The Hermetic Hour

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review the 1930 classic historical novel "Salome: My First 2000 years of Love", by George Sylvester Viereck and Paul Eldridge. This is the second of a three-decker trilogy by Viereck and may be called a fictional feminist manifesto. Glamorous feminism, because its heroine the immortal Princess Salome used her charm and beauty in a constant battle against male domination symbolized by her immortal lover, and patriarchal nemisis, Cartaphilus, the Wandering Jew. These two sustain a love-hate relationship that spans the ages as each of the two immortals struggle with their self-determined missions: Salome wants female equality and even domination. Salome supported and condoned medieval witchcraft and was considered a witch. She infiltrated the Roman Catholic Church and installed a female Pope. Cartaphilus is determined to destroy Christianity because Jesus cursed him with immortality. The metaphor of the Jewish diaspora is obvious. Further disturbing symbolism is found in Cartaphilus' servant: Kotikokura, an African apeman who is described as "the missing link" between simians and humans. He becomes more and more human through the course of the three volume trilogy. However because he is "African" we will be surprised if the third volume is reprinted. The first two books are available in recent editions and original 1930 copies of Salome are still available. Even with the controversial aspects, these books are well worth reading.

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a reprise of the 1977 article in the old Seventh Ray number nineteen by author Janine Renee titled: Parzival and the Hermetic Grail. The author researched and wrote this at our request. It forms an important element in our reconstructed linkage of ancient Phoenician rituals to early Valentinian Christian Gnosticism and to medieval Grail lore. The major source for Janine's article is the 1965 "The Krater and the Grail: Hermetic Sources of the Parzival by Henry and Renee Kahane. Modern neo-pagans have never lost their fascination for the Holy Grail quest. The idea that the Grail was originally pagan (The Hermetic Krater) goes along with the recent revelations of Jesus and Mary Magdalen and the paganizing of Christianity. So if you want to start on your own Grail Quest tune in and we will give you directions to to the Grail Castle Montsalvat.  

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a commentary on and a reading of the Rubaiyat a Sufi poem from medieval Persia by the mystic and astronomer Omar Khayyam translated by Edward Fitzgerald and published in 1859. The Rubaiyat is quintessentially romantic in style and content. It is said to reflect the ancient cyrenaic hedonistic philosophy of Aristippus and extols a libertine lifestyle in preference to piety. When I was a teenager I needed to break away from Christian fundamentalism so I adopted the Rubaiyat as my alternative to the Bible. I memorized the entire poem so that I could quote seductive passages to Baptist virgins while drinking beer on the beach at sunset. Ah! Those were the days! Or as Omar would put it: "Alas that Spring should vanish with the rose, and youth's sweet scented manuscript should close, the nightingale that in the branches sang, ah whence and wither flown again who knows?" And so, if you yearn to know "What Omar's moving finger writ, " then tune in and we will innoculate you against excessive piety.

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a review and commentary on the Hypnerotomachia of Poliphili (1499-1999) translated by Joscelyn Godwin. This is one of the most important esoteric books ever published and five hundred years after its debut in Renaissance Italy in 1499, written in stylistic Italian, it finally became available in a readable English translation by Joscelyn Godwin. The Hypnerotomachia of Poliphili, subtitled "The Strife of Life in a Dream" is a romantic fantasy novel which establishes a template for many similar works to emerge in the five centuries following its initial publication: The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz (1616) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1785) The Wizard of Oz (1900) The Club Dumas (1996) filmed as "The Ninth Gate" (1999) and the novel "The Rule of Four" (2004). The real secrets hidden in the book are not cryptic codes but rather allegorical and thematic. Like the one tale in the Arabian Nights that reveals occult and Magical secrets, the Chapter describing the Isle of Venus near the end of the book carries the true meaning and reveals the esoteric secrets. So if you want to learn what is really hidden in this marvelous old book tune in and we will visit Poliphili's magical dream-world.

Host Poke Runyon reviews the Hermetic Hour's 2025 schedule, previewing new essays and dramatic readings including The Jesus Myth (Jan 23), The Quest for Prester John's Tomb (Feb 6), The Laws of Old (Apr 10), Magic and Hypnosis (May 1), Cult of the Sangreal (Jul 3), and The King of Fear (Oct 16 & 23). Tune in for mythic history, Hermetic philosophy, magical practice, and serialized adventure -- and check the archives at magick.podbean.com for any episodes you miss.

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will discuss the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript (Beinecke MS. 408) a late medieval herbal, alchemical and astrological book written in an unknown language and illustrated with pictures of plants and astronomical arrangements that are not of this world. Authorship was originally attributed to Roger Bacon (1214 - 1292) but carbon-dating placed the MS. in the early fifteenth century. John Dee and Edward Kelley have been suggested because of their similar Enochian language creation, but there is no proof of their involvement. The mysterious MS has fascinated both scholars and amateur researchers alike with solutions announced every year since 1943 when the U.S. Government code-breakers attempted to decipher it. A new solution was announced just a week before this broadcast and has already been discredited. The main reason most experts fail seems obvious to a Hermetic scholar. The Voynich MS was not written in cipher. It was written in a language and in an alphabet that has no analog on earth or in this earthly dimension. The key to finding the origin of the Voynich material might be found in another mysterious manuscript published in 1670. We will read this revelation as our contribution toward solving the mystery -- so put on your Indiana Jones fedora and listen in.

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review the classic study on Renaissance Magick by Dame Frances Yates (1899 - 1981), "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition." (1964) This is a book that should be the cornerstone of any Hermetic student's library. Although the Italian philosopher and magician Giordano Bruno (1548 - 1600) is the main figure on which Yates centers her work, the book is in fact a broad study of Renaissance Hermetic Magick evolving from its Italian origins in the late Middle Ages and on through to Bruno's exposition of its post Copernican version. Hermetic Humanists accepted Copernicus but the Church refused to abandon the geocentric universe. Bruno, a Dominican monk was burned at the stake. Many considered him a Scientific martyr, but Yates contends that his heresies were Hermetic as well as scientific. So if you would like to explore the life and beliefs of Giordano Bruno, join us for a Hermetic Renaissance Faire.

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the late Medieval astrologer magician Cecco d' Ascoli who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition in 1327 a.d. for publishing books connecting astrology with magick, necromancy and demonology. In several ways he presaged the sad career of Giordano Bruno who went to the stake 273 years later in 1600 for a similar offense. Cecco expounded his magick on a geocentric universe model, whereas Bruno paganized (or demonized) a later Copernican universe. Cecco d' Ascoli may be considered the father of Solomonic ceremonial mirror magick. One of his most heretical revelations was a description of summoning (evoking) the demon "Floron", in a mirror of polished steel. Floron had fallen from the Order of Cherubim and served under the Goetic king Amaymon. Such a mirror was described in Picatrix and later depictions of it reveal that it was in fact a hand mirror. After Cecco's execution magicians no longer wrote of magick mirrors but their use continued until the present day. We will draw primarily from Lynn Thorndike's "History of Magic and Experimental Science", Volume 2 (1923) with current material from Christopher Warnock. So if you want to find out where this dark mirror magick got started, tune in and we'll pull another Italian magus out of the fire.

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the alleged Parallel world or trans-dimensional ariel Queendom of the Sylphs known as "Magonia" that was documented in medieval histories and has recently inspired a fantasy novel of that title "Magonia" by Maria Headley (2015) and was the main theme for UFO authority Jacques Vallee's "Passport to Magonia" (1969-93) which delt with the Magonian "close encounters" from the 9th century and other supernatural visitations recounted in European folklore as early examples of alien sightings, close encounters, and abductions, on through to the mysterious "airship" reports from the American West in the 1890s, comparing them with modern reports and investigations. Vallee contends, and as Hermetic devotees we certainly concur, that most of these events are inter-dimensional rather than extra-terrestrial; that there are parallel worlds co-existing with us as near to us as our furniture. This is also the main theme of our film Beyond Lemuria (2007-14) and, as I mentioned last week, is set forth in the old Hermetic book "Comte d'Gablis" (1760) -- So if you'd like to spend an hour in the absolute elsewhere, tune in and we'll take you down the rabbit hole.  

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a review of William Leonard Pickard’s magisterial novelized biography “The Rose of Paracelsus”(2019). This 650 page masterwork is already considered literature by the academic community. Like Mallory’s “The Morte de Arthur” “The Rose” was entirely written in prison. It recounts Pickard’s academic, scientific, and extra-legal career from the early 1960s until his arrest and subsequent imprisonment in 2000. It is beautifully written, fast paced and well structured. It is subtitled “On Secrets and Sacraments” which aptly describes what it delivers. Pickard was not only a psychedelic alchemist, he was also an intelligence asset (say researcher) for the Ivy League think tanks and indirectly for government agents. So conspiracy theory and even UFO buffs will be pulling quotes from The Rose for the next decade. Pickard connected with an international network of psychedelic alchemists and visited each in a world tour that reads like a James Bond adventure. Returning to the U.S. he visited his mentor the venerable psychedelic sage, Sasha Shulgin, who warned him against a demonic cultist who inhabited an abandoned underground missile base used for an LSD laboratory and an orgiastic temple. But like a character in a Richard Shaver or Sax Rohmer story Leonard Pickard was lured into this hellish underworld where psychedelics were used to enslave and abuse young women. And because this cult had better government connections than Pickard, he was set up to take the rap for their criminal activities. He was given two life sentences in Federal Prison. Fortunately he has just been released and we hope he will be listening to this broadcast. So. Turn on, Tune in, and learn what’s under the rose.