Thoth-hermes Podcast

FRATER ACHER is certainly one of the most interesting figures in the world of Esotericism, Occultism and Magic today. And it makes us very happy and proud that he has - after a first appearance in December 2017, which was altogether his first podcast appearence ever - chosen to return to us today. We will speak extensively about his new book "Black Abbott-White Magic", which is about to be released with Scarlet Imprint. But we also touch a number of other topics that will certainly be of high interest to you. After this, it would certainly be interesting to go to Frater Acher's great blog website, THEOMAGICA. And also to visit the new book review website which he created together with magical friends, PARALIBRUM. Here you can find pre-order details for Black Abbott-White Magic Music played in this episode   In thi

The Cover of Tomas Vincente's book THE FACELESS GOD (Theion Publishing) In this "Season Finale" there is not only a finale, but also a premiere! This is the first time that Dr. Tomas Vincente, author of the book "The Faceless God", has agreed to appear on a podcast, and we are very happy to have him! And he will also explain why so far he was reluctant to do so.   In his highly acclaimed work Dr. Vincente establishes hitherto unexplored connections between the European lore of the Witches’ Sabbath and the archaic fertility cult of the ram-headed Banebdjedet, a totemistic representation of Osiris in his netherworld aspect – Osiris as the Black Sun. It is the daemon of the depths, the Faceless God, who serves as the bridge between these two esoteric currents. If you want to by his book, please click HERE Tomas Vincente (the faceless Tomas...) visiting the Egyptian collection of the "Kunsthistorisches Museum" (Museu

Even though GARY LACHMAN has already appeared in three episodes on our podcast, we never did that full interview with him (He spoke to us about Colin Wilson in that Episode 10 in our first season in August 2017, and twice on presentations of conferences he took part in). So it is now about time to catch up! And here is Gary finally with us for an extensive talk with Rudolf! Gary is the author of twenty-one books on topics ranging from the evolution of consciousness to literary suicides, popular culture and the history of the occult. He has written a rock and roll memoir of the 1970s, biographies of Aleister Crowley, Rudolf Steiner, C. G. Jung, Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, Emanuel Swedenborg, P. D. Ouspensky, and Colin Wilson, histories of Hermeticism and the Western Inner Tradition, you name it! He lectures regularly in the UK, US, and Europe, and his work has been translated into a dozen languages. He was a founding member of the pop group Blondie and in 2006 was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. L

Portrait of PHIL HINE by Asa Medhurst Rudolf's guest in this new episode is PHIL HINE. Get ready for a nice Northern English accent  Phil is an independent researcher and author. A former editor of Chaos International, he was the co-creator and editor (with Rodney Orpheus) of the UK monthly Pagan 'zine, Pagan News. He is best known for his three books on Chaos Magic - Condensed Chaos, Prime Chaos and the Pseudonomicon. He has recently released a new anthology spanning 40 years of occult writing: Hine's Varieties: Chaos and Beyond. In 2018 he published a series of 4 booklets examining the early history of the passage of knowledge about Chakras from East to West - available from Treadwells Bookshop of London (https://www.treadwells-london.com/). He is currently preparing a Pagan News anthology with Rodney Orpheus for Strange Attractor Press and has just published - through his new Twisted Trunk imprint, Mike Magee's Yaksini Magic. He lives in London.

Rudolf welcomes in this episode artist, author and lecturer, LAURENCE CARUANA. His highly-symbolic works explore the interplay of myth, visions and dreams while integrating views from different sacred traditions. Born in Toronto. Canada, of Maltese descent, he is a graduate of The University of Toronto (B.A. Hons. Philosophy) and also studied painting at die "Akademie der bildende Künste" in Vienna before assisting Prof. Ernst Fuchs in his studios in Monaco and Castillon, where he learned classical techniques of painting in the traditional manner of master to apprentice. For years, the artist led an itinerant existence, living variously in Malta, Vienna, Munich and Monaco while travelling extensively through Asia, Europe and Central America to explore sacred sites, study traditional art techniques and enrich his passion for different cultural iconographies. With his French wife he settled in Paris, alternating between a studio in the Bastille quarter and a farmhouse in the Bourgogne region of France. In 2012,

In Episode 20, Rudolf welcomes German artist and occultist Hagen von Tulien Hagen is  working in a variety of media including pen and ink, paper cut, collage and digital formats. With about forty years of intense magical theory and practice, he has specialized in creating art as an expression and manifestation of magical states of awareness and its use as an esoteric tool. Throughout the 1990s Hagen was a key figure in the Magical Pact of the Illuminates of Thanateros (I.O.T.), serving as its section head for Germany. He is currently a Master-Initiate of the Fraternitas Saturni (F.S.) and an empowered adept of the Voudon Gnostic Current, focused on deeply researching the Gnosis of the Saturnian Continuum and of Esoteric Voudon. As a Gnostic Bishop of the Ecclesia Gnostica Spiritualis (ordained by Michael Bertiaux), Hagen von Tulien is dedicated to manifesting the supreme and divine Gnosis within himself while assisting others on their own path to kosmic freedom and liberation.    

A very special edition: no intro talk, no music, just David Beth and I in a Q&A session!David's interview in Episode 11 has brought many questions that you were asking, thanks for this. And thanks to David for coming back just to answer the most important ones.He is answering them in three topic groups:1) on Kosmic Gnosis2) on Vodou and Afro-Centric Gnosis3) on AdonismYou can use Chapter Markers to jump to the topicsEnjoy this very special treat!

In this episode, Rudolf is talking to RACHEL POLLACK, American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot. She is also involved in the women's spirituality movement.  Rachel Pollack is the author of 40 books, most recently The Fissure King: A Novel In Five Stories. Her book, 78 Degrees Of Wisdom, has been described by Tarot readers and teachers around the world as “the Bible of tarot readers.” She is the designer and artist of the Shining Tribe Tarot, and in recent years has worked with artist Robert M. Place to create The Burning Serpent Oracle, a Lenormand-based deck, and The Raziel Tarot–The Secret Teachings of Adam and Eve. Her work has been translated into fifteen languages. She has taught Tarot on five continents. Find more information about Rachel on her website Find her books on Amazon

Tobias Churton is Britain’s leading scholar of Western Esotericism, a world authority on Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Rosicrucianism. He is a filmmaker and the founding editor of the magazine Freemasonry Today. An Honorary Fellow of Exeter University, where he is faculty lecturer in Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, he holds a master’s degree in Theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, and created the award-winning documentary series and accompanying book The Gnostics, as well as several other films on Christian doctrine, mysticism, and magical folklore. The author of many books, including Gnostic Philosophy, The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians, and Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin, he lives in England. Born in Sutton Coldfield to an ancient Cheshire family, in 1960, Tobias Churton spent two years in Australia from 1966 to 1968 and returned to attend his fifth school, Lichfield Cathedral School. Three schools later he won an exhibition to Brasenose College, Oxford, where he studied Theology. Compelle

One of the major personalities of North American Occultism is Rudolf's guest on this upcoming episode: RICHARD KACZYNKSI He is the author of Perdurabo: The Life of Aleister Crowley (2010), which the Times Literary Supplement deemed “the major biography to date” of the Beast. He has also written Panic in Detroit: The Magician and the Motor City (2019), Forgotten Templars: The Untold Origins of Ordo Templi Orientis (2012), The Weiser Concise Guide to Aleister Crowley (2009), and the novel The Billionth Monkey (2015), among others. He has recently completed an edited and extensively annotated edition of Aleister Crowley’s The Sword of Song (2020). His writing has also appeared in anthologies such as The Art and Science of Initiation (2019), Success Is Your Proof (2016), Tarot in Culture (2014), Aleister Crowley and Western Esotericism (2012), and Mathematics in Popular Culture (2012). Since 1990, he has lectured internationally on these and other topics and has been featured in the television documentaries Sec

CHAPTER 1 First published in French in 1911, this practical guide to the art of spagyrics also outlines the ancient yet forgotten Hermetic foundations of herbalism. The author provides botanical and medicinal classifications for over 600 plant species and detailed instructions for spagyric extracts, tinctures, elixirs, liquors, oils, unguents, salts, aquae vitae, and quintessences.   Buy the book here   CHAPTER 2 GREG'S CHOICE The Dionysian themed frescos of Pompeii’s Villa of the Mysteries constitute the single most important theurgical narrative to have survived in the Western esoteric tradition. No other practitioner account of the ritual process for conducting a mystery rite has survived down to today. The frescoes’ vivid and allusive imagery illuminates both the ritual activity of the participants as well as its esoteric import. Arising from within the unique interface between Greek and Roman culture in Sou

Rudolf is excited to welcome Professor PATRICIA MACCORMACK as his guest on Episode 15! Australian-born Patricia is a researcher and Professor of Continental Philosophy at Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge. She has published extensively on philosophy, feminism, queer and monster theory, animal abolitionist activism, ethics, art and horror cinema. She is the author of Cinesexuality (Routledge 2008) and Posthuman Ethics (Routledge 2012) and the editor of The Animal Catalyst (Bloomsbury 2014), Deleuze and the Animal (EUP 2017), Deleuze and the Schizoanalysis of Cinema (Continuum 2008) and Ecosophical Aesthetics (Bloomsbury 2018). Her new book is The Ahuman Manifesto: Activisms for the End of the Anthropocene (Bloomsbury 2020) She has been an occult practitioner for over 30 years and is currently working in queer chaos magick and chaos as activism. Her knowledge, practice and love for the Occult will be the subject of this talk just as much as her acade

Our guest in this episode is CHRISTOPHER MCINTOSH. Christopher was born in England in 1943 and grew up in Edinburgh, Scotland. He holds a doctorate in history from Oxford University, a degree in German from London University and a diploma in Russian from the United Nations language school in New York.   His career has encompassed the publishing world and the United Nations System as well as academe – he was for several years on the faculty of the Centre for the Study of Esotericism at Exeter University, now sadly discontinued. His books include The Astrologers and their Creed (1969); Eliphas Lévi and the French Occult Revival (1972); The Rosicrucians (latest edition: Weiser, 1997); The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason (1992), based on his D.Phil. dissertation; The Swan King: Ludwig II of Bavaria (latest edition 2003); Gardens of the Gods (2005); and Beyond the North Wind (2019).    

ANTHONY PEAKE was a curious child. While his friends were reading Batman and Superman comics Anthony was immersing himself in learning of the most arcane nature (whilst still keeping an eye on the X-Men and Dr. Strange). It was in 1966, at the age of twelve that he, quite by accident, came across a copy of The Sky People by Brinsley Le Poer Trench and from then on there was no stopping him. The British part-series Man Myth and Magic was read with intense interest followed by the discovery of John Keel’s Project Trojan Horse and Jacques Vallee’s Passport to Magonia. What followed was a voracious, and unquenchable, need to know everything about everything. At university he chose courses that would accommodate his wide interests, specialising in the sociology of religion, the theory of language development and the art of the Italian Renaissance. A post-graduate course in management lead Anthony away from his calling as a writer and into a career as a manager in various UK businesses. His interest in the esoteric

FRATER U∴D∴ is a writer, poet and magician. A German diplomat's child, he grew up in Africa and Asia. He holds a master's degree from the University of Bonn in Comparative Literature, English Literature and Portuguese Studies. Co-founder of the Bonn Workshop for Experimental Magic. As founder of Pragmatic Magic, Cyber Magic, Ice Magic and co-founder of the Magical Pact of the Illuminati of Thanateros (IOT), he is one of Europe's most renowned practical magicians and contemporary occult authors. He studied with yoga and tantra masters and has been involved with the practical aspects of occultism in general and magic in particular for more than half a century. Many years of experience as a translator and interpreter, author of more than 40 books, many of which have become modern day classics, including High Magic and Practical Sigil Magic. His works have been translated into multiple languages (English, French, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Czech, Estonian, Japanese etc.). He is known for his undogmatic approach t

DAVID BETH was born to German parents in Angola, Africa. University educated in medieval and modern history, he has lived all over the world from Nigeria to Brazil and Los Angeles to London in answer to his spiritual calling. David carries the transmissions of various Western magical and esoteric currents and has been a student of Afrocentric forms of spirituality and magic for more than 25 years. He is a priest (Houngan Asogwe) of Haitian Vodou and an initiate of various secret societies. In the first decade of the 2000s he rose to occult fame as the head of Michael Bertiaux’ Voudon Gnostic organizations and through his publications with Fulgur Ltd. He has since developed his own system of esotericism which strongly rejects spiritual transcendentalism in favour of an eroto-magical communion with the spirits of the Kosmos. Known as the Kosmic ‘pandaemonic’ Gnosis it branches it manifests in various groups working either in an Afro-magical and Vodou environment or through Western esoteric paradigms. With stude

Lucid dreaming, Hypnagogia, Astral Travel, Sleep Temples, Dream diary... all terms related to sleep and dream which play an important role in the World of the Western Esoteric Tradition. And our guest in today's interview, Sarah Janes, knows all about them.   Sarah Janes is an independent researcher exploring ancient ideas about dreaming, sleep medicine and dream incubation. An enthusiastic lucid dreamer since childhood, Sarah hosts regular workshops, gives talks on the subject and is also creating a dream initiation inspired VR experience with Carl H. Smith and others of Ravensbourne University, London. Sarah believes dreaming to be a forgotten superpower of remembrance and healing and her muse is the goddess Mnemosyne, Greek Titaness and personification of memory, often the last deity to be invoked during dream healing rituals in the sleep temples of ancient Greece. Enjoy a fascinating talk with Sarah!   Sarah Janes' Official Website ​

CHAPTER 1 One of the last true Renaissance men, physician, alchemist, and inventor Robert Fludd (1574-1637) wrote a series of books, filled with hundreds of detailed engravings, now recognized as the first fully illustrated encyclopedia. In this hardcover, highly illustrated reference, Joscelyn Godwin explains Fludd’s theories on the cosmos, man, and medicine. Buy the book here   CHAPTER 2 GREG'S CHOICE In each episode Greg Kaminsky, the creator of the great "Occult of Personality" podcast, presents again a book of his choice. "And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him." - Genesis 5:24. The Royal Arch of Enoch: The Impact of Masonic Ritual, Philosophy, and Symbolism documents an undiscovered historical anomaly: how a high degree Masonic Ritual, developed in France in the mid 1700s, included elements of the Book of Enoch which was considered lost until Freemason and traveler James Bruce returned

It is the month of the "returners" on Thoth Hermes! P.T. MISTLBERGER was my guest on the second Thoth Hermes episode ever, back in May 2017! We had a lovely talk then and I know he was at the time a discovery for many of my listeners here. One who listened to his interview and then got in touch with P.T. Mistlberger, was Gabriel McCaughry from ANATHEMA Publishing. And the result was a great new book that came out earlier this month: THE DANCING SORCERER. I admit that I am a bit proud about that story and so it is my enormous pleasure to welcome PT MISTLBERGER back on the show with a talk about his new, and by the way wonderful and beautiful book. P.T. Mistlberger was born in Montreal in 1959 and educated at John Abbott College and Concordia University. He has worked as a transpersonal therapist and seminar leader since 1987, and has taught in numerous cities in North America, Europe, and the Middle East. He has founded several personal growth communities and esoteric schools, and has authored six books. S

ANGEL MILLAR was already my guest on this podcast back in November 2017 (click HERE to go to this episode). He returns to this show at the occasion of the release of his new book "The Three Stages of Initiatic Spirituality", released on Feb 11, 2019. INITIATION unveils the workings of the cosmos outside of the initiate and points to his place within it and to the path he might take through it, toward the Divine. He is not a cog but a star, a universe - a microcosm that reflects the whole of existence and its essence. In attaining that that consciousness in which he feels he can understand, can do, and can cultivate a new, empowered way of living and being, he starts to glimpse, and to embody, what is sometimes called the Higher Self. ANGEL MILLAR is a well-known lecturer on Freemasonry, initiation, and esotericism as well as an artist and student of the martial arts. The author of several books, including Freemasonry: Foundation of the Western Esoteric Tradition, he lives in New York City. And beyond all that