Study the highest things for your daily life
Educate yourself to honor God, build a free society, & save America
Be one of the few.
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Own your education.
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Understand the highest things.
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Free your people.
Odyssey U is a school of applied philology for human flourishing
Our Founder
Joey Lipp, PhD, award-winning professor of classics and founder of Freedom Quest Financial and Odyssey Coffee
Our Telos
We seek to learn and live humanity’s highest thoughts.
Our Ethos
Classical, Christian, American
Our Curriculum
The seven books that build a free & virtuous society
Our Students
All who wish to learn & live the highest things
Our Motto
παιδεία εἰς μετάνοιαν
Take control of your mind, or the tyrants will take control of you.
tyrants spiritual, political, emotional
The Hemlock, the Cross, & the Gallows
Socrates’ tyrants came for him with democratic law courts and hemlock, Jesus’ tyrants came for him with political pretexts and the cross, and the Founders’ tyrants surely would have hung George Washington & co. on the gallows had their republican revolution failed.
Face it: We know the path to flourishing. The path lies precisely through the hemlock, the cross, and the gallows — the classical, the Christian, and the American traditions. This trifecta built human history’s freest, most prosperous society — America — and we can still save it. But it will take work, and it’ll be hard, and the truths that will save us don’t care about our feelings. The causes and effects of human freedom are facts not emotions.
The choice: You can become a rare Navy SEAL of the human mind and lead your people to freedom, or you can drink the hemlock of our contemporary tyrants when they come for you. And they will come for you.
Solution: Actually read.
Study the highest things. Tyrant-proof your mind. Solve concrete problems.
Be one of the few who actually reads Genesis, and Aristotle, and the New Testament, and the U.S. Constitution.
What to read? You don’t need “101 great books.” Or 37, or 17. You just need seven.
Seven books to build a free society.
Odyssey U’s Curriculum: The Seven
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1. Bible
One God, a sinful imago dei, and a sublime solution.
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2. Homer
What is the life worth living (and dying for)?
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3. Plato
Human and citizen virtue, incarnate.
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4. Aristotle
What is the telos of an anthropos, together?
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5. Founders
A republic founded on divinely human wisdom.
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6. Totalitarians
Totalitarianism = Tyranny + Utopia + Technology
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7. Tolkien
The anti-quest for a freedom-loving remnant.
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Plus: Reading Guides
Step by step reading guides, checklists, and a final exam for each book. Ages 16+.
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Plus: In-Person Events
Come learn together at our annual conference and our monthly classes in Ocean Grove, NJ.
Hey Friends: I’m Joey, founder of Odyssey U. I’ve built this school for all who wish to learn the ways of human flourishing. It is born of my experience as a college professor, school leader, entrepreneur, American citizen, and parent of three children.
Read what my students say about me here.
Odyssey U is for high school teachers, home school parents, college professors, and all other Homo sapiens seeking to learn and live humanity’s highest thoughts. We are “classical, Christian, and American” because these traditions teach the timeless wisdom that builds free and virtuous societies.
I am available to help you get the most out of Odyssey U. Please reach out anytime. The “Contact” page below sends an email directly to me.
Take heart and study hard: The best is yet to come.