Hermitix

Steven Connor, Professor of English and Director of Research at King’s College London, discusses his new intellectual biography of Gaston Bachelard. He traces Bachelard’s path from rural postman to academic, the odd archival gaps that hindered biography, and the persistent tension between scientific rigor and imaginative poetics. Connor spotlights Bachelard’s methods, mesomorphic matter, and surprising legacies for artists and readers.

Stijn Vanheule, Belgian clinical psychologist and Lacanian analyst, explains why psychosis deserves careful listening. He contrasts psychoanalytic and biological views. He discusses medication limits, Lacan’s symbolic concepts, triggers in youth, cultural loss, creativity as expression, and how social encounters can help reintegrate psychotic experience.

Benjamin A. Saltzman, a medievalist and University of Chicago professor, explores the ancient gesture of turning away. He traces its manuscript origins, debates whether aversion is melancholic or restorative, links it to art, philosophy, and media’s pressure to witness. He considers gesture as language and how withdrawal accumulates meaning across history.

Felix John Taylor, librarian and scholar of Welsh mythology with a PhD, wrote a richly illustrated cultural history of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. He explores why creative writers joined, the Order’s ritual spaces and graded teachings, the roles of figures like Yeats, Crowley and Florence Farr, and how occult networks and art shaped a wider revival.

Vincent Lê, philosopher and author of Unknown Lands, unpacks Nick Land, the CCRU, and accelerationist thought. He traces Land’s Warwick theatrics, his split between early libidinal materialism and later techno-occult turns, and the provocative idea of capitalism acting like an autonomous intelligence. Short, sharp conversation on theory, ritual, and the future of humans in a machinic world.

A review explores a raw, truck-stop world and an unnamed cross-dressing narrator's longings. Supporting figures Glad and La Loop shape a small, mythic community. The episode traces the book's publication, the later revelation about its authorship, and how that shifted readers' views. Sensuous Southern-Gothic language and a theme of sacred longing run throughout the discussion.

A lively birthday Q&A covers Jung and Klages links, Barry Long recommendations, and tricky niche topics like Aztec metaphysics. He talks religion, near‑death memory, and personal metaphysics including 'I am' and time. Practical habits come up: phone addiction, daily routines, and breathwork. There are reflections on money, crowdsourced cultural figures, writing pen names, and plans for a Jung course and school.

Bob Dobbs, renegade McLuhan scholar and longtime Frank Zappa archivist, shares vivid recollections and rare anecdotes. He explores Zappa’s improvisational reinventions, multimedia Project/Object ideas, xenocrony and synchronicity, lyrical instrumentation as sonic texture, and Zappa’s role as an anthropologist of media. The conversation ranges from bootlegs and live tactility to playful anti-doctrine messages.

A brisk review of Jed McKenna’s controversial take on spiritual enlightenment. They map his autolysis method and blunt, memoir-style teaching. Discussion covers the dream state, death as the undoing of the self, and a provocative reading of Moby Dick. They also probe the social cost of waking and McKenna’s shift toward a compassionate reframe.

Christopher John Müller, a senior lecturer and translator of Günther Anders, introduces Anders' collage-like prose and translation choices. He discusses Promethean shame from household devices, how technology creates a separate, oppressive reality, and Anders' reading of the bomb as concentrated technological power. Short, sharp conversations about cosification, media templates, and why humans feel obsolete in a tech-shaped world.