Hermeticism takes its name from Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary teacher in whom the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth were joined. In the first centuries of the common era, in Egypt under Roman rule, a body of writings appeared under his name. Some were philosophical dialogues about God, the cosmos and the soul. Others were practical handbooks of astrology, alchemy and the virtues of plants and stones. Together they are called the Hermetica.
The teaching they contain can be put briefly. The universe is not a heap of dead matter but a living order that flows from a single divine Mind. Every part of it answers to every other part, so that the pattern of the heavens can be read in a plant, a metal or a human life. And the human being stands at the hinge of this order, mortal in body and immortal in mind, able through knowledge to climb back to the source.
That knowledge was called gnosis: not information but direct acquaintance, the kind of knowing that changes the knower. Everything else in the Western esoteric tradition, from the laboratory of the alchemist to the circle of the magician, is an attempt to put that conviction to work.
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I
History of the Tradition
From Roman Egypt to the present in nine stages: who wrote the Hermetica, how they were lost and found, and how each age remade them.
Read the history -
II
The Seven Principles
Mentalism, correspondence, vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, gender. What each axiom claims and how to work with it.
Study the principles -
III
The Emerald Tablet
The short and famous text behind the words as above, so below, given in full with a line by line commentary.
Read the tablet -
IV
The Hermetic Texts
A guide to the surviving writings: the Corpus Hermeticum, the Asclepius, the fragments and the technical treatises.
Survey the texts -
V
The Hermetic Cosmos
The great world and the small: the seven spheres, the descent of the soul into matter and its ascent through the planets.
Explore the cosmos -
VI
Alchemy
The royal art of transmutation, in the laboratory and in the soul. The three principles, the four stages and the seven operations.
Enter the laboratory -
VII
The Hermetic Qabalah
The Tree of Life as the filing cabinet of the Western tradition: ten spheres, twenty two paths and an interactive diagram.
Climb the tree
How to read this section
The pages are numbered in a sensible reading order but each stands alone. If you read only two, read the history and the Emerald Tablet. A note on honesty: much that is sold as ancient Hermetic wisdom is in fact modern, and some of it is very good all the same. Throughout this section we say plainly what is old, what is new and what is uncertain, because a tradition is not strengthened by false pedigrees.
If you do not make yourself equal to God, you cannot understand God, for like is understood by like.
Corpus Hermeticum, treatise XI