Hermeticism

Hermes Trismegistus

The thrice-great Hermes, source and myth

Hermeticism takes its name from Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary figure in whom Greek and Egyptian tradition merge: Hermes (messenger, magician, guide of souls) plus Thoth (scribe, wisdom, moon). The writings attributed to him, the Corpus Hermeticum (ca. 100 to 300 CE), were composed in Greek by various anonymous authors, not by one historical person. What binds them: a gnostically tinged view of cosmos, soul and knowledge. The Renaissance rediscovered them and made them the foundation of a new tradition of magic.

Three aspects of the Trismegistus corpus

• Philosophical: Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius, cosmology and the doctrine of knowledge.
• Astrological / theurgic: books on celestial magic, talismans, invocation of divine powers.
• Practical / alchemical: writings on the transformation of matter and soul.

What is historically established

• The texts come from Hellenistic Egypt (Alexandria), not from the dynastic age of the pharaohs.
• The name Trismegistus, "thrice great", was attached to the Hermes/Thoth syncretism.
• Marsilio Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin in 1463 and so set off the hermetic Renaissance.

The figure of Hermes Trismegistus is myth, not history. But the myth carries a real teaching: the visible world has an invisible order that the human being can recognise and follow.

The Emerald Tablet, as above, so below

Tabula Smaragdina, the core principle

The Emerald Tablet (Tabula Smaragdina) is the most famous short hermetic text of all, a compact teaching poem said to have been carved from a plate of emerald. The text is of Arabic origin (before 800 CE) and reached Europe in a Latin translation of the 12th century. Its central sentence became the formula of all Western esotericism: "That which is below is like that which is above, and that which is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracle of the one thing."

What the principle means

• Microcosm and macrocosm refer to each other, the human being mirrors the cosmos.
• What works in the small (breath, thought, plant) has its echo in the great (star, element, divine power).
• Magic is conscious work on this resonance, not command, but resonating with.
• Correspondences are the language in which microcosm and macrocosm speak.

Practical consequence

• When you charge a Saturn talisman, you work with the Saturnine that is already in you, boundary, structure, discipline.
• When you bless a silver disc with moon water at the full moon, you also wake the lunar within yourself.
• Correspondence tables (Cunningham, Crowley's 777, Agrippa Book I) are not esoteric lifestyle lists, but hermetic maps of resonance.

The principle is old and simple. The practice consists of taking it seriously, and working on a single correspondence until it becomes palpable.

Three Worlds, Agrippa's cosmology

Elemental · Celestial · Intelligible

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim (1486 to 1535), in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy (1531), turned hermetic cosmology into an orderly system: three worlds, layered one above the other, in which the same powers recur, only in different forms of matter. Whoever knows these layers can understand magic as directed movement between them.

The elemental world (Agrippa Book I)

• The visible world of the four elements: earth, water, air, fire.
• Here work plants, stones, animals, scents, colours, numbers.
• Practice: talisman magic from matter, salt, incense, candles, herbs, metal.
• Healing lore is also located here: a plant's signature as a pointer to its effect.

The celestial world (Book II)

• The world of the seven classical planets and the twelve signs of the zodiac.
• Every planet is an archetypal power: Saturn (boundary), Jupiter (breadth), Mars (thrust), Sol (will), Venus (love), Mercury (word), Luna (mirror).
• Practice: planetary hours, day rulers, magic squares, sigils on planetary squares.

The intelligible world (Book III)

• The world of angels, intelligences and divine names.
• Here the archangels are assigned to the Sephiroth, the hierarchies of angels to the signs of the zodiac.
• Practice: invocation of angels and intelligences, theurgic magic, held to be the highest stage.
• Caution: this world works with fields of consciousness that clear discipline and protection should precede.

Seven Hermetic Principles

From the Kybalion (1908), a modern distillate

The seven principles come from the Kybalion (1908, anonymous, presumably William Walker Atkinson). Important: the Kybalion is NOT historically hermetic, it is a modern synthesis from the New Thought milieu that uses hermetic language but thinks in structurally theosophical terms. Still it has established itself as a beginner's key, because the formulations are clear. Whoever studies Hermeticism seriously moves on afterwards to Agrippa and the Corpus Hermeticum.

The seven principles

• Mentalism: all is mind; the universe is mental.
• Correspondence: as above, so below, as within, so without.
• Vibration: nothing rests, everything moves and vibrates.
• Polarity: everything has two poles; opposites are degrees of the same thing.
• Rhythm: everything flows and ebbs; everything rises and falls.
• Cause and effect: every effect has its cause; nothing happens by chance.
• Gender: everything has masculine and feminine parts, on every plane.

What you should know

• The book claims to transmit an ancient Egyptian teaching, that is marketing, not historically established.
• The seventh principle is often read today as gender polarity; in the hermetic sense it rather means the two sides of every creative movement (begetting / receiving).
• The seven principles are a good entry, but no substitute for the sources.

Read the Kybalion once, then put it away and reach for Agrippa.

Sephiroth, the Tree of Life

Ten stages of divine emanation

The Tree of Life (Etz Chaim) comes originally from Jewish Kabbala (Zohar, 13th century). In the Renaissance, Christian hermeticists (Pico della Mirandola, Athanasius Kircher) took it into their own system, this adaptation is called "Hermetic QBL" and, while related to Jewish Kabbala in its symbolism, is theologically and practically independent. In the 19th century the Golden Dawn used the Tree as the central structural pattern of its magic. Today it is the backbone of almost all hermetic systems of correspondences.

The ten Sephiroth (from top to bottom)

• Kether (Crown), pure being, a point without extension.
• Chokhmah (Wisdom), creative impulse, fatherly force.
• Binah (Understanding), form-giving force, motherly receptivity.
• Chesed (Mercy), generous expansion, Jupiter.
• Geburah (Severity), boundary-setting force, Mars.
• Tiphareth (Beauty), centre, heart, Sol.
• Netzach (Victory), passion, Venus.
• Hod (Splendour), speech, magic, Mercury.
• Yesod (Foundation), astral realm, Luna.
• Malkuth (Kingdom), the manifest world, four elements.

Hermetic QBL is not Jewish Kabbala

• Jewish Kabbala: religious tradition with its own liturgy, Hebrew-centred, lineage-based.
• Hermetic QBL: Christian-occult adaptation, GD- and Crowley-centred, English-centred.
• Taking over the Sephiroth without context is appropriation, Hermeticism is mostly not aware of this.
• Whoever wants to work seriously with Kabbala should know the difference and decide which stream it is to be.

Golden Dawn, the modern hermetic anchor

Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (1888)

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn (founded 1888 in London) fused the hermetic material of the 19th century into a closed initiatory system: Renaissance Hermeticism (Agrippa, Picatrix), Hermetic QBL (Sephiroth), tarot, astrology, geomancy, alchemy and angel magic. Most modern hermetic currents descend from it, Crowley, Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, A.E. Waite and the Rider-Waite-Smith tarot.

The basic structure

• Three order stages: Outer (study), Inner (initiatory magic), Third (secret/symbolic).
• Ten grades correspond to the Sephiroth, ascent of the Tree of Life as the initiatory path.
• Ritual skeleton: open the circle, banishing (LBRP), invocation, work, banishing, close the circle.
• Daily practice: the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram (LBRP), daily, simple, effective.

What you gain from it today

• Israel Regardie's The Golden Dawn (1937) is the compact manual of the whole system.
• The rituals (LBRP, Middle Pillar, Rose Cross) are broadly usable as daily practice, also outside the order context.
• The order structure itself, with oaths, grades, secret titles, is today spread over several successor orders (BOTA, AO, SOL and others).

You do not have to be in an order to learn from the Golden Dawn. But if you lack structure, it helps.

Crowley & Thelema

Aleister Crowley (1875 to 1947), the difficult source

Crowley is the most productive and most problematic voice of modern Hermeticism. Formerly Golden Dawn, he founded the A∴A∴ in 1907 and later took over the OTO. His writings (Liber 777, Liber AL vel Legis, Magick in Theory and Practice) are systematic and influential, his life was marked by racism, misogyny, abuse and self-staging, none of which should be folded away.

What he contributed

• Liber 777: the most important hermetic correspondence table of the 20th century, Sephiroth × tarot × gods × scents × colours × plants.
• Thelemic liturgy: Liber AL vel Legis, Resh, Reguli, a complete system of daily prayer and ritual.
• Tarot: the Thoth tarot (with Lady Frieda Harris) remains one of the most striking occult decks.
• The concept of "True Will", every human being has a central life task to find and to realise.

What you should know before you read him

• Crowley's writings contain racist and antisemitic passages, not all of them, but they are real and not simply "spirit of the age".
• His treatment of women was exploitative and violent.
• His self-titles ("Beast 666", "Logos of the Aeon") are partly ironic, partly grandiose, know both.
• Modern Thelema (Caliphate OTO, A∴A∴ lines) has distanced itself from Crowley's person on many points.

You can learn from his works without admiring him. That is the honest position.

Four Hermetic Tools

Wand · Cup · Dagger · Pentacle

The four tools are the elemental anchors of hermetic practice, each assigned to an element, each with a clear function. They overlap with Wicca (athame, chalice, pentacle, wand), but the reading differs: in Wicca they represent polarity and circle assignment, in the hermetic system they are instruments for the transmission of power, the magician directs an elemental force through the fitting tool.

The wand, fire (Yod י)

• Tool of will and directed energy.
• Wood from a corresponding tree (oak for power, yew for connection with the otherworld, ash for clarity).
• Used for invocation, thrusting movements, drawing pentagrams.
• Not for banishings, that is the dagger's task.

The cup, water (Heh ה)

• Tool of receiving, of gathering force, of vision work.
• Glass, silver, tin, filled with clear water or wine.
• Used in scrying work, in communication with the dead and in love magic.
• Washed after every working and cleansed with salt water.

The dagger, air (Vau ו)

• Tool of discernment, of the cut, of banishing.
• Double-edged, small, often with a black handle.
• Used for the LBRP, drawing the circle, separating energies.
• NOT for physical cutting, the dagger stays unused for profane purposes.

The pentacle, earth (Heh final ה)

• Tool of embodiment, of anchoring force in the material.
• Wax, clay, metal, a disc engraved with the pentagram and divine names.
• Used to consecrate talismans, to carry seed grains, as an anchor on the altar.
• Lies on the altar throughout the ritual.

Four tools, four elements, four letters of the Tetragrammaton. Whoever works with them learns an elemental language.

Tetragrammaton, the four-lettered name

YHVH (יהוה) and the four worlds

The Tetragrammaton, in Hebrew יהוה (Yod-Heh-Vau-Heh), is the unspeakable divine name from the Torah. Hermetic tradition reads it as the key to the four worlds of Kabbala: each letter corresponds to a plane of creation. Whoever vibrates the name moves symbolically through all four, from the pure divine world down to manifestation. Important: in Judaism the name is not spoken, out of religious awe. Hermetic practice takes over the symbol, not the religious duty, be aware of this difference.

The four worlds and their letters

• Yod (י), Atziluth, the world of emanation. Pure being, divine spark. Assigned element: fire.
• Heh (ה), Briah, the world of creation. First form, archetypal idea. Element: water.
• Vau (ו), Yetzirah, the world of formation. Astral structures, angels, skeletons of ideas. Element: air.
• Heh final (ה), Assiah, the world of action. Matter, the manifest. Element: earth.

Vibration as practice

• Stand upright, breath into the belly.
• Yod, breathe in, vibrate YOD from the forehead up into the crown.
• Heh, keep breathing in, vibrate HEH to the throat.
• Vau, breathe out, vibrate VAU from the heart to the solar plexus.
• Heh final, keep breathing out, vibrate HEH down to the ground, into the earth.
• Then one breath of stillness before you repeat.

Other divine names per Sephirah

• Kether: EHEIEH (אהיה), I am.
• Chokhmah: YAH (יה).
• Binah: YHVH ELOHIM (יהוה אלהים).
• Chesed: EL (אל).
• Geburah: ELOHIM GIBOR (אלהים גבור), the strong God.
• Tiphareth: YHVH ELOAH VE-DAATH (יהוה אלוה ודעת).
• Netzach: YHVH TZABAOTH (יהוה צבאות), Lord of Hosts.
• Hod: ELOHIM TZABAOTH (אלהים צבאות).
• Yesod: SHADDAI EL CHAI (שדי אל חי), Almighty living God.
• Malkuth: ADONAI HA-ARETZ (אדני הארץ), Lord of the Earth.

Four letters, four worlds, one breath that wanders through them.