Blind soul! Arm thyself with the torch of the Mysteries, and in the night of earth shalt thou uncover thy luminous. Double, thy celestial Soul. Follow this divine guide and let him be thy Genius, for he holds the key of thy lives, both past and to come. Appeal to the Initiates (from the Book of the Dead). Listen within yourselves and look into the infinitude of Space and Time. There can be heard the songs of the Constellations, the voices of the Numbers, and the harmonies of the Spheres. Each sun is a thought of God and each planet a mode of that thought. To know divine thought, O souls, you descend and painfully ascend the path of the seven planets and of their seven heavens. What do the Constellations? What say the Numbers? What revolve the Spheres? O lost or saved souls, they speak, they sing, they roll . . . your destinies! Fragment (from Hermes).

Contents: Hermes (the Mysteries of Egypt) - The Sphinx, Hermes, Isis - The Initiation - The Tests, Osiris - Death & Resurrection; the Vision of Hermes; Plato (The Mysteries of Eleusis) - Youth of Plato & the Death of Socrates; the Initiation of P.

"Perhaps Hermeticism has fascinated so many people precisely because it has made it possible to produce many analogies and relationships to various traditions: to Platonism in its many varieties, to Stoicism, to Gnostic ideas, and even to certain Aristotelian doctrines. The Gnostic, the esoteric, the Platonist, or the deist has each been able to find something familiar in the writings. One just had to have a penchant for remote antiquity, for the idea of a Golden Age, in order for Hermeticism, with its aura of an ancient Egyptian revelation, to have enjoyed such outstanding success."—from the Introduction Hermes Trismegistus, "thrice-great Hermes," emerged from the amalgamation of the wisdom gods Hermes and Thoth and is one of the most enigmatic figures of intellectual history. Since antiquity, the legendary "wise Egyptian" has been considered the creator of several mystical and magical writings on such topics as alchemy, astrology, medicine, and the transcendence of God. Philosophers of the Renaissance celebrated Hermes Trismegistus as the founder of philosophy, Freemasons called him their forefather, and Enlightenment thinkers championed religious tolerance in his name. To this day, Hermes Trismegistus is one of the central figures of the occult—his name is synonymous with the esoteric. In this scholarly yet accessible introduction to the history of Hermeticism and its mythical founder, Florian Ebeling provides a concise overview of the Corpus Hermeticum and other writings attributed to Hermes. He traces the impact of Christian and Muslim versions of the figure in medieval Europe, the power of Hermeticism and Paracelsian belief in Renaissance thought, the relationship to Pietism and to Freemasonry in early modern Europe, and the relationship to esotericism and semiotics in the modern world.

The most comprehensive collection of Neoplatonic writings available in English, this volume provides translations of the central texts of four major figures of the Neoplatonic tradition: Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus, and Proclus. The general Introduction gives an overview of the period and takes a brief but revealing look at the history of ancient philosophy from the viewpoint of the Neoplatonists. Historical background--essential for understanding these powerful, difficult, and sometimes obscure thinkers--is provided in extensive footnotes, which also include cross-references to other works relevant to particular passages.

A classic, prescient work dealing with myth and cult which traces the evolution of Hermes from sacred stoneheap and phallus to Homeric Hymn to Hermes and the Hesiodic poems.