The 7 Hermetic Principles

There is some really fascinating historical elements as it relates to Hermeticism. I'm pretty much a full believer now, though it took me a good while to get here. I've always known about it's existence, but before I dug in I just assumed it was some psuedo-spiritual-sciencey thing from the Greek Mystery-Schools or whatever, really I was clueless.

It was when doing my own research on a variety of secret societies, all different, when it hit me like a brick: "Holy shit... they are ALL based on Hermetic Principles". Fundamentally, even though they are all different, they all have a basic assumption of Hermetic Principles built in. This made me do a double take on the whole philosophy. That's when I discovered how fucking old it is. There are lots of twisting-of-tales & rumors & hearsay, but it seems clear to me that basic Hermetic philosophy was the religion of the 'inner core' of the Old Kingdom Egyptian priest-class.. this is NOT what they taught to the people mind you.. this was a 'private' religion for them & them only. Eventually it spread to some of the aforementioned Greek Mystery Schools, though in a rudimentary form.

Many believe it was a rediscovery of a trove of Hermetic teachings that lead to the power of Templar Knights during the Crusades. I find it's appearance at the birth of the Renaissance to be the most fascinating.. Does anyone remember a PBS program a number of years back called 'Medici'? Maybe it was called De Medici, but it was a documentary about the beginning of the Renaissance. The very opening scene of the whole program was of a man working for Cosimo de' Medici, being lead into a locked chamber by an old priest. The priest was given a bag of gold & he looked through the scrolls & documents in this room. All were Hermetic in nature. During the Renaissance, there was a push to make Hermeticism a mainstream belief structure, taught to children in dayschools & it was becoming just as popular as Christianity. A Greek Scholar came along & successfully made people think that some of the text was of Hellenistic antiquity, therefor not of ancient Egyptian origin. This made it fall out of favor in the mainstream, thereby keeping it predominantly in the hands of the secret orders, as they were the only ones taking it seriously from that point on. I personally believe that this take-down (by a guy named Isaac Casaubon), was for the purpose of discrediting it to the masses.

Knowing what we now know, such as the discovery of the Nag Hammadi library in 1945, it's clear that Hermetic Philosophy is as ancient as we suspect. Frankly it's so sophisticated, it hearkens back to some previous unknown high-culture, but that's just my own musing.

I think some of the latest ideas of Holofractal Unified Theory & M-Theory suggests that Hermeticism is the the closest thing we have to a true, actual depiction of how this Universe works.. and it also happens to be the oldest. The oldest AND the most sophisticated? WTF.

I'd recommend checking things out over in /r/holofractal, if you like Hermeticism, you'll love how it all ties in with cutting-edge quantum theory over there. Holofractal Hermeticism is a thing! At least it is to me ;)

/r/Psychonaut Thread