Remarkably, the cosmology of the Hermetica is, ultimately, also that of the first flourishing of the Ancient Egyptian culture. The belief of Renaissance Hermeticists such as Bruno and Newton that the Hermetic works represented the wisdom of that great civilization is absolutely vindicated. And Isaac Casaubon – whose work is still trotted out to trash the value of the Hermetica – was just plain wrong.
Other researchers have recognized the connection between the religion of Heliopolis and the Hermetica, as can be seen from the subtitle of Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy’s 1997 translation of extracts from the Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs and their translation throughout of ‘God’ as ‘Atum’.
Of course, the obvious big question is where did the priests of Heliopolis get their ideas from? Did they dream them up, getting lucky with material that just happened to be scientifically accurate? Or was their belief system based on a genuine understanding of the way the universe is organized?
Sadly, a definitive answer about the origins of the Atum religion remains impossible because of a lack of relevant historical information. Some would no doubt prefer to explain the mystery as a legacy from an earlier, advanced, but lost, civilization, which would only push the question back further, not answer it. And inevitably some would conjure up the lazy if sensational notion that we can lay all these wonders at the door of ancient astronauts (a desperately non-Hermetic idea that implies human beings are just too stupid ever to have built wonders like the pyramids). But we suggest the greatest clue lies in the religion itself.
A major component of the magical worldview hardwired into humanity is that specially trained individuals can enter into a state of communion with the gods in which they are given intensely practical information. This idea is also the basis of the Heliopolitan ‘return journey’, Neoplatonic theurgy, the Hermetic gnosis and the occult art of memory. Such communion is not to be understood as bestowing enlightenment in the Eastern sense of the ultimate goal being the achievement of a purely spiritual state – or at least not exclusively – but as providing an understanding of how the universe works in very practical ways. This practice can then be used to extend human knowledge and induce enlightenment in the western sense, as in the Age of Enlightenment.
To judge the results of this communion we have to look no further than the great names who found enlightenment in the Hermetica, itself the ultimate expression of the ancient Heliopolitan system. Encouraging the belief that all things are possible means that the most ambitious dreams can actually be lived – and often for the greater good.
Chapter Seven
1 Fowden, pp. 68–74.
2 See below, p. 185.
3 Festugière, p. 102.
4 Luckert, p. 55.
5 Lurker, p. 121.
6 Ibid.
7 Ray, p. 65.
8 Ibid., p. 160.
9 Fowden, p. 34.
10 Lurker, pp. 69–70.
11 Ray, p. 165.
12 Fowden, p. 27.
13 Ibid., pp. 40–1.
14 According to Plutarch (p. 161) the establishing of the Serapis cult was the work of Manetho and a member of the family that held the hereditary priesthood of the Greek mystery centre of Eleusis, which makes sense if it was to be a ‘hybrid’ cult for Egyptians and Greeks. Although some doubt Plutarch’s story, Manetho was certainly associated with the cult – see J. Gwyn Griffith’s notes to ibid., pp. 387–8.
15 Iamblichus, p. 5.
16 Fowden, p. xxv.
17 Churton, The Gnostic Philosophy, p. 120.
18 Plotinus, p. 9.
19 Luckert, p. 261.
20 Ibid., p. 262.
21 Quoted in ibid., p. 260.
22 See ibid., chapter 14.
23 Ibid., p. 257.
24 Eunapius, ‘Lives of the Philosophers’, in Philostratus and Eunapius, pp. 419–25.
25 Herodotus, p. 130.
26 Luckert, p. 42.
27 E.g. Lurker, p. 99.
28 See Luckert, chapter 2.
29 Ibid., p. 52.
30 Lurker, p. 31.
31 Lehner, p. 34.
32 Luckert, p. 52.
33 Ibid., p. 45.
34 Ibid., p. 57.
35 Campbell and Musès, p. 138.
CHAPTER EIGHT
LAMENT FOR HERMES
Having looked beyond the historical clichés we see now that the scientific revolution, usually considered to have started with Copernicus and ended with Newton, was in fact the Hermetic revolution. Science emerged from the world of the occult in a very real and direct way. All the major players relied not just on the Hermetica’s exhilarating image of humanity but also on its model of creation, which opened up their minds to the nature of the universe and its testable realities. Without Hermes Trismegistus we might never have reached the scientific age, or at least we might only have done so much later in our history.
Hermeticism always encouraged a scientific mindset, even if that was, from a modern perspective, inseparable from a more esoteric worldview. By the end of the seventeenth century the scientific component had been brutally torn from its arcane twin and given an independent existence, but the fact remains that modern science emerged from Hermeticism.
Today most people accept the simplistic notion that chemistry emerged from alchemy, and astronomy from astrology, as a new generation realized the error of the old ways and ditched ‘irrational’ practices in favour of what could be weighed, measured and tested. And yet, as we have seen, most of the greatest movers and shakers of both Renaissance and even Enlightenment science did their best work because of their occult beliefs, not despite them. Their passion for the esoteric went way beyond mere eccentricity or an occasional hobby but was a source of electric inspiration. This was especially so in the case of Isaac Newton, whose world-changing theories were a direct application of Hermetic magical principles to physical phenomena.
This book grew out of our desire to set the record straight, to bring the Hermetic tradition back out of the shadows to take its rightful place centre stage in the history of western civilization and culture. The Hermetica has had a greater impact on our civilization than any other collection of texts apart from the Bible, and a greater impact on modern history than any other collection of texts including the Bible. Even those who dismiss all things occult and Hermetic might at least have the grace to acknowledge that without them the world would be very different, and arguably much the poorer. Science as we know it may not ever have come into existence. At the very least, the time to acknowledge our debt to the Hermeticists is long overdue.
And what achievers they were … The Hermetic tradition directly or indirectly inspired giants such as Copernicus, Kepler, Gilbert, Galileo, Fludd, Leibniz and Newton. As well as these big names, the tradition included figures who should be remembered as their equals but who have been relegated to history’s second or third divisions: Tommaso Campanella, John Dee and, above all, Giordano Bruno. Apart from the luminaries featured in our story, the tradition inspired much else in the artistic and literary realms, including the works and ideas of Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli and William Shakespeare – a pretty impressive list, surely, by anyone’s standards.
Hermes’ books played a central role in the golden age of Arabic science, which preserved the knowledge of the classical world, developed it and passed it back to Europe in the late Middle Ages. And the Hermetica was the mainspring of the Renaissance. Of course other ideas, attitudes and philosophies also contributed to that great flowering of the human mind and spirit – but the great tradition was what glued everything together.
Yet historians have long taught that other elements, such as the renewed interest in classical philosophy and learning, were at the core of the Renaissance. Hermeticism was grudgingly acknowledged, if at all, as a contributory factor, often hidden behind by the more familiar but off-puttingly dry ‘Neoplatonism’, or the slightly more interesting but vague label ‘humanism’.1 But an objective examination of the motivations behind
the great names of the period shows the opposite to be the case. The Hermetic philosophy was at the core of the Renaissance: it was the other factors, such as a renewed passion for the works of the ancient Greeks, which were of secondary importance – and often a poor second at that.
Hermes’ influence also continued as the Renaissance matured into the Age of Enlightenment, drawing to him as he did some of the new era’s greatest intellects, including Newton and Leibniz.
Most of all, however, and with a fine flourish of irony, Hermeticism was the scientific revolution. This is no exaggeration. Just consider the following discoveries, which all owe an eternal debt to the Hermetica:
The heliocentric theory
The laws of planetary motion
The concept of an infinite universe
The idea of other solar systems containing habitable planets
The theory of gravity
The Newtonian laws of motion
The circulation of the blood
The Earth’s magnetism
The basic principles of information theory and the basic principles of computer science
The idea that mankind was of limitless potential and could do just about anything given the desire – the very spirit of science – also came from the teaching of Hermes. When the likes of Richard Dawkins declare that our achievements make him proud to be human, he is (presumably) unknowingly, speaking like an ancient occultist. Magnum miraculum est homo! The cosmic joke is not lost on Glenn Alexander Magee, who writes:
It is surely one the great ironies of history that the Hermetic ideal of man as magus, achieving total knowledge and wielding Godlike power to bring the world to perfection, was the prototype of the modern scientist.2
So why isn’t the Hermetic tradition given due credit? Why is it the case, as Piyo Rattansi notes, that ‘to grant Hermeticism any prominence in the history of sixteenth-and seventeenth-century science is tantamount, apparently, to challenging the rationality of science’?3
A major reason for today’s neglect is the well-established cultural bias that favours the classical world. Another is the lack of recognition, until recently, of the important contribution of Egypt’s intellectual and philosophical traditions. However, this bias does not appear to be a cause but an effect of the neglect of the Hermetica. Until Isaac Casaubon’s damning critique, even Hermes’ enemies had accepted his works as the product of the most venerable period of the Egyptian civilization. Pouring cold water on the alleged wisdom texts, Casaubon tempted scholars in the opposite direction with his message that Egypt had nothing to teach us compared to the Greeks. Had Casaubon never put quill to paper, Egypt might well have remained a focus of scholarly respect, an equal of classical Greece and Rome. Had this been the case, twentieth-century academics such as Garth Fowden and Karl Luckert would never have faced such an uphill struggle to persuade their colleagues that all of the extraordinarily powerful and inviting subjects that we have seen thus far had Egyptian rather than Greek roots. Casaubon was wrong anyway. As believed by Hermeticists all along, the Hermetica authentically preserved and transmitted the cosmology and philosophy of Egypt’s pyramid age, which we believe has much to teach us – even in the digital age.
Another reason for the engrained prejudice against Hermeticism is that the study of the texts was essentially forbidden after the tradition’s ambitions for religious and social reform suffered serious reversals during the seventeenth century. This came about because of a paradoxical collusion between the forces of science and religion. The Catholic Church condemned Hermeticism as demonic, both because it employed magic and its perceived political threat. For their part, Protestant intellectuals backed off from the subject largely because Catholics had made it such a point of contention. One of the consequences of the power politics of the day was that it became expedient to be seen as an occult-denier, especially when the opposite could get you burnt at the stake. But the practical necessity to play it safe effectively sucked the lifeblood from the Hermetic tradition. Men of science were thus no longer men of God – or of the spirit – and soon it seemed that the two were mutually exclusive. Scientists not only denied the very existence of their predecessors’ inspiration, but also had no choice but to denigrate its source.
We saw in the story of the origins of the Royal Society the struggle between the Rosicrucian attitude and the new impersonal mechanistic experimental philosophy. There were good reasons for minimizing the influence of magic, even in Restoration England. A campaign to lose the esoteric gained favour in English academic circles, and this led those of an overt Rosicrucian or Hermetic bent to be branded sinister – and possibly satanic. In 1659 a work based on a hostile editing of John Dee’s diaries, A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed for Many Years Between Dr John Dee … and Some Spirits, was published. Written by Méric Casaubon – Isaac’s son, so keeping up the family tradition – it uncompromisingly painted Dee as a necromancer in league with the Devil. While it is true that with a dodgy clairvoyant named Edward Kelley, Dee had experimented over a number of years with communications with discarnate entities, they were allegedly angels rather than demons or spirits of the dead. But Casaubon Junior’s book effectively trashed Dee’s reputation for centuries and also cast suspicion on those who respected and worse, used, the good doctor’s mathematical works. This was particularly unfortunate as, whatever one might think of Dee’s esoteric studies, his was one of the greatest mathematical minds of all time.
The move from the Hermetic studies of the Renaissance to what we recognize today as science, the great intellectual flagship for rationalism and mechanism and all other resolutely non-magicalisms, was the result of the occult philosophy splitting into two parts: the magical view of the universe and its application to the phenomena of nature. Basically the theory was junked in favour of the practice.
It is often assumed that science emerged when thinking people began to question religion. This is not so: it was a specific reaction against Hermeticism – one that was actively encouraged by those members of the Catholic Church who backed Descartes’ new method. What is perhaps odd given such a momentous schism, is that it was largely an accident of history that science diverged from the ancient and much loved philosophy that inspired it.
Hermeticism as a system of thought survived the Enlightenment. But just as it diverged from science, the philosophy itself became firmly the province of the occult underground and the world of secret initiatory societies. Study of the Corpus Hermeticum as anything other than a historical curiosity came to be reserved for students of the esoteric and magic.
The first Rosicrucian secret societies proper, formed in emulation of the brotherhood described in the Fama Fraternitatis and Confessio Fraternitatis R.C., appeared in Germany in the first decades of the eighteenth century, part of the burgeoning interest in Freemasonry and Masonic-style organizations. However, despite claiming to be inspired by the Rosicrucian ideal, these societies were actually the opposite, exploiting the mystique around the original invisible society to add an elitist gloss to their own image while keeping their secrets, real or imagined, to themselves.
In Britain, these underground currents that flowed through Europe resulted in the influential esoteric society the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn. Founded in the 1880s, it not only attracted the usual suspects – famous occultists such as Aleister Crowley and Dion Fortune – but also the likes of Irish poet and patriot W.B. Yeats and, according to rumour, the originator of Dracula, Bram Stoker. To these and many others who dealt in the symbolic keys and the secret initiations that would open up both their psyches and their minds, Hermes was a god like no other, for to follow him was to become divine oneself. He has proven himself to be equally present in the lilt and lift of language and in the fire of the cosmos.
Hermeticism survived in other, less expected ways. For example, Romantic poets such as Percy Bysshe Shelley and John Keats breathed Hermetic fire into their works as well as into their remarkably colourful and short lives. And the influ
ential philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) – whose thinking inspired Karl Marx among others – was an unashamed Hermeticist. His writings, both published and unpublished, are packed with references to masters such as Bruno – whose brilliance was the subject of Hegel’s lectures – and his library included books by Hermeticists and esotericists, including Agrippa and Paracelsus. Yet it took until 2001 for a study to acknowledge his Hermetic passion. Even then Glenn Alexander Magee’s Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition was regarded as a radical new view.
Many might think that although it a shame that the old Hermetic influence on certain important historic names is neither properly nor widely recognized, surely the big split between magic and science turned out to be a good thing. After all, it allowed science to develop without the constraints of a metaphysical framework, leading to the explosion of discoveries and world-changing technologies such as steam trains, spinning jennys and telegraphy. Indeed, one could argue that Hermeticism was not necessary to make sense of this kind of scientific progress.
Up to the first half of the twentieth century, that argument might have worked. But since then science has shifted into a completely new phase, a considerably less certain world than that of Victorian nuts and bolts. And, we argue, Hermeticism is once again relevant, this time to the realm of quarks, M-theory and DNA.
As science itself becomes more magical, Hermeticism’s time has truly come.
Chapter Eight
1 ‘Humanism’ is a fluid term, coined in the mid-nineteenth century and applied not just to contemporary ideas but also retrospectively to earlier philosophers and social reformers. It is applied to any philosophy that places human beings at the centre of things, asserting not only their fundamental right to control their own destiny but also stressing their ability to do so. But beyond that, the precise definition varies depending on the era in question: the values and ideals of a twenty-first century humanist are very different from a fifteenth-century one. The biggest difference is that today’s humanism tends to eschew the metaphysical and religious. Under this definition, the likes of Pico, Ficino and Bruno qualify as humanists, but they would never have recognized the term.
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