The Hermetic Hour

This Thursday, August 25th, 2011, the Hermetic Hour's host Poke Runyon, will have as his featured guest Cerridwen Fallingstar, a distinguished teacher, and facilitator in the Northern California Goddess-centered NeoPagan community, whom we met at the recent Feraferian conclave north of San Francisco. Of special interest to our Hermetic magical process is the inspiration behind  Lady Cerridwen's magical historical novels. She channels them, recounting her own adventures from past lives -- but she also does very good research, and has a professional novelist's style and story-telling flair. Her first novel was "Heart of Fire," recounting the life of a Scottish witch. She then moved to medieval Japan for a two-decker saga "White As Bone, Red As Blood."  We are especially interested in the methods she used to recover these memories --- so, tune in and we'll find out how to go way, way back, and live it up!

This Thursday, the 18th of August, 2011, the Hermetic Hour, with host Poke Runyon,  will feature a discussion on "The Magick of Nature." We begin by explaining that the Hermetic Tradition, unlike Gnosticism, is a blend of Natural and Transcendental magical perspectives and methods -- therefore we can include such subjects as sacred landscapes, land forms, flora and fauna, and humankind's relation to the eco-system as an integral part of our philosophy and our workings. The best example of the nature-oriented Western magick is Fred Adam's Feraferia, which we will again visit in our discussion. We will cover Lay Lines, sacred sites, and the connection of celestial aspects with seasonal changes, connecting the greater universe with the sphere of nature, and the earth-sky-love body of the Goddess Herself -- known to the Renaissance magi as the Anima Mundi. Tune in and we'll go outdoors for inspiration this time.

The Hermetic Hour for Thursday, August 4th, 2011 with host Poke Runyon, will focus on Feraferia, and recent DVDs, books and ceremonies in that wonderful Pagan-magical tradition. Our very special guest will be Feraferia's avatrix (that's a female avatar) Jo Carson calling in from her northern California woodland retreat where she and her Feraferians have established a beautiful, rustic Feraferian library. Jo describes "FiFi" thus: "Although a small group, Feraferia has been a founding inspiration in the resurgence of Western paganism since the 'sixties. Fred Adams and Svetlana Butryn created Feraferia to be , in their words, "a Paradisal Fellowship for the loving celebration of Wilderness Mysteries with Faerie style, courtly elegance, refinement and grace... The Great Work of Feraferia is the lyrical unification of Ecology, Artistry, Mythology and Liturgy. Feraferia offers a Poetic Liturgy and Altruistic Theurgy of Holy Wilderness" Feraferia has been featured in many books, which may seem surprising since it is such a small group. Feraferia is primarily a faerie faith, meaning the Earth, embodies as the Magic Maiden, or the Merrie Maiden - a youthful girl goddess whose time has finally come." --- So, tune in and find out how Goddess-worshiping Neo-Paganism got started in America, and how it is still going. Evoe Kore!

The Hermetic Hour for July  21st, 2011 will feature a discussion by host Poke Runyon on Advanced Pathworkings. Pathworkings above the four lower spheres, Specifically  Tiphereth, number six, the Sphere of Transformation. In these higher Paths and Spheres we have found it effective to create a magical vehicle (both a physical model and an astral construct) to enable the inner plane voyager to fly over the lower Paths and Spheres he has already "walked" in the first three sessions: i.e. the 32nd, the 31st, and the 29th Paths. We call this device "Kusor's Boat," after the Canaanite craftsman god (Tubal Cain), who was credited as the inventor of the fishing boat. Our boat is shaped like an ibis, black on one side, and white on the other. It was also influenced by Abraham Merritt's "Ship of Ishtar" which was derived from Assyrian mythology. So tune in and prepare to voyage onward to evening isles fantastical -- and also symbolical, we can't forget that.

The Hermetic Hour for this Thursday, July 14th, 2011 will feature a discussion by host Poke Runyon on how to write a "magical novel." Poke's very special guest will be himself ( who actually did such a thing, and even published it -- and a few people even bought it and read it). The novel, which was released in 2001, is called DRELL MASTER, and is still available from Amazon. It is a 1940s style mixture of sword-and-sorcery and science fiction, set on a post- apocalyptic 'Barbarian World' which has inhabited aerial floating islands, sailing airships, saddle-dragons, wizards, ancient scientific super-weapons, and (of course) Naked Amazons-- all the kind of stuff I loved from the pulp magazines when I was a kid in the 1950s. However, to give the story esoteric and philosophical value, I added Enochian Magick (why not?), Sex Magick (of course!), yoga and even an anti-globalization, environmental not-so-hidden agenda. My mentor on this monumental exercise was Fantasy Grand Master Lin Carter, whom I had grown up with back in Florida. One of the best features of the book is his long, instructive letter to me on the inner secrets of "Imaginary World Creation." So, if you want to learn how to exercise your imagination, tune in and we'll journey to a strange world called "THOON", where almost anything can happen, except the ordinary.

The Hermetic Hour for July 7th, 2011 will feature a discussion by host Poke Runyon on the origins of Hermetic Celestial Magick, pulling together several threads from ancient and classical times, and bringing the it up through the Renaissance to modern times. We will deal with the Greek Orphic tradition -- its possible Central Asian roots -- Alexandria,  Ptolemy  and astrology, the Gnostics and the Greek Qabalah, which actually may have preceded the Hebrew Kabbalah. We'll mention Marcus and the "Soma Sophia," the Gnostic "Aeons" and Enochian (both Ethiopian and the Dee and Kelley version). And of course Macrobius and the Music of the Spheres. Much of this background has been ignored by modern occult students who tend to get their cosmology third hand from writers following Levi and Blavatsky. It is good to get back to our roots -- so, tune in and we'll journey back to Alexandria and find out how it got started.

The Hermetic Hour for Thursday, June 30th, 2011, at 8:00 p.m., with host Poke Runyon, will feature as its call-in guest speaker, one of the most knowledgeable and talented authors of books on magick and the occult (also one of the most prolific!). Lon Milo DuQuette. Lon is an "International Treasure." He has probably introduced more serious students to magick than any writer since Aleister Crowley. Lon's books on modern magick, include Solomonic, Qabalistic, Enochian, the Crowley Tarot, his own Tarot, and a marvelous magical autobiography "My Life With the Spirits." His "The Chicken Qabalah of Rabbi Lamed ben Clifford," is the only Hermetic Qabalah book you'll ever need - and the only book of its kind that is as entertaining as it is profound. Lon is also a talented musician, a folksinger and song writer. He will be performing Friday night, 8:00 p.m. in at Piazza's in Long Beach. We'll give you directions - so, tune in, and let's find out what new treats Maestro DuQuette has in store for us.

This Thursday at 8:00p.m. host Poke Runyon will be re-capping and reviewing "Adonia", our 37th consecutive presentation of the reconstructed ancient Canaanite Summer Solstice rite following a great celebration at Montsalvat in Pasadena. For those of you who have "Rites of Magick," this is the seasonal ceremony depicted in that film. So tune in and we'll dance around the Circle with Ba'al as he asks: "Who drinks with me?"

The Hermetic Hour for Thursday, June 16th, 2011 will feature a discussion, led by host Poke Runyon, on the controversial  Knight of the Sun, or Prince Adept, degree of Freemasonry. We will trace its history from its origin in the 1760s "Hermetic Rite" of  Swedenborgian mystic Antoine Pernety, through its adoption into Scottish Rite in the early 1800s, and its subsequent Hermetic reconstruction by Albert Pike in 1857. In 2004 Scottish Rite removed the Hermetic philosophy from the degree, relegating it to a lecture on esoteric symbolism. We'll discuss the Hermetic-magical significance of the original Knight of the Sun, and the relationship of this degree to the seventh degree of Crata Repoa. In this sense it is the "Kalachakra" of the West. Tune in and be enlightened.

The Hermetic Hour for Thursday, June 9th, 2011, at 8:00 p.m. will present a very special program, hosted by Poke Runyon, discussing the mystical, historical and political aspects of the legendary Central Asian lost kingdom of Shambhala, and the Buddhist Tantric initiation into its mysteries called Kalachakra. Our very special call-in guest speaker will be Professor Andrei Znamenski, author of the new book "Red Shambhala," from Quest Publications. He has researched the ancient and modern history of this Eastern "Holy Grail" quest from hitherto closed Russian files. We will learn the real story behind adventures stranger than any Indiana Jones might have imagined. We will discuss the inner secrets of Kalachakra, and Shambhala, and how they were miss-used by Tsarists, Reds, Nazis, and militant Buddhists themselves. The web of mysticism and intrigue surrounding this apocalyptic Armageddon prophecy and its political implications has been the basis of a score of thrillers, conspiracy theories, and secret societies. Although we will debunk some of the Theosophic channelings behind the modern myth, the real story is perhaps even more exotic and exciting. Get set for a ride into high adventure, magick, and intrigue,  from Blavatsky and Dorjieff, through Ungern-Sternberg, to Nicolas Roerich, Henry Wallace, and FDR's "Shangrila." Andrei Znamenski has the inside track. This is one you don't want to miss.