On Thursday May 26th, 2022 The Hermetic Hour with host Poke Runyon and guest Maximilian Paul will review and discuss Howard Phillips Lovecraft’s tour-d-force horror novel “The Case of Charles Dexter Ward” written in 1927 and published posthumously in 1941. This macabre epic has influenced the works of Stephen King and Clive Barker and has inspired two film versions, which we will also review and discuss. The Charles Dexter Ward story deals primarily with traditional supernatural themes: Alchemy, Necromancy, Medieval black magic, vampirism and demonic possession. The central character Charles Dexter Ward is a young scholar in Providence Rhode Island in the 1920s who becomes fascinated with the history of his notorious 17th century ancestor Joseph Curwen. The wizard Curwen had moved from Salem to Providence to avoid the witchcraft trails in 1699. He was an alchemist fascinated with a necromantic version of palinogenesis; raising the dead from their cremated remains. He with two equ...