Is there anything John Dee wasn’t interested in? John Dee was a mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, teacher, occultist, and alchemist -- and he was a Cambridge-educated polymath who was also advisor to Queen Elizabeth I.
Mar 2022
How Mary the Jewess Helped Your Hollandaise
<p>"One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the One as the fourth.” That’s the most famous axiom attributed to Mary the Jewess, who, it’s said, is the first known alchemist of the Western world. She is known to have invented processes and apparatus that wen ... Show More
21m 59s
Mar 2022
Aristotle, al-Fārābī, and the Dawn of Arabic Alchemy
<p>Al-Fārābī learned from the Greeks, but he wrote for Muslims. This polymath translated Greek works on science and philosophy, offering important commentaries on both Aristotle and Plato -- in the Arabic language. You might be thinking, neither Plato nor Aristotle were nor are c ... Show More
26m 50s
Sep 2019
From the Vault: John Dee, Part 2
Elizabethan scholar Dr. John Dee was one of the most learned men of the 16th century, applying his intense mathematical intellect to matters scientific, political, alchemical and occult. He advised Queen Elizabeth, sought communion with angelic beings, advocated British expansion ... Show More
42m 27s
Sep 2019
From the Vault: John Dee, Part 1
Elizabethan scholar Dr. John Dee was one of the most learned men of the 16th century, applying his intense mathematical intellect to matters scientific, political, alchemical and occult. He advised Queen Elizabeth, sought communion with angelic beings, advocated British expansion ... Show More
1h 4m
Feb 2022
380 Ian Fleming | PLUS The Black James Bond
Ian Fleming (1908-1964) always wanted to be a writer. Not an "author," as he put it, and not someone in the "Shakespeare stakes," but someone who wrote for money and pleasure. In developing his enduring character James Bond, he managed to accomplish both. In this episode, Jacke t ... Show More
48m 52s
Sep 2023
Episode 4: John McWhorter
I recently started learning French, and the process has made one thing clear to me: There’s a lot I don’t understand about how languages work. So, I turned to John McWhorter, a linguist who has dedicated his career to demystifying the roughly 7,000 languages spoken around the wor ... Show More
30m 13s