Hermeticism: The Ancient Wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus

The legendary figure of Hermes Trismegistus  (Hermes Thrice Great) is the inspiration for the   spiritual teachings known as Hermeticism. He is  a syncretism (joining) of the Greek deity Hermes,   the winged messenger of the Gods, and his Egyptian  counterpart, the Ibis-headed moon god Thoth.  Hermes and Thoth were considered to be one  and the same. Both of them were psychopomps,   guides in the land of the dead. Thoth is  also the god who presides over speech and   interpretation. He is the inventor of the  alphabet and the art of writing. Ever since,   humans have been using writing to preserve the  vast array of accumulated knowledge. Thoth is   called the heart of Re, the tongue of Atum,  the throat of the God whose name is hidden.   As divine speech personified, he is the creator  of every branch of knowledge, human and divine.  When Hermes met Thoth in Greco-Egyptian  Alexandria, Hermes Trismegistus was born. Not   long after, followers of the thrice-great one came  together and devoted themselves to understanding   his wisdom and to achieving the same cosmic  illumination that Hermes himself had experienced.  Hermes Trismegistus is the author of the famed  Emerald Tablet, which is the source of the   most well-known Hermetic dictum, ‘as above,  so below’, the key to astrology, alchemy,   and other occult sciences, the Emerald Tablet  has a history as mysterious as its author’s.  If we call Hermes a “myth”, we thereby  recognise that he is greater and more   significant than any one historical figure,  for he represents a perennial pattern of the   human condition. Hermes is a person without  crystallised personality, an archetype,   that perhaps represents all truth-seekers, or  the truth-seeker. Certainly, he experiences that   which all truth seekers hope to experience. The Neoplatonic sage Iamblichus writes:  “Hermes, the deity who presides over rational  discourses, has long and rightly been considered   common to all who practice the sacred arts.  He who presides over true science concerning   gods is one and the same throughout the  universe. It is to him that our ancestors   dedicated the discoveries of their wisdom,  attributing all their own writings to Hermes.”  Many authors wrote under the name of Hermes,  as this was logical for devotees of Hermes.   True wisdom and learning merited ascription  to the lord of all learning. According to   the Egyptian priest and historian Manetho, there  were over thirty-six thousand books written under   the pseudonym of Hermes Trismegistus, which would  easily fill the shelves of a large temple library.  There are existing treatises on the origin and  nature of the soul, the principles of creation,   astrology, alchemy, magic, healing, and  much more. However, most of these are lost,   but from scattered references we can  assume that many more Hermetic works   existed than we have copies of today. The origin of the epithet ‘thrice great’   is believed to have come from the Ibis shrine  in Sakkara, Egypt. Records there of a meeting   of the Ibis cult in 172 BC mention the name  megistou kai megistou theou megalou Hermou,   ‘the greatest and the greatest god, great Hermes.’  The epithet ‘thrice-great’ thus reflects the   intensifying repetition of the Egyptian adjective.  He is also known as thrice-greatest on account of   being the greatest priest, philosopher, and  king. Another explanation of the epithet was   on account of his praise of the trinity, saying  that there is one divine nature in the trinity.  In the 15th century Italian humanist scholars  Marsilio Ficino and Ludovico Lazarrelli played   a key role in translating the Corpus. Ficino,  who had been working on translating the collected   works of the divine Plato for his patron Cosimo  de’ Medici, immediately interrupted his work when   a manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum became  available. These had previously been compiled   by the 11th century Byzantine scholar Michael  Psellus, who had no interest in pagan practices,   the only reason he would have copied the  texts would be to “improve” them so as to   make them more compatible with Christian  beliefs, purging the tracts of suspicious,   occult elements. Thus, the writings that  reached Marsilio were more than likely not   originally collected in the way he received them. The Corpus was thought to have been lost to the   west since late antiquity and the beginning  of the Dark Ages. However, while cities fell   and empires crumbled, the fragile pages of  the Corpus Hermeticum miraculously survived,   testament to how the mind, that insubstantial  mystery, can withstand the harshest blows of the   material world. The Hermetic quest took place  within, in the interior world, that was true;   but it travelled roads in the outer world as well. The idea of a divine wisdom revealed only to   the most ancient of sages was developed  in the Renaissance, into the notion of   a prisca theologia or “ancient theology”, the  perennial notion which asserted that a single,   true theology exists in all religions, and  that it was given by God to man in antiquity.  Many thinkers of the Traditionalist or  Perennialist School of the 20th and 21st century   followed this idea, and spoke of a perennial  wisdom, based on the belief that ages ago,   mankind received an original and once-and-for-all  divine revelation. This was subsequently   lost – although traces of it, they believe, can  be found in the world’s greatest religions – and   until it is recovered, modern civilisation  will remain mired in materialism and decadence.  During the Renaissance, it was accepted that  Hermes Trismegistus was a contemporary of Moses.   And all texts attributed to him were believed  to be of ancient Egyptian origin, and thus more   authoritative than Plato and the Bible. The 1481  pavement in Siena Cathedral depicts a large image   of Hermes apparently instructing men from both  East and West. On the floor below Hermes are   inscribed in Latin the words ‘Hermes Trismegistus,  the contemporary of Moses’. It was generally   considered that Hermes had either instructed  Moses, or been instructed by him, or both. Thus,   in the Renaissance Hermes was a kind of founding  father of the Judaeo-Christian tradition.   He was a central figure in the vision of a  perennial philosophy uniting reason and faith.  At the beginning of the 17th century, however,  the classical scholar Isaac Casaubon took issue   with the notion that pagan seers had predicted  Christ’s coming. One of his targets was Hermes,   in whose alleged writings he saw unmistakable  linguistic proof of a much later date than   the common tales of Egyptian origins could  support. Casaubon detected Platonic, Jewish,   and Christian language and ideas, and concluded  that the Hermetic teachings date from the early   Christian period, between the first and third  centuries AD in Alexandria, a city then ruled   by Rome, but culturally a cosmopolitan mix of  Greek, Egyptian, Jewish and other traditions.  This discovery, combined with a strong  anti-Hermetic movement within the Church,   and the rise of modern science – evidence of a  profound shift in western consciousness – meant   the downfall of the thrice-great one. Hermeticism  had lost its general fascination and was driven   underground. Several Hermetic societies were  formed, such as the Rosicrucians, the Freemasons,   and the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. The discovery of three new and integral Hermetic   writings found near Nag Hammadi in Egypt in  1945 renewed interest in Hermeticism again.   One of them, called, Discourse on the Ogdoad  and Ennead, shows without any doubt that the   Hermetic believer was initiated into several  grades before transcending the sphere of the   seven planets and the heaven of the fixed stars.  Then he would behold God and be united with him.   The Dutch scholar Gilles Quispel writes: “It is now completely certain that there   existed before and after the beginning of the  Christian era in Alexandria a secret society,   akin to a Masonic lodge. The members of  this group called themselves ‘brethren,’   were initiated through a baptism of the Spirit,  greeted each other with a sacred kiss, celebrated   a sacred meal and read the Hermetic writings as  edifying treatises for their spiritual progress.”  Whether or not there actually existed  organised communities of Hermetic devotees,   we do not know. It seems plausible that the  Hermetic treatises originated in loosely organised   circles of people in the educated milieus  of Hellenistic Egypt, who almost certainly   included people who had experienced altered  states of consciousness, and others who were   convinced that these experiences were possible. Moreover, criticisms of Casaubon lost much of   their force. For even if the Corpus Hermeticum  was written down rather late, its concepts could   easily be very old and Egyptian. And in  fact, the basic principles of emanation,   of the world as an overflow from God, and  of man as a ray of sunlight (“All is one,   and one is all”) are typically ancient Egyptian. Modern scholars have somewhat artificially but   helpfully distinguished between the technical  Hermetica and the religio-philosophical Hermetica.  The technical Hermetica that deals with topics  such as astrology, medicine, botany, alchemy,   and magic, may go back as far as the second or  third century BC. Some of the key texts include   the Liber Hermetis, the Greek Magical Papyri,  the Book of Asclepius Called Myriogenesis,   as well as the Emerald Tablet, among others. On the other hand, we have the   religio-philosophical Hermetica, a series of  religious, mystical, or spiritual teachings,   of an initiatory character, written between the  first and third centuries AD. The core text is   the Corpus Hermeticum, which is a collection of  seventeen anonymous writings, some of which have   not survived intact. The name of this collection  can be somewhat misleading, since it contains   only a small selection of extant Hermetic texts,  whereas the word corpus is usually reserved for   the entire body of extant writings related to some  author or subject. These writings are original,   separate works, rather than part of one book. The  selection criteria for the bundling are not known.  Other texts of the religio-philosophical Hermetica  include the slightly longer Latin treatise,   the Asclepius; texts and fragments collected in  the Anthology of Stobaeus, the three Hermetica   found with the Nag Hammadi Codices, the Armenian  Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius,   the Oxford and Vienna fragments, and other  fragments by authors and testimonies.  Salvation in the largest sense – the  resolution of man’s fate wherever it finds   him – was a common concern of the technical  and religio-philosophical Hermetica alike.  The purpose of the Hermetica is not to  argue the truth of its propositions;   their meaning is the change they effect in  the hearts of the readers in awakening them   to the truth. For this to take place, it is  important to have a translation that reflects   the inspirational intent of these writings. So, where should one start learning about   Hermeticism? It is not uncommon for people  to first encounter Hermetic teachings in The   Kybalion by the Three Initiates. However,  this is not an ancient text. Many of the   teachings are representative of New Thought,  and a lot of the content is not found in the   classical Hermetic texts. This is not to  discount its importance in popularising   the hermetic teachings and helping people to  rediscover the ancient texts. In fact, it can   be an excellent gateway to the original sources. The classic text is the Hermetica translated by   Brian P. Copenhaver, which contains the Corpus and  the Asclepius, as well as a detailed introduction   and extensive notes. If one wants to dig deeper,  the Hermetica II by M. David Litwa completes   Copenhaver’s work, it includes twenty-nine  fragments from the Greek anthologist Stobaeus,   the longest and most interesting of which is  the Korē Kosmou or "The Daughter of the Cosmos”,   which suggests that all knowledge – medical,  magical and any other – is important in   the quest for salvation. Other texts are the  Oxford and Vienna Hermetica, several fragments   from various authors and testimonies  about Hermes from thirty-eight authors.  Another excellent translation is The Way  of Hermes by Clement Salaman and others,   which contains the Corpus and the Definitions. The  other important text is the Asclepius: The Perfect   Discourses of Hermes Trismegistus, also translated  by Salaman. This is a great start for beginners.  The Greek Magical Papyri by Hans Dieter Betz  is a collection of magical spells and formulas,   hymns, and rituals from Greco-Roman Egypt. Some  of these spells have as their goal inspiration,   literally filling with pneuma or spirit. This  occult knowledge is gained by calling upon   the gods and spirits through ritual and  magical incantation, leading to theosis,   the cathartic purification of mind and body  through the divine union with the gods.  More scholarly work includes Garth Fowden’s  The Egyptian Hermes and Kevin van Bladel’s   The Arabic Hermes, which lay more stress on the  contribution of Egyptian and Islamic thought to   the Hermetic tradition, both of which had  historically been denied, in favour of a   one-sided view of Hellenistic influence. Most Hermetic scholars have tried to make   the Hermetica as Greek and philosophical as  possible, thus losing the sight of many of the   core spiritual teachings. Since the late 1970s,  this perspective has given way to a new and more   complex one, calling much more attention  to the Egyptian and religious dimensions   of the hermetic writings. Whereas before the  salvational insights received during “ecstatic”   states were dismissed as “literary fictions”,  they were now taken more seriously as possibly   reflecting ritual practices that took place in  hermetic communities. However, Hermeticism is a   religion different from any other, it is without  temples or liturgy, followed in the mind alone.  A more recent publication on hermetic teachings  is Wouter Hanegraaff’s Hermetic Spirituality and   the Historical Imagination: Altered States  of Knowledge in Late Antiquity. In the book,   he challenges the historically dominant  narrative of interpreting the Hermetic   writings as philosophical treatises. For  Hanegraaff, this misses the essence of   what this movement was all about, namely, the  spiritual path for healing the soul and the   transformation of consciousness. That is why the  emphasis should be placed on spiritual practice.  The Way of Hermes involved altered states  of consciousness in which practitioners   claimed to perceive the true nature of reality  behind the hallucinatory veil of appearances.   Practitioners went through a training regime that  involved luminous visions, spiritual rebirth,   cosmic consciousness, and union with the divine  beauty of universal goodness and truth to attain   the salvational knowledge known as gnosis. It  is this altered state of consciousness that   leads to altered states of knowledge. At the heart of the Hermetic teaching   is the realisation that the individual  is fundamentally no different from the   Supreme. This realisation is gnosis, a single,  immediate event, characterised as a second birth.   This teaching outlines the spiritual path that  prepares the way for this gnosis, which is not   achieved by any effort of the ordinary mind,  but is rather the result of divine wisdom.  Gnosis is a Greek word meaning knowledge, but it  is a knowledge different from episteme (another   Greek word for knowledge) which is propositional,  that is, knowing what a thing is. Gnosis is not   attained through argument, logic or empirical  observation. It is not rational, but religious   and mystical knowledge that is revealed,  which is the way to individual salvation.  We live in ignorance, unaware of the true  nature of reality and of our place in it.   For many people, perhaps most, this isn’t a  problem. They accept day-to-day life and do   not ask why we are here and what we are supposed  to do now that we are. The seekers of gnosis,   however, are unsatisfied with this. Many of  these agnostics, argue that we cannot know   what we want to know, defining knowledge in the  sense of episteme. This is the great mistake.   The English language lacks this distinction,  which many other languages still preserve.  For instance, in Spanish, French, and German, they  use the words “saber”, “savoir”, and “wissen”, to   refer to propositional knowledge (episteme), but  they also have the words, “conocer”, “connaître”,   and “kennen”, that is, knowledge by direct  acquaintance, which is comparable to gnosis.   One knows because one has seen and experienced  it, rather than by being able to describe it.  Gnosis is neither an expression of faith nor  an assertion of belief. In his last years,   Swiss psychologist and psychiatrist Carl  Jung was asked whether he believed in   God. ‘Believe?’ Jung replied. ‘Hard to  say. I know. I don’t need to believe.’   Jung had had an experience that convinced him of  the reality of God. He didn’t believe in God. He   knew God. Jung didn’t mean the traditional bearded  God on a throne. God is not a being, but being   itself. As many ancient sages have pointed out,  “God is an infinite sphere, the centre of which   is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.” In essence, there is one God. While all   religions express their own unique  and rich teachings, stories,   and myths – they all point to the original  source of all creation, which is being itself.  In Hermeticism, the human soul originally lives  in a perfect non-dual consciousness. It resides   outside the cosmos, in a realm beyond space and  time. As soon as it descends into the planetary   spheres and enters the body, the soul gets  corrupted by the demonic tormentors of darkness,   representing sins or vices. The problem  is not the body, but the passions.  All of us, at this very moment, are living in a  state of hallucination. Our true nature lies in   the disembodied state, and the only purpose  of life is to be reunited with it. For the   Hermeticist, it is possible to attain spiritual  enlightenment or gnosis while being alive.  This is an important distinction from Gnosticism,  in which the spark of the human soul has fallen   into matter, and is trapped by it. There is a  dualistic worldview of a material world and a   spiritual world. The goal of gnosis is to  escape from the prison of the world and   ascend into the spiritual world, which is only  possible after death, when one is liberated from   the prison of the body created by the malevolent  Demiurge as an obstacle to salvation. Therefore,   the Hermeticists are not Gnostics,  though both of them speak of gnosis.  The Gnostics would agree with the notion of  Plato’s cave, where prisoners are chained and   forced to watch the shadows of the things in  themselves, mistaking them for reality. The   goal is to escape from the cave into the light. In  other words, to escape from matter, from the body,   into the world of the ideal Platonic forms.  This is not the way of Hermes. In Hermeticism,   one must not escape to the spiritual world,  but rather embody and bring the good, the true,   and the beautiful, into the world. Our task is to take care of the world,   and make sure to treat it the way it deserves to  be treated, that is what the divine source wants.   Therefore, the Hermeticists are world-affirming,  not world-deniers. The cosmos is not an inferior   product of a Demiurge, but is usually described  as beautiful and perfect. While Gnosticism is   dualistic, Hermeticism is primarily non-dualistic,  there is only one reality, which is the spiritual   light that is the source of everything. When reading the Corpus, one might find   apparently great divergences: monist or dualist,  optimist or pessimist, however, such variations   are sequential rather than contradictory.  They are successive levels of understanding,   part of the initiate’s spiritual journey, an  anagogical ascent towards gnosis, akin to climbing   Jacob’s ladder to heaven. Through theurgy (work  of the Gods), we can ask for help from the gods,   by organising rituals and ceremonies in such a  way that we create the right conditions for the   gods to appear, using the right words, and right  offerings. Instead of us trying to reach the gods,   it is they who come down to heal our soul. The goal for the Hermeticist is to get out of   the webs of ignorance by cultivating what the  ancient Greeks call eusebeia, the cultivation   of reverence and sacred awe for the gods. The  fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.  Piety is one of the most important aspects  of Hermeticism, the admiration of the gods,   and of god’s creations: the true, the good, and  the beautiful. This alone can lead to salvation,   whether one has attained gnosis or not. The  gods can forgive everything, except irreverence.   That is, responding to this enormous gift of  life with negligence and lack of respect. The   Hermetica belong to the history of piety, not  philosophy, and the greatest evil is impiety.  In his work, The Idea of the  Holy, German theologian Rudolf   Otto studied the concept of the numinous, which  can be understood as the experience of mysterium   tremendum et fascinas (mysterious terror  and awe), in the presence of that which is   “entirely other” and thus incapable of being  expressed directly through human language.  The Hermetic universe begins with the classical  geocentric model. The cosmos is portrayed   as planets circling around the earth, these  are: the Moon, Mercury, Venus, the Sun, Mars,   Jupiter and Saturn. Then we have the sphere of  the fixed stars. However, this is only the realm   of space and time. Beyond this, we have three  additional spheres: the Ogdoad, the Ennead,   and the One or the source. We tend to think of  these hierarchically, but this is a mistake,   since they exist in a realm beyond space. The Ogdoad or Eighth sphere is where the   souls reside, before descending into the realm  of space and time into the body. Every soul being   born in a body is immediately corrupted by both  pain and pleasure. Those who have lived a life   of reverence will return to the realm of souls. The ultimate essence of the soul is divine light,   which is the Ennead or Ninth sphere. This is  the home of Nous, which is often translated as   intellect or mind, however; this does not capture  its true meaning in the Hermetic teachings,   it is thus better left untranslated. Nous is  nothing like a faculty of abstract reasoning,   it is much akin to intuition, imagination,  or divine revelation. It equates to sight,   inasmuch as it encompasses everything at  once, even God’s infinite essence. It is   both spiritual light and enlightenment, and  can be realised through mystic initiation.  Nous is the vehicle that allows us to have gnosis,  our spiritual capacity to directly access or   experience the universal light. The light of  Nous is identical with our own inner light,   but we might become blinded by its  presence. The Hermeticist seeks to   become aware that his or her inner light is  identical with the universal light of Nous,   in order to ascend to the tenth and final  sphere, which is called the One, or the Good,   the source of everything. This is God, who has  created the universe by imagining it. We all exist   in God’s imagination. All is one and one is all.  The physical world is reflected in the mental,   and the mental in the physical. All that has been  made is visible, but God himself is invisible.  The Hermetic God is unbegotten, transcendent,  androgynous and the source of everything. He   contains everything in himself. The cosmos  emanates from Him and becomes alive through   Him. The Hermeticist can thus come to know  God by acquiring knowledge of the cosmos.  The second God (the cosmos) is in the  image of the first God. The Father is   eternal because of Himself, but the cosmos is  eternal and immortal because it is begotten   by the Father. Man has been begotten in the  image of the cosmos, but, as the Father willed,   not living like other earthly creatures. Not only does man have affinity with the   second God, but also a conception of the first. He  perceives the second God as a body, the first he   conceives as without a body and as Nous, that  is, as the Summum Bonum or Supreme Good, the   highest reality in the cosmos, the true identity  of every person, and of everything in creation.  The cosmos is not good in as much as it can  be moved, but not corrupt as it is immortal;   while man is corrupt as he both  can be moved and is mortal.  “Only the One remains still and does not  move. So, there are these three: firstly,   God, Father and the Supreme Good;  secondly, the cosmos; and thirdly,   man. God contains the cosmos and the cosmos man.  The cosmos is the son of God, man the son of the   cosmos, and as it were grandson of God.” Man has a relationship with the cosmos,   and God. Although he is not perfect, he can become  so through his spiritual powers. His spirit,   therefore, is his true being, which, unlike  the body, is immortal and inclined to good.  God, the cosmos, and man are hierarchically  and inextricably linked. They are in contact   with each other and form a unit. Therefore, stars  and planets influence earthly existence. Man is   represented in the hierarchy as an image of God,  while everything that exists is represented as   imbued with pneuma (divine breath or life force). The correspondence of the three worlds provides   the basis for mental contemplation. The  Hermeticist focuses on the first image,   the material world, which is permeated with  divine presence. Eventually he passes on to   the second image, man. With the help of Nous,  man gains the privilege of raising his eyes to   heaven and overcoming his mortal condition. He  is the only creature who knows the supreme God,   and thus can even in this life become a god. The Hermetica intends to aid the initiate in his   spiritual growth, containing stages of initiation  into the Hermetic Mysteries, in order to unite   with God. This can be achieved by developing  three faculties: Logos, gnosis, and Nous.  The pupil develops Logos, or reasonable speech,  by listening closely to the master and his   divine wisdom, and by having a dialogue with him. “The listener, O son, should be of one mind and   soul with the speaker and his hearing should  be quicker than the voice of the speaker.”  The second faculty as we have explored is gnosis,  which allows us to develop Nous. Unlike Logos,   it requires silence and meditation. Since Nous  conceives speech in silence, only that speech   which comes from silence is salvation. Knowledge is a spiritual awakening that   consists in realising that the supreme God  wants to be known and can indeed be known   by those who are worthy of Him. And this  cannot be done without piety or reverence.  The Hermetic teachings generally take the form  of dialogues between teacher and disciple. It   is believed that these writings originated for  the most part from loose collections of sayings   or sentences learned by heart, used as spiritual  exercises aimed at developing the mental faculties   of the subject. These gradually acquired a  structured commentary. Hermetic sentences   get mysteriously carved in your memory; one does  not easily forget them. They are still at work   on your mind even when you do not think of them,  most of these are summarised in the Definitions.  In Book 1 of the Corpus, a figure who introduces  himself as ‘Poimandres, the Nous of the Supreme’,   teaches Hermes, who is not presented as a god,  but as a human being with divine knowledge.  In Book 12, appears Agathos Daimon or ‘Good  Spirit’, a divinity who is also portrayed as   a teacher of Hermes. In most of the other  books Hermes is a teacher to Asclepius,   a healer identified with the Egyptian Imhotep,  or to his son Tat, whose name likely derives from   the Egyptian god Thoth. Books 16 and 17 are the  only examples of a disciple and a son of Hermes,   Asclepius and Tat, acting themselves as teachers. Thus, the Corpus presents three generations of   the teacher-disciple relationship.  This knowledge transfer is given by   divine beings (Poimandres or Nous and Agathos  Daimon) to Hermes Trismegistus. Hermes gives   the knowledge to Asclepius and Tat. And finally,  Asclepius and Tat impart the knowledge to others.  The work starts with Hermes busy reflecting about  the world, how it has come into existence and who   has created it; and while he is in this state of  meditation, a figure appears to him who proceeds   to reveal the answers to his questions. This  figure is Poimandres or Nous, who states, “I   know what you want, and I am with you everywhere.”  Hermes tells him: “I wish to learn about the   things that are, to understand their nature and to  know God.” Hermes enters into an ecstatic altered   state of consciousness, which leads to a vision. The Hermetica consistently state that apart from   normal bodily sight there is a “higher”  faculty of vision, referred to as the   eyes of the heart or of the mind (Nous).  The true nature of the regenerated man is   perceived only by this higher faculty. In response to the first part of the   question – about the nature of the things that  are – Poimandres himself changes his appearance,   and the visionary sees an unlimited expanse of  clear and joyful light, for which he spontaneously   experiences feelings of love. He then sees  how a frightening snake-like darkness appears,   watery and smoking like a fire, producing  a wailing roar and emitting an inarticulate   cry. This call is answered by the logos hagios  (Holy Word) or the son of God, that comes from   the light and descends on this dark nature. Thus, the soul of man is carried in this way:   Nous in the Word, the Word in  the soul, the soul in the body.  The animals were created, but they did not  contain the Word. God the Father of all,   brought forth the Anthropos, Man, whom he loved  as his own child, and whom bears the image of   his Father. It was really his own form that God  loved, and he handed over to him all his creation.   For this reason, of all living beings on earth,  man alone is double: mortal because of the body,   immortal because of the soul. The fact  that we are both material and spiritual   beings means that we have the unique ability  to bring the spiritual reality into the body. This short explanation leads up to a second  visionary episode (or vision-within-the-vision).   While in the first vision Hermes was a passive  spectator of how the world came into being,   in the second vision which answers the question of  how to know God, Hermes must now fix his Nous on   the light and get to know it. He looks into the  eyes of Poimandres for such a long time that he   trembles at his appearance. Then he has a sudden  realisation, while staring at the universal light,   he is also paradoxically looking into himself.  There is no distinction between the universal   light and his own light, between subject  and object, this is the experience of total   unity. When Poimandres finally lets go of his  gaze, the light that is the visionary himself   turns out to have become a boundless cosmos, the  archetypal reality “before an infinite beginning.”  The man endowed with Nous is immortal,  it is the pursuit of pleasure, desire,   and materialism that is the cause of death,  that is, spiritual death. For it is preferable   to die outwardly, then to die inwardly. “He who had recognised himself came to   the Supreme Good, while he who had prized  the body, born from the illusion of desire,   remained wandering in the dark, suffering through  the senses the things of death… The truth is:   light and life is God and Father, whence Man is  begotten. If, therefore, you realise yourself   as being from life and light and that you have  been made out of them, you will return to life.”  Nous comes to the aid of the  devout, the noble, pure, merciful,   and the pious. By a life full of love, they win  the favour of God and lovingly they give thanks,   praising and singing hymns to him in due order. Those who are evil, envious, greedy, murderers,   and ungodly, are very far away from Nous,  they are possessed by the avenging spirit,   who assaults each of them through the  senses, throwing fiery darts at them.   The avenging spirit then puts him to torture  and increases the fire upon him to its utmost.  We all have these tormentors of darkness within  us. Poimandres describes how the soul must travel   through all the seven planetary spheres to purify  itself from them. After this catharsis, the soul   finally leaves the cosmos and joins the Eighth  sphere beyond space and time. The souls present   there rejoice together in his presence, and having  become like his companions, he also hears certain   powers that exist above the Eighth sphere, the  realm of light, singing beautiful praises to God.   The souls ascend to the Father and surrender  themselves to the powers, entering into God.  “This is the end, the Supreme Good, for  those who have had the higher knowledge:   to become God. Well then, why do you  delay? Should you not, having received all,   become the guide to those who are worthy, so that  the human race may be saved by God through you?”  Hermes is filled with light and is enlightened  with Nous. When the vision ends, he gives a prayer   of thanksgiving with his whole soul. He becomes  a prophet to spread the received teachings,   to awaken us from our state of spiritual  sleep and drunkenness, and take our share in   the immortality that is our birthright. Many have  given themselves over to death, while having the   power to partake of immortality. Some mocked him  and ignored his teachings, others threw themselves   at his feet, for they wanted to be saved. “The great disease of the soul is denial of God,   next is belief in appearances, and accompanying  these are all evils and nothing good. But then   Nous, acting in opposition to the disease,  secures good for the soul, just as the   physician secures health for the body.” Ultimate truth cannot be found through   philosophical reasoning, but through  divine revelation. This is why the   Corpus begins with a vision. The remainder of the books in   the Corpus mostly consist of Hermes  conversing with Tat and Asclepius.  In Book 13, perhaps the most important part of  the Corpus, Tat has a tense dialogue with Hermes,   for he wishes to know the secret for  spiritual rebirth. Hermes, however,   speaks in riddles. This knowledge cannot be  taught, the awakening must come from oneself.   Gnosis is only knowable through direct experience.  In Zen, this is known as the “Great Doubt”,   the spiritual and psychological pressure that  comes with the struggle of life leads to an   awakening. At the bottom of great doubt lies great  awakening. Until it happens to oneself, one will   not understand what it is all about. While the  master can point at a direction, it is the pupil   that has to meditate by himself, and will have to  work on his own soul, and Hermes tells his son:  “This ignorance, O son, is the first of  these tormentors. The second is sorrow;   the third is intemperance; the fourth lust; the  fifth injustice; the sixth greed; the seventh   deceit; the eighth envy; the ninth treachery;  the tenth anger; the eleventh recklessness;   the twelfth malice. These are twelve in number,  but besides these there are many others,   my son. They compel the inner man who dwells  in the prison of his body to suffer through   his senses. These tormentors depart one by one  from the man who receives God’s mercy. This   constitutes the manner and teaching of rebirth.” The twelve dark powers correspond to the twelve   signs of the zodiac. The combination of emotions  that pertains to us, depends on the placement of   the constellations at the specific moment of  birth, this can be described very precisely   by looking where the stars and the heavenly  bodies are at that moment, which functions   like a cosmic clock. When the time is right and  the stars are aligned, the soul descends into   the body. At this very moment, our body and soul  are invaded and possessed by these dark entities,   and for most of us, they remain with us for the  rest of our lives. They make up our passions, the   destructive emotions that dominate us in all kinds  of ways, constituting the whole constellation of   our personality. We suffer not because of our  body, but because of the passions in our body.  In order to attain gnosis, the dark powers must  be expelled. There is a constant battle between   light and dark within us. Hermes invokes  ten powers of light into the body of Tat,   which expel or exorcise the twelve  powers of darkness in his body.  “After joy, the power I summon is self-control;  most welcome power, let us most gladly receive   her too, my son; on her arrival see how she  drives off intemperance. Now I call the fourth,   steadfastness, the power opposed to lust. This  next step, O son, is the seat of justice. See   how without trial she has chased out injustice.  With injustice gone we become just. I summon the   sixth power, generosity, opposed to greed. With  greed gone, I next summon truth, deceit flees,   and truth is present. See how upon the arrival of  truth the Supreme Good arises; envy has fled far   from us. The Supreme Good, together with life  and light, has followed upon truth, and the   torments of darkness no longer fall upon us, but  conquered, they all fly off with a rush of wings.”  These first seven powers (which correspond  to the seven planetary spheres) overcome the   powers of darkness one by one, and the next three  powers: life (the Ogdoad, or realm of souls),   light (the Ennead, or Nous) and the Supreme Good  (the source), which in total make up ten divine   powers, drive out the remaining five, so that  all the twelve tormentors of darkness fly off.  After some time, Tat experiences an altered  state of consciousness, a state of mania,   or divine madness, which corresponds to a  higher state of knowledge. Tat then speaks:  “O father, I have been made steadfast  through God; I now see not with the eyes,   but by the operation of spiritual energy  in the powers. I am in heaven, in earth,   in water, in air; I am in living creatures and  in plants; I am in the womb, before the womb,   after the womb. I am present everywhere… O  father, I see the All and I see myself in Nous.”  Tat is no longer troubled by these dark  forces, but blessed by noetic powers of   light. Our task is to overpower the dark  entities with light, so that they fly off   with a rush of wings by their own accord. We see that Tat has experienced a spiritual   rebirth, gaining cosmic consciousness. He  conceives himself to be in all places at   the same time, in earth, in the sea, in  heaven; before birth, within the womb,   young, old, dead; beyond death. By conceiving  all things at once: times, places, actions,   qualities, and quantities, one can understand  God. This method is called “becoming the Aion”.  It was the Stoics that developed the concept of  the sympathy of all things, which denotes the   living, indivisible coherence of the cosmos. This  was adopted by Hermeticism and Middle Platonism.  Tat recites a secret hymn in praise of God,  the hymn of spiritual rebirth. However,   while Tat has cosmic consciousness, he has not yet  seen the spheres beyond the cosmos as Hermes has.  This leads us to the famous writing found in Nag  Hammadi, The Discourse on the Ogdoad and Ennead.   Whereas Book 13 of the Corpus describes the  rebirth of the pupil, in this discourse the pupil   has already been reborn, showing us the initiate’s  progress towards the Hermetic mysteries.  Here we find a striking altered state of  consciousness induced by a strange magical   incantation of vowels. When the priests of  Egypt sang their hymns to praise their gods   they uttered the seven Greek vowels in the  prescribed order, the sound of these seven   vowels was so beautiful that people preferred  this music to the flute or lyre. The seven vowels   correspond to the seven notes of the octave,  which are related to the seven planets. The   esoteric songbook of the Hermetic community  in Alexandria plays a central role at the   moments of awakening described in the Hermetica. Hermes reminds Tat, of the progress he has made   thanks to the books, which although belong to  a lower stage in the progress towards gnosis,   are nevertheless necessary. But they do  not suffice, because discursive language   simply “does not get as far as the truth.” Hermes and Tat, along with several brethren,   all of which have been reborn, enter a deep  meditative state. Hermes begins by calling   attention to God’s supreme divine attributes,  including the fact that he is named only in   silence. The prayer contains a string of  mysterious words and vowels that represent   God’s “secret name”. A single voice sings the  tone, which is answered by the choir, until all   vowels are sung. The chanting gets more and more  intense, and with every vowel the consciousness of   the pupil rises up through the planetary spheres  until he is at the top in the highest level,   and goes beyond the cosmos, experiencing the  Eighth, and the Ninth, and finally, the One,   where he sees a fountain bubbling with life. The pupil experiences a moment of fear,   and Hermes tells him to bring his focus  back to the hymn. The final stage of the   ascent must be mastered by the pupil alone,  verbal instruction is useless. Hermes’s words,   who have guided the pupil, are no longer of any  use. The pupil expresses himself by means of   silent hymns that are heard and understood only  by an interior faculty of perception. In fact,   the most fundamental statement of the pupil is  that what he is seeing cannot be put into words.  The initiation has been completed. The pupil has  now found peace, and wants to thank God for having   granted him the supreme vision he had been asking  for. A distinction is implied between the silent   hymn of contemplation that was sung during  the ecstatic state of the Eighth and Ninth,   and verbal hymns that may be addressed  to God afterwards, as signs of gratitude.  Hermes instructs his son to write everything  down in hieroglyphs and place them in his   sanctuary at the right astrological moment, and  protect the book with an apotropaic formula,   designed to avert evil. So that future generations  will be able to read it. Presumably, then,   it is the very text that we have been analysing. Thoth’s invention of writing allowed us not to   forget what we have experienced, enabling us  to transmit knowledge over time and share it   with future generations. However, this is a  drug, or as the Greeks call it, pharmakon,   writing is healing as it provides knowledge, but  also poisonous insofar as one will forget about   direct experience, which is inexpressible. People  will be reading books believing that they have   access to knowledge, but this is an illusion.  Therefore, writing is in many ways poisonous.   However, Thoth had a secret, which is that  writing itself can have a magical effect on   consciousness. Even though language cannot  express the ineffable, it can resonate and   have an effect on the human mind which helps  people find their own path towards gnosis.  In fact, in Book 16 of the Corpus, Asclepius  speaks to King Ammon about the dangers of   language obscuring the true intent of these  writings, which are spiritual, not philosophical.  “He [Hermes] said that they would become even more  obscure later when the Greeks decide to translate   our language into theirs, which will lead to even  greater distortion and obscurity. When expressed   in its original language, the text preserves the  pure spirit of the words. For the very quality of   the sound and the pronunciation of the Egyptian  language carries in itself the power of what   is being spoken… The Greeks, O King, use empty  words which produce mere displays. That is the   philosophy of the Greeks: a noise of words. We do  not use such language but sounds full of power.”  God has endowed man beyond all mortal  creatures with these two gifts:   Nous and speech, both as much valued as  immortality. If he uses these gifts rightly,   he will be no different from the immortals, and on  departing from the body he will be guided by both   to the realm of the gods and the blessed ones. In the Corpus we find that the idea of death   does not exist, it is an illusion. In reality,  there is only creation and transformation,   nothing perishes. Just like energy  cannot be created nor destroyed,   but only transformed from one form to another. Man is a microcosm that reflects the macrocosm,   as above, so below. When the body is  dissolved, it is absorbed back into nature,   and the soul is absorbed in the cosmos,  returning into the unmanifest so that new   creatures may come to be. The cosmos is never  destroyed, the cycles are a continual rotation   and the mystery is the renewal. The true nature  of reality is not mortality, but immortality.  Hermes tells his son: “Have you not heard in   the general teaching that all the souls which  wander around the whole cosmos, as if separate,   are from a single soul, the soul of all? Indeed,  there are many transformations of these souls,   some more fortunate, others less. Those which  are reptiles are changed into aquatic creatures,   aquatic creatures into those of the earth,  those of the earth into fowls of the air,   the air-borne into man. The human souls which  gain immortality are transformed into spirits   and thence to the choruses of the gods.” When one dies with an affliction of the soul,   one cannot partake of the Supreme Good. This  is the only real death, a spiritual death of   cyclical rebirth. The soul turns back on  its journey to the reptiles, and that is   the condemnation of the evil soul. Reptiles are  considered lowly chthonic creatures. In the Bible,   the snake is condemned by God for tricking Adam  and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit from the   tree of knowledge, and it must crawl on its  belly and eat dust all the days of its life.  We think we are alive; the reality  is that we are dead, and when we die,   we become alive. That is, if we become united  with God, by leading a life of reverence.  For the Hermeticist, man is a divine being, and is  not to be counted amongst the other and not even   among those in heaven called gods. For man exists  at once in earth, in the sea, and in heaven.  “Indeed, if we have to speak the truth boldly,  the true man is above the gods, or at least fully   their equal in power. Not one of the heavenly  gods will leave the boundaries of heaven and   come down to earth, but man ascends to heaven and  measures it and he knows the high from the low,   and he understands all the other things there  exactly; and even more amazing, he ascends while   not leaving the earth. So great is his range.  Thus, one may say that man on earth is a mortal   god, and that the heavenly god is an immortal man.  Therefore, everything is controlled by these two:   man, and the cosmos. But all is from the One.” The evil of the soul then is ignorance of God;   for the soul, knowing nothing of the Supreme  Good, is blind and shakes with bodily pains,   tormented by darkness. If we do not make ourselves  equal to God, we cannot understand Him. Like is   understood by like. Allow yourself to grow larger  until you are equal to him who is immeasurable,   out leap all that is corporeal, transcend all time  and become the Aion, then you will understand God.  “God does not ignore man, he knows him fully,  as God also wishes to be known. This is the   only salvation for man: knowledge of God. This  is the ascent to the highest abode of the gods.”  We can choose between mortality or immortality.  It is the inferior choice that destroys man,   those who have a mixture of rage and lust do  not value things worthy of their attention,   but turn to the pleasures and appetites  of the body, believing that man was   born for that reason, or mistake these  greatest evils as the greatest goods.  “There are two kinds of beings, the embodied  and unembodied, in whom there is the mortal   and the divine spirit. Man is left to  choose one or the other, if he so wishes.   For one cannot choose both at once; when one is  diminished, it reveals the power of the other.”