Eight years after the last Chasing Hermes episode, Sean and Jason get together to talk about what the podcast meant to them and some of their favorite moments. Sean and Jason conclude with plans for their next collaboration, and the name of the new podcast is announced exclusively for Chasing Hermes fans.

In his day, John Dee was famous for his contributions to science and for his role as adviser to Queen Elizabeth. Dee assembled the largest library England had ever seen and his mansion at Mortlake outside London was a popular place to visit for foreign emissaries and prominent thinkers.

But Dee harbored a longing for more knowledge than science could offer. He wanted to know about the world and what lies beyond it. Dissatisfied with the limitations of contemporary wisdom, he turned to the spirit world for guidance. What he found was going to influence the Western Mystery tradition forever.

In 1581 Dee contacts the angels for the first time. He soon has to accept that he is not a talented medium. Enter Edward Kelley, a much younger man of low social background and a nasty habit of necromancy. Kelley is excellent with the crystal ball and the two start a collaboration that will take them through countless angelic worlds. Parallel to their spiritual vision quests, Dee and Kelley sojourned through the European courts entertaining kings and emperors with their seances and alchemical experiments.

Join us in this episode of Chasing Hermes and discover the two men behind the legendary Enochian angelic language

It is hard to imagine that almost a thousand years went by during which virtually nobody in the West knew anything about the majority of Greek philosophy. In retrospect, this period has rightly been dubbed the Dark Ages. But all that was about to change when the East and the West met in Florence, Italy in an attempt to heal the rift between the Orthodox and the Catholic churches.

Florence at the dawn of the Renaissance was, much like Alexandria a thousand years earlier, a melting pot of cultures and religions. And once again this kind of multicultural environment was exactly what was necessary for the Hermetica to resurface in Western Europe. The Hermetic writings proved an invaluable treasure to the thinkers of the late 15th and early 16th century, providing them with the terminology and the symbols to clothe their inquisitive thoughts about Man, God and the Universe.

Two men in particular stand out as having had particular importance in this process; Marcilio Ficino and Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. Ficino was the intellectual central figure of the newly formed Academy, Pico his student. Both made significant contributions to the development of Western thought; Ficino with his brilliant orations and countless translations of lost works, Pico with his unwavering faith in the human pursuit of knowledge. Both were magi; Ficino invoked the seven Hermetic spheres and clothed their essence in music, Pico sought to prove the divinity of Christ through the Kabbala.

As pagan traditions started to dwindle in the face of the rising popularity of Christianity in the third and fourth century C.E., a new interpretation of ancient philosophy was born. Drawing from the cosmology of the Thimaeus, this tradition attempted to revive the writings of Plato for a new time. This was a world view which gave place not only to the gods of the classic Greek mythology but also to an interpretation of the transcendent monotheistic deity. This school of philosophy later became known as Neoplatonism.

With its roots in 2nd century Alexandria, Neoplatonism shares much of its cultural heritage with hermetism. Yet Neoplatonism's most famous proponent was not an Alexandrian, but instead came from Syria. His name was Iamblichus. Orating within a tradition that oftentimes had little interest in magical pursuits, Iamblchus became an important apologetic of esoteric practices. The writings of Iamblichus include a new definition of sacred magic dubbed Theurgy, or divine-working, which ought to sound familiar even to many new age practitioners today.

Neoplatonism came to an abrupt end in 529 A.D. when Emperor Justinian forced the Neoplatonist schools in Alexandria and Athens to close their doors. However, neoplatonist philosophy survived outside the Christian world, being openly adopted in the Islamic world and having a profound influence on the medieval Kabbalists. Together with the Hermetism, Neoplatonist philosophy was revived in Western Europe at the early days of the Renaissance and was again studied and adopted by the intellectuals of a new time.

What is more righteous - to accept your fate, or to choose your own destiny? The clash between sorcery and mainstream religion can be followed through the ages back to Ancient Greece. An upright member of Greek society should not meddle with magical forces, or else they might dishonor the gods and bring misfortune upon all of society. Furthermore, sorcerers were unruly, unpredictable and unstable.

In this episode of Chasing Hermes we talk about what status the magical arts had in Ancient Egypt and what parallels we can draw with modern society.

The life of a magician in Ancient Egypt was tough. He had to get up early in the morning, wash, shave every hair from his body, pick up his magician's toolbox and go to work. Both the poor and the wealthy required his services: staving off evil warlocks, prescribing remedies to common illnesses, carving amulets and talismans, and providing enough mojo to the dearly departed to last them an eternity in the afterlife.

More than pyramids and mummies, Ancient Egypt was an intricately structured society where magicians had a prominent position. The magicians were called "scribes of the house of life" and had to undergo long training before they could practice their art. Often serving part-time as priests at a temple, these highly educated men were approachable intermediaries between the physical world and the supernatural.

In this episode, we explore some of the documented tricks of the Ancient Egyptian magician's trade and find some interesting parallels with today's western occultism. We also challenge some common perceptions about what the Egyptian amulets and talismans were used for.

Sometimes our quest for light takes us to some pretty dark and austere places. The Guardian on the Threshold, sometimes called the dweller, the watcher, or the lurker on the threshold, is the personification of your fears that appears as a gestalt, often during times of spiritual trials.

It was Lord Edward Bulwer Lytton who first put the dweller on the threshold into the literary world. Later authors such as Rudolf Steiner and C.G. Jung borrowed from Lytton's imagery to illustrate the concept of the shadow self, those undesired aspects of our past that we don't wish to acknowledge.

The Guardian stands as the accuser of our faults. Ultimately, he represents an acute and painfully uncomfortable reminder of our own mortality. Perhaps his true motives are to test our endurance and prepare us for the difficult road ahead. How strong is your determination? Can you endure the night while you wait for the dawn?

"Thou hast entered the immeasurable region. I am the Dweller of the Threshold. What wouldst thou with me? Silent? Dost thou fear me? Am I not thy beloved? Is it not for me that thou hast rendered up the delights of thy race? Wouldst thou be wise? Mine is the wisdom of the countless ages. Kiss me, my mortal lover."

- The Dweller speaks in Lytton's Zanoni

"One of the functions of the Inner Self is to prevent us from accessing higher levels if we do not possess the strength to endure them... This function of the Inner Self is sometimes called the 'Guardian on the Threshold'."

- Jean Dubuis from Philosophers of Nature.

What is sleep paralysis and how does it work? Can you create your own characters and interact with them in your dreams? Close your eyes and prepare to slide deeper into the world of lucid dreaming and astral projection! In this episode we answer some of the listener feedback that we received on episode 06 and our take on the astral projection phenomenon. Thank you everyone who wrote in with your comments and questions - keep 'em coming.

How can God allow evil to exist in the world? This question has riddled the minds of the philosophers for millennia. Leibniz coined this dilemma the theodicy problem: if God is omnipotent and benevolent, why does he not eradicate evil and suffering?

In this episode, we take a look at the Hermetic writings for clues to their understanding of the nature of evil and the sources of human suffering.

Welcome back to a new season of Chasing Hermes.

Hermetism was a dualist movement, one which believed not only in the duality of the world (a world of matter and a world of spirit), but also a duality of the divine. It was assumed that the universe was created and maintained by a creation god, but that above him there reigned a supreme god who did not interfere with creation directly. It was possible to perceive the god of creation through the senses, but the supreme god was unknowable except by reason (nous) and knowledge (gnosis). This supreme god is unnamable, or perhaps the bearer of all names at once, and is the author and source of all good in the world.

The Asclepius blatantly refuses to answer the question why humans suffer under god’s righteous rule, and focuses on the role of human conscience. It was god’s design to give man the faculty to avoid the evil which is an intrinsic part of the fabric of nature. God’s gift of Nous raises us above episteme (learning) and puts us on the path to gnosis, knowledge of god.

"Thus, Asclepius and Hammon, I have not said what the many say: ‘Was god not able to put an end to evil and banish it from nature?’ One need not respond to them at all, but for your sake I shall pursue this question as well since I have opened it, and I will give you an answer. Now these people say that god should have freed the world of every kind of evil, yet evil is so much in the world that it seems almost to be an organ of the world. Acting as reasonably as possible, the supreme god took care to provide against evil when he deigned to endow human minds with consciousness, learning and understanding, for it is these gifts alone, by which we surpass other living things, that enable us to avoid the tricks, snares and vices of evil. He that avoids them on sight,before they entangle him, that person has been fortified by divine understanding and foresight, for the foundation of learning resides in the highest good."

Asclepius 16

Our sojourn into the world of practical alchemy continues with a plunge into the last four of the seven alchemical principles - Conjunction, Fermentation, Distillation and Coagulation. These four stages represent the coagula process which must follow after the completion of the first three solve stages that we discussed in episode nine.

Conjunction is the recombination of the parts that were taken apart in the separation process.

Fermentation is the controlled decay of the substance in order to allow new life to arise.

Distillation extracts the alcohol created in the fermentation stage.

Coagulation finally joins the mercury, sulfur and salt

Due to the rather advanced nature of these discussions we recommend that you listen to part one before continuing with part two.