The Gnostalgia Podcast

Brian and Sebastian sit down with poet-farmer Michael Martin for a wide ranging conversation on the renewal of metaphysical imagination. The discussion moves through sacramental perception, the life of symbol and myth, beauty as a discipline of thought, and the practice of reading texts and experience with patient inward attention. It reflects on language, tradition, and education, and asks what it might mean to cultivate an intellectual and spiritual sensibility that remains receptive to depth rather than content with surfaces.

Professor Jason Baxter returns to discuss his newly released translation of the second part of Dante's Divine Comedy the Purgatorio.https://jasonmbaxter.substack.com/https://angelicopress.com/products/the-divine-comedy-infernohttps://angelicopress.com/products/the-divine-comedy-purgatorio?pr_prod_strat=jac&pr_rec_id=b6d670f42&pr_rec_pid=11877570576702&pr_ref_pid=11378673877310&pr_seq=uniform

Brian and return guest Michal discuss the meaning of the stars and the history of cosmic narratives.

Brian Scarffe and Sebastian Morello wander off the paved roads of modern piety and into the wild of the Christian imagination, where animals are fellow creatures addressed, admonished and occasionally instructed. They explore the serious conviction that creation itself speaks, and that the saints, by holiness rather than technique, learned to listen.The conversation ranges across Scripture, hagiography and medieval cosmology, asking why the ability to converse with animals was once taken as a sign of restored harmony. What was this “language” the saints seemed to master, and what does its disappearance tell us about the modern Christian deafness to the natural world? Imagine a Christianity less enclosed, less managerial, and more porous to the voices of creation. The lads meditate on what we have forgotten, what we have dismissed as legend, and what might yet be relearned if we remembered that the world was once thought to be alive with meaning, down to its feathers and fur.

Brian Scarffe and Theo Howard meet to explore the strange and venerable world of the holy well. Their conversation moves through stories of healing, dreams, folk tradition and Christian sanctity, tracing how water has long been understood as a point of encounter between the visible world and the hidden workings of grace.

In this conversation, Brian and Sebastian explore the significance of St. Michael within angelic cosmology, the historical importance of the Feast of St. Michael, and the works of Wolfgang Smith that bridge ancient wisdom with modern science. They discuss the Neoplatonic tradition's relevance to Catholic thought, the impact of modernity on spiritual practices, and the risks associated with astral projection. The dialogue emphasises the profound relationship between Our Lady and St. Michael, advocating for a revival of traditional practices in the Church.

Viriditas – that greening force extolled by Hildegard of Bingen, signifying life’s inexhaustible power to heal, to renew, and to bind together heaven and earth. To remain rooted in an age of severance is to resist the centrifugal pull of modernity. Recovering our vital connection to place, to tradition, and to the sacramental cosmos becomes the necessary labour of those who refuse to be torn from the ineffable Source of LIFE.

Philosopher Nina Power joins Sebastian Morello and Brian Scarffe for a roaming conversation on fire: its ancient sanctity, its capacity to protect and to destroy, its place in the hearth cults of antiquity, and its neglected spiritual symbolism in Christian life. From the oracular invocation of fire at a dinner party to reflections on cremation, alchemical distillation, gin-fuelled social collapse, and the counterfeit hearth of television.

Brian and Sebastian speak with Michal Paszkiewicz about the life and times of one of astronomy’s earliest historians.

Sebastian and Brian discuss the sacred history of healing, from its roots in pre-Christian rites of anointing and balance to its transfiguration in the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. Moving between early Christian miracle accounts, medieval herbals, Byzantine hospitals, and the writings of Hildegard of Bingen and St Basil the Great, they considers how health was once conceived not as the absence of illness, but as a harmony between body, soul, and the divine order. Along the way, the conversation draws contrasts with modern biomedicine, recovering an older, metaphysically rich vision in which suffering is not meaningless.

On what has ended and what may come.

In this episode, Brian Scarffe sits down with Evangelos Nikitopoulos to reconsider one of the most contested figures in Christian history: Saint Dionysius the Areopagite. Nikitopoulos unpacks the theological depth, historical reception, and unmistakable Christian Platonism of these writings, challenging the entrenched ‘pseudo’ label. Together, they explore the enduring influence of Dionysius on Christian mysticism, hierarchy, and metaphysics, reclaiming his place at the heart of the early Church.

Gnostalgia pod is joined by Dr Joseph Shaw to discuss the theurgical mysteries of the Christian liturgy.

We are joined by the Raw Egg Nationalist to discuss whether Christianity has a place for the masculine virtues in today’s Church and how it relates to the ‘vitalist right’.

Fr Robert Nixon OSB returns to discuss the folk Catholic cult of Santa Muerte and the 'wizard' papacy of the 11th century.

Brian and Sebastian discuss the mysteries of the Black Virgin.

Brian and Sebastian discuss empire and nation.

You’ve heard of High Tories, Low Tories, Tory scum, and Tori Amos, but have you heard of Cosmic Toryism?

An exploration of the stranger forgotten parts of the Catholic tradition with the great scholar and monk Fr Robert Nixon OSB.

Sebastian Morello and Brian Scarffe sit down with Rod Dreher to discuss the insights and themes of his new book, Living in Wonder.

Sebastian Morello, Brian Scarffe, and Charles Coulombe on monarchy as a divine vocation.

In defence of the role of natural wisdom in reestablishing Christendom. 

Sebastian and Brian criticise the high priest of “rewilding Christianity”, Paul Kingsnorth, in the light of his Erasmus Lecture, delivered at the invitation of First Things journal, in which he condemns “Christian civilisation”.

On cultivating deep nostalgic wisdom, connecting with ancestors, and overcoming uprootedness.

Jason Baxter, the translator of a wonderful new edition of Dante’s Inferno, joins The Gnostalgia Podcast to discuss with Sebastian Morello and Brian Scarffe how Dante’s theological world offers an initiatory pathway into mystical transformation in the heart of the Christian Mystery.

In this Halloween special, recorded at the request of one of The Gnostalgia Podcast’s regular listeners, Sebastian Morello and Brian Scarffe defend the celebration of All Hallows’ Eve, even in its modern, degraded form. The day may be, they claim, Christendom’s last feeble attempt to confront the curse of death with which we’re all afflicted.

Continuing their Sacred Ecology discussion, Sebastian Morello and Brian Scarffe sing the praises of the nascent rewilding movement, discuss how to break free from the spell of modernity, and insist that any form of Christian conservationism must take seriously the theological principle of grace ... for the alternative is red in tooth and claw.

In this episode, Sebastian Morello and Brian Scarffe discuss Neoplatonism as a foundation for a Christian approach to ecology, arguing that participating in the cycle of the landscape through hunting and farming can open us up to the sacral vision of stewardship over creation that’s necessary to retrieve the ‘green movement’ from rapacious globalists who posture as environmentalists.

In this episode, Sebastian Morello and Brian Scarffe discuss the forgotten practice of Christian cursing, arguing that placing curses on one’s enemies is an important part of our Holy Tradition.

In this episode, Sebastian Morello and Brian Scarffe discuss the role of the gods in Christianity, and why, as Psalm 136 puts it, we worship the God of gods.

On how a hawthorn bush in Glastonbury is a portal to the mysteries and the depths of the English soul.