Hermeticism

Artfuldodger

Senior Member
Hermeticism, also called Hermetism,[1][2] is a religious and philosophical tradition based primarily upon pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus ("Thrice Great").[3] These writings have greatly influenced the Western esoteric tradition and were considered to be of great importance during both the Renaissance[4] and the Reformation.[5] The tradition claims descent from a prisca theologia, a doctrine which affirms that a single, true theology exists which is present in all religions and was given by God to man in antiquity.[6][7]
In Hermeticism, the ultimate reality is referred to variously as God, the All, or the One. God in the Hermetica is unitary and transcendent, he is one and exists apart from the material cosmos. Hermetism is therefore profoundly monotheistic, in a deistic and unitarian understanding of the term. "For it is a ridiculous thing to confess the World to be one, one Sun, one Moon, one Divinity, and yet to have, I know not how many gods." [25]

Its philosophy teaches that there is a transcendent God, or Absolute, in which we and the entire universe participate. It also subscribes to the idea that other beings, such as aeons, angels and elementals, exist within the universe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermeticism
 
Top