Eccentric Circles

By: Evergreen Podcasts
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  • Summary

  • Some periods, some cities give rise to ideas and circles of thinkers, that are both of the time and outside it. Machine Age London has had a deep legacy on all our lives - on matters as disparate as education, sex, drugs, yoga and rock ‘n’ roll.
    Evergreen Podcasts 2024
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Episodes
  • 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

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