The Hermetic Hour

On this Thursday's Hermetic Hour host Poke Runyon will welcome Wor. Frater Osiris, P.M. from Georgia, one of our Associate Members who recently staged an O.T.A. seasonal rite there. Mike will tell us just how he went about it, and how it was received. We have another Associate Member in Texas, Frater Heracles, who has also staged a seasonal, and will call in with his comments. This warms the cockles of my heart!  We've been putting on these delightful pageants four times a year, on the solstices and equinoxes, since 1974, and we are so happy to see the tradition spreading out across the country. Mike and John have been able to do very effective rituals by following the scripts and details in our Seasonal Book, and using their own ingenuity in the staging. This is very important because we have gotten more elaborate at Montsalvat and Rivendell over the years, and we need fresh talent to do it their own way -- like Wagner in modern dress. Same words and music, but a fresh, new look. Mike has even translated our musical theme, scored in the book, on a synthesizer, which he will play for us. This will be a fun and inspiring evening. Tune in and find out  how you too can turn your back yard into a Sacred Grove and honor the Lord and Lady in the most ancient of modern seasonal rites.

On the 27th of October 2011 the Hermetic Hour, with host Poke Runyon, will present a discussion of Halloween from the Hermetic perspective. Actually this is more of a Pagan holiday  but we Hermetics are Pagan as well as Biblical, so we celebrate anything we want. Our sister lodge Feraferia had a Samhain ceremony -- which I will briefly cover -- and since they departed for Northern California, we have developed at Samhain rite of our own, evoking Mot,  the original "Grim Reaper" Himself. We will also recall the 1974 and 1975 Tom Snyder Halloween Special on the old NBC Tomorrow Show, featuring Fred Adams, Ed Fitch, Issac Bonewits, and your host, in which we aired Feraferian and O.T.A. rites filmed by the distinguished Pagan film maker Jo Carson. I'll mention my strange adventure atop the Pyramid of the Sun in Mexico on the Day of the Dead in 1988, and we'll give a preview of this years "Dark Mother of All Halloween Parties" coming soon to a National Forest near you! (if you are in Southern Califoirnia). So, tune in and get Trick-or-Treated.

The Hermetic Hour for October 20th, 2011, with host Poke Runyon, will present a discussion on Vampires, then and now. We will look at the vampire legend from ancient times up to the 18th century when it took on its present form: somewhere between a ghost, a monster, and a seductive incubus. We'll look at the magick of the blood and its power,  from ancient human sacrifice to the mass animal sacrifices in today's religions. We'll discuss vampire-like personages in the past: Gilles d' Reis, Countess Bathory and Vlad Dracul. Victorian age fascination with vampires, and the present vampire craze among the gothteens. We'll discuss those unfortunates who really do have a disease that mimics some vampire symptoms. The spiritual aspects of the vampire mythos: a very dark immortality. We will carefully mention a modern form of  vampirism we suspect is going on today -- so join us for an hour with the undead.

The Hermetic Hour for Thursday the 13th of October, 2011, with host Poke Runyon, will be a lively and controversial discussion on a recent aspect of the magical revival called "Old School Magic(k)." This is a development that came about after the 1990s revival of Solomonic Magick following the publication of Donald Kraig's "Modern Magick," and our book and video on the source of the evocation methods Craig described. Steve Savedow's "Goetic Evocation" came out at the same time, representing a more medieval approach to the same operation. In very simple terms we  can say that we were reviving Solomon's ceremonial magick on a Renaissance neo-Platonic Hermetic model, whereas Steve Savedow, Stephen Skinner, and Joseph Lisiewski seemed intent on reviving it on a Judeo-Christian model, attempting to recreate a medieval dualistic mindset. You will super naturalize yourself in the course of this work, but you can choose 500 years ago, or 1000 years ago. We should recall that the Hermetic writings were not available to the medieval magicians -- and yet Renaissance magicians, steeped in Hermetic monist-solipsistic philosophy, were intent on reviving medieval ceremonial magick, but  where the medievalists had conjured in smoke, the Renaissance magi preferred crystals and dark mirrors. We are going to delve into these different approaches and perhaps discover that "The Old School" has a good point to make: in the middle ages they believed in God, and miracles. So that is a very effective mindset for ceremonial magick. You might also join the SCA and enjoy an idealized revival of medieval culture, otherwise we'll see you at the Renn Faire. Good morrow, Lords and Ladies!

On October 6th, 2011, the Hermetic Hour, with host Poke Runyon, will air a discussion on the revival of Magick as the supreme expression of a new Romantic movement in the second half of the 20th century. We will examine the original 18th century Romantic Movement in art and philosophy as a spiritual and intellectual rebellion against the dehumanizing aspects of the industrial revolution, carrying this on through the Victorian age of what we now reprise as "steam-punk" romanticism, to the death of all dreams and visions of beauty in the depressing horror of World War One. Then the cynical, jaded pseudo-romanticism of the "lost generation," typified by Aleister Crowley's visions of decadence. We will explain what romanticism is, and how Nazis, Bolsheviks, and devout Christians can all be equally "Romantic." We will look at the Faustian archetype, the Luciferian idea, Blake's Marriage of Heaven and Hell, and the little-understood philosophy of solipsism so important to the hermetic individuation process. This is going to be a feast of ideas, so tune in and savor the mind food.

This Thursday September 29th, 2011, at 8:00, your Hermetic Hour host Poke Runyon will reprise the National Geographic Channel's special "Finding Atlantis."  This time it looks like we've finally got it, and pretty close to where Plato said it was. So we are devoting an hour to Atlantis in the Hermetic (Western Esoteric) tradition, from Plato to Francis Bacon, to Ignatius Donnelly, and beyond. We'll reveal archaeological and historical information you've probably never heard, and discuss why the real story of Atlantis has been suppressed. It may surprise you to learn that more ancient writers than Plato wrote about it, and more artifacts and evidence have been recovered than you've been led to believe, especially in southern Spain where the latest discovery has been made. We will discuss ancient Tartessos, the Minoan-Phoenician connection, the theories of De Santillana & von Dechend, Hapgood, the Ice Age, and the very ancient origins of the zodiac and the alphabet. You may come to suspect  that Atlantean architects and engineers  built the Great Pyramid (how and why we still don't know) --- but  human history is about to be overturned, so tune in and get the latest insight on the most ancient source of what we call Western Civilization.

On The Hermetic Hour, Thursday September 22nd, 2011  host Poke Runyon will have as his featured guest a fellow Solomonic magician the distinguished author, scholar and magus Steve Savedow. Steve is the author of "The Magician's Workbook, volumes one and two -- the second volume of which is entitled "Goetic Evocation." This is a hair-raising account of a series of Goetic evocations carried out in Florida in the 1990s. Steve and his hardy crew went about their operations in a scrupulously medieval manner, authentic in every detail including their determination to conjure to visible appearance with nothing but their knowledge of the Art, their faith in God's power, and their will to succeed --- and they did it. Whether it was a good thing to do it this way is debatable but it was a significant and memorable accomplishment regardless of consequences. Steve went on to translate the important Solomonic grimoire  "Sepher Rezial Hemelach," which is one of the most important ancient texts of kabbalistic magick.  So, tune in Thursday afternoon and we'll meet one of the few modern magicians who really did it the old fashioned way.

On Thursday, September 15, 2011, The Hermetic Hour, with host Poke Runyon, will feature an exploration of occult methods and magical practices involved in the realm of private investigation. Our featured guest will be "Lady Aurora," a professional private investigator of considerable experience and ability, who discreetly employs her psychic talents and magical techniques to aid in investigation, and solve her cases. We will discuss the nature and use of "invisibility," of "astrology," of divination -- especially radiathesia (use of the map and pendulum), and protection against psychic attack. Although we cannot reveal her identity or be too specific about her cases, we will visit with someone who is about as close to the fictional "Shadow" as you will find this side of Hollywood -- "Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men?" Tune in and find out.

On Thursday September 8th, 2011, the Hermetic Hour, with host Poke Runyon, will present a discussion on ancient Egyptian magick, and its later Gnostic and Hermetic variations. We will establish the very ancient Egyptian concepts of the immortal soul, in comparison to the early Mesopotamian and Hebrew peoples who had no concept of personal immortality, or life after death. The Egyptians developed the idea of man's internal and spiritual connection with divinity, which gave them a road map to paradise, if they lived a good life, and hope of greater glory to come -- this eventually became the core belief behind Gnosticism and its simplified variation, Christianity. But people who are close to The Gods, can also be powerful magicians --- and they were! So tune in and we'll get all wrapped up in Egyptian Magick!

On Thursday the 1st of September, 2011 the Hermetic Hour, host Poke Runyon, will present an hour long discussion on the nature of "evil," and the theory and practice of "Black Magick." We'll avoid popular "goth" role-playing, and steam-punk vampires, to get down to the real history, and actual practices of the black magicians and serious satanists (fortunately the role-players are in the majority). We'll make it very clear that summoning, and commanding Dark Powers by the Power of the Light, for worthwhile purposes, such as personal development, is not "Black Magick," and was not even thought of as "Black Magick, and no magicians made "pacts" with demons or the devil until the advent of the Faustian School in the 18th century. Actually Black Magick can be done in white robes, calling on Jesus, and the Archangel Michael. We'll discuss the oft-maligned Church of the Final Judgment (The Process) and the wide-spread obsession with authenticating H.P. Lovecraft's "Necronomicon." Some of what you hear may be disturbing, not because of what Black Magicians do -- but rather who they are, and why they do it. So tune in and we'll shed some Light on the Dark Realm.