Young Heretics – Details, episodes & analysis

It's about time for our Halowe'en special--and as luck would have it, I can think of no more chilling or eerie storie than the one we have to tell today. It's Odysseus' meeting with the shadows of the dead in the Odyssey Book 11. In it, both Odysseus and Homer must confront the ultimate existential crisis and grapple with the possibility that life itself ends in nothing but worm food. So why go on living? It's a painful question, but one a hero must face to make his way out the other side of death and come back home.

SIGNUPS OPEN: Register for Spring courses at The Ancient Language Institute https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

My book is out!! Order Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM

Catch up on my livestream with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com/p/new-livestream-october-7-6pm-et

Simon Netchev’s Odyssey Map: https://www.worldhistory.org/image/15906/odysseus-ten-year-journey-home

Who doesn't love a free sample? This week, to change it up, I'm offering a sneek peak behind the paywall at rejoiceevermore.substack.com, where I've been creating an audiobook of John Milton's epic Paradise Lost. Hard to believe it's almost done! But to entice you to join, and to solicit suggestions for what to record next, here's the latest installment, in which Adam--newly expelled from Paradise--gets a glimpse of what will come in the wake of sin.

SIGNUPS OPEN: Register for Spring courses at The Ancient Language Institute https://ancientlanguage.com/youngheretics/

Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM

Subscribe to my joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com

The Odyssey is a very different poem from the Iliad in many ways, but in one way it picks up right where the Iliad leaves off: with the fallout of war and the journey to re-integrate soldiers back into the civil society they came from. Today we begin Odysseus' long journey home, which actually begins at the end and works backward, starting with his son Telemachus' journey to grow to manhod without his dad around. 

Pre-order my new book, Light of the Mind, Light of the World: https://a.co/d/2QccOfM

Subscribe to my joint Substack with Andrew Klavan (no relation): https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com

Subscribe to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com

Stephen C. Meyer, The Return of the God Hypothesis: https://a.co/d/gbIOQSY

Owen Barfield, Worlds Apart: https://a.co/d/1eVagdy

Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances: https://a.co/d/ioLqsnf

C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man: https://a.co/d/e3QeBte

C.S. Lewis, Miracles: https://a.co/d/g9hpjq5

Victor Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis: https://a.co/d/gmGwcoW

James Hannam, God’s Philosophers: https://a.co/d/625AA62

Ed Feser, Aristotle’s Revenge: https://a.co/d/bPGnKuf

Augustine, Confessions: https://a.co/d/99APz4T

Augustine, De Genesi ad litteram imperfectus liber: https://www.augustinus.it/latino/genesi_incompiuto/index.htm

Divine love: the most natural, and the least natural, thing in the universe. In this conclusion to his series on virtues, Spencer walks through the history of Christian love from its earliest origins in the church to its extremes in the most exalted realms of human life. We have arrived at last at the virtue that suffuses all others and defines their objective. It's been quite the journey.

Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/

Check out my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh

What is going on with men? For that matter, what is going on with women? The war between the sexes has entered a new phase, as whatever wave of feminism we're currently surfing produces its own backlash. Helen Roy--mother, writer, and podcaster--joins Spencer to discuss how men and women alike can get past the narrative mill and come together again.

Listen to Helen's podcast, Girlboss, Interrupted: https://girlbossinterrupted.podbean.com/

Read Helen's Substack, Ladies' Late Rome Journal: https://helenroy.substack.com/

It's been years since the days when we Young Heretics discussed Plato's Symposium. But now we've come back around a second time to that fundamental question: what is love? (Baby, don't hurt me.) This time, Spencer takes a thousand-year look at the question from the Hebrew angle while--GASP--actually saying something less than favorable about C.S. Lewis. As the series on virtue draws toward its close, it's time to discuss the most important one of all, and the hardest one to define. What, I ask again, is love?

Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/

Check out my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh

A revival in classical education is sweeping the nation. But where are we going to get good classical educators? In this interview, Josh Herring of Thales College discusses how he and his colleagues are equipping teachers to rise to that noble calling. From the humanities to the natural sciences, we need leaders who can do more than just pass on information. Josh and Spencer discusses who will shape the souls of the soul-shapers themselves, and how.

Check out Thales College's degree in Classical education: https://www.thalescollege.org/academics/classical-education

Listen to the Optimistic Curmudgeon podcast: https://optimisticcurmudgeon2021.podbean.com/

Read Josh's writing: https://theimaginativeconservative.org/author/josh-herring

If faith is the substance of things hoped for, what is hope? Reaching back into Jewish history and the Hebrew Bible, Spencer explains the gritty determination that saves us from despair in the valley of the shadow of death. As war rages in modern Israel after a savage terrorist attack by Hamas, it becomes as urgent as it's ever been to know where hope can reside securely in a darkened world.

Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/

Check out my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh

My essay on Cyrus the Great: https://claremontreviewofbooks.com/one-king-to-rule-them-all/

What does it look like when people who don't hate humanity build technology that doesn't suck? Emmet Penney is one of the most original thinkers when it comes to industry, energy, and the long history of human stewardship on earth. We discuss his departure from the left wing of the environmental movement, his search for a new aesthetics of nuclear energy, and the crisis of faith in the technological age.

Check out Emmet's substack, Nuclear Barbarians: https://nuclearbarbarians.substack.com/

Sign up for his newsletter, Grid Brief: https://www.gridbrief.com/

Read his essay, which we discuss on the podcast: https://www.cityofpraxis.com/journal/the-industrial-revolution-never-happened

A voice comes down from heaven--or was it thunder? Your answer will depend on what you believe, and what you beleive will change the way you see. In this episode, Spencer explores the twisted paradox of faith, and the Christian' Church's history of wrestling with it. From Heraclitus to Martin Luther, the question is who can possibly give sight to the blind.

Sign up to be in the mailbag: https://rejoiceevermore.substack.com/

Check out my book, How to Save the West: https://a.co/d/9S57cfh