Richard Rolle was a hermit and a mystic who was probably more widely read than Chaucer during the medieval period. Rolle sets forth the proper religious path for the contemplative introvert. He teaches a message that is not especially charitable to women but participates in one of the most notable platonic relationships between a man and woman with the anchoress Margaret Kirkby.

Rob and Luke sit down with Sheer Zed to talk about his experience traveling to Thailand to receive sacred tattoos, captured in his book Thai Tattoo Magic.

Margery Kempe cried so much and so loudly that she became one of the most annoying women in her hometown of Lynn as well as neighboring Lincoln and Norwich not to mention Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de compostella where she made pilgrimages. She was regarded as a madwoman, a heretic, a faker, and a lollard. She was also called a deeply pious and religious woman. She was examined by priests, bishops, and archbishops and threatened with burning at the stake. Friars denounced her from the pulpit. Anchorites alternately encouraged and rejected her. She idolized St. Bridget and met St. Julian of Norwich. And she wrote, with the aid of a priest as scribe, what is probably the very first autobiography in the English language.

Rob's strange experiment in subconscious exploration and creation comes to an exciting conclusion in this final installment of our Dark Pool project.

The story continues. The actors blend subconscious exploration, devised theater, and occult theory in this experimental storytelling experience.

After four years, we have taken down the website for our experiment in audio storytelling created during the pandemic lockdown and so we're posting it up here on our main channel for your Halloween enjoyment (or whichever season you happen to be listening).

Where did the medieval via negative come from? In large part, it was inspired by Plato and those who followed him an innovated on his way of thinking. In the second of two parts on the Cloud of Unknowing we consider Plotinus and Pseudo-Dionysius.

Blind love is the only way to experience God according to the anonymous medieval mystic who authored the Cloud of Unknowing. In the first of two parts, we discuss the neoplatonic path outlined by an unknown priest to mystical understanding of the highest things.

Kabbalah has its roots in early rabbinic Judaism and became a distinct school of thought in the medieval period with the work of Isaac the Blind, Moses de Leon, and then Isaac Luria in the Renaissances. In this episode, we attempt to delineate basic principles and practices as well as the history of Kabbalah.

Magnolia Strange returns to complete her account of the life and significance of Hildegard. Included is some of Hildegard's music performed by Magnolia.