“Hail Mary full of grace, punch the devil in the face.” So says the popular meme that goes alongside a medieval illustration of Mary, the mother of Christ, literally punching the devil in the face. Does this sound childish simply because it rhymes? Allow Professor Rachel Fulton Brown and KC to disabuse you of that notion as we welcome Dr. Keith Berubé, author of Mary: The Rosary, The Relationship, and Dragons. Dr. Berubé joined us on the Mosaic Ark to talk about the powerful meditative prayer known as the Rosary, and how its recitation leads to powerful personal conversations with Mary and subsequently greater personal conversions to Christ. We also talked about the Rosary as a weapon in battles against the devil as attested to by many writers over the past several centuries, and a few well known exorcists in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Please join the conversation by leaving your comments or questions; we’d love to hear your opinion. —Streamed March 27, 2026

Buy Keith’s book: https://enroutebooksandmedia.com/maryanddragons/

On this week’s Mosaic Ark, the ladies were joined by Catholic poet Sally Read, who discussed her journey as a writer. Though she started her career as a psychiatric nurse and atheist co-writing a book about women’s experiences with their physical bodies, she became a poet and a Christian through her own unique spiritual experiences which she happily shared with us. Sally also shared with us some of her favorite Catholic poems from her edited collection of 100 Great Catholic Poems, highlighting the unique role of poetry in the creative history of Christianity, as well as the power of poetry to describe the otherwise indescribable. —Streamed March 14, 2026

Sally’s website: https://sallyread.net

Buy Sally’s book: https://bookstore.wordonfire.org/products/100-great-catholic-poems

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