Episodes

  • #148 - The Grail Quest: Joseph Campbell on the Arthurian Legends, the Seduction of Gawain, Parsifal's Quest for the Holy Grail, and the Elementary Truths of Mythology
    Jan 13 2025

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    https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon

    “The agony of breaking through personal limitations is the agony of spiritual growth. Art, literature, myth and cult, philosophy, and ascetic disciplines are instruments to help the individual past his limiting horizons into spheres of ever-expanding realization. As he crosses threshold after threshold, conquering dragon after dragon, the stature of the divinity that he summons to his highest wish increases, until it subsumes the cosmos. Finally, the mind breaks the bounding sphere of the cosmos to a realization transcending all experiences of form - all symbolizations, all divinities: a realization of the ineluctable void.”

    -Joseph Campbell, The Hero With a Thousand Faces, 1949

    -//-

    00:00:00 - Intro

    00:02:16 - The Origins of Western Mythology

    00:52:42- The Mythology of Love

    01:40:07 - The Arthurian Tradition

    02:33:025 - The Grail Legend

    03:45:46 - The Forest Adventure of Parsifal

    -//-

    These talks, entitled "The Western Quest" were delivered in November 1978 at Washington University by Joseph Campbell in front of a live audience.

    In the complete works of Joseph Campbell, they are delineated in the catalogue as the Lecture II, 6.1-6.5.

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    4 hrs and 58 mins
  • #147 - Dzogchen: James Low on Tibetan Buddhism, the Uncontaminated Mind, Developing Clarity and Insight, Overcoming Ego, and Riding the Wave that Never Breaks
    Dec 20 2024

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    https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon

    -//-

    James Low's YouTube Page:

    https://www.youtube.com/@jameslow

    Video Source:

    https://youtu.be/gf51n8V8vII

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    36 mins
  • #146 - Moby Dick: Bert Dreyfus on the White Whale, the Origins of American Literature, Ahab's Madness, and Existentialist Themes in the 19th Century
    Dec 19 2024

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    https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon

    This is an eight lecture series, delivered in 2010 at UC Berkeley by the philosophy professor and overall great human being Hubert "Bert" Dreyfus as part of a Great Books course.

    Enjoy.

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    8 hrs and 24 mins
  • Letter to the Shareholders 2025
    Dec 13 2024

    Reach out and share your thoughts!

    williamengels@substack.com

    Congratulations on a great 2024 - a couple of channel-exclusive messages and announcements as we take the podcast into 2025. Cheers to a great year.

    References:

    The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes, Jonathan Rose.

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    9 mins
  • #145 - Wittgenstein: Norman Malcom on Ludwig Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Language, Analytic Philosophy, the Vienna Circle, Bertrand Russell, and Language Games
    Dec 11 2024

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    ⁠https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon⁠

    “Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must remain silent”

    -Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus

    Original Video:

    https://youtu.be/371LobXpUlo

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    1 hr and 15 mins
  • #144 - The Philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche: Rick Roderick on Postmodernism, the Eternal Recurrence, Ressentiment, Master & Slave Morality, the Übermensch, and the Last Man
    Dec 10 2024

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    "The philosopher as we understand him, we free spirits - as the man of the most comprehensive responsibility who has the conscience for the collective evolution of mankind: this philosopher will make use of the religions for his work of education and breeding, just as he will make use of existing political and economic conditions….the will to self-mastery is always increasing - religion presents them with sufficient instigations and temptations to take the road to higher spirituality, to test the feelings of great self-overcoming, of silence and solitude.
    -Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, 1886

    -//-

    (00:00:00) - Intro

    (00:00:41) - Nietzsche as Myth and Mythmaker

    (00:44:34) - Nietzsche on Truth and Lies

    (01:23:54) - Master of Suspicion, the Immoralist

    (02:04:23) - The Death of God

    (02:46:06) - The Eternal Return (Time is a Flat Circle)

    (03:25:04) - The Will to Power

    (04:08:08) - Nietzsche as Artist

    (04:49:20) - Nietzsche's Bastard Children

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    5 hrs and 26 mins
  • Hemlock #8 - Rituals of Fire: Astika Royal Mason on Symbols of Spiritual Transformation, the Internalization of Religious Ceremonies, Developing Spiritual Maturity, and Buddhism's Reaction to Hinduism
    Dec 8 2024

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    https://a.co/d/bggZEtW

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    https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon

    “He no longer cared to live in a house, and he rose once more into the air, this time on the breath of a breeze so sheer and transparent not even the gods felt it. This is the wind that further frees even the free. As his soul rose on that wind, it seemed to expand and flow out in all directions at once. Rising steadily upward, he passed through the arched windows of that celestial mansion and began a journey that would penetrate even the most distant, the most veiled mysteries of heaven. He slipped stealthfully across secret skies, across worlds and all their skies, growing deeper and wider as he did so, traveling beyond the starry reach of any sky, of any universe, to a place where no one could follow. There, lost in the divine and infinite distances of nothingness itself, he too disappeared, his last breath released, like a luminous song, into the void of a transcendent eternity.”
    -Astika Royal Mason, A Dream Immortal, 2023

    References:

    “From Here to Enlightenment” - HH the Dalai Lama

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12505636-from-here-to-enlightenment

    Ardor - Roberto Calasso

    https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/134839029-ardor-by-roberto-calasso

    The Mirror of Simple Souls - Marguerite Porete

    https://youtu.be/HvivvGZydFA

    Agni in Hinduism

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agni

    Rig Veda

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rigveda

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    1 hr and 52 mins
  • #143 - The End of Empire: Chris Hedges on Gaza Genocide, US Complicity, and the Fate of Conquerors
    Dec 4 2024

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    https://patreon.com/HemlockPatreon

    Original YouTube:

    https://youtu.be/fO0OkdUuvDk

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    49 mins