Legacy

What did it take for human beings to start controlling what they ate — and why did "health" so quickly become a cover
story for something else? How did a Venetian nobleman's wine-heavy calorie restriction become a blueprint for the
modern diet industry? And, when tobacco companies, Hollywood, and the beauty industry all decided women's body
anxiety was a market opportunity — who, exactly, was the diet really for?

Peter and Afua trace the history of the human body as a commercial battleground: from the first diet books in 1558,
through the birth of the calorie and the explosion of Weight Watchers, to the heroin chic 90s and the disordered eating
it left behind.

0:00 The Venetian nobleman who invented calorie restriction — and still drank 14oz of wine a day
7:30 George Cheyne: 32 stone, no meat, no alcohol, and a bestselling book in 1740
14:00 Empire, refrigeration, and why cheap food created the first diet industry
21:30 The discovery of the calorie — the invention Afua still resents
25:30 Freud's nephew, cigarettes, and the moment thinness became a product to sell
31:00 Weight Watchers, zero-fat yoghurt, and the 80s: cottage cheese as cultural trauma
36:30 The 90s: heroin chic, cellulite alerts, and the era that hospitalised a generation
40:00 Keto, Atkins, and the diet that keeps reinventing itself

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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
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Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
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Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
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What did Vogue actually recommend women eat in 1977 — and why did it make one food writer cry in the
bathroom? How did the Greeks turn a six-pack into a moral argument? And, has the human obsession with
controlling what we eat ever really been about health at all?
Peter and Afua trace the long, strange history of dieting — from ancient Greek athletics and Roman
feast-and-purge excess, to medieval starvation saints who turned self-denial into a radical act of female agency.

0:00 Vogue’s 1977 Wine and Egg Diet — and what happened when someone actually tried it
6:30 The diet industry’s dirty secret: it was never about nutrition
9:00 Peter on fasting, cranky emails, and what not eating teaches you about your relationship with food
14:30 Ancient Greece: when abs were a moral statement, not just an aesthetic one
19:30 The manosphere’s Spartan fantasy — and what the Greeks would actually make of it
23:00 Rome: the inventors of binge and purge culture
24:30 When Christianity enters the chat — and fasting becomes holy
26:00 Catherine of Siena: the medieval starvation saint who used hunger as protest
30:00 Anorexia mirabilis — holy anorexia, and why Peter is wary of projecting modern diagnoses onto the past
32:00 Why medieval peasants weren’t dieting — they were just trying to stay alive

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Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions
Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens when you raise a child telling him he's the Beast — and he decides to prove you right? Could a man
who genuinely repelled everyone around him have quietly shaped the culture we live in today? And, is the world of
sex, drugs, and rock and roll actually the legacy of a repressed Victorian occultist with a god complex?

Peter and Afua descend into the dark, theatrical, and genuinely troubling life of Aleister Crowley: English occultist,
self-declared Great Beast 666, and the man who may have done more than anyone to wire transgression, desire, and
spiritual hunger into the DNA of modern culture.

0:00 The wickedest man in the world — and why he owned it
6:00 The Exclusive Brethren: the suffocating sect that made Crowley inevitable
10:00 Cambridge, cigars, and erotic poetry: the beast is unleashed
15:00 Golden Dawn and the occult underground of Victorian London
20:00 Mountaineering, meditation, and the spiritual pick-and-mix
24:00 Cairo, 666, and the Book of the Law
26:00 Rose Kelly: the woman without whom none of it happens
33:00 The Abbey of Thelema and a scandal that shocks even the tabloids
38:00 How Crowley became the Beatles' and Led Zeppelin's spirit animal
42:00 Jack Parsons: the rocket scientist who performed Crowley rituals by night
44:00 Was Crowley a feminist? (Afua has thoughts)
48:00 The stain that runs through modern culture straight back to him

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Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions
Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Who invented the spiritual vocabulary of the modern world — karma, reincarnation, yoga studios, the idea that you can be "spiritual but not religious"? What if the hidden masters living in remote Tibetan mountains who inspired her weren't real — but the New Age movement they sparked absolutely was? And can you change the course of Western spirituality forever while being accused of fraud, plagiarism, and dropping fake letters through the ceiling?

Peter and Afua explore the extraordinary life of Helena Blavatsky: Russian aristocrat, globe-trotting mystic, chain-smoking occultist and the most polarising spiritual figure of the 19th century — whose Theosophical Society gave us yoga mats, abstraction in art, and the modern wellness industry, all while she battled accusations of being one of history's greatest frauds.

0:00 Introduction: The Woman Who Invented New Age Spirituality
4:15 Russian Aristocrat: Growing Up Between Two Worlds
9:40 The Lost Years: Tibet, Egypt, and the Mysterious Mahatmas
16:20 Arriving in New York: Spiritualism, Grief, and the Telegraph
23:10 Meeting Henry Steel Olcott: The Partnership That Changed Everything
28:35 Isis Unveiled: 1,200 Pages That Sold Out in 10 Days
35:50 Moving to India: Strategic Genius or Cultural Appropriation?
41:20 The Mahatma Letters: Messages from the Ceiling
47:05 The Coulomb Scandal and the Hodgson Report
53:30 Vindication? The 1986 Harrison Report
58:10 The Secret Doctrine and Her Uncomfortable Nazi Legacy
1:03:45 Blavatsky's New Age Legacy: From Mondrian to Matcha Lattes
1:09:20 Final Verdict: Genius, Fraud, or Both?

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Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions
Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas:
Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Nostradamus has predicted every major disaster in history — or so the internet would have you believe. Peter and Afua get behind the myth to meet the real man: a plague-era apothecary, rejected by the medical establishment, whose greatest invention wasn't prophecy — it was selling certainty to an anxious world.

Join Legacy Plus for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Join Legacy+ for bonus episodes, early access, Q&A's, fewer adverts and more.
legacy.supportingcast.fm

Stay connected with Legacy:
Instagram: @originallegacypodcast
TikTok: @legacy_productions

Explore more from Peter and Afua — essays, sources, and ideas: Substack: peterfrankopan.substack.com | afuahirsch.substack.com
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.