On Thursday September first, 2016 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke

Runyon will discuss James Branch Cabell's romantic fantasy novel JURGEN

(1919).This delightfully satirical and deeply esoteric work is

considered Cabell's masterpiece and a classic of American literature. It

might best be quickly described as an Oz book for adults. Modern readers

will liken Cabell's tale to a Monty Python script. Chapter XXII was

inspired by Aleister Crowley's Gnostic Mass which prompted Crowley to

praise Cabell as America's greatest novelist. We will read the infamous

22nd chapter along with some of the symbolically described erotic

passages that got the original book banned in New York. This backfired

and made JURGEN a national bestseller in the 1920s. And it is still a

great read -- so if you want to spend an hour with Messers Cabell and

Crowley, tune in and we will follow Jurgen chasing his first love all

the way from puberty to Hell, which is a liberal democracy and up to

Heaven which is a Southern Baptist dictatorship, administered by a black

house slave. Maybe we can get it banned again!