Dr. Hans G. Schantz joins the Professor for a virtual roadtrip through the history of electromagnetism. Along the way, we remark on the importance of studying history for catching the errors in the science, review the significance of Harold Innis's insights into the media effects on space and time, wonder about the role of monasticism in the origins of Western industry, and marvel at the beauty of the machines that are remaking our world. It's quite the experiment! — Streamed March 6, 2026

Check out Hans's Substack on Innis and empires: https://aetherczar.substack.com/p/ii-152-empire-and-communications

Hans's website: https://aetherczar.com

You might have heard about the humorous meme making its way around the internet over the past several years which states, “We revolted against the British because they taxed our breakfast beverage.” Well, yes and no. Spoiler alert: It wasn’t really about the tea, or the tiny tax on the tea. It was about taxation without representation. But where did the American colonists get the idea that they were entitled to representation?! What if I told you that the idea came from Britain, where Parliamentarian oligarchs (aka Whigs) used their position to impose accountability on their King because their King had bypassed Parliament to raise funds for himself through the chartering of the English East India Company which became a quasi-governmental business venture that eventually took over India and started extracting its wealth, including….tea. It’s all very complicated! Fortunately, we were joined this week by University of Chicago historian James M. Vaughn, who graciously offered to explain it all to us! Join us for this fascinating and surprisingly current topic! —Streamed February 27, 2026

Buy James’s book: https://www.amazon.com/Politics-Empire-Accession-George-Eighteenth-Century/dp/030020826X/

In the very entertaining 1996 summer blockbuster movie “Independence Day,” President Whitmore is told of the alien tech that has been hidden and studied in Area 51 for years, the cost of which was hidden through stories planted in the media about creative accounting. Hollywood has come out with some science fiction bangers over the past 75 years, and sometimes as art does, it has mirrored the hopes and fears of the general population. But have you ever wondered if it was the other way around? Have you ever wondered if art wasn’t merely reflecting socio-political trends, but that the public was being conditioned to accept scientific trends and realities through the use of art? Or is it possible that like President Whitmore, the public was being distracted from asking too many questions by planting plausibly deniable stories in the media? It hasn’t escaped KC’s attention that the real life history of the US air and space programs has had a very interesting parallel with the history of Hollywood science fiction movies. Has she uncovered a conspiracy to rival that of the supposed fake moon landing? As we all await yet another information dump of declassified UFO information (this time from real-life President Trump), watch as she and the professor discuss some of the more uncanny artistic coincidences in the history of the space race. —Streamed February 20, 2026

On this week’s Mosaic Ark, the Professor and KC talk about the McLuhan space we currently inhabit, where “the medium is the message.” The world is in the midst of a digital revolution with the introduction of very rapidly improving “artificial intelligence,” where the gathering and dissemination of information both audio and visual is occurring at the speed of a self-replicating virus. While this world of AI is clearly the medium between one human brain that conceives information and another that receives it, what is the actual message? Do books no longer matter? Will creativity be but a long lost dream? Here’s a hint from one of the Mosaic Ark’s previous guests: “The Digital retrieves the Medieval.” Join the ladies for this surprisingly hopeful take on the current public obsession over AI, and why it may just help us break a 200 year-long degradation of learning. Please leave us your take on AI in the comments! —Streamed February 6, 2026

On this week’s Mosaic Ark, the ladies were joined by Catholic artist Joseph Maki. Inspired by the great European craftsmen who built the churches of the Middle Ages, Joseph is a woodworker and sculptor who creates beautiful works of art that hold a sacred purpose within the Catholic Mass. We spoke about his motivations for taking on this vocation, and also about his inspirations, including his love of Catholic traditions and of the myths created by Tolkien. We also discussed the challenge of bringing back the craftsmanship of the Middle Ages in light of the current arguments about the merits of using AI and 3D printing to create art, architecture and sculpture. We feel that we’ve barely scratched the surface of this topic and would love to get your thoughts on this, so please let us know them in the comments! —Streamed January 30, 2026

Why do men hold on so tightly to myths that have been scientifically disproven, defending them with the religious fervor of a nineteenth-century high church Anglican? On this week’s Mosaic Ark, we discussed the tale of two such men. Both challenged their church’s teachings; one proved that humans could develop over time, and the other was Charles Darwin. Listen as we discuss how St. John Henry Newman’s conclusion that Catholic doctrine could develop over time as a seed into a tree mirrors Charles Darwin’s theory that all life began with a single origin and evolved into multiple species over time, as a seed into a tree. What does each belief signify for humanity? Let us know your thoughts in the comments! —Streamed January 16, 2026

Was the world of Middle Earth, created by JRR Tolkien, Christian? Would it help answering that question to know that Tolkien’s initials were actually JRPRT, and that the “P” was for Phillip, more specifically his patron saint, Philip Neri? Or that Tolkien studied under Father Morgan at the Birmingham Oratory, who studied under St. John Henry Newman? “So Tolkien was Catholic, so what? He just wrote a fantasy story about magic based on old Norse mythology,” you might say. But you also might wonder if Christianity itself, or Catholicism in particular is just magical superstition. Ironically, if you did think this you would be in the company of the pagan Romans and later Arians, which, doubly ironically, was pointed out in a book written by St. John Henry Newman, “On the Development of Christian Doctrine.” You see, Tolkien had a spiritual family ancestry as impressive as Aragorn’s royal ancestry. Join us as we discuss Tolkien’s spiritual fiction and whether it was based on his magical upbringing in the Oratory, and let us know what you think in the comments! —Streamed January 9, 2026

On this week’s Mosaic Ark, we spoke with Tyler Hummel about his new book, Is Die Hard a Christmas Movie? And Other Questions About The True Meaning of Christmas Films. What started out as an amusing observation that many people considered Die Hard to be their favorite Christmas film led Tyler to wonder what kinds of stories actually make a film into a “Christmas film.” Is it that it has the story of Christ’s birth at the center? Is it that it is about people celebrating Christmas? Is it merely because the story is Christmas adjacent, taking place during Christmas time? Or is it something more simple, more primal? Could it just be nostalgia? The answer to all of these questions, it turns out, is yes! Listen along as we discuss the ritual of the Christmas film, and its many different variants, and please let us know what your favorite one is in the comments! — Streamed December 19, 2025