The Hermetic Hour

On Thursday December 20th, 2018 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the Hermetic origins of the Holy Grail as presented in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s Medieval romance “Parzival. This is a follow-up on an earlier broadcast from three years ago in which we read Janinne Rene’s Article on Parzival from The Seventh Ray issue number 19, January 1977. In the introduction to her article I stated that: “Much of the symbolism and the allegory of Kellner’s original O.T.O. derived from Parzival.” This and other fascinating secrets embedded in Wolfram's medieval masterpiece will be the subjects of tonight’s broadcast. So, if you want to find the Grail we have the clues for you. Eschenbach’s Parzival is like Colonna’s Hypnerotomachia. It's one of those old books full of secrets and magick. And our job on the Hermetic Hour is to dig them out for you.

On Thursday December 6th, 2018, the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review and discuss “The Spiritual Meaning of the Sixties” (2018) by Tobias Churton. This is a 653 page door-stopper of a book subtitled: “the Magic, Myths & Music of the Decade that Changed the World,” And it certainly lives up to its subtitle. Even though Churton’s previous books have been in the mystical, occult genre, this one should break into the mainstream and be read by every thoughtful reader interested in the present spiritual, philosophical and political divisions in what we call Western Civilization. Using the Music, films, television, and popular fads of the period as his mirror of reflection he leads us through the decade. The cultural impact of the Beatles, and rock music, the sexual revolution, psychedelics, the Bomb, the Vietnam War, Civil Rights, and the rise of feminism are all dealt with in turn. And the inability of established religion to cope with the spiritual challenges of the time is considered. The author was a child in England and Australia during the period and gives us a remarkable picture of the era from a growing child’s perspective. My one criticism of the book stems from Churton’s memory picture. I was a teenager in 1950s America. I recall that repressive era which preceded the social liberation of the sixties. I think Churton should have added “The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit.” (1956) to his list of media catalysts. So if you want to look back at the days of Flower-Power and Strawberry Fields Forever, turn-on, tune-in and give a listen.

On Thursday February 2nd, 2023 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon  will review and Discuss the controversial 2011 book Caesar's Messiah  by Joseph Atwill. The subtitle of this work is: "The Roman Conspiracy  to Invent Jesus and Atwell presents convincing evidence that the  Flavian family of Roman patricians with the help of renegade Jewish  historian Josephus, may have done exactly that.Atwill purposes that  the Gospels were written by members of the Flavian family to make the  Jesus story correspond with Titus's conquest of Judea and Jerusalem.  He presents quotes from Josephus "War of Jews" to back this up. This  will be a hard book for fundamental Christians but not for Gnostic  Christians. Atwill holds off presenting his Imperial time-line until  page 302, keeping the casual reader unaware that Christianity was  flourishing and perishing in Rome long before the Gospels were  written. So even though he may be correct about Roman influence on the  Synoptic Gospels, he is wrong in assuming that Christianity began in  Rome as a False-Flag operation. Perhaps the most shocking event  described in the book is the alleged origin of the Christian  Eucharist. Josephus recounts a wealthy Jewish mother killing and  eating her infant son and offering part of him to her neighbors.  Saying that he will be "A myth to the world." Of course Atwill is nice  enough to suggest that Josephus wrote the dialogue but it still sent  me to my copy of Josephus to make sure he wasn't exaggerating. He  wasn't. So join us for an hour exploring gaslighting and false news  in the first century.

On Thursday November 15th 2018, the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review "Son of Chicken Qabalah" and interview its distinguished author Lon Milo DuQuette. This 2018 book is a sequel to Lon's popular "Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed Ben Clifford" (2001). Lamed Ben Clifford is Lon's fictional creation. Lon thought all of us Hermetic Qabalists needed our own Rabbi, who would not sneer at our Tarot cards and pagan correspondences on the Tree of Life. Ben Clifford's Qabalah was for all of us and it was presented in a humorous style that made the otherwise dry subject come alive. It became one of the best introductions to the subject at least from a Hermetic perspective. The fictional Ben Clifford has passed away but he has left a legacy: a three degree Qabalistic initiation system based on the Sepher Yetzirah's Cube of Space and the Golden Dawn's Hermetic Hebrew alphabet correspondences. Starting with the Three Mother Letters in the first degree (the original tetragrammaton) the candidate next internalizes the Seven Double Letters attributed to the planets, and finally, in the Third and last degree, he or she, installs the Twelve Simple letters internalizing the entire Hermetic Qabalistic universe. This is all accomplished with mudras, flashing colorsm a pitch pipe and geometric mandalas. What we did with a  yoga system in "Hermetic Yoga, Beyond the Middle Pillar" (2015) Lon has done in a Temple initiation format. This little book of his is a treasure and will make Hermetic Magick come alive for everyone who conscientiously studies it.

On Thursday January 19th,2023 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review and discuss the 2016 book "The Ba'al Theory of Christianity" by author Glenn Young. This book is subtitled: "Exploring the Impact of Human Sacrifice on Western Religion." This subtitle and Young's insistence on equating Carthaginian child sacrifices with Palestinian Phoenician ritual practices is our only real complaint about this otherwise well-researched  and strongly presented book. The author touches all the bases in explaining the differences between Yahwehism and the original worship of El and the Elohim. He describes Ezra's rewrite of the Bible and even mentions Joseph and Moses as the possible leaders of the Hyksos. Although he is wrong in assuming that Sidon and Tyre practiced child sacrifice in Classical times he may be correct in assuming that Carthaginian practices might have influenced the Druids and the Nordics and later the witchcraft persecutions. It is unfortunate that he fails to consider that even though the Carthaginians were originally Phoenician they, like the ancient Egyptians, were also African. This will be a very thought provoking and controversial subject.

On Thursday January 12th, 2023 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review "Letters on the Royal Art" by 19th century German author J. B. Kerning. Kerning was a musician, a mystic and a Freemason. The book is composed of letters describing the spiritual absorption of the symbols, words and signs used in the three degrees of Blue Lodge Masonry in the form of an internal awareness which purifies and sanctifies the whole body. This is similar to a yoga chakra system and may have had an influence on the Golden Dawn's Middle Pillar ritual. The book and other works by Kerning may have influenced Bardon's "Key to the True Qabalah." Kerning was a singer and teaches a magical Masonic Alphabet in the manner of a musical voice teacher. He is perhaps the first modern Western mystic to emphasize internalization of spiritual ritual. His concepts enabled the development of "Bringing Down The Light" in  20th century magick.

On Thursday January 5th, 2023 the Hermetic Hour with Host Poke Runyon will present a sequential Review of the original new shows presented in 2022. Regular listeners should keeo their notebooks and pencils ready to jot down the one's they missed so that they can search for them in the archives. We started off the year with"Aliester Crowley the Gourmet Chef" on January 13th. We did the first two chapters of "The Tomb of Prester John" on February 3rd and more Prester John on February 24th and March 10th. On February 27th we presented "The Fort Worth Masons interview your host Poke Runyon." On Thursday May 26th Poke and Max (Fraters Thabion and SithMeth) did a review of Lovecraft's "Charles Dexter Ward" the book and the films. Which Max turned into a video that you can watch on-line. In August we presented a reprise of our "Hermetic Yoga lecture" given at the Mount Shasta Hermetic Mysteries Conclave. This again was redone as a video which can be viewed on the Ordo Templi Astartes You Tube Channel. On August 17 we reviewed "Starship Troopers by Robert Heinlein. And we finished the year by Presenting our "Hermetic Yoga for the Golden Dawn" and a preview of our forthcoming "Second Edition of The Book of Solomon's Magick." So, if you want to catch up on the good stuff you may have missed tune in and we'll fill you in.

On Thursday October 25th, 2018 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 Coperican 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.

On Thursday October 11th, 2018 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.

On Thursday September 27th, 2018 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review the new Collector's edition of Kurt Seligmann's 1948 classic "The Mirror of Magic: A History of Magic in the Western World" and discuss Seligmann's career as a surrealist painter,  a scholar of the occult and a practicing ceremonial magician. This handsome new edition, published by Inner Traditions, is a faithful reproduction of the original. Poke Runyon inherited a 1948 copy Seligmann's  book from his late Master Frederick Adams (1928 - 2008) with Fred's annotations. It was Fred's first book on Magic and he treasured it. In his Introduction Seligmann wrote: "As an artist I was concerned with the aesthetic value of Magic and its influence on man's creative imagination." Fred Adams was also a very talented artist and was inspired by The Mirror of Magic, as we hope a new generation of readers will be when they discover this beautiful new edition of Kurt Seligmann's Masterpiece.