Talk:Hermeticism

There are some errors when describing alchemy.

Although the different hermetic perspective appear to not be talking about the same subject they are actually symbolically speaking about the same principles of alchemy. Each of them describe the steps/process explained from the "Emerald Tablet" however different cultures had their own way to express these same universal principles. Therefore at times it will seem as if different regions, time periods, cultures etc are not in alignment with their fundamental meaning but that is a common misconception. 2601:1C0:4300:AA40:DA4:7E78:A23C:647D (talk) 16:54, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

- citations to reliable sources required to support claims, otherwise it is original research per WP:NOR - Epinoia (talk) 18:33, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Arabic Tradition

The history of the Hermetic Tradition currently skips from a brief (wholly inadequate) discussion of Late Antiquity to the Renaissance. Not only is this extremely Eurocentric, it also does not make any sense. I can see from the talk page that the Sabians of Harran were mentioned on the version of the page from fifteen years ago. Perhaps this should be brought back, and a section on the Arabic Hermetica expanded. I have a few sources for this so I may create this section over the next few days. 31.205.208.11 (talk) 09:41, 15 March 2022 (UTC)

If your sources are of the type that Wikipedia considers reliable (in this case, academic secondary sources), please do expand the article! However, you should probably begin by reading Van Bladel, Kevin (2009). The Arabic Hermes: From Pagan Sage to Prophet of Science. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-537613-5.

One of the main things you'll learn there is that the obscure religion of the Sabians of Harran has little or nothing to do with Hermeticism. It seems to have been a late survival of Hellenistic polytheism, and as such Hermes may have been held in some esteem by them, but on the one hand their religion was much broader than the narrow philosophical interests of Hermeticism, and on the other hand we could never learn anything about Hermeticism (assuming they had any connection to it in the first place) through them, since we have no extant sources from them (while we do have a rather large of corpus of Arabic Hermetic texts, wholly unrelated to the Sabians, that remains practically uninvestigated by scholars). Thanks, ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:05, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Mental Plane

Hi there Hermetiscism experts, I am looking at this page: Mental plane which has not a single citation but a fair bit of information. I am trying to decide whether it is a subject worth developing, something that should be merged somewhere or something that needs a bit of WP:TNT. It claims that the Mental Plane is found in various philosophies and traditions, including yours. Is that correct? Most of the stuff I have found is only about Theosophy (or else something completely different!) If it is relevant to yourselves, you might want to make some edits there or else wight in on what it needs. Thanks Sirfurboy🏄 (talk) 09:10, 24 August 2022 (UTC)

Pseudo-history

According the Wikipedia page on pseudo history, pseudo history is a deliberate attempt to distort history through faulty methods. The use of pseudo history implies that occultists were manipulating historical facts, where is the evidence that this was the case? They more likely used the term to describe a broader system of beliefs and “hermetic” just became broader. I don’t think they were trying to rewrite history like “pseudo history” implies. 2603:6010:11F0:3C0:D0C4:1D11:F82B:A9FB (talk) 17:58, 26 October 2022 (UTC)

The fault here may lie with the wording of the Pseudohistory Wikipedia article, but pseudohistory is not necessarily deliberate. Indeed, most often its practitioners believe that they are revealing the 'truth' to humanity in good faith. Rather, what is characteristic of pseudohistory as outlined by our article is the political/religious/personal agenda, the sensational claims, the historical revisionism, the accusation that mainstream scholars 'hide' the truth, the use of myths and legends as credible sources, and the conflation of demonstrating that something could theoretically have happened with demonstrating that it actually did happen. You will find all of these in occultist literature such as the works of Helena Blavatsky, which are particularly relevant with regard to Hermeticism (see Hermeticism#CITEREFProphet2018).

The term 'rewriting history' is often applied to distortions of the historical record for expressly political purposes, and this is indeed not what the occultists were doing. But that does not mean that they were not distorting the historical record: they were just doing it in the context of the history of philosophy and religion rather than, say, in military history. See for example our article on the Neohermetic phrase 'As above, so below', which Blavatsky interpreted in terms of such historically unrelated thought systems as Pythagoreanism, Kabbalah and Buddhism. See also the reference given there to our erudite scholars, a typical jab at the mainstream. Or see her quintessential perennialist statement cited in the 'As above, so below' article, There is no prominent character in all the annals of sacred or profane history whose prototype we cannot find in the half-fictitious and half-real traditions of bygone religions and mythologies: by regarding myths and legends as the most fundamental sources for 'true' history (when rid from fictitious and specific details they provide the general blueprint of everything that ever happened and will happen), perennialism as a historiographic methodology is inherently pseudo-historical. If any myth that reminds some occultist author of something in the Hermetica, whether they have found that myth in Hinduism or in some native American thought system or somewhere else yet, is to be called 'Hermetic', the term will indeed get entirely divorced from its historical context, and eventually lose all meaning. And this loss of meaning, ultimately, is perhaps the most characteristic feature of pseudohistory when applied to philosophy and religion. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 12:22, 27 October 2022 (UTC)