If you are someone who enjoys Tarot - then do we have an episode for you! In this podcast, host Harper Feist talks to Christophe Poncet, who has just published Down Here.  Down Here is the first of a meticulously researched and lavishly illustrated three volume work, The Tarot of Marsilio by Christophe Poncet; a landmark inquiry into the origins of the Tarot de Marseille. Listen as Christophe discuss the orgin of Tarot de Marseille and the surprising findings of his research. 

The wait is over! The full Event Schedule for NOTOCON XV is now LIVE on our website, and it’s packed with excitement! Curious about the brilliant minds joining us? Explore Presentation Bios and see the incredible lineup of speakers ready to illuminate “The Crowned and Conquering Child.”

Is Crowley’s approach to Yoga still relevant? And who was Crowley’s Yoga teacher? Did famed comedy film director Preston Sturges’ mother dictate Book 4 to Crowley at the behest of an entity called Abuldiz? And what can we learn from the record of their communication with Abuldiz? Stay tuned for the answers in the Season 4 Finale, ‘Frothy Sexy Summer Reading List.’

The lovely Deja Whitehouse talks to Thelema Now host Harper Feist about her latest book, "The Lady and the Beast: The Extraordinary Partnership between Frieda Harris and Aleister Crowley." Deja and Harper discuss Frieda Harris's life, her Thoth Tarot collaboration with Crowley, and her struggles as a woman at time when women had few choices and even less rights. Check it out! You can find out more about Deja Whitehouse at her website.  

The Magical & Mystical System developed by Aleister Crowley and George Cecil Jones, commonly denoted as the A∴A∴, consists of Eleven Grades or Degrees; these in turn compose Three Orders. Edward Mason and I will take a look at these Three Orders, and how they apply to the Path of the Initiate.

The Magical Formula of I.A.O. first occurs in the Adeptus Minor Initiation of the Golden Dawn, during the Analysis of the Keyword. This evolving Formula is the subject of a chapter from Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice, and hints at the blueprint for a Ritual of Initiation.

A full slate of events and activities are already being planned for the largest gathering of Thelemic magicians in the United States! Registration is open to members, vendor tables are available, and volunteers are needed!

Please visit notoconxv.oto-usa.org for all our event information and updates. Don’t let the demon of procrastination into your circle; register today!

All leaders and members in good standing of I° are invited for a weekend of fraternity and leadership in NOLA, June 7-8. For registration and hotel information, go to the Kaaba Leadership Roadshow page.

Annie Matan is an ordained clergy of a methodology in Judaism that recalls ancient Jewish traditions that honour the sacred feminine. We’ll explore the subject, and how it resonates with Thelemic ideas, as we delve into the place of Lilith within this framework.

Crowley points to David Hume’s essays as ‘the Classic of Academic Scepticism.’ Having previously dipped into Hume, we’ll now move our attention to his ‘Of Miracles’, where he considers the application of reason to the evidence of testimony.

 In this Thelema NOW episode, Harper interviews Joseph Peterson, about "Mysteriorum Libri Quinque: Dr. John Dee's Five Books of Mysteries." This book from the 16th century, remains to this day one of the most important core texts of occult literature and a comprehensive guide to Enochian magic, encompassing language, symbolism, rituals, and practical techniques. This deluxe Weiser Ankh edition is a compilation of John Dee’s secret spiritual treatises and was prepared from the original manuscript (preserved in the British Library) in Dee’s own handwriting. These secret writings were discovered long after John Dee’s death (c. 1609); they had been tucked away in a hidden compartment of an old wooden chest and were remarkably spared from destruction—uncovered only a few years before the Great Fire of London in 1666. In these five secret treatises, John Dee, one of the most renowned scholars of the Elizabethan era, records in minute detail his research into the occult.

Joseph discusses working with damaged manuscripts, Dee's Biblical references, and Divine Revelation. They also mention Esoeric Archives, which you can access here. Check it out!

In December of 2024 e.v. I gave the first of a series of talks on the Thelemic philosophy. I focused on some of the core concepts and practices I feel are worth having in the forefront of the mind while engaging with Thelemic materials, including Crowley’s thoughts on channeling ‘genius,’ the skeptical approach, and discipline in mystical and Magical Practices.

The Chaldean Oracles of Zoroaster as collated by W. Wynn Westcott are a highly influential, and yet fairly obscure, set of pithy phrases. Gathered from the texts of numerous ancient writers, these ‘oracles’ seem to hint at an entire schema for the cosmos. We’ll dip our wings into the darkly-splendid waters of these ‘oracles,’ perchance to glimpse the light of the fire therein.

Welcome to Season 11, Episode 5 with us here at Thoth-Hermes Podcast.  Today, Rudolf and Karin re-engage with friend Dean Radin.  An electrical engineer holding a PhD in experimental psychology, Dean has been involved at the forefront of psychical research in the United States.  Dean’s career has spanned Bell Labs, SRI International, and several major universities.  He has served as Chief Scientist at the Institute for Noetic Sciences and authored several critically acclaimed titles on consciousness, Quantum, and… dare we name it… Magic. 

Dean dryly names that “all the really juicy stuff in science starts as the  unobservable”, which is where the FUN of research resides: the rational understanding of the wonderous.  Karin, Rudolf and Dean venture into questions of non-local consciousness, and the possibility of “the brain operating as a quantum object”.  Do certain aspects of our perceptual ability distribute through space and time?

After succinctly outlining Edgar Mitchell’s famed metaphysical rebirth, Dean broadens the possibility of the “Overview Effect”.  He suggests that this is also found within personal anomalous experiences, psychedelic encounters, and other related transformative Wonder moments.  Dean notes that questions of “consciousness” has saturated all major fields of human endeavor at this time, forming a “second” psychedelic and consciousness revolution.  Mainline science’s reliance on the Reductive Materialism worldview is eclipsed by the new challenges of consciousness research. 

Throughout this conversation, Artificial Intelligence- pro or con, but present- is a repeated waypoint for reflection: can it demonstrate the Observer Effect?  In what ways can our very human pioneers harness its capacities to bring us back to knowledge of our own extraordinary capacities?

The flow of dialogue turns towards creativity as both necessity and antinomian, including in natural science.  The authentic occult and paranormal are named as necessarily non-performative to conventional knowledge and endeavors: the deeper truths are far from social media and popular publishing.  Dean suggests that the further knowledge of psychical processes develops, the more likely there may be a return to a true “occult” form of research and knowledge in response to its implications for upending current systems of large scale human control (government, religion, the marketplace).

During the course of this conversation, Dean references the annual Linda G. O’Bryant noetic sciences research prize, and we are pleased to include that link: https://noetic.org/prize/

Dean’s first conversation on Thoth-Hermes occurred in the summer of 2020, Season 5 Episode 2, and is available here: https://thothermes.com/episodes/season-5-episode-2-science-meets-magic-dean-radin/

The study of the Occult, the Qabalah, Meditation and Magick can occasionally lead one to get caught up in intangibles, or maybe too much ‘in their head.’ But the Physical Body is no less a part of the equation of our continuing Initiation. Edward Mason and I will take a look at Groundedness, and appreciation for the physical body, as correctives.

Liber Aleph, the Book of Wisdom or Folly, is addressed by Crowley to his Magical Son, Charles Stansfeld Jones — better known as Frater Achad. It covers the gamut of the Thelemic perspective on pretty much everything, and as such is an indispensable guide and reference. We’ll take a look at a set of chapters therein on the subject of the Will, and Sin.

In ‘The Book of the Heart Girt with a Serpent,’ more commonly known as Liber LXV, many parables abound which are instructive of Thelemic spirituality. But in chapter V we encounter a parricidal pomp of atheists. I’ll look at Crowley’s commentary and see how this passage exemplifies Thelemic thought, in the first of our episodes highlighting and delving into the Holy Books of Thelema.

The U.S. Grand Lodge O.T.O. annual report for fiscal year 2023 has been published. This and all previous annual reports can be found here.