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Is the Hermetic Philosophy an Ancient Forgery?

The publication of the Hermetic Philosophy in 1471 heralded the possibility to returning to truly primordial wisdom. Indeed, mystical wisdom thought to have the power to restore Human Dignity through the unity of the microcosm with the macrocosm, the occult arts and reuniting the human soul with the divine. Along with Cabala, the Hermetic philosophers sought to reform all domains of philosophy and spirituality. But what if the Hermetica was just an ancient forgery? In 1614 Isaac Casaubon launched an attack on the Corpus Hermeticum on linguistic, philosophical and doctrinal grounds to argue that the texts could not be nearly as old as Moses. Indeed, they were plagiarized frauds. This attack would fundamental alter our understanding of these ancient mystical texts. But, would it hold over time?

Comments

S Mill

Thoth, in your thumbnail, does not look pleased by these allegations.

Bill

Hopefully not a silly question -- if we view your videos ahead of their "official" release date, do our views get counted by YouTube? I assume the more views, the more you benefit from YouTube, so if the pre-release views don't count, I'm happy to always wait until Fridays. Thanks!

Nachum Kaplan

Thank you once again for your concise elucidations.. The devil's always in the details and so is the truth. Toddah.

Umi Dan Rotnem

Thank you for this! This type of critical review is exactly why I love your work. Particularly the openness about the inquiry: is the entire foundation of western esotericism (and this channel) built on sand? The interplay between opposing Christian factions, the satire that ignited the Rosicrucian movement. How you hold the entire milieu in mind as you present the material deeply enriches my experience as a practitioner, and inspires how I think about the work I do.

P. Sufenas Virius Lupus`

So: will Casaubon's text be a Summer mini-publication project between you and Dan once again? ;) (I know: where would the time come from for either of you?)

SwedishChef1977

Interesting as always, have a great weekend!

David Allen

I really enjoyed this one. Totally wild how a typesetting error can cause so much fuss, but also, seems symptomatic of a much larger thing: if you're into Calvinist dogma and you already know what the answer *should be*, I guess the wider thing is how dogma obscures even brilliant people's ability to do real research & get to the truth of matters, hence why he "over-pendulumed" (I forget the word Dr. Sledge used) to "it's all fake"