I'm sure many of you are familiar with the "argument" that Hermeticism is the oldest thing in existence, stemming from Ancient Egypt (or possible Atlantis before it, as some argue). Now, while I appreciate that there was more than likely a system of philosophy and practice that was dedicated to Thoth (I'm not sure about the Greaco-Egyptian hybrid of Thoth-Hermes at this time, as this seems to me to stem from Greek Alexandria, and thus would not come into play in Ancient Egypt before Greece took control), I prefer to use the Academic distinction for this as Hermetism, because we're taking a big leap of faith in saying that one (Hermeticism) is the other (Hermetism). The fact of the matter is that we simply don't know if the Ancient Egyptian Thoth cult believed the things we accept as Hermeticism today, so we can say "I personally believe they did" but not "they did", as there's no textual evidence for it. Lack of evidence is not evidence of lack is a good phrase to bring in here before anyone thinks I'm dismissing the potential that Hermeticism teaches the same tradition of the Ancient Egyptians - but I'm reluctant to make these excessively wild claims.
The Rosicrucians claim to be directly descended from Atlantis (their teachings, at least), which is a pretty mystical and far-fetched claim (where my own personal conviction is that John Dee may have been the founder of Rosicrucianism, either directly or indirectly, but more than likely influenced it if he was not). Some people argue Enochian is the language that was used in Atlantis. As far as I'm aware, Atlantis was an invention of Plato, but feel free to correct me on that. Likewise the Golden Dawn claimed to be a continuation of the old Rosicrucian movement in Germany and had Cipher Manuscripts and letters from Anna Sprengel to "prove" it - the Ciphers turn out to be real (albeit not as old as they were claimed to be), but the letters are an obvious, if understandable, forgery. Qabalah claims that its texts, predominantly from the Middle Ages, originated a good 1,000 years before that (and I would argue that there is a strong oral tradition in Judaism and thus it's likely the teachings are older than the texts, but that's it. It's "likely", not fact). Then there's the Christian and Gnostic gospels - all written way after the apostles would have died, yet predominantly claiming to be written by them. And these happens with Hermetic texts also, claiming to be written by or taught by Hermes Trismegistus, who is at the end of the day a mythical figure.
The point I'm trying to get at here is that nearly every tradition makes up an older origin to give it credence. If a prophet of Dublin was to get crucified and I was to claim to have been given a book written by one of his disciples, there'd be a stir. If I admitted that I wrote it myself no one would read it, even if it contained the actual teachings of this prophet, even if it's in the same style and tradition. People seem to think that "older" equals "more true". Is that necessarily the case?
I once argued this with someone who claimed that Hermeticism was the oldest thing in existence (I love Hermeticism, but come on). I pointed out Gnostic links in the Corpus Hermeticum and he said that he taught the Corpus Hermeticum wasn't very Hermetic. For anyone who's even vaguely familiar with this topic, I think the Hermetic nature of the Corpus Hermeticum is fairly evident. Indeed, that's where the term comes from, and that's one of the oldest sources we base our knowledge of Hermeticism on (stemming from the same time and place as the height of Gnosticism, which is probably why the Gnostics of Nag Hammadi had Hermetic texts in their library). Instead this guy argued that the Kybalion is what he saw as more Hermetic. I pointed out that it was roughly 100 years old and he tried to backtrack.
Ancient Alexandria was a hot-spot for many different traditions. It was the centre of a deep philosophical and esoteric "mingling", where ideas were given and absorbed, and this is the place where Gnosticism saw its peak. Indeed, this is also the place where we get the Hermetic Corpus from. And, let's not forget that the name "Hermes" is a Greek name. Hellenistic Greece was a mixture of Greek and Egyptian (and Jewish, for that matter), and Hermes Trismegistus is a mixture of Hermes (the Greek god) and Thoth (the Egyptian god). Even the language of Coptic, which so many of these texts were written in, was Egyptian written in Greek. It was, in my opinion, almost inevitable that new traditions representing bits and pieces from other ones would arise from this meeting and merging of paths. The two dominant ones I can see from this era are Gnosticism and Hermeticism.
Thus, I propose that these are actually sister traditions, and come from a common stream, which is why it's so easy to inter-relate the two, why both seem to espouse and support each other's teachings. In a sense, the Hermeticists did exactly what the Gnostics did, but decided to do it devoid of Judaeo-Christian mythology (in much the same way as the Jewish Gnostics tried to omit any reference to Christian mythology).
This kind of "everything started in Ancient Egypt" argument is, I believe, sorely lacking, yet more and more people seem to use it without understanding much about it or where it came from. There are many who claim Christ was taught by a priest of Osiris, for example, and various other "it goes back to Egypt" claims. While some of these might be true, we need to make the necessary distinction between what may be and what is. The Hermeticism/Hermetism of Ancient Egypt might have been. The Hermeticism we know today is, and just because it's only 2,000 years old doesn't make it any less beautiful and valuable and true.
The Rosicrucians claim to be directly descended from Atlantis (their teachings, at least), which is a pretty mystical and far-fetched claim (where my own personal conviction is that John Dee may have been the founder of Rosicrucianism, either directly or indirectly, but more than likely influenced it if he was not). Some people argue Enochian is the language that was used in Atlantis. As far as I'm aware, Atlantis was an invention of Plato, but feel free to correct me on that. Likewise the Golden Dawn claimed to be a continuation of the old Rosicrucian movement in Germany and had Cipher Manuscripts and letters from Anna Sprengel to "prove" it - the Ciphers turn out to be real (albeit not as old as they were claimed to be), but the letters are an obvious, if understandable, forgery. Qabalah claims that its texts, predominantly from the Middle Ages, originated a good 1,000 years before that (and I would argue that there is a strong oral tradition in Judaism and thus it's likely the teachings are older than the texts, but that's it. It's "likely", not fact). Then there's the Christian and Gnostic gospels - all written way after the apostles would have died, yet predominantly claiming to be written by them. And these happens with Hermetic texts also, claiming to be written by or taught by Hermes Trismegistus, who is at the end of the day a mythical figure.
The point I'm trying to get at here is that nearly every tradition makes up an older origin to give it credence. If a prophet of Dublin was to get crucified and I was to claim to have been given a book written by one of his disciples, there'd be a stir. If I admitted that I wrote it myself no one would read it, even if it contained the actual teachings of this prophet, even if it's in the same style and tradition. People seem to think that "older" equals "more true". Is that necessarily the case?
I once argued this with someone who claimed that Hermeticism was the oldest thing in existence (I love Hermeticism, but come on). I pointed out Gnostic links in the Corpus Hermeticum and he said that he taught the Corpus Hermeticum wasn't very Hermetic. For anyone who's even vaguely familiar with this topic, I think the Hermetic nature of the Corpus Hermeticum is fairly evident. Indeed, that's where the term comes from, and that's one of the oldest sources we base our knowledge of Hermeticism on (stemming from the same time and place as the height of Gnosticism, which is probably why the Gnostics of Nag Hammadi had Hermetic texts in their library). Instead this guy argued that the Kybalion is what he saw as more Hermetic. I pointed out that it was roughly 100 years old and he tried to backtrack.
Ancient Alexandria was a hot-spot for many different traditions. It was the centre of a deep philosophical and esoteric "mingling", where ideas were given and absorbed, and this is the place where Gnosticism saw its peak. Indeed, this is also the place where we get the Hermetic Corpus from. And, let's not forget that the name "Hermes" is a Greek name. Hellenistic Greece was a mixture of Greek and Egyptian (and Jewish, for that matter), and Hermes Trismegistus is a mixture of Hermes (the Greek god) and Thoth (the Egyptian god). Even the language of Coptic, which so many of these texts were written in, was Egyptian written in Greek. It was, in my opinion, almost inevitable that new traditions representing bits and pieces from other ones would arise from this meeting and merging of paths. The two dominant ones I can see from this era are Gnosticism and Hermeticism.
Thus, I propose that these are actually sister traditions, and come from a common stream, which is why it's so easy to inter-relate the two, why both seem to espouse and support each other's teachings. In a sense, the Hermeticists did exactly what the Gnostics did, but decided to do it devoid of Judaeo-Christian mythology (in much the same way as the Jewish Gnostics tried to omit any reference to Christian mythology).
This kind of "everything started in Ancient Egypt" argument is, I believe, sorely lacking, yet more and more people seem to use it without understanding much about it or where it came from. There are many who claim Christ was taught by a priest of Osiris, for example, and various other "it goes back to Egypt" claims. While some of these might be true, we need to make the necessary distinction between what may be and what is. The Hermeticism/Hermetism of Ancient Egypt might have been. The Hermeticism we know today is, and just because it's only 2,000 years old doesn't make it any less beautiful and valuable and true.
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3 comments:
Thank you for reviewing this seemingly ongoing argument over authenticity based on age. Most in this community encounter these sentiments regularly, IMO. I agree with you that it is important to be accurate historically. Ultimately, Truth is ageless - that's why it's called Ageless Wisdom.
Excellent post, Dean. I long for the day when modern "occult" schools of thought can be honest about their origins.
Hi Dean,
thank you for this post.
I just want to point out something that may help some people who attempt the old "my tradition is older therefore better" than yours have some perspective.
Our contemporary way of viewing time, historical events and historical "claims" is no older than the Enlightenment. The pre-modern view of time and "history" was very different.
We can perhaps get a sense of the pre-modern mindset by remembering that many traditional artists and artisans would sign to their works not "their" name but the name of which every deity/prophet/figure inspired them. They were not being frauds, but accurately representing a spiritual relationship. So too with any pre-modern claims of origins and dates. They were never meant to be subject to the rational, logical and historical analysis we take for granted today.
I think we should look at the older claims of traditional Egyptian origins, Atlantis, dates etc in this light.
Thanks :)
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