What is Reddit's opinion of Arcana Mundi: A Collection of Ancient Texts: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds?

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And too that end if anyone is interested this book is a good resource if a little scholarly.

Very enjoyable episode

I am just going to jot down my takeaways with some timestamps

During this transition in the podcast, St Augustine briefly appears to cast doubt on all magic, divination, and theurgy (rejecting any claims of Neoplatonists that may differentiate theurgies that 'invite' deities/spirits from those that try to 'control' or 'manipulate' them))

The word "theurgy" is difficult to define. Earl used the word "labyrinth" as a metaphor for its evolving meanings. I was wondering perhaps a "maze" may be a bit better (the difference is stated here). The issues encountered reminded me of Earl's discussion on similar issues with the word "magic" (for these, episode 5, particularly the distinctions between first- and second-order terms, and ’emic’ and ‘etic’ are important).

The first 18 minutes are essentially etic in my opinion, as Earl weaves through the changes in meaning since the term emerged nearly two millennia ago. Then after a brief summary around minute 19, he switches to the more emic approach in the Hellenic context. For this portion, episodes 75 and 76 on the Chaldean oracles may be helpful to listen to. An important secondary source for this section is Hans Levy, although his magnum opus on this topic is hard to get ('CHALDAEAN ORACLES AND THEURGY')

At about minute 33, Earl starts to summarize this and makes an important point about a separation that occurred between polytheistic (pagan) metaphysics and certain rituals that were appropriated and absorbed into the expanding Christian church. In this process, these rituals can be seen to be anesthetized (in that they are 'sleep' in a sense), and sanitized (from the taint of superstition).

During this transition in the podcast, St Augustine briefly appears to cast doubt on all magic, divination, and theurgy (rejecting any claims of Neoplatonists that may differentiate theurgies that 'invite' deities/spirits from those that try to 'control' or 'manipulate' them).

The last section is on modern scholarship beginning around minute 34. Here work of Eitram and Dodds in the 1940s is cited. Eitram's article from 1942 is hard to get, but Dodds' article is available on JSTOR. https://www.jstor.org/stable/298455

The work of Peter Kingsley and Sarah Iles Johnstone comes up here, which can be accessed here https://peterkingsley.org/about-peter-kingsley/ and here https://www.academia.edu/3103264/Animating_Statues_A_Case_Study_in_Ritual

The works of Georg Luck and Naomi Janowitz are mentioned, which are also the subjects of these two reviews

https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2001/2001.01.01/

https://bmcr.brynmawr.edu/2004/2004.04.24/

Luck (now deceased) also edited a sourcebook that included 131 ancient texts; its TOC and introduction can be accessed in the Kindle sample.

https://www.amazon.com/Arcana-Mundi-Occult-Collection-Ancient-ebook/dp/B07DFNJNW7

Finally, in this episode (around minute 43), more recent 'minimalist' approaches to this concept are mentioned, with the works of Fernandez-Fernandez, Marshall and Tanaseanu-Döbler. I must say, I didn't fully understand what Earl meant by minimalist in this context.