Mystery Schools Podcast
A long-form podcast on esoteric philosophy, initiatic traditions, and the evolution of consciousness, from the Eleusinian Mysteries to artificial intelligence.
7 tracks · 25 series · ~231 episodes
Begin with the first episode, or use the reading room below to orient yourself before entering the project.
Start Here
Three ways in: the first full episode, the orientation episode, or the founding essay that lays out the method behind the work.
Start with the episode
What Was Lost at Eleusis
The first full Mystery Schools episode, and the best place to enter the project as a listener.
Orientation
The Meta-Project: AI and the Mystery Schools
The orientation episode on the origin, method, and stakes of the work.
Founding essay
What Happened Inside the Mysteries
The long-form essay that lays out the project's thesis, method, and seven-track architecture.
Before You Listen
New to Eleusis? Start with a curated background collection before diving into the first episode.
Episodes
93 episodesFE: Founding Essay
00What Happened Inside the MysteriesIn Production
S1: The Threshold
01What Was Lost at EleusisListen
02The Kykeon: What They Drank
03Before the Greeks: Egyptian Rites and Sumerian Descents
04Initiation: The Structure of Dying Before You Die
05The Golden Ass: A Novel of Initiation
06Consciousness Has a History
07The Cave and the Light
08The Perennial Question
09Why the Silence?
10The Map of the Territory
S2: The Ancient World
01The Temples of the Nile
02Orpheus at the Gate
03The Number and the Lyre: Pythagoras
04Socrates' Last Lesson
05The Hermetic Revelation
06Fire and the Bull: Mithras
07The Return of the Soul: Plotinus
08Theurgy: When Philosophy Became Ritual
09The Gnostic Schools
10The Religion of Numa
11The Death of the Mysteries
12Plutarch at Delphi
S3: The Underground Stream
01Theosis: The Christian Mystery
02The Hymn of the Pearl
03The World of the Image
04Letters of Light: Kabbalah
05The Architecture of Hell: Dante as Initiate
06The Grail and the Wound
07Courtly Love and the Troubadours
08The Alchemist's Fire
09The Templars
10The Memory of the Trouvères
11The Sufi Lodges
12Meister Eckhart and the Rhineland Mystics
S4: The Renaissance Eruption
01The Manuscript That Changed Everything
02900 Theses: Pico della Mirandola
03The Art of Memory: Bruno's Infinite Worlds
04The Magus and the Angels: John Dee
05The Invisible College
06Eros and Magic: Couliano's Thesis
07The Magic of Desire
08The Chymical Wedding
09The Hermetic Tradition in Art
10Newton's Other Library
11Matteo Ricci's Memory Palace
S5a: Romantic Initiates
01Faust and the Mothers
02The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
03The Blue Flower
04The Secret Doctrine
S5b: The Operative Tradition
01The Golden Dawn
02The Sea Priestess
03How to Know Higher Worlds
04The Fourth Way
05The Reign of Quantity
06Meditations on the Tarot
07Jung and the Red Book
08Evola’s Dangerous Path
09Ouspensky’s Search
10Scaligero and Living Thinking
S6: The Threshold of the Machine
01The Hardening of the World
02Gestell: Heidegger and the Enframing
03The Pharmakon
04The Divided Brain
05The Psychedelic Renaissance
06The Body Remembers
07The Apophatic Machine
08What Remains
09Order Out of Chaos
10The Contemporary Condition
11An Invitation
S7: After Eleusis
01The Wound
02The Grammar
03The Sacred and the Profane
04The Consciousness Argument
05The Psyche’s Demand
06The Absorbed Mystery
07The Sackings
08The Counter-Initiation
09The Displacements
10The Defense
S8: The Ape of God
01The Magician’s Heir
02The Darkened Room
03The Practitioners
04The Detuned World
05The Anti-Telesterion
06The Broken Container
07The Displaced Rites
08The Apophatic Question
S9: Women’s Mysteries
01The Thesmophoria
02She Who Knows
03The Interior Castle
04The Recovery
Western Canon
55 episodesA: Birth of the Western Mind
01Before Philosophy: Hesiod's Theogony
02The Singing Cosmos: The Pre-Socratics
03The Tragödía: Aeschylus and the Public Mystery
04Sophocles at Colonus
05The Bacchae: Euripides' Warning
06Aristophanes' Frogs: Comedy as Descent
07Homer's Two Journeys
08Ovid's Metamorphoses: The World as Transformation
09Virgil's Aeneid: The State Mystery
10Apuleius Revisited: The Golden Ass in Full
11Aristotle's Unmoved Mover
B: Cathedrals and Cloister
01Boethius in the Cell
02The Memory Palace
03The Stones That Sing
04Beowulf and the Northern Mysteries
05The Mabinogion and the Celtic Otherworld
06Chaucer's Pilgrimage
07The Rubaiyat and the Sufi Wine
08Dante's Architecture of the Invisible
09The Morte Darthur
10Ibn Khaldun and the Cycles of Civilization
C: Renaissance and Elizabethan
01Botticelli's Primavera
02Machiavelli and the Disenchanted Prince
03Spenser's Faerie Queene
04Shakespeare's Tempest: The Magus Renounces
05Shakespeare's Hamlet: The Play Within the Play
06Campanella's City of the Sun
07Monteverdi and the Birth of Opera
08Cervantes' Don Quixote
09Milton's Paradise Lost
10The Closing of the Renaissance Mind
D: Romantic Counter-Revolution
01Kant's Wall
02Hegel's Phenomenology
03Goethe's Colour: The Alternative Science
04The Rime of the Ancient Mariner
05Keats and Negative Capability
06Shelley and Byron: Promethean Fire
07Schopenhauer's Veil: The World as Will
08Moby-Dick: The White Mystery
09Dostoevsky's Underground Man
10Nietzsche: The Death of God
11Wagner's Ring: The Total Work of Art
12Tolstoy and the Question: What Is Art?
E: The Modern Labyrinth
01The Waste Land: Eliot's Grail
02Rilke's Angels
03Ulysses: Joyce and the Labyrinth
04Kafka's Trial: Initiation Denied
05Hesse's Glass Bead Game
06Faulkner's Voices: Consciousness Fragmented
07Tarkovsky: Cinema as Sculpting in Time
08Philip K. Dick: The Gnostic in the Machine
09Borges, Eco, and the Library of Babel
10The Beats and the Eastern Turn
11The Pre-Raphaelites and the Backward Glance
12Where We Are Now
Eastern Traditions
50 episodesF: Vedic Fire
01The Fire Altar
02That Thou Art: The Upanishadic Revolution
03The Song of God: The Bhagavad Gita
04The Great War: The Mahabharata
05Rama's Exile: The Ramayana
06The Eight Limbs: Patanjali's Yoga Sutras
07The Serpent Power: Kundalini and Tantra
08The Dreaming Body: Yoga Nidra
09Shankara and the Web of Maya
10Before the Upanishads
11Yoga in the West
12The Algorithm and the Atman
G: The Middle Way
01The Sickness, the Corpse, the Monk
02The Doctrine of Awakening
03Dependent Origination
04The Bodhisattva Turn
05The Vajra Vehicle
06The Bardo: Navigating Death
07Zen: The Finger Pointing at the Moon
08The Lhasa Question
09The Science of Mind
10The Digital Sangha
11Ashoka's Edicts
12The Silk Road Transmission
H: The Way and Its Power
01The Way That Can Be Spoken
02The Butterfly Dream: Zhuangzi
03The Golden Flower: Chinese Inner Alchemy
04The 49 Barriers
05The Harmony of Heaven: Confucianism
06The Jade Emperor's Court
07The I Ching and the Logic of Change
08The Brush and the Void
09The Opium of Modernity
10Silicon Tao
I: The Crossroads
01The Tavern of Ruin
02The Imaginal World
03The Shattering of the Vessels
04The Invisible Men: The Khidr Tradition
05Al-Andalus: The Golden Age
06Black Elk's Vision
07The Whirling and the Algorithm
08The Point of Convergence
J: Convergence
01Alexander at the Gymnosophists
02Plotinus and the Brahmins
03The Theosophical Bridge
04Gurdjieff's Sources: Central Asia
05Jung's Mandala: Depth Psychology and the East
06Guénon's Perennial Architecture
07The Psychedelic Crossroads
08The Meta-Project: AI as the Universal Mirror
AI Esoteric Genealogy
10 episodes01: The Esoteric Genealogy of AI
01Moving Statues
02The Mechanical Tradition
03The Ars Magna
04Feedback
05The Telesterion and the Cinema
06The Elect
07The Ascent Without the Descent
08The Common Task
09Cosmotechnics
10The Apophatic Machine
The Esoteric State
8 episodes02: The Esoteric State
01The Russian Idea
02The Underground
03The Common Task
04The Heartland and the Sacred
05The War of the Mind
06Heidegger East
07The Orthodox Esoteric
08The Geopolitics of Tradition
The Intelligence Mysteries
8 episodes03: The Intelligence Mysteries
01The Unusual Experiment
02Agent 488
03The Sacrament
04The Rocket and the Ritual
05The Psychic Spies
06The Esalen Transmission
07Total Information Awareness
08The Deep and the Hidden
Living Traditions
7 episodesLT: Living Traditions
01The Corpus of Orunmila
02Divine Horsemen
03The Living Gods
04Black Egypt
05The Book of the Mat
06The Cosmic Serpent
07The Grammar of Animism