The Hermetic Hour

Happy Holidays! The Thursday after Christmas, December 26th, 2013, the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the lost and forgotten magical fantasy novel by the infamous science fiction hoaxer Richard S. Shaver. Actually Shaver's editor Ray Palmer was the hoaxer; Shaver believed he was writing "the truth' about the survivors of ancient extraterrestrials still living in caverns below and plaguing surface people with mind-control ray machines. This dubious expose was called "The Shaver Mystery" and dominated the pages of AMAZING STORIES, America's most popular sci-fi mag in the 1940s. Shaver's weird tales of the subterranean "Dero World" are enjoying a modest revival in reprinted editions. We were among the first 21st century Shaver revivalists with our 2007 film BEYOND LEMURIA. In our new version of "The Shaver Mystery" we placed the Cavern World of the Deros in another dimension, a parallel world very close to our own. However Shaver himself always insisted that his underground Deros were in this physical dimension --whereas his editor Palmer insisted they were "disembodied spirits." Shaver was an empathic receiver, a rue mystic. He revealed what might be the real secret of his Cavern World in a marvelously crafted fantasy novel that never has had a title of its own. It appeared in three separate issues of AMAZING and FANTASTIC from 1947 through 1949. The first part was "The Tale of The Red Dwarf," next came the third part "Daughter of the Night," followed by the second part two years later called "Erdis Cliff." Shaver precedes Moorcock's fictional Multiverse, and even M-Theory by decades. -- So, if you want to discover a new dimension, tune in and we'll slide down the worm hole.

On Thursday December 19th, 2013 The Hermetic Hour, with host Poke Runyon, will have as its distinguished guest the noted author on subjects arcane and esoteric, John Michael Greer. John's first book "Paths of Wisdom" has been of considerable help to us as an authoritative source in our on-going series of lectures on the Hermetic-Qabalistic Tree of Life. John is also the translator of the medieval Latin version of "Picatrix", with Christopher Warnock, which has now become as important in the magical revival as Tyson's Agrippa. Although certainly a Hermetic scholar John Michael Greer's magical heart lies in the Celtic-Druidic tradition. He has written several books in this area and is a practicing Druid himself. His latest work combines the Hermetic Golden Dawn and the Druidic traditions, both of which were active in Victorian England. John discovered a historic interchange between these two very British expressions and he has lovingly reconstructed the synthesis in "The Celtic Golden Dawn," -- So, let us go out to Stone Henge and see how the Druids do a Pentagram Ritual.

On Thursday December 12th, 2013 the Hermetic Hour will present the second program devoted to Jack Parson's 1946 essay "Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword" with the reading of chapters three and four: "The Sword and the Spirit" and "The Woman Girt with the Sword." These writings are the philosophical and spiritual meat of this masterpiece of modern mystical, spiritual and philosophical speculation. You will be amazed at the predictive quality of Parson's perspective. It seems to be an epitome of 1980's feminist, environmental and neo-pagan thought written over thirty years before the flowering of these ideas. So tune in and continue the journey into the future from the past with America's rocket scientist magician at the controls of the time machine.

On Thursday December 5th, 2013 The Hermetic Hour's host Poke Runyon will read chapters from the essay Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword by rocket scientist and magician John Whiteside Parsons. Along with being one of the original founders of JPL in Pasadena, California (sometimes called "Jack Parsons Library") and a developer of solid rocket fuel essential to the space program, Parsons was also an occultist and a magician. He ran an O.T.O. lodge and was a dedicated follower of Aleister Crowley. Parsons' colorful, but tragically short life has been celebrated in the recent books "Sex and Rockets" by someone calling himself "John Carter" and "Strange Angel" by George Pendle -- Also a very good stage play from the Cal Tech drama department called "Pasadena Babalon." Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword was written at the end of World War Two. It is a remarkable prediction of liberalism, civil rights and women's rights --  in fact we might say that Parson's was the forerunner of feminist neo-paganism in California. His views on the mystical and spiritual superiority of women were much different than his mentor Crowley's. We received the Parson's Papers from Gerald Yorke in 1972. The first publication of Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword was my edited version published in our journal The Seventh Ray in 1976 through 1978. The essay has been subsequently published by the O.T.O. in 1990 and again in 2001. It is still in print and available from Amazon. We did a previous Hermetic Hour broadcast on Jack Parsons which you can find in our podcast archives -- now you don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand and enjoy the writings of this rocket scientist, especially when he has a crater on the Moon named after him -- on the Dark Side of course.

On Friday, November 29th, 2013 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the 24th Path on the Hermetic Qabalah's Tree of Life. This is the Path attributed to Death, the right hand guardian or gate to Tiphareth, with the Devil on the left side as Path 26. These two gates are considered soul testing challenges to the central Sun, and realm of the Solar Logos represented by Tiphareth. Our texts will be Gareth Knight's Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism and John Michael Greer's Paths of Wisdom. This Path will give us an opportunity to discuss the nature and meaning of Hermetic enlightenment, the concept of individual consciousness being eternal consciousness, and what Eliphas Levi really meant when he wrote: "Death is man's way of conquering immortality." --- So, if you want to live forever, tune in and get a head start on it.

On Thursday November 21st, 2013 The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the "Enochian" legend and tradition in magick, Freemasonry, the Bible, and the various versions of the Book of Enoch itself. We will examine the elements and sources of the Masonic Enoch legend, the lost Ethiopian Book of Enoch and its unique description of the Fallen Angels and their attributions, the Pagan Solarism of Enoch's Angelic vision, and the special Enochian universe of John Dee and Edward Kelley. We will also compare the Book of Enoch to the ancient Sumerian/Babylonian myth of the Anunnaki, the Goetia, and Milton's Paradise Lost. So once again tune in and get Enochulated.

On Thursday November 14th, 2013 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review and discuss the new book by Robert Sullivan, Esq, 32 "The Royal Arch of Enoch." This is a 600 page magnum opus which sets out to document the premise that one of Freemasonry's most important high degrees, The Ninth Arch, or Royal Arch of Enoch, establishes Masonry's underlying mythology as an antediluvian (before the Flood) Graeco-Egyptian (Hermetic) Solarism deriving from The Book of Enoch -- specifically Ethiopian Enoch -- which was not available to the Western World until the early 1800's. The author will call in and give us a summary of his book and the points of argument he seeks to establish. This book is impressive and deeply researched. Much can be learned from it, and the mysterious nature of Masonic symbolism will become more understandable in 'Light' of Brother Sullivan's revelations. This will be an intriguing disclosure of Masonic "secrets" that fans of Dan Brown and Indiana Jones will find fascinating -- so tune in and get Enochulated.

On Thursday November 7th, 2013 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the Twenty-fifth Path of the Hermetic Qabalastic Tree of Life. This Path goes up the Middle Pillar from Yesod to Tiphareth and has the Tarot Trump "Temperance" attributed to it. Regardie considers it related to the Holy Guardian Angel as your guiding spirit. The astrological reference is Sagittarius and relates to an arrow shot directly upwards. The Hebrew letter is Samech and the traditional reference is "the Tentative Intelligence." Again our texts will be Gareth Knight's "Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism," and John Michael Greer's "Paths of Wisdom." So if you want to keep going up the Tree with us, tune in, close your eyes, and we'll take a shot at the Sun.

On November 1st, 2013 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a serious and a lighthearted look at Halloween. Every Halloween we hold "The Dark Mother of All Halloween Parties" on the nearest Saturday to the 31st. We have a serious ritual in the outdoor henge, invoking "Mot" the Lord of Death who asks each one around the circle "What say you to honor the dead?" -- followed by a jovial Halloween costume party which features a comedy skit. This year we did an impromptu radio play "Sherlock Holmes and the Necronomicon," based on a Seventh Ray feature. We will read the ritual and then play part of the radio drama skit -- This is our Halloween Party on the air, so tune in, answer Mot's somber question, and then join the fun.

On Thursday October 24th, 2013 the Hermetic Hour, with host Poke Runyon, will present another of our on-going lecture series on the Paths of the Tree of Life. This time we deal with 'The Devil', the Tarot Trump and other relevant symbolic aspects of the Path that leads from Hod, the Mercurial Sphere of the intellect, to Tiphareth, the Solar Sphere of Mystical Transformation and beauty. Once again our primary texts for reference will be Gareth Knight's "Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism" and Israel Regardie's "Garden of Pomogranates" (first edition), so if you want to journey from the laboratory to the temple, and meet the devil on the way, tune in and travel with us from Darkness to Light.