Hermeticism FAQ: Part II, Texts

Written by polyphanes

Originally published on his website at

https://digitalambler.com/2021/06/18/hermeticism-faq-part-ii-texts/

Published here with the author’s approval

(First Latin edition of the Corpus Hermeticum, translated by Marsilio Ficino, 1471 CE)

Continuing our Hermeticism FAQ series (see part I on overview/history here), let’s continue today with Part II, on the texts that inform our studies of Hermeticism!

What is “the Hermetica?”

There is no one single classical text called “the Hermetica”, although this term is sometimes used to refer to the collective body of Hermetic texts from the classical period. Confusingly, however, several modern authors and scholars have used the term “the Hermetica” to title their own books containing Hermetic texts:

Brian Copenhaver, Hermetica, containing translations of the Corpus Hermeticum and the Perfect Sermon
M. David Litwa Hermetica II, containing translations of the Stobaean Fragments, Oxford Fragments, Vienna Fragments, and various other fragments and testimonia of Hermetic doctrine
Walter Scott, Hermetica (in four volumes), containing his (highly edited and amended) version of the Greek and Latin Hermetic texts along with his thorough analysis of them
Peter Gandy and Timothy Freke, The Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs, containing their (heavily remixed, reordered, and re-Egyptianized) version of Hermetic texts

While one may use “the Hermetica” to refer to the collective body of Hermetic texts from the classical period, in order to reduce confusion, it is recommended to use a different term, e.g. “the classical Hermetic texts” generally or the name of a specific such text instead. When referring to one of the above texts, it is better to clarify by stating the author’s name, e.g. “Copenhaver’s Hermetica”.

What is the “Divine Pymander”?

When Marsilio Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin from Greek in the 15th century CE, he used the title of the first “book” (what we might call a “chapter” nowadays) as the title for the entire translation. This was like titling the Old Testament “Book of Genesis”. A few later translators working off Ficino, like John Everard, also used the same title. Depending on the context, “Divine Pymander” may refer to either Book I of the Corpus Hermeticum (the technically correct meaning), or to later translations of the Corpus Hermeticum as a whole. As a result, to reduce confusion, it is recommended to refer to Book I of the Corpus Hermeticum as just that, and refer to the specific translations by their authors, e.g. “in Ficino” or “in Everard”.

What are the “philosophical Hermetica”?

There are plenty of different Hermetic texts available to us from antiquity, and although the distinction isn’t always so clear or fixed as some scholars would like to believe, one group of texts is known as the “philosophical Hermetica” (or the “theoretical Hermetica”). These texts focus on the religious, philosophical, cosmological, theosophical, and otherwise doctrinal side of Hermeticism, and generally consist of dialogues or letters between Hermēs Trismegistos and his students. Although they may mention them at a high level, the “philosophical” texts generally lack any details regarding anything practice-oriented, like the study of astrology, the consecration of talismans, the ensoulment of statues, or the like; in other words, there is little “magic” or “ritual” in the “philosophical Hermetica”, even if such things are assumed. Examples of “philosophical Hermetica” include (but are not limited to) the Corpus Hermeticum, the Stobaean Fragments, and the Perfect Sermon.

What are the “technical Hermetica”?

As opposed to the “philosophical Hermetica”, the “technical Hermetica” (or the “practical Hermetica”) focus on the practical, technical, or skill-oriented parts of Hermeticism; rather than being more about belief and doctrine, these are about practice and technology. As such, these have the bulk of the “magic” and “ritual” that the “philosophical Hermetica” lack. However, due to the overall distaste many historians and scholars have had for studying magical things, the “technical Hermetica” have received much less attention than the “philosophical Hermetica”. This isn’t to say that they don’t exist or haven’t been translated, but aren’t as codified and haven’t received as much popular attention as the “philosophical Hermetica”, and due to the messy nature of magic and magical texts, there are plenty of overlaps between explicitly Hermetic practices and implicit ones. Further, “technical Hermetica” continued to be produced well after the last of the “philosophical Hermetica” were written, so “technical Hermetica” can also reasonably include post-classical and modern texts. Examples of “technical Hermetica” include the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM), the Sacred Book of Hermēs to Asklēpios, and the Picatrix.

Is the Corpus Hermeticum the Bible of Hermeticism?

Given the popularity and fame this collection of texts has received over the past 600 years, it sure seems so, doesn’t it? Of course, the Corpus Hermeticum is just one of several collections of Hermetic texts, and despite its importance for the study and practice of Hermeticism, should not be considered the most or only important such collection. It is unclear whether there ever even was such a “primary text” of Hermeticism. That being said, considering Book I’s role in the Corpus Hermeticum as giving us the founding myth and initial revelation of Hermēs Trismegistos, even if it was never intended to be a “Bible” for Hermeticism, it may be considered as such by those who choose to do so—though it is best taken together with similar texts such as the Perfect Sermon and the Stobaean Fragments for a more comprehensive reading and study.

What about The Kybalion?

Despite how much this book loves to call itself Hermetic, The Kybalion is not a Hermetic text. Rather, it is an invention of William Walker Atkinson, a prolific author and an early pioneer of New Thought, an early New Age movement, and who wrote under the pen name “The Three Initiates” (along with his other pen names like “Theron Q. Dumont” and “Yogi Ramacharaka”). Although The Kybalion claims to be based on an ancient Hermetic book (also called “The Kybalion”), no such text has ever been discovered, the doctrines within it do not match with those of either the philosophical or technical Hermetica, the terminology used within it is foreign to classical texts of any kind but rather match cleanly with New Age terminology in the late 19th and early 20th centuries CE, and generally lacks any notion of theology or theosophy present in the actual Hermetic texts. Although many modern occultists love the Kybalion and despite many people becoming interested in Hermeticism because of The Kybalion, The Kybalion is not a Hermetic text, and is only “Hermetic” in the sense that it has been adopted by many modern Hermeticists rather than by any virtue of its own. The best discussion regarding The Kybalion and its (non-)Hermetic nature is the essay “The Kybalion’s New Clothes: An Early 20th Century Text’s Dubious Association with Hermeticism” by Nicholas E. Chapel. This isn’t to say that The Kybalion is entirely without worth—for some people, New Thought can be profoundly useful—but the fact remains that it is not Hermetic, and so there’s no need to discuss it in a Hermetic context or as a source of Hermetic doctrine or practice (not that there’s much practical stuff in it to begin with).

What about The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean, and is it the same text as the Emerald Tablet?

The Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean is another entirely modern and New Age creation, much like The Kybalion, and so is also not Hermetic, and also goes pretty far afield into extremely New Age topics and discussions that are nowhere found in actual Hermetic texts to the point of it being sci-fi. The name is based on the Emerald Tablet (or Tabula Smaragdina), a short extract of a medieval 7th century CE Arabic book on natural philosophy and alchemy called the Book of the Secrets of Creation (Kitāb sirr al-khalīqā) attributed to Apollonius of Tyana. The Emerald Tablet is a fascinating, though exceedingly dense and cryptic text, and has received much attention over the centuries since its first translation into Latin in the 12th century CE, though it is entirely unclear if this was a creation of Islamic Hermeticism or medieval Islamic alchemists, or whether it is a translation of something earlier from the classical period.

What’s the deal with the Emerald Tablet, anyway?

The Emerald Tablet is a well-known Hermetic text, though exceedingly short, and is less of a discourse and more of a cryptic poem. Due to its crypticness, it’s received much attention since it entered the European mindset, and much ink has been spilled about how it might have any number of mystical or mythical origins, including a supposed ancient Chinese antecedent. It is something of a puzzle, but it relies on early Islamic alchemical symbolism (which was the basis of much of Western and European alchemy) in order to communicate a notion of how to achieve the Philosopher’s Stone by means of transmutation of the four elements. It is this text that the famous adages “‘tis true without lying” and “as above, so below” come from.

What about Julius Evola and his The Hermetic Tradition?

By Evola’s own admission in his introduction to The Hermetic Tradition, the book has nothing to do with Hermeticism as it is. When he uses the term “Hermetic tradition”, he refers to his own take on medieval and Renaissance alchemical symbolism informed by Theosophically-influenced Vedic and Hindu spirituality. To be fair, though, Evola is someone to completely avoid at all costs; what modern occultists really need to know about him is that he founded a magic society based on a series of solar rituals that were grossly unbalanced, turning all its members into egotistical megalomaniacs who couldn’t get along or organize for a common purpose. They all became convinced that they were, each of them, the Only True Source of Light, and so the organization exploded; naturally, having completely failed at designing effective magic, they turned to politics that gave them permission to murder anyone who disagreed with them. As a result, there is nothing that meaningful or worthwhile that you can learn from Evola’s (or the Ur Group’s) texts that you can’t learn from some other, less obnoxious, less odious, less overweening, and overall better source in the century since or the many centuries before. I mean, heck, even John Michael Greer talked once upon a time about how bad Evola was, not just politically but also magically, especially in “Introduction to Magic” but also touching on how short-lived and paltry Evola’s magical career was. JMG’s article also points out something really neat: Evola was literally just involved in magic for, like, three years. That’s it. In those few years, magic failed him because he failed at magic. The man was an egotistical, hyperfascist, woman-hating, violent abuser of not just other human beings but of human dignity itself, and the sooner people drop his shit and leave him to be swallowed by the sands of time in favor of literally anyone better, the better off we’ll all be.

Are the Hermetic texts encoded or encrypted?

No. To be fair, many of these texts can be pretty dense and difficult to read, but that’s more a function of two things: the very subject matter they deal with is also pretty dense and difficult to communicate in any language, and also because the style of their writing can be difficult for a lot of modern people to approach nowadays. They are, however, written in the usual rhetorical and literary styles common to a lot of philosophical, religious, or mystical texts also written in Hellenistic civilization, and so aren’t really anything special in that regard. There has never been any suggestion that they were encrypted only for initiates to decipher, or that they were written in a code that can be parsed out from clues hidden in the text; such claims are sometimes repeated by people in New Age circles, but this is almost always a cover for people to explain their own inability to read and digest these texts, or to otherwise let people hide their fear and trepidation of ignorantly talking about the texts without direct experience with them. The only thing these texts need is time and dedication to understand; they are more like fine dining rather than fast food, and deserve thoughtful chewing upon in order to get anywhere with them.

Are the Hermetic texts corrupted or incomplete?

It is true that, over the past 2000 years, we have lost some Hermetic texts, and those Hermetic texts that have survived have not always done so in a pristine state; sometimes there are lacunae in the texts, sometimes marginalia or external notes have become incorporated with the texts, or sometimes the language is so garbled as to be rendered difficult to comprehend. While these are definite problems, our understanding of the texts (with the help of modern scholarship and comparison with related texts in similar or contemporary religious and philosophical traditions) is better than ever, and many of these problems have been resolved in a way that preserves (or recovers) the original meaning of the Hermetic texts themselves. So, while some parts of the Hermetic texts are corrupted or incomplete, they are uncorrupted and complete as a whole, and are still quite understandable today with the same meaning and impact as they had 2000 years ago.

What about the Hermetic texts that we’ve lost?

We only have what has survived the knife of time and the redactor’s pen. We know for a fact that there were more Hermetic texts written than what we have today, and we even know that some of the texts we do have are missing parts (like how Book II of the Corpus Hermeticum is missing its entire introduction, and the title applied to Book II is actuall the title of a separate text that originally came before what we have today as Book II). We can only hope that there are still manuscripts out there, whether hidden away in desert sands or preserved still in mouldering monastery libraries or museum collections, that contain as-yet undiscovered Hermetic texts. Until then, we make do with what we can, and try to fill in the gaps as reasonably as we’re able.

What are the core texts of Hermeticism?

The “beating heart” and root of much of Hermeticism are found in the classical Hermetic canon, which can be thought of as consisting of the following texts from the “philosophical Hermetica”:

The Corpus Hermeticum (CH), a collection of 17 short texts
- This is the most famous and most well-known collection of Hermetic texts today
The Perfect Sermon, also called the Asclepius (AH)
- This is also the most famous Hermetic text along with the Corpus Hermeticum, especially before the recovery of the Corpus Hermeticum in western Europe in the 15th century CE
- The most popular version of this text is preserved only in Latin.
- Sections 21 through 29 of the Latin Asclepius is also preserved in Coptic as part of the Nag Hammadi Library (NHC VI.8)
- The final thanksgiving prayer is also present in Coptic in the Nag Hammadi Library (NHC VI.7) as well in Greek as part of the Greek Magical Papyri (PGM III.590—611)
The Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius (DH), a collection of 49 “definitions” or summary-teachings preserved in Armenian and translated into French and English in the late 20th century CE
The Stobaean Fragments (SH), a series of 29 Hermetic extracts of varying lengths by John of Stobi in his 5th century CE Anthology
- One of the most famous series of Hermetic texts in the Stobaean Fragments is the Korē Kosmou (“Virgin of the World”), preserved in the 23rd through 26th Stobaean Fragments
The Oxford Fragments (OH), a series of five Hermetic extracts
The Vienna Fragments (VH), two badly-preserved Hermetic texts
The Discourse on the Eighth and the Ninth (D89), a short text describing a ritual of spiritual elevation and divine ascent preserved in Coptic as part of the Nag Hammadi Library (NHC VI.6)
Other various miscellaneous fragments and excerpts preserved by other authors and writers (FH)

As regards the “technical Hermetica”, however, there is much more variability in terms of what texts one should consider as “core” to Hermeticism, especially given the varied nature of them and how well they may or may not integrate or harmonize with the “philosophical Hermetica”. Important among these, however, can be considered (though by no means are limited to):

The Greek Magical Papyri (PGM), a collection of Greek magical rituals, spells, and invocations as practiced in a Greco-Egyptian context
The Demotic Magical Papyri (PDM), a similar collection of magical rituals but preserved in Demotic Egyptian and containing a stronger Egyptian pagan presence
The Coptic Magical Papyri (PCM), a similar collection of magical rituals but preserved in Coptic Egyptian and containing a stronger Christian presence
The Centiloquium of Hermes Trismegistus, a series of 100 propositions regarding astrology
The Picatrix, or the Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm, a medieval collection of rituals, prayers, and recipes from Islamic esoteric traditions preserving aspects of earlier Sabian, Harranian, and Hermetic practices and beliefs

In what order should I read the texts?

One after the other, usually from the front towards the back. More seriously, though, because each text is considered a single treatise on its own, and because none of the collections really build upon each other (even if there are a very few passing references from one to another), it doesn’t generally matter what order you read them in (at least as far as the “philosophical Hermetica” are concerned).

What are the differences between different translations of the Corpus Hermeticum, Asclepius, etc., and which should I get?

As a rule, always go with more modern translations instead of older ones. It is true that the translations of Ficino, Everard, and Mead were greatly important in the history of Western esotericism, but we have more texts at our disposal today with better contextual understanding than what was available to earlier translators. As a result, modern translations (especially those based on the critical Greek edition of the Corpus Hermeticum produced by A. D. Nock and A.-J. Festugière) are going to use more source material with better ability to understand and transmit the text than what was done in earlier times. To that end, the best English translations available today of classical Hermetic texts are those produced by Brian Copenhaver, M. David Litwa, Clement Salaman, and J.-P. Mahé (as well as including more notes and references that further help elucidate the translated text, usually missing from earlier translations). Older translations may be used, but should be cross-referenced with modern translations when possible to make sure that the meaning of the text is properly understood.

What happened to Book XV of the Corpus Hermeticum?

The earliest translations of the Corpus Hermeticum did not always follow the same convention as what modern translations use, and depending on the underlying texts that Ficino or other translators used, different Hermetic texts might be present not part of the usual collection of the Corpus Hermeticum. As a result, Book XV of these early translations contained a Hermetic text that properly belonged to a separate collection and was not part of other Corpus Hermeticum manuscripts. In order to maintain the convention of numbering certain books from the Corpus Hermeticum the same for the purposes of ease of reference, no modern text in the Corpus Hermeticum is counted as “Book XV”. It’s not that “Book XV” is a “missing Hermetic text”, just that we conventionally don’t mark any text as “Book XV” (like how some buildings don’t have a 13th floor, but immediately go from floor 12 to floor 14).

What else should I read to learn more about Hermeticism?

Plenty! Many works of Hellenistic time period, including those regarding Stoicism, Platonism (whether early or middle or new), Aristotelianism, Hellenistic Judaism, Egyptian religion and philosophy, and the like are helpful for getting a better contextual background for approaching and understanding the Hermetic texts. Similarly, the gnostic texts of the Nag Hammadi Library and related texts like the Books of Jeu are also helpful to see similar influences at play that played out differently from the path that Hermeticism took. In addition to these source texts, modern scholarship is also helpful to understand more subtle shifts and developments in these texts and the traditions that produced them that are not immediately apparent from the source texts themselves. Some scholars and authors to read on these fronts include, in no particular order nor is this an exhaustive list by any means:

Brian Copenhaver
Clement Salaman
Jean-Pierre Mahé
Charles Harold Dodd
Walter Scott
Arthur Darby Nock
André-Jean Festugière
Wouter Hanegraaff
Gilles Quispel
Roelof van den Broek
Garth Fowden
Kevin van Bladel
Christian Bull
Christian Wildberg
Peter Kingsley
Antoine Faivre
Hans Dieter Betz
Eleni Pachoumi
Algis Uzdavinys
Sarah Iles Johnston
Ljuba Merlina Bortolani
Zlatko Pleše
Lautaro Roig Lanzillotta
Jonathan Peste
J. Peter Södergård

Could you be more specific about which books I should focus on first, or in which order?

For the cheap-and-quick start TL;DR, I’d recommend getting these two books first:

Clement Salaman et al., Way of Hermes (contains the Corpus Hermeticum and the Definitions)
Clement Salaman, Asclepius (contains the Asclepius)

If you get these two books (both are pretty cheap but good-quality modern translations of three separate Hermetic texts between them), you’ll be well-placed to learning about Hermetic doctrine, practices, beliefs, and the like. However, if you can, I’d also recommend getting:

Brian Copenhaver, Hermetica (Corpus Hermeticum and Asclepius)
M. David Litwa, Hermetica II (Stobaean Fragments and many other smaller texts)
A translation of the Nag Hammadi Codices, either the one edited by Meyer or by Robinson
Hans D. Betz, The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation
Marvin Meyer, Ancient Christian Magic

If you get all those, you’ll have high-quality translation(s) of all currently-extant classical Hermetic texts with a good few post-classical/medieval ones, complete with plenty of scholarly references, notes, introductions, and appendices for further research and contemplation.

For modern scholarly work about the development, origination, practice, and growth of Hermeticism from its Egyptian origins into its later Arabic and medieval influences, these four books are fantastic (and the bibliographies of which can lead you to other works as well):

Garth Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes
Christian Bull, The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus
Kevin van Bladel, The Arabic Hermes
Wouter J. Hanegraaff, Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination

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Polyphanes

Position: Collaborator City: - Beliefs/System: classical Hermeticist, Lucumi priest of orisha Domains of interest: Domains of interest: divination, geomancy, astrology, astrological magic, Greco-Egyptian magic, Renaissance grimoire magic, Hermetic mysticism, calendrics and horology Website: Read more>