Circa: 1675 - Central Character: Jacques BertotAbout this episode: Jacques Bertot shaped Madame Guyon and a chain of mystics across Europe by teaching interior surrender --- and leaving his name off the cover.
Christianity
Circa: 1675 - Central Character: PietismAbout this episode: Harmonia explores Pietism, the 17th-century movement that asked whether faith was truly lived --- and why that question still matters today.
Christianity
Circa: 1670 - Central Character: Charles MarshallAbout this episode: How the suffering of ordinary English Quakers like Charles Marshall traveled across an ocean to become the First Amendment.
Christianity
Circa: 1669 - Central Character: Nicolas StenoAbout this episode: Nicolas Steno founded modern geology and modeled how science and spiritual inquiry can illuminate different layers of the same reality.
Christianity
Circa: 1668 - Central Character: Zera YacobAbout this episode: A reflection on Zera Yacob and the moral courage to test belief against reason, justice, and human dignity.
Philosopher
Circa: 1666 - Central Character: Brother Lawrence - About this episode: Brother Lawrence discovered that ordinary work, done with love and attention, becomes prayer itself---a truth that still matters today.
Circa: 1658 - Central Character: John Amos ComeniusAbout this episode: John Amos Comenius championed universal education for all children while in exile, planting seeds that grew into modern schooling and global learning infrastructure.
Christianity
Circa: 1654 - Central Character: Blaise PascalAbout this episode: Blaise Pascal's wager invites us to live as if love is real---even in a world where certainty has faded and old religious forms no longer hold.
Christianity
Circa: 1650 - Central Character: Sarmad KashaniAbout this episode: Sarmad Kashani, the naked mystic of Mughal Delhi, who chose death over finishing a sentence he had not yet lived.
Mysticism
Circa: 1640 - Central Character: María de Jesús de ÁgredaAbout this episode: Though she never left her cell, Mara de Jess de greda became a spiritual presence across cultures, continents, and centuries.
Christianity
Circa: 1640 - Central Character: Vincent de PaulAbout this episode: Vincent de Paul built organized compassion into a system that still serves the poor in 155 countries today.
Christianity
Circa: 1636 - Central Character: Roger WilliamsAbout this episode: Roger Williams, the exiled minister who refused to let faith become a tool for political power
Christianity
Circa: 1626 - Central Character: Nicholas FerrarAbout this episode: Nicholas Ferrar built a household of continuous prayer and beauty at Little Gidding, showing how faith becomes real at the family scale.
Christianity
Circa: 1615 - Central Character: Felipe Guaman Poma de Ayala - About this episode: How Felipe Guaman Poma's unread chronicle created permanent indigenous witness, demonstrating that truth-telling has value independent of immediate results.
Circa: 1578 - Central Character: Jean de LéryAbout this episode: Jean de Léry's encounter with the Tupinambá people in 1558 Brazil pioneered cultural humility as spiritual practice, offering timeless wisdom for our interconnected world.
Christianity
Circa: 1577 - Central Character: John of the CrossAbout this episode: John of the Cross found enlightenment not despite his suffering but through it --- and left the world love poetry to prove it.
Christianity
Circa: 1575 - Central Character: AkbarAbout this episode: Mughal emperor Akbar gathered mystics, priests, monks, and scholars into a single candlelit room
Islam
Circa: 1572 - Central Character: Teresa of ÁvilaAbout this episode: As empire and inquisition tightened their grip on Spain, this barefoot nun turned inward-and found a kind of freedom no authority could touch.
Christianity
Circa: 1564 - Central Character: Philip NeriAbout this episode: Philip Neri walked Counter-Reformation Rome with a book of jokes, demonstrating that joy is not a reward but a daily spiritual practice anyone can choose.
Christianity
Circa: 1559 - Central Character: Bartolomé CarranzaAbout this episode: Bartolomé Carranza fought for universal access to Scripture in an age when cheap paper made his dream inevitable, foreshadowing our digitally connected world.
Christianity
Circa: 1554 - Central Character: Sebastian CastellioAbout this episode: A reflection on Sebastian Castellio, moral restraint, and how naming injustice changes what societies refuse to do.
Christianity
Circa: 1553 - Central Character: Michael ServetusAbout this episode: Michael Servetus discovered pulmonary circulation inside a theology book --- and was burned for the theology while the science was lost for 75 years.
Christianity
Circa: 1550 - Central Character: Bartolomé de las CasasAbout this episode: The story of Bartolomé de las Casas and the radical recognition of shared humanity across difference in an emerging global society.
Christianity
Circa: 1540 - Central Character: Guru AngadAbout this episode: Guru Nanak built structures of dignity that endure to this day.
Sikhism
Circa: 1537 - Central Character: Menno SimonsAbout this episode: Menno Simons chose a third way between corrupt power and violent revolution, building peaceful communities whose legacy endures five centuries later.
Christianity