Talk:Hermetism

if i understand things correctly, hermetism and hermeticism influenced hermetic kabbalah...

Harold Bloom

Umm... Not only what harold bloom said was vastly incorrect. But why in hells name would you even ask harold blooms opinion? Because he writes criticism about government? Its that kinda like asking my dentist about how to fix my car? And yeah, hermetic philosophy is related to hermetic kabbalah. Since early christian kabbalahists practiced the rather non-dogmatic feel to religion that the corpus hermeticum has

Well, I balanced out the Bloom quote by debunking it..... if anyone knows where it came from in the first place, I'd love a citation

KV 18:05, 20 February 2006 (UTC)

Facts or Fiction?

Hermetism was the religion of the philosophical elite of Ancient Egypt. In the ancient days, every pagan nation had two religions. The first of these two was that of the philosophical elite which celebrated a pantheistic religion hidden among its mystery schools. Second was the common religion which took the teachings of the mystery schools and turned them into allegorical stories, or myths of gods and goddesses, themselves personifications of aspects of the Universe.

The blanket and categorical statement "every pagan nation had two religions" makes this entire article dubious. Is there any evidence that this so-called Hermetism existed at all in ancient Egypt? How do we know that it is not just a nice piece of fiction? All the best, Jorge Stolfi 01:15, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

We have the whole Corpus Hermeticum thing.... the earliest version found thus far, in Coptic. And I have that directly cited by a top scholar in the area of the subject. Essentially, he explains that the polytheism in any religion is not meant to be taken literally. This is well accepted in such "polytheistic" religions as Hinduism. Seeing as Hermeticism is based off of Hermes Trismegistus, who is synonomous with Thoth, and we have many Hermetic writings written in his name which were really written by the Egyptian priestcraft, yes, there is evidence that it existed back then.

KV 04:45, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but I don't think this can be asserted in this way. The notion that every pagan nation had two religions is simply not accepted scholarly opinion. This is a retrospective speculation by later adherents of hermetic teaching. One could just as well say 'all pagan religions were devil worship in disguise': some people think that, but it's not an accepted consensus view. And many people in polytheistic religions really are polytheists, even if some sophisticated commentators interpret it otherwise. Also, you can't just say that Hermes Trismegistus is synonymnous with Thoth. Some hermetic writers may have proposed that identification, but some would dispute it, and you can't conflate the two figures. (The Romans said that Diana "was" Artemis, but that doesn't mean that anything you can say about the mythological figure of Artemis automatically applied to Diana too.) Myopic Bookworm 19:37, 2 March 2006 (UTC)

Ah, I forgot to come back to this.... I am starting to see where the problem is.... Hall states all pagan nations, but by "pagan" he is more referring to Greece, Egypt, and Mesopotamia, as well as the northern tribes making up most of Europe today. In essence, he means more Paganism as a religion than non-Christian. Perhaps that's the problem here.

Also, the part about Hermes Trismegistus being the same as Thoth and Hermes is something that is widely accepted across Hermetic thought, and I know not of a single Hermeticist, or Hermetist for that matter, who believes otherwise. I also didn't put that forth as such originally, I do believe that was part of the text that I didn't remove. So we'll just have to reword that. Check up on this and make sure I did it right. Thanks.

KV 03:39, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

Actually, in reading the section on the equivalence of Thoth and Hermes Trismegistus, "Hermes is usually equated with being the Egyptian god Thoth (Abel and Hare p. 5)" (emphasis added). That is already using the inclusive terminology. I have seen 6 or 7 authors refer to them as being synonomous, some equating it with the Greek Hermes as well, and none not equating the two when discussing Hermes. I do believe that "usually" is the proper word, unless you feel that I need to include that it applies to scholars of Hermetism.

KV 03:48, 3 March 2006 (UTC)

User:kh7

I think this article is mostly the opinion of Hall, and at the very least G.R.S. Mead should be mentioned in the text, he is mentioned in the links though. I tend to doubt the difference being made between hermeticism and hermetism. I have not heard of this distinction before. kh7 06:31, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I should be able to get the opinion of E.A. Wallis Budge as soon as my books come in at Barnes and Noble.... but the only people I have heard mention Hermetism is Bloom, who I have left in the article, Hall, and the Three Initiates of the Kybalion. There is comparably more information on Hermeticism..... but with this article existing, I set out to find out what Hermetism was, and I found very little. If you have GRS Mead's opinion, why not add it in?

KV 17:38, 16 March 2006 (UTC)

I agree that this article seems to just summerize Hall's opinion.

Clarifications

"It should be noted, however, that Hermetists viewed Hermes as a man, not a god." What are Hermetists here? Is it in ancient Egypt, neo-platonists, or more recent Western tradition? A citation is needed.--Connection 11:59, 6 June 2006 (UTC)

Sources

I don't think that Manly P. Hall is a reliable source on this topic. Can you back up his ahem assertions from some reliable academic source. —Hanuman Das 13:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Here from the RfC: I don't think he has any idea what he's talking about. I've spotted numerous mistakes in his books. From my understanding he's not much of a historian. SynergeticMaggot 14:10, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, his only "degree" seems to be one that only entitles him to wear a funny hat and ride in a golf cart in a parade. And he didn't even have that degree when he wrote his books. -999 (Talk) 15:04, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

I completely agree with SynergeticMaggot, and 999 (surprised?). Hall is definitely not reliable on the topic. Blueboar 15:55, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

My jaw just dropped to the floor. Thats how surprised I am. SynergeticMaggot 15:56, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Give me time over the weekend to back up his claims from other sources.

KV(Talk) 16:29, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Though admittedly from the organization he created, I was able to find this on Hall, which supports him as a reputable source. Everyone who does speak of him (I didn't want a questionable site to link) spoke highly of him. http://www.prs.org/mphbio.htm

KV(Talk) 16:52, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Thats a link to the same org he created. I wouldnt use them, it might be biased. SynergeticMaggot 17:05, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Source? This guy is a crank. Anyone can write 150 books and essays and deliver 7,500 speeches if you give him 70 years. The only notable statements in his article are the unsourced claims that he is an authority on these topics and that Carl Jung borrowed some books from him. So what? If this counts as a source then "Guy standing on the street corner giving out pamphlets" counts, too. -Justin (koavf)·T·C·M 00:48, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

NOT the same as the Greek cult of Hermes

Here's some probably more reliable information than Manly P. Hall (though I'm not sure that's saying much). It makes clear that Hermetism is syncretic, which means it cannot be the same as the original cult of Hermes.

Hermetism (the original Hermetic source from which the broader tradition of Hermeticism derives) was one of the many products of the meeting of the ancient Hellenic and Egyptian cultures in the centuries surrounding the beginning of the Common Era. Hermetism, described most simply, combined Egyptian and Greek theology, philosophy, and spiritual practice. But of course, it was not that simple.

Perhaps the principle reason the origin of Hermetism is complex is that it found its most fertile home in the great syncretic Græco-Egyptian metropolis of Alexandria, when that city was the cultural capital of the Mediterranean under the Pax Romana. Religious and philosophical wisdom flowed from many cultures into the city, the great spiritual Krater or Mixing Bowl which gave birth to the new synthesis of religion, philosophy, and practice which was Hermetism. Nominally Egyptian, and attributed to the Egyptian God Thoth in the guise of an enlightened ancient master, the Hermetic elixir was composed of ingredients from all the great Traditions active in Alexandria. To the millennia-rich stock of Egyptian religion, philosophy, and magic were added many elements from Greek Paganism (itself influenced throughout its development by Egypt, Anatolia, Phoenicia, and Syria), particularly the Mysteries and the philosophical schools of Platonism, Neo-Platonism, Stoicism, and Neo-Pythagorism; Alexandrian Judaism, with its Angelology, Magic, and deep reverence for the sacred Book; the many forms of Christianity (Gnostic and otherwise); Persian Zoroastrianism, with its deep concern with good and evil; as well as the new developments springing up alongside Hermetism and cross-fertilizing with it, such as Alchemy and Iamblichan Theurgy. [1]

I propose that all information based only on Manly P. Hall be removed from the article post-haste, or that the article be retitled to Hermetism (Manly P. Hall). -999 (Talk) 15:16, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The source I mentioned in Cult of Hermes which is where I assume this is flowing over here from does not use him as a source for that statement. It uses Churton.

KV(Talk) 16:30, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Looks more like discussion on Manly P. Hall's inclusion in this article. I'm neutral for now, until I know more. SynergeticMaggot 16:37, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

What the...?

Why does this article exist? First of all the name - Hermetism - scholars typically use Hermeticism (it's not impossible that some do, but if so, their research should be put in the other article which is goofy but has more promise than this one. Second, the first sentence and premise of this article, that it is Ancient Egyptian (meaning pre-Hellenistic) is fictional until proven. Zeusnoos 17:22, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, that's about what I thought when I found this article... There's also Hermeticism and other thought systems which looks equally bogus... -999 (Talk) 17:32, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

That entire article appears to be OR mixed with some unsupported claims such as "Zoroastrianism plays a large role in influencing Hermeticism." This must be proven in the court of scholarship, or at least qualified with "scholar of Hermeticism X claims..." This does not mean that similarities cannot be found but how many wiki articles are dedicated solely to drawing out similarities among disparate traditions? Zeusnoos 17:49, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

Yeah, I think it should be AfDed. While there is some cited content that could be moved to other articles, the whole article is basically an essay and not an encyclopedia article. -999 (Talk) 18:00, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

NPOV tag

Far too many pseudo-primary sources, far too many weasel words, and the last section needs slashing drastically. Black Kite 18:03, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

I've tried to remove as much of the material as I can in this article that derived from unreliable sources, and I've left further comments and a suggested future course of action here. Moreschi (talk) (debate) 19:15, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

A lot needs to be worked on, agreed. That will come soon enough. KV(Talk) 19:17, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

Why would the Kybalion not be a reliable source for this? KV(Talk) 19:20, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

A religious overview of the group made by members should serve as evidence of belief. It is a reliable source for that. KV(Talk) 19:21, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

What? The Kybalion is a modern text. It is not a reliable source of any kind for an article about the ancient cult, which is what I thought this article was about. For another thing, nobody knows who wrote it! Under such circumstances it can't even serve as an RS for the beliefs of the modern New Agey types (who surely don't belong here anyway). Moreschi (talk) (debate) 19:34, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

The Kybalion is a modern text written by Modern Hermetists who wished to describe what the beliefs of Hermetism were about. It does have its own POV on certain beliefs, but it does a fair job of describing beliefs and where it strays into controversy it notes that controversy. There is no reason to remove the citations as they made the article better than what it was. Nothing listed there was controversial as to the beliefs. KV(Talk) 18:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Just for the record, to explain the quick intervention, KV's version of 12 April had things like

"This would mean that Hermetism reaches back at least many millennia BCE, into the era of prehistory. Manly P. Hall, occult and Hermetic scholar, does not stop there however. Hall takes credence in the stories of Atlantis, which is said to have passed through the Egyptians to Solon, and then to Plato. Hall was under the impression that the Atlanteans had, for the most part, fallen from the Path of Light and some of those still of the light fled Atlantis to settle in Egypt."

That's patent nonsense, and should explain the quick reaction at WP:FTN. If we can turn this into a reasonable discussion of the movement in Late Antiquity, fine. But KV ranting at AN/I against "sock masters" bullying him and deleting his work in the light of paragraphs such as the one I just quoted seems to leave little hope that KV will be party in building such an article. --dab (𒁳) 07:16, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I quoted myself. I called people involved in a former dispute over these articles that, and that's what they've been declared by the community. Yet, you want to put words in my mouth. Of course, there were many errors there, and that's something that was going to be fixed, and that was stated to be fixed. Before you came here I told you on that board that that section had to be completely rewritten. There was no question when it came to that.KV(Talk) 18:33, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

look, there is no reason to keep Hermetism and Hermeticism separate unless and until you write a decent article. Complaining on grounds that you were going to write something decent is silly. Just go ahead and do write something acceptable and then we can talk about it. We were cleaning up the article as it stood, not the potential article that was forming in your mind. dab (𒁳) 08:11, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Yes, that's the problem with deletionism. It expects everything to be perfect or not exist at all. It stands against the idea of a wiki. A wiki is about the potential article, and trying to create that article, adding to it before suggesting any pruning. At the very least it could have been considered a stub rather than constant conversation of merging, stubs exist for a reason, they can grow into articles. KV(Talk) 16:58, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

Hermetism vs. Hermeticism

The article does not establish that "Hermetism" is different from Hermeticism. Redirect pending presentation of unambiguous evidence. Random House treats it as a simple spelling variant [2]. dab (𒁳) 19:32, 14 April 2008 (UTC)

ok, I find that Van den Broek and Hanegraaff do indeed distinghuish between "Hermetism" in Late Antiquity and "Hermeticism" from the Renaissance. We can introduce this distinction with due attribution (note that this isn't universially used terminology, it is terminology as introduced by one book we may choose to use as a source here). The proper way to treat this will be to introduce "history" section at Hermeticism. "Hermetism" then needs to be informed of Hellenistic religion and Magic in the Greco-Roman world, and of course avoid all nonsense of pre-Hellenistic, or even Bronze Age "Hermetism". The bogus claims of hoary antiquity is what set off the FT alarms. If we can make this an informed article about a religious current in Late Antiquity duly linked to the material we already have on this topic -- no problem. dab (𒁳) 06:29, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Hermetism and Gnosticism may be a good title: these two being "sister" movements of early western esotericism, and will be rather different to tell apart. The wider context of "Hermetism and other religions" (Neoplatonism, Christianity, Mystery religions, Roman imperial cult) should be discussed at the Hellenistic religions article. The latter has been languishing as a stub for quite some time, and encyclopedic additions will be most welcome. dab (𒁳) 06:53, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Agreed with the Hermetism and Gnosticism title, as the reliable sources immediately available to me all seem to indicate that Hermetism arose from the Gnostic tradition, and even the majority of online references I have found clearly link the two. Also, I note that "Hermeticism" in Encyclopedia Britannica refers only to the "poetic movement", so that term may not be completely appropriate to use to describe Hermetic religion. Having searched through the admittedly limited number of religious reference works I have immediately available to me, though, I find no clear references to the modern Hermetic movement, although Britannica online does refer to it as Hermetism. And there is a book from Cornell which indicates Hegel was influenced by Hermeticism/Hermitism, although it's elsewhere in town and currently checked out. I regret to say that Van Den Broek, who also wrote the book "From Poimandres to Jacob Böhme : gnosis, hermetism and the Christian tradition', published by the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica in Amsterdam in 2000, may not particularly qualify as a reliable source, or at least that calls his objectivity into question. I will try to find RS which describe the modern movement in particular in the next few days though, as it does seem to be probably fringey, but not necessarily more so than a lot of other content we have on comparatively obscure religious movements. John Carter (talk) 17:57, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Though they are similar, they are not one and the same. That's like having a Christianity and Judaism article, leaving both devoid of uniqueness. Similarly, there could be a Wikipedia and Wiktionary article, because those are sister projects. There is plenty of information about Hermetism, which I could include if every citation I put up isn't torn down or have its entire meaning changed, and then reverted while I get accused of revert warring. Leave them separate, any article named Hermetism and Gnosticism should be a completely comparative article. KV(Talk) 18:15, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Oh, btw, you mean Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition by Glenn Alexander Magee. I had that which I was going to add in the near future, but instead I find myself in this edit war instead. KV(Talk) 21:02, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

That's not the point either. Since we don't have enough material from reliable secondary sources (as opposed to New Age/occultist crankpottery) to write a full article on Hermetism, rewriting this article as an exploration of the links between Hermetism and the tradition that spawned it is perfectly reasonable. Moreschi2 (talk) 20:37, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I have well more than enough to write a full article. I have in reserve, 84 academic papers from peer-reviewed academic journals, and several academic books. However, I have not had time to go through it all to make a full article, properly cited, etc. Instead you decided to come in and simply delete anything that's added. That includes non-controversial text, and when you try to delete something you consider controversial, you decide to delete academic sources along with it, calling this academic a crackpot because he says something you had not heard before. KV(Talk) 20:58, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

If your article as it stood was in any way indicative of what you are planning, I am not holding my breath. But you are, of course, welcome to develop an article based on academic publications. No WP:SYN though (no "many millennia BCE". no Atlantis. No Romanticism. This is a topic of Hellenistic religion). Just cite your papers, and we'll be happy to assist in taking their acutal gist to build a great encyclopedic article. dab (𒁳) 08:07, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

The history section was not in any way indicative, that was going to undergo a major rehaul. I stated that clearly to you on the fringe noticeboard. That was going to be completely rewritten, and your deletion of it caused no problems. However, the constant attempts towards merging despite difference being shown, changing CE to AD, rewording text outside of what the sources claim, that is what upset me. A good way to help would have been to add sources and let the article evolve. Seeing as the original conflict was resolved by me establishing the difference, my friend readded it. He, and two sock puppets of some sockmaster, and for the fifteenth time, no I am not speaking of you, had been the ones involved in this dispute the first time around. I knew it needed a complete rewrite as of yet, but figured hell, let the wiki help. Instead, it was immediately challenged in the most aggressive manner. So I will follow John Carter's advice for this. KV(Talk) 16:55, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

good - so I hope we can move on now and focus on content. What you should do is, you should expand the Hermeticism#Late_Antiquity section (at present a meagre six lines), based on academic sources. Once that section becomes very long, a branching out into a standalone History of Hermetism, or if you prefer "Hermetism" article will come natural (WP:SS). As it stands, this article isn't useful, because it has no content that isn't a rehash of Hermeticism, and it isn't clear what it is supposed to be about. dab (𒁳) 14:52, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Actually, I said to move it into userspace, not wikipedia space. User space is those pages starting with "User:", the pages were in fact moved to pages which were subpages of a non-existent subproject of WikiProject Religion. As they were subpages of the nonexistent Hermeticism work group, the moves were at best confusing. I would honestly encourage the editor that, if he isn't sure what he's doing, to ask someone else. Acting on his own, with no clear idea apparently of what he's doing, only serves to make matters worse. John Carter (talk) 15:07, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

It's already in KV's userspace. I added it here so it doesn't look like hes the only one working on it. As I see, once it was included into the mainspace, it was attacked and butchered. Removing citations for no clear reason other than "it's bullshit" is unbecoming of an admin and is in no way productive. No merge is justified in these threads and an agreement to work on the article has been made (regardless of a name change in the future, an article such as this is justified). With that said, happy editing. SynergeticMaggot (talk) 22:08, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

what do you mean "No merge is justified in these threads"? This article is a pure WP:CFORK and needs to be redirected or merged asap. dab (𒁳) 18:03, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

No. Its not a content fork. I've seen sources that distinguish between the terms. Although, since there are no productive edits since our last time stamps, anything is possible. I never liked the article. — _Maggot^Syn 14:07, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

KV has been inactive for some time, yes, almost the three months for a project to be declared inactive. We might have to do something about the hermetism project and portal sometime soon. Thoughts? John Carter (talk) 15:01, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I am glad we had this discussion, but the article has just been sitting there for a year now. Wikipedia isn't just about "being right", it is also about sitting down and fixing things. If in doubt, the best approach is to merge things pending someone sitting down and fixing it. --dab (𒁳) 10:25, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Category:Enoch

I would like to create category called Category:Enoch in order to re-organize the material in the Enoch series. Enoch is a very mysterious character that would still need to be de-mythologized for the sake of ancient and modern studies in religion. Is there anywhere I can propose or discuss the creation of this category ? ADM (talk) 20:33, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

There are a number of folks named Enoch; any particular one? --—— Gadget850 (Ed) ^talk - 20:45, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

(e/c) I imagine that you could just start adding the category to relevant articles (WP:BEBOLD maybe?), but of course there is no guarantee that the category would remain if other editors disagreed. Are there other, similar categories already in existence for Biblical figures? I tried looking for some, but my already sparse religious knowledge seems to have deserted me! You could try looking through the sub-categories under Wikipedia:Categorical_index#Religion_and_belief_systems for a precedent.

For discussion, perhaps the best place to begin might be the talk page of Wikiproject Religion, or alternatively the talk page of one of the articles mentioned at Enoch (I wasn't sure which Enoch you meant), although a discussion there may not get as many contributors. --Kateshortforbob 20:52, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

The son of Jared is by far the most famous one, known simply as Enoch, there is merely a problem in the disambiguation which I would like to fix. ADM (talk) 20:53, 16 March 2009 (UTC)

article status

This article was deleted in July 2006 as a redundant content fork of Hermeticism. I think the deletion was overturned in favour of userification at the request of King Vegita (talk · contribs), who protests that the deletion was brought about by "sock masters", to User:King Vegita/Hermetism. The article was recreated by copy-paste in April 2008, by Synergy (talk · contribs). This was at thes same time an unilateral overturning of a deletion decision, and a violation of the GFDL (by separating the article from its edit history).

The edit histories of the two pages, User:King Vegita/Hermetism and Hermetism should be merged, then the page should be protected as a redirect to Hermeticism per the deletion debate. If the article is to be recreated after all, it needs to be taken to WP:RV first. --dab (𒁳) 10:37, 17 September 2009 (UTC)