The Red Goddess by Peter Grey

On Thursday May 4th, 2017 the Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon will  review and discuss "The Red Goddess" (2007) and "Lucifer Princeps"  (2015) by Thelemic magician Peter Grey. The Red Goddess is devoted to  establishing the history and mistique of the Thelemic composite pagan  goddess "Babalon", which he correctly derives from Ishtar and Astarte.  This evolution is for the most part well-researched and well reasoned  from a Thelemic perspective, although Grey is critical of Crowley and  seems to think that Babalon is too good for the Beast. Most importantly  he supports the Divine feminine in magical religion. In "Lucifer  Princeps" he does the same for Lucifer on the male side of the magical  religious pantheon. In this case he works from Isaiah back to the Book  of Enoch, correctly concluding that Lucifer was originally Semyaza and  of Canaanite origin. With the exception of his interest in Simon Magus  Grey seems to ignore the early Christian Gnostic contributions to Magick  but his books are nonetheless readable and thought provoking -- so tune  in and we shall look at our magical history through a glass darkly.