Hermeticism
What is Hermeticism?
A real tradition, with a modern twin
Hermeticism is the tradition built on the writings credited to Hermes Trismegistus. Its core texts are Greek dialogues from Roman Egypt, written between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, which teach that God is Mind and that a person can be reborn and made divine by knowing God, the world and themselves. It later carried alchemy, through the Emerald Tablet, and the Renaissance, through Ficino. Most of what the internet now calls Hermeticism, the seven principles and “the All is Mind,” comes from a 1908 Chicago book, The Kybalion. Follow the one idea through all of it below.
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Quotes are exact, from the sources below. Where each one sits on the line is our reading.
Hermeticism, question by question
Six questions, answered with sources
- 01What are the 7 Hermetic principles?Each axiom word for word, its real source, and a live test of the science.
- 02Is The Kybalion actually Hermetic?Seven axioms checked against the ancient texts and the author’s own 1906 book.
- 03What does the Emerald Tablet actually say?Every line in four versions, from the oldest Arabic to Isaac Newton.
- 04What does as above, so below mean?Where the words come from, and Newton’s cannonball, where it came true.
- 05Did Hermes Trismegistus actually exist?A god turned sage, believed as old as Moses until 1614.
- 06Is the law of attraction real?What the studies support, what they do not, and a 7-second attention test.
To turn a wish into a plan the research supports, use the WOOP manifestation planner.
What it teaches
God is Mind
One God, known by knowing. The Hermetic writings teach one God beyond the world, called Mind, nous in Greek. In the first treatise, Poimandres, a being made of light tells the seeker: “That Light, He said, am I, thy God, Mind.” The goal, in Britannica’s summary, is “the deification or rebirth of mortals through the knowledge (gnosis) of the one transcendent God, the world, and humankind.”
Greek ideas in Egyptian dress. The setting is Egyptian, written as dialogues between Hermes and his pupils. The philosophy is Greek, a blend of Platonism and Stoicism. There was probably no Hermetic church, only readers and teachers.
Two kinds of Hermetica. Scholars split the writings into the “learned,” on God and the soul, and the “popular,” on astrology, magic and alchemy. The Emerald Tablet, the alchemists’ favorite text, belongs to the second kind and first appears in Arabic around 800 CE.
Its long afterlife. Arab scholars kept it alive and passed it to Europe. In 1463 Ficino translated the treatises for Cosimo de’ Medici, who wanted Hermes even before Plato. In 1614 Isaac Casaubon showed from the Greek that the texts were not ancient Egyptian after all. In 1908 The Kybalion recast the tradition as seven principles for mind power, and the law of attraction grew from the same New Thought roots.
Real vs legend
Hermeticism, sorted
| Claim | Status |
|---|---|
| The Hermetica are real texts from Roman Egypt. | Real · 1st to 3rd century CE |
| They teach that God is Mind. | Real · Poimandres |
| Hermes Trismegistus wrote them in the age of Moses. | Legend · disproved 1614 |
| “As above, so below” is Hermetic. | Real · Emerald Tablet |
| The seven principles are ancient Hermetic teaching. | Legend · The Kybalion, 1908 |
| The law of attraction is ancient Hermetic wisdom. | Legend · New Thought, 1800s to 1900s |
| Hermeticism shaped Renaissance thought. | Real · Ficino, 1463 |
Questions
Hermeticism
What does Hermeticism believe?
That there is one God beyond the world, called Mind, and that people can be reborn and become divine through knowledge, gnosis, of God, the world and themselves. Later Hermeticism added alchemy and astrology.
What are the 7 Hermetic principles?
Mentalism, correspondence, vibration, polarity, rhythm, cause and effect, and gender. They come from The Kybalion (1908), not from the ancient Hermetic texts.
Do Hermetics believe in God?
Yes. The Hermetica describe one transcendent God, called Mind and Father, who is known through knowledge, gnosis.
Is Hermeticism against Christianity?
Not by design. Early Christian writers like Lactantius quoted Hermes as a pagan witness to the Son of God, and Renaissance Christians read him the same way. Augustine condemned one passage about bringing statues to life.
Is Hermeticism a religion?
It is closer to a philosophy with a religious goal. It teaches about God and salvation through knowledge, but there was probably never a Hermetic church or community with its own rules.
What does “the All is Mind” mean?
It is the first principle of The Kybalion: “THE ALL IS MIND; The Universe is Mental,” meaning the universe exists inside one infinite Mind. It echoes the ancient Hermetic teaching that God is Mind, but the wording is from 1908.
Sources
Where this comes from
- “Hermetic writings,” Encyclopaedia Britannica: britannica.com.
- G. R. S. Mead, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, 1906, Poemandres: sacred-texts.com.
- Steele and Singer, “The Emerald Table,” 1928: PMC.
- Christopher S. Celenza, “Marsilio Ficino,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: plato.stanford.edu.
- Wouter J. Hanegraaff, “How Hermetic was Renaissance Hermetism?” 2015: uva.nl.
- William Walker Atkinson, Thought Vibration, 1906: archive.org.
- Three Initiates, The Kybalion, 1908: archive.org.
- Wallace D. Wattles, The Science of Getting Rich, 1910: Project Gutenberg.
- Neville Goddard, Feeling Is the Secret, 1944: archive.org.
- Lactantius, Divine Institutes IV.6: New Advent.
- Hermetic texts at Nag Hammadi, Lanzillotta, Gnosis 6 (2021): rug.nl.
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