Thread 17937385

Is Hermeticism based or not? I have been searching for answers for so long and learned so much and yet have so far to go.
Are the teachings of Hermes as good as they seem or more babble?

>>17937385 (OP)
Play Noita

>>17937385 (OP)
If you're smart you'll find it shallow and pedantic
If you're dumb you'll wonder what the fuck any of this is supposed to mean

>>17937385 (OP)
i am a hermit

Hermeticism is just another mystery school.

it is gnosticisms less creepy cousin. both focus on initiation through a fall and rise story.

hermeticism is about our fall int the material world and eventual return upwards.

No mystery school is better than any other really, and each just focuses on different things. Hermeticism is a much more 'pure' attempt at connecting to the divine, whereas gnosticism does the same thing but with a massive focus on understanding the history of the mystery schools at the same time.

both are meant to help different people, hence why God would allow both to exist.

>>17937433
This guy isn't entirely wrong, there's other middle grounds but generally if you're focused in more fact based intelligence you will find hermeticism to be extremely shallow and pedantic. It reads like poetry about knowledge isntead of knowledge.

meanwhile if you are more fact based and like hard rule systems to try and understand reality through, that will help you ascend more.

Hermeticism is 'feelings based' there's no wrong answer its just about the idea of growth over and over. Gnosticism does that but it reminds you that were being held down by the Jewish angel and teaches you the history in a way that helps you rise above him.

Tons of pointless thinking that goes nowhere.

>>17937455
got it, I will return to the Dao

>>17937385 (OP)
Read this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_deity

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snake_worship

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_calendar

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Season_of_the_Inundation

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydraulic_empire

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sin_(mythology)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harran

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabians

https://ia802808.us.archive.org/34/items/segal1963sabianmysteries/Segal_1963_Sabian_Mysteries.pdf

https://wayofhermes.com/hermeticism/who-is-agathos-daimon-the-teacher-of-hermes/

https://dragondreaming.wordpress.com/poimandres-the-great-dragon/

https://topostext.org/work/230 (F3 The nature then of the dragon and of serpents Tauthus himself regarded as divine, and so again after him did the Phoenicians and Egyptians: for this animal was declared by him to be of all reptiles most full of breath, and fiery )

>>17937520
https://www.sofiatopia.org/maat/hermes.htm

https://www.sofiatopia.org/maat/ten_keys.htm

>>17937385 (OP)
It's misunderstood theology and religion

>>17937520
>>17937528
The Moon, in Neoplatonic, Gnostic, and Hermetic thought, is seen as the ruler of the sublunar sphere, the domain of generation, change, and matter.

It directly influences the sea, where humans saw their reflection before the invention of the mirror, with the tides and also regulates the female menstrual cycle, which marks the capacity to generate life, that is, the point at which the soul can be transported to the material world through the body.

Unlike the Sun, which produces its own brightness, the Moon does not, the Moon only shines because it reflects the light of the Sun, the "Moonshine" that we see at Night is just the brightness of the Sun reflected in the Moon like a mirror.

The sea, by reflecting the Moon's light from Sun, functions as a mirror of its influence, just as the mirror/glass, made of sand, reflects the image without itself being the source of light. This reflection symbolizes how the material world is not the ultimate reality, but merely the projected image of the spiritual.

The female menstrual cycle, regulated by the Moon, is a microcosm mirror of this process: just as the Moon and the sea reflect like a mirror and manifest higher forces from the higher planetary spheres led by Sun, the human body reflects on the earthly level the cosmic rhythms that shape life.

>>17937520
>>17937528
The Moon, in Neoplatonic, Gnostic, and Hermetic thought, is seen as the ruler of the sublunar sphere, the domain of generation, change, and matter. It directly influences the sea, where humans saw their reflection before the invention of the mirror, with the tides and also regulates the female menstrual cycle, which marks the capacity to generate life, that is, the point at which the soul can be transported to the material world through the body.

Unlike the Sun, which produces its own brightness, the Moon does not, the Moon only shines because it reflects the light of the Sun, the "Moonshine" that we see at Night is just the brightness of the Sun reflected in the Moon like a mirror. The sea, by reflecting the Moon's light from Sun, functions as a mirror of its influence, just as the mirror/glass, made of sand, reflects the image without itself being the source of light.

This reflection symbolizes how the material world is not the ultimate reality, but merely the projected image of the spiritual. The female menstrual cycle, regulated by the Moon, is a microcosm mirror of this process: just as the Moon and the sea reflect like a mirror and manifest higher forces from the higher planetary spheres led by Sun, the human body reflects on the earthly level the cosmic rhythms that shape life.

>>17937520
>>17937528
>>17937595
Please, shut the fuck up, nobody is going to read your copypasta that took you 2 hours to write

>>17937385 (OP)
Rich man's gnosticism.

>>17937601
According to the Mithraic Mysteries, Mithras was born
from that is thought to be the primordial heavenly light which manifests itself as a "god generated from a rock" (cheos ek pecras, co petroghenos Mithra). While standing on the bank of a river, he frees himself, escaping the obscure mineral by wielding the sword and torch which helped him while he was in the "mother's" womb. This is a miraculous birth, noticed only by "shepherds" hidden on the "mountaintops".

The heavenly "light", which was the light of the Word, but men could not comprehend, is rekindled in he who experiences his first spiritual birth. This birth occurs when one breaks away from the "god of this earth" and is able to withstand the onslaught of the waters. This light is rejected by the principle which informs ordinary people's lives and the stuff on which their ephemeral being, their lights and certainties are based. This principle is characterized by a frenzied, shallow and confused activity; by a blind race toward the "abyss"; by a deepseated greed which perpetuates, through the chain of rebirths, an hetero-centric life-style, characterized by an insatiable craving for various things.

This wild and unrestrained vical force, which first generates and then devours irs own energies in a context of radical contingency,l corresponds to rhe symbol of the "waters" at the edge of which Mithras is generated. An initiate is one who is ''rescued from the waters" (notice the connection with the Moses story as recounted in Exodus), and who "walks on water" (hence the esoteric meaning of Christ's miracle). The initiate is a being who has learned how to rake control of the totality of the cravings and the deficiencies which urge him internally.

>>17937595
According to the Mithraic Mysteries, Mithras was born from that is thought to be the primordial heavenly light which manifests itself as a "god generated from a rock" (cheos ek pecras, co petroghenos Mithra). While standing on the bank of a river, he frees himself, escaping the obscure mineral by wielding the sword and torch which helped him while he was in the "mother's" womb. This is a miraculous birth, noticed only by "shepherds" hidden on the "mountaintops".

The heavenly "light", which was the light of the Word, but men could not comprehend, is rekindled in he who experiences his first spiritual birth. This birth occurs when one breaks away from the "god of this earth" and is able to withstand the onslaught of the waters. This light is rejected by the principle which informs ordinary people's lives and the stuff on which their ephemeral being, their lights and certainties are based. This principle is characterized by a frenzied, shallow and confused activity; by a blind race toward the "abyss"; by a deepseated greed which perpetuates, through the chain of rebirths, an hetero-centric life-style, characterized by an insatiable craving for various things.

This wild and unrestrained vical force, which first generates and then devours irs own energies in a context of radical contingency,l corresponds to rhe symbol of the "waters" at the edge of which Mithras is generated. An initiate is one who is ''rescued from the waters" (notice the connection with the Moses story as recounted in Exodus), and who "walks on water" (hence the esoteric meaning of Christ's miracle). The initiate is a being who has learned how to rake control of the totality of the cravings and the deficiencies which urge him internally.

>>17937642
He has learned how to resist them, and has the power to say no, and how to break their law and how to develop a new life without them. On the contrary, the beings of the "sub-lunar world" continue to experience death, annihilation, or reabsorption.

Thus, to be initiated is like leaving behind a bank of a river, on which people's lives unfold with all their miseries and greatness. At that point one has to face the current which becomes increasingly furious until he reaches rhe middle of the "river";s then he has to move beyond this limitation and ro struggle toward the opposite bank. Once the opposite bank has been attained, a new, spiritual being is born: Mithras, the Divine Child.

The "rock" which acts as the womb of Mithras, is a symbol of the body. The body is the substratum of cosmic yearning, and the element which is subjected to the "wet principle." Thus the waters also dominate all those hwnan states and faculties, whether "spiritual'' or not, which exist in a physical substratum. In order ro become initiated one has w become free from the "rock" and to achieve a srate of consciousness which is no longer limited by the connection with the bodily vehicle.

Likewise, the following episodes which I am going to refer to, are out-of-body experiences which take place in a special state induced by specific practices, which I am nor going to describe in derail.

>>17937642
>>17937649
https://www.mithraeum.eu/news/the-father-of-mithras
>It is well known that Mithras was born from a rock. However, less has been written about the father of the solar god, and especially about how he conceived him

>Attilio Mastrocinque is one of the scholars who has given the most thought to the legend of Mithras. In particular, the Venetian author has tried to make sense of the series of pradellas that sometimes frame the Tauroctony or other important scenes, especially from the Rhine area or from some Roman frescoes

>Among the many vignettes, we find a pair that could explain not only the earthly birth of Mithras, but also his astonishing conception thanks to his father’s wet dreams

>But let’s take it one step at a time. Mithras is known as a primeval god who rules the cosmos and therefore the fate of each and every one of us. Yet we know that part of his existence takes place on earth, in the golden age of mankind, in the form of a handsome young man dressed in oriental garb. And it is here, on our little blue planet, that the Roman Mithras performs a series of portents, culminating in the Tauroctony, followed by the Dinner and the subsequent ascent back to the world of the gods

>>17937698
>In order to justify this ubiquity, and in particular his advent on the material plane, the artists of Imperial Rome strove to depict the birth of Mithras out of a rock, an episode known as the petrogenia. In such monuments we see the solar god, younger than usual, naked except for his inseparable Phrygian cap, emerging from the rock generatrix with his arms raised, holding a dagger and a torch in his hands

>This event is usually preceded in retablos by the image of a well-built adult, also naked, but in this case lying down, apparently asleep. This enigmatic figure is none other than Saturn-Chronos, who, as we know, plays an important role in the mysteries of Mithras as the protector of the patres of the Mithraic communities, as well as giving his name to the most distant planet in the ancient solar system and last station in the ascent of souls during the process of reincarnation, as explained by Origen of Alexandria

>Cumont, as usual, tried to relate the Chronos-Saturn of the Mithraic retablos to the Mesopotamian tradition and ventured that it could be the same god who revealed the universal flood in a dream to Ziusudra, the Sumerian Noah. Vermaseren interpreted the scene as the moment when Chronos, in a dream, tells the attentive ear of Jupiter how to create the world. Merkelbach suggested that such a scene might represent the instructions given by Saturn to the Mithraic patres in their dreams to lead their respective communities. The latter author also proposed that it was in dreams that Saturn learned of the need to beget a saviour god from a rock

>>17937708
>In any case, Saturn’s dreams are known from various sources, including treatise 10 of the Corpus Hermeticum. We also have other Indo-European and paradigmatic examples of dreams of gods with performative power. Saturn’s little naps, during which he reveals the laws of the universe to those who pass by, remind us of the Hindu Vishnu, who creates the world simply by dreaming about it, as revealed in the Puranas dedicated to the same god

>To return to Mithras, the birth of gods and their relatives out of a rock or mountain is well known in Asia Minor. After all, both humans and gods who venture into these parts are still stardust. And from dust to dust, as the Christians say

>As for Mithraism, we have the following passage from Pseudo-Plutarch, which is instructive both for what it says and for what it implies:

>"Near to this river lies the mountain Diorphus, so called from Diorphus, the son of the earth, of whom this story is told. Mithras, desirous to have a son, yet hating woman-kind, lay with a stone, till he heated it to that degree that the stone grew large, and at the prefixed time was delivered of a son, called Diorphus; who, growing up and contending with Mars for courage and stoutness, was by him slain, and by the providence of the gods was transformed into the mountain which was called Diorphus by his name." — Pseudo-Plutarch. De fluviis

>Walter Burkert shows us that this passage has its origins in the Hittite myth of Ullikummi, in which Kumarbi impregnates a rock from which Ullikummi, a diorite giant, is born. According to Robert Turcan and Mastrocinque himself, the Mesopotamian sun god Shamash was depicted, along with other Anatolian gods, rising from a mountain

>>17937729
>The Greek Ephesios, aroused by the goddess Athena despite her repudiation, ejaculated on the earth and Gaia gave birth to Erichthonios, the first king of Athens. In fact, Saint Jerome compared the birth of Mithras to that of Erichthonios, since both were born “from a rock or from the earth fertilised by an excess of libido”

>An excess of libido, of desire, of vigour, of power in short, like that of the fearsome Shiva, who, during his deep meditation, also conceives one of his sons without a woman, but through the timely intrusion of Kama, the Hindu god of desire. Shiva ejaculates his semen and it is Agni, the god of fire, who swallows it and then spits it out on mother Ganga, who impregnates it and gives birth to Skanda

>The conception of Mithras through the dream of Saturn-Chronos can be explained by the doctrine of Plato who, in a passage of the Symposium, describes how the contemplation of beauty provokes ejaculation, the source of all life. The Corpus Hermeticum also reveals that Chronos, in a dream, conceived the most beautiful of all visions

>Saturn, the most distant sphere from the Earth and closest to the hypercosmic world, was therefore considered to be best informed about the sublime world. This is the main reason why the magi valued his prophecies above those of any other god

>In any case, the vision of hypercosmic beauty would be the reason for Saturn’s prolific spurt of semen on the fertile rock that gave earthly life to Mithras. The relief of the birth of Mithras in the third Mithraeum of Ptuj, in which the young Mithras emerges from the rock while Saturn certainly dreams of Victory flying above him, is revealing

>Victory, whose mere image is capable of carrying the Titan of Time and Abundance back to the seventh heaven. A goddess who has every reason to represent the absolute beauty of a solar cult of the Invincible God

>>17937520
>>17937528
>>17937595
>>17937642
>>17937698
Sorry for posting disconnected texts before posting about what Hermeticism is, I really wanted to post about these subjects before that.

Hermetism is a Late Antique Egyptian religion that would die out due to the massive popularity of Christianity, but the concept of Hermes Trismegistus would continue up until today, scholars generally divide the literature into theological and peactical Hermetism, though that distinction did not exist in during the time Hermetism actually was a living religion.

>Antiquity

It's philosophical basis lies in Middle Platonism, Neopythagoreanism and Stoicism, and competed with Christianity, Neoplatonism and Gnosticism which share the same aforementioned philosophical basis as it and all four influenced eachother as well, what survivea from this time period are the two texts the Latin Asclepius and the Corpus Hermeticum, the latter is a collection of different treatises that are heterogeneous in nature, you won't get any sort of consistent orthodox theology from reading them, besides these there is also the connection too magic, astrology and alchemy, for alchemy you'd have to look into people likw Zosimus or Stephan of Alexandria but that Byzantine tradition was heavily connected to Neoplatonism.

>Middle Ages

In the Latin West only the Asclepius and Liber Hermetis were known until the 12th century, Liber Hermetis was an astrological text which introduced the concept of decans into Latin Astrology, in the Islamicate world Hermes was connected to the 'occult sciences' and many books were written on them, the Emerald Tablet which is like 20 lines is the most famous, but there's also the Magical text the Picatrix and Avicenan seems to he influenced by Hermetism.

It seems pedantic on the surface level but why are default depictions/references to the Demiurge always Yaldabaoth? Hermeticism was a totally different esoteric tradition that just happened to churn in the same crucible as gnosticism. But in almost every way I find it more interesting than gnosticism when approaching primary sources. And Aion or the Divine Craftsman, etc is nothing like the Demiurge in most gnostic traditions.

>>17937750
Back in Europe by the High Middle Ages some Hermetic texts were written, the book of the 24 Philosophers in particular which is incredibly influential for just 24 sentences, there's also alchemy and astrology of that time and the translations from the the Maghreb but i won't get into that (Roger Bacon, Michael Scot, Albertus Magnus and his relationship to Liber de Causis, etc...).

>Renaissance

Marsilio Ficino translates the Corpus Hermeticum, it becomes influential in that period from various syncretist authors, Giovanni Pico uses some hermetic concepts in his 900 theses, Lodovico Lazzareli writes the Christian-Hermetic text Crater Hermetis, Henry Cornelius Agrippa continues the legacy of Lazzareli with his 3 Books of Occult Philosophy, it's generally connected to Christian Cabala so Francisco Giorgi was also influenced by Hermetism, even in Protestantism it gains a foothold with Valentine Weigel ans Paracelsianism generally, Giordano Bruno wanted to RETVRN to Egyptian religion and got burned at the stake from a Marian heresy in 1600, by the early 17th century the CH is dates to be a late Antique text and most lose interest in it but still some like Robert Fludd use it for their thought, the Rosicrucian movement is also connected to Hermetism as it's a german continuation of Italian Platonic Orientalism.

>Modernity

Now Hermeticism is basically deas but still lives on somewhat in some Freemasonic circles, usually the Rosicrucian kind (Gold un Rosenkreuzer) but by the 19th century Occult Revival it becomes popular again, which lead to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn to being called Hermetic, it was connected to the Tarot, Valentin Tomberg wrote a whole book on why Catholicism is cool using Tarot and calling it Hermeticism, and the New Thought book the Kybalion was written which has been haunting us ever since due to it being called Hermetic.