The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast (SHWEP)

Ægypt is one of the great occult novels (if we want to make ‘occult novel’ a thing). We are delighted to speak with its author, John Crowley (no relation) about his writing practice, western esotericism, and the question of what the heck happened at the end of the third book.

Crystal Addey is a scholar, philosopher, and woman of parts. Her work on ancient theurgy has broken new ground in recent years, and we see her continue to forge ahead in this interview, in which she asks whether the thought of the ancient Platonists can provide us with valuable insights in the face of environmental crisis. The answer is 'yes', of course, but the contours of that 'yes' will perhaps surprise many people who think they understand the history of western philosophy.

Laurence Caruana is a painter, author, and speaker. His work draws deeply on the western esoteric traditions, particularly of late antiquity, and even more particularly on the central Sethian myth as found in the Apocryphon of John and other ‘Gnostic’ texts. We discuss modern artistic practice, the Fall of Sophia, and a host of other topics of interest to the modern visionary painter.

We talk to saxophonist Randall Hall, whose work fuses the very, very modern and the authentically ancient in a quest for a ‘ritual-symbolic’, theurgic musical practice.

Things never stand still for very long in a young field like Western Esotericism Studies. In this interview we discuss the lively current debate over whether the term ‘western’ should be dropped altogether with a proponent of the ‘get rid of it’ position.

The first in our Living Esoteric Culture series, looking at the ways in which the esoteric exists in culture, makes culture, sometimes enters into the popular or mainstream, and what happens along the way.

An audio tour of the first major international exhibition devoted to the life and work of the great Christian esotericist Jacob Böhme.

The future of the study of western esotericism will encompass all the western monotheist traditions. And the future is now!