Episodes

  • Episode 12: Escape to the Past… or, Magic Bowmen and Scary Fairies

    Episode 12: Escape to the Past… or, Magic Bowmen and Scary Fairies
    Jan 29 2025
    Machen was a great influence on HP Lovecraft, and the development of the fantasy and horror genres. Stephen King is a fan. There is a direct line from Machen's writing to Dungeons and Dragons, grail quests such as Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, and Game of Thrones. Machen bemoaned modernity, the mechanised slaughter of the Great War and especially the dreary Church of England, which had lost all sense of magic. Instead he took refuge in the past, a fantastic and eternal realm of changelings, fairies and monstrous beings. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    49 mins
  • Episode 11: Roadman

    Episode 11: Roadman
    Jan 21 2025
    Immensely talented and good looking, in the years leading up to the Great War Augustus John was a celebrity. London restaurants named dishes after him. But now he has faded into obscurity. The man who might today have been as famous as Picasso was unable to live up to his artistic promise. Yet the bohemian lifestyle he led, his dress and commitment to non-conformity was his true great work and was hugely influential. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    34 mins
  • Episode 10: Roman Road

    Episode 10: Roman Road
    Jan 14 2025
    This time we eschew drugs and the occult, and instead focus on traditional christianity. We take a look at two men whose faith was central to their being and work. They were the artists, Stanley Spencer and David Jones. Spencer was a painter, and Jones was an engraver, painter, printer, and poet. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    43 mins
  • Episode 9: Yoga, Stars and Self.

    Episode 9: Yoga, Stars and Self.
    Jan 6 2025
    We round off our investigation into the ways the occult has impacted the present. Yoga was an “exotic” practice that percolated into the West in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. It re-emerged as a fringe New Age hippie craze, before becoming the global industry, valued at many billions of dollars, that it is today. These days yoga and mindfulness are seen as central components of “self-care.” Yet it wasn’t long ago that the thought that our “selves” are unique and valuable and that we should express our special individuality, even in the face of societal pressures, was itself radical, going against Victorian codes of morality, with their emphasis on control, repression, and duty. But, as Aleister Crowley declared: “Every man and woman is a star.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    43 mins
  • Episode 8: Drugs... and Rock 'n' Roll

    Episode 8: Drugs... and Rock 'n' Roll
    Dec 20 2024
    The legal situation around drugs was very different in London at the turn of the 20th century from what it is now. Opium was a go-to painkiller. And cocaine and cannabis products were also very widely available. In 1896, London hosted its first hallucinogenic trip when Havelock Ellis boiled up some peyote buttons in his flat. For Bohemian London, the time was ripe for experimentation. Later on, drug taking became a less socially acceptable pastime. But that didn’t stop Aleister Crowley who relished the notoriety. He took every drug going and wrote about it. In so doing, he set the scene for the drug cultures that followed. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    44 mins
  • Episode 7: Sex Magic

    Episode 7: Sex Magic
    Dec 14 2024
    Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare are partially responsible for the development of what is known as sex magic. Crowley was, among other things, an occultist, an important figure in the propagation of yoga in the West, a conjurer of demons, and a heroin addict. He enjoyed a licentious, all encompassing sexuality. His law, “Do What Thou Wilt,” has arguably become the dominant way of seeing relationships between consenting adults today. Spare began his career as a child prodigy, an incredibly talented artist who as a teenager was exhibited in the Royal Academy. Yet he claimed to have been sexually initiated by a South London witch, a descendant of the Salem witch trials. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    38 mins
  • Eccentric Circles: Back soon!

    Eccentric Circles: Back soon!
    Nov 11 2024
    We'll be covering the modern holy trinity of Sex, Drugs and Rock 'n' Roll, along with other more traditional religious devotion. We'll look into the popularity of the occult and its lasting legacy. And we'll be asking: "Where better to escape to: the future, full of progress and space travel, or to the comfort of the past?" Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    1 min
  • Episode 6: Orgasms are Good for Empire

    Episode 6: Orgasms are Good for Empire
    May 3 2024
    WARNING: this episode uses explicit language almost from the start. In 1918, the year that the First World War ended, a slim little book was published. Its title was Married Love, and it was going to change the course of Western sexuality forever. Its author was Marie Stopes. She believed that mutual orgasm was an essential component of a successful marriage. This was a radical, progressive view, at a time when many doctors and scientists ignored or denied altogether the existence of the female orgasm. And yet much of Stopes’ motivation was decidedly reactionary: orgasms made women healthy, and healthy women conceived healthy babies…. and healthy babies were needed to defend and administer the British Empire. The very social fabric of the Empire itself depended on what happened between the sheets. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    54 mins