All Episodes

On Thursday April 2nd, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review and discuss the newly published book "The Secret School of Wisdom" Authentic rituals and doctrines of the Illuminati edited by Joseph Wages, Rienhard Markner and translated by Jeva Singh Anand. Host Poke Runyon (Marion Roland) will be joined by his fellow Beyond Lemuria stars Merrick Rees Hamer (Master Phylos) and Frater Solomon (Samyaza) in our discussion of the various aspects of the Bavarian Illuminati: their Masonic infiltration, Christian-based socialist ideology, and conspiratorial agenda. We will discuss Adam Weishaupt's mysticism and contradict some previously held opinions about his atheism. We will discuss his relation with Baron von Knigge and some of the later individuals and organizations influenced by the Illuminati -- so If you want to immanenitize the eschaton (whatever that means) tune in and be illuminated.

On Thursday March 26th, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon
will present a review of the new book:
"The Universal Master Key" alleged to be a newly discovered manuscript
by the late Franz Bardon. This book is actually a reconstructed series
of lectures by Bardon to his students on mastering and balancing the
four Hermetic elements in the personality as set forth in the first
section of his book Initiation into Hermetics. The texts of the lectures
are rewritten from a collection of class notes by the students and
rendered in Bardon's writing style by his publisher and editor Dieter
Ruggeberg. The book is published by Faulks Books which mistakenly
represents it on the internet as taken from a "newly discovered
manuscript by Franz Bardon." However it does not appear to be entirely a
hoax. If Dieter wrote the entire book, he has at least mastered Bardon's
style and philosophic attitudes. The book is certainly worth a place in
a Magician's Bardon collection. It is very moralistic and sermonizing in
tone with a strong emphasis on ethics and spiritual integrity. It has
its short-comings. It was supossed to be organized according to the
qualities of each element but he seems to go off the track into a
general discussion on how to live and die well in this and higher worlds
-- so if want to revisit the Bardonian internal tetragrammaton process,
tune in and we will go to Hermetic Sunday school with Reverand Franz.
Next week we revisit the Bavarian Illuminati.
 

On Thursday March 19th, 2015 Dr. Claire Fitzpatrick, a distinguished
Hermetic healer and broadcaster of her own magically related podcasts,
also an associate member of the Church of the Hermetic Sciences since
2011, will share with us her recent interview with the Hermetic Hour
host Poke Runyon. This interview is very similar to last week's
biographical interview we did with Merrick Rees Hamer. Poke told Dr.
Claire that she got him to remember things that he thought he had
forgotten, we will preface the interview with a short biographical
introduction to Claire and her work and her equally distinguished
life partner and colleague, Masonic scholar and Alchemist Ariel Malachi
Sirocco, also an associate member of CHS. So tune in and find out what
our East Coast folks are doing and enjoy the secrets she managed to coax
out of old Frater Thabion.
 

On Thursday March 12th, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon,
will have as its honored guest Merrick Rees Hamer a leading Masonic
ritualist and lecturer in California, a master story-teller, talented
musician, and a leader in the Golden Dawn Rosicrucian Magical
tradition. Merrick is also a classical actor having portrayed "The
Master Phylos" and his evil counterpart "Magister Abaddon" in the Church
of the Hermetic Sciences Production of "Beyond Lemuria" filmed at Mt.
Shasta in 2006 and recently re-released in a second edition. He is also
a leading officer in the Church and in its magical fraternal order the
O.T.A. Merrick will give us a history of his creative and esoteric
interests and accomplishments. So if you would like to spend an hour or
so with a modern master of traditional magick and the arts related to
it: music, drama, and poetic expression, then join us and be inspired.
 

On Thursday March 5th, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will
have a discussion on the magical heroic fantasy fiction of British
literary lion Michael Moorcock. Moorcock. Although Moorcock did not coin
the term Multiverse he did much to popularize it in his Elric of
Melnibone series. H.G. Wells used it in Men like Gods, and Richard
Shaver's Red Dwarf called it the "Simultane." Parallel Worlds is perhaps
the best description of it. What Moorcock did coin was the "Chaosphere"
that mace-like symbol of the black ball with eight spearheads emerging
that was adopted by Peter Carroll as the symbol for their Chaos Magick
system. Moorcock's literary concept of the Chaos world is presented as
an ocean of swirling colors and energies dashing against the cliffs of
his fantasy world -- and periodically invading and claiming lands ruled
by the Lords of Law. The Lords of Chaos, one of which is Elric's patron,
play a constant game with men as the pawns. Moorcock was perhaps
influanced by Vance's Cudgel, to create his anti-hero The Albino
ex-emperor Elric of Melnibone, who struggles to overcome the sociopathic
heritage of his race and finally secumbs to it under the influence of
his black-magick sword which is a vampiric weapon with a evil mind of
its own. This was a perfect fictional character for the darkness that
followed the era of the flower children, a presage of the current goth
and black metal fads. Moorcock describes himself as an anarchist and is
a controversial literary figure in Britain. He is presently writing a
Dr. Who novel, his first using someone else's character. So if you want
to discover the magick of Michael Moorcock tune in and we'll navigate
the multiverse.
 

On Thursday February 26th, 2015 our very special guest will be philosopher, author, Magus, songwriter, and folksinger Lon Milo DuQuette. Lon will discuss his latest books "Homemade Magick" from Llewellyn, and as editor: "Horror and the Occult" from Weiser. He will also invite us all to hear him in concert at the MTG recording
studio in Mission Viejo, California this Saturday night. So if you want to catch up on the latest doings and offerings from one of America's most creative and talented magicians, be sure to listen in.
 

On Thursday February February 12th, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host
Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the late medieval Dutch
surrealist painter Hieronymus Bosch whose remarkable works have not yet
become the secret code behind a Dan Brown novel (hint Bro. Dan) but
would certainly provide a great background for such a story. His most
famous work "The Garden of Earthly Delights" is a phantasmagoria a of
bizarre and nightmarish symbolism. Which scholars relate to the Gonostic
sect of the Adamites -- a cult of mystic nudists who were trying to
recreate the Garden of Eden. Super Catholic Spain had taken over the
Netherlands in those days and the Inquisition was burning the Dutch
Adamites as fast as Bosch could paint them but the King of Spain was
Bosch's biggest fan, which probably kept Bosch alive.So you can look at
some great Bosch graphics on your computer while you listen to us
recount the tale of the Devil's painter.
 

On Thursday February 5th, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon
will present a discussion on the recent Dan Brown novel "Inferno" and
the the cult of Transhumanism that it seems to advocate. This is a
highly controversial subject and deals with issues that are deeply
challenging from a moral and ethical position. We will also go back to
an earlier novel by H.G. Wells "Men like Gods" which deals with the same
issues and projects a genetically perfected future utopia that seems to
be the goal of the transhumanists. We will compare this form of human
elitism with the process of Hermetic self development and ask ourselves
which way we would rather follow to become "more than human?" So tune in
and find out what's coming in the next 100 years.
 

On Thursday January 29th, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon
will present a discussion and review on a newly published collection of
Old Testament pseudepigrapha (apocryphal works) edited by Bauckham,
Davila and Panayotov from Erdmans. What makes this 800 page doorstopper
of particular interest to us is "The Legend of Melchizedek" and
Solomon's Hygromancy which is very similar to the medieval Greater Key
of Solomon and may be a later version of the Key's original source. Poke
will be joined by Biblical scholar Frater Solomon who first discovered
this very interesting publication and brought it to our attention. So if
you want to hear about some strange old magical manuscripts that have
just come to light, tune in and we'll delve into this collection.
 

On Thursday January 22nd, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon
will present a discussion on Hermetic Magical Ethics. This will be
somewhat controversial in that we will examine the ethical aspects of
Hermetic philosophy in comparison to Christianity and other Gnostic
variations including Crowley's Thelema and Golden Dawn Rosicrucianism.
We will also question the merits of egalitarian collectivism compared to
the American/Masonic work ethic and personal responsibility standards.
We will review our newly adopted Code of Conduct for members of our
magical lodges and explain some of the reasons for establishing these
guidelines. So if you want to know how well-behaved and nice to each
other magicians ought to be, tune in and we will give you our Golden Rules.
 

On Thursday January 15th, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon
will present a review and reprise of the host's own writing career as a
novelist, short story writer and screenwriter. After three years in the
Army most in Special Forces, Poke started off in 1965 with Night Jump -
Cuba 1965 followed by Commando X in 1967 and a series of underwater
adventure stories in ARGOSY magazine, on to Hollywood and a short stint
as a screenwriter before getting a real job as a designer and technical
illustrator for Shelby American and on to a career as an industrial artist.
Eventually publishing his own fiction with Drell Master 2001 and From
the Tower of Darkness in 2002 So if you enjoy macho action adventure
stories or ever did, tune in and find out what old Frater Thabion writes
about other than magick.
 

On January 8th, 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will
present a reprise of the 1977 article in the old Seventh Ray number
nineteen by author Janine Renee titled: Parzival and the Hermetic
Grail. The author researched and wrote this at our request. It forms an
important element in our reconstructed linkage of ancient Phoenician
rituals to early Valentinean Christian Gnosticism and to medieval Grail
lore. The major source for Janine's article is the 1965 "The Krater and
the Grail: Hermetic Sources of the Parzival by Henry and Renee Kahane.
Modern neo-pagans have never lost their fascination for the Holy Grail
quest. The idea that the Grail was originally pagan (The Hermetic
Krater) goes along with the recent revelations of Jesus and Mary
Magdalen and the paganizing of Christianity. So if you want to start on
your own Grail Quest tune in and we will give you directions to to the
Grail Castle Montsalvat.

On New Years Day 2015 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will
present a discussion on the importance of Canaanite/Phoenician mythology
in Magick and magical Qabalah and in Solomonic ceremonial magick. We
will explore how it can relate to Alchemy, astrology, and Hermetic
Solarism. We will discuss the Alchemical symbolism of our Cannanite
Seasonal rites and the relation of Canaanite Gods and Goddesses to the
Sumerian and classical Greek Pantheons. So if you want to explore what
lies behind the myth of Solomon being the Master Magician, tune in and
we'll introduce you to the real "oldest religion".

On Christmas night December 25th, 2014 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke
Runyon will present a special program in which Frater Thabion, your host
and the founder of the Order of the Temple of Astarte, will trace the
books and films that influenced and inspired him to create and develop
his unique American system of Magick. I grew out of the Oz books and
graduated to the Mars books (John Carter) then into a teenage
fascination with Richard Shaver's hi-tech Lemurian survivor stories. I
will go to my 1950s early college days watching films such as Jean
Cocteau's Orpheus, and Orson Welles Black Magic (on Cagliostro and
Mesmer) and move on through to a study of Voodoo in line with my
Caribbean adventurer-fiction writer persona. The Saragossa Manuscript
for Kabbalah and mirror magick, Graves The White Goddess. Then my
illness which I tried to cure with self-hypnosis. This led to a serious
study of hypnosis along with Tibetan Tantra (Evans-Wentz) and finally
Western Magick. Mastering the Goetia with the mirror method led to
Jungian psycho-philosophy and the study of anthropology culminating in a
Master's Degree in the subject from California State University. During
this program I created the modern Hermetically oriented Neo-Canaanite
Seasonal ceremonies for our magical order The Temple of Astarte, The
main purpose of our Goetia was to bring up and reestablish the Secret
Goddess of old King Solomon himself. We use the 1770 Hermetic-Masonic rite of Crata Repoa as a structure for our system and I will discuss the sources behind this. Perhaps some of these books and teachings will help others to understand our perspective on the Western Tradition and what we expect to
accomplish by what we call The Great Work.

On Thursday December 18th, 2014 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a discussion on the Mission Statement of the Church of the Hermetic Sciences and the Ordo Templi Astartes. This is one of the topics that was discussed at our last Board of Director's Meeting as especially important with our membership increasing and new lodges begin opening around the country. In the magical community we are known as the folks that know how to make ritual magick work, but that in itself is not enough of a reason for people to join us unless they simply want to learn our techniques and methods to use for their own purposes. Frankly, that is not what we are here for and we are not teaching magick so that it can be misused. We consider magick to be a system of mental and spiritual development that leads to what we refer to as enlightenment -- which we define as a close personal relationship with God. We follow a pattern of hermetic mytho-philosophy born in Alexandria in the first century and perfected by the Renaissance neo-platonic/hermetic magi in 14th-15th-16th century Europe culminating in the Rosicrucian tradition. We combine paganisn, Qabalah, astrology and alchemy in line with Jungian psychology in a neo-romantic Quest for the Holy Grail based on a linage of eternal goddesses and dying gods from the time of Melchizedek to the beginnings of Christianity. So, if you have wondered just why we do what we do and where we are going with it, tune in and be enlightened.