Talk:Hermetism

if i understand things correctly, hermetism and hermeticism influenced hermetic kabbalah...

Harold Bloom

Umm... Not only what harold bloom said was vastly incorrect. But why in hells name would you even ask harold blooms opinion? Because he writes criticism about government? Its that kinda like asking my dentist about how to fix my car? And yeah, hermetic philosophy is related to hermetic kabbalah. Since early christian kabbalahists practiced the rather non-dogmatic feel to religion that the corpus hermeticum has

Well, I balanced out the Bloom quote by debunking it..... if anyone knows where it came from in the first place, I'd love a citation

KV 18:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Facts or Fiction?

Hermetism was the religion of the philosophical elite of Ancient Egypt. In the ancient days, every pagan nation had two religions. The first of these two was that of the philosophical elite which celebrated a pantheistic religion hidden among its mystery schools. Second was the common religion which took the teachings of the mystery schools and turned them into allegorical stories, or myths of gods and goddesses, themselves personifications of aspects of the Universe.

The blanket and categorical statement "every pagan nation had two religions" makes this entire article dubious. Is there any evidence that this so-called Hermetism existed at all in ancient Egypt? How do we know that it is not just a nice piece of fiction? All the best, Jorge Stolfi 01:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

We have the whole Corpus Hermeticum thing.... the earliest version found thus far, in Coptic. And I have that directly cited by a top scholar in the area of the subject. Essentially, he explains that the polytheism in any religion is not meant to be taken literally. This is well accepted in such "polytheistic" religions as Hinduism. Seeing as Hermeticism is based off of Hermes Trismegistus, who is synonomous with Thoth, and we have many Hermetic writings written in his name which were really written by the Egyptian priestcraft, yes, there is evidence that it existed back then.

KV 04:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm sorry, but I don't think this can be asserted in this way. The notion that every pagan nation had two religions is simply not accepted scholarly opinion. This is a retrospective speculation by later adherents of hermetic teaching. One could just as well say 'all pagan religions were devil worship in disguise': some people think that, but it's not an accepted consensus view. And many people in polytheistic religions really are polytheists, even if some sophisticated commentators interpret it otherwise. Also, you can't just say that Hermes Trismegistus is synonymnous with Thoth. Some hermetic writers may have proposed that identification, but some would dispute it, and you can't conflate the two figures. (The Romans said that Diana "was" Artemis, but that doesn't mean that anything you can say about the mythological figure of Artemis automatically applied to Diana too.) Myopic Bookworm 19:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Ah, I forgot to come back to this.... I am starting to see where the problem is.... Hall states all pagan nations, but by "pagan" he is more referring to Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, as well as the northern tribes making up most of Europe today. In essence, he means more Paganism as a religion than non-Christian. Perhaps that's the problem here.

Also, the part about Hermes Trismegistus being the same as Thoth and Hermes is something that is widely accepted across Hermetic thought, and I know not of a single Hermeticist, or Hermetist for that matter, who believes otherwise. I also didn't put that forth as such originally, I do believe that was part of the text that I didn't remove. So we'll just have to reword that. Check up on this and make sure I did it right. Thanks.

KV 03:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Actually, in reading the section on the equivalence of Thoth and Hermes Trismegistus, "Hermes is usually equated with being the Egyptian god Thoth (Abel and Hare p. 5)" (emphasis added). That is already using the inclusive terminology. I have seen 6 or 7 authors refer to them as being synonomous, some equating it with the Greek Hermes as well, and none not equating the two when discussing Hermes. I do believe that "usually" is the proper word, unless you feel that I need to include that it applies to scholars of Hermetism.

KV 03:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

User:kh7

I think this article is mostly the opinion of Hall, and at the very least G.R.S. Mead should be mentioned in the text, he is mentioned in the links though. I tend to doubt the difference being made between hermeticism and hermetism. I have not heard of this distinction before. kh7 06:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I should be able to get the opinion of E.A. Wallis Budge as soon as my books come in at Barnes and Noble.... but the only people I have heard mention Hermetism is Bloom, who I have left in the article, Hall, and the Three Initiates of the Kybalion. There is comparably more information on Hermeticism..... but with this article existing, I set out to find out what Hermetism was, and I found very little. If you have GRS Mead's opinion, why not add it in?

KV 17:38, 16 March 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that this article seems to just summerize Hall's opinion.

Clarifications

"It should be noted, however, that Hermetists viewed Hermes as a man, not a god." What are Hermetists here? Is it in ancient Egypt, neo-platonists, or more recent Western tradition? A citation is needed.--Connection 11:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]