User:King Vegita/Hermetism

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For other uses of "Hermetic", see Hermetic (disambiguation).

Hermetism is a religion based upon the Corpus Hermeticum and the literature inspired by the corpus; separated from Hermeticism, which encompasses other works centered upon Hermes Trismegistus.[1]

was the religion of the philosophical elite of Ancient Egypt. In the ancient days, every pagan nation (i.e. those of the classical pantheons: Greece, Egypt, Mesopotamia, Nordic, Druidic, etc) had two religions. The first of these two was that of the philosophical elite which celebrated a pantheistic religion hidden among its mystery schools. Second was the common religion which took the teachings of the mystery schools and turned them into allegorical stories, or myths of gods and goddesses, themselves personifications of aspects of the Universe. The common man was seen as not having enough intelligence to comprehend the mysteries, and so took literally the polytheistic teachings. [2]

In the case of Hermetism, Egyptian mythology was used in ceremonies practiced by the mystery schools at certain times of the year and initiations of members into various grades of access to their knowledge. [3] It might be fairer to say that Hermetism was the higher form of Ancient Egyptian religion.

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[edit] Etymology

Hermetism is derived from the name Hermes. Hermes Trismegistus is said to be the founder of Hermetism, and was known to the Egyptians as Thoth and the Greeks as Hermes. [4] Hermes comes from the ancient Greek root herm which means "vitality" or "the active, positive, radiant principle of nature." [5] To the Hermetists, herm would represent the Masculine aspect of the Universe.

[edit] History

Hermetism, according to traditional accounts, stems from the teachings of Hermes Trismegistus, who is purported to have given to all of the ancient world its spiritual truths hidden in myth, which are symbolized in Isis, and is said to be the founder of Egyptian learning. [6] This would mean that Hermetism reaches back at least many millennia BCE, into the era of prehistory. Manly P. Hall, occult and Hermetic scholar, does not stop there however. Hall takes credence in the stories of Atlantis, which is said to have passed through the Egyptians to Solon, and then to Plato. [7] Hall was under the impression that the Atlanteans had, for the most part, fallen from the Path of Light and some of those still of the light fled Atlantis to settle in Egypt. These Atlanteans supposedly became the first "divine" rulers of Egypt and brought their teachings of the Light, which provided the basis for Hermetism. [8] Texts of unverified age and questionable relation to The Emerald Tablet of Hermes Trismegistus do exist which purport to be the 36,000 year old work of Thoth the Atlantean [9]

Hermes is usually equated with being the Egyptian god Thoth [10] Manly P. Hall believed that Hermes Trismegistus was a man named Thoth who was raised to the status of a god [11] and The Kybalion suggests the same, adding that he was not only deified by the Egyptians, but also the Greeks as the god Hermes. [12] However, it is also claimed that Plutarch, in translating the account of Osirus and Horus, replaced the name Thoth with the name of Hermes, which may be much of the cause for this indistinction between the two. [13] Hermes is said to have revealed to man the arts of "medicine, chemistry, law, art, astrology, music, rhetoric, magic, philosophy, geography, mathematics, anatomy, and oratory." [14] This is probably embellished, especially since many may have taken the pen name of Hermes or Thoth because of a belief that Hermes was really the author of all books on philosophical and religious subjects, while the human authors merely wrote what he impressed on their minds. [15] It should be noted, however, that Hermetists viewed Hermes as a man, not a god.

Some scholars, such as the literary scholar Harold Bloom insist that the Hermetists date only to the first century CE. Bloom writes:

"The Hermetists were Platonists who had absorbed the allegorical techniques of Alexandrian Jewry, and who developed the Jewish speculation concerning the first Adam, the Anthropos or Primal Man, called the Adam Kadmon in Kabbalah, and 'a mortal god' by the Hermetists...."

This claim however is not accepted by all, particularly those who study the occult roots of Hermetism. Such scholars claim that both Plato and Judaism were primarily influenced by Hermetism, not the other way around.

Thomas Taylor, the first English translator of Plato's texts, believed that Plato was initiated into the Egyptian mystery schools at the age of 49, in one of the subterranean halls of the Great Pyramid of Giza. [16] Plato's work was greatly criticized for revealing many of these Hermetic mysteries in his writings available to those outside the mystery schools. [17] If these assertions are correct, then it would be correct to call Plato's work Hermetic and not the Hermetists Platonic.

Moses, the patriarch of Judaism, is also claimed to have been initated into the Hermetic Mysteries. [18] The name משה, meaning Moses, may be an anagram for שמה, a name for the Sun. This is significant since many of the initiates into the Hermetic Mysteries were given names synonymous with the Sun to symbolize its powers of redemption and regeneration within them. [19] (for more information see Hermeticism#Judaism)

It is hard to trace the Hermetic texts back all these millennia because of an event in 391 CE. In Alexandria, a woman named Hypathia, an initiate into the Hermetic Mysteries, took on the growing creed of Christianity head on. She had convinced the people of Alexandria that the beliefs of Christianity were all of pagan origin as well as that the miracles of Jesus of Nazareth were available to all by demonstrating the natural laws behind them. [20] Though her murder didn't take place until 415 CE, it is an example of why the event in 391 CE happened. In that year, her works, along with most of the Hermetic texts, perished when the Great Library of Alexandria was burnt to the ground by the Romans.

The Romans and Christians both realized that so long as the Hermetic texts remained, Egypt could not be subjugated. Those books which survived the flames were subsequently buried in the desert in locations known only to those initiated in the mystery schools, and what has happened to them since is not public knowledge. [21] Among those that may know today could be the Order of Freemasons which claims lineage to the Egyptian Mysteries.

Hermetism appears to have died off with Christianity's rise in Greece and Egypt following its adoption by the Roman Empire. However, some of its texts were rediscovered in 1460 CE, and were translated in 1471 CE by Marsilio Ficino as the Corpus Hermeticum. This resulted in the rebirth of Hermetism as Hermeticism, embodied by the likes of John Dee, Giordano Bruno, Tommaso Campanella, Johannes Trithemius, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, Robert Fludd, and Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim Paracelsus.

(For more information see Hermeticism#History)

[edit] References

  1. ^ (Faivre "Western Hermeticism and the Concept of Western Esotericism" from Gnosis and Hermeticism: from Antiquity to Modern Times pp. 109-10)
  2. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages pp. 39-40)
  3. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages pp. 428-9)
  4. ^ (Three Initiates pp. 17-8)
  5. ^ (Hall The Hermetic Marriage p. 223)
  6. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages pp. 125-6)
  7. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages p. 82)
  8. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages p. 85)
  9. ^ (Doreal p. i)
  10. ^ (Abel and Hare p. 5)
  11. ^ (Hall The Hermetic Marriage p. 223)
  12. ^ (Three Initiates pp. 17-8)
  13. ^ (Abel and Hare p. 5)
  14. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages p. 93)
  15. ^ (Hall The Hermetic Marriage p. 224)
  16. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages p. 162)
  17. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages p. 40)
  18. ^ (Regardie p. 16)
  19. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages p. 428)
  20. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages p. 650)
  21. ^ (Hall The Secret Teachings of All Ages p. 96)

[edit] Sources

Abel, Christopher R. and Hare, William O. (1997). Hermes Trismegistus: An Investigation of the Origin of the Hermetic Writings. Sequim: Holmes Publishing Group. 

Hall, Manly P. (date unknown). The Hermetic Marriage. Kessinger Publishing. 

Hall, Manly P. (1928 (copyright not renewed)). The Secret Teachings of All Ages. San Francisco: H.S. Crocker Company. 

Regardie, Israel (1940). The Golden Dawn. St. Paul: Llewellyn Publications. 

Three Initiates (1912). The Kybalion. Chicago: The Yogi Publication Society/Masonic Temple. 

Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. University of Chicago Press 1964. Scholarly analysis of Hermetism and it's impact on the leading philosophers of the Renaissance.

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

  • The Corpus Hermeticum & Hermetic Tradition: Texts of the Corpus Hermeticum, along with introductory material. Included here are three complete introductory works by G.R.S. Mead on Hermetic tradition (part of the Gnosis Archive website).
  • Online copy of Dr. M. Doreal's controversial translation of The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, commentary not included.