What is Hermeticism?

in some of my previous episodes i have mentioned in passing hermes and hermeticism as these are topics that often pop up in various places and that have played an important role in the history of religion and philosophy but as important as they are not too many people know what these words actually denote you may think of hermeticism as something esoteric connected to the occult sciences into things like magic for example or maybe you rightfully associate the name hermes with the greek god who goes by that name hermeticism is a topic that has interested philosophers mystics and scholars throughout the centuries from proclass to muslim philosophers like eben sabain and the israelis safa to marcilio ficino and that one spiritual aunt who everyone in the family thinks is kind of weird but how much has hermeticism actually influenced the history of religion turns out quite a lot actually which gives me good reason to dedicate a full episode to discussing this very fascinating subject so what is hermeticism [Applause] i have again chosen to join forces with my friend dr justin sledge on the channel esoterica to give you a double feature this time about hermeticism in this video i'll be talking more generally about the origins and philosophical ideas of hermeticism and dr sledge in his video on his channel will be talking specifically about the emerald tablet which is a fascinating hermetic text so please after you watch this one go check out his video and also subscribe to his channel it's a wonderful wonderful channel hermeticism is first and foremost a mystical called religious and philosophical movements connected to an ancient collection of writings and their supposed author hermes tris megistas it is a tradition that dates back primarily to late antiquity in a greco-egyptian environment but that has had a major influence on various different cultures religions and esoteric communities throughout history since then the central figure of this general trend hermes is an elusive figure one to whom a number of different legends and mythical stories are attributed but what we can be sure about is that hermes tris megistas in this particular manifestation and the movement and literature we usually refer to as hermetic originates in egypt during the time of hellenistic and roman occupation we're talking roughly between the conquest of alexander the great in the late 4th century bc to the 4th century ce or a d depending on what word you want to use this was an environment where the hellenistic culture which had origins in greece mingled and interacted with the native egyptian culture and nowhere was this more visible perhaps than in the sphere of religion while the native egyptians themselves were sometimes very hostile to religious and cultural syncretism the influence of greek language philosophy and religion became an inescapable reality the hellenistic leaders themselves often chose to syncretize their own religious background with the cults of egypt and this created some very interesting developments in this process many gods from the greek context were merged with egyptian deities gods who shared attributes or functions could be seen as the same god but with different names and they were as i just said sometimes also merged together and one such synthesis was made between the greek god hermes and the egyptian toth toth was one of the most popular deities in the egyptian pantheon he was associated with the ibis bird and is indeed usually depicted with an ibis's head toth served many different functions he was the god of writing the scribe and the messenger of the gods he was the god of wisdom one who invented the art of writing and the hieroglyphs composer of sacred literature like the book of the dead and the source of all occult and esoteric knowledge the god hermes of the greek pantheon served a quite similar role and the two quickly started to be associated with each other eventually resulting in the merged character or god of hermes tris megistas tris magustus meaning thrice greats and probably originates from an epithet for toth this character became associated with many different legends and traditions there are many different accounts about hermes and who he was but many of them considered him to have been human at some point or at least to have lived among humans and in very ancient times this human hermes is thought to have reached a kind of illumination and ascended to the world of the divine certainly a divine figure at the very least hermes was considered to have been the originator of many religious and philosophical traditions some claimed he was the teacher of moses or that of pythagoras and that his wisdom has been carried down in different lines through great figures like plato for example the jewish historian artapinus of alexandria who lived in the 2nd century bc even identified hermes with moses outright these various legends can be complicated and sometimes seem contradictory the toth of egyptian religion was clearly a distant and all-knowing abstract god while the hermes of greece had a more human background which probably resulted in these varying accounts some chroniclers including the egyptian priest manathoe even consider there to have been multiple hermeses it all gets very confusing and we're not going to dwell on the mythological character and legends around the figure of hermes himself that will have to be saved for a later episode but what is important or or what is relevant to know at this point is that sometime in antiquity there appeared many different writings a corpus of writings that was attributed to the figure of hermes considered to have been written by this figure hermes often considered to have been the originator of philosophy alchemy magic and astrology appears as author of a huge corpus of texts as a general term the wider collection of text attributed to him is known as the hermetica and when we talk about the hermetic texts they are often divided into two general categories the technical hermetica and the philosophical hermetica the former the technical hermetica consists of the majority of the texts dealing with such topics as magic astrology divination alchemy and other occult sciences while the latter the philosophical hermetica being more speculative and philosophical in nature thus having a rather different approach it is important to remember however that when we divide the hermetic literature into these general categories of technical and philosophical we are kind of creating or anachronistically dividing the literature into categories that the ancients or people of antiquity themselves probably wouldn't have conceived the early hermitis or readers of this literature probably wouldn't have divided the literature into these wider categories but i think these categorization can still be useful today it helps us navigate through a complex world of ancient literature as mentioned the technical hermetica make up the bulk of the material because indeed hermes was primarily associated or seen as the father or originator of occult sciences like magic and especially astrology just like toth was always seen in earlier egyptian religion hermes was the arch esotericist the source of wisdom and hidden knowledge indeed in the greek magical papyri it is said about hermes that he knows quotes all that is hidden under the heavenly vault and beneath the earth this very strong association of hermes with the occult survived for long after the texts were supposedly written far into the islamic period and into renaissance europe and beyond now even though the hermitis of antiquity probably conceived of all of these texts as actually being written by the sage or god or whatever you want to call him hermes tris megistas scholars today of course have a rather different perspective on it since hermes let's face it is most likely a mythical figure thus the dating of these texts is an often debated and discussed matter but the usual dating is that the larger corpus was composed from around a century to bc to around 300 or 400 a.d the technical hermetica is often considered to be the oldest at least certain parts of it perhaps dating to periods before the common era a few centuries before bc whereas the philosophical hermetica is usually considered to be later compositions likely in the second to third centuries a.d the most famous of the philosophical writings the so-called corpus hermeticum was most likely composed in 2nd century alexandria a melting pot of intellectual religious and cultural activity it was the zenith of hellenistic and roman rule in egypt and the corpus hermeticum among other texts most likely emerges in this very syncretistic environment while it is somewhat anachronistic to divide the literature into the technical and philosophical categories it does seem that the philosophical writings were often viewed as distinct and as forming a kind of unified whole even to people of antiquity references to the philosophical hermetica often group together many of these texts as representing some kind of unified movement and we can thus assume that much of this literature is the result of a somewhat coherent group or general movement that existed in antiquity probably in or around alexandria in egypt the corpus hermeticum is perhaps the most prominent and famous production of these hermitis it consists of 18 separate treatises talking about the individual soul and its potential ascent to the world of the divine noose or mind or intellect through what's known as gnosis but the text that reaches does so through several filters the collection of the corpus in particular was a compilation of byzantine christian editors in the middle ages the earliest attestation we have of the corpus is in the writings of michael selles in the 11th century the christian editors of these texts most likely did some editing leaving out sections of text that were too pagan in nature and leaving in only those acceptable to perceived christian orthodoxy in other words the philosophical hermetica that does survive like the corpus hermeticum for example probably does so because of these later compilations and the fact that they were deemed acceptable in contrast to other parts of the literature that is sadly lost to time but the hermetica that does survive is still very much significant despite the fact that they were edited by later scholars the text paints a lively picture of the cosmos and its relationship to god and it probably functioned primarily as an aid in spiritual development for individuals who were initiated into the hermetic secrets aside from the most famous corpus hermeticum the other philosophical hermetica that survives include the latin asclepius known originally in greek as the perfect discourse there is also the definitions of her mischievous megistas to asclepius sometimes known as the armenian definitions due to its surviving only an armenian manuscript there's also the compilations and excerpts of stobius of the fifth century called the stobayan excerpts as well as a very significant section found in nag hamadi including the fascinating discourse on the ogdo ad and the any ad even though these texts are different in some respects and can seemingly even contradict themselves in some places we'll return to this later they all seem to be the production of the same hermetic quote unquote movement of intellectual slash religious current in late antiquity indeed the famous late platonist philosopher iamblicus speaks about a court way of hermes indicating a certain path that was associated with these hermetic texts but what do these texts actually say as already mentioned the texts and philosophy of the philosophical hermetica were probably part of an initiatory group of spiritual aspirants although there are certain scholars today that question this idea and are skeptical towards it due to a lack of evidence which is understandable there are different opinions about whether or not this is true now most of these texts including indeed the corpus hermeticum take the form of you could call it teaching sessions so one-on-one sessions where a teacher discloses knowledge to a student the teacher in most cases being hermes himself while the student is one of the other recurring characters of the hermetica characters like asclepius and tot but on some occasions this trend is broken a prominent example is in the very first treatise of the corpus hermeticum known as the poi mandrus in which hermes is the one being taught by this other character called poemandres which the treatise is named after and this character poemandus is identified in the text as the noos the divine noose now nos is a word that is basically impossible to translate but it is usually rendered as the intellect or as the divine mind already we get a glimpse into the exalted and complex religious philosophical worlds of the hermetica or the philosophical america to be exact the texts were again probably used as spiritual aid for people who were initiated into this hermetic group although again some scholars will doubt this idea and these initiates were probably being led by a spiritual guide much like in the text themselves it seems that if there was this initiatory hermetic group the teacher-student relationship seems to have played a very important role which is then reflected in the text themselves the teacher would have been a very important factor in the spiritual ascent of the student towards the divine world this would have been central to the quote-unquote way of hermes that people like yamblicus spoke of the metaphysics and cosmology that the texts present is a colorful one at its center is god who is one and the creator of all things god is sometimes called the father in the text and the general attitude towards god is significantly more devotional and personal than for example in the later neoplatonic writings of platinus aside from god the hermitis then divide reality into various spheres there's god again there's the intelligible world the physical world and the human being in a kind of descending order the human being however is the microcosm of creation and thus at least in his spiritual or noetic intellectual reality is exalted above other inhabitants of the cosmos including even lesser deities and gods this idea of the human being as a microcosm of the larger macrocosm of the universe or divine world is a theme that will recur continuously in history and even outside of hermeticism as well aside from this the system also includes various planetary spheres diamonds and divinities fitting for a late antique philosophical environment but even though they seem to divide the world into a hierarchy of sorts this entire cosmos is intimately interconnected and united in sympathea everything in the world is connected and interacts in other words this is an idea that is probably taken from the stoics indeed the hermitis present a monistic picture of reality where everything is a divine unity in the words of the scholar garth fouden quote thus everything is part of god and god is in everything his creative activity continuing unceasingly all things are one and the pleiroma of being is indestructible despite this the human being is especially exalted as having a divine spark or in a sense being divine in nature at least more so than other things the soul of the human being can ascend through this hierarchy of being to reach communion with the divine noose and with god himself it is with this that the philosophical hermetica is primarily concerned the texts were again most likely part of an initiatory spiritual practice that aimed to purify the soul of impurity to shed attachment and connection to the body and the world of matter and to ascend to become unified and assimilated into the one god so that the person himself becomes divine it seems that the hermetic practices included a kind of asceticism but not to any extreme degree we don't find the kind of world neglecting negative attitudes of the gnostics for example in these texts well actually sometimes we do it's complicated indeed many scholars have pointed out and if you read the text you will probably see yourself that the texts aren't always that consistent in its expressions sometimes the material world the physical world is seen as a beautiful manifestation or expression of god or and of divinity a world that is worthy of being admired and of being studied and then in other texts the world is seen as a negative prison that is to be escaped entirely for example in the asclepius or perfect discourse sex the sexual act is praised as a great pleasure and a mirroring of the creative act of god and in parts of the corpus the text suggests that one should definitely have children for example quote prudent people therefore regard the making of children as a duty in life to be taken most seriously and greatly revered and should any human being pass away childless they see it as the worst misfortune and irreverence but in other treatises of the corpus we are presented with the opposite image with sex being considered a great curse similarly the vision of reality seems to change across treatises as well in some sections we are presented with a monistic philosophy with all of reality being one and god being identified with the all the physical world is thus a beautiful manifestation of this god quote for there is nothing in all the cosmos that he is not he is himself the things that are and those that are not those that are he has made visible those that are not he holds within him this is the god who is greater than any name this is the god invisible and entirely visible this god who is evident to the eyes may be seen in the mind he is bodiless and many-bodied or rather he is all-bodied there is nothing that he is not for he also is all that is and this is why he has all names because they are of one father and this is why he has no name because he is father of them all but on the other hand again in other treatises or sections the picture is a lot more dualistic with the world being seen as the opposite of god and it's a kind of curse or a kind of prison that is to be escaped so what's up with these paradoxical statements scholars previously and some today have argued that because of these great contradictions in the text this must mean that the different treatises of the text were probably written by different groups altogether so different people with different philosophical outlooks and they were only sort of grouped together into a single corpus at a later date however many today have taken a different route in interpreting these texts and the seemingly paradoxical statements within them the scholar garth fowden argues that this diversity of perspectives is not the result of different outlooks philosophically but instead represent the gradual development and ascent of the spiritual initiate in other words some of the treatises are meant for a person in the early stages of spiritual development and present one view of reality in the world while others like the heavily abstract progress are aimed at more advanced students who have reached a higher state of purification because indeed the hermitis were concerned with two different kinds of knowledge what they called episteme and gnosis the former category episteme is the product of reason and consists of all forms of exterior or conceptual knowledge of things graspable to the mind the latter gnosis is the product of a different kind of understanding a direct ineffable non-conceptual experience of the truth through spiritual insight and what gnosis of god and one's own true nature is clearly the goal for the hermitis episteme or knowledge of the world is also very important to know god we must first know creation through studying it as the corpus itself puts it quote gnosis is the goal of episteme or in these tourbillon fragments quote without philosophy it is impossible to be perfectly pious he who learns of what nature things are and how they are ordered and by whom and to what end will be thankful for all things to the creator and to a good father a kindly foster and a faithful guardian he who is thankful will be a pious man and the pious man will know where and what truth is and through this knowledge will become still more pious this is why the beauty and nobility of the physical world is emphasized in many of the treatises this perspective is an important step on the way however once the practitioner reaches a higher stage of development and ideally of gnosis he can transcend this perspective as he sheds his connection to the world of matter and form and when the soul ascends enough to reach perfect gnosis he will be reborn not in a physical sense of course but in a spiritual sense he will become one with the noose the divine mind and with god himself transforming his soul into a divine status this is just a simplified walkthrough of the contents of the philosophical hermetica but it gives you a pretty good idea of some recurring themes and features that it is known for and which would become so influential in later times in different religious and philosophical currents indeed while we know very little about the actual people who wrote the hermetica these texts and nothing of their so-called movement survives today still the techs themselves had incredible staying power across history and across a diverse array of different circumstances and contexts in religious and philosophical environments hermes was a powerful name and figure who continued to be revered in different forms in different religions but always with a strong association to the occult to astrology and alchemy some of the early church fathers of christianity like clement of alexandria seems to have read the text and considered hermes a great teacher of the world's wisdoms it also became important for later philosophers like the late platonist the amplicus and proclass and for alchemists like sozimos of panopoulos after the arrival of islam and the islamic civilization hermes and hermeticism or hermetism continued to influence religious and philosophical currents in this context as well hermes was often identified with the quranic prophet idris and the biblical enoch and thus seen as one of the great messengers of god and originator of hidden wisdoms from early philosophers like al-kindi and abu mashar in baghdad to the world of medieval andalusia and sufi philosophers like ibn sabain and al-shushtali hermes and the teachings associated with him continue to be very influential in the islamic world in the great arabic sufi poet al-shushtali's poem known as the crasada nunea in other words the old rhyming in the letter noon he lists some of his great spiritual teachers and forebearers and includes names like plato aristotle and indeed hermes which text in particular these people had access to and thus which ideas they picked up and from where is hard to say for sure but hermeticism got a serious shot in the arm in europe in the 15th century when the corpus hermeticum was rediscovered and translated for the first time into latin by marcelio ficino hermes and the hermetica would be seen both in later europe and earlier in the medieval islamic world as very ancient and as the originator of teachings inherited by people like moses and the great prophets as well as philosophers of history the hermetica had an enormous impact on the world of western esotericism from that point and even to this very day hermeticism today can be a lot of different things it is often very loosely connected to any general esoteric wisdom or occult knowledge but it all stems back to the ancient collection of texts that is attributed to the figure of hermes just megistas today we know that the text most likely didn't originate with hermes himself and that the stories about him and his role in history of philosophy and religion is probably mythical but that doesn't change the fact that the hermetic literature has been immensely influential and played a central role in the history of esotericism occultism as well as religion mysticism and philosophy in general much of what we associate with occult sciences magic astrology and alchemy is very strongly connected to the hermetic tradition all these various topics and incarnations of the figure of hermes across history and different cultures there's all the serbs videos of their own but in this video i have attempted to give a general outlook of the basic hermetic texts and the movement in which those texts emerge and a little bit about how those texts have influenced later religious and philosophical currents as well hermes just megistas the toth of egyptian religion continues to exert his mystical influence upon us the vast body of literature attributed to him serves as one of the treasures of intellectual history as a part of our collective heritage that isn't always given its due even though it has played such a major role now given the topic of this video it was only natural that this was to be another collaboration with my good friend dr justin sledge from the channel esoterica dr sledge is an expert on all things hermeticism he has studied these topics for many many years and his amazing channel esoterica deals primarily with what he calls the arcane side of history philosophy and religion i cannot recommend his channel enough especially for topics like this his companion video to this one will be dealing with the emerald tablet one of the most famous texts from the wider hermetic corpus so please go check out that video and go subscribe to his channel if you haven't already it really is so so great and you will gain a lot of benefits from watching his videos this video as always is brought to you by our patrons i would like to give a special shout out to the new saint larry hughes and a thank you to all of you who keep supporting me monetarily it really is making all the difference in me being able to give you free content that is both academic and scholarly based i really appreciate it thank you all so so much look forward to more content related to this in the future as there is so much to cover here and so much interesting stuff so look forward to that in the future thank you all for watching i hope you enjoyed the video if you want to support the channel you can like subscribe and comment on the video you can also become a patron i will leave a link to our patreon page in the description you can also leave a one-time donation through paypal i look forward to seeing your opinions in the comments and to continue this discussion with you in various ways and i'll see you next time [Music] you

Channel: Let's Talk Religion

Views: 942,585

Keywords: What is Hermeticism, Hermeticism, Hermetism, Hermes, Hermes Trismegistus, Occultism, Esotericism, Corpus Hermeticum, Hermetica, Magic, Magick, Ancient Magic, Monism, Ancient Egypt, Asclepius, Philosophy, Who is Hermes, Prophet Idris, Enoch, Book of Enoch, Origins of Occultism, Occult, Alchemy, History alchemy, Astrology, Hermes magic, Western Esotericism, Ancient Wisdom, Spirituality, Gnosticism, What is gnosticism, Platonism

Id: zoPtrb2eMCQ

Length: 29min 33sec (1773 seconds)

Published: Fri May 28 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/ZeddzDeadd]

Very good video for anyone interested in a general overview of hermeticism and the difference between the technical and the philosophical

[u/sigismundo_celine]

Very good video. Surprising was that he mentioned the "old" view that the Way of Hermes begins with a positive worldview and ends with a negative view. Christian Bull and Wouter Hanegraaff, amongst others, see it the other way.

[u/iloskull]

I would say that it is a way of thinking, something that seekers of truth all find themselves directed into the same results about our nature of being. Alchemy, Magick and Astrology are tools that one can use to experiment with the visible and invisible forces of nature to gain answers of the complexity of the universe, (micro and macro). Hermeticism is good for people that want to know those answers like, why do we exist, how did we get here, what is our purpose. These questions, in peoples minds, have been teasing us since the beginning of time and still, even now, our drive to reach our source is inevitable.