The Hermetic Hour

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a commentary on and a reading of the Rubaiyat a Sufi poem from medieval Persia by the mystic and astronomer Omar Khayyam translated by Edward Fitzgerald and published in 1859. The Rubaiyat is quintessentially romantic in style and content. It is said to reflect the ancient cyrenaic hedonistic philosophy of Aristippus and extols a libertine lifestyle in preference to piety. When I was a teenager I needed to break away from Christian fundamentalism so I adopted the Rubaiyat as my alternative to the Bible. I memorized the entire poem so that I could quote seductive passages to Baptist virgins while drinking beer on the beach at sunset. Ah! Those were the days! Or as Omar would put it: "Alas that Spring should vanish with the rose, and youth's sweet scented manuscript should close, the nightingale that in the branches sang, ah whence and wither flown again who knows?" And so, if you yearn to know "What Omar's moving finger writ, " then tune in and we will innoculate you against excessive piety.

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will present a review and commentary on the Hypnerotomachia of Poliphili (1499-1999) translated by Joscelyn Godwin. This is one of the most important esoteric books ever published and five hundred years after its debut in Renaissance Italy in 1499, written in stylistic Italian, it finally became available in a readable English translation by Joscelyn Godwin. The Hypnerotomachia of Poliphili, subtitled "The Strife of Life in a Dream" is a romantic fantasy novel which establishes a template for many similar works to emerge in the five centuries following its initial publication: The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz (1616) The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1785) The Wizard of Oz (1900) The Club Dumas (1996) filmed as "The Ninth Gate" (1999) and the novel "The Rule of Four" (2004). The real secrets hidden in the book are not cryptic codes but rather allegorical and thematic. Like the one tale in the Arabian Nights that reveals occult and Magical secrets, the Chapter describing the Isle of Venus near the end of the book carries the true meaning and reveals the esoteric secrets. So if you want to learn what is really hidden in this marvelous old book tune in and we will visit Poliphili's magical dream-world.

Host Poke Runyon reviews the Hermetic Hour's 2025 schedule, previewing new essays and dramatic readings including The Jesus Myth (Jan 23), The Quest for Prester John's Tomb (Feb 6), The Laws of Old (Apr 10), Magic and Hypnosis (May 1), Cult of the Sangreal (Jul 3), and The King of Fear (Oct 16 & 23).

Tune in for mythic history, Hermetic philosophy, magical practice, and serialized adventure -- and check the archives at magick.podbean.com for any episodes you miss.

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will discuss the Mysterious Voynich Manuscript (Beinecke MS. 408) a late medieval herbal, alchemical and astrological book written in an unknown language and illustrated with pictures of plants and astronomical arrangements that are not of this world. Authorship was originally attributed to Roger Bacon (1214 - 1292) but carbon-dating placed the MS. in the early fifteenth century. John Dee and Edward Kelley have been suggested because of their similar Enochian language creation, but there is no proof of their involvement. The mysterious MS has fascinated both scholars and amateur researchers alike with solutions announced every year since 1943 when the U.S. Government code-breakers attempted to decipher it. A new solution was announced just a week before this broadcast and has already been discredited. The main reason most experts fail seems obvious to a Hermetic scholar. The Voynich MS was not written in cipher. It was written in a language and in an alphabet that has no analog on earth or in this earthly dimension. The key to finding the origin of the Voynich material might be found in another mysterious manuscript published in 1670. We will read this revelation as our contribution toward solving the mystery -- so put on your Indiana Jones fedora and listen in.

The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will review the classic study on Renaissance Magick by Dame Frances Yates (1899 - 1981), "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition." (1964) This is a book that should be the cornerstone of any Hermetic student's library. Although the Italian philosopher and magician Giordano Bruno (1548 - 1600) is the main figure on which Yates centers her work, the book is in fact a broad study of Renaissance Hermetic Magick evolving from its Italian origins in the late Middle Ages and on through to Bruno's exposition of its post Copernican version. Hermetic Humanists accepted Copernicus but the Church refused to abandon the geocentric universe. Bruno, a Dominican monk was burned at the stake. Many considered him a Scientific martyr, but Yates contends that his heresies were Hermetic as well as scientific. So if you would like to explore the life and beliefs of Giordano Bruno, join us for a Hermetic Renaissance Faire.