigsbyten belönades han för sitt fredsmäkleri med mängder av böcker. Till sonen Johan, på studieresa i Holland, sände han inköpslistor på vackra objekt till biblioteken: glober, kopparstick, kartor.Johan Rosenhane älskade också böcker. Och det var i hans bibliotekskatalog som jag hittade den: en boklista skriven med Scherings hand, om totalt nästan 600 volymer. Här var det: Schering Rosenhanes bibliotek. Men inte hela. Ett bibliotek värdigt en boksamlare rymde vid den här tiden tusentals böcker. Johan hade ärvt godset Tistad efter faderns död, och troligen var det böckerna i det biblioteket som fanns i listan.Men det var en kryptisk förteckning: oftast bara en förkortad titel och författarens efternamn. Inga tryckorter och årtal. ”Cicero, två band”. ”Apuleius verk”. Om jag ville spåra just de här böckerna skulle det bli svårt. Men det fanns, visade det sig, en lösning. Efter Johans död såldes snart biblioteket på Tistad. Det gamla huset skulle rivas, bibliotekssalen försvann, och böckerna såldes till ett kansliråd vid namn Eckleff. Men han hade det svårt ekonomiskt och lät sälja alltihop igen. Auktionskatalogen finns kvar, och där kunde jag para ihop verk efter verk med exemplaren i boklistan. Och så kunde jag ge mig ut till de samlingar och bibliotek dit många av böckerna vandrat på olika vägar. Att jag hittat rätt exemplar kunde jag se från Eckleffs ex libris; ibland fanns Johan Rosenhanes signatur i boken, ibland initialerna S.R. – Schering Rosenhane. Och på böckernas ryggar i vita pergamentband hade Schering med egen hand tecknat titel och författare i brunt bläck.Böckerna skulle innehålla fler indicier till lösningen på gåtan om Skogekär Bergbo, men det mest omvälvande för mig var inte innehållet, utan att hålla böckerna i mina händer. Känslan var långt starkare än när jag undersökt hans brev och manuskript. Det förvånade mig först, men så förstod jag: När jag bläddrar i böckerna och läser en rad här och där gör jag precis samma sak som han själv gjorde. Hans händer har vänt de här bladen precis som mina gör nu, och precis som jag har han sökt kunskap mellan de här pärmarna. I böckerna möts våra världar och är precis desamma.Böcker är inte bara objekt i sig. De bär på ytterligare fysiska spår bortom sig själva: tummade smutsiga sidor, spår av kyssar på en illuminerad helgonbild i en medeltida codex, utflutet bläck där någon strukit under eller antecknat. Böckernas historia är bibliotekens historia, men också materialens: papyrus, pergament, papper.De stora biblioteken, skriver Irene Vallejo i ”Papyrus – om bokens födelse i den antika världen”, utsattes lättare för plundring och bränder. De antika verk vi läser idag skyddades i perifera och obetydliga samlingar där de klarade sig från förödelse. Biblioteken har genom historien utgjort skyddsrum både för böcker och läsare. ”Stör inte ägarens ensamhet och frid”, stod det i biblioteket på Tistad. Begreppet, otium et solitudo, är lånat från Petrarca, som i sin tur fått det från antiken: Cicero skriver om författaren och statsmannen Cato den äldre att han aldrig var ”mindre sysslolös än när han var ledig, och aldrig mindre ensam än när han var för sig själv”. I biblioteken kunde Cicero, Petrarca och Schering Rosenhane tala med det som var förgånget och försvunnet. Och jag kan stå intill och lyssna.Bredvid universitetet där jag arbetar ligger biblioteket. När jag kommer upp för backen brukar jag alltid välja biblioteksentrén, förbunden med universitetet genom en inglasad passage, för att få en fläkt av den trygghet som strömmar ut från bokhyllor, läsplatser och bokmagasin insprängda i berggrunden. Det som präglar det tryckta ordet i motsats till digitala publikationer, skriver Lothar Müller i sin studie ”Vit magi – papperets epok”, är inte bara böckernas tredimensionella form och materialitet, utan också det fastslagna, oföränderliga. En bok kan till skillnad från en e-bok inte formateras om eller uppdateras. Det förgångna går inte att förändra, men inte heller att förlora, viskar böckernas ryggar, och det fyller mig med trygghet. Den torra doften av papper, den lite syrliga lukten av bokband, otium et solitudo. Tiden står stilla, men inte i väntan och ensamhet, utan närvaro.Anna Blennowlatinforskare och poetLitteratur Irene Vallejo: Papyrus – om bokens födelse i den antika världen. Översättare: Annakarin Thorburn. Albert Bonniers förlag, 2023.Lothar Müller: Vit magi: papperets epok. Översättare: Tommy Andersson. Glänta Produktion 2023.Kathryn M. Rudy, ”Touching parchment: how medieval users rubbed, handled, and kissed their manuscripts”, OpenBook Publishers 2023, Open access https://www.openbookpublishers.com/books/10.11647/OBP.0337Anna Blennow, ”Schering Rosenhanes kärleksvisa. En herdes väg från Seine till Sverige”, Tidskrift för litteraturvetenskap 1/2024, Open access https://publicera.kb.se/tfl/issue/view/1798

Apuleius' ‘Metamorphoses', better known as ‘The Golden Ass', is the only ancient Roman novel to have survived in its entirety. Following the story of Lucius, forced to suffer as a donkey until the goddess Isis intervenes, the novel includes frenetic wordplay, filthy humour and the earliest known version of the Psyche and Cupid myth. In this episode, Tom and Emily discuss Apuleius' anarchic mix of the high and low brow, and his incisive depiction of the lives of impoverished and enslaved people.This is an extract from this episode. To listen in full and to our other Close Readings series, sign up:Directly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsFurther reading in the LRB:Peter Parsons: Ancient Greek Romanceshttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n15/peter-parsons/ancient-greek-romancesLeofranc Holford-Strevens: God's Willhttps://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v25/n10/leofranc-holford-strevens/god-s-will Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Åsnan har fungerat som en symbol för dumhet och envishet, men i litteraturen kan man ana att djuret har en större betydelse än så. Torbjörn Elensky inspireras av dess konstruktiva dumhet. Lyssna på alla avsnitt i Sveriges Radio Play. ESSÄ: Detta är en text där skribenten reflekterar över ett ämne eller ett verk. Åsikter som uttrycks är skribentens egna.Hur är det egentligen: är dumhet bara brist på intelligens eller är det en egenskap i egen rätt? Kan det finnas olika slags dumhet, precis som det finns olika slags intelligens? Övergripande, språklig, matematisk, social, politisk... kanske finns det även kreativ och konstruktiv dumhet, som kan leda till framsteg för mänskligheten? Kanske finns det också en viss intelligent dumhet, som den där listiga strategin för att slippa ansvar, som återfinns i uttrycket ”hacerse el sueco”, att göra sig svensk. Att göra sig svensk är till exempel att låtsas som man inte fattar för att slippa dela på notan, komma undan ansvar för något man gjort, som ett barn som gör sig tungt för att inte kunna lyftas gör sig denna variant av svensken oförstående för att inte dras in eller ställas till svars. Man kan fundera länge på varför spansktalande fått för sig att just svenskar är så funtade, men den makthavare som säger sig ha varit naiv gör sig i detta svensk, se hace el sueco.Det bästa exemplet på konstruktiv dumhet i den moderna litteraturen är nog den tappre soldaten Svejk, i den tjeckiske författaren Jaroslav Haseks roman från 1921. Svejk är tjock och trög, men alltid optimistisk och villig att stå till tjänst. Han driver sina överordnade till vansinne genom att ta deras order bokstavligt, vara orimligt plikttrogen och alltid bemöta alla klagomål med ett nöjt leende. Han är en riktig åsna, men med sin dumhet avslöjar han överhetens och hela första världskrigets absurditet. Åsna ja, djuret som förknippas med dumhet vandrar också sida vid sida med litteraturhistoriens mest berömda kloka dumbom. Sancho Panza. Panza följer sin herre don Quijote genom det tidiga 1600-talets Spanien. Riddaren av den sorgliga skepnaden, är bildad och hjältemodig, en hidalgo med ideal från medeltiden som färdas genom den spanska guldålderns Kastilien och som gång på gång måste räddas från sin egen fantasis förvrängning av omgivningen. Hans häst är en riktigt ömklig krake, men den är åtminstone en häst, så den har ett namn. Rosinante. Panzas åsna är enbart en åsna, så den har inget namn utan kallas bara rucio, grå. Den försvinner dessutom utan någon förklaring. Det finns de som trott att Cervantes sjabblade bort den i skrivandet. Men det verkar väl ganska osannolikt? Snarare ligger förklaringen i åsnans symbolik, som inte bara handlar om dumhet utan också om envishet. Den representerar det lägsta folket, de fattiga, slavarna, de som tvingas att tjäna fast de inte vill. De som genom hela historien gjort passivt motstånd genom att låtsas inte förstå order, maska och sinka och gå åt andra hållet. Försvinnandet är alltså mycket medvetet, och den namnlösa åsnan något som förbinder Cervantes roman med andra romaner.Redan de gamla romarna använde åsnan som symbol för dumhet. Quid nunc te, asine litteras doceam? löd ett uttryck. Åsna, ska jag lära dig att läsa och skriva? Den fenomenala romerska romanen ”Den gyllene åsnan” från 100-talet efter Kristus är den enda roman på latin från antiken som överlevt. Precis som i de grekiska romaner författaren Apuleius imiterar, är handlingen varierad och komplicerad. Det handlar Lucius, en ung man som är väldigt intresserad av magi och som tänker förvandla sig själv till en fågel – men istället blir till en åsna. Han upplever en mängd exotiska resor och äventyr i denna skepnad, tills han befrias av gudinnan Isis, vars kult han ansluter sig till. Det är utvikningarna som är romanens stora behållning. Den blev enormt populär när den trycktes första gången i Italien 1469. Den översattes och spreds snabbt över Europa. Den första översättningen till spanska trycktes i Sevilla redan 1513 och här gjorde den så stor succé att den gav upphov till pikareskromanerna, berättelser om personer som reser runt i Spanien och upplever det ena äventyret efter det andra. Precis som i ”Don Quijote” alltså, som kan sägas vara både kulmen på detta litterära skede och öppningen till de följande århundradenas europeiska romankonst.Litteraturen avslöjar en sanning: Åsnan är inget dumt djur, inte egentligen, tvärtom är dess envishet snarare ett uttryck för intelligens. Den vill inte lyda. Men den är en av människans verkligt gamla tjänare. Troligen först tämjd av afrikanska herdar för mer än 6000 år sedan. Man har i Egypten hittat åsnegravar äldre än pyramiderna. Josef, Maria och Jesus flydde till Egypten på en åsna, på samma djur red Jesus in i Jerusalem. Den klassiskt antika åsnan förenas med den bibliska åsnan, främst genom Det nya testamentet, men även i det gamla återkommer vårt trogna arbetsdjur, än som symbol för dumhet, än för ödmjukhet och det enkla arbetande folket. Särskilt central är legenden om Bileams åsna i fjärde Mosebok. I den är det åsnan som har förmågan att se en ängel som spärrar vägen för Bileam, som blir arg och piskar åsnan varpå denna mirakulöst får talets gåva och frågar varför Bileam slår honom. Till slut visar sig ängeln även för människan, men den enkla, dumma åsnan såg den först.Den store filosofen, diktaren och astrologen Giordano Bruno förenar den antika och den bibliska åsnan på ett sätt som verkligen skingrar alla motsägelser. I den lilla skriften ”Den pegasiska hästens kabbala” från 1585 hålls ett lovtal till den kristna ödmjukhetens åsna. Texten är full av ironiska blinkningar och vändningar och åsnan blir en samlande symbol för det kristna hyllandet av okunskap som väg till frälsning. Bruno var ingen vän av okunskap, vilket framgår med önskvärd satirisk tydlighet. Men i den senare delen av boken kommer åsnan tillbaka. Nu är det den som segrar över de mänskliga akademiernas tjockskallighet – och det visar sig att den vita bevingade hästen Pegasus, i själva verket var en åsna. Liksom Bruno själv, som på grund av sitt envetna fasthållande vid sina övertygelser väckte kyrkans missnöje och brändes på bål av inkvisitionen i Rom år 1600.Kanske är dumhet en av våra viktigaste egenskaper. För Sokrates var detta att göra sig dum ett sätt att tvinga folk att bena upp sina egna resonemang, lite som Svejk fick sina befäl att göra bort sig genom att lyda dem. Intelligenta personer kännetecknas också av sin överlägsna förmåga att försvara galna idéer med skarpare argument än mindre begåvade människor. Den intelligenta vill glänsa, ta plats, vara först med det senaste och vecklar lätt in sig i omständligt försvar för abstraktioner som leder käpprätt till helvetet. Den som är lite åsneaktig däremot låter sig inte så lätt dras med av det senaste, den bryr sig inte om flärd och prestige utan stretar på i tysthet. Det är bara en intelligent person som skulle kunna få för sig att upphöja dumheten till ideal, medan åsnan inte skulle bry sig om att den tilldelades hjälterollen. Den skulle spela svensk, göra sig tung, streta vidare i sin takt och på sin höjd skulle den le åt påståendet att den i själva verket var en Pegasus.Torbjörn Elenskyförfattare och essäistLitteraturGiordano Bruno: Den pegasiska hästens kabbala. Översättare: Gustav Sjöberg. Eskaton, 2024.Miguel de Cervantes: Den snillrike riddaren Don Quijote av La Mancha. Översättare: Jens Nordenhök. Nilsson Förlag, 2016.

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De wonderen van Jezus moeten, net als alle verhalen uit de eerste eeuw, begrepen worden binnen de context van de Grieks-Romeinse wereld, de enige wereld die de auteur en zijn publiek kenden. Om deze verhalen op een verantwoorde manier te evalueren en uit te leggen, moeten we voortdurend verwijzen naar die cultuur, haar waarden, aannames en populaire symbolen.Twee sleutelelementen in de wonderen van Jezus zijn het machtsvertoon en de specifieke interacties tussen Jezus en de mensen die hulp zoeken. Deze elementen benadrukken het belang van zijn macht en onthullen zijn karakter.De god die het meest bekend stond om zijn genezingen was Asclepius (door de Romeinen Asculapius genoemd). Hij werd geboren uit een menselijke moeder, Coronis, die zwanger was gemaakt door Apollo. Asclepius was dus de zoon van een god. Tegen de eerste eeuw was zijn verering zo wijdverspreid dat zijn standbeeld in de tempel van Apollo werd geplaatst.Als pasgeborene werd Asclepius door zijn vader van de dood gered en opgevoed door de genezer Chiron, die hem al zijn vaardigheden leerde. Asclepius overtrof Chiron al snel, en zijn krachten waren zo groot dat hij mensen uit de dood zou kunnen doen herrijzen. Hij betaalde dit echter met zijn leven omdat Hades bij Zeus klaagde dat Asclepius' acties de bevolking van de onderwereld verminderde. Zeus beval daarop de Cycloop om een bliksemschicht te maken om Asclepius te doden.Desondanks werd Asclepius een godheid die overal bekend was, zoals Apuleius opmerkte. Zijn wonderbaarlijke krachten werden toegeschreven aan het feit dat hij de zoon was van Apollo, de god van de gezondheid. Asclepius' populariteit kwam echter ook voort uit zijn grote menselijkheid, zijn medelevende zorg voor leven en gezondheid voor iedereen, ongeacht sociale status, en de afwezigheid van egoïstische mythen over hem. Hij diende geen troon, beschikte niet over een leger en maakte geen deel uit van een koninklijke familie. Asclepius werd dus gezien als een internationale redder-dokter godheid.Tegen deze achtergrond hebben juist de Grieken en Romeinen de wonderverhalen begrepen die aan Jezus werden toegeschreven. Dat betekent dat zij, anders dan de Joden van die tijd, de wonderen als direct bewijs van Jezus goddelijke herkomst hebben gezien. Dat was immers conform het patroon dat zij allemaal kenden en waar ze mee waren opgegroeid. Dat maakte de weg vrij voor de latere vergoddelijking van Jezus.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/koinonia-bijbelstudie-live--595091/support.

Frank and Gaz go long and deep on the question of who got to meet the Beatles 'for real' in Australasia and beyond. In navigating the sensitive theme of sex and rock 'n' roll, they return to classical roots in the writing of Petronius, Ovid and Apuleius. Informed by these texts and the more recent 'Sex and the Beatles: 400 entries', they ask whether Beatles lyrics from 1963-64 suggest less innocent themes. Are there power games at play? And when John Lennon compared the tour to Satyricon, did he have in mind scopophilia?

Review of The Golden Ass by Apuleius Goodreads review mentioned (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/80080.The_Golden_Ass#CommunityReviews (top review, Bill Kerwin) --- Become part of the Hermitix community: Hermitix Twitter - ⁠⁠⁠⁠ twitter.com/hermitixpodcast⁠⁠⁠ ⁠ Support Hermitix: Patreon - ⁠⁠⁠ ⁠www.patreon.com/hermitix⁠⁠ Donations: - ⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.paypal.me/hermitixpod⁠⁠⁠⁠ Bitcoin Donation Address: 3LAGEKBXEuE2pgc4oubExGTWtrKPuXDDLK Ethereum Donation Address: 0x31e2a4a31B8563B8d238eC086daE9B75a00D9E74

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Sometimes we get tales of star-crossed lovers and, well... sometimes we get whatever this is. Let's explore the bizarre story of Psyche, a tale which feels as though every character needs to be sat down in a psychiatric chair and work through some issues. Just an advance warning- there are some references to suicide in the story itself (although this is kept to an absolute minimum in our retelling). Sources for this episode: Apuleius (2004), The Golden Ass. Translated by E. J. Kenney. London: The Penguin Group. Cooper, R. L. (date unknown), "Walking About in the Heart of the Forbidden Zone": Surrealist Practices and Affective Space.  Di Leo, J. R. (2015), Higher Pleasure: In Defense of Academic Hedonism. The Comparatist 39: 196-207. Author unknown, Wikipedia (date unknown), Hedone (online) (Accessed 29/05/2024).

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Help keep our podcast going by contributing to our Patreon! Psyche and Eros is an ancient love story that has always had the power to compel. It's the story of a god of passion who falls in love with the personification of the human soul—and the lengths these two will go to in order to be together. But the lone source we have for this myth is The Golden Ass by Apuleius—a satirical novel about a man who gets turned into a donkey. What can we learn about this myth by looking at its original source? What was the author of The Golden Ass trying to tell us about love and women's role in it (if anything)? Today we team up with Luna McNamara, bestselling author of Psyche & Eros, to try to get to the bottom of it. Sponsors and Advertising This podcast is a member of Airwave Media podcast network. Want to advertise on our show? Please direct advertising inquiries to advertising@airwavemedia.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

For the final introduction to next year's full Close Readings programme, Emily Wilson, celebrated classicist and translator of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, returns for a second season of Among the Ancients, to take on another twelve vital works of Greek and Roman literature with the LRB's Thomas Jones, loosely themed around ‘truth and lies' – from Aesop's Fables to Marcus Aurelius's Meditations.Authors covered: Hesiod, Aesop, Herodotus, Pindar, Plato, Lucian, Plautus, Terence, Lucan, Tacitus, Juvenal, Apuleius, Marcus Aurelius.First episode released on 24 January 2024, then on the 24th of each month for the rest of the year.How to ListenClose Readings subscriptionDirectly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsClose Readings PlusIn addition to the episodes, receive all the books under discussion; access to webinars with Emily, Tom and special guests including Amia Srinivasan; and shownotes and further reading from the LRB archive.On sale here from 22 November: lrb.me/plus Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

For the final introduction to next year's full Close Readings programme, Emily Wilson, celebrated classicist and translator of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, returns for a second season of Among the Ancients, to take on another twelve vital works of Greek and Roman literature with the LRB's Thomas Jones, loosely themed around ‘truth and lies' – from Aesop's Fables to Marcus Aurelius's Meditations.Authors covered: Hesiod, Aesop, Herodotus, Pindar, Plato, Lucian, Plautus, Terence, Lucan, Tacitus, Juvenal, Apuleius, Marcus Aurelius.First episode released on 24 January 2024, then on the 24th of each month for the rest of the year.How to ListenClose Readings subscriptionDirectly in Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/3pJoFPqIn other podcast apps: lrb.me/closereadingsClose Readings PlusIn addition to the episodes, receive all the books under discussion; access to webinars with Emily, Tom and special guests including Amia Srinivasan; and shownotes and further reading from the LRB archive.On sale here from 22 November: lrb.me/plus Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello!I'm very excited about this episode! Farrell Monaco is a culinary & experimental archaeologist, and bread-baking addict! Especially of the ancient Greco-Roman variety...So what better person to chat about the ancient cuisine? And it's a very thought-provoking and thoughtful. Who were the people (and the animals!) who did the hard work?Currently in California -where she was when we spoke online- but mostly researching in Pompeii, Herculaneum and Ostia about ancient Greco-Roman breadways.More info on bread from Pompeii by Farrell Monaco:https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230629-adoreum-the-newly-discovered-flatbread-fresco-of-pompeiihttps://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20230406-arculata-the-bread-that-survived-pompeiiApuleius and The Golden Ass:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_AssEtruscan Tarquinian Tombs:https://tarquiniaturismo.com/tomb-of-the-triclinium/?lang=en Farrell's website and blog:https://tavolamediterranea.com/Enjoy!Thom & The Delicious LegacySupport this show http://supporter.acast.com/the-delicious-legacy. If you love to time-travel through food and history why not join us at https://plus.acast.com/s/the-delicious-legacy. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In PX110, our interview guest is Professor Tim Parkin, we talk all things Roman, particularly their city life. Tim Parkin joined the Classics and Archaeology department at the University of Melbourne in 2018 as the inaugural Elizabeth and James Tatoulis Chair in Classics. Before this he had spent over 11 years as Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester (UK). Tim is a New Zealander by birth who was awarded a D.Phil. at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and who, since 1989, has worked in universities in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom, as well as spending over a year in Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt research fellow. His teaching covers both Greek and Roman history and classical languages. His main research is in ancient history, particularly Roman social, cultural, and demographic history. Among his publications are Demography and Roman Society (1992), Old Age in the Roman World: A Social and Cultural History (2003), Roman Social History: A Sourcebook (2007), and The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (2014). Tim is currently working primarily on ancient sexual health, in particular sexually transmitted diseases, as well as co-editing a cultural history of old age from antiquity to the current day and a BICS supplement on domestic violence in the Roman world, and working on papers on elders in the early Christian church and the demographic realities of the ancient countryside. He is currently supervising research students in a wide range of topics including feminist readings of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the geographical writings of Solinus, concepts of revenge in the Roman world, and the uses of food, magic and drugs in the works of Apuleius. In 2023 he continues in his role as Deputy Head of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies and he takes on a new role as Deputy Associate Dean (Partnerships) in the Faculty of Arts. He is also Honorary President of the Classical Association of Victoria. In podcast extra / culture corner Tim recommends the NZ actor Sam Neil's Memoir ‘Did I Ever Tell You This?' https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/did-i-ever-tell-you-this. Tim also recommends ‘Kellis: A Roman - Period Village in Egypt's Dakhleh Oasis' https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/2749916/Kellis-A-Roman-Period-Village-in-Egypts-Dakhleh-Oasis.pdf. Jess recommends ‘Dead Tide' by Fiona Mcintosh https://www.penguin.com.au/books/dead-tide-9781761344633 Pete recommends ‘My father and me' by Nick Broomfield. https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/my-father-me-nick-maurice-broomfield-working-class-photographer-life Also the work of Maurice Broomfield recognised by the V & A in the book ‘Maurice Broomfield Industrial Sublime' https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/maurice-broomfield-industrial-sublime (available in many libraries). See also https://mauricebroomfield.photography Audio production by Jack Bavage. Podcast released 30 October 2023. PlanningxChange is proud to be a part of the Urban Broadcast Collective.

In PX110, our interview guest is Professor Tim Parkin, we talk all things Roman particularly their city life. Tim Parkin joined the Classics and Archaeology department at the University of Melbourne in 2018 as the inaugural Elizabeth and James Tatoulis Chair in Classics. Before this he had spent over 11 years as Professor of Ancient History at the University of Manchester (UK). Tim is a New Zealander by birth who was awarded a D.Phil. at Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar and who, since 1989, has worked in universities in New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom, as well as spending over a year in Germany as an Alexander von Humboldt research fellow. His teaching covers both Greek and Roman history and classical languages. His main research is in ancient history, particularly Roman social, cultural, and demographic history. Among his publications are Demography and Roman Society (1992), Old Age in the Roman World: A Social and Cultural History (2003), Roman Social History: A Sourcebook (2007), and The Oxford Handbook of Childhood and Education in the Classical World (2014). Tim is currently working primarily on ancient sexual health, in particular sexually transmitted diseases, as well as co-editing a cultural history of old age from antiquity to the current day and a BICS supplement on domestic violence in the Roman world, and working on papers on elders in the early Christian church and the demographic realities of the ancient countryside. He is currently supervising research students in a wide range of topics including feminist readings of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the geographical writings of Solinus, concepts of revenge in the Roman world, and the uses of food, magic and drugs in the works of Apuleius. In 2023 he continues in his role as Deputy Head of the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies and he takes on a new role as Deputy Associate Dean (Partnerships) in the Faculty of Arts. He is also Honorary President of the Classical Association of Victoria. In podcast extra / culture corner Tim recommends the NZ actor Sam Neil's Memoir ‘Did I Ever Tell You This?' https://www.textpublishing.com.au/books/did-i-ever-tell-you-this. Tim also recommends ‘Kellis: A Roman - Period Village in Egypt's Dakhleh Oasis' https://www.monash.edu/__data/assets/pdf_file/0011/2749916/Kellis-A-Roman-Period-Village-in-Egypts-Dakhleh-Oasis.pdf. Jess recommends ‘Dead Tide' by Fiona Mcintosh https://www.penguin.com.au/books/dead-tide-9781761344633 Pete recommends ‘My father and me' by Nick Broomfield. https://www.bfi.org.uk/sight-and-sound/reviews/my-father-me-nick-maurice-broomfield-working-class-photographer-life Also the work of Maurice Broomfield recognised by the V & A in the book ‘Maurice Broomfield Industrial Sublime' https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/maurice-broomfield-industrial-sublime (available in many libraries). See also https://mauricebroomfield.photography Audio production by Jack Bavage. Podcast released 30 October 2023.

When Luna McNamara gushed over the help she got from Dr. Regine May, we HAD to contact her and invite her on to talk to us.The conversation mainly centres around Cupid and Psyche, but also magic gemstones, love spells and what benefit we would get from learning Latin in 2023. For fans of Apuleius and his influences, this one is an episode not to be missed!Twitter: @ReginemayAmazon: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Apuleius-Story-Psyche-Regine-May-ebook/dp/B07N6WPV7X/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=regine+may+cupid+psyche&qid=1687128728&sprefix=regine+ma%2Caps%2C74&sr=8-1 

The Quest of Psyche for the Heart of Eros The story of Eros and Psyche appears in a single text: "The Metamorphoses" by Apuleius, believed to have been written between 160 and 180 AD. In this novel, the myth of Psyche and her quest for the heart of Eros is a story within the story. An old woman narrates it to a young girl. For this reason, it is believed that the author drew inspiration from an oral tale. Discover their story in this episode. Production : Bababam Voice : James Brack Translation of the french script of Alice Deroide Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Liv is joined by author Luna McNamara to discuss her new novel Psyche & Eros (and so much more myth!). Find Psyche & Eros wherever you get your books and follow Luna on Twitter and Instagram. Help keep LTAMB going by subscribing to Liv's Patreon for bonus content! CW/TW: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing. Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions.See omny.fm/listener for privacy information.

Linked to both the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth, Hermes Trismegistus is credited, through legend, with thousands of mystical and philosophical writings of high standing, each reputed to be of immense antiquity. During the Renaissance, a collection of such writings known as the Corpus Hermeticum greatly inspired the thought of philosophers, alchemists, artists, poets, and even theologians. Offering new translations of seven essential Hermetic texts from their earliest source languages, Charles Stein presents them alongside introductions and interpretive commentary, revealing their hidden gems of insight, suggesting directions for practice, and progressively weaving the texts together historically, poetically, hermeneutically, and magically. The book includes translations of Hesiod's Theogony, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the “Poem of Parmenides,” the Poimandres from the Corpus Hermeticum, the Chaldean Oracles, “The Vision of Isis” from Apuleius's Metamorphoses, and “On Divine Virtue” by Zosimos of Panopolis. Through his introductions and commentaries, Stein explains how the many traditions that use Hermes's name harbor a coherent spirit whose relevance and efficacy promise to carry Hermes forward into the future. Revealing Hermes as the very principle of Mind in all its possibilities, from intellectual brilliance to the workings of the cognitive life of everyone, the author shows how these seven texts are central to a still-evolving Western tradition in which the principle of spiritual awakening is allied with the creative. Never before published together, these texts present a new vehicle for transmission of the Hermetic Genius in modern times.

Linked to both the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth, Hermes Trismegistus is credited, through legend, with thousands of mystical and philosophical writings of high standing, each reputed to be of immense antiquity. During the Renaissance, a collection of such writings known as the Corpus Hermeticum greatly inspired the thought of philosophers, alchemists, artists, poets, and even theologians. Offering new translations of seven essential Hermetic texts from their earliest source languages, Charles Stein presents them alongside introductions and interpretive commentary, revealing their hidden gems of insight, suggesting directions for practice, and progressively weaving the texts together historically, poetically, hermeneutically, and magically. The book includes translations of Hesiod's Theogony, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the “Poem of Parmenides,” the Poimandres from the Corpus Hermeticum, the Chaldean Oracles, “The Vision of Isis” from Apuleius's Metamorphoses, and “On Divine Virtue” by Zosimos of Panopolis. Through his introductions and commentaries, Stein explains how the many traditions that use Hermes's name harbor a coherent spirit whose relevance and efficacy promise to carry Hermes forward into the future. Revealing Hermes as the very principle of Mind in all its possibilities, from intellectual brilliance to the workings of the cognitive life of everyone, the author shows how these seven texts are central to a still-evolving Western tradition in which the principle of spiritual awakening is allied with the creative. Never before published together, these texts present a new vehicle for transmission of the Hermetic Genius in modern times.

Linked to both the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth, Hermes Trismegistus is credited, through legend, with thousands of mystical and philosophical writings of high standing, each reputed to be of immense antiquity. During the Renaissance, a collection of such writings known as the Corpus Hermeticum greatly inspired the thought of philosophers, alchemists, artists, poets, and even theologians.Offering new translations of seven essential Hermetic texts from their earliest source languages, Charles Stein presents them alongside introductions and interpretive commentary, revealing their hidden gems of insight, suggesting directions for practice, and progressively weaving the texts together historically, poetically, hermeneutically, and magically. The book includes translations of Hesiod's Theogony, the Homeric Hymn to Hermes, the “Poem of Parmenides,” the Poimandres from the Corpus Hermeticum, the Chaldean Oracles, “The Vision of Isis” from Apuleius's Metamorphoses, and “On Divine Virtue” by Zosimos of Panopolis.Through his introductions and commentaries, Stein explains how the many traditions that use Hermes's name harbor a coherent spirit whose relevance and efficacy promise to carry Hermes forward into the future.Revealing Hermes as the very principle of Mind in all its possibilities, from intellectual brilliance to the workings of the cognitive life of everyone, the author shows how these seven texts are central to a still-evolving Western tradition in which the principle of spiritual awakening is allied with the creative. Never before published together, these texts present a new vehicle for transmission of the Hermetic Genius in modern times.

G'day mates! Today Max is going to warn us all about the dangers of leaving our faces unattended after we die, and Janey is going to describe the perfect blended family dynamic. Enjoy!Janey's Sources - The One-Handed GirlThe Lilac Fairy Book by Andrew Lang  Full story on Youtube  Wikipedia entry  Max's Sources - The Story of Thelyphron, the Student"The World's Great Folktales: A Collection of 172 of the Best Stories from World Folklore," arranged and edited by James R. Foster Originally from "The Metamorphoses of Apuleius," full free text here  Support the showCheck out our books (and support local bookstores!) on our Bookshop.org affiliate account!Starting your own podcast with your very cool best friend? Try hosting on Buzzsprout (and get a $20 Amazon gift card!)Want more??Visit our website!Join our Patreon!Shop the merch at TeePublic!If you liked these stories, let us know on our various socials!InstagramTiktokGoodreadsAnd email us at sortofthestory@gmail.com

Listener comments end at: 38:00 The Claw of the Conciliator Chapter 30 "The Badger Again" Severian and Dorcas and Jolenta arrive at the Stone Town and encounter two witches, but, gee, it really looked like there was someone else with them. 'No' you say, Merryn? Well, okay. Oh! Wait now you've changed your story...! For Patrons, check out the special super-duper version with secret high-quality bonus content starting at 2:34:30 where we talk about Wolfe's uncollected story "The Hour of the Sheep"   Links: * Facebook - Chapter 30 "The Badger Again" - Chapter 29 "The Herdsman" - Nathan Hester on Mate' and pewter straws - Greg Fabic on Triskele -  Rod McDow on Apuleius and 'The Golden Ass' -  * Reddit - Chapter 30 "The Badger Again" - Chapter 29 "The Herdsman" - This episode is sponsored by Stone BnB! - You can become a patron and hear additional episodes at https://www.patreon.com/rereadingwolfe - You can get episodes on your podcast app or on our Youtube channel. Note: Youtube subscribers in some locales might not be able to access all the episodes. However, you can get every episodes at the website and on your favorite podcast app.  If you have problems accessing the podcast on your favorite platform, let us know. - Questions, comments, corrections, additions, alternate theories? Connect with us on on Facebook ...or on Twitter @rereadingwolfe ...or on Instagram: rereadingwolfepodcast ...or on Reddit: rereadingwolfepodcast  * Intro from The Alligator, Annihilation soundtrack by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow * Break Music from Symphony #2 - I by Arvo Pärt, performed by NFM Wroclaw Philharmonic * Outro from "Stone Town" by John Millard and Happy Day * Logo art by SonOfWitz  Outros and alternate outros are cued on the Rereading Wolfe Podcast Spotify playlist IF the songs are available on Spotify.

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This episode is the second half of the epic tale of Psyche & Eros from the 2nd Century AD, moving forward from episode #38.  Psyche, devastated at the loss of her husband Eros, throws herself in the river. The river doesn't accept her sacrifice and washes her up to the shore where she sees the great god Pan playing around with his pipes. From this encounter she is emboldened and ready to take on her journey, the journey we all have to embark upon, the return to Eros. Along the way we meet the Goddesses Demeter and Hera and their temples on hills and in forests. Until finally Psyche confronts Venus (Aphrodite) and accepts her four tasks - the tasks of the soul.Artwork for this episode is from Edward Burne-Jones.Music by Marlia Coeur on Spotify.Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show!Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

Today's episode explores the story of Psyche & Eros, from the 2nd century AD by Apuleius in his novel, The Golden Ass. Part fairytale, part myth, it presents as a dream and allows us to dive deep into its imagery, symbols and motifs. In it you'll hear strands of Beauty & the Beast, Cinderella, Snow White amongst other ancient tales that were eventually recorded by the Brothers Grimm. To get us primed we begin with the poem by John Keats, Ode to Psyche, where he expresses his devotion to the newest of the Olympian Goddesses who was never really given her full due. This is Part One of a two part podcast - the story being simply too long and rich to fit within the confines of one single episode.Artwork: Eros and Psyche, Guiseppe Cammarano, 1821Further Reading:Erich Neumann: Amor and PsycheMary Louise von Franz: The Golden Ass of ApuleiusRobert A. Johnson: SheMusic by Marlia Coeur on Spotify.Please consider becoming a Patron to support the show!Go to OnTheSoulsTerms.com for more.

Hayao Miyazaki's Spirited Away is one of those rare films that is both super popular and super weird. Rife with cinematic non sequiturs, unforgettable imagery, and moments of horror, it is an outstanding example of a story form that goes all the way back to the myth of Psyche and Eros from Apuleius's Golden Ass, if not earlier. In this type of story, a girl on the cusp of maturity steps into a magical realm where people and things from waking life reappear, draped in the gossamer of dream and nightmare. Musicologist and WS assistant Meredith Michael joins JF and Phil to discuss a strange jewel of Japanese animated cinema. Support us on Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/weirdstudies) and get early access to Phil Ford's new podcast series on Wagner's Ring Cycle. Sign up for JF's upcoming online course (https://www.nuralearning.com/weird-macbeth) on Shakespeare's Macbeth on Nura Learning. Listen to volume 1 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-1) and volume 2 (https://pierre-yvesmartel.bandcamp.com/album/weird-studies-music-from-the-podcast-vol-2) of the Weird Studies soundtrack by Pierre-Yves Martel (https://www.pymartel.com) Find us on Discord (https://discord.com/invite/Jw22CHfGwp) Get the T-shirt design from Cotton Bureau (https://cottonbureau.com/products/can-o-content#/13435958/tee-men-standard-tee-vintage-black-tri-blend-s)! Get your Weird Studies merchandise (https://www.redbubble.com/people/Weird-Studies/shop?asc=u) (t-shirts, coffee mugs, etc.) Visit the Weird Studies Bookshop (https://bookshop.org/shop/weirdstudies) REFERENCES Hayao Miyazaki, Spirited Away (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0245429/) Kyle Gann, Robert Ashley (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780252078873) Robert Ashely, [Perfect Lives](https://ubu.com/film/ashleyperfect.html)_ Apuleius, “Psyche and Eros” from The Golden Ass (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780199540556) Henri Bergson, Time and Free Will (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780486417677) Kentucky Route Zero (http://kentuckyroutezero.com/), video game Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild (https://www.zelda.com/breath-of-the-wild/), video game Jean Sibelius, 5th Symphony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EcjvvBbZhn4&ab_channel=hr-Sinfonieorchester%E2%80%93FrankfurtRadioSymphony) Quentin Tarantino (https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000233/), film maker Mark Rothko (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Rothko), American painter Giles Deleuze, “What is the Creative Act?” (https://www.kit.ntnu.no/sites/www.kit.ntnu.no/files/what_is_the_creative_act.pdf) GK Chesterton, Orthdoxy (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781952410482) Herman Hesse, Siddhartha (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9780553208849) Andrew Osmond, BFI Guide to Spirited Away (https://bookshop.org/a/18799/9781838719524) Special Guest: Meredith Michael.

We speak about illusion, magic, and reality with magical experience designer Ferdinando Buscema. He can make stuff disappear, find your card anywhere in the deck, and read your mind. He is, in short, a magician. But he is also, like Apuleius, Iamblichus, Ficino, and Crowley before him, a philosopher of magic.

In July of 1997, conductor Kurt Masur and actress Marthe Keller delivered a performance of César Franck's Psyché unlike any other in recorded history. Expanding upon Masur's vision, the sublime and rarely-heard symphonic poem for chorus and orchestra was augmented by Keller's immersive narration. Her words, delivered between movements with powerful eloquence, are sourced directly from Metamorphoses by the ancient writer Apuleius, which tells the captivating story of Psyché and Cupid. It was this tale, filled with eroticism, alchemy, and scandal, that inspired Franck's soaring composition.Help support our show by purchasing this album  at:Downloads (classicalmusicdiscoveries.store) Classical Music Discoveries is sponsored by Uber. @CMDHedgecock#ClassicalMusicDiscoveries #KeepClassicalMusicAlive#LaMusicaFestival #CMDGrandOperaCompanyofVenice #CMDParisPhilharmonicinOrléans#CMDGermanOperaCompanyofBerlin#CMDGrandOperaCompanyofBarcelonaSpain#ClassicalMusicLivesOn#Uber Please consider supporting our show, thank you!Donate (classicalmusicdiscoveries.store) staff@classicalmusicdiscoveries.comThis album is broadcasted with the permission of Crossover Media Music Promotion (Zachary Swanson and Amanda Bloom).

“I have always thought of a myth as something that never was but is always happening.”-- Jean Houston, The Possible HumanEros and Psyche, or Cupid and Psyche to the Romans, a marvelous old myth about love, soul, and what's required to unite the two. Apuleius included this story in The Golden Ass (also called The Metamorphoses) from the late 2nd century AD, drawing on ancient Greek sources.I've worked with this story many times. I often feel that I am living some part Psyche's journey, or turning to a moment in the tale that presents the perfect metaphor for the task at hand. Sorting seeds. Sending up a prayer in the form of tears. Lighting a lamp to dispel an inner darkness. Lately, I'm hungry for the active relaxation in the space of story and the insights that arise without effort. Perhaps you are too. Hope you find something wonderful and mysterious in this story. I'll  unpack some of the themes and reflect on this myth in the next episode. Thanks for listening.Support the show

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Lexman was talking about the interview he did with Rick Doblin. He mentioned that Doblin is a great guest and has a lot of knowledge about psychedelics. Doblin talked about his experiences with psychedelics, and how they have changed his life for the better.

What if the Roman Empire had experienced an Industrial Revolution? That's the compelling hook of Helen Dale's two-part novel, Kingdom of the Wicked: Rules and Order. Drawing on economics and legal history, Helen's story follows the arrest and trial of charismatic holy man Yeshua Ben Yusuf in the first century — but one with television, flying machines, cars, and genetic modification.In this episode of Faster, Please! — The Podcast, I dive into the fascinating world-building of Kingdom of the Wicked with Helen. Below is an edited transcript of our conversation.James Pethokoukis: Your Kingdom of the Wicked books raise such an interesting question: What would have happened if Jesus had emerged in a Roman Empire that had gone through an industrial revolution? What led you to ask this question and to pursue that answer through these books?Helen Dale: There is an essay in the back of book one, which is basically a set of notes about what I brought to the book when I was thinking. And that has been published elsewhere by the Cato Institute. I go into these questions. But the main one, the one that really occurred to me, was that I thought, what would happen if Jesus emerged in a modern society now, rather than the historic society he emerged in? I didn't think it would turn into something hippy-dippy like Jesus of Montreal. I thought it would turn into Waco or to the Peoples Temple.And that wasn't necessarily a function of the leader of the group being a bad person. Clearly Jim Jones was a very bad person, but the Waco story is actually much more complex and much messier and involves a militarized police force and tanks attacking the buildings and all of this kind of thing. But whatever happened with it, it was going to go badly and it was going to end in violence and there would be a showdown and a confrontation. And it would also take on, I thought — I didn't say this in the essay, but I thought at the time — it would take on a very American cast, because that is the way new religious movements tend to blow up or collapse in the United States.And so I was thinking this idea, through my head, “I would like to do a retelling of the Jesus story, but how do I do it? So it doesn't become naff and doesn't work?” And so what I decided to do was rather than bring Jesus forward and put him now, I would put us back to the time of Jesus — but take our technology and our knowledge, but always mediated by the fact that Roman civilization was different from modern civilization. Not in the sense of, you know, human beings have changed, all that kind of thing. We're all still the same primates that we have been for a couple of hundred thousand years or even longer. But in the sense that their underlying moral values and beliefs about the way the world should work were different, which I thought would have technological effects. The big technological effect in Kingdom of the Wicked is they're much better at the biosciences and the animal sciences. They're much weaker at communications. Our society has put all its effort into [communication]. Their society is much more likely to put it into medicine.To give you an idea: the use of opioids to relieve the pain of childbirth is Roman. And it was rediscovered by James Young Simpson at The University of Edinburgh. And he very famously used the formula of one of the Roman medical writers. So I made a very deliberate decision: This is a society that has not pursued technological advancement in the same way as us. It's also why their motor vehicles look like the Soviet-era ones with rotary engines. It's why their big aircraft are kind of like Antonovs, the big Ukrainian aircraft that we've all been reading about since the war has started in Ukraine. So, in some respects, there are bits of their culture that look more Soviet, or at least Britain in the 1950s. You know, sort of Clement Attlee's quite centralized, postwar settlement: health service, public good, kind of Soviet-style. Soft Soviet; it's not the nasty Stalinist sort, but like late-Soviet, so kind of Brezhnev and the last part of Khrushchev. A few people did say that. They were like, “Your military parades, they look like the Soviet Union.” Yes. That was deliberate. The effort has gone to medicine.It's an amazing bit of world-building. I was sort of astonished by the depth and the scale of it. Is this a genre that you had an interest in previously? Are there other works that you took inspiration from?There's a particular writer of speculative fiction I admire greatly. His name is S.M. Stirling, and he wrote a series of books. I haven't read every book he wrote, but he wrote a series of books called the Draka series. And it's speculative fiction. Once again, based on a point of departure where the colonists who finished up in South Africa finished up using the resources of South Africa, but for a range of reasons he sets out very carefully in his books, they avoid the resource curse, the classic economist's resource curse. And so certainly in terms of a popular writer, he was the one that I read and thought, “If I can do this as well as him, I will be very pleased.”I probably didn't read as much science fiction as most people would in high school, unless it was a literary author like Margaret Atwood or George Orwell. I just find bad writing rebarbative, and a lot of science fiction struggles with bad writing. So this is the problem, of course, that Douglas Adams famously identified. And one of the reasons why he wrote the Hitchhiker's books was to show that you could combine science fiction with good writing.In all good works of speculative fiction of the alt-history variant, there's an interesting jumping-off point. I would imagine you had a real “Eureka!” moment when you figured out what your jumping-off point would be to make this all plausible. Tell me about that.Well, yes. I did. Once I realized that points of departure hugely mattered, I then went and read people like Philip K. Dick's Man in the High Castle. The point of departure for him is the assassination of Roosevelt. I went and read SS-GB [by] Len Deighton, a great British spycraft writer but also a writer of speculative fiction. And in that case, Britain loses the Battle of Britain and Operation Sea Lion, the putative land invasion of the UK, is successful. And I really started to think about this and I'm going, "Okay, how are you going to do this point of departure? And how are you going to deal with certain economic issues?"I'm not an economist, but I used to practice in corporate finance so I've got the sort of numerical appreciation for economics. I can read an economics paper that's very math heavy because that's my skill based on working in corporate finance. And I knew, from corporate finance and from corporate law, that there are certain things that you just can't do, you can't achieve in terms of economic progress, unless you abolish slavery, basically. Very, very basic stuff like human labor power never loses its comparative advantage if you have just a market flooded with slaves. So you can have lots of good science technology, and an excellent legal system like the Romans did. And they reached that point economists talk about of takeoff, and it just never happens. Just, they miss. It doesn't quite happen.And in a number of civilizations, this has happened. It's happened with the Song dynasty in China. Steve Davies has written a lot about the Song dynasty, and they went through the same thing. They just get to that takeoff point and then just … fizzled out. And in China, it was to do with serfdom, basically. These are things that are very destructive to economic progress. So you have to come up with a society that decides that slavery is really shitty. And the only way to do that is for them to get hooked on the idea of using a substitute for human labor power. And that means I have to push technological innovation back to the middle republic.So what I've done for my point of departure is at the Siege of Syracuse [in 213-212 B.C.]. I have Archimedes surviving instead of being killed. He was actually doing mathematical doodles outside his classroom, according to the various records of Roman writers, and he was killed by some rampaging Roman soldier. And basically Marcellus, the general, had been told to capture Archimedes and all his students and all their kids. So you can see Operation Paperclip in the Roman mind. You can see the thinking: “Oh no, we want this fellow to be our DARPA guy.” That's just a brilliant leap. I love that.And that is the beginning of the point of departure. So you have the Romans hauling all these clever Greek scientists and their families off and taking them to Rome and basically doing a Roman version of DARPA. You know, Operation Paperclip, DARPA. You know, “Do all the science, and have complete freedom to do all the…” — because the Romans would've let them do it. I mean, this is the thing. The Romans are your classic “cashed up bogans,” as Australians call it. They had lots of money. They were willing to throw money at things like this and then really run with it.You really needed both. As you write at one point, you needed to create a kind of a “machine culture.” You sort of needed the science and innovation, but also the getting rid of slavery part of it. They really both work hand in hand.Yes. These two have to go together. I got commissioned to write a few articles in the British press, where I didn't get to mention the name of Kingdom of the Wicked or any of my novels or research for this, but where people were trying to argue that the British Empire made an enormous amount of money out of slavery. And then, as a subsidiary argument, trying to argue that that led to industrialization in the UK. … [So] I wrote a number of articles in the press just like going through why this was actually impossible. And I didn't use any fancy economic terminology or anything like that. There's just no point in it. But just explaining that, “No, no, no. This doesn't work like that. You might get individually wealthy people, like Crassus, who made a lot of his money from slavery.” (Although he also made a lot from insurance because he set up private fire brigades. That was one of the things that Crassus did: insurance premiums, because that's a Roman law invention, the concept of insurance.) And you get one of the Islamic leaders in Mali, King Musa. Same thing, slaves. And people try to argue that the entirety of their country's wealth depended on slavery. But what you get is you get individually very wealthy people, but you don't get any propagation of the wealth through the wider society, which is what industrialization produced in Britain and the Netherlands and then in Germany and then in America and elsewhere.So, yes, I had to work in the machine culture with the abolition of slavery. And the machines had to come first. If I did the abolition of slavery first, there was nothing there to feed it. One of the things that helped Britain was Somerset's case (and in Scotland, Knight and Wedderburn) saying, “The air of the air of England is too pure for a slave to breathe.” You know, that kind of thinking. But that was what I realized: It was the slavery issue. I couldn't solve the slavery issue unless I took the technological development back earlier than the period when the Roman Republic was flooded with slaves.The George Mason University economist Mark Koyama said if you had taken Adam Smith and brought him back to Rome, a lot of it would've seemed very recognizable, like a commercial, trading society. So I would assume that element was also pretty important in that world-building. You had something to work with there.Yes. I'd read some Stoic stuff because I did a classics degree, so of course that means you have to be able to read in Latin. But I'd never really taken that much of an interest in it. My interest tended to be in the literature: Virgil and Apuleius and the people who wrote novels. And then the interest in law, I always had an advantage, particularly as a Scots lawyer because Scotland is a mixed system, that I could read all the Roman sources that they were drawing on in the original. It made me a better practitioner. But my first introduction to thinking seriously about stoicism and how it relates to commerce and thinking that commerce can actually be a good and honorable thing to do is actually in Adam Smith. Not in The Wealth of Nations, but in Moral Sentiments, where Adam Smith actually goes through and quotes a lot of the Roman Stoic writers — Musonius Rufus and Epictetus and people like that — where they talk about how it's possible to have something that's quite base, which is being greedy and wanting to have a lot of money, but realizing that in order to get your lot of money or to do really well for yourself, you actually have to be quite a decent person and not a s**t.And there were certain things that the Romans had applied this thinking to, like the samian with that beautiful red ceramic that you see, and it's uniform all through the Roman Empire because they were manufacturing it on a factory basis. And when you come across the factories, they look like these long, narrow buildings with high, well-lit windows. And you're just sort of sitting there going, “My goodness, somebody dumped Manchester in Italy.” This kind of thing. And so my introduction to that kind of Stoic thinking was actually via Adam Smith. And then I went back and read the material in the original and realized where Adam Smith was getting those arguments from. And that's when I thought, “Ah, right. Okay, now I've got my abolitionists.”This is, in large part, a book about law. So you had to create a believable legal system that did not exist, unlike, perhaps, the commercial nature of Rome. So how did you begin to work this from the ground up?All the substantive law used in the book is Roman, written by actual Roman jurists. But to be fair, this is not hard to do. This is a proper legal system. There are only two great law-giving civilizations in human history. The Romans were one of them; the English were the other. And so what I had to do was take substantive Roman law, use my knowledge of practicing in a mixed system that did resemble the ancient Roman system — so I used Scotland, where I'd lived and worked — and then [put] elements back into it that existed in antiquity that still exists in, say, France but are very foreign, particularly to common lawyers.I had lawyer friends who read both novels because obviously it appeals. “You have a courtroom drama?” A courtroom drama appeals to lawyers. These are the kind of books, particularly if it's written by another lawyer. So you do things like get the laws of evidence right and stuff like that. I know there are lawyers who cannot watch The Wire, for example, because it gets the laws of evidence (in the US, in this case) wrong. And they just finish up throwing shoes at the television because they get really annoyed about getting it wrong.What I did was I took great care to get the laws of evidence right, and to make sure that I didn't use common law rules of evidence. For example, the Romans didn't have a rule against hearsay. So you'll notice that there's all this hearsay in the trial. But you'll also notice a mechanism. Pilate's very good at sorting out what's just gossip and what is likely to have substantive truth to it. So that's a classic borrowing from Roman law, because they didn't have the rule against hearsay. That's a common law rule. I also use corroboration a lot. Corroboration is very important in Roman law, and it's also very important in Scots law. And it's basically a two-witness rule.And I did things, once again, to show the sort of cultural differences between the two great legal systems. Cornelius, the Roman equivalent of the principal crown prosecutor. Cornelius is that character, and he's obsessed with getting a confession. Obsessed. And that is deeply Roman. The Roman lawyers going back to antiquity called a confession the “Queen of Proofs.” And of course, if confessions are just the most wonderful thing, then it's just so tempting to beat the snot out of the accused and get your bloody confession. Job done. The topic of the Industrial Revolution has been a frequent one in my writings and podcasts. And one big difference between our Industrial Revolution and the one you posit in the book is that there was a lot of competition in Europe. You had a lot of countries, and there was an incentive to permit disruptive innovation — where in the past, the proponents of the status quo had the advantage. But at some point countries realized, “Oh, both for commerce and military reasons, we need to become more technologically advanced. So we're going to allow inventors and entrepreneurs to come up with new ideas, even if it does alter that status quo.” But that's not the case with Rome. It was a powerful empire that I don't think really had any competitors, both in the real world and in your book.That and the chattel slavery is probably why it didn't finish up having an industrial revolution. And it's one of the reasons why I had to locate the innovation, it had to be in the military first, because the military was so intensely respected in Roman society. If you'd have got the Roman military leadership coming up with, say, gunpowder or explosives or that kind of thing, the response from everybody else would've been, “Good. We win. This is a good thing.” It had to come from the military, which is why you get that slightly Soviet look to it. There is a reason for that. The society is more prosperous because it's a free-market society. The Romans were a free-market society. All their laws were all sort of trade oriented, like English law. So that's one of those things where the two societies were just really similar. But in terms of technological innovation, I had to locate it in the army. It had to be the armed forces first.In your world, are there entrepreneurs? What does the business world look like?Well, I do try to show you people who are very commercially minded and very economically oriented. You've got the character of Pilate, the real historical figure, who is a traditional Tory lawyer, who has come up through all the traditional Toryism and his family's on the land and so on and so forth. So he's a Tory. But Linnaeus, who he went to law school with, who is the defense counsel for the Jesus character, Yeshua Ben Yusuf, is a Whig. And his mother was a freed slave, and his family are in business in commerce. They haven't bought the land.A lot of these books finished up on the cutting room floor, the world-building. And there is a piece that was published in a book called Shapers of Worlds: Volume II, which is a science-fiction anthology edited by a Canadian science-fiction author called Ed Willett. And one of the pieces that finished up on the cutting room floor and went into Shapers of Worlds is a description of Linnaeus's family background, which unfortunately was removed. You get Pilate's, but you don't get Linnaeus's. And Linnaeus's family background, his dad's the factory owner. The factory making cloth. I was annoyed with my publisher when they said, “This piece has to go,” and I did one of those snotty, foot-stamping, awful things. And so I was delighted when this Canadian publisher came to me and said, “Oh, can we have a piece of your writing for a science-fiction anthology?” And I thought, “Oh good. I get to publish the Linnaeus's dad story in Shapers of Worlds.”And I actually based Linnaeus's dad — the angel as he's referred to, Angelus, in the Kingdom of the Wicked books, and his personality is brought out very strongly — I actually based him on John Rylands. Manchester's John Rylands, the man who gave his name to the Rylands Library in Manchester. He was meant to be the portrait of the entrepreneurial, Manchester industrialist. And to this day, authors always have regrets, you don't always get to win the argument with your publisher or your editor, I am sorry that that background, that world-building was taken out of Kingdom of the Wicked and finished up having to be published elsewhere in an anthology. Because it provided that entrepreneurial story that you're talking about: the factory owner who is the self-made man, who endows libraries and technical schools, and trains apprentices, and has that sort of innovative quality that is described so beautifully in Matt Ridley's book, How Innovation Works, which is full of people like that. And this book as well, I've just bought: I've just bought Arts and Minds, which is about the Royal Society of Arts. So this is one of those authorial regrets: that the entrepreneur character wasn't properly fleshed out in the two published books, Kingdom of the Wicked book one and book two. And you have to get Shapers of Worlds if you want to find out about Linnaeus's industrialist dad.Is this a world you'd want to live in?Not for me, no. I mean, I'm a classically trained lawyer. So classics first, then law. And I made it a society that works. You know, I don't write dystopias. I have a great deal of admiration for Margaret Atwood and George Orwell, who are the two greatest writers of dystopias, in my view, in contemporary, and not just contemporary fiction, probably going back over a couple of hundred years. Those two have really got it, when it comes to this vision of horror. You know, the boot stamping on the human face forever. I greatly admire their skill, but those are not the books I write. So the society I wrote about in Kingdom of the Wicked is a society that works.But one of the things I deliberately did with the Yeshua Ben Yusuf character and what were his early Christian followers, and the reason I've taken so much time to flesh them out as real characters and believable people [is] because the values that Christianity has given to the West were often absent in the Roman world. They just didn't think that way. They thought about things differently. Now some of those Christian values were pretty horrible. It's fairly clear that the Romans were right about homosexuality and abortion, and the Christians were wrong. That kind of thing. That's where they were more liberal. But, you will have noticed, I don't turn the book into Gattaca. I try to keep this in the background because obviously someone else has written Gattaca. It's an excellent film. It's very thought provoking. I didn't want to do that again. It's kept in the background, but it is obvious — you don't even really need to read between the lines — that this is a society that engages in eugenics. You notice that all the Roman families have three children or two children, and there's always a mix of sexes. You never have all boys or all girls. You know what they're doing. They're doing sex-selective abortions, like upper-class Indians and Chinese people do now. You've now dealt with the problem of not enough girls among those posh people, but they still want a mixture of the two. You notice that the Romans have got irritatingly perfect teeth and their health is all very good. And people mock Cyler, one of the characters, because his teeth haven't been fixed. He's got what in Britain get called NHS teeth. He hasn't got straightened teeth, because he genuinely comes from a really, really poor background. I have put that in there deliberately to foil those values off each other, to try to show what a world would look like where there are certain values that will just never come to the fore.And as you mentioned, industry: how those values also might influence which areas technology might focus on, which I think is a great point.I did that quite deliberately. There is a scene in the first book in Kingdom of the Wicked where Linnaeus — who's the Whig, the nice Whig, the lovely Whig who believes in civil rights and justice and starts sounding awfully Martin Luther King-ish at various points, and that kind of thing; he's the most likable form of progressive, Stoic Roman ideas — and when he encounters a child that the parents have kept alive, a disabled child, which in his society would just be put down at birth like Peter Singer, they have Peter Singer laws, he's horrified. And he doesn't even know if it's human.I actually wrote a piece about this couple of years ago for Law & Liberty, for Liberty Fund. I did find that people wanted to live in this sort of society. And I just sort of thought, “Hmm, there are a lot more people out there who clearly agree with things like eugenics, Peter Singer laws, a society that has absolutely no welfare state. None.” There are people who clearly find that kind of society attractive. And also the authoritarianism, the Soviet-style veneration of the military. A lot of people clearly quite like that. And clearly like that it's a very orderly society where there are lots of rules and everybody knows where they stand. But even when the state is really, really very powerful.I deliberately put a scene in there, for example, where Pilate's expectorating about compulsory vaccinations — because he's a Roman and he thinks compulsory vaccinations save lives and he doesn't give a s**t about your bodily integrity. I did try to leave lots of Easter eggs, to use a gaming expression, in there to make it clear that this is a society that's a bit Gattaca-ish. I did that for a reason.I don't know if there's a sequel in mind, but do you think that this world eventually sort of Christianizes? And if this is what the world looks like 2000 years ago, what would that world look like today?I haven't thought of the answer to the first one. I must admit. I don't really know the answer to that. But in the second one, I did discuss this in quite a bit of detail with my then partner. And she said, “I honestly think that with that sort of aggressiveness and militarism, they will finish up conquering the planet. And then it'll start looking like a not-nice version of Star Trek. It won't be the Federation. It will be much more likely to be Khan and the Klingons and they'll start looking really, really Klingon basically.” That was her comment at the time.Like a more militaristic version of Star Trek.Yeah. But sort of very militarized and not the Prime Directive or any of that. Obviously Star Trek is very much an American conception of Americans in space. My Romans in space would look much more like the Centauri out of Babylon 5 or the Klingons in Star Trek. They would be much more aggressive and they'd be a lot more ambiguous…I don't know how much of a Star Trek fan you are, but of course there's the mirror universe, which kind of looks like that. We have the evil Kirk and the evil Spock. There's still advance, but there's like a Praetorian Guard for the captain and…All of that. Yes. I hadn't really thought about the first question, but the second question I thought, “Yeah, if this persists into the future, imagining a hypothetical future, then I think you are going to be dealing with people who are really, really quite scary.”Apparently you're not working on a sequel to this book, but what are you working on? Another book?Yes. I'm actually being pursued at the moment by a British publisher, who I won't drop into it because otherwise, if I say the name, then I will never, never be forgiven. And then they will insist on me writing a book. I'm never going to be the world's most super productive novelist. I think that I may finish up in my life writing maybe another two. I look at Stephen King. That man writes a door stopper of a book every time he sits down to have a hot meal. Incredible. How does he do it? I'm not that person.Helen, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.Thank you very much for having me. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit fasterplease.substack.com/subscribe

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Celebrate love this Valentine's Day with a retelling of Apuleius' “Cupid & Psyche” by Josephine Preston Peabody. When a princess rivals the goddess of beauty, Venus sends her son Cupid to punish her for her charms. But when Cupid's arrow strikes himself, he falls in love and protects her from the wrath of his mother in a royal home where she is treated like a goddess herself although never seeing this prophesied “creature” who is now her husband. When her sisters visit, in their jealousy they poison her mind against Cupid and she looks upon him while he sleeps, breaking the peace they had together and leaving her alone. Heartbroken, Psyche tries to find him and is set trials by Venus to gain the goddess' favor and her lost husband back again. How will a mortal maid fare against the goddess of love and beauty? If you've been enjoying our tales, give us a review on Apple Podcasts and follow along on Spotify or our various social accounts! To learn more about Widdershins, please visit: www.widdershinsstories.com Support us on Ko-Fi to help us keep the podcast running! www.ko-fi.com/widdershinsstories For more information on Ashley, please visit: www.oldgrowthalchemy.com www.patreon.com/oldgrowthalchemy For more information on Joe, please visit: www.joesabourin.com

In this special episode, Julia strikes out on her own to conduct a semi-scholarly takedown of C.S. Lewis's Till We Have Faces. Spoilers: she hated it. Featuring unfortunate fantasy naming, the Christianization of Cupid and Psyche, and a weak attempt to explain Apuleius.   Content warnings: Profanity Discussion of racism and misogyny   Support us by buying us a coffee! And follow us on Twitter!

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Episode 44: A detailed look at the Roman art of Pantomime which was the preeminent form of dramatic art during the Imperial period. Dr Elodie Palliard's thoughts on why Pantomime dominated and how it was used by the Emperors. The origins of Pantomime The performers Pylades, Bathyllus and their relationship with Emperor Augustus Pantomime as a non-verbal performance style Description of Pantomime and the regiment for it's supremacy over other forms by Lucian The banishment of performers and their reinstatement by Caligula Caligula and pantomime The morality of pantomime 2nd century description of pantomime by Apuleius. Dr Paillard is Honorary Associate in the Department of Classics and Ancient History at the University of Sydney and lecturer and scientific collaborator in the Department of Ancient Civilizations at the University of Basel. She is currently leading a research project on Greek theatre in Roman Italy, funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation. She is the author of 'The Stage and the City. Non-élite Characters in the Tragedies of Sophocles' (Paris 2017). She is currently co-editing two forthcoming collective volumes, one on Greek Theatre and Metatheatre: Definitions, Problems & Limits and one on Theatre and Autocracy in the Ancient World.  In parallel to her interest in ancient Greek theatre, she is also working on the social structure of Classical Athens and the emergence of democracy. You can connect with her on Twitter @elopai  This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy

Hello my witchy friends and thank you for tuning in to the fat feminist witch podcast! This is episode 87 and is all about PLEASURE. This is a sort of personal episode, and most of what I'm discussing today is kind of a new topic I'm exploring within my own personal practice. “Apuleius, The Golden Ass "Psyche (Soul) was wed to Cupidos (Love) [Eros], and at full term a daughter was born to them. We call her Voluptas (Pleasure) [Hedone]."   Thank you to my advertisers for this episode: Better Help - Want to get 10% off your first month of online counselling through Betterhelp? visit http://betterhelp.com/fatfeministwitch   The Grimoire Journal: A Place to Record Spells, Rituals, Recipes, and More is available RIGHT NOW! >Order Here My first book - GREEN WITCHCRAFT: A PRACTICAL GUIDE TO DISCOVERING THE MAGIC OF PLANTS, HERBS, CRYSTALS, AND BEYOND is now on sale! Get it >> HERE!

For the next episode in Spooky Season, we travel to Thessaly where their king, Erysichthon gets a horrifying punishment for his crimes against Demeter. Plus, Lamia and Empusa... monstrous and vampiric women of mythology.CW/TW: eating disorders; and as usual: far too many Greek myths involve assault. Given it's fiction, and typically involves gods and/or monsters, I'm not as deferential as I would be were I referencing the real thing.Sources: Magic, Witchcraft, and Ghosts in the Greek and Roman Worlds (A Sourcebook) by Daniel Ogden, Theoi.com, Ovid's Metamorphoses, translated by Allen Mandelbaum, and Apuleius's The Golden Ass, translated by Sarah Ruden.Attributions and licensing information for music used in the podcast can be found here: mythsbaby.com/sources-attributions. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

In this episode, a miller's wife decides to take revenge on her husband, but doesn't count on his daughter finding out... This story has been adapted from Apuleius, Metamorphoses, 9.29-31. Apuleius was a Roman citizen from North Africa, and is one of my very favourite ancient authors, which is why I had to kick start Creepy Classics with him!