The Hermetic Hour

On Thursday May 28th, 2014 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review the 2008 book "The Music of Pythagoras" by musicologist Kitty Ferguson. This is a wonderfully erudite and deeply meaningful book on the accomplishments, and lasting influence of the most important of the pre-Socratean philosophers, and perhaps the most important ancient avatar of the Western Esoteric Tradition. As a musicologist Ferguson is able to fully expound on the master's development of "The Music of the Spheres" from mythical Orpheus through Kepler to Close Encounters of the Third Kind (we can all whistle that one). The Pythagorean harmonious universe of music, mathematics, and geometry has been re-validated in modern times with the advent of new theories in quantum physics. It was, of course, the bed rock of Qabalah, Alchemy and Magick. We will demonstrate some applications of the Pythagorean magical scale used to activate psychic centers (chakras) and discuss the employment of these techniques in magical operations. So tune in, tune up and we'll sing along with the planets.

On Thursday March 21st, 2019 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the various traditions of the Underworld from the mythologies, religions and folklore of cultures around the world with our guest Very Honored Frater Solomon. Michael Johnson (Frater Solomon) is a Bible scholar with a background in Social Science. Mike has compiled maps of the underworld which locate the Hells of the major religions. Your host (Frater Thabion) will join in with references to Kenneth Grant’s “Tunnels of Set”, Shaver’s dero caverns, the underground kingdom of Agartha and the Shamanic under and over worlds and the proto-psychological Kabbalistic metaphore of The Nepesh, the Nechamah, and the Ruach. So if you want to take the E-ticket ride through the Great Fun house below the horizon, tune in and we’ll go below.

On Thursday May 22nd, 2014 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a review on a very important recent book on the Hermetic Tradition by Dutch author Jacob Slavenburg titled: "The Hermetic Link." Reviewing this book will be a team effort between the host and our esteemed guest Frater Ophis (Freeman Presson) who beat us to the punch and reviewed Slavenburg's book on his website two years ago. How did we miss it? No excuse because it should not have been missed. Certainly there have been other surveys of the Hermetic Tradition, usually combined with other related elements such as Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, magick, etc. but this is the best and most complete tracing of the great Hermetic Gnosis from ancient Egypt, through Alexandria, Harran, the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the so-called "Enlightenment" and the present modern age. Slavenburg takes us from Zosimus to the Kybalion in a sympathetic, very thoughtful and comfortably philosophical style. He quotes Peter Kingsley ("Reality") frequently and does as good a job as Kingsley in getting across the deepest meaning of the Hermetic Mystery (the Great I AM) - perhaps he does it better in that he uses excerpts from Hermes to reveal the treasure we ardent Hermetic devotees hold so dear, whereas Kingsley in Reality depended on pre-Hermetic Parmenides and Empedocles. If all this is Greek to you, it shouldn't be and Slavenburg goes a long way toward establishing the true and enduring magnificence of our venerable Tradition. Tune in and get yourself Hermetically sealed. (Preserved for the next incarnation.)

On Thursday March 7th, 2019 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review and comment on the 1948 science fiction novel by Stuart J. Byrne “Prometheus ll” recently republished by Armchair Fiction. This remarkable work, like so many early science fiction efforts was set in a future time, in this case 1970, and predicted a Third World War between the United States, its traditional allies and post Soviet Russia. Of course Russia did not become post soviet until the 1990s, but the Russian leader in Byrne’s novel seems and acts a lot like Putin. In this story the Russians are allied with China and they have conquered all of Latin America. They are on the verge of swarming our southern border. But their leader Nicholas (not Valdamir) has literally made a deal with the devil (the deros of the subterranean world) which has escalated World War lll into another dimension and brought in the forces of Agartha, the subterranean good guys and finally the Elder Gods (the original ancient astronauts) who arrive from hyperspace just in time to save the human race. Of course we have a pair of young Army officers and their sexy Army nurse girl friend, who team up with the underground good guys and Space Gods to help save America and humanity. It would have made a great Saturday Morning serial but at least it got its debut in Amazing Stories, March 1948.   So tune in and we’ll put it on old time radio for you.

On Thursday February 28th, 2019, the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review and discuss "The Eighth Tower" by the late UFO investigator John A. Keel (1930-2009). He was most noted as author of "The Mothman Prophecies" (1975) and film (2002). Keel was more interested in monster sightings, like the mothman and big-foot than he was in UFOs but he believed that the two phenomenon were related and emanated from the same source. He was an ardent successor to Charles Fort "The Book of the Dammed" (1919) which was a collection of fantastic anomalies such as UFO sightings, monster sightings and other fantastic events such as rains of frogs and ghost ship sightings. Mostly newspaper clippings collected from the beginning of the industrial age to the First World War. Like Charles Fort, Keel was a journalist who continued the collection from the 1920s, through the UFO era. The Eighth Tower is a Fortean book but with an agenda that Fort was very cryptic about. What do all these strange things mean mean? Fort concluded that "We" humankind, "Are property." Keel expands on that. After continuing Fort's bizarre collection he brings in Carl Jung's Collective Unconscious, the world soul, universal mind and the Seven Demonic Towers of the Yazidis and postulates an Eight Tower that is a sort of empyrean Godforce over the rest. This is not an easy book to get through but it will take you down the rabbit hole, so join us for some Fortean adventuring.

On Thursday February 21st, 2019  the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will reprise a discussion on different interpretations and conceptions of Qabalah. This is a subject we have covered before, however, that was years ago before we started climbing The Tree in our weekly lectures. Now that we have arrived at The Abyss and and are venturing onto The Eleven Sphere "Tree Before the Fall", it is appropriate for us to review our Hermetic Qabalistic structure and establish the philosophical, mythological and metaphysical differences between the various Kabbalahs, and the particular innovations we have made in our modern Hermetic version of the ancient system. Tune in and we'll play Monopoly on the greatest board game in the universe.

On Thursday February 14th, 2019 The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the first Ancient Astronaut Theorists, before Van Daniken, Sitchen, and the rest there was Richard Shaver and Ray Palmer and the Shaver Mystery. In recent years more and more of their fantastic 1940s revelations about Ancient extra-terrestrial Aliens and their high technology and their continued influence on, and interfearence in, earthly affairs (mind control and child trafficking and madness) has been confirmed and exploited by later whistle-blowers such as Tom Delonge, Corey Good, David Witcock and others. It seems that Shaver and Palmer wrote their History Channel documentary scripts but are never credited as the source. Are these Ancient Aliens still with us? "Our original Ancient Astronaut theorists say yes!" So tune in and let's return to the thrilling days of yesteryear and revisit The Shaver Mystery.

On Thursday April 3rd, 2014 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a special program discussing the O.T.A.'s Pathworkings beyond the Sphere of Chesed. These Paths lead to the re-manifested Sphere of Da'ath, which in the Eleven Sphere Tree becomes Saturn, the beginning of the physical universe and the gateway to the Abyss. This concept and its practical applications are covered in "New Tarot Trumps for an Eleven Sphere Tree of Life" in THE SEVENTH RAY, Book III, "The Red Ray." We will also discuss the Golden Dawn's eleven sphere tree and the idea of the Tree before and after "The Fall." This is a Key lecture and lesson in our study program. So tune in and we will journey to Mot's Back-o'-Beyond.

On Thursday January 31st, 2019 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will air a discussion on the life and work of Victorian Age British artist and writer William Morris (1834-1888) on the modern Hermetic revival. Morris was a Renaissance man of many talents. An Oxford scholar who idealized and romanticized the medieval period and yearned to recreate Camelot in the modern era. He was appalled by the pollution, social misery and esthetic mediocrity caused by the industrial revolution and he believed that Karl Marx held the key to creating a utopia (although Morris admitted that he could not understand Marx) But we need to understand Morris in order to fathom the continuing fascination our cultural elite have for Marx's continually failing system. So, come with us back to the Gas-light era and we will see where a lot of today's progressive ideas got started.

On Thursday March 27th, 2014 Hermetic Hour host Poke Runyon will talk with Jo Carson, leader of Feraferia, about Eleusis and the Mysteries of Death and Rebirth. What happens to the soul after death? What can be expected in the afterlife? Jo has written a new book, Celebrate Wildness—Magic, Mirth and Love on the Feraferia Path which includes a discussion of the Eleusinian Mysteries. The Mysteries of Demeter and her daughter Persephone were held at Eleusis, in Greece, for almost 2,000 years. These Mysteries had the goal of providing a first hand experience of certainty in the continuity of life after death. The Mysteries were established around 1450 BCE, and ended only when the Roman Christian emperor Theodosius I forcibly closed them in 392 CE. They were centered around the myth of Demeter, the earth mother Goddess, and her daughter Persephone. In this story, Persephone was abducted by Pluto and taken to the Underworld, and eventually was able to return. This myth provided a key to giving real revelations to the population of that world. Thousands of people journeyed to Eleusis each Fall to experience the Eleusinian Mysteries, which means hundreds of thousands were initiated. However, so tight was the secrecy, or so inexpressible was the experience, that no one has ever revealed its profound secrets. We will explore what is known, what is conjectured, and how Feraferia honors the Eleusinian experience. So tune in and peek behind the veil of death.