Date: Monday, February 26, 2024
Time: 7 pm ET
Admission: $8

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An underground stream runs throughout the history of esotericism and counterculture in the West that receives little attention but which greatly influenced Plato, Roman literary legends Virgil and Ovid, the troubadours, Dante, the Italian Renaissance, opera, Agrippa, Shakespeare, the English Romantic poets, the Parisian magus Eliphas Levi, Aleister Crowley, Jean Cocteau, Rainer Maria Rilke, Jack Kerouac, Jim Morrison, and the current Broadway hit musical Hadestown, to name only a few.

This talk will explore the mysterious world of Orpheus and the so-called Orphic death passports: passwords written on gold leaf intended to remind the dead of what to say when reaching the afterlife. In the world of Homer and the Olympian gods, the afterlife was dismal except for the most exceptional heroes. But then the first counterculture in western history arose and suddenly anyone initiated in the mysteries could achieve liberation from the "weary wheel of grief," not only the life just lived, but all the lives past and future doomed to be forgotten by the soul ignorant of itself.

Over the course of this talk, we’ll ponder the most famous Orphic passwords: "I am a child of earth and of starry heaven, but my race is of heaven." We'll look at how the Orphic ideas and myths have sparked countercultures throughout western history, and we'll examine why Ficino and Agrippa, two well springs of western esotericism, described the Orphic Hymns as the strongest magic.

Ronnie Pontiac was esotericist Manly P. Hall's research assistant for seven years. He's the author of American Metaphysical Religion: Esoteric and Mystical Traditions of the New World and co-author of The Magic of the Orphic Hymns: A New Translation for the Modern Mystic, both published by Inner Traditions. He's lectured for the Theosophical Society in America, Camp Chesterfield, the European School of Theosophy, and the Last Tuesday Society. He's also guitarist of Lucid Nation which evolved from a riot grrrl punk band to an experimental rock group. He's produced award winning documentary films including Viva Cuba Libre: Rap is War.

Image: Jean Delville, The Death of Orpheus, 1893