This is such an interesting part of history, a brother of Gnosticism (pre-Christianity), I’m having an awesome time learning about it and you will too. This is the kind of stuff that made me want to be an anthropologist before I went the engineering route. It connects so many religions and disciplines as it’s the “religion of the Mind.” Some of the ideas are as old as civilization and still relate to the modern day.
“You have to give the right words. That means you have to have the right relationship to that person. You have to address him the right way. So you have to address the Planets the right way, you address Nature the right way, you address all these guardians the right way. And by the addressing them the right way they will be compelled to withdraw and let you pass.
So. Two things. On the one hand, don’t identify with your surroundings and with your situation to say that ‘I am just a part of it.’ If you are just a part of the Planets, then you know what’s going to happen to you? You’re going to go round and round and round the merry-go-round forever and ever. And while all of us like to be in orbit now and then, maybe that’s not quite the orbit that you want to be in, you know? You are not part, you are not Cosmic. You are more than Cosmic. You are above the Cosmic. This may sound arrogant - it may sound inflating and all that and maybe it is, but a bit of arrogance, a bit of inflation is sometimes quite nice, especially if it’s based on something that is true.
Don’t identify with it, don’t say ‘I’m just a blob within a bigger blob in with all the rest of the blobs.’ Recognize you are there as a separate being. But at the same time realize that there is a relationship between yourself and these other factors. And this relationship has to be conducted in a ???? (1:16:39). Hermes always negotiates, Hermes always interacts. There is always an Iron Tao in Hermes… So it is the overcoming of limitations by learning the right relationships with everything. Very tricky, very difficult - needs a lot of intuition, needs a lot of insight, and sometimes also quite a bit of knowledge of beauty.” - Dr. Stephan Hoeller
“In fact Alchemical, Magical and related Mysterious arts were subsumed under Hermetic Arts which was considered to be ruled by Hermes… These are really the part of the art of relationships with these powers. The magician can relate himself… to various entities… this is the way of relating, this is the way of understanding what they do, how they are, how to talk to them. And then one can overcome their power with knowledge. And transformation, which is the great art of alchemy.
These are the ways in which the doer of the hermetic work overcomes the world. But remember now, he doesn’t practice magic just in order to be powerful and to make money and get gold and lord it over people. That’s the work of the stupid wrong magician who eventually always comes to an evil end. And the alchemist also doesn’t do that just to make gold but learn the art of Transformation. These are the intricacies whereby it works…
There were two Renaissances, the Humanist Renaissance and the Hermetic Renaissance… Francis Yates was the great discoverer of this particular historical fact. Everything from the artistic Renaissance in Italy and the English Renaissance and so forth were deeply influenced by the Hermetic revival - the Hermetic Renaissance. And it’s really out of that Hermetic Renaissance a kind of spiritual and intellectual fashion - we have been living off that practically to the present time. There isn’t an awful lot left now anymore, we kind of sucked it dry… And now there is a possibility of another Renaissance…So in an interesting way we are part of that story.” - Dr. Stephan Hoeller
No comments:
Post a Comment