Roots of Magic episodes – The Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast (SHWEP)

We speak with Egyptologist Sofie Schiødt about her work-in-progress at Würzburg, exploring the evidence for ancient Egyptian magic in situ. How did the ancient Egyptians relate to the spaces in which they performed rituals? How did the spaces relate to them? She plans to find out. 

We speak with Daniel Schwemer about an intensive ritual practice for driving out demonic forces and/or hostile magic. Bit Meseri , the ‘House of Enclosure’, took the ashipu (and forty-nine protective apkalu spirits) four days, at the end of which period the patient was good to go. We talk ritual, theology, and divine handbags.

We speak with Martin Stadler on his work deciphering and interpreting the extraordinary temple-complex at Edfu in Egypt. We discuss myth, ritual, the priestly temple-hierarchy, and magical ritual embodied in physical architecture.

We dive back into the world of Akkadian purification magic with Beatrice Baragli, who is working on an edition of the ritual sequence known as Bīt Rimki (`The Bathhouse'). Politics used to be very magical.

We discuss a fascinating text of all-purpose protective and apotropaic magic with a history spanning millennia with the inimitable Gideon Bohak. Attributed to a first-century rabbi, the Pishra may have its roots in late-antique Babylonia, but it was still being copied into the twentieth century, and, who knows? perhaps today.

We explore the ancient Mesopotamian ritual-series known as Šurpu with Frank Simons. This interview is a window onto very, very ancient magical practice, but has a surprising amount to tell us about magic today.

We speak with Dan Levene, expert on the ancient Judæo-Aramaic incantation-bowls, on the bowls, the skulls , the Talmud, and what all of this tells us about late-ancient Judaism in the Sasanian empire and beyond.

In our fourth Roots of Magic interview, we speak with Jonathan Beltz, specialist on the scarier side of ancient Sumerian cultural life, the side occupied by demonic entities bringing disease and death. But one entity stands out from the crowd: Namtar, the divine psychopomp whose arrival means ineluctable mortality. Or does it? We explore the world of magical ways to send death packing in ancient S...

We discuss the dangerous, liminal space of childbirth and childhood in ancient Egypt. How might the gods, magic, and medicine interact to help make this a less perilous realm? Charlotte Rose has some ideas.

In our second Roots of Magic interview, we speak with Svenja Nagel on erotic magic in ancient Egypt. Ritual practices and potions, magical continuity and change, and cross-cultural pollination feature prominently in a conversation which tells us what Egyptian erotic magic was, and what dangerous-yet-sexy things you could do with it.

In the first interview of a new series, we discuss the academic project we have all been waiting for, MagEIA: Magic between Entanglement, Interaction, and Analogy, with one of its principal investigators, Daniel Schwemer. MagEIA will host cross-disciplinary conversations across specialisms in the study of ancient (bronze-age to late antiquity) magic. Amazing work, with amazing things to come.