Bonus Sample: The Philosopher, The King, & The Holy Man
From Conspirituality by Derek Beres, Matthew Remski, Julian Walker
April 13, 2026 · 9 min
About this episode
The episode explores the political history of Iran, focusing on the perceptions of Ayatollah Khomeini and Michel Foucault during the 1979 Islamic Revolution and the implications of the 1953 CIA coup.
When the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini received Western media in a small French village in 1978, he sat cross-legged in his robes and black turban under an apple tree in the garden. They described him as “on another planet,” with “eyes of steel,” and compared him to an Eastern sage or ascetic guru. French philosopher Michel Foucault, most famous for his penetrating analysis of power, knowledge (and punitive coercion) was there as well. He called the holy man “an old saint in exile” who had no personal political ambitions. Visiting Iran during the revolution, the philosopher was captivated by what he called a new form of “spiritual politics” that he saw as “advancing toward a luminous and distant point.” Foucault dismissed Iranian feminists who warned of the true dangers of an Islamic state being established once the autocratic king—the Shah—had been overthrown. Today, as the reckless and destructive American and Israeli war against the Iranian regime continues, Julian revisits the political history of Iran and the complex regional power struggles between nationalists, monarchists, communists, and Islamists that played out on the Cold War stage. He examines the connections between the…
People in this episode
Host: Julian
Topics covered
- Iranian politics
- spiritual politics
- Cold War
- Foucault
- Islamic Revolution
- Khomeini
- Western media
Keywords
- Khomeini
- Foucault
- Iran
- Islamic Revolution
- CIA coup
- political history
- spiritual politics
Mentioned in this episode
Places: Iran, France
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