Boreas Podcast

Send us Fan Mail "You cannot be a human without a transcendental vision. The here and now is not enough; there must be something wholly above it, not just something higher and better, but something absolute and eternal. This something is transcendence. It anchors human life in meaning and purpose." René Girard showed how Western literature over the centuries traces a descent of transcend...

Send us Fan Mail How and why I got into researching Amazonian spirituality. Modern interest in shamanism and the reality of shamanism among Amazonian tribes. Sorcery and witchcraft and recorded cases of scapegoating among the Amazonians. The imperative of conviviality and consequences of breaking it. Inner peace and its flip side: outer violence. 

Send us Fan Mail Here finally is a true and powerful traditionalist response to both feminist accusations and the cheap bragging of low-IQ wife-beaters. Why and how are men "born to rule"? The answer is clear once we recover the once-obvious link between authority, violence, and sacrifice. The gory origins of authority in blood sacrifice, archaic, ancient, and modern. The biological expa...

Send us Fan Mail Parks Gore and I discuss Terence McKenna's Stoned Ape Theory. McKenna argued that human evolution was driven by hominid consumption of psychedelic mushrooms. We explain his theory and argue against it in light of René Girard's work. Girard believed that in-group violence was the unprecedented problem whose solution through violent sacrificial ritual and religion provided...

Send us Fan Mail Autism is a rare but real disorder, but the recent rise in claims of being "on the spectrum" is a massive fad, a mimetic contagion. The spectrum is glamourised by popular entertainment and embraced by celebrities. With reference to René Girard's work, I analyse why people might want to signal autism (rather than "mask" it). It has to do with many notions t...

Send us Fan Mail What is the link between comedy and tragedy? Why do both laughing and crying involve tears? How is comedy related to tickling? Why do we laugh more in modern times? These and many other questions answered in a philosophical discussion based on René Girard's essay on the topic, "Perilous Balance: A Comic Hypothesis."

Send us Fan Mail We start where we left off in Part 1: Dostoevsky the romantic wakes up and realizes he lives in the underground, filled with resentment, frustrated ambition, and tormenting idols. The underground man struggles to break free in the character of Raskolnikov from Crime and Punishment and the teacher in The Gambler . We then encounter formidable idols that attract and foment undergrou...

Send us Fan Mail A review of the life and works of the great Fyodor Dostoevsky following René Girard's book Dostoevsky: Resurrection from the Underground . A masterpiece of literary criticism in its own right, this book brings edifying and brilliant insights into Dostoevsky's own masterpieces, but only by connecting them to the novelist's lesser works and personal life. Girard trace...

Send us Fan Mail René Girard's mysterious quote on masochist reasoning being a model of scientific induction. Connecting masochistic conclusions about the nature of the universe to that of the scientist. What logical genius may have in common with masochism – the idiot-savant stereotype. Why modern materialistic and atheistic ideologies tend to turn sadomasochistic.

Send us Fan Mail The Devil is trending. Talk of demons can be heard from Tucker Carlson, theorists on UFOs and AI, right-wing podcasters interviewing exorcists, and the Psychedelic Renaissance aficionados. So I go over what I recently wrote about the devil on my blog: Girard's anthropological interpretation of the Devil as the force behind seduction, conflict, and accusation; the victimary me...

Send us Fan Mail Gregory Bateson's double bind as the cause of schizophrenia René Girard on the double bind as a universal human experience Girard's notion of the haunting double as the source of the double bind and central cause and symptom of schizophrenia

Send us Fan Mail Last episode for the summer. Shakespeare snobbery. Two audiences of Shakespeare: the mob and the initiates. Two layers in Othello and Hamlet : romanticism and mimesis. Othello: thirst for the exotic and the death wish. Hamlet: disillusionment with the violent sacred. Shakespeare the man: relationship trauma and dramatic genius.

Send us Fan Mail René Girard wrote a book of literary criticism of Shakespeare titled "Theatre of Envy: William Shakespeare." The book makes centuries of Shakespeare critics look like fools while confirming the bard himself as a monumental literary figure. This podcast summarises some of the big points of Girard's analysis of Shakespeare. Shakespeare dramatised and reflected on what...

Send us Fan Mail Christ's admonitions to turn the other cheek, love thy enemy, etc., from the Sermon on the Mount unsettle many brave Christians. We interpret these admonitions conclusively with the help of René Girard's mimetic exegesis. Take courage soldier! – Jesus does not advocate cowardice or resignation. We also reference C.S. Lewis, and discuss how "love thy enemy" link...

Send us Fan Mail Mexico: A Girardian analysis of Mel Gibson's movie Apocalypto China: Girardian notes on Terracotta Warriors and pandas Rome: The Gladiator movie; the origin of gladiatorial games Greece: The origin of the ancient Olympic Games

Send us Fan Mail L'appel du vide -- the call of the void; or as Nietzsche says, "If you gaze long into the abyss, the abyss will gaze back at you"  A mimetic theory interpretation of the call of the void: inflamed (rather than mortified) desire leads to sadomasochism, leads to an urge to dash ourselves before the terrible and awesome model-obstacle Call of the void in romantic pursu...

Send us Fan Mail René Girard's understanding of the symbiosis of imitation and innovation. In traditional societies, imitation was encouraged, innovation was discouraged; in modern society, it is the opposite; why? Imitation and innovation game in science, the arts, business, and geopolitics Bad imitation: resentment of the rival and cargo cults

Send us Fan Mail Modernity is the precious product of Western Christian Tradition. It is good. You can't and you don't want to go back to some fanciful "trad" era. The aim should be to learn how to navigate the novel challenges of our exciting though perilous times, not give up on them.

Send us Fan Mail An early reader of The Modern Malaise tunes into Boreas Podcast to talk about his personal journey through the shadowy valleys of male coming-of-age, one that included many – or rather all – of the challenges covered in the book: an obsession with Nietzsche, a body-building buddy group, online dating, and money Twitter. His impressions and advice on making it through.

Send us Fan Mail Girardian takes on racism How white racism is unique: blindness to violence and genteel insistence on "scientific objectivity" Racism as sadomasochism that ends up in self-destruction and/or mixing with the "inferior" You are whom you f*** so if you want to keep your race pure get used and comfortable with hating your own people. Scale back on globalisation.

Send us Fan Mail "Eternal Recurrence" of Nietzsche and pre-Socratic philosophers, history repeating itself, and the victimary mechanism, or "Satan casting out Satan";  A big part of "trad Christian Twitter" as a swinging of the "infernal pendulum" from the heathen idols of wokism to a heathen interpretation of Christianity as a violent religion; Religious fe...

Send us Fan Mail Keynes as prophet of mature capitalism, against its rival religion of communism. The arcane language of economics sages. Mythologies that economics/capitalism supplanted (and that's a good thing). Nature of mythologies old and new: how they make you feel good early on, and what happens when they run their course. 

Send us Fan Mail What is it that makes us uniquely human? Thinking ( homo sapiens )? Organizing ( homo economicus )? Symbols (“the symbolic species”)? I propose that it is desire in Girardian sense — we are homo desiderans : the desiring humans. Artificial intelligence versus the desiring human. Wordcels, shape rotators, and a third way.

Send us Fan Mail What is the one single basic principle of all war strategy? The answer is given from readings of René Girard's mimetic theory together with Sun Tzu, Carl von Clausewitz, and the Bible.  I suggest how to apply it in modern life. Also, there is a discussion of military history and how war changed through to modern times. Were Sun Tzu and Machiavelli cynics? Were European aristo...

Send us Fan Mail A Girardian angle on the stock market. Yes, the market is irrational, and no, it's not because we have "herd instincts" and other traces of evolutionary survival instincts, but because we are mimetic. Investing is like romance. Girard's mimetic theory does not in any way, shape, or form support any Marxist or neo-Marxist attacks on the Western civilisation.