With this post, we’re setting out into a new series of essays, a series which I hope will be both interesting and useful to you.
One of my plans for this year is to publish more regularly on The Hidden Things – preferably about topics which I enjoy, and which I hope you will enjoy just as much. This new series is the start into this endavour, and it covers some out-of-the-way ground, namely an obscure approach to “improving” yourself and your life.
Of course, I’m not just covering this approach here because it’s far outside the mainstream, but also because it’s ground which deserves to be covered, and which I think could be helpful to a lot of people.
Before we dive into what exactly this topic is, though, let me first explain what I mean by “improving yourself and your life”.
I don’t exactly like the term “self improvement”, for several reasons:
It makes some people feel as if they’d never be good enough. It makes others feel as if they there’s nothing to improve, since they are already better than everyone else. It has also been abused to mean whatever the latest fad in the “self improvement” corner is, whether that fad actually improves peoples’ lives or not.
Still, I used the term in the opener because it gets the message across: To me, “self improvement” means there are certain things about yourself or in your life which you’d like to change – and you’re willing to do things differently than before in order to achieve this change.
During the course of this series, I’m not going to talk much about “self improvement” (as I said, I don’t like the term!). Instead, I’ll use the term “inner work”, because this is what is needed in order to change your life.
After all, if your inner self would already support this new outer life you want, chances are good you’d be moving in that direction already… ๐ Thus inner work is the most important basis for any systematic, i.e. not just accidental, change, whether it be inner or outer change.
So let me rephrase the opening a bit, ok?
The series starting with this post will cover some (hopefully!) interesting, entertaining, and useful ground about a somewhat out-there topic, namely how to use Hermetic ideas of the planets to do inner work.
We’ve already covered what I mean by “inner work”… but what are “Hermetic ideas of the planets”?
Giving a full overview of Hermeticism would take several books on its own. Thankfully, for the purpose of this series, you don’t need to know all there is about it – it’ll suffice to cover the necessary background knowledge as we go along.
The origin of Hermeticism lies somewhat in the dark. What we do know is that certain spiritual and occult texts were published in the broader Graeco-Egyptian world in the early centuries of our time. What all of these texts had in common is that they referred to a figure called “Hermes Trismegistus”, Hermes the Thrice-Greatest, who is sometimes portrayed as king, sometimes as a sage or enlightened person, sometimes as a deity or divine being of sorts.
There are fierce debates among scholars whether the origin of Hermeticism truly is Egyptian, as the texts claim. The same scholars also enjoy all sorts of other fierce debates about Hermeticism, e.g. which philosophic and other currents it incorporated, or served as a basis for. If Hermes Trismegistus really existed as a person. To what extent he might have been equated with deities like Thoth or Hermes later on. How to interpret some of the texts. How to translate certain words. Or whether Hermeticism has a monistic or dualistic worldview, or any kind of combination thereof, to name just a few.
Scholars being people just like the rest of us, there are also fashionable trends among them at each given time. E.g. for a few decades, it might have been fashionable to promote the idea that Hermeticism is strictly Greek in origin, and the Egyptian flavour has just been penciled over to give the texts some mystical appearance (much like nowadays, any self development technique which “originates” in the East has an automatic bonus in some people’s perception). Then a few decades later, the scholarly zeitgeist flips, and suddenly it’s all the rage to “prove” Hermeticism’s Egyptian origin.
For our purposes, we’ll leave the scholars to their debates and focus on the stuff which is immediately relevant to the content of our series. The reason why I mentioned all these debates and open points of contention is to drive one point home:
What I’m going to say about Hermeticism and Hermetic ideas isn’t The Truth™ – it’s my interpretation of things.
Fortunately, my purpose with this series isn’t to write a scholarly work about Hermeticism. Instead, it’s to show you one viable path of inner work and inner change, by making productive use of some Hermetic ideas and principles.
During the series, whenever it’s necessary, I’ll explain these principles and their background to the extent which is required. What I won’t do, and what would go very far beyond the scope of my essays, is to cover all the relevant scholarly debates and positions.
Or, in other words: If you, dear reader, should happen to have a strong theoretical background in the history of Hermeticism, you’ll note that a lot is missing from these essays. That’s not because it isn’t interesting or worth debating – it’s because it’s not relevant to the points I’m going to make.
You might also, from time to time, disagree with a position I take. Again, that’s fair enough, and you might well be right in a scholarly sense. My aim isn’t to proclaim the unfailing truth about Hermeticism, but to hand you folks a workable (and somewhat quirky) system of inner work.
But let’s hop back to Hermeticism’s history, to the extent that we know about it. Just as we don’t really know where it came from, we also don’t really know how many people practiced it – or whether there were any practicing Hermeticists at all. (We’ll get to what I mean by “practicing Hermeticists” in a second).
Even though it seems that back in its day, Hermeticism might not even have been that widespread, it somehow hit a nerve. Over the centuries, Hermetic texts were copied, translated, compiled, re-translated, re-compiled, adapted, and copied again, until they ended up in their current form, as the texts which are known to us as “Hermetica”.
When in 1462, Cosimo de’ Medici was able to get his hands on a copy of the collection of Hermetic treatises which are nowadays knows as Corpus Hermeticum, none other than the famous renaissance scholar and philosopher Marsilio Ficino put his translation of Plato’s works on hold and started translating the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin instead, posthaste.
And while a lot of the original Hermetic texts are lost, and the ones which have been passed down to us haven’t been preserved in their original form and content, somehow some of them made it through the downfalls of antiquity, the resulting turmoils and dark age, and the renaissance down to us.
But it’s not just the texts themselves which have a colourful history. The whole of Hermetic thought and influence had its peaks and valleys, its turns and changes over the centuries, just like some scholarly theories about it had.
One of the big revivals of Hermeticism happened during the renaissance, when scholars and occultists alike went almost crazy about the Corpus Hermeticum, but also about other Hermetic texts. Hermeticism, both in practice and in theory, developed into one of the cornerstones of renaissance occultism.
There have been ups and downs of Hermetic thought and ideas ever since, even in our “rational” culture, and not only in the occult scene. As of lately, researching and studying Hermeticism and its history seem to become more en vogue again in scholarly circles, even if the topic is still out there on the fringes.
But what is it about Hermeticism which has been fascinating people throughout the ages, in all these different cultures and societies? I think there are several things at play here.
First, Hermeticism is deeply tied into the roots of our Western society, its beliefs and core ideas. Its closeness to certain philosophical schools like neoplatonism which have influenced Western thought through the past two or so millenia has made it easy for people to relate to Hermetic ideas.
Secondly, Hermeticism offers a very rich set of ideas, images, analogies and other material for occult work – and that’s besides the practical aspects of occultism, like astrology and alchemy, which have been deeply imprinted by Hermeticism. Thus any occult practice in a Western tradition will, inevitably, at some point encounter concepts and techniques associated with Hermeticism.
And thirdly, I think there is something about the core concepts of Hermeticism which simply seems to have fascinated people throughout the ages. We’ll get into the relevant concepts as the series progresses, but just to give you an idea:
The thought of a universal divine as the cause and reason of all that exists; the belief in absolute Love, Truth and Beauty as aspects of this Source; the belief in the soul’s ability to rise up to the Source again after death; but also ideas like interdependencies between the material world and other, “higher” planes seem to connect with a lot of people.
(They can also be connected reasonably well to Christian and Muslim dogmas, at least if one is willing to do a bit of fiddling with the Hermetic texts. This, of course, dramatically increased the survival rate of some of them in the centuries between the end of antiquity and the renaissance – but it’s also one of the reasons why the Hermetica available to us are not generally in their original form and content anymore.)
Of course, humans being human, Hermeticism hasn’t gone through these centuries of use (and sometimes abuse) unchanged, quite the contrary. Occultists have freely borrowed, adapted and added as they saw fit, as is always the case when a tradition is in active use. And on the philosophical end, it’s not just scholarly consent about Hermetic ideas which keeps changing over time, but each age and each society interpreted the Hermetica against the backdrop of their own beliefs and worldview.
Thus the term “Hermeticism” doesn’t have any one specific definition which everybody would agree upon. Instead, people have been using it to mean very different things: a system of philosophy; practical occultism like astrology or algebra; a historical movement; abstract ideas and concepts, and a plethora of other things – and all of these meanings subject to change over time.
Marsilio Ficino, for example, would have interpreted the philosophical ideas of Hermeticism quite different from a modern scholar, but also quite different from a Greek philosopher in the centuries after the beginning of the common era, or from a medieval Byzantine scribe who copied one of the Hermetic treatises.
In more recent times, scholars adamantly insisted on distinguishing between the “practical” Hermetica, which contained such vulgar and unscientific (or heretic, depending on the scholar’s personal position) subjects as astrology or alchemy – and the “philosophical” Hermetica, i.e. the theoretical texts.
This view has been shifting somewhat (again, scholarly consent being as much a matter of fashion as everything else in life), with contemporary scholars being more willing to study the practical and philosophical Hermetica as a unity – as, of course, occultists used to do throughout the centuries.
What scholars have considered only very recently, though, is that the “philosophical” texts might not be purely philosophical, but are at least as much of a spiritual nature.
What’s the difference? Read as philosophical treatises, the Hermetica describe a certain worldview and (theoretical) convictions. None of them are really new, btw, as Hermeticism took philosophical building blocks from various sources like neoplatonism and assembled them into its own coherent philosophy.
(Of course, if the roots of Hermeticism really should be as old as it claims, i.e. going way back into ancient Egypt, this would raise questions about who came up with these ideas first…)
But if one reads the Hermetica not as purely philosophical treatises, but as spiritual texts – texts which were supposed to offer spiritual guidance and to help people live a spiritual life by offering practical advice on how to go about just that -, suddenly the picture shifts.
Remember when I wrote above that we don’t really know how many people practiced Hermeticism, or whether there were any practicing Hermeticists at all?
Well, that’s what I meant: As of yet, we simply don’t know for sure if the theoretical side of Hermeticism was only ever intended to be a philosophical framework, or if to the people who wrote them, these treatises were spiritual texts comparable to the “holy books” of other religious and spiritual persuasions.
Or, in short: Was the original purpose of the Hermetica just to train the mind and offer a new outlook on life in all its facets? Or was it to help people establish and nourish a spiritual connection to divine sources?
As I said, we don’t know for sure – but maybe it doesn’t even matter that much.
Because whether you read the Hermetica as philosophical texts or use them for spiritual guidance, their view on the planets and on how they guide and influence human life on earth is worth considering.
And whether you believe in the truth of these texts or just try on their worldview to get a new perspective on yourself, the Hermetic concepts of the planets can help you with your inner work – to improve yourself and your life.
In the next* installment of this series, we’ll take a closer look at this Hermetic view of the planets – stay tuned!
Until then, I’m looking forward to your opinion, questions, suggestions, … in the comments.
* As to the timing of the next installment… I’m not sure yet if I will publish this series with a fixed publication schedule, or if I’ll publish as time permits. My rough idea is to alternate in some way between this series and the Modern Order of Essenes course, but we’ll see how this works out in practice. ๐
On reader request, I’m also considering an email notification system of sorts which would send a notification to subscribers whenever a new post goes up.
For now, though, if you’re interested in the series, please check back in about two weeks for the next installment! ๐
Image: Andre Mouton on Unsplash
RL Lee says
Noted! I’ll be sure to come back in 2 weeks, this is great stuff! Keep ’em coming. I’ve been interested in practical ways to incorporate planet energies into the everyday. I appreciate your pragmatic view, lookin’ forward to hearing more!
Regine says
Thanks, I’m glad you enjoyed the read!
I’ll get a notification system up as soon as I can manage it, that should make things a bit easier.
Working with the planets can be very rewarding, it’s good to know others are interested in this as well. ๐