Best products from r/Hermetics

Hey there, late to the party, but I can give you some pointers.

In Classical Natural Philosophy, there are four elements, Earth, Water, Air, and Fire. In the 16th Century, the Physician, Alchemist, and Astrologer Paracelsus linked those four elements to four Elementals, beings which embodied and personified those elements; Gnomes for Earth, Undines for Water, Sylphs for Air, and Salamanders for Fire. Undines (also called Nereids) and Salamanders he borrowed from classical mythology, but Gnomes and Sylphs were beings of his own invention. These creatures were perfectly in turn with their respective elements, rarely mixing with the other three. They could move through and live in them with perfect ease, and were said to be guardians of their respective treasures. Over time, Gnomes have become confused with Dwarves, and Sylphs have been turned into Sprites and Faeries.

He first named them in his work Liber de nymphis, sylphis, pygmaeis et salamandris et de caeteris spiritibus, which, unfortunately, I cannot find an English translation of readily accesible online, but there is a Spanish translation of it online, as well as a Wikipedia page on it, (it's in Italian, for some reason, but you should be able to get the gist of it with Auto-Translate). If you want to read the whole thing in English, as well as a few other important texts by one of the most fascinating Hermetics of the High Renaissance, you can buy a book of his translated works here

Happy learning!

Hiya. Well, there's probably as much advice as there is material,heh. There's a book written by a French magician/occultist (for want of a better description) called Eliphas Levi- the book is ' The Dogma & Ritual of High Magic' c.1850(iirc) It's not strictly Hermetic but it was & is highly influential in the hermetic & occult revival of the 19th-21st centuries. The book provided much of the basis of the beliefs of the magical orders of the late 1800s & early 1900s, influencing people like Aleister Crowley whose prolific writing in turn influenced the evolution of magical and hermetic thinking up upto & including the present day.
You could also do worse than listen to a podcast called 'The Hermetic Hour'. It's made by Carrol 'Poke' Runyon, author, anthropologist and- imho- bona fide magician & all round real-deal (ymmv) . He runs an order called the Ordo Templi Astarte, or Order of the Temple of Astarte & an organisation called the Church of the Hermetic Sciences.
The podcast has tons of feed, and covers a wide range of subjects that fall under the umbrella of Hermetics. That should keep you going for a while :) give us a shout if you need more recommendations but those two should pique your interest & help you decide the best path to take down the rabbit-hole.
Edit; there's 2 translations of Levi's book; this one is best by a country mile
The Doctrine and Ritual of High Magic: A New Translation https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/0143111035/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_i_Uqt-Ab64WE2C2

Hm... lots to unpack here.

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First - I hope it is apparent to you that my line of questioning isn't an attack on you.

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Second - how familiar are you with the three initiates? Paul Foster Case in particular is no phony. He is the founder of the hermetic esoteric school, Builders of the Adytum, and he wrote a great many books on esoteric subjects which speak to his great knowledge of ancient philosophy, including but not by any means limited to what you consider to be Hermeticism. In particular, he wrote some great books on alchemy which are very much in line with Hermetic thought - specifically, I am thinking of this book: https://www.amazon.com/Hermetic-Alchemy-Science-Practice-Golden/dp/0982352115

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So, let's be clear - your notion that they are false is unsubstantiated by the facts.

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Third - if you agree that the subject matter is timeless, then why do you arbitrarily draw a line in the sand and say that the "core" texts are the only texts? It is obvious to me that there has been a current of thought which has developed these universal ideas and it was around long before your canonical Hermeticism and continues to this day uninterrupted. So if you are going to say that true Hermeticism ended at some point in the past, you will have to make a substantive argument as to why those works were legitimate heirs to the name of Hermeticism and certain other ones weren't.

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Is Rosicrucianism not Hermetic, for example?

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And now that I think of it, are you aware of the circumstances which contributed to the rise and fall of Hermeticism as a spiritual movement? Ironically both the rise and the fall can be attributed to something which is mirrored in your view: Hermeticism became popular because it had the air of "ancientness" to it and spoke to a then-unconscious intuition that spirituality and gnosis had existed in a meaningful way long before the Christian era.

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When it was later revealed that the authors had been (relatively) contemporary (at the time -- not for us) and that the authors had borrowed Hermes' name in an attempt to lend their philosophies some credence, the movement lost all the credibility it had falsely accumulated in the eyes of the would-be seekers of the time. But this had no bearing on the validity of the philosophy.

I have this edition, but interestingly, it seems to lack "Hermes Trismegistus, His First Book". The Copenhaver edition begins with "(Discourse) of Hermes Trismegistus: Poimandres". The edition which includes The First Book is called "The Divine Pymander". Both of these can be bought on Amazon.


"The Divine Pymander"
https://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/B002ECE6GQ/internetsacredte


"Hermetica"
(Copenhaver Translation)
https://www.amazon.com/Hermetica-Hermeticum-Asclepius-Translation-Introduction-dp-0521425433/dp/0521425433/ref=mt_paperback?_encoding=UTF8&me=&qid=1537562450

It's included here, along with many other discourses. I highly recommend it :)

Interesting. You might also find it interesting to look into shaykh Suhrawardi al-Matluq. For this shaykh, who was also called the shaykh al-Nur or the Master of Illumination, his spiritual masters were Hermes and Plato.

He might be interesting for your YA novel because he died when he was only 32 years old.

https://www.amazon.com/Leaven-Ancients-Suhrawardi-Heritage-Greeks/dp/0791443604
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahab_al-Din_Yahya_ibn_Habash_Suhrawardi

Why choose? This book contains the CH in Greek and English, the Stobabeus fragments in Greek and English and the Asclepius in Latin and English!

[edit] Wait, there are four volumes. I only have the first and I remember it containing all that I mention, but what would be in the other three volumes then? (notes and appendices it seems, so volume 1 will do.) [/edit]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01CKH7POO/