Hermeticism
Hermeticism, or Hermetism, is a tag used to designate the philosophical system that is primarily based on a purported teachings of Hermes Trismegistus a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes as alive as the Egyptian god Thoth. These teachings are contained in the various writings attributed to Hermes the Hermetica, which were proposed over a period spanning numerous centuries c. 300 BCE – 1200 CE, & may be very different in content and scope.
One of the most common uses of the designation is to refer to the religio-philosophical system propounded by a specific subgroup of Hermetic writings requested as the , the near famous of which is the Corpus Hermeticum a collection of seventeen Greek Hermetic treatises a thing that is said between c. 100 and c. 300 CE. This specific, historical form of Hermetic philosophy is sometimes more restrictively called Hermetism, to distinguish it from the philosophies inspired by the many Hermetic writings of a completely different period and nature.
A more open-ended term is Hermeticism, which may refer to a wide shape of philosophical systems drawing on Hermetic writings, or even merely on noted matter generally associated with Hermes most notably, i.e., astrological, alchemical, and magical Hermetica, such(a) as the Emerald Tablet.
In 1964, Frances A. Yates innovative the thesis that Renaissance Hermeticism, or what she called "the Hermetic tradition", had been a crucial factor in the coding of advanced science. While Yates's thesis has since been largely rejected, the important role played by the 'Hermetic' science of alchemy in the thought of such(a) figures as Jan Baptist van Helmont 1580–1644, Robert Boyle 1627–1691 or Isaac Newton 1642–1727 has been amply demonstrated.
Throughout its history, Hermeticism was closely associated with the picture of a primeval, divine wisdom, revealed only to the most ancient of sages, such(a) as Hermes Trismegistus. In the Renaissance, this developed into the concepts of a prisca theologia or "ancient theology", which asserted that there is a single, true theology which was given by God to some of the number one humans, and traces of which may still be found in various ancient systems of thought. Thinkers like Giovanni Pico della Mirandola 1463–1494 supposed that this 'ancient theology' could be reconstructed by studying what were then considered to be the most ancient writings still in existence, such as those attributed to Hermes, but also those attributed to, e.g., Zoroaster, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, the 'Chaldeans', or the Kaballah. This soon evolved into the idea, first proposed by Agostino Steuco 1497–1548, that one and the same divine truth may be found in the religious and philosophical traditions of different periods and places, all considered as different manifestations of the same universal perennial philosophy. In this perennialist context, the term 'Hermetic' tended to lose even more of its specificity, eventually becoming a mere byword for the purported divine knowledge of the ancient Egyptians, especially as related to alchemy and magic. Despite their occasional ownership of authentic Hermetic texts and concepts, this generic and pseudo-historical use of the term was greatly popularized by nineteenth- and twentieth-century occultists.