All Episodes

On Thursday March 12th, 2018 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will chair a discussion on the recent Neocoris initiations at Avalon Lodge near Austin, Texas. We will be joined by Very Honored Frater Heracles, Master at Avalon and Hierophant at the initiation and other cast members and candidates. The Neocoris Grade in Crata Repoa is where we introduce the candidate to Solomon's magical art of evocation in the dark mirror. This ceremony is dramatic and challenging with tests and ordeals. It is based on Paul Christian's One degree condensation of Crata Repoa in his "History and Practice of Magic" (1870) and is a rite of passage in every sense of the word. Following the initiation, Soror Zandria and I presented a Charter Warrant for a full-fledged O.T.A. Lodge to V.H. Frater Soun and V.H. Soror Ningal of Ubar Hermitage, now Ubar Lodge, in Dallas, Texas. We followed this by a brief ceremony ordaining both Frater Soun and Soror Ningal as ministers in The Church of the Hermetic Sciences.

On Thursday March 22nd, 2018 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon
will present the second part of the Legenda of the O.T.A.'s Second Crata
Repoa Degree, Neocoris. The Legenda is essentially the same as the
degree script with a few secrets deleted. It is the story of the degree.
This was the first O.T.A. degree back in the early 1970s and was moved
up to second when we began to do all seven of the Crata Repoa system.
Last week we covered the reception, testing, and the ordeals, in Section
One. Tonight we move through the obligation and on to the knowledge
lectures in Section Two. Our instructions in Solomon's magick are
delivered in a biblical style like Mather's used in some of his G.D.
lectures. So if you want to experience a magical initiation, tune in and
we'll give you a word picture of the process.
 

On Thursday March 15th, 2018 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present the first of a two part presentation on the Legenda of the O.T.A.'s Second Degree, Neocoris in the Crata Repoa System. This initiation was originally inspired by the French version of Crata Repoa from Paul Christian's 1870 History and Practice of Magic, called the Mysteries of the Pyramids. It has been performed here in Southern California since 1970 and is a very dramatic and challenging experience. A rite of passage one never forgets. A Legenda is the story of an initiation. It reveals the deeper meaning of the ritual while keeping things such as passwords, symbols and formulas secret. The Legenda gives you the meaning, so if you'd like to know about one of the oldest magical initiatory rituals, tune in and we will share it with you.
 

On Thursday February 22nd, 2018 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon
will present a discussion on the life and career of the 18th century
magician and alchemical adept who called himself  Count Alessandro
Cagliostro. He was perhaps the most colorful and adventurous character
in our Hermetic tradition. Vilified as a rogue, a scoundrel, and a
charlatan by the academy and the Church in Europe he was loved by the
common people for his healing touch and alchemical medicines which he
administered freely to the poor, and dearly to the rich. He claimed to
be able to create gold to support his charity work and lavish life
style. He and his glamorous wife Lorenza founded an androgynous 
quasi-Masonic Egyptian rite which allegedly involved nudity and sex
magick. Cagliostro was featured as an anti-hero in a series of novels by
Alexander Dumas, and depicted on film by Orson Welles in the (1949 )
movie classic BLACK MAGIC. We will consult Sax Rhomer's ROMANCE of
SORCERY ( 1914 ) for a more accurate version of the Count's adventures
than Dumas' novels and the screenplay offer -- so if you'd like to meet
the real Count Cagliostro, tune in and we'll follow him on his journey
as he invented himself.
 

On February 8th, 2018 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present the Legenda of the first Degree of Crata Repoa Reformado. Which we call the Fellowship of the Grail. A Legenda is the scenario of a esoteric degree. It describes the degree delivering most of the essential knowledge and symbolism but leaves out certain "secrets" such as grips, secret words and procedures. Crata Repoa is the oldest system of Magical degrees and is based on first century Alexandrian Hermetic writings and rituals. We will briefly outline the original 18th century system and explain some of our modern additions and inclusions. So if you'd like to find out what really goes on in a Magical Initiation tune in and be illuminated.
 

On Thursday February 1st, 2018 The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon,
and honored guests will reprise a Golden Dawn memorial service for
lately departed Cris Monnastre, Patricia Behman, founder of the Los
Angeles Temple of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. This ceremony
was held at Culver City Foshay Masonic Lodge on January 21st. Patricia
Behman was a close associate of the late Francis Israel Regardie and
received her original dispensation from him to establish a Temple of the
Golden Dawn in Southern California.The memorial and requiem was
performed by officers of the R.R. et A.C. who will repeat the
presentation on this broadcast. Patricia Behman was  loved and honored
for her dedication to preserving the Western Esoteric Tradition. Please
join us as we say farewell to a great lady and a beloved Temple chief.
 

On Thursday January 25th, 2018 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will re-visit and review the 1950 science fiction novel “Wine of the Dreamers” by John D. MacDonald (1918-1986) This was his first science fiction novel. MacDonald went on to become one of America’s best Detective Story writers. “Wine of the Dreamers” set twenty-five years in the future (1975) the story interweaves two sets of characters on two different planets. The director of an early United States space program Bard Lane, and his staff psychiatrist Sharan Inly on Earth and Raul Kinson and his sister Leesa on the distant planet of the Dreamers. The Dreamers are the decadent descendants of the original human race. Millions of years ago they colonized Earth and two other planets in other solar systems. They maintain contact with the colony worlds, including Earth, by the use of long-range telepathic dream-machines. They call themselves “The Watchers” and they have a prime directive: To keep the colony worlds from developing space travel. And the dreamers do this by demonic possession sabotaging space programs such as the one Bard Lane and Sharan are managing in New Mexico. But the dreamers have degenerated to the point where they no longer believe that the people on the other worlds whom they possess have any real reality. They think they are creations of their dream machines for their entertainment. Very much like our video games. So the dreamers can create mayhem and chaos for amusment. However Raul Kinson is a throwback to an earlier age. He knows the truth and wants to help Bard and Sharan. The end result of this alliance of the minds between the worlds makes for a fascinating sequence of what-ifs – so if you want to find out who is watching and listening between your ears, from beyond the stars, tune in and we’ll go back to a future that never was but might yet be coming.

On Thursday January 11th, 2018 the Hermetic Hour with Host Poke Runyon will review all of the live broadcasts of the preceding year 2017 so that our listeners can go to our archives with the title, subject and date of a show they missed. So keeping a note book at hand while you listen is recommended. Following this recap of 2017’s broadcasts, we will discuss what we have planned for 2018 and a look at forthcoming publications and productions from The Church of the Hermetic Sciences, So if you want to know where we’ve been and where we are going, tune in and get caught up. 

On December 21st, 2017 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon, will review Dan Brown's new novel "Origin" (2017). Other reviewers have called Origin either Brown's best or his worst novel. On a scale from one to ten we would give it an eight. As in all his thought provoking thrillers he follows the Dean-Koontz formula plotting for maximum suspense and action while keeping the big secret hidden as long as possible, thus managing to tantalize and entertain his readers as well as educating them into the essential mystery or problem central to the plot. In the Da Vinci code, it was the Holy Grail, in Inferno, it was the population explosion, in Origin it is the origin of life on earth and the destiny of the human race. Once again Brown creates a modern Frankenstein in the person of a billionaire inventor, computer programmer and futurist, Edmund Kirsch. Kirsch and his Android Igor "Winston" have decided to destroy religion by releasing a scientific documentary proving that there is and never was a divine creation and that humankind is rapidly evolving into a new species of cyborgs. (Much of this speculation has already been aired on documentary t.v. channels). Modern Spain is the venue for this drama and Brown treats us to his usual educational travelog. Before the world wide release of his production Kirsch is assassinated on stage (like Howard Beale) and this leaves Brown's hero Robert Langdon aided by the future queen of Spain and Kirsch's trusty A.I. "Winston" to find the secret Password to release the program. He does and they do -- but Langdon debunks Kirsch's premise that DNA evolved like amino acids in the primal soup of the earth's beginnings so God is saved. If you want to unravel the codes and untangle the twisted plot of this contemporary thriller tune in and we'll seek our Origin and our Destiny.

On Thursday December Seventh, 2017 on the 77th Anniversary of the Pearl
Harbor attack, the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a
report on the conditions and events that led up to the "Day of Infamy".
This report will be based largely on information from Nicholson Baker's
2008 book "Human Smoke, The Beginnings of World War Two, the End of
Civilization." We will trace the Pearl Harbor story from 1934 to 1941.
Revealing beyond any doubt that Washington knew the attack was coming,
where and even when. The attack was used to get us into World War Two
and lay the foundation for an American socialist dictatorship, on the
European model, empowered by a military-industrial complex which has
ruled in Washington ever since the end of the war in 1945. Pearl Harbor
was our first great disillusionment, followed by the Kennedy
Assassination, the Viet Nam war and 9 -11. We need to look back at
ourselves and examine the evil that has crept into our Republic under the
mantle of what is called "Democracy."

This is the Hermetic Hour for November 30th, 2017. I'm your host Poke Runyon and tonight I'm again channeling the spirit of Howard Beale. In March of 2017 we reviewed Paddy Chayefsky’s 1976 film classic NETWORK on the Hermetic Hour. I gave my own dramatic reading of Ned Beatty’s speech in which he converted news caster Howard Beale from a critic of incipient Globalism and its mass media brain-washing propaganda machine into an advocate of The New World Order. Of course Beale’s ratings tanked and the Network had their left-wing terrorist group kill him right on camera. I was certain that even before Howard’s mythical spirit passed the Pearly Gates he would have realized that his original vision was the True perception of International political-economic and social corruption. I imagined him looking down on us from heaven – a sort of Ascended Master if you will, who would watch over us and perhaps communicate with us again. “The Mad Prophet of the Astral Plane.”

On November 2nd, 2017 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will
present a discussion on the Biblical mystery man Melchizedek who appears
in the first book of the Bible, Genesis, and later in the New Testament.
Melchizedek literally means King and Priest or Priest-King. He was said
to have given the first communion to Abraham in the days before Joseph
became a leader in Egypt. Although legendary he was said to have
established an order of priesthood to rival that of Moses
brother Aaron. He represented the original Canaanite god El ("the most
High God") whereas Aaron's priesthood was that of Moses' Jehovah
(Yahweh). After the Babylonian captivity Ezra attempted to overwrite all
references to El in the Bible and make Jehovah the supreme being. The
New testament declares twice that Jesus the Nazareen is a priest after
the Order of Melchizedek -- We will look at this in relation to the
Egyptian and Phoenician situation at the time and later Gnostic
Christian writings. So if you want to do some Biblical detective work
tune in and we'll solve the mystery.
 

On Thursday October 26th, 2017 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a preview of our annual Dark Mother of All Halloween Parties and the infamous Mot Mass -- A symbolic journey to the underworld where the Canaanite Dark Lord Mot, the original Grim Reaper, challenges each celebrant with: "What say you to honor the Dead." and then bids them drink from the Cup of Souls. We began holding this
event here at Rivendell in 2004 and finally formalized the ritual in 2010. Incorporating the Orphic hymn to Death and Lord Byron's "Lines Inscribed upon a Cup formed from a Skull." Last year we culminated the rite with the summoning of the spirit of King Solomon. Mot evoked our ancient avatar Solomon and V.H. Frater Solomon received the spirit and channeled a remarkable oracle. This year we will call up the spirit of Melchizedek. Halloween has become one of America's favorite holidays, but like Christmas, we often forget to celebrate its true meaning. At the culmination of the rite Mot pours the dregs of the skull cup into the earth with these parting words: "A libation to those remembered this night. And, as you return to the realm of Light. Pray to be honored by those you knew - when this cup is passed for you!"

On Thursday October 12th the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon and special guest Frater Soun of Ubar will discuss the mythical Labours of Hercules in relation to the Hermetic tradition. We will develop the background of the myth evolving from Babylon's Gilgamesh through Melqart of Phoenician Tyre into the ancient Greek hero myth so often seen in films and television. We will look at works by Manley Hall, Albert Pike, Robert Graves , Alice Bailey and especially the French author Charles Francois Dupuis (1742-1809) who seems to be the only scholar who
has sequenced the twelve labours in proper Zodiacal order. The labours of Hercules are a chart of the souls journey through a cycle of lifetimes. They represent the great wheel of birth and death and are considered one of the Keys to the mysteries. So If you want to follow the big guy with the lion skin and the club tune in and we'll go adventuring.

On Thursday October 5th, 2017 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon joined by Frater Soun, Magister of Ubar Lodge in Dallas, will air a discussion on the evolution of the the Solar Hero in mythology from the Sumerian Gilgamesh who was the model for the Phoenician Melqart, who in turn inspired the Greek Heracles. Gilgamesh is a four thousand year old epic adventure story which circulated throughout the whole Middle East with copies found among the Hittites and the Canaanites. Even as Ishtar and Tammuz were translated into Astarte and Ba'al, and subsequently became Aphrodite and Adonis. Gilgamesh like Hercules slays a lion, a bull, a giant and many-headed monster. His victories and Hercules' labours are seen as representing the sun's yearly progress through the signs of the Zodiac. So tune in and we'll go back to the  days of myth and legend and make our way through "The Circle of the Beasts" as the Zodiac was originally called.