Hermes, Thoth and Hermeticism

Hermes, Thoth and Hermeticism

Great Chain of Being Continued

From The Armageddon Conspiracy

The ancient Greeks considered Egypt the repository of the most secret, sacred and powerful wisdom. The Arabic word "alchemy" is thought to have originally meant "the Egyptian Art". The Neoplatonists identified the Greek god Hermes with the Egyptian god Thoth and gave him the new name of Hermes Trismegistus. (Trismegistos is Greek for thrice-greatest, from tris (thrice) + megistos (greatest). And three, the trinity, is of course one of the most sacred and powerful of numbers). 

Hermes/Thoth, a god highly revered by the ancient Illuminati, is the inventor of writing and the scribe, messenger and herald of the gods. He is the god of human knowledge (especially of an esoteric and magical nature), the patron deity of the sciences and the inventor of numbers and their sacred power (as revealed by numerology). Hermes Trismegistus was thus a central figure in the magical, occult and alchemical thinking of the Middle Ages. He is the master of secret symbols and codes, of secrecy in general. He is mercurial and elusive, mysterious and clandestine. 

As the son of Zeus, Hermes was literally the "Son of God". His mother was Maia, daughter of the Titan Atlas who held up the sky on his shoulders.

Hermes Trismegistus is the transmitter of the secrets of the gods to humanity, or rather to those seekers of the truth who go looking for sacred gnosis. He is also known as the psychopompos - the conductor of souls - whose task is to lead the shades of the dead through the underworld. He is depicted wearing winged-sandals and a broad-brimmed traveller's hat. He carries a herald's staff intertwined with serpents of wisdom. His Roman name is Mercury.

"Solomon's Seal" is a classic Hermetic symbol, and one of its purposes is to represent the sacred principle of as above, so below. The two interlocked triangles reveal the interpenetration of heaven and earth, above and below. In the Middle Ages, Solomon was often said to be the real, human Hermes Trismegistus, and the same was said of Pythagoras.

Hermes Trismegistus came to be regarded as the hypothetical (mythical) founder of both Neoplatonism and Hermeticism. 

The term "hermetically sealed", meaning that something has been sealed airtight, is metaphorically derived from the impenetrable secrecy of Hermeticism, and also the idea that Hermeticists could magically seal things in ways unimaginable to conventional science. Hermes Trismegistus himself was said to have invented a seal that kept the contents of vessels airtight, a vital quality in alchemy given its preoccupation with purity.

Hermeticism is a completely non-Christian form of Gnosticism, the philosophy of which is set out in the Corpus Hermeticum, the so-called Hermetic Writings, comprising eighteen treatises exploring religion, philosophy, astrology, astronomy, alchemy, initiations, magic and mystical lore. This is a compendium of Greek writings (the originals of which are not available in the public record) from Alexandria in Egypt in the period when Neoplatonism flourished. Copies appeared in the West in the fifteenth century and were translated by Marsilio Ficino on behalf of Cosimo de Medici, patriarch of Florence's most influential and powerful family. 

Hermeticism has a number of similarities to Mithraism. Its main texts are called the Divine Pymander or Poimandres (meaning Shepherd of Men), Asclepius, the Perfect Word and the Secret Discourse on the Mount. 

The Hermeticists said that the Logos, the Word, was the Creator of the world. Lesser divinities acted as his agents, amongst their duties being the control of the stars and planets. The human soul was made in God's image but it found the material world more alluring than the spiritual and it "fell", thus becoming imprisoned in flesh and darkness. It then had to achieve gnosis to return whence it came. 

Hermeticism teaches that the initiate can be saved only through his own efforts, by attaining gnosis. There is no Messiah figure. Although the world is fallen, it can be restored to a divine state through the efforts of the Hermeticists. They are the stewards of the world, the ones who can save it. One of the techniques they can use is alchemy. Alchemy is the science of Hermeticism and involves the search for the Philosopher's Stone, the Panacea and the Elixir of Life. These quests were conducted on both a quasi-scientific and a spiritual level. Alchemy was known as the Hermetic Art or Hermetic Philosophy.

Hermeticism was highly influenced by Neoplatonism, of which it is the younger brother. In their common view, the cosmos was fundamentally benevolent. There was no Satanic figure upon whom to blame the evils of the world. Human beings descended into this world from the realm of light by their own free choice and became trapped. They were then tasked with transcending this world to return to the divine source.

Hermeticism is centred round a great secret that only the highest practitioners ever learn. The sort of people who, in this day and age, boldly assert that they are opposed to any form of secrets regardless of context would automatically be excluded from any Hermetic society. To assert that absolutely everything should be available on Facebook just so that somebody doesn't feel he is "missing out" is an eternal insult to all those who gave their lives to protect secrets they swore never to reveal. Anyone who thinks that all secrets should be distributed like candy will a) never be permitted to join a secret society and b) hasn't understood anything about this world and why secrecy is imperative. Secret societies aren't democracies. No one has any civic right to a secret. There's no "freedom of information" request that some tedious bureaucrat can file to extract secrets. Access to secrets must be meritocratically earned. What would be the point of furnishing the secrets of the Ancients to the audience of American Idol? They would turn the most valuable pearls of wisdom into worthless glass beads.

If life itself is considered a mystery, only a fool would think he would be given an information pack at birth explaining the whole thing to him. How lazy and complacent can you get, how naïve and childish? We continue to receive emails informing us that we are "evil" because we dare to have secrets. Well, here's something for those people to ponder - the details of "M-theory" aren't in any way secret but to understand M-theory in any meaningful way you would have to spend a minimum of ten years studying it to the exclusion of all else. There are secrets that if they were laid out in full public view would still be totally beyond most people to grasp, just as M-theory is. 

What makes people think that life should pose no difficulties or challenges? Only the Last Men want everything to be easy. Nietzsche, with his dream of the Superman, desired the highest mountains to climb, the greatest resistances to overcome, the strongest forces to be arrayed against him. How will you become God if you do not do Godlike things? 

Don't send us lists of questions. Send us lists of answers. Anyone can ask questions. Only a handful dare to provide answers. The correctness of the answers is neither here nor there. At least you had the guts to try, and there are so few people with any guts these days. Gods create. So where are your creations? Gods know the answers, so where are your answers? Gods change the world. What changes have you wrought in this world? Gods set the agenda. Where is your agenda? Don't look around blinking, or shrugging your shoulders. Make your mark. That is the test of life. What did you accomplish? What did you do? Where are your achievements? 

On "Judgment Day", no one asks you if you were good or bad (only the foolish think that). You are asked to demonstrate what you did with your talents. What will you show to justify your existence? Will you hold up a letter from your employer saying that you kept your nose clean, a testimonial from your priest saying that you didn't commit too many sins (no more than average), a reference from your girlfriend or boyfriend to say that you were a nice person? What, is that it? Is that all you have? Did the stars blaze for billions of years just so that you could be given life in order to be "nice"? If life is what you make it, shouldn't you take the trouble to make it something magnificent? And what does it say about you if you don't?

The Old World Order rule the earth because they are allowed to. It's as simple as that. There aren't any weird, shape-shifting, pan-dimensional reptilians at work behind the scenes. There are just mortal people whose power could be removed at a stroke. The Queen of England doesn't have blue blood or supernatural powers or extraordinary intelligence. She's just a silly old woman. She is "Queen" because people choose to acknowledge her as such. If they stopped doing so then she would no longer be Queen. It's that simple. The French King Louis XVI discovered what happens when the people, en masse, choose to think different thoughts. Instantly, he was no longer King but just a criminal and a traitor waiting to be guillotined with all the other criminals and traitors. In exactly the same way, the OWO's power could be destroyed overnight if people simply stopped doing the OWO's bidding. 

Liberate your mind. Disconnect yourself from the Matrix. No one is stopping you. No one stops the people of Britain from being free. By having a monarch as their head of State, they choose to enslave themselves. They are submissive, pathetic, passive, stupid and cowardly people who lack the courage to take control of their own lives. Monarchs can no longer physically enforce their will via their armies. So, what possible reason could the British people have for preferring being subjects of a monarch rather than free citizens? No one is forcing them to be monarchists. They have chosen that abject condition for themselves. The British people are a disgrace. 

The British are suckers for ceremony and tradition. They are reactionaries and conservatives. They live in the past, trying to resurrect former glories in their feeble imaginations. They are addicted to costume dramas because they are always facing backwards. They know their best days are behind them. If they had any ambition for the future they would kick the "Royal" family out of their palaces into the street and then deport them.

Blaise Pascal said of French pomp and ceremony in the 17th century, "Reason never wholly overcomes imagination, while the contrary is quite common. Our magistrates have shown themselves well aware of this mystery. Their red robes, the ermine in which they swaddle themselves like furry cats, the law-courts where they sit in judgment, the fleur de lys, all this august panoply was very necessary. If physicians did not have long gowns and mules, if learned doctors did not wear square caps and robes four times too large, they would never have deceived the world, which finds such an authentic display irresistible. If they possessed true justice, and if physicians possessed the true art of healing, they would not need square caps, the majesty of such sciences would command respect in itself. But, as they only possess imaginary science, they have to resort to these vain devices in order to strike the imagination, which is their real concern, and this, in fact, is how they win respect."

The whole of Britain is run this way: an enormous amount of costumes, props, palaces, crowns, robes, diamonds, gold, baubles, limousines, motorcycle outriders, drilled soldiers in red uniforms and cavalry in shining breastplates - all to disguise the fact that the people who run the country don't know what they're doing. They possess only imaginary knowledge that they conceal behind the appearance of power. And that's enough to satisfy the dumb British, one of the stupidest nations on earth. It's almost beyond belief that they once ran an empire.

A third of the British population declared themselves "extremely excited" because of a royal wedding scheduled for next year. And so the suckers are lured into the circus and they applaud like children as their masters rub their noses in their power.

The British have only one talent - putting on "spectacles" that are hundreds of years out of date. Britain is a nation living in the past, its people stuck in amber like ancient insects.

One thing's certain - the world's salvation will never come from Britain. America should heed the warning of Britain. Even the most powerful nations can become pathetic. Britain is just a gigantic theme park of ancient history. It's an irrelevance in the modern world.

*****

In the Middle Ages, many paintings by famous artists started to become coded and they revealed various Hermetic symbols, often side by side with orthodox Christian iconography. Famous painters such as Botticelli, Bosch and Brueghel all deployed extensive esoteric symbolism. 

Goethe's work was immersed in Hermetic thinking and liberally sprinkled with esoteric symbolism and alchemical references. Jung applied hermetical and alchemical thinking to his analytical psychology and, in particular, the process of individuation - of becoming a complete person. He viewed that process in the manner of alchemical purification. 

Hermeticism and the esoteric go hand in hand.  

Hermeticism was supremely concerned with the idea that nature, the world and man can all be perfected. Illuminism has always advocated this idea too. It is the essence of the dialectic.           

The Corpus Hermeticum tells of a God who resembles the One of Neoplatonism: incorporeal, formless and invisible. Everything in the world is infused with spirit. The Corpus says: "There is no part of the cosmos empty of spirits." Man is told that he shares the Divine nature. He is told that he is the magnum miraculum - the great miracle. The suggestion is that we all have Divine wonders sleeping within us. We simply need to awaken them and become what we always had it within us to be. It's our task, no one else's. It's our personal responsibility.

Hermeticism refers to humanity as "psychocosmic" meaning that a human is both psychic (of the mind and soul) and cosmic (exhibiting the pattern of the cosmos). And the sacred task of humanity is to become divine: "This is the good, the aim of those who have gnosis: to become God." (From the Poimandres.) 

Explaining to his son Tat the nature of divine rebirth through gnosis, Hermes Trismegistus says in the thirteenth book of the Corpus Hermeticum:

Hermes: Even so it is my son, when a man is born again; it is no longer a body of three dimensions that he perceives but the incorporeal.

Tat: Father, now that I see in mind, I see myself to be the All. I am in heaven and in earth, in water and in air; I am in beasts and plants; I am a babe in the womb, and one that is not yet conceived, and one who has been born; I am present everywhere.

Hermes: Now, my son, you know what the rebirth is.

In Hermeticism, you can only become purer and higher through undergoing many trials and tribulations and learning how to overcome every obstacle in your path. Difficulties are essential for spiritual growth. Privileged people are often weak, stupid and pathetic (Paris Hilton being the archetypal example) because they never had to struggle. They got everything handed to them on a plate. So often, they are spiritually dead. Their eyes seem to have no life behind them.   

Humanity had to "fall", to become alienated from its divine nature, in order to find its way back, but at a much higher level. The harmony of the heavens should find a similar harmony on Earth, and it's our collective job to accomplish it.

Hermeticism has a view of evil that can be regarded as dialectical. The Book of Asclepius addresses the problem of evil in the following way:

"You must not then, my pupils, speak as many do, who say that God ought by all means to have freed the world from evil. To those who speak thus, not a word should be said in answer; but for your sake I will pursue my argument, and therewith explain this. It was beyond God's power to put a stop to evil, and expel it from the universe; for evil is present in the world in such sort that it is manifestly an inseparable part thereof. But the supreme God provided and guarded against evil as far as he reasonably could, by deigning to endow the minds of men with intellect, knowledge and intuition. It is in virtue of these gifts that we stand higher than the beasts; and by these, and these alone, are we enabled to shun the traps and deceptions and corruptions of evil."

*****

The quest of Jason and the Argonauts for the Golden Fleece is considered an archetypal tale of Hermetic ideas, involving the overcoming of many resistances as the heroes make their way towards the infinitely precious object of their quest. The Fleece is taken to be a symbol of the Philosopher's Stone, the ultimate goal of the alchemists. At the very highest level, it symbolises God and when we take possession of it, we enter into union with it.

The 18 treatises of the Corpus Hermeticum are:

I. Pœmandres, the Shepherd of Men

II. The General Sermon

III. To Asclepius

IV. The Sacred Sermon

V. The Cup or Monad

VI. Though Unmanifest God is Most Manifest

VII. In God Alone is Good and Elsewhere Nowhere

VIII. The Greatest Ill Among Men is Ignorance of God

IX. That No One of Existing Things doth Perish, but Men in Error Speak of Their Changes as Destructions and as Deaths

X. On Thought and Sense

XI. The Key

XII. Mind Unto Hermes

XIII. About the Common Mind

XIV. The Secret Sermon on the Mountain

XV. A Letter to Asclepius

XVI. The Definitions of Asclepius unto King Ammon

XVII. Of Asclepius to the King

XVIII. The Encomium of Kings

Hermeticism and Gnosticism are slightly different versions of Pythagorean Illuminism, emphasizing different ingredients.

Excerpted from Great Chain of Being II @ Armageddon Conspiracy - http://www.armageddonconspiracy.co.uk/The-Great-Chain-of-Being-II%282220850%29.htm – Much more at the link!


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