CARROLL R. RUNYON, JR. “Poke” Runyon was 28 years old when he wrote NIGHT JUMP – CUBA and a Captain in the U.S. Army Reserves 13th Special Forces Group, Airborne, located in his home town of St. Petersburg, Florida. Poke had joined the Regular Army's 77th Special Forces as an enlisted man in 1957 and completed most of his Special Forces training at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, before being sent to Officer's Candidate School at Ft. Benning, Georgia. After receiving his commission in the Reserve, he was assigned to the 13th SFG, Abn., as the leader of an A-Detachment (A-team). He moved to California 1966 and worked for Carroll Shelby's Automotive company as an industrial artist, and wrote screenplays for the Swanson Agency in Hollywood. In 1968 he suffered a near terminal illness and had a mystical revelation. He recovered and founded the occult order The Order of the Temple of Astarte (O.T.A.) to teach the conjuring of angels and spirits according to his vision. In 1971 he was recruited by the F.B.I. to create a Satanic cult as a sting operation to entrap an illegal dealer in explosives. The operation was dangerous but ended successfully. Poke used his “get out jail free card” to rescue his friend and occult mentor, Frederick Adams, from a false charge of child endangerment. The rumor circulated that Poke's O.T.A. was “a C.I.A. mind-control cult.” It was not, but Poke had published a popular article “Magick and Hypnosis,” and his background in Special Forces was well known. But after Project Lucifer Poke has ceased trying to emulate James Bond. “Being a real magician is enough Super-Heroism to satisfy my ego these days,” he says.
