The Wise Studies Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Technical and general information from the podcast's RSS feed.

The Wise Studies Podcast

Ryan Spielman

Education

Frequency: 1 episode/73d. Total Eps: 13

The Wise Studies podcast is an extension of our audio library of courses at wisestudies.com. You want to study the world’s great wisdom traditions in more depth but you don’t want to have to go to university to do it. At Wise Studies, we partner with leading scholars, practitioners, and experts in their field to produce high-quality audio courses, ebooks, and podcasts to bring reliable wisdom into your life. This podcast features the authors we work with. Choose a course at https://wisestudies.com

Read moreCollapse

Site

RSS

Apple

Recent rankings

Latest chart positions across Apple Podcasts and Spotify rankings.

Apple Podcasts

🇬🇧 Great Britain - courses
18/06/2026
#98
🇬🇧 Great Britain - courses
17/06/2026
#79
🇬🇧 Great Britain - courses
16/06/2026
#46
🇫🇷 France - courses
10/06/2026
#95
🇩🇪 Germany - courses
26/10/2025
#81
🇩🇪 Germany - courses
25/10/2025
#63
🇨🇦 Canada - courses
09/10/2025
#93
🇨🇦 Canada - courses
08/10/2025
#60
🇨🇦 Canada - courses
24/06/2025
#98
🇨🇦 Canada - courses
23/06/2025
#79

Spotify

No recent rankings available

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Links found in episode descriptions and other podcasts that share them.

See all

http://johndanversart.co.uk/
2 shares
http://www.meditationcircle.org.uk/
2 shares
https://justmeditation.org/
2 shares

https://www.facebook.com/StAntonysPriory/
2 shares

RSS feed quality and score

Technical evaluation of the podcast's RSS feed quality and structure.

See all

RSS feed quality

To improve

Score global : 52%

Publication history

Monthly episode publishing history over the past years.

Year

Latest published episodes

Recent episodes with titles, durations, and descriptions.

See all

Hindu Asceticism with Daniela Bevilacqua

Episode 13

Wednesday, October 19, 2022 • Duration 42:40

In this episode I speak with Daniela Bevilacqua. We cover hindu asceticism, its history, its aims, its culture. We discuss how contemporary ascetics are interacting with a rapidly changing and modernising India.

You can listen to her Wise Studies course, Hindu Asceticism and its Spiritual Disciplines here:
https://wisestudies.com/product/hindu-asceticism-and-its-spiritual-disciplines-with-daniela-bevilacqua/

Daniela Bevilacqua is a South-Asianist specialising in Hindu asceticism, which she investigates through an ethnographic and historical lens. She received her PhD in Civilizations of Africa and Asia from Sapienza University of Rome and in Anthropology from the University of Paris Nanterre. Her PhD research was published by Routledge under the title Modern Hindu Traditionalism in Contemporary India: The Śrī Maṭh and the Jagadguru Rāmānandācārya in the Evolution of the Rāmānandī Sampradāya. She worked as a post-doc research fellow at SOAS, for the ERC-funded Haṭha Yoga Project (2015– 2020). She has published several articles and book chapters related to asceticism, and yoga studies. She is currently a Research Fellow at SOAS.

Read moreCollapse

Zen with John Danvers

Episode 12

Friday, July 15, 2022 • Duration 42:15

In this episode I speak with John Danvers about his 55+ years of Zen teaching and practice. We discuss the history of Zen, awakening experiences, the art of sitting and more.

You can listen to his entire Wise Studies course An Introduction to Soto Zen at wisestudies.com

John Danvers has over fifty-five years’ experience of Zen meditation. He has no affiliation to any particular school or tradition. Whilst he has learned a great deal from historical teachers and from people he has met over the years, both Buddhist and non-Buddhist, experience has been his main teacher – especially the experience of zazen – Zen sitting meditation, which he began in 1965.

For seven years he practiced zazen alone, sitting for long hours and studying what texts he could find. In the early 1970s he undertook retreats at Throssel Hole Priory in Northumberland (a Soto Zen centre), and around 1975 he had some direct teaching from a Japanese Soto Zen monk who was travelling in the UK. Since then, he has guided retreats, workshops and seminars, and has undertaken other retreats, including with Thich Nhat Hanh in 2012.

In 2012 he retired as Associate Professor in Philosophy and Art Practice at Plymouth University, UK. Since then, he has been the Buddhist chaplain, and honorary associate professor, at Exeter University. In 2016 he established the Exeter Meditation Circle – one of the few secular Buddhist / secular Zen groups in the UK.

Books:

Picturing Mind: Paradox, Indeterminacy and Consciousness in Art & Poetry. Rodopi: Amsterdam/New York.
Agents of uncertainty: mysticism, scepticism, Buddhism, art and poetry. Rodopi: Amsterdam/New York
Interwoven Nature: relatedness and identity in a changeful world. Whitewick Press: UK.
To see the light: 100 poems. Whitewick Press: UK.

Artist Website: http://johndanversart.co.uk/

Exeter Meditation Circle Website: http://www.meditationcircle.org.uk/

Read moreCollapse

The Upanishads with Graham Burns

Episode 3

Wednesday, June 17, 2020 • Duration 49:05

In this episode I am speaking with Graham Burns. Graham is a yoga teacher and lecturer. He received his masters and PhD at SOAS the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University where he is now a senior teaching fellow. We discuss:

Introduction to the Upanishads
Vedanta
3 schools of thought in Vedanta; Advaita, Dvaita, Vishishtadvaita
Dualism vs non-dualism
Comparing Vedanta with Samkhya & Yoga
Common themes in the Upanishads

Graham's website is http://www.samanayoga.com/

Read moreCollapse

Neoplatonism with Angela Voss

Episode 2

Monday, June 15, 2020 • Duration 34:29

Angela Voss, PhD, SFHEA is Programme Director for the MA in Myth, Cosmology and the Sacred at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK.

In this podcast we discuss:

Her interest in the Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino
The relationship between art, religion and science
Who were the neoplatonists?
Neoplatonic ritual
The neoplatonic goal
The prominence of its practice
The influence of neoplatonic ideas on contemporary esoteric, spiritual and scientific thought

She has studied and taught Western esotericism for over twenty years, and is also a musician and an astrologer. Her interest began with the Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino, who was deeply indebted to both Plato and Hermes in his desire to renew the spirit of the Christian religion (see Marsilio Ficino, 2006), and she completed a doctorate on his astrological music therapy in 1992. She is now in the Education Faculty at Canterbury Christ Church, and is working within a transformative learning context, finding ways to bridge esoteric wisdom and reflexive scholarship. She has written extensively on Ficino, the symbolic imagination, music, astrology and divination, and she regards her vocation as a ‘walker between the worlds’, of spiritual experience and academic discourse. Some of her publications can be found at https://canterbury.academia.edu/AngelaVoss Her latest publication is Re-enchanting the Academy, co-edited with Simon Wilson.

Read moreCollapse

Contemplative Christianity with Nicholas Buxton

Episode 1

Saturday, May 30, 2020 • Duration 30:02

In this episode I am speaking with Reverend Dr. Nicholas Buxton. Nicholas is the Director of St Antony’s Priory, in Durham, and founder of ‘Just Meditation’ and the Newcastle Meditation Centre. He has a PhD in Buddhist philosophy from the University of Cambridge and is an experienced meditation teacher and retreat leader. Publications include The Wilderness Within: Meditation and Modern Life (Canterbury Press, 2014), and Tantalus and the Pelican: Exploring Monastic Spirituality Today (Continuum, 2009).

Topics discussed are:

Christian contemplatives throughout history
What is the focus of Christian contemplative practice compared to other meditative traditions?
Who were the Desert Fathers?
Is there a place for austerity in modern life?
How Nicholas understands Jesus, the man, and the story of Christ?
Is there a distinction between religious and spiritual?
Do you see religious practice on a spectrum moving from an exoteric to a deeper esoteric dimension?
Is your mission to promote the contemplative side of Christianity today?
What is the difference between a meditation technique and prayer?
What does the Christian tradition uniquely offer to spiritual practice?
How do you structure life on a typical retreat at St Antony's Priory?

Links to Nicholas' projects
Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/StAntonysPriory/
St. Antony's Priory
Just meditation https://justmeditation.org/

Early Christianity with Ann Conway-Jones

Episode 11

Monday, December 13, 2021 • Duration 32:10

In this episode I am speaking with Ann Conway-Jones about some of the developments in early Christianity. What was the transition like between Jews and Gentiles who went from identifying with the customs and traditions of the time to becoming followers of Christ? What defined early Christian contemplative practice? Ann teaches biblical studies, early Jewish–Christian relations, and the development of mystical theology for The Queen’s Foundation; Woodbrooke Quaker Studies Centre; Birmingham Church of England diocese; and Oxford University Department of Continuing Studies. For six years she taught biblical Hebrew in the Department of Theology and Religion.

You can hear her course Moses, Mount Sinai and Early Christian Mystics at wise studies.com

Read moreCollapse

What is the Relationship Between Yoga & Buddhism? with Karen O'Brien-Kop

Episode 10

Wednesday, September 8, 2021 • Duration 31:45

In this episode I am speaking with Dr. Karen O’Brien-Kop. Karen is Lecturer in Asian Religions and Ethics at the University of Roehampton. She was formerly Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Religions and Philosophies at SOAS University of London. Her doctoral research at SOAS was on the intertextuality of Pātañjala yoga and Buddhist yoga in the classical era. She was a co-founder of the Sanskrit Reading Room and is a committee member of the SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies.

You can hear Karen’s excellent 4 hour audio course The Philosophy of the Yoga Sutra at wisestudies.com

In this conversation we discuss the relationship between Classical Yoga and Buddhism

Read moreCollapse

The Truth Within with Gavin Flood

Episode 9

Thursday, October 8, 2020 • Duration 35:30

In this episode I am speaking with Gavin Flood. Gavin is a Professor of Hindu Studies and Comparative Religion in the Theology and Religion Faculty and academic director of the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies. Gavin read Religious Studies and Social Anthropology at Lancaster University and taught at the universities of Wales (Lampeter) and Stirling before coming to Oxford. He was elected to membership of the British Academy in 2014. His research interests are in medieval Hindu texts (especially from the traditions of Shiva), comparative religion, and phenomenology. Two recent books are The Importance of Religion: Meaning and Action in Our Strange World (Oxford: Blackwell, 2013) and The Truth Within: A History of Inwardness in Christianity, Hinduism and Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 2014) which are the starting point for our conversation.

You can listen to Gavin's audio course Tantra: Theory and Practice at wisestudies.com

Read moreCollapse

The Pali Canon with Sarah Shaw

Episode 8

Friday, September 18, 2020 • Duration 41:11

In this episode I speak with Sarah Shaw. Sarah received her PhD in English from Manchester University. After studying Pali and Sanskrit at Oxford, she began teaching and writing on Buddhist subjects. She has written several books on meditation theory and practice, and Jātaka literature. She is the author of several books including Introduction to Buddhist Meditation, The Jātakas: Birth Stories of the Bodhisatta and her most recent book, The Spirit of Buddhist Meditation. She is a member of the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Oxford, and Wolfson College. She is a fellow of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. You can hear her two most recent audio courses The Early Teachings of the Buddha and Lives of the Buddha at wisestudies.com

In this discussion Sarah gives us a brief introduction to the Pali Canon, the collected teachings of the Buddha:

Learning Sanskrit and Pali
Synthesis between scholarship and practice
Lay practice and tradition
Background to the composition of the Pali Canon
Oral and textual traditions
The three baskets
Historical authorship of the Pali Canon
Historical accuracy of The Buddha's life
Chanting the Pali Canon
The Vinaya
The Suttas
The Abhidhamma
How to read the texts

Read moreCollapse

Purusha & Prakriti with Karen O'Brien-Kop

Episode 7

Saturday, August 1, 2020 • Duration 49:24

In this episode I am speaking with Dr. Karen O'Brien-Kop. Karen is Lecturer in Asian Religions and Ethics at the University of Roehampton. She was formerly Senior Teaching Fellow in the Department of Religions and Philosophies at SOAS University of London. Her doctoral research at SOAS was on the intertextuality of Pātañjala yoga and Buddhist yoga in the classical era. She was a co-founder of the Sanskrit Reading Room and is a committee member of the SOAS Centre of Yoga Studies.

You can hear Karen’s excellent 4 hour audio course The Philosophy of the Yoga Sutra at wisestudies.com

In this conversation we discuss the concepts Purusha and Prakriti found in Samkhya philosophy in the Indian tradition.

Read moreCollapse

The Wise Studies Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

The Wise Studies Podcast – Details, episodes & analysis

Podcast details

Recent rankings

Apple Podcasts

Spotify

Shared links between episodes and podcasts

Other19

Amazon3

Facebook1

RSS feed quality and score

Publication history

Latest published episodes

Similar podcasts and content

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Related Shows Based on Content Similarities

Other19

Amazon3

Facebook1

Apple Podcasts

Spotify