### Key Ideas from the Conversation: 1. Hermetic Philosophy and Expertise: - The speaker is a world expert in hermetic philosophy and European Renaissance literature, specifically focusing on the history and significance of these traditions. 2. Introduction to the Speaker: - The speaker, Walter, has been working at the University of Amsterdam since 1999 and holds a chair in the history of hermetic philosophy, covering a wide range of Western esotericism. 3. Rejection of Mainstream Knowledge: - Hermetic traditions are often classified as "rejected knowledge," seen as superstitious or misguided by mainstream academics post-European scientific revolution and Enlightenment. 4. The Importance of Hermetic Literature: - These texts provide profound insights and are considered essential for understanding Western culture; neglecting them leads to a misperception of history. 5. Historical Context: - Hermetic literature originated in Roman Egypt around the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, with anonymous authors attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, and it reflects a blend of philosophical, spiritual, and religious currents. 6. Influence and Transmission: - The texts were circulated in small circles that were secretive and not well documented by outsiders. 7. Lazarelli's Contribution: - Lazarelli is portrayed as an important yet lesser-known figure who contributed to the hermetic tradition during the Renaissance, emphasizing Christian hermeticism rather than magic. 8. The Concept of Rebirth: - The idea of spiritual rebirth is central to both hermetic literature and various religious traditions, emphasizing the transformation and awakening of the divine essence within individuals. 9. Hermetic vs. Mainstream Understanding: - The speaker argues that while traditional religious texts focus on collective doctrine, hermetic literature encourages personal, experiential spiritual paths. 10. Analogy of Creation: - Understanding and accessing the divine requires an experiential process akin to creating objects; true understanding comes from direct involvement and practice. 11. Interconnectedness of Wisdom: - The conversation highlights that wisdom can be transmitted through texts, bridging gaps between different understandings, and that this act of understanding is a form of magic. 12. Hermeneutics: - The art of interpretation (hermeneutics) is linked back to Hermes, suggesting that the process of understanding is inherently a hermetic endeavor that allows individuals to bridge gaps in knowledge. This summary encapsulates the rich discourse on hermetic philosophy, the significance of historical context, and the transformative power of understanding and rebirth as conveyed through the literature.
I. Introduction to Western Esotericism and "Rejected Knowledge":
- Hanegraaff's Background: Professor Hanegraaff is a historian of hermetic philosophy and related currents, a field broadly known as "Western esotericism."
- Defining Esotericism: He defines esotericism as "rejected knowledge," traditions that have been marginalized by mainstream intellectual culture since the scientific revolution and the Enlightenment. These traditions are often dismissed as "superstitious, wrong, [and] misguided."
- Importance of Studying Esotericism: Hanegraaff argues that these traditions are influential and important, and ignoring them leads to a misperception of Western culture. "If you write them out of history then you end up misperceiving a lot of essential things about what western [culture is about]."
II. The Hermetic Tradition:
- Origins: Hermeticism originated in Roman Egypt during the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE. It produced influential texts like the Corpus Hermeticum.
- Renaissance Impact: These texts were translated into Latin in the 15th century, significantly impacting intellectuals and broader culture.
- Tracing the Tradition: Hanegraaff emphasizes tracing the hermetic tradition from antiquity to the present.
- Spiritual Focus: Hermeticism is described not as a rational philosophy or science, but as a spiritual movement centered on individual experiential practice, including ceremonial aspects, visions, voices, and mystical experiences. This contrasts with more doctrinal, collective religious structures.
III. The Role of Hermetica in the Context of Philosophy, Science, and Religion:
- Beyond Rationality: Hanegraaff argues that Greek philosophy, especially Platonism, had a strong spiritual component often overlooked. The hermetic tradition builds upon this spiritual dimension of Platonism.
- Spiritual vs. Religious: While employing philosophical language and scientific ideas, hermeticism is primarily a spiritual tradition focusing on individual, experiential paths rather than collective doctrines.
- Missing Piece: Hanegraaff believes that neglecting hermetica leaves gaps in understanding the full spectrum of Western thought.
- "You'll be missing something because simply there is so much more than uh only the kind of official doctrines that we hear about from uh rational science and philosophy and from established religions. There's much more."
- Experiential Dimensions: Studying hermetic traditions opens up experiential dimensions often overlooked by mainstream religions and cultures, enriching our understanding of the world.
- Bridge: Hermetica can bridge the gap for individuals who consider themselves spiritual but struggle to connect philosophy and science, offering a more philosophical and logically rigorous approach than some religions.
IV. Historical Context and Authorship of the Corpus Hermeticum:
- Timeframe: The texts were likely written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries CE, before the dominance of Christianity, making them primarily pagan.
- Authorship: The authors are anonymous, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, an honorary term referring to the "greatest Hermes," believed to be an ancient wise man.
- Form: The texts are presented as spiritual dialogues between Hermes Trismegistus and his students.
- Circulation: Hanegraaff suggests the texts circulated in small, secret networks of practitioners, staying in touch through written dialogues.
- Possible Figures: He speculates about the possible involvement of figures like the alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis and the neoplatonist Iamblichus.
- Compilation: Compiling and writing it down in the time of cultural shift and political instability was likely a strategy to preserve the wisdom from being lost forever.
V. The Figure of Hermes Throughout History and Across Cultures:
- Egyptian Roots: In Egypt, Hermes is linked to Thoth, the scribe of the gods.
- Greek Hermes: The Greek Hermes is the messenger of the gods, associated with scripture, translation, and the ability to cross boundaries.
- Syncretism: After Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt, the Greeks identified Thoth with Hermes, leading to a syncretic figure.
- Ancient Figure: The interviewer highlights the ancient roots of Hermes, even predating the worship of Zeus in some traditions.
- Universal Teacher: Across cultures, Hermes is often seen as the first figure to communicate knowledge or wisdom, a figure of immense antiquity, regardless of specific religious or historical contexts.
- Myth vs. History: Hanegraaff emphasizes the need to differentiate between "history" (what really happened) and "nemo history" (what is remembered to have happened), noting that cultural memory is influential, whether or not it has historical correlation.
VI. Lovato Lazzarelli and Challenging Traditional Narratives of Hermeticism:
- Francis Yates' Influence: The English historian Frances Yates presented a grand narrative of a "hermetic tradition" in the Renaissance, centered on figures like Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Giordano Bruno.
- Hanegraaff's Discovery of Lazzarelli: Hanegraaff's discovery of the work of Lovato Lazzarelli, through a series of coincidences involving the scholar Antoine Faivre and the Biblioteca Philosophica Hermetica, challenged Yates's narrative.
- Lazzarelli's Significance: Hanegraaff considers Lazzarelli a more authentic hermetic figure than Ficino, Pico, or Bruno, who were primarily interested in Platonism and Kabbalah respectively.
- Corento: In Rome Lazzarelli encountered Giovanni Corial and Corial became his master and an impressive figure on integrating Christianity with the hermitic message.
- Importance of Crater Hermetis: This newly written hermetic dialogue, the Crater Hermetis written by Lazzarelli has Lazarelli playing the role of the teacher to Ferrante and Pontano.
- Poimandres and Rebirth: Corial presented Christ as coming in the shape of Hermes which Lazzarelli believe would start a new phase in the history of Christianity. In other words, he saw Poimandres as the Logos.
- Lazzarelli's unique perspective: Lazzarelli believed that Corial was the logos (Christ), uniting hermetic and Christian traditions, which was the beginning of the true renovation of Christianity. Lazzarelli saw Christ as first appearing to the pagan wise man Hermes, who only partly understood.
VII. Making of the Soul and Relation to Creation:
- The mixing bowl: The "crater," or mixing bowl is a metaphor for how man can attain happiness by first doing his duties.
- Being made divine: The divine man understands that by being made divine, he can create souls (the ultimate form of magic).
- Common Idea: Lazzarelli's idea is in line with other traditions such as enlightenment in Buddhism.
- Soul making as Creation: Soul making is the highest form of creation, creating souls because human beings are created in the image of God.
- By becoming like God, humans are now able to participate in his divine abilities.
VIII. Hermetic Rebirth and the Exorcism of Tormentors:
- Process: According to Corpus Hermeticum, the soul comes from the heavens, acquires subtle bodies in the planetary spheres, and is born into a human body which makes a "double entity."
- Possession by Daemons: Upon birth, daemonic entities take possession of the body, causing personality traits.
- Radical Change in Conciousness: True rebirth only occurs after driving out the dark daemonic powers.
- Rebirth: After calling upon the 10 powers of light, the spirit finds itself everywhere all at the same time.
- Making vs. Understanding: One only truly understand something only after making it.
Transcript:
I think you are one of the few people who are world experts in hermetic philosophy and especially in European Renaissance literature. So, uh, for my viewers, could you introduce a little bit about yourself? Um, well, uh, first of all, thank you very much for the invitation. It is very much appreciated. Um, yeah, okay, my name is Walter. Um, what can I say about myself? I am working at the University of Amsterdam. I have been there since 1999, and the chair is called the History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents, which basically refers to a large field of study that we also call Western esotericism or simply esotericism in Western culture.
This covers an enormous domain starting in antiquity in the early centuries of the Common Era and continuing through the whole of Western culture in a broad sense up to the present. The way I look at the field, I see it as, in technical terms, rejected knowledge. Because all these traditions have one thing in common: at least since the European Scientific Revolution and Enlightenment periods, they have been perceived as, well, basically rejected by mainstream culture, mainstream intellectual culture, and the academy. They were seen as superstitious, wrong, misguided, and so on and so forth. Thus, this entire field was basically expelled from the academy, or you might say removed from academic research, remaining in a sort of wastebasket category, as I sometimes call it, of everything that the modern academy is not willing to take seriously.
In our field, and I'm not alone, of course; I have many colleagues and we have international scholarly organizations; but in our field, we believe that all these traditions are actually very influential and important, and we must know about them. If you write them out of history, you end up misperceiving a lot of essential things about Western culture.
So, yeah, that is what I do. I have been writing; my first book was about the New Age movement, which really focused on post-war European and American alternative spirituality, and I tried to place the New Age movement in a wider context of esotericism. I wanted to demonstrate that it is not just a contemporary phenomenon but rather something with deep historical roots. That was that book. Later on, I started exploring the hermetic traditions more specifically. I can share a bit more about that if you’d like, but the hermetica or hermetic traditions, which is also in the title of my chair, History of Hermetic Philosophy, refers to a series of spiritual traditions from the Roman period, specifically the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which produced very influential and important texts known as the Corpus Hermeticum and other hermetic writings. These were then passed on and translated in the Renaissance period, during the 15th century, into Latin, making a significant impact on intellectuals and wider culture.
So this entire hermetic tradition can be traced from antiquity to the present, and that’s another concern of mine. My second book was about a 15th-century hermetic philosopher, Lazzarelli, whom I sort of discovered, and whom I think is very important and fascinating. So that was the topic. After that, I have been doing all kinds of other things related to this field. I wrote a book titled Esotericism in the Academy, which is a description of how this whole field became marginalized and expelled from the academy, the reasons why that happened, and, of course, it is a plea for correcting that process and bringing it back to the table. My most recent book was again about the hermetic tradition; it's called Hermetic Spirituality and Historical Imagination. This book is really an attempt to delve deeply into hermetic literature to discover what these texts are all about. I am continuing that kind of research because I hope to write a book about the reception of the hermetica in the Renaissance and hopefully even a third volume about the modern and contemporary reception of the hermetica. So this is more or less the entire field that I am covering. It was a bit of a long answer to a short question. I hope that’s okay.
Thank you. So, uh, my question is, when hermetic literature began to be compiled, at the same time, especially in Greece, where the focus was on philosophy and proto-science, there was also a spiritual crisis occurring between Egypt and the emerging Middle Eastern Christian tradition. Now, as we have in our modern life philosophy, science, and religion, what role does this hermetica play? For a general reader, what would you say is the role of this hermetic literature within this context?
Yeah, I think that’s an excellent question. It goes directly to the heart of the entire field. The way I would answer it is this: if we go back to antiquity where it all started, we think of Greek philosophy and culture as rational, as rationalism, science, and so on, but I think that’s where the misperceptions start. The entire Platonic tradition—Platonism in all its forms—was not just what we see as rational philosophy; it was much more than that. It had a very strong religious or spiritual component from the beginning; it’s already there in the Platonic literature itself.
This spiritual dimension of Platonism re-emerged very strongly at the same time hermetic literature emerged, and these phenomena are interrelated. So this is not philosophy in the rational sense as we understand it, even though it uses philosophical language. Certainly, it does that, but that’s not the core of it. These were not people trying to solve philosophical problems nor were they scientists. They used common ideas about natural science in their work, but that was not their focus. Can we call it religious? Well, it depends on what you mean by religion. If we think of religion as something collective based upon common doctrines shared by a community, then perhaps these are not really religious movements but rather spiritual movements. By "spiritual," I mean that these are traditions less concerned with large doctrinal wholes or churches, and more focused on individual experiential practice. That’s the term I would use.
We are dealing with individuals who formed small communities, but their focus was on personal, individual spiritual paths. There was a strong ceremonial aspect to it, rooted in experiential dimensions regarding visions, voices, and mystical experiences if you would like to call them that. This is what makes them specific.
The thought that I was considering while you were speaking is that if someone studies science, philosophy, and religion but doesn’t even consider reading hermetica or hermetic literature, my question would be: will they miss something important?
Yes, I think they will miss something important. What can I say? Let me think about it. First of all, they will miss something important because these texts are profound. These are not just superficial texts. They have intrinsic value; they are deep, and so they are valuable in themselves. I think you’ll miss something because there is so much more than just the official doctrines we hear about from rational science and philosophy, and from established religions. There’s much more to it. Normal individuals engage in their own practices, giving their own perspectives to the doctrines and ideas surrounding them. Often what they do with them is original, creative, and different. By studying these texts, you open up a whole dimension of experiential knowledge that we tend to overlook simply because standard official mainstream cultures do not pay attention to them.
We are unaware that they exist, but once we discover them and read them, we realize that we find things here that we do not encounter anywhere else. I believe that contributes to enriching our view of the world. As a scholar, I am not in the business of advocating for these kinds of traditions. I’m not asserting whether they are right or wrong; I think some of them are profound, certainly in terms of content. My main point is not about their validity but simply about their existence. They are there, and we must know about them because they have something important to convey that is not being said elsewhere.
People have different paths to follow. Some follow their own path, some strictly adhere to established religions, and some follow a scientific path. However, if someone is not particularly religious but considers themselves spiritual and cannot find the connection between philosophy and science because they are not interested in studying religion, I believe the hermetica could bridge that gap by remaining more philosophical and logically rigorous while still resonating with everyday life. It serves as a bridge to common sense, I would say.
I think this is a very good perspective. I really like the way you formulate this. I agree with you.
Exactly. So this literature is significant. When I was studying, I encountered this literature around the same time I watched your infinite webinar series on the hermetic tradition. A year or two prior, I was working in my lab conducting an electrophysiological study on some ion channel. A graduate student who preceded me had written a small protocol about how to perform these procedures because that particular information does not exist in literature. You have to build your own custom design for sealing electrical equipment within a Faraday cage. He referenced in one sentence that your electrical equipment has to be hermetically sealed.
I claim to know English very well, and yet at that moment, I could not understand what he was trying to say. Why did he use the term hermetically sealed out of so many ways to express the same concept—not tightly sealed, bulletproof, or whatnot? Why did he specifically use "hermetically sealed"? Then, I Googled it, and it opened the floodgates for me: Oh my goodness, this is a massive literature, and it originates from alchemical terminology. I wondered why he used an alchemical term, and I realized this literature is very rich, hidden in plain sight, but you have to look for it. That’s the key difference.
That’s a very well-formulated thought. “Hidden in plain sight” is exactly right, and you have to pay attention to it to recognize its presence.
So let’s talk. We have a small agenda. I think I shared it with you; I’ll go through and you can discuss those points. First of all, I think you already provided a bit of a time frame regarding Roman Egypt. Can you elaborate on when the texts of the Corpus Hermeticum were composed, roughly what time frame, and any idea about who compiled and transmitted them?
Right. Well, they were probably written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. We do not know exactly; some parts may be a bit earlier, but basically, they are from the 2nd to 3rd centuries, which means before the triumph of Christianity. So we’re dealing with pagan texts. When I use the word "pagan," I want to specify that for me, "pagan" has a neutral meaning; it is not a negative term. Saying something is pagan doesn’t imply that it’s bad. Pagan simply refers to the kind of spiritual and philosophical currents that existed in the Hellenistic world during that period. I use "pagan" in a very neutral sense.
There is very little influence—well, no real influence—from Christianity and only a marginal influence from Judaism. These are truly almost completely pure pagan texts from Roman Egypt. We do not know who wrote them; the authors are anonymous, but the texts are officially attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. This is an honorific term describing the great Hermes, and supposedly Hermes Trismegistus was an ancient wise man who lived far earlier than the 2nd and 3rd centuries. That is the fiction promoted in these texts. In them, you see Hermes engaging in dialogues with a variety of students or pupils, Tut, Tatius, and others, discussing the nature of the world, the nature of God, and the nature of human beings. These dialogues explore how one can attain gnosis, the Greek term meaning personal, direct spiritual knowledge, and what needs to be done to achieve it. So these are educational spiritual dialogues, which define hermetic literature.
Who wrote these texts? Nobody knows for sure. My interpretation is that they circulated in very small networks of practitioners who exchanged these texts to stay in touch. Given the lack of public transport, this was basically the only way to maintain contact. I believe they were circulating these dialogues as ideal texts for the spiritual path. They likely did this in secret; it’s interesting that there are almost no reports from outsiders about these communities. They seem to have remained under the radar and did not attract attention. They probably met in their homes, in deserts, or in temple sanctuaries, and the groups were likely very small.
While the names are anonymous, I assume that when you see Hermes, Tut, and Asclepius mentioned, there must be real persons behind those names. I cannot prove this, but I suspect that they took on these names; in ceremonial contexts, one of them, perhaps the leader, would refer to himself as Hermes Trismegistus to signify his authority, while others would adopt names referencing Egyptian deities, such as Asclepius or Tut. For the rest, it remains a mystery—we do not know who these people were. There are a few names that I can connect with these circles. One is the alchemist Zosimos, who was active in the same period in Panopolis, Egypt, and is considered the founder of alchemy. Alchemy is often associated with hermetic art, and Zosimos was likely a hermetic practitioner. Another name that can be identified is the great Neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus. He is seen as a major figure in the founding of Neoplatonism, and he had a connection with these texts and the hermetic circles.
Yes, they were highly regarded figures, not just random farmers or manual laborers. They were part of the educated elite of their time, belonging to a priestly class with dedicated professions like masonry, metallurgy, or construction. They were more akin to what we would call professionals today—scientists or experts. However, in their personal lives, they were more like priests and philosophers, and their writings often reflected a spiritual focus rather than a practical, problem-solving approach. So they were quite profound.
I must say, I greatly admire your clarity. You summarize it very well, and it is true that these individuals were professionals. It's important to note that while they were Egyptians, they were writing in Greek, which was the language of the higher educated classes in Egypt. These were well-educated individuals. Zosimos, for instance, made his living by crafting sculptures for temples, so yes, these were skilled practitioners and professionals, as you've said.
The first references and documented works compiled during the golden era of Greek literature period were not the beginning of the tradition, for sure, because they refer to even older sources. It’s like these traditions were passed down orally, master to pupil. When there were political wars and cultural shifts, they felt that if they didn’t write down this wisdom, it might be permanently lost. This was the last round of compilation, rather than the first initialization of the compilation. I think they felt insecure, thinking that if they didn't write it down, it might vanish forever, so they decided to document it.
Yes, that’s a very good and fascinating point because, well, the question remains: How old are these traditions really? Of course, they reference earlier traditions, such as aspects of Egyptian religion and Platonic references, and claim that all of this is very old. But to be honest, I do not know; I cannot say how old it really is. Because we know the texts come from the 2nd to the 3rd centuries, all kinds of ideas may have originated in earlier periods but personally, I’m not strongly inclined to think that they are much older than the beginning of the Common Era, even though elements of them could originate from earlier traditions. So I think they are fundamentally from that period.
However, this point about writing it down to prevent it from disappearing is important. There is a specific text known as the Asclepius, probably the biggest hermetic text, which contains a profound lament over the decline of Egypt. It reads almost as if it was written by an author deeply saddened and concerned about the ancient traditions that had thrived for centuries in Egypt. The temples were decaying, foreigners were invading, and they were destroying ancient cultures. Hermes expresses that soon, there will be no one who understands the true wisdom he is teaching, and thus it must be written down.
Another instance, in a text written in Coptic called the Eighth and Ninth Sphere, illustrates a ceremonial ascension of the soul to the highest spheres. It's quite beautiful, and then Hermes and Thoth sit down, with Thoth being instructed to write it down—or rather to carve it into stone tablets to be placed in the temple—so that this wisdom will not be forgotten. Yes, that’s a very important part of the narrative, and it conveys both the ancient wisdom and the sense of urgency in preserving it.
Exactly! My personal inquiry relates to how old the figure of Hermes is—not just concerning the texts we mentioned, which are indeed from the second century, as scholars have found, and you personally review, which establishes your credibility. However, let’s speculate about the legend of Hermes. What other cultures reference Hermes under similar names or figures? This figure or entity must be ancient. For example, in Egypt, they refer back to Thoth, which is obviously very old.
Certainly! In Greek culture, Hermes is known as the messenger of the gods, linked to scriptures, translations, and various other roles. Depicted with wings and winged feet, Hermes embodies the messenger who brings the word of the gods to humanity, able to traverse borders that others cannot. When Alexander the Great occupied Egypt, the Greeks didn’t try to convert the Egyptians to their beliefs. Instead, they allowed them to maintain their own practices but translated the names of Egyptian deities into their Greek equivalents. The god Thoth, who had similar responsibilities in Egyptian religion, was known as the scribe of the gods, involved in the judgment of souls after death. The Greeks found the similarities compelling enough to equate Thoth with Hermes, leading to a mixture—a syncretism that began long before the Common Era, during the period after Alexander.
Fascinating! In the later literature, Hermes became a very minor deity. But if you consider the age of Hermes compared to other Greek gods, you’ll find that Hermes is quite old—as he originally appeared just as a pillar, a stone marker.
Yes, exactly! That is indeed very ancient; in fact, Hermes was worshiped even before Zeus gained prominence in Greek religion, establishing his historical significance. If you delve into Orphic tradition, they describe Hermes as a figure of considerable importance. No matter which culture you examine, they attribute the earliest forms of knowledge to a Hermes-like figure. For instance, in certain Jewish mystical texts from the 2nd century BCE, they refer to Moses himself.
Ah, yes.
They attribute the legacy of knowledge back to their first authority, which in Egyptian tradition is Thoth, not just any other god because, for scribes and priests, he represents knowledge, measurement, and wisdom. He is the one who brought these traditions to light. Similarly, in Greek culture, they look back to Hermes as the original figure who communicated profound knowledge. This idea recurs across various traditions, asserting that this wisdom is very, very ancient.
Yes! It is indeed difficult to separate history from mythology in this context. I am a fan of the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann, who highlights this challenge. He differentiates between history, which attempts to describe what truly occurred, and what he terms "memory," which consists of events that may never have transpired but are collectively remembered as historical.
As you rightly pointed out, there is strong adherence to the legacy of figures such as Moses; historical evidence for his existence is lacking. Nonetheless, Moses stands as an immensely powerful figure of cultural memory. The foundations of monotheism, whether in Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, can trace back to Moses. The narratives surrounding significant figures, even when historically ambiguous, have a powerful influence on collective cultural memory.
Yes, there's little historical correlation. It's mostly about traditional anecdotes or theoretical antecedents, suggesting that if something arises in our current understanding, it must connect back to these ancient traditions, which we discussed in the context of Jewish, Christian, Greek, and Egyptian thought.
In Islamic tradition, they even extend this lineage further back beyond Abraham. They claim that the figure equivalent to Hermes is Idris, believed to be a descendant of Seth, the third son of Adam—though this is again largely theoretical, impossible to definitively prove or disprove.
Yes, and they posit that this Abrahamic tradition is post-diluvian, asserting that Hermes encapsulates the knowledge of the pre-diluvian age, effectively linking Abrahamic traditions to the original wisdom, thereby forming a continuous chain of knowledge.
This is all fascinating!
Since we could keep discussing this endlessly, let’s move on to your focus on Italian Renaissance figures.
Sure, sounds good!
What led you to start researching Lodovico Lazzarelli in connection with hermetic literature?
Okay. Thank you for asking; I love to share this story—it’s a very nice narrative. For context, it’s important to note that the Corpus Hermeticum, the foremost collection of writings, was translated by the Italian humanist Marsilio Ficino, a well-known Platonist, and the first translator of the complete Platonic literature into Latin. He was a significant figure in Renaissance thought. Ficino was given access to a Greek manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum by Cosimo de’ Medici, the leader of Florence; he was tasked with translating it, which he completed around 1463. It was published in 1471.
This translation by Ficino had a significant impact on the Renaissance, inspiring many people. It was later published in a series of editions and translations. There was considerable interest in Hermes stemming from Ficino’s translation. The renowned English historian Frances Yates wrote her famous book Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition in 1964, which became a bestseller. In it, she constructs a grand narrative surrounding hermetic literature and the Renaissance, asserting that Ficino’s translation of the Corpus Hermeticum led to the discovery of hermetic wisdom by famous intellectuals such as Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno. She presents this as a significant era in the establishment of a hermetic tradition that persisted until the early 17th century before finally declining for reasons not outlined here.
This narrative was highly influential, creating a picture of the hermetic tradition revolving around major figures like Ficino, Pico, and Bruno. This was the narrative everyone assumed, and many still do today. However, during my time living in Paris in 1997, I was friends with Antoine Faivre, an expert on the history of esotericism at the Sorbonne. One evening, while at his home, I noticed an antiquarian book that piqued my interest.
I asked if I could borrow it, and it happened to be a 16th-century book by a French author I’d never discovered—one that focused on hermeticism. As I read it, I stumbled upon the name Lazzarelli, which I hadn’t previously recognized. Then, weeks later, back in Amsterdam, I met a translator named Ruud Born, and he was working on translating the writings of Lazzarelli from Latin to English. I thought, “What a coincidence!”—I had encountered Lazzarelli twice in a short span.
Ruud was an excellent translator, and we began collaborating on a project to translate all hermetic texts attributed to Lazzarelli into English, yielding a critical edition published in 2005. The significance of this work completely reshaped my understanding of what I had thought was the hermetic tradition.
Lazzarelli was an unknown figure—a minor humanist poet—not nearly as renowned as Ficino. One day, while he was in Rome, he encountered a public preacher named Giovanni Battista Corvini. They became friends; Corvini made a profound impression on Lazzarelli, who subsequently became his student. Over time, Lazzarelli wrote several texts as offerings to Corvini, including a Latin translation of the final three treatises from the Corpus Hermeticum.
The key point is this: while Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum, his manuscript was incomplete, containing only 14 treatises. Lazzarelli discovered an independent manuscript with the extra three treatises and translated them too; thus, he should not be overlooked in the historical narrative of the translation, even though his contribution is small.
Lazzarelli crafted beautiful manuscripts, which he offered as gifts to Corvini. One text he composed was a new hermetic dialogue in which he took on the role of Hermes Trismegistus teaching two pupils: Corvini and his secretary, Giovanni Pontano. Their interaction involved lively discussions framed in a manner that resonates with and expands upon the original hermetic literature.
Lazzarelli’s work significantly diverges from that of Ficino. While Ficino was heavily oriented towards Platonism, Lazzarelli emphasized the unity of hermetic and Christian ideas. I found that Frances Yates marginalized Lazzarelli compared to more prominent figures, simply because he was not as famous. However, he is the true example of a Christian hermetist of the 15th century.
Lazzarelli believed that Corvini was Jesus Christ returning in the form of Hermes, effectively reuniting the pagan and Christian messages in a new era of true Christianity. This perspective creates a fascinating conversation between these traditions, though it remains speculative.
For Yates, the hermetic ideas were largely about magic, positioning them as the origin of the scientific revolution. In contrast, Lazzarelli was not interested in magic at all; his focus was on an individual spiritual Christian message. His message didn't align with Yates’s narrative, illustrating the complexity and multiple interpretations within the hermetic tradition.
By placing the emphasis on Lazzarelli, we see the real hermetic thinker emerge—one that offers a unique, vital commentary that emphasizes the intertwining of spirituality, knowledge, and personal transformation.
Yes, I can see how everyone interprets the literature in their own light. Your perspective on Lazzarelli as a representative of true hermeticism provides a fresh lens through which to view the larger narrative, showing how various biases shape our understanding.
When sources claim "lazari" translates commonly to "shepherd of men," it is often said, but scholars have largely discarded that hypothesis. The name's etymology actually comes from Egyptian roots.
Many scholars have long believed that this is the origin of the name.
Even Wikipedia states that the possible derivation refers to “shepherd of men.” Regardless, the common understanding of this literature is that it can be confusing, and most people don’t even recognize its significance. They also fail to see how figures like Ficino and Pico della Mirandola have framed the hermetic tradition through their own biases.
However, you express strong confidence that Lazzarelli embodies the genuine essence of the hermetic tradition and articulates it effectively.
Oh definitely. Much more so than Ficino or Pico. Lazzarelli captures hermetic thought deeply.
Using this analogy, I would make a bold statement that might surprise you: I would argue that someone who comprehends the core hermetic literature truly becomes part of the body of Hermes himself, because it is hermetically sealed. If you have confidence in your understanding of the literature, it indicates you have indirectly accessed the essence of Hermes.
Absolutely, I see your point. Lazzarelli recognized that Giovanni Corvini embodies Hermes 2.0.
Yes, and because you’ve understood it, you’ve integrated the core thesis yourself. Those who grasp this literature see the vision, whether directly or indirectly. This deserves profound respect, for through understanding this core teaching, one engages in connection and transformation.
Thank you for the work you’ve done in making such literature accessible through your translations! I’ve personally read Crater Hermitis multiple times—it's great that you translated it.
Thank you! That warms my heart, and it’s wonderful to hear you’ve appreciated the work. I genuinely hope it enriches the reader's experience.
I can share the audio book version I created from your translation. When I drive, I can listen to it as it comes alive.
How lovely! That’s wonderful to hear. It’s roughly an hour and a half long; the dialogues are very engaging.
At the beginning of the Crater Hermitis, Lazzarelli discusses ancient Egyptian wisdom, suggesting that King Frederick, having served his country well, should take advantage of his free time to seek happiness.
In this discussion, Lazzarelli aims to uncover how to attain happiness in life, and he inspires them to consider profound spiritual paths. Would you like to go through the main points of this crater?
The dialogue begins with how Lazzarelli asserts the significance of hermetic wisdom. Lazzarelli introduces Hermes, revealing that he, as a Christian, isn’t ashamed to identify with hermetic thought, despite the potential critique he receives.
As the dialogue progresses, they explore biblical texts through a hermetic lens, discussing deeper meanings. A significant subject emerges: the pursuit of true happiness, which Lazzarelli asserts comes from the knowledge of God.
In this exploration, Frederick challenges the notion that it’s possible to truly know God, stating that scripture suggests only the Son of God can offer such knowledge. Lazzarelli argues that hermetic wisdom provides a way of knowing God through contemplation of divine ideas.
He draws distinctions between the “tree of life” and the “tree of knowledge of good and evil,” asserting that the former represents the hermetic tradition, encouraging contemplation of divine aspects, while the latter embodies materialistic concerns. Notably, he shows how engaging with this hermetic wisdom allows individuals to connect with God without contravening their scriptural beliefs.
Yes, absolutely! The content delves deeply into how achieving bliss requires profound understanding, leading to the theme of rebirth and the transformative processes outlined through Lazzarelli’s discussions.
The concluding sections of the dialogue emphasize a hymn of regeneration after personal stories of loss and rebirth unfold. He expresses that he himself has been reborn and aims to share this transformative pathway with Frederick and Pontano.
Towards the end of the dialogue, he reveals a hymn that speaks to these ideas succinctly, conveying how man can discover the nature of God and the ability to create—not mere statues of gods, but divine souls connected to humanity.
One of the core messages revolves around how participating in the creative capacity aligns with human attributes—encapsulating the essence of divinity. One of the beautiful aspects of Lazzarelli’s assertions lies in his emphasis on the potential of the human soul to transcend its earthly limitations.
At its core, the transformative realization lies in participating in the divine essence—different practices aimed toward elevating one's spiritual presence. In a way, this process mirrors the alchemical practice you’ve likened to bringing forth understanding from obscurity.
Exactly! The process highlights that understanding is transformative—a point well received in Lazzarelli’s hermetic reconciliation of divine essence and worldly existence.
Thank you for this rich dialogue; you have notably educated readers on subjects often overlooked, bringing clarity to the hermetic legacy and encouraging an audience to explore it further.
My pleasure and gratitude! It's been a delight engaging with your insights; it inspires me deeply as a scholar.
As we conclude our discussion, there’s an interesting argument that Amun presented to Thoth, asserting that wisdom cannot be taught through writing because meaning can be lost.
Thoth countered that writing does have the power to convey wisdom. I’ve come to believe that it is indeed possible—some people attain a clear understanding of wisdom through literary engagement!
This dynamic interplay between storytelling and wisdom mirrors the alchemic principle you have expressed well; hermeneutics—bridging gaps through understanding—bears the name of Hermes himself.
Through understanding and engagement, we create bridges that link ancient wisdom to contemporary comprehension in a cyclical manner.
Thank you for the role you play by helping others build their own bridges through your work!
Thank you very much; I enjoyed this conversation and greatly appreciate it.
Goodbye!
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I think you are one of the few person who are world expert in hermetic philosophy and especially European renaissance literature. So uh for my viewersh can you introduce a little bit about yourself about myself. Um well uh first of all thank you very much for the invitation. Very very much appreciated. Um yeah okay my name is Walter. Um what can I say about myself? I uh am working at the University of Amsterdam. Uh I have been there since 1999 and uh the chair is called history of hermetic philosophy and related currents. Uh which basically stands for a large field of study that we also refer to as western esotericism or simply as esotericism in western culture. And um so this covers an enormous domain starting in antiquity in the period of the first centuries of the common era and then running through the whole of western culture in a broad sense uh up to the present. And so um the way that I look at the field is I see it as uh in a technical term I call it rejected knowledge. Uh because all these traditions have one thing in common and that is the fact that um at least since the European scientific revolution and um enlightenment periods they have been seen as Well, as they have been basically well rejected by mainstream culture, by mainstream intellectual culture, by the academy and they were seen as um superstitious, wrong, misguided uh and so on and so forth. So um this entire field was um basically um yeah expelled you might say from the academy from academic research and so it remained a kind of an um yeah a domain in a kind of waste basket c category as I sometimes call it of everything that um the modern academy is not willing to take seriously and so in in my field and I'm not alone of course uh I have many colleagues and we have international scholarly organizations but in our field um our conviction is that all these traditions are actually very influential important we have to know about them and if you write them out of history then you end up misperceiving a lot of essential things about what western about um so yeah that is what I do and um so I've been writing I so my first book was about the new age movement uh which was really focused on the post-war European and American you know in um kind of kind of alternative spirituality and then I try to to place the new age movement in an um wider context of esotericism. So I wanted to see it not just as a contemporary phenomenon but as something with deep historical roots. So that was that book and then later on I um I started exploring the hermetic traditions more specifically and I can say a bit more about it if you want uh but but the hermetica hermetic traditions which is also in the title of my chair history of hermetic philosophy. Uh so Medica refers to um a series of uh traditions, spiritual traditions I would say in uh the Roman period, Roman Egypt uh specifically 2nd 3rd century which led to very influential and important profound texts the so-called corpus heraticum and other heretic writings which were then um passed on uh and got translated in the Renaissance period uh in the 15th century uh into Latin. and made an big impact on intellectuals and on the wider culture. Um so this whole um this whole hermetic tradition can be traced from antiquity to the present and that's another uh concern of mine. So my second book was about um an 15th century hermetic philosopher lov uh whom I sort of discovered I might say and whom I think is very important and very fascinating and so that was a topic and then yeah after that I've I've been doing all kind of other things related to this field. So I've written a book esotericism in the academy which is kind of an um description of how this whole field got uh marginalized and expelled from the academy why that happens and of course it was a plea for um uh for for correcting that uh that process and bringing it back on the table. My most recent book was in um was in uh was again about armetica It's called hermetic spirituality and historical imagination. And this is really an attempt to go very deeply into the hermetic literature to really find out what these texts were all about. And I'm continuing that kind of research because I hope to write a book about the reception of the heratica in the Renaissance and hopefully even a third volume about the modern and contemporary reception of the Aramatica. So this is more or less the whole field that I'm covering. It was a bit of a long answer. to a short question. I hope it's okay.
Thank you. So, uh my question is the time when hermetic literature was started to being compiled
at the same time like um especially Greek and like they they're more focused on philosophy and science like proto protoscience
and at the same time there was like a spiritual crisis between Egypt versus Middle East Christian was emerging and now that we have in our modern life philosophy, science and religion. But where where is this hermetica? What like for a general reader like where where is the role of this hermetic literature inside this context?
Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. That's really a good question. It goes directly to the heart of the whole field. Um the way that I would answer it is this. If we go back to antiquity where it all started then um like you say um we think of Greek philosophy and Greek culture we think of it as rational of rationality rationalism science and so on but I think that's already where the misperceptions start because um the whole Platonic tradition that to begin with uh Platonism in all its forms was not just what we see as a rational philosophy it was much more than that it had a very strong religious or spirit ual components from the beginning that's already in the hermetic in the sorry in the platonic literature itself um and this um this so this let's say let's call it the spiritual dimension of the of of platonism uh emerged reemerged very strongly in the same periods when the hermetica emerged and these phenomena are interrelated so uh so this is not philosophy it is not rational philosophy as we understand it even though it makes use of philosophical language. Uh it certainly does that but that's not what it's all about. These are not people who try to solve philosophical problems. They are also not scientists. Um they make use of common ideas about science, natural science in their works but that is not their focus. Again um can we call it religious? Well depends on what you mean by religion. Uh if we think of religion uh as something collective based upon common doctrines that are shared by a whole community and so on and so forth then perhaps these are not really religious movements but rather spiritual movements. Uh so um and by spiritual I mean that these are these are are are traditions that are less concerned with large doctrinal holes and so on or churches and so on and so forth but are rather concerned with um individual um experiential practice. That's the term that I would use. So we are dealing with um people uh basically individuals who came together in small communities but focus was on an personal individual spiritual path. Uh and it was based upon doing things. So there was a strong ceremonial part to it and it was based upon experiential dimensions about visions and voices. and mystical experiences if you want to call it like that. So this is what makes them specific.
My my the thing I was thinking when you was talking that if somebody study science, philosophy, religion but they don't even consider reading hermetica or hermetic literature. My question would be uh will they miss something important?
Yes, I think they will miss something important. Um because Um what can I say? Um let me think how will first of all they miss something important because these texts are profound. These are not just superficial text. You can see that they they have an intrinsic value. They are profound. They are deep and so they're valuable in themselves. Uh I think it's also you you'll be missing something because simply there is so much more than uh only the kind of official doctrines that we hear about from uh rational science and philosophy and from established religions. There's much more. Uh normal people, individuals are doing their own things. Uh they uh they're giving their own spin to um the doctrines and the ideas that exist in their environments. And often these uh often what they do with them is um is original um you know creative different. So by studying these things you open up a whole um whole dimension of um yeah yeah as I call it experiential dimensions uh that that we tend to overlook and we tend to overlook them simply because the standard official uh mainstream uh yeah religions and cultures don't pay attention to them. So we're not aware that they are there but once they once we we discover them and we read them then we realize that you find things here that you do not find anywhere else and I think that means an enrichment of our way of looking at the world. Uh I'm not I'm not in the business of um as a scholar I'm absolutely not in the business of advocating these kind of uh kind kind of traditions. Uh I'm not saying whether they are right or wrong or whether they uh I think some of them are profound like certainly in terms of content. But um my main point is not whether they are right or wrong but simply that they are there. They are there and uh we have to know about them because they have something to say that is not being said elsewhere.
Yeah, people are different. For example, some people follow their own path. Some people just follow their established religion. Some people follow scientific path. But uh if somebody is not particularly religious but they think they are spiritual but they cannot find the connection between philosophy and science because some people are not interested in study religion for them I think hermitica can bridge by remaining more philosophical and logically rigorous yet more regulatory so it it connects the bridge between common sense I would say not
I think this is a very good yeah I I really like the way that you formulate this. I agree. Yeah. Yeah.
Exactly. So it's this literature is important. So so when I was studying like I'll tell you little bit of my like encounter I would say this to this literature. So roughly at the same time when I watched your infinite webinar series of um the hermetic tradition just prior to one to two years prior uh I was working in my lab and It was like a electrphysiological study for some ion channel something. So the person was a graduate student before me. He wrote a small protocol about how to do things because those kind of thing actually u doesn't exist in literature. You have to do it. You have to build your own custom design uh for sealing sealing the electrical like a farad cage. So he was referencing in one sentence that your electrical equipment has to be hermetically sealed.
That that because I know English very well, I claim myself. Then I could not understand what he was trying to say. Why he was saying hermetically sealed out of so many different way to express the same thing like tightly sealed, bulletproof, all kinds of why he used the hermetically sealed. Hermetically sealed. Then I like Googled That gives me the floodgate that oh my goodness this is a big literature and it's a alchemical term and he was using al alchemical term why and then I realized oh this literature is very rich it's hidden in plain sight but you have to look for it that's the difference
that is a very well you're formulating this thing so well hidden in plain sight that's exactly right that's exactly right so you have to pay attention to it and then you see that it's there yes So let's talk uh let's um we have a small agenda I think I shared with you I'll go through and you just talk about those. So first of all I think you also already gave us a little bit of time frame that it was around the Roman Egypt. So so so can you elaborate the when the text of corpus hermitica was composed roughly what time frame and any idea who compiled it and who transmitted it
right. uh well they were probably written in the second and the third centuries we do not know exactly uh some of some parts might be a bit earlier but basically second third century that's it um so that means before the triumph of Christianity uh so and so we're dealing with um yeah with pagan texts and when I use the word pagan want to specify that uh for me pagan has a neutral sense it is not an negative term for saying things that are pagan are bad. Uh pagan simply means the kind of um uh the kind of religious and spiritual and also philosophical currents that existed in um in the heleni and the helenistic world um in that period. Uh so I use pagan in a very neutral non-porative sense. Uh so these are pagan traditions. There are very very little influence well no influence really from Christianity. almost almost nothing from uh from Judaism, maybe a little bit, but it's very very marginal. So these are really almost completely pure uh pagan uh texts from Roman Egypt. Uh we do not know who wrote them. We don't have um names. They are anonymous. But the texts are attributed officially to Herish magistas. And um so this is an an honorary term, an honorific term uh describe greatest Hermes and supposedly Hermes Trish Majistus was an ancient wise man who lived in you know much earlier than the second and the third centuries that's the that's the fiction that is being uh being promoted in this text and so you see Hermes magicus engaging dialogues with a couple of students pupils um Tutts uh Esius and others and um they talk about um well the nature of the world the nature of God and the nature of human beings. Uh they talk about questions of how do you find gnosis Greek term that means um direct spiritual ultimate knowledge um how to reach that what needs to be done to reach that and so on and so forth. So these are kind of educational spiritual dialogues and that's the that's the hermetic literature. So who wrote them? Um nobody knows for sure. Um My uh interpretation is that these texts were uh circulating in very small uh circles of networks of practitioners who uh sent each other these texts to stay in contact with each other because you don't have public transport. I mean how do you stay in touch with each other? You can only do it do it by text. So they were I think circulating these dialogues as a kind of an ideal text about the spiritual path. They did this um almost certainly in secrets. It's interesting that there has has been almost no well basically no reports by outsiders about these people. So they must have been flying below the radar. Uh so they didn't attract attention. They met probably in their homes maybe in deserts in sanctuaries of temples and probably the groups are very very small. Um uh there are so the names are anonymous. I assume a little bit that these when you see the names of Hermes and Tutts and Eskeipius and so on the text well there must be real persons behind them and I cannot prove this but I assume that they took up took on names. So in the in the ceremonial context one of them the leader would refer to himself as her mistress magistas. uh as in to to show the position of authority and other uh pupils would take names that refer to Egyptian deities as clipius tot referring to tot um so yes and for the rest it's a mystery we do not know who these people were there are a few names that I connect with these circles one of them is the alchemist Zoimos who was working in the same period in Panopolis in Egypt and who's this more or less the founder of alchemy and um alchemy is often seen as the hermetic art and so so this is these people were working in in laboratories in doing let's say chemical uh chemical experiments and so on and um Zoimos probably was an hermetic practitioner I'm pretty sure of that and another name that you can identify is the great neoplatonic philosopher Yamlhas. So you have a protist, the founder of neoplatonism. Then you have Perfery, his pupil, one of his pupils, and then Yamlas was an um Syrian neoplatonist who got in touch with text with Periphery and has left us a text in which he talks about the hermetica. And I think that the ev evidence is very strong to assume that he was actually um in uh spent part of his life in Alexandria. in Egypt and participated in hermetic circles. So the names are anonymous. We do not know for sure but at least a few well-known people like social and yamas can be connected with them.
Yeah, they're very wellrespected person at that time and they're not just random farmer or random manual worker. They're like top echelon of their time of their like priestly class with a with a dedicated profession like masonry or artillery or some smithing like building some weapon or some foundation or some building like they're more like by profession what we call professionals today like scientist or professionals but in their personal life they are more like a priest and philosopher themselves but their writing is mostly spiritual rather than practical day-to-day problem solving that kind of thing. So they're very
I really let me say that I really admire your clarity. You summarize it so well. It's exactly like you said and it's true uh that that uh that these people were professionals. It's important they were Egyptians but they were writing in Greek and Greek was the language of the higher educated classes in Egypt. So like you say the these were people well educated people and uh yeah Zoimus was working was a craftsman who who spent his time basically who made his money, made his living by uh making statues for the temples and um so yes these were skilled practitioners and uh professionals as you say.
So so the first reference and documented book that was compiled in the golden era of the Greek literature period. So but that's not the beginning of the tradition for sure because they referred themselves. It came from late late late a long long time ago and it was it was like carried by lips to ear like an oral tradition and master to people. Then at the when when there was a like political war all kinds of cultural shift they compiled at the last vestigage that we need to compile this otherwise this wisdom will be lost. So that was the last like round of compilation rather than the first initial compilation right I think those time they felt insecure that if you don't write it down it might be permanently lost so let's write down something
yeah yeah that's a very good uh uh fascinating point because well the question is how old are these traditions really uh of course they refer back to earlier traditions um they refer to certain aspects of Egyptian religion. There are platonic references and of course they they tell us that all of this is very old. Uh but to be honest I do not know I do not know how old it really is. Um because we know that the text came from the second third centuries. Of course all kind of ideas may have come from earlier periods but personally I I'm not strongly inclined to think that they are much older than let's say the beginning of the common era. Um even though elements of them might might come from there. So I think they're pretty much of that period. Um but it's true. Um this this point of let's write it down to prevent it from um from vanishing. It's an important point. Uh there is there is um especially the text known as the eskeipius probably the biggest hermetic text uh which contains an very impressive um lament over the decline of Egypt. So, uh it's very impressive. It sounds like um written by an author who's deeply saddened and deeply concerned about the fact that all the ancient traditions that have lived for so many centuries in Egypt are declining. The temples are breaking down. Foreigners are flooding the land, are destroying the ancient cultures and so on and so forth. And uh they say that very soon uh Hermes actually says very soon uh there will be nobody anymore who will understand who will still understand the true wisdom that I'm teaching you and yes so it has to be written down and there is another instance where and that's another text written in Coptic uh the on the eighth and the ninth sphere it's called the octa at any where we read a very impressive description of an um um of a ceremonial ascent of the soul uh to the highest spheres. It's very impressive. It's beautiful. And uh then when that is done then uh Hermes and Total are sitting down and again Tot is being instructed to write it down or not just write it down to uh carve it into uh stone into stone tablets that will be placed in the temple so that this wisdom will not get lost. And so yes, that's that's a very important part of saying that this is incredibly ancient. It's under threat. It is endangered. Uh we might be the last generation. But in a remote future, there will be a moment when people will rediscover our wisdom and maybe revive it.
Yeah. Exactly. And and my personal inquiry about how old this figure of Hermes, not necessarily the book we're talking about, that is second century as the scholars has found and and you personally uh review the literature you know your stuff I have full confidence but I'm just talking about let's speculate about legend of Hermes like just theoretical legend that what culture referred back to Hermes in a same name or similar name but that person or entity must be very old for example I'll start then we'll continue for in Egypt they referred back this her figure to thought So that's obviously very old. So across culture uh let's talk about what Hermes represented in Greek culture. Who was the Greek Hermes for example?
Ah yeah okay this is another issue you're right. Um yes of course the Greek Hermes is the messenger of the gods in linked to um to scripture for instance uh to translation all kind of other things uh depicted with wings with winged feet. the messenger who brings on messengers, messengers from the from the gods into human beings. The kind of um gods who can flit between over borders that other people cannot cross and so on that normal people cannot cross only gods can cross and uh and so on. Um and what happened is that uh when um when Alexander the great occupied Egypt uh so that was the yeah the beginning of the uh periods in which um in which Egypt was uh ruled by by by the Greeks. Um so during that period uh the Greeks did not uh try to convert the Egyptians to their own beliefs something like that. They did they allowed them to have their own uh their own practices but they translated the names of the of the Egyptian gods into their own u names. And so the god taught uh who had similar kind of functions in ancient Egyptian religion. The scribe of the gods, the the involved in the judgment of the souls after death and those kind of things. Um it was sufficiently so totally similar to Hermes. And so the conclusion was that okay what the Egyptian called Toott we call Hermes and it's basically the same god. So you get kind of mixture the tot Hermes figure and you're right that is um that's that synretatism or that mixture must have emerged much earlier. Yeah. During the yeah during the centuries uh after Alexander so this is about uh sorry about um well a couple of centuries before the common era
that's fascinating like in in the later literature Hermes became a very minor deity but if you if you if you enquire that How old is Hermes compared to other like Greek gods? Then you'll see, oh my goodness, Hermes is pretty pretty pretty pretty pretty old. Like originally it was just a like harm just a pillar
like a stone pillar.
Yeah, exactly. That one is very very ancient. Even even before Zeus was worshiped, harm was worshiped in Greek. So it's pretty old. And and and if you if you review the uh the um Orphic tradition they say Hermes was famous. So
this is very old. So the no matter which culture you go they attribute oh harness like figure was the very first person that we recognize. I'll give you one example. For example, there are some Jewish like mystic in the 2nd century BCE in the dead ski school literature based on so there are is Moses himself.
Oh yeah.
They they always attribute the very first person that they respect is equivalent of Hermes. So in in in in Egypt because all the scribe and the priest they reference their first authority is the thought not not other god because the um literature, writing um knowledge, wisdom. He represents measurement everything. So they attribute their tradition back to thought. Then in Greece they attribute their tradition back to harm her like old older Hermes.
Even in even in like Abrahamic tradition either Abraham himself or Moses himself or Zorashtar himself. So everywhere you go this Hermes figure is the first figure who we recognize as the person who communicated some uh knowledge. So it's very like I don't know why they have to be very old. It's like they insist this tradition is very very old.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it is hard to well largely impossible to to to really separate clearly between history and mythology here. So at one so so it you know I'm a big fan of the German Egyptologist Yan Osman. who um who's written fantastic works and one of the things that I learned from him is to differentiate between history and what he calls nemo history on one end history uh as the attempt to describe what really happened and on the other nemo history which is about um things that may never have happened but that are remembered to have happened and um so Osman's big example is Moses whom you mentioned Um there is no historical evidence that Moses ever happened uh ever lived but Moses is an extremely powerful figure of memory of cultural memory and as we all know um so the whole birth of montheism whether it's Jewish Christian or Islamic traces itself back to Moses um so the minimo history the history of as we remember it is extremely important and influential whether or not it refers to historical correlation. Yeah.
Yeah. There's no there's no historical correlate. It's just the traditional anecdotes or maybe anticedent theoretical I would say theoretical that if something comes like that it must be coming from that tradition like so uh those are Abrahamic like um Jewish even Christianity I and we covered Greek and also we covered um um Egyptian thought possible. thought but in Islamic tradition I would add they they they even went be beyond Abraham in Islamic tradition they're saying that the whatever whoever is the harm figure the teacher is like prophet Idris and he he was descendant from Seth the third child of Abraham is all like theoretical because nobody can prove or disprove anything.
Yeah.
And and and and so so they say that this Abrahamic tradition uh was post Deluvian but only Hermes connects the anti-delivian wisdom to Abrahamic tradition and from there we got it. So is nonbroken chain of uh tradition.
Yeah. Yeah. Very.
Yeah. Fascinating stories. Fascinating. Yeah.
Okay. I think uh let's because this part if we discuss this it will never end. So let's move on and perhaps we can talk about particularly your focus in like u in Italian Renaissance figure.
Yeah.
Why you start like why you how you found um Rodovvigo Reseri?
Okay. All right.
In relation to this hermitic literature.
Okay. Well, thank you for asking because I love to tell the story. It's a very nice story. Um you know as a background let me say first of all um that um yeah because not all your viewers may know this but um uh so the corpusum the most important collection writings was translated um in um by an Italian humanist Marcelio Fu Fino a very well-known uh Platonist the first translator of the complete Platonic literature into Latin and also um yeah in many ways an very important figure. So Fino is famous and he in um around 4063 um was given access to a manuscript Greek manuscript of the Corpusatum and he was asked by Kosimo de Medici the leader of Florence to translate it. Okay. So he did and it got um published in 1471. And now the thing is that um this translation by Fino the so-called pander as it was called uh made a big impact in the renaissance uh on many people. It got um got uh yeah published in a whole series of later editions. It got translated. There was a lot of interest in Hermes based upon Fino's translation. And so um uh well the famous uh English historian Francis Yates uh then wrote in 1463 uh sorry in 1964 uh she wrote his famous book Giardano Bruno and the hermetic tradition which became a bestseller it's still a bestseller and here she tells some kind of grand story about the hermetic literature in the Renaissance uh the hermetic tradition as she calls it and it basically says that fino translates the corpus hermeticum then a couple of other famous uh intellectuals like Pico Deaandola and Jordano Bruno and others um discovered this literature. Uh this became a huge uh hermetic tradition in the Renaissance. This survived until the early 17th century and then finally it declined for all kind of reasons that doesn't have doesn't matter here but this book became um incredibly influential and so it created this picture of the hermetic tradition with fino and picodel mirandola and Jordano Bruno famous intellectuals at the heart of the hermetic tradition. That was the idea and when I discovered lovical that was the narrative that was the story. Everybody assumed that and many people still assumed that. Now what happened um is that I was living in 1997 in Paris or a year and a half. Um I spent the time there. So I was living in Paris and um I was very good friends with the main uh scholar uh specialist of esotericism at the time Antoan Fair who was professor of history of history of esotericism at Son at the a particular institute of the soborn in Paris and Fairf was a very good friend of mine. Uh he died a couple of years ago and he is basically he has created this whole field of study basically with his work. So I was a lot in touch with him and one evening I went to his home in Meridon and We spent a nice evening together and at one point he went to the to the toilet and I was looking around at his bookcases, similar bookcases like you have there behind you, uh, you know, behind glass and he had some kind of a section with old antiquarian books. And somehow I picked out a book there and it turned out to be a 16th century old book, very valuable. He had that antiquarian book um, uh, by a French author that I'd never heard of and it was about Hermetica and something in that book caught my interest. I do not know why uh but it's almost like destiny uh at that moment like Hermes was ticking on my shoulder like pay attention to this book. So I picked out this book and I asked Antoan um you know I'd love to read this uh and he said oh you can borrow it which is extraordinary. It's a very expensive 16th century volume but I could take it home. So I took it with me. Uh, and then I started reading it in in bed at night. Um, the old 16th century French, very difficult. And I found out that part of the text consisted of um an author I' never heard of. Lazarel in French. Uh, Lazarel, never heard of the name. Uh, the Karatis, Lebasan, the Bassin of Hermes. Never heard of it. But I started tried reading it and it was fascinating. It resonated some somehow. I basically could not understand what I was reading. It was very difficult. But um something in it ticked. Something had clicked with me. Then a couple of um weeks later I went back to Amsterdam and I made a visit as I did more often to the famous Bibliotea Philosophica Hermatica, the so-called Ritmon library which was the best most important um library of hermetic literature in the world. It is in Amsterdam. So I went there and I um and I met by chance I met a guy who was sitting there in a corner who was making translations. I asked what are you doing? He said well I'm translating texts from Latin into um English and um so we started talking. His name was Rud Bhorn. I didn't know him and I asked well what what are you translating? And he said well at the moment I'm working on an 18th century um Italian uh thinker lovi and then suddenly uh it clicked in my mind lazarel lovatzerelli same person what a coincidence I'd never heard of him within two weeks I heard about him twice and I met this guy incredible so um yeah we started talking he turned out to be an excellent translator from neolatin um and um so we started working together and we ended up producing this book about Lovika Lzerelli. So we translated all the hermetic texts by Lzerelli uh into English. Uh we made critical edition with annotation and English translation a large introduction got published in 2005 and um why was this important? It basically Lari changed my entire idea about this so-cal traumatic tradition uh radically. So what was the point? Um lot is an unknown figure. He was an minor humanist poet. Um not nearly as famous as as Fino. Um so okay uh one day Lzerelli um well he is in Rome in the in the holy city. He's in Rome. He goes to the Vatican and he sees an public preacher, a preacher on the streets who is preaching to the crowds. And this turns out to be a certain Giovanni um Dorio Giovanni Dakorio who was a kind of charismatic speaker and um they became friends uh Corial made a big impression on Lzerelli Lzerelli became his pupil. Then a few uh well not much longer not so long after that we have several texts that Lzerelli has written and offered to his master to his guru to uh to uh um to um um to Coretio. Uh and one of these text consists of an translation of um of the final three treatises from the corpusaticum. The point is this that Fino had translated the corpusaticum but the text consists of actually 17 treatises and the manuscript that Fino was using uh was incomplete. It had only 14 uh treatises. Now let's um discovered an independent manuscript with the extra treatises and translated them which means that it's not correct that Fino was the only one to translate the corpus l was the other translator even though it's a small part but he is the other translator he should be mentioned okay he makes beautiful um um manuscripts uh which he offers as an gift toio consisting of fino's translation his translation and of the famous escipius that I mentioned earlier in text in Latin and heratic text in Latin. Okay. Um then not that much longer on a palm Sunday um in the 80s uh in 1480s don't recall now which year I think 1486 I'm not sure but I think it's 86 um Corio makes a spectacular um appearance in Rome you know he comes there. He draws attention to the crowds in all kind of ways and he finally dresses up like Jesus Christ. He um he dresses like Jesus Christ in a white mantle. He uh has some crown of thorns on his head. He has all kind of a symbolic things with him and he uh he's sitting on a donkey and he enters a white donkey and he enters Rome. So he tried of um he repeats the basic the story of Jesus who enters Jerusalem and now He enters uh enters Rome in the same way. He yeah attracted a great crowd and it is clear from his presentation that he believed uh that he was in a certain way uh he was he impersonated Christ but he was also impersonating Hermes uh in some way. So he saw himself as a kind of a hermetic Christ. Now uh very spectacular um and there's a lot that could be said about Ketch because he had a later career but that would go a bit far maybe now. Um but Lasserelli was incredibly impressed by him. He saw him as the figure who um reunite who united the Christian message with the hermetic message. Um so that was for him that was the core what it was all about. Couple of years later he publishes uh he writes he doesn't publish he writes an very impressive text the crow heratis um which he tries to offer to the king the king of Naples Ferrante a famous king very influential guy and um this text is very important and that's one of the texts that we published um uh and this is a new uh hermetic dialogue newly written by Lzerelli but very strongly modeled on the original hermetic literature in which Lzerelli takes the role of the teacher of herist magist and he's teaching two pupils uh Ferrante the king and his um secretary and first minister Pontano Giovani Pontano so two pupils one master they ask all kind of questions and he has a very lively uh dialogue between the two and it's very impressive this is Latini was a very gifted writer he writes beautiful Latin um it's poetic there are a couple of poems also in it Um and he develops a very distinctive new uh understanding of the hermetica which is actually incorrect but extremely impressive and creative and fascinating. Um so what he basically says and now I'm combining what we know about Latelli and what and the crow matter. So I'm basically collapsing some things in in one sort of story here but basically what Lzerelli believed was um very spectacular. Um he said that Corio was um uh Jesus Christ who had come back to earth in the shape of Hermes and the story behind this uh goes back to the hermetic literature itself because if you read the first treatis of the carposomeaticum the so-called poandries it is the account of an visionary encounter between Hermes and poandries now pois um is an u manifestation of God himself who appears in a vision to Hermes and um he is the divine light himself. He is uh he is he's basically a representation of God and uh so that's pois um and now Lzerelli is um referring to this well-known text and he is saying well what actually happens there uh and this is an creative new idea that by Lasserelli that nobody had ever said before, but Lzerelli says well um Hermes uh was encountering Poandries and Poandries was basically the son of God and the son of God is no one else than the logos in the Greek in the Greek in the Greek uh New Testament the logos is Jesus Christ the son of God. So in other words this figure who appears uh to a pagan sage um to Hermes is actually no no one else than Christ. And so the story that Lzerelli then creates is that Christ himself first appeared to a pagan wise man to Hermes and Hermes partly understood him and partly misunderstood him because he was a pagan and he was not entirely enlightened. Then later the log of the son of God is um incarnated as Jesus Christ and that for Lzerelli of course that's the beginning of Christianity which he believes in very strongly and now the third stage has come so now uh uh Corio has appeared and Corio brings the two traditions together he brings the hermetic tradition of poandries together with Christianity and this means that um this will for be the beginning of the renovation of true Christianity. So we are so he believes that we are now encounter we are now embarking on a new phase in the history of Christianity which will based upon the which will be based on the fusion and the integration of pagan katic wisdom and Christian wisdom and that will be the future of Christianity. So that's what he believes. Now of course none of this has happened um uh but um but it's an extremely creative uh uh original fascinating idea and the text is really a gem. I think it's one of the most impressive small hermetic texts that have been written. Lately was a brilliant mind and so yeah and why is this important to me? It completely and then I come back to the grand narratives of Francis Yates. It basically completely undermines Francis Yates's narrative because she said it was all about the great individuals like F you know picodalo Bruno. Now actually I come to the conclusion that none of these people were really hermetic thinkers. Fino translated the corpus heraticum but it was much more interested in platonism and he basically disregarded the hermetic literature very quickly. For him it was great not Hermes. Picodandala was very interested in many things but mostly in the Jewish cabala the secret wisdom of the Jews but not really in the heratica. He knew them. It was not important to him, not very much. Uh Jodalo Bruno knew about the hermetica, but it's not central to his work. So if you're looking for a real heratic figure, a real hermitist in the 15th century, it's not Fino, it's not Pico, it's not Jot Bruno, it is Laterelli. Uh he is the real example of a Christian hermitist. Um so why did uh Francis Yates marginalize him in her story? simply because he was a small fish. He was far too small. Uh Vicino, Pico, Bruno were famous names. So you could hang your hat on them. You could tell a great story about their hermetic tradition. Very influential, very impressive. But the story was false because the true story of the hermetica is um that a minor figure like Latelli wrote a fantastic text, very influential, very no influential, but very um very impressive and uh there is a small and kind of discrete hermatic tradition that continues after Lari to Cornelius Agria the author on magic in the 16th century and a few other names might be mentioned uh and a final thing here is that Francis Yates u wrote this bestseller in which he said hermetica is all about magic um and magic for her was at the origin of the scientific revolution so The hermetic magic was paved the way for modern science. That was her big story. But Larelli, the true hermitist, um was not interested in magic, almost not. He had nothing with science was not his concern. He was interested in an spiritual uh individual Christian message. But that message simply did not fit Francis Yan Yates uh narrative. It's not what she wanted to hear. It's not what she was interested in. It didn't fit her agenda and so she um pushed Lerelli away in some footnotes and then she puts so the real hermitist was pushed off the stage as I put it and other people who are not hermitists were put on the stage um even though they didn't belong there. So my long story uh to a short answer
yeah it's a fascinating like uh like long list of literature and everybody has their own biases. is including including religious or ideologic biases.
For example, the way you describe I would I I'd like to summarize.
So poorer I think translates commonly into shepherd of men.
Yeah, that's not actually true. That's often said, but if I may for a moment
that has to do with the it has often been associated with an text shepherd or Hermes uh how does that yeah uh but that's hypothesis has been discarded nowadays uh so the name poor really comes from Egyptian from um and um I don't I'm not sure whether I can have it available exactly but it is an Egyptian ethmology and it has nothing to do with the shepherd of her
but many scholars have believed that for a very long time Exactly. Exactly. Even Wikipedia says that possible ethmologic derivation is the like shepherd of men like guide of men. But anyway, uh it's a it's a very like the the my common sense understanding is because this literature is very confusing and no like most of the people even recognize why this literature is important anyway. They will not even recognize that why This particular literature is important and plus as you mentioned the important literature of Fino versus Picodara Miranda they're diverting uh this particular literature in their own direction and biases.
Yeah.
But out of all uh these noises you are pretty confident that uh Lazarali represents the real hermetic tradition and he understood it by Confirmed. You are very confirmed. So
Oh yeah. Much more. Much more than Fino. Fino didn't understand it very well. But that's already actually understood it very deeply. Yeah. Yep.
Exactly. So I would say by using this analogy I would say something very bold that might surprise you. I would say somebody who understands this core hermitic literature He himself is part of the body of Hermes himself because it is hermetically sealed without the without the under if if you are pretty sure that you understood the literature correctly and you can bet your life on it that indirectly gives you you are not the now the part of the body of Hermes himself.
So so that's why I like because lally recognize the Giovano decor IO himself is the Hermes 2.0.
Yeah.
In the guise of Jesus
and because because you understood it also out of all this noise that gives me a profound respect to you because whoever understands this core thesis they they saw the vision directly or indirectly. So thank you for the literature especially uh the crater hermitis. I read it multiple times. Thanks for English translation because this is original Latin. Exactly. So I I I actually converted it as my personal audio book. So when I drive
I can listen to it. So it's nice because
it's lovely lovely. It's roughly one and a half hour and the voice is so nice and clear. It's like all like a drama like literally talking to Frederick and Frederick is talking with um U Pontano and their their conversation is very nice actually very
this is let me say I how much I like to hear this this is really fantastic this warms my heart to hear this that you have been reading it multiple times or even listening to it and yeah that is very very nice you know when as a scholar we are you know people like me we are spending a lot of time behind our computer hoping that some people will pick up my stuff so So, so to hear that uh that you have been reading and listening even to it, that's really really nice. So, I know that I I haven't been wasting my time. Yeah.
So, I'll send you a copy of the audio book MP3 file. It's very easy to like you can listen to your phone or you can connect to your car when you're driving. I think if you listen even though you translated yourself.
Yeah.
I I I'm pretty sure if you listen it will come alive again. So, it's very nice to listen. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Thank you very much. Right. Yeah.
So in in the in the crater hermitis I think they reference the mixing bowl of her like crater. So they discuss that how to attain happiness in life. That was the very beginning of conversation because he was suggesting that now King Frederick you have served your like country and now you are retired. Now you have luxury of time. So why not? Because I love you and I'm here to give you this wisdom to you. Let's talk about it. How to attain happiness in life. So why not go through the main points of the crater if you want to
very at the beginning uh they talk about this ancient Egyptian wisdom and um and it's interesting that Lzerelli um really uh usually most people in this period would emphasize Plato uh but uh he hardly talks about Plato. It's all about Hermes. And um and of course when he mentions Hermes then uh the king and Pontano say, "Oh um you're speaking so highly about Hermes transmission, this pagan sage. It almost looks like you are an hermitist. Uh aren't you a Christian?" And then Lzerelli says, "No, I am a Christian, but I'm not ashamed to call myself an hermitist as well." Um so that's where they start. So so at making this point, but then they end up uh getting into a whole series of biblical um biblical exes. So they go through several parts of the Bible um which Lareli reads through an his own heratic lens and he finds a deeper wisdom in the hermetic texts and they discuss the real meaning of those biblical texts uh for a very long time. So a large part is about that. Um yes what can I say? So so they the the dialogue goes through a whole series of phases. Uh but basically at one point they end up um well getting closer and closer to their real topic and the real topic is about how to find true yeah through felicity through uh happiness and um then it basically and I'll try to find the the right Ano and Frederick was arguing that you are talking about finding true happiness but the happiness comes from knowing God. Are you suggesting you can know God? Because based on our scripture nobody can know God.
So then he started talking that how using literature you can still know God. So that's very nice flow of argumentation. Somebody suggesting something that our scripture say is based on this verses that nobody can know God except son of god and and the son of god who gives you the wisdom to somebody else and you're suggesting we go know god by ourselves is not possible then he says no based on our own literature like for example Moses was talking about tree of life versus tree of knowledge of good and evil this tree of life is the hermitic tradition you contemplate about divine things and image of God. But if you contemplate about good and bad then some materialistic thing you'll be mixing in into the mixing ball and you lost into corruption. So he he was using this Abrahamic tradition to say that Hermes was not saying something different and by using this hermitic wisdom you can still know God without violating your scripture itself because scripture also just you can still know God.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean what can I say? You're just summarizing it very very well. Uh what I found myself what I found very fascinating is how it's finally uh you know towards the end of the dialogue how it develops because you get through all these discussions. It would be impossible to summarize it here but um at one point there is this hymn um of regeneration the hymn of rebirth. And that's I think then we get to the core of what the text is all about because um
yeah just one thing I think before you start the the him part how the regeneration works I think at the very top of the book he had a monologue Lazari had a monologue that how he was lost and he was saved by her and now you feel regenerated and he wants to talk about it. So the very first thing of This crater was his personal experience of regeneration and he tried to teach this to Frederick and Pontano and the and the very last part it ended up with the hymn that you are just going to say.
That's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. And he says that he himself has been reborn. Um he does not mention Corio uh and anywhere here but it's clear that Corio is in the background and he says that he himself has been reborn as a son of God. Um, and he's now going to teach uh his pupils how to how that works. And yeah, and then they they end up with this hymn uh towards the end of the dialogue. And it's very it's beautiful how it is done. And um there are three verses which I could read which I really uh go to the core of of what's happening here. And it goes as follows and I'll explain later. and what it means, what's happening. So he says um this is certainly the newest novelty of novelties and a miracle far greater than all others that man has discovered the nature of God and knows how to make it. For just as God or just as the Lord or God the begetter generates the celestials and procreates the angels who are the forms and of things, the heads and the first of all just so the true man creates divine souls which the ancient host used to call gods of the earth who are glad to live close to humans and rejoice at the welfare of men. Now this what you read here and I think at first at first sight I think most people most of your viewers when they hear this they will probably find it hard to make anything out of this right now. So you have to really look into this closely what he's saying here. The first thing to note is um is that he is actually paraphrasing a part of the eskeipius that's heratic text um and that's actually this is a paraphrases of that text now in that text um we find an yeah very famous perhaps the most famous part of the entire hermetic literature um it became famous because the church father Augustine condemned it um and so yeah this was this stuck to the name of Hermes ever since so to speak. And what was this about? Um in the esipius uh Hermes at one point talks in very admiring positive terms about the ancient Egyptian practice of animating statues. So you have the statues of the gods in the temple and um and and he says that the ancient uh ancient Egyptians learned the secret of how to um how to make gods, how to create gods. That means basically yeah creates animated and sold statues in the temples in the Egyptian temples. And Hermes writes about this in very positive terms. Okay. Now then uh Augustine the church father uh wrote about this in devat on the city of gods. It's one of his most important works. He spends quite some pages talking about this and he condemns Christianist as an idoltor because um that is the the very definition of idolatry namely that an man-made uh statue um which just consists of of material of matter um is being venerated as an deity and that and deity is supposed to reside in the statue. That is what the pagan um what the pagans are doing they and that is condemned by the first two of the ten commandments because there can only be one god and you cannot have carved images. Uh that is an absolute horror in the eyes of gods that is so basic to the Jewish and the Christian and the Islamic tradition uh that this is not acceptable. So Augustine pointed out well Hermes uh this uh is very enthusiastic about statue animation. This proves that Hermes was an idol and a false teacher that cannot be trusted. So, and that became the story throughout the middle ages until uh Fino and Larelli. Now, the interesting thing is that Lazarelli when it comes to the heart of the mystery that he wants to tell, he picks out exactly this passage. He could have picked some kind of safe passage from the hermetic literature. No, he goes to the most dangerous, the most controversial part of everything. Exactly this part. And he um paraphrases it in these verses because he says this is the novelty of novelties, his own message, the novelty of novelties, a miracle far greater than other all others that man has discovered the nature of gods and knows how to make it. Now in Hermes this was um making gods, making statues. Um but here it means something else with Hermes. Um and then he talks about generation and procreation. and bringing forth etc. And well basically what he is saying here is that uh what he calls true human beings beings who human beings who have discovered their own true divine essence um will be able to unite themselves with God himself. Um now this in itself is very uh controversial in basic Jewish Christian and Islamic context because because uh human beings are supposed to be creatures by God but that you can become one with God transgresses the boundary between creature and creator. So it's it's very controversial and problematic and maybe dangerous to say this but that is what he says. He says uh we can actually be reborn go through an interior rebirth and then we are reborn as sons of gods and basically as parts of God himself. So we become divine and this is the doctrine of ification or divonization. Uh we can become gods ourselves or become divine ourselves. And um what this means is that um and that is what he is basically saying here that if we go through this rebirth and then uh this means that we come to participate in the very essence of God himself. And what is the essence of God himself? Well, he is the creator. Uh God's ability to create souls is the essence of God's creative power. And so we participate in that same power. And that means that human beings will be able to do what God did. We we will participate in his own creative abilities. That means that human beings who have been reborn are able to create souls themselves um uh by using God's own creative powers. Now that is That's what he says. And he says basically he suggests in context that Mandre appeared to Hermes. Um Hermes didn't really get the message yet because he was a pagan. He lived before Christ. And so he um lapsed into idolatry in this text. Uh he believed that um it was all about drawing down gods into statues and making uh god statues in this manner and that was a mistake and so Hermes actually lapsed into idolatry. So uh Augustine had been right in condemning uh Hermes. However, Hermes had not gotten the true message and the true message Pompeo Mandre was now made available again through Corio and through Laterelli and the true message is it's not about making statues No, it is a making. It's about making gods. Sorry, it's sorry. It's not about making statues. It's about making souls. And making souls means the ability to make souls is equivalent to uh having become one with God. Uh because then you can do that. And so so um so the message that Hermes misunderstood has to be reinterpreted and this time it has to be understood the right way. That is what is teaching that's is what Lati is teaching and what is the message it message is that we can be reborn and uh in a radical manner from um fallen human creatures who are subject to the curse of the fall after Adam after the Adam and Eve ate the apple in paradise that curse can be lifted from us because when we when we get reborn as sons of God then we reverse the effects of the fall and we regain the powers that Adam and Eve had before the fall and we become one with gods and we become like gods on earth basically and when we do that then we have found the true source of happiness and felicity because the only felicity lies in being one with God himself.
Exactly. So what what he started with in the in the creator harmed that how to become happy at the end of your life after you do your homework that means you do your job you do you perform your duties and after doing all the good things how to become happy so Rajari's prescription based on the hermetic tradition is just borning again by having a second birth but this particular rebirth if you if you compare with the contemporary and the ancient across culture This is not a strange thing. This is a common thing I would say. So let's talk about it. For example,
so for example the enlightenment idea of this Hindu tradition or vantic tradition enlighten.
Yeah.
You understand the world in a different way and the moment you understand that becomes your new identity.
So that's rebirth.
So the luxury is prescribing the same thing. The understanding the world makes you a new person and you recognize your old self was not the same person that you are today. So that's that's a spiritual rebirth. And now if you you yourself made a rebirth. Now you're talking with a second person like Pontano and Frederick and you are helping them to recognize that you recognize so so that they can born again. So that's the he's making making a soul out of the uh Frederick and Pontano. So he is making new soul because he have the power now because he already had that experience before.
So now if you talk about Sufi tradition in Islam, it's all about union with God.
Their main goal is the union with God. It's not exotic idea.
And and even in Jesus Christ, I would say that after John the Baptist baptized him after that his ministry started so he born again with the Holy Spirit.
Mhm.
So whatever his his identity was before he assumed a new identity and started his ministry. So here John the Baptist serves as a purpose of Hermise and he made a new Hermes the perfect Hermes the I sense of so this tradition is not exotic and I I'll tell you a legend like Islamic legend in Islam. I think it borrows from Jewish tradition also that God first made a statue of Adam with a clay and that was lifeless for a long time.
Then he discussed whether to make this statue alive or not with angels and Angel says no if you create man they will create destruction they will not listen to you they don't they will not worship you this a waste of time you already created us we are praising you why you bother to create a human then god says I know something that you don't know and he animated the body of Adam by pushing the breath of life through the nostril so what he did He just animated a statue. God himself did it at the very beginning. So this is not something exotic.
It's fantastic. It's fantastic. The way you describe this, this is wonderful. This is really, really, really good. Yeah. I love it.
So, so Lari is not like going out of tradition. He's just clarifying the confusion of people had about this idea of how to make a new soul. You understand yourself first and to help other people to understand by making them understand you create a new soul and that soul is the divine soul because that's the image of God
that you forgotten.
Exactly. Exactly.
So I think you're right.
No, I think you're totally right. This this I mean yeah rebirth is a much more central topic than people realize. Of course you have people in you know America talking about the born again Christians and so on. But rebirth is such a fundamental idea uh as you say in Jewish and Christian in Islamic traditions and also in the hermetica. Absolutely. Absolutely. And maybe if you Yeah. If you allow me uh to to uh to say something also about how it appears in the original hermetic literature. Is that okay if I say something about it?
Yeah. Yeah. I have plenty of time. It's all yours.
Yeah. Okay. Um well, yeah, because I so I wrote this book about her. spirituality a couple of years ago and um so um well I discovered how central the idea of rebirth is there but in the hermetica it does not mean exactly what latter means it is different but it's both about about rebirth so here the in hermetica it's a different story especially in corpusaticum 13 uh but in other parts as well so the basic story is this uh when we usually get born in our first birth. It means that um the soul comes from the heavenly spheres. It travels uh through the uh from through the several levels of the heavens uh through the planetary spheres. It goes down from one planet to another Saturn etc. Um as it goes down it acquires uh subtle material bodies and so on. And finally the soul ends up in the womb and it's uh it's it spends it stays there for nine months and then it gets born as a human body as a human being. Okay, that's is this is well known. That's the first birth. That is what birth means. However, and that's fascinating what the hermetic say is that the moment that this happens, the soul enters the womb and no not the moment this happens, the moment the the soul comes out of the womb. So, so the moment that you get born at that very moment um it means that an double entity enters the world. A double entity because human beings consist of partly of a divine soul and partly of an of material body. So that's the double entity of the human being that gets being born that gets born. The moment this happens um the donic entities uh the kind of astral energies that are connected to the heavenly uh bodies uh pay attention to the appearance of this newborn child in the world. Uh because it didn't appear yet and now it appears and I use a kind of an analogy just you know that's just imagine think of this like an radar screen like uh so the astral powers the don the dmonic entities that resides over the heavenly spheres they are watching earth uh they see all these blips on the radar that are moving around That's us human beings are moving around in this radar under this you know we are we are falling in the radar and then suddenly a newborn child appears so there's a new blip on the radar so it appears suddenly it's there at that very moment uh the demonic entities um come down and they invade the body of the newborn child. So they take possession of us and this happens to all of us. It happens to you. It happens to me to everybody. So we get possessed literally by demonic entities that uh starts residing in our soul and in our body and they stay here and according to the hermetica this is why we have an complex emotional personality. So some people are easily angered probably because they have a diamond strong um diamond from the planet Mars which is all about anger and violence. so on. Other people are very soft and friendly and full of love and there's maybe a lot of Venus in their um in their entity and so on and so forth. They have all these mixtures. So our personality does not actually come from our soul. Our personality comes from the astral entities that are in our soul and our body. And they and
this is the this is the mixing bowl that has both reason entity and surprisingly the mind also.
Well, that's an interesting suggestion. I I haven't thought of that idea that the crowd could be there way is the mixing bowl and I think in America 4 there is a separate section and that section is fascinating because because when I read your book the literally gave the title of the work crater then I realized why he's naming this as a crater. It's a mixing bowl. So mixing bowl literature. So that's a very short section of
Yeah.
And that one says that when human being comes in the lower world, it has a mixture of lot of different things and if you don't pay attention, you'll miss the mind part. The mind part comes from poander himself.
Yeah.
And the other part comes from the donic and the passion and sensation and our own desires
and they and yes and these these demonic entities come from the cosmos. So they're cosmic. They come from our material world.
Yes. And Yes. And it's true. In Corpuson 4, it says that God sent down this mixing bowl into the world, a mixing bowl full of noose.
Yes.
And the Greek word noose is being used which is basically the divine light. Um and so sent that down and it's I I'm going to follow up on your suggestion whether that whether the mixing bowl could be seen as standing for our combined human entity. It's a very interesting suggestion
because because because Lari discussed this mixing bowl idea in context of Pandora's jar
in in the crater. So in the Pandora jar he was saying that Hermes uh as a punish ment because Zeus commanded there has to be a punishment for the man and haris created this Pandora jar that is full of all passion, sensation, taste, emotion, happiness but there is a expectancy that is the monodal part that remains at the bottom. It never leaves but the problem is because every all the passion sensation roams around outside they don't recognize the image. of God that hangs on the neck of the jar.
So, so the human body itself even though it has the monad or light or deployment's mind or divine mind or light because we also has this donic cosmic part. For example, each planet gives some attributes to the nature of the things. The each person we meet gives an identity by reflecting their idea on us. So, we become new person at birth not knowing our uh monodal part and now they're lost with the passion and fail to recognize but the bottom line is my when I read your work and the mixing ball I I realize oh mixing ball is the human body we are we are bombarded with everything missing the point and Lazario was suggesting that the if you recognize the light within that is your salvation for rebirth. There's no other way around.
It's it's a very powerful interpretation and I think uh uh this yeah you could very well be right that this is actually so of what it means in the hermetica itself and then what l does with it are two two different things. Uh but um it's a very interesting way of looking at it certainly makes sense. Yeah. So just to fun just to finish my story. So so so So this what happens. So we get inhabited by those diamonds and all of us are walking around like that and we um this is why we behave the way we behave in all kind of bad ways. Uh because we have have forgotten our true um the lights the knowetic lights uh in our heart basically uh we forgotten it and we we get overwhelmed by the emotional passions that have to do with the with the cosmic forces, the cosmic energies. So, so that's the analysis of why things are going so badly in the world. This is why we behave so badly because we're under the influence of diamonds um and we cannot separate them from our true uh essence. So, and then in corpus 13 you have this um treat about the rebirth and so it's a wonderful text. Uh so, you read there how the pupil t meets Ristus. He has been doing all kind of spiritual exercises and whatever and um he wants to have gnosis now. He wants to have salvational insight and and then Hermes is a bit hesitant and he gives some evasive strange answers which Tutt doesn't understand but the conversation develops and at one point Tutt realizes that he enters into an strange unusual state of consciousness. an altered state of consciousness called mana in Greek divine madness doesn't mean he's insane. It doesn't mean mean he's mad but it means that he's in strange unusual state of consciousness mana and that means that he is on his way to uh being reborn. Um so then you get through the text and at one point uh Hermes basically tells Todd okay right you are on the point of being reborn. So um this means that you are well you are still not able to see the true light of divinity at this moment and the reason is that um this is because you have those tormentors inside you. He used the word tormentors or torments and this is a reference to this astral entities or this donic entities in his body. Well T is surprised he said do I have tormentors in myself? He said And Hermes says, "Yes, yes, yes, you do. But we go to drive them out." And I imagine I this is not described, but this is my interpretation, and I think it's I think they're good reasons to assume this is that we get then is what we get then is a description of an exorcism uh uh uh ritual in which the the tormentors are going to be driven out of Todd's body. So what happens is that uh Hermes invokes 10 powers of light There are 10 uh powers because there are 10 levels in the hermatic universe. You have the seven levels of the cosmos, the seven planetary spheres. Then you have the eighth uh level of life, the souls, living souls. Then you have the ninth level uh of light, which is the knowetic light of divinity. And you have the 10th uh level, which is also the first level um which is the source uh the pega in Greek, the ultimate source. the divine source from which everything is continuously being born. So you have again again this metaphor of b metaphor this image of birth um the universe is born we are born everything is born from the pag from god okay so you have 10 levels so Hermes then um invokes 10 powers of light uh into the body of tutt and these powers of light enter his body and they drive out the dark demonic power of the astral uh energies out of his body and there are 12 of them. Well, 12 because the 12 side of the zodiac. So, it makes sense. 10 powers drive out 12 powers. The 12 dark powers leave his body with a flapping of wings we read literally. So, really like entities leaving his body and that is the moment of rebirth because at that moment um the 10 powers of light weave themselves into an uh spirit ual body of light into the physical in the physical body of thought. So he still has his physical body the product of the first birth but now it is inhabited by a second body a body of light which is born and that is so this is a literal physical uh physical spiritual birth of light in the body and this is divine light. So this is this is the rebirth and the moment that this that this happens um Tutt is no longer um seeing the world by his normal um physical senses. Uh because normally we see the world in time and space. So I am focused on this space where I'm sitting at this moment in time. But the moment that Tot is reborn, he's no longer bound to to space and time. And so you get this wonderful description in which he says, I'm everywhere. I am in the past. I'm in the future. I'm in the present. I am here in this place. I am in India on the other side of the world. I am I'm in the ocean. I'm in the air. I'm I'm everywhere. And so so the rebirth does not just mean that um that this light body is taking shape into your physical body. It also means that your consciousness is radically changed and becomes able to see the world in the same way that God himself sees the world namely everything at the same time and all times at the same time and so this is the description corpus 13 so that's the rebirth that's not a Christian interpretation of naturelli it's a different uh model but still about rebirth
exactly the rebirth idea is so central uh I think um like u like experience after recognizing the rebirth that he's everywhere like uh this this idea uh I think the very first encounter when uh Hermes was in the state of half asleep and he encountered poorer at the very first moment the so his introduction was I am poorer and I am with you everywhere.
Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah. Exactly. And and and this Decad is had is the same thing. The moment you recognize this decad is the 10th layer and the heard is the is the beginning the root number one the 10 and the one is the same thing that triggers the rebart experience the moment you recognize oh it's not the difference it's the same thing and that's the beginning of the hermetic corpus literature and that's the also the literature that concludes uh luxuralis crater hermitus at the very end the the participant they are eager to know okay tell us how the rebirth works and and I I would I would also say the important part is as a as a scientist myself so whenever you try to understand a complex object or complex piece I would say the most guaranteed way to understand something if you can make it by yourself Suppose I have this glass in front of me.
I have to understand. So I can measure it. I can do all kinds of thing. But the guaranteed way that I'll understand this glass completely if I make this glass by myself.
For example, I I found the raw glass. I melted it. I impressed it. Then I made the handle. The bottom line is the only guaranteed way to understand something completely is to rebuild it, make it by yourself.
I think well I really want to thank you for that observation because I think that's I honestly I think that's a brilliant observation. I think it's absolutely right. It is right
and Lari was going step by step by step to rebuild how the human body works by this the passion this demonic entity mixing ball. How to get rid of of those passion by 10th power and by the time you reach 10th power you recognize you came back at the beginning. So that's the making of the human body and actually that's a magic.
Yeah.
And that's why people traditionally blame this hermitist as a magician because they change people.
Yeah.
They change people.
They change people. I think that Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I I I think you're you're absolutely uh bull bullseye. Absolutely true. This is how it is and uh Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like you say, the only only if you can make something do you really know it. That's that's a fantastic observation. That's a fantastic observation. I think that is that's something that you can apply also to people like Zoimos the alchemist who was trying to understand matter by working in it in in a laboratory by making things then then you get to know them and Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. That's that's wonderful. That's that's that's really
Yeah.
Yeah. I personally want to thank you for this reach because most of the hermetic literature is lost or not encouraged or nobody reads them because those are in ancient language but you translated in a very easily readable language in English language this Hermitis and Lazera and Larali and other people's translation and I think that helped me to read and appreciate the work and that's Wonderful. That's wonderful. Thank you so much.
Well, thank you very much and really it's wonderful to have such an attentive reader of my work and uh that's really I appreciate it.
You never know who will read your book. That's why
there there is a saying there was a argument. Let's conclude our discussion today. I think I mentioned in my uh email that the thought and Ammun was discussing that you cannot teach people wisdom by writing. Because the meaning is lost.
Ammon was saying that meaning is lost. You cannot but you argue. No, no, no. By writing you can also teach them because that's the alchemy. You wrote a book. I understood it.
So that's the alchemy and it's possible. Yes.
Well, this is this is very very very nice to hear. Very nice to hear because that's exactly what I said on the very final pages of this book. I wrote about the hermetica. that yes uh how is it possible the experience cannot be transmitted through language because you have to experience it it yourself but by reading texts are able to um text have agency and they can do something with you and you are able to uh yeah to reconstruct the meaning yourself based upon those text
reasssemble the fragmented part and it reassembles into an entity an idea and if when you see what you mean by reading the book, you actually see the writer's point of view and experience yourself. So it's a it's a teleportation kind of teleportation that you do something here but it reassembles here. So it's kind of magic. It's again kind of magic. So even ammon God Amun suggesting to thought that you cannot teach wisdom by writing a book because the meaning is lost and people will trans translated differently but thought was persistent. No, no, no, no. You can still do it. And I respect you that you insisted that no, I think by writing a book and and communicating to a third person, that person will like sew the seed and make his own understanding what I am understanding in an identical way and he if somebody misunderstood that's their problem. But if somebody understands directly what I mean actually that's a valid way of doing this hermetic magic also
yeah and here we come to a very f very nice I think a natural ending to our conversation because this this act of understanding as you say um yeah that is what we call hermeneutics right hermeneutics and the word hermeneutics uh basically means the art of understanding understanding texts but understanding everything the art of understanding we call it hermeneutics and uh the very word hermeneutics of course is derived from Hermes. So uh that is exactly the hermetic art of understanding things. So in a way this brings everything together again in the act of understanding the human act of understanding which means that you bridge a gap that cannot be brided and that is what Hermes does bridging that cannot be brided.
Thank you so much and thank you for helping other people to bridge their gaps. by your work. Thank you so much.
Well, thank you. Thank you very much for this conversation. I enjoyed it very much and I appreciate it. Thank you.
Okay. Bye-bye.I'm glad to help! Here’s the revised content with grammatical corrections: --- I think you are one of the few people who are world experts in hermetic philosophy and especially European Renaissance literature. So, for my viewers, can you introduce a little bit about yourself? Um, well, first of all, thank you very much for the invitation. Very much appreciated. Um, yeah, okay, my name is Walter. What can I say about myself? I am working at the University of Amsterdam. I have been there since 1999, and the chair is called the history of hermetic philosophy and related currents. This basically stands for a large field of study that we also refer to as western esotericism or simply esotericism in western culture. And so, this covers an enormous domain starting in antiquity, in the period of the first centuries of the common era, and then running through the whole of western culture in a broad sense, up to the present. The way that I look at the field is that I see it, in technical terms, as rejected knowledge because all these traditions have one thing in common: the fact that, at least since the European scientific revolution and enlightenment periods, they have been seen as well, as they have been basically rejected by mainstream culture, by mainstream intellectual culture, by the academy. They were seen as superstitious, wrong, misguided, and so on and so forth. So, this entire field was basically expelled, you might say, from academic research, and it remained a kind of domain in a wastebasket category, as I sometimes call it, of everything that the modern academy is not willing to take seriously. In my field, and I'm not alone of course, I have many colleagues and we have international scholarly organizations, our conviction is that all these traditions are actually very influential and important. We have to know about them, and if you write them out of history, then you end up misperceiving a lot of essential things about what is western culture. So, yeah, that is what I do. I have been writing; my first book was about the New Age movement, which was really focused on the post-war European and American kind of alternative spirituality. Then I try to place the New Age movement in a wider context of esotericism. I wanted to see it not just as a contemporary phenomenon but as something with deep historical roots. Later on, I started exploring the hermetic traditions more specifically. I can say a bit more about it if you want, but the hermetic traditions, which is also in the title of my chair, the history of hermetic philosophy. So, the term "hermetica" refers to a series of spiritual traditions, I would say, in the Roman period, specifically in the 2nd and 3rd centuries, which led to very influential and profound texts, the so-called Corpus Hermeticum, and other hermetic writings that were then passed on and translated in the Renaissance period, into Latin and made a big impact on intellectuals and on the wider culture. So, this whole hermetic tradition can be traced from antiquity to the present, and that's another concern of mine. My second book was about a 15th-century hermetic philosopher, whom I discovered and who I think is very important and fascinating. After that, I've been doing all kinds of other things related to this field. I've written a book called "Esotericism in the Academy," which is a description of how this whole field got marginalized and expelled from the academy, why that happens, and of course, it was a plea for correcting that process and bringing it back to the table. My most recent book was again about hermetica; it's called "Hermetic Spirituality and Historical Imagination." This is really an attempt to go very deeply into the hermetic literature to really find out what these texts were all about. I'm continuing that kind of research because I hope to write a book about the reception of the hermetica in the Renaissance and hopefully even a third volume about the modern and contemporary reception of the hermetica. So, this is more or less the whole field that I'm covering. It was a bit of a long answer to a short question. I hope you find it okay. Thank you. So, my question is about the time when hermetic literature started to be compiled at the same time as especially Greek literature, which was more focused on philosophy and proto-science. At the same time, there was a spiritual crisis as Egypt versus the emerging Christian Middle East developed. Now that we have modern life, philosophy, science, and religion, where does this hermetica fit in? What is the role of this hermetic literature in this context for the general reader? Yeah, I think that's an excellent question. It goes directly to the heart of the whole field. The way that I would answer it is this: If we go back to antiquity where it all started, we think of Greek philosophy and Greek culture as rationality, rationalism, science, and so on. But I think that's already where the misperceptions start because the whole Platonic tradition, to begin with, Platonism in all its forms, was not just what we see as rational philosophy. It was much more than that; it had a very strong religious or spiritual component from the beginning, and this spiritual dimension of Platonism reemerged very strongly in the same periods when the hermetica emerged, and these phenomena are interrelated. This is not philosophy—it is not rational philosophy as we understand it, even though it makes use of philosophical language. It certainly does that, but that's not what it's all about. These are not people who try to solve philosophical problems. They are also not scientists. They make use of common ideas about science, natural science, in their works, but that is not their focus. Again, can we call it religious? Well, it depends on what you mean by religion. If we think of religion as something collective based upon common doctrines that are shared by a whole community, then perhaps these are not really religious movements but rather spiritual movements. By spiritual, I mean that these traditions are less concerned with large doctrinal holes and churches and so on, but are rather concerned with individual experiential practice. That's the term I would use. So, we are dealing with people—basically individuals—who came together in small communities, and their focus was on a personal, individual spiritual path. It was based upon doing things. There was a strong ceremonial part to it and it was rooted in experiential dimensions involving visions, voices, and mystical experiences. This is what makes them specific. My thought while you were talking is that if someone studies science, philosophy, and religion but never considers reading hermetica or hermetic literature, will they miss something important? Yes, I think they will miss something important. What can I say? Let me think—first of all, they miss something important because these texts are profound. These are not just superficial texts. They have intrinsic value. They are profound, deep, and valuable in themselves. I think you'll miss something simply because there is so much more than just the official doctrines that we hear about from rational science, philosophy, and established religions. There's much more. Normal individuals are doing their own things; they're putting their own spin on the doctrines and ideas that exist in their environments. Often, what they do with them is original and creative. By studying these things, you open up a whole dimension of experiential knowledge that we tend to overlook simply because standard, official, mainstream religions and cultures don't pay attention to them. We're not aware that they are there, but once we discover them and read them, we realize we find things here that you do not find anywhere else, and I think that leads to enrichment in our ways of looking at the world. I'm not in the business of advocating these kinds of traditions; I'm not saying whether they are right or wrong. I think some of them are profound, certainly in terms of content. But my main point is not whether they are right or wrong but simply that they are there. They are there, and we have to know about them because they have something to say that is not being said elsewhere. Yes, people are different. For example, some people follow their own path. Some people just follow their established religion, and some people follow a scientific path. But if somebody is not particularly religious but thinks they are spiritual and cannot find the connection between philosophy and science—because some people are not interested in studying religion—then I think hermetica can bridge by remaining more philosophical and logically rigorous, yet more regulatory. So, it connects the bridge between common sense, I would say. I think this is a very good point. I really like the way you formulated that. I agree. Exactly. This literature is important. When I was studying, I’ll tell you a little bit about my encounter with this literature. Roughly at the same time I watched your infinite webinar series on the hermetic tradition, just prior to one to two years before, I was working in my lab on an electrophysiological study for some ion channel work. The person who was a graduate student before me wrote a small protocol about how to do things because that kind of thing doesn’t actually exist in literature. You have to build your own custom design for sealing the electrical equipment, like a Faraday cage. He referenced in one sentence that your electrical equipment has to be hermetically sealed. Because I know English quite well, I couldn't understand what he was trying to say. Why was he saying "hermetically sealed" out of so many different ways to express the same thing, like tightly sealed, bulletproof, and so on? Then I Googled it, and it opened the floodgates, and I realized, oh my goodness, this is a vast literature, and it’s an alchemical term. He was using an alchemical term. Why? Then I realized this literature is very rich—it's hidden in plain sight, but you have to look for it. That's the difference. Yes, you're formulating this very well. It's very well hidden in plain sight. That's exactly right. You have to pay attention to it, and then you see that it's there. Let’s talk about the small agenda I think I shared with you. I’ll go through it, and you can just talk about those. First of all, I think you also gave us a little bit of a time frame that it was around Roman Egypt. Can you elaborate on when the text of Corpus Hermeticum was compiled, roughly what time frame, and any idea who compiled and transmitted it? Right. Well, they were probably written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries. We do not know exactly; some parts might be a bit earlier, but basically, it’s the 2nd and 3rd centuries. That means before the triumph of Christianity, so we’re dealing with pagan texts. When I use the term “pagan,” I want to specify that for me, “pagan” has a neutral sense; it is not a negative term. By saying that things are pagan, I’m not saying that they are bad. Pagan simply means the kind of religious, spiritual, and philosophical currents that existed in the Hellenic and Hellenistic world during that period. I use “pagan” in a very neutral, non-pejorative sense. These are pagan traditions with very little influence, well, no influence really from Christianity—almost nothing from Judaism, maybe a little bit, but it’s very marginal. So these are really almost completely pure pagan texts from Roman Egypt. We do not know who wrote them. We don’t have names; they are anonymous. But the texts are attributed officially to Hermes Trismegistus. This is an honorary term and an honorific term describing the greatest Hermes, who supposedly was an ancient wise man that lived much earlier than the 2nd and 3rd centuries. That’s the fiction that is being promoted in these texts. You see Hermes Trismegistus engaging in dialogues with a couple of pupils—Tut and Asclepius—and they talk about the nature of the world, the nature of God, and the nature of human beings. They discuss how to find gnosis, a Greek term that means direct spiritual ultimate knowledge—how to reach that, what needs to be done, and so on. These are educational spiritual dialogues, and that's the hermetic literature. So who wrote them? Nobody knows for sure. My interpretation is that these texts were circulating in very small networks of practitioners who sent each other these texts to stay in contact with each other because they didn’t have public transport. How do you stay in touch with each other? You can only do it through texts. So, I think they were circulating these dialogues as a kind of ideal text about the spiritual path. They did this almost certainly in secret. It’s interesting that there have been almost no, well basically no, reports by outsiders about these people. They must have been flying under the radar because they didn’t attract attention. They probably met in their homes, maybe in desert sanctuaries or temples, and probably the groups were very, very small. The names are anonymous. I assume that when you see the names Hermes, Tut, and Asclepius in the text, there must be real persons behind them. I cannot prove this, but I assume they took on these names. In the ceremonial context, one of the leaders would refer to himself as Hermes Trismegistus to show authority, while other pupils would take names that refer to Egyptian deities, like Asclepius, referring to the god Thoth. For the rest, it's a mystery; we do not know who these people were. There are a few names that I connect with these circles. One of them is the alchemist Zosimos, who was working in the same period in Panopolis in Egypt and who’s more or less the founder of alchemy, often seen as the hermetic art. So, these people were working in laboratories doing chemical experiments. Zosimos was probably a hermetic practitioner; I’m pretty sure of that. Another name that can be identified is the great Neoplatonic philosopher Iamblichus, the founder of Neoplatonism. Then you have Porphyry, one of his pupils, and I think the evidence is quite strong to assume that Iamblichus spent part of his life in Alexandria, Egypt, and participated in hermetic circles. The names are anonymous; we do not know for sure. But at least a few well-known people like Zosimos and Iamblichus can be connected with them. Yes, they were very well-respected people at that time; they were not just random farmers or manual workers. They were the top echelon of their time—their priestly class—with dedicated professions, like masonry or smithing—building weapons or foundations. They were more like professionals today, like scientists or professionals, but in their personal lives, they were more like priests and philosophers. However, their writing was mostly spiritual rather than practical day-to-day problem-solving. Let me say that I really admire your clarity. You summarize it well. It's exactly as you said. These people were professionals. It's important to recognize that they were Egyptians but they were writing in Greek, which was the language of the higher educated classes in Egypt. Like you said, these were well-educated people. Zosimos was a craftsman who made his living by creating statues for the temples. Yes, these were skilled practitioners and professionals, as you say. So, the first reference and documented book that was compiled was in the golden era of the Greek literature period. That does not mark the beginning of the tradition for sure, as they referred themselves to much earlier traditions. It came from a long time ago and was carried by oral tradition, master to student. Then, at the time of political turmoil and cultural shifts, they compiled the last vestiges of knowledge to preserve it; otherwise, this wisdom would be lost. That was the last round of compilation rather than the first initial compilation, right? I think at that time they felt insecure that if they didn’t write it down, it might be permanently lost. Yes, that's a fascinating point. The question is how old these traditions really are. Of course, they refer back to earlier traditions; they refer to certain aspects of Egyptian religion. There are Platonic references, and they tell us that all of this is very old. To be honest, I do not know how old it really is. We know that the texts came from the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Of course, all kinds of ideas may have come from earlier periods, but personally, I’m not strongly inclined to think they are much older than the beginning of the common era, even though elements of them might come from that era. I think they are pretty much of that period. But it's true this point of writing down to prevent vanishing is an important one. There is a text known as the Asclepius, probably the biggest hermetic text, which contains a very impressive lament over the decline of Egypt. It sounds like it was written by someone who was deeply saddened and concerned about the fact that all of the ancient traditions that had lived for so many centuries in Egypt were declining. The temples were breaking down, foreigners were flooding the land, destroying the ancient cultures, and so on. They say that very soon—Hermes actually states—that very soon, no one will remain who will still understand the true wisdom that I’m teaching you. So, it has to be written down. There’s another instance where Hermes and Thoth are discussing Ceremonial Ascent of the Soul to the highest spheres. When that is done, Hermes instructs Thoth to write it down—carve it into stone tablets that will be placed in the temple—so that this wisdom will not be lost. Yes, that's a very important point about the wisdom being incredibly ancient and endangered. We might be the last generation, but in the distant future, there may be a moment when people rediscover our wisdom and possibly revive it. Exactly. My personal inquiry about how old this figure of Hermes, not necessarily the book we're talking about, is that as scholars have found, he himself must be very ancient. For example, in Egypt, they refer to this figure back to Thoth, which is obviously very old. Across cultures, let's talk about who Hermes represented in Greek culture. Who was the Greek Hermes, for example? Ah, this is another issue you're right. Yes, the Greek Hermes is the messenger of the gods linked to scripture and translation, depicted with wings on his feet, as he brings messages from the gods to human beings. He is a god who can flit across borders that other people cannot cross. What happened was that when Alexander the Great occupied Egypt, the beginning of the periods where Egypt was ruled by the Greeks, the Greeks did not try to convert the Egyptians to their beliefs. They allowed them to keep their practices, but they translated the names of the Egyptian gods into their own names. The god Thoth, who had similar functions in ancient Egyptian religion—the scribe of the gods and involved in the judgment of souls after death—was sufficiently similar to Hermes. The conclusion was that whatever the Egyptians called Thoth, we call Hermes, and it's basically the same god. You get a mixture of the Thoth-Hermes figure. You're right; that syncretism or mixture must have emerged much earlier, during the centuries after Alexander, which is a couple of centuries before the common era. That’s fascinating. In the later literature, Hermes became a minor deity, but if you look into it, you’ll see Hermes is quite ancient. Originally, he was just a pillar. Yeah, exactly. That one is very ancient. Even before Zeus was worshiped, Hermes was revered. If you review the Orphic tradition, they say Hermes was famous. No matter which culture you look at, they attribute a Hermes-like figure as the very first person we recognize. For example, there are some Jewish mystics from the 2nd century BCE in the Dead Sea Scroll literature who attribute their wisdom back to Moses himself. Oh yeah, they always attribute the very first person they respect as the equivalent of Hermes. In Egypt, all the scribes and priests reference their first authority as Thoth, not another god, because literature, writing, and wisdom are embodied in him. In Greece, they attribute their tradition back to Hermes. Even in the Abrahamic tradition, either Abraham or Moses or Zoroaster himself is considered the first figure recognized as the one who communicated knowledge. This is very important; I don’t know why they consider this figure so old, but they insist that this tradition is very ancient. Yes, and it is hard—largely impossible—to separate clearly between history and mythology here. I’m a big fan of the German Egyptologist Jan Assmann, who has written fantastic works. One of the things I learned from him is to differentiate between history and what he calls “mimetic history.” History is the attempt to describe what really happened, while mimetic history concerns events that may never have occurred but are remembered to have occurred. Assmann’s big example is Moses, whom you mentioned: there is no historical evidence that Moses ever lived, but he is an extremely powerful figure of cultural memory. The whole birth of monotheism, whether Jewish, Christian, or Islamic, traces itself back to Moses. The mimetic history, the history of how we remember it, is extremely important and influential regardless of its historical correlation. Yes, there’s no historical correlate. It’s just traditional anecdotes or theoretical antecedents suggesting that if something comes like that, it must originate from that tradition. We covered the Abrahamic traditions and the Jewish, Greek, and Egyptian thoughts. In Islamic tradition, they even go beyond Abraham; they say that the figure of Hermes is Prophet Idris, a descendant of Seth, the third son of Adam. This is all theoretical because nobody can prove or disprove anything. Yes. And so, they say that this Abrahamic tradition is post-Diluvian, but only Hermes connects the antediluvian wisdom to the Abrahamic tradition, establishing a nonbroken chain of tradition. Precisely. Yes, fascinating stories—fascinating. Okay, I think if we discuss this, it will never end. Let’s move on, and perhaps we can talk particularly about your focus on Italian Renaissance figures. Yeah. Why did you start, and how did you find Lodovico Lazzarelli in relation to this hermetic literature? Okay. Well, thank you for asking because I love to tell this story; it’s a very nice story. As background, let me say that not all your viewers may know this, but the Corpus Hermeticum—the most important collection of writings—was translated by an Italian humanist, Marsilio Ficino, a very well-known Platonist and the first translator of the complete Platonic literature into Latin. He was also an important figure. Ficino is famous; in around 1463, he was given access to a Greek manuscript of the Corpus Hermeticum and was asked by Cosimo de’ Medici, the leader of Florence, to translate it. So he did, and it was published in 1471. The thing is that this translation by Ficino, the so-called “Panta,” made a big impact in the Renaissance on many people. It got published in a whole series of later editions, translated, and there was a lot of interest in Hermes based on Ficino's translation. The famous English historian Frances Yates later wrote her famous book, "Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition," in 1964. It became a bestseller, and still is. In it, she tells a grand story about the hermetic literature in the Renaissance. According to her, Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum, then several famous intellectuals—like Pico della Mirandola and Giordano Bruno—discovered this literature, resulting in a huge hermetic tradition in the Renaissance. This survived until the early 17th century and then finally declined for various reasons, which are not relevant here. This book became incredibly influential and created a picture of the hermetic tradition with Ficino, Pico, and Bruno at its heart. That was the narrative everyone assumed, and many people still maintain that view. Now, what happened was that while I was living in Paris in 1997, I spent a year and a half there. I was very good friends with the main scholar and specialist in esotericism at the time, Antoine Faivre, who was a professor of history of esotericism at the Sorbonne in Paris. Faivre was a very good friend of mine, but he passed away a couple of years ago. He largely created this whole field of study with his work. I spent a lot of time in touch with him. One evening, I went to his home in Méridien, and we spent a nice evening together. At one point, he went to the bathroom, and I looked around at his bookcases, which were similar to those you have behind you—behind glass. He had a section with old antiquarian books. Somehow, I picked out a book, and it turned out to be a 16th-century volume, very valuable. He had this antiquarian book by a French author that I had never heard of, and it was about hermetica. Something in that book caught my interest. I don’t know why, but it felt almost like destiny—at that moment, it was as if Hermes was tapping on my shoulder, urging me to pay attention to this book. I asked Antoine if I could borrow it, which was extraordinary given that it was a very expensive 16th-century volume, but I could take it home. I started reading it in bed at night—in very difficult 16th-century French. I found out that part of the text consisted of an author I had never heard of, Lazzarelli, and I had never heard of the name before. The Karatis, the "Basin of Hermes," I had never heard of. But I tried reading it; it was fascinating and resonated somehow. I could not fully understand what I was reading, but something clicked with me. Then, a few weeks later, I went back to Amsterdam, and I made a visit—I did this more often—to the famous Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, the Ritman library, which is the most important library of hermetic literature in the world. While there, I met a guy who was sitting in a corner making translations. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was translating texts from Latin into English. We started talking; his name was Rudolf Bohm. I didn’t know him, but I asked what he was translating. He said, “At the moment, I’m working on an 18th-century Italian thinker, Lazzarelli.” Suddenly, it clicked in my mind—Lazzarelli and Lazzarini were the same. What a coincidence! I had never heard of him, and in two weeks, I had heard about him twice and met this guy. Yeah, we started talking; he turned out to be an excellent translator from Neo-Latin. We started working together and ended up producing this book about Ludovico Lazzarelli. We translated all the hermetic texts by Lazzarelli into English, made a critical edition with annotations, and an English translation, with a large introduction that got published in 2005. This was important because it radically changed my entire idea about this so-called hermetic tradition. The point is that Lazzarelli was an unknown figure; he was a minor humanist poet, not nearly as famous as Ficino. One day, Lazzarelli was in Rome—in the Holy City—when he saw a public preacher on the streets who was preaching to the crowds. This turned out to be a certain Giovanni Dorio, a charismatic speaker with whom he became friends. Dorio made a big impression on Lazzarelli, who became his pupil. Not much longer after that, we have several texts that Lazzarelli wrote and offered to his master, Dorio. One of these texts consists of a translation of the final three treatises from the Corpus Hermeticum. The point is this: Ficino had translated the Corpus Hermeticum, but the manuscript he used was incomplete; it only had 14 treatises. Lazzarelli discovered an independent manuscript with the extra treatises and translated them. This means that it's not correct that Ficino was the only one to translate the Corpus; Lazzarelli was the other translator, even though it was a small part. He should be mentioned. He made beautiful manuscripts, which he offered as gifts to Dorio, consisting of Ficino’s translation, his translation, and the famous Asclepius in Latin and hermetic text in Latin. Not long after that, on Palm Sunday in the 1480s—I don’t recall exactly which year, but I think it was ’86—Dorio made a spectacular appearance in Rome. He came there, drawing attention to the crowds in various ways, and finally dressed up like Jesus Christ. He donned a white mantle and wore a crown of thorns on his head, carrying all kinds of symbolic things with him. He sat on a donkey and entered Rome, trying to replicate the story of Jesus entering Jerusalem. He attracted a great crowd, and it was clear from his presentation that he believed he was impersonating Christ but also impersonating Hermes in some way. He saw himself as a kind of hermetic Christ. This was a spectacular event, and there’s a lot that could be said about Dorio, but that may go a bit far now. Lazzarelli was incredibly impressed by him; he saw him as the figure who united the Christian message with the hermetic message. That was for him the core of what it was all about. A couple of years later, he wrote a very impressive text called "The Crow, Heresis," which he tried to offer to the King of Naples, Ferrante—a famous and influential king. This text is important, and it’s one of the texts we published. This is a new hermetic dialogue, newly written by Lazzarelli but very strongly modeled on the original hermetic literature, in which Lazzarelli takes the role of the teacher, Hermes Trismegistus. He teaches two pupils, Ferrante, the king, and his secretary and first minister, Giovanni Pontano. So, two pupils, one master; they ask all kinds of questions, and it’s a very lively dialogue between the two. This text is beautiful; Lazzarelli was a very gifted writer who wrote in beautiful Latin. It’s poetic, and he develops a very distinctive new understanding of the hermetica that is actually incorrect but extremely impressive, creative, and fascinating. What Lazzarelli believed was very spectacular. He said that Dorio was Jesus Christ returning to Earth in the shape of Hermes. The story behind this goes back to the hermetic literature itself because if you read the first treatise of the Corpus Hermeticum, the so-called "Poimandres," it details a visionary encounter between Hermes and Poimandres. Poimandres is a manifestation of God himself who appears in a vision to Hermes, representing divine light itself. Lazzarelli refers to this well-known text and suggests that what happens in it is creative and original. Lazzarelli states that Hermes encountered Poimandres, who is essentially the son of God, and this son of God is the logos—Jesus Christ, the son of God. In other words, this figure appearing to a pagan sage—Hermes—is actually no one else but Christ. The story that Lazzarelli creates is that Christ first appeared to a pagan wise man, Hermes, who understood him partly, but partly misunderstood him because he was a pagan and was not entirely enlightened. Later, the logos, the son of God, is incarnated as Jesus Christ, and for Lazzarelli, that marks the beginning of Christianity, which he believes in strongly. Now, a third stage emerges: Dorio brings the two traditions together, uniting the hermetic tradition of Poimandres with Christianity. Lazzarelli believes this will mark the beginning of the renovation of true Christianity. He believes we are embarking on a new phase in the history of Christianity based on the integration of pagan hermetic wisdom and Christian wisdom, which will guide the future of Christianity. Of course, none of this happened, but it’s an extremely creative, original, and fascinating idea, and the text is truly a gem. I think it’s one of the most impressive small hermetic texts that have been written. Lazzarelli had a brilliant mind. Why is this important to me? It completely undermines Frances Yates’s narrative because she said it was all about great individuals like Ficino, Pico, Bruno, and so on. Now, I come to the conclusion that none of these figures were really hermetic thinkers. Ficino translated the Corpus Hermeticum but was much more interested in Platonism, and he basically disregarded the hermetic literature very quickly. For him, it was about Plato, not Hermes. Pico della Mirandola was interested in many things but mostly in the Jewish Kabbalah, the secret wisdom of the Jews, but not really in the hermetica. He knew of them, but they were not important to him. Giordano Bruno knew about the hermetica, but it’s not central to his work. So, if you're looking for a real hermetic figure in the 15th century, it's not Ficino, it's not Pico, it's not Bruno; it is Lazzarelli. He is the real example of a Christian hermeticist. Why did Frances Yates marginalize him in her story? Simply because he was a small fish—far too small. Ficino, Pico, and Bruno were famous names, so you could hang your hat on them and tell a great story about their hermetic tradition. It was influential and impressive, but the story was false because the true story of the hermetica is that a minor figure like Lazzarelli wrote a fantastic and impressive text. There is a small, discrete hermetic tradition that continues after Lazzarelli to Cornelius Agrippa, the author of "De Occulta Philosophia" in the 16th century, along with a few other names that might be mentioned. Finally, Frances Yates wrote this bestseller in which she claimed the hermetica is all about magic, with magic at the origin of the scientific revolution—her big story. But Lazzarelli, the true hermeticist, was not interested in magic; he was not concerned about science. He was focused on a spiritual, individual Christian message, which simply did not fit Frances Yates’s narrative. It wasn't what she wanted to hear. So, she pushed Lazzarelli away into footnotes, while placing the real hermeticists off the stage, leaving others who weren’t hermeticists in the spotlight, even though they didn’t belong there. This is my long story in response to your short question. It’s a fascinating, long list of literature, and everyone has their own biases, including religious or ideological biases. For example, the way you describe Lazzarelli, I’d like to summarize it. So, "Poimandres" translates commonly into "shepherd of men." Yes, that’s not actually true; that’s often said, but if I may interject for a moment, that association has been discarded today. The name "Poimandres" comes from Egyptian etymology and has nothing to do with being the shepherd of men. But many scholars have believed that for a long time. Even Wikipedia states that the possible etymological derivation is "shepherd of men" or "guide of men." Regardless, my common-sense understanding is that this literature is very confusing, and most people fail to recognize why this literature is important. Plus, as you mentioned, the important literature of Ficino versus Pico della Mirandola diverts this particular literature in their own directions and biases. But out of all these noises, you are pretty confident that Lazzarelli represents the real hermetic tradition and that he understood it deeply. Oh, yes—much more than Ficino. Ficino didn’t understand it very well, but Lazzarelli understood it very deeply. Right. By using this analogy, I would say something very bold that might surprise you. I would say that someone who understands this core hermetic literature is part of the body of Hermes himself because it is hermetically sealed. If you are confident that you understood the literature correctly, and you can bet your life on it, that gives you a sense of being part of the body of Hermes himself. That's why I believe Lazzarelli recognizes Giovanni Dorio as the Hermes 2.0. Yes, in the guise of Jesus. And because you understood this amidst all the noise, it gives me profound respect for you. Whoever understands this core thesis has seen the vision directly or indirectly. So, thank you for the literature, especially the "Crater Hermeticus." I’ve read it multiple times. Thanks for the English translation because it’s originally in Latin. Exactly. I actually converted it into my personal audiobook, so when I drive, I can listen to it. That’s lovely! It’s roughly one and a half hours, and the voice is nice and clear. It feels like a drama—like I’m literally listening to Dorio talking with Pontano; their conversation is very engaging. Let me say how much I like hearing this! This warms my heart to hear that you have read it multiple times or even listened to it. It’s very gratifying as a scholar. You know, people like me spend a lot of time behind our computers hoping that someone will pick up our work, so to hear that you’ve been reading and listening to it is really nice! I know I haven’t wasted my time. I’ll send you a copy of the audiobook MP3 file. It’s very easy; you can listen to it on your phone or connect it to your car when you're driving. If you listen to it, even though you translated it yourself, I’m sure it will come alive again. Wonderful! Thank you very much. In the "Crater Hermeticus," I think they reference the mixing bowl of Hermes. They discuss how to attain happiness in life. This topic is at the beginning of the conversation because Lazzarelli suggests, “Now, King Frederick, you have served your country, and now you are retired. You have the luxury of time. Why not? Because I love you, and I’m here to give you this wisdom. Let’s talk about how to attain happiness in life.” Would you like to go through the main points of the "Crater"? At the very beginning, they talk about this ancient Egyptian wisdom, and it’s interesting that Lazzarelli, unlike most people during this period, emphasizes Hermes rather than Plato. When he mentions Hermes, the king and Pontano respond, "Oh, you speak highly of Hermes, this pagan sage. It almost seems like you’re an hermeticist. Aren’t you a Christian?" Then Lazzarelli responds, "No, I am a Christian, but I’m not ashamed to call myself a hermeticist as well." They establish this point early on. The dialogue progresses through a series of biblical exegeses. They go through several parts of the Bible, which Lazzarelli reads through his own hermetic lens, finding deeper wisdom in the hermetic texts. They discuss the true meaning of those biblical texts for an extended time. Yes, there’s an overall flow to the conversation. They get closer to their real topic, which is how to find true happiness. Frederick argues that Lazzarelli discusses finding true happiness, but he questions, "Happiness comes from knowing God, right? Are you suggesting that you can know God?" This prompts Lazzarelli to talk about how, through literature, you can come to know God. This is a nice flow of argumentation, as someone suggests that based on our scripture, nobody can know God except the Son of God, who grants wisdom to others. Lazzarelli states that you can still know God using your own literature. For example, Moses talked about the tree of life versus the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The tree of life represents the hermetic tradition. If you contemplate divine things, you recognize the image of God. However, if you contemplate good and evil—some materialistic perspective—you end up mixing your desires into the mixing bowl and lose yourself in corruption. He uses this Abrahamic tradition to argue that Hermes was not saying something different. By utilizing this hermetic wisdom, you can know God without violating your scripture because scripture suggests you can still know God. Absolutely. I find it fascinating how the dialogue unfolds towards the end. They navigate a series of discussions, and at one point, there’s a hymn of regeneration, a hymn of rebirth. This, I think, is the core of what the text is about. At the beginning of the "Crater," Lazzarelli shares a personal experience of being lost and saved by Hermes, leading him to feel regenerated and wanting to impart this knowledge to Frederick and Pontano. The concluding hymn is a beautiful touch which I could read; it encapsulates the core themes. He states, "This is certainly the newest novelty of novelties and a miracle far greater than all others: that man has discovered the nature of God and knows how to make it. For just as God generates the celestials and procreates the angels who are the forms of things, just so the true man creates divine souls, which the ancient host used to call gods of the earth, who are glad to live close to humans and rejoice at the welfare of men." What you read here might appear confusing at first; most viewers may find it hard to grasp the meaning. You have to closely analyze what he’s saying. The first thing to note is that he is actually paraphrasing a part of the Asclepius, the hermetic text. This part became famous, especially because the church father Augustine condemned it. In the Asclepius, Hermes speaks positively about the ancient Egyptian practice of animating statues. He admires this practice, saying the ancient Egyptians learned how to create gods, which means essentially creating animated and ensouled statues in the Egyptian temples. Hermes writes about this in positive terms. However, Augustine condemns this in his "City of God" and points out that Hermes is an idol and a false teacher who cannot be trusted. This sentiment became the narrative throughout the Middle Ages until Ficino and Lazzarelli. When Lazzarelli addresses the core mystery in his teaching, he picks exactly this passage. He could have chosen a safer part from the hermetic literature, but he goes for the most controversial. Lazzarelli states, "This is the novelty of novelties, a miracle far greater than others: that man has discovered the nature of God and knows how to make it.” Now, in Hermes, this refers to making gods, but here it means something else. He speaks of generation and procreation, and bringing forth. Essentially, he is stating that true human beings, those who have discovered their true divine essence, can unite themselves with God himself. This notion is very controversial and problematic within Jewish, Christian, and Islamic contexts because human beings are supposed to be creatures created by God, and the idea that we can become one with God transgresses the boundary between creature and creator. So, it’s quite controversial to claim such a possibility, but that’s what he says: we can experience rebirth and become divine. He suggests that the encounter between Hermes and Poimandres was misunderstood by Hermes because he was a pagan. Hermes lapsed into idolatry, believing that it was all about drawing gods into statues, which was a mistake. Augustine was right in condemning Hermes, but Hermes didn’t grasp the true message, which is now made available again through Giovanni Dorio and Lazzarelli. The true message is not about making statues—it is about making souls. This teaching of divinization—becoming divine—suggests that if we go through this rebirth, we can participate in the very essence of God himself. What is the essence of God? He is the creator. God's creative power—his ability to create souls—is what we will be able to do as well. This means that human beings, once they are reborn, have the capacity to create souls themselves, using God's own creative power. This is what Lazzarelli teaches. The misunderstood message of Hermes must be reinterpreted, understood correctly this time. He teaches that we can be reborn—a radical transformation. From fallen human creatures, who are subject to the curse of the fall after Adam and Eve ate the apple in paradise, that curse can be lifted. When we get reborn as sons of God, we reverse the effects of the fall and regain the powers Adam and Eve had before the fall. We become one with God, like gods on earth, and this brings us back to true happiness because the only source of happiness exists in being united with God himself. So, what Lazzarelli starts with in the "Crater" is ultimately about how to become happy by attaining a second birth. This particular rebirth, if you compare it across cultures, is not strange; it’s common. For example, in Hindu or Vedic traditions, enlightenment means understanding the world in a different way. The moment you comprehend that, you adopt a new identity. That’s rebirth. Lazzarelli prescribes the same path: understanding the world makes you a new person, as you recognize that your former self was not the person you are today. This is a spiritual rebirth. Now, if you have undergone a rebirth experience, when you talk with others, like Pontano and Frederick, you are helping them to recognize their own potential for rebirth. That act is essentially creating new souls because you now have the ability to share your own experience. In the Sufi tradition in Islam, the ultimate goal is union with God. This is not an exotic idea. Even in the story of Jesus Christ, after John the Baptist baptized him, his ministry began; he was reborn with the Holy Spirit. Whatever his identity was before, he assumed a new identity and commenced his ministry. John the Baptist serves a similar purpose to Hermes, creating a new Hermes—the perfect Hermes. This tradition is not exotic. In Islamic legend, it is said that God first created Adam from clay, which lay lifeless for a long time. He discussed whether to give life to this statue with the angels, who argued that if God created man, they would bring destruction and not worship Him. God said, "I know something you do not know," and He animated the body of Adam by blowing the breath of life into his nostrils. So, God himself animated a statue at the very beginning. This is not something exotic. It’s fantastic; your description is wonderful. This is really good to hear. So, Lazzarelli is not straying from tradition; he is clarifying the confusion people had about how to create a new soul. You understand your own soul first, then help others understand, thereby creating new souls. That soul is the divine soul, representative of the forgotten image of God that each person has within them. Exactly. Absolutely. I think you’re right; rebirth is a central theme. Of course, people in America talk about being born again, but rebirth is such a fundamental idea in Jewish, Christian, Islamic traditions, and also in the hermetica. Surely. If you allow me, I’d like to discuss how this theme appears in the original hermetic literature as well. Yeah, go ahead. I have plenty of time; it’s all yours. Okay. Yes, I wrote a book about hermetic spirituality a couple of years ago, and I discovered how central the idea of rebirth is there. In the hermetica, it doesn’t mean exactly what Lazzarelli means; it’s different, but it pertains to rebirth. In Corpus Hermeticum 13, especially, the basic story is that when we are born in our first birth, the soul comes from the heavenly spheres. It travels through the several levels of the heavens, moving through the planetary spheres. As it goes down, it acquires subtle material bodies, and ultimately, the soul ends up in the womb, where it remains for nine months, before being born as a human being. This is well known: that’s the first birth. The moment the soul comes out of the womb, however, it means that a double entity enters the world. A double entity, because human beings partly consist of a divine soul and partly of a material body. At the moment of birth, the daemonic entities, the astral energies connected to the heavenly bodies, pay attention to the appearance of this newborn child in the world. This is fascinating: our personality does not actually come from our soul but from the astral entities residing in our bodies and souls. So, some people are easily angered, likely because of a strong influence from the planet Mars—associated with anger and violence. This creates a complex emotional personality. This is the mixing bowl that has both reason and sensory experience. That's an intriguing suggestion. I haven’t thought of that—that the mixing bowl could represent our combined human existence. In Corpus III, there is a section discussing how when a human being comes into the lower world, it evokes a mixture of many different traits. If you don’t pay attention, you’ll overlook the mind part, which comes from Poimandres himself. In the "Crater," Lazzarelli discusses the mixing bowl in the context of Pandora's jar. He suggests that Hermes issued a punishment by creating Pandora's jar, which is full of all passions, sensations, emotions, and happiness. However, the monadic light remains at the bottom of the jar. All the passions and sensations may roam about, but they fail to recognize the divine image that hangs from the neck of the jar. The human body has the monad, the divine light; however, the existence of the daemonic influences complicates matters. Each planet imparts specific attributes, and every person we meet reflects their thoughts onto us. As a result, we become new persons at birth, unaware of our monadic essence. We become lost in our passions and fail to recognize our divine image. But the bottom line is that when I read your work on the mixing bowl, I realized that the mixing bowl is the human body. We are bombarded by many influences, missing the point. Lazzarelli suggests that if you recognize the light within, that is your salvation for rebirth. There is no other way around it. It's a very powerful interpretation. You could very well be right that this represents what it means in the hermetica itself, and what Lazzarelli does with it are two different things. But it’s a very interesting way of looking at it; it certainly makes sense. To finish my story, we are inhabited by those daemons, and we all walk around like that, which is why we behave poorly. It’s because we have forgotten our true essence, the noetic light in our hearts, and we get overwhelmed by the emotional passions that stem from the cosmic forces. This is the analysis of why things are going so badly in the world. Because we behave so poorly, we are influenced by these demons, and we cannot separate them from our true essence. In Corpus 13, there’s a treatise about rebirth. It’s a wonderful text where the pupil, Tais, meets Hermes, who has been doing spiritual exercises. Tais wants salvational insight. At one point, Hermes hesitates and gives evasive answers that Tais doesn’t understand. As the conversation develops, Tais realizes he enters a strange, unusual state of consciousness called “mania” in Greek—divine madness. It does not mean he’s insane; it means he’s in an unusual state of consciousness. This indicates that he is on a path to being reborn. At one point, Hermes tells Tais, “You are on the point of being reborn,” which means you are not yet able to see the true light of divinity. The reason is that you have the tormentors inside you. Hermes uses the term “tormentors” as a reference to the astral entities in Tais' body. Tais is surprised, asking, “Do I have tormentors inside me?” Hermes confirms, “Yes, you do. But we will drive them out.” I imagine, though this is not explicitly described, that this is a reference to an exorcism ritual where the tormentors are driven out of Tais' body. What happens is Hermes invokes the ten powers of light, which correspond to the ten levels in the hermetic universe. You have the seven levels of the cosmos—the seven planetary spheres—then the eighth level is the living souls, and the ninth level is the noetic light of divinity, while the tenth level is also the first level— the source, the “pege” in Greek, which is the ultimate source from which all is born. So, you have these ten levels; Hermes invokes these ten powers of light into Tais' body, driving out the dark, demonic powers of the astral energies that reside within him. Twelve tormentors leave his body with “flapping of wings” as entities leave. This is the moment of rebirth, as this occurs; the ten powers of light weave themselves into a spiritual body of light that merges with Tais' physical body. He still has his physical form—resulting from the first birth—but he now possesses a second body, a body of light that is born anew. This represents a literal physical and spiritual rebirth of light in the human body, which is divine light. At the moment this happens, Tais is no longer viewing the world with his physical senses. This is fascinating because normally we perceive the world in time and space, but once Tais is reborn, he transcends these limitations. He states, "I am everywhere. I am in the past. I am in the future. I am in the present. I am here in this place. I am in India on the other side of the world. I am in the ocean. I am in the air. I am everywhere." The rebirth signifies that this light body merges with the physical body, leading to a shift in consciousness. This enables Tais to see the world in the same way as God himself perceives it, seeing everything at once, in all times, simultaneously. This rebirth is not a Christian interpretation by Lazzarelli; it follows a different model but is still about rebirth. Exactly; the idea of rebirth is so central. I think the experience of recognizing rebirth—especially being everywhere—parallels Hermes' introduction to Poimandres, wherein Poimandres states, "I am Poimandres, and I am with you everywhere." Yes. This idea connects directly with the 10th layer and the 1st—where one triggers the rebirth experience. The moment we recognize it’s not different but the same is the beginning of the hermetic corpus literature. This idea also concludes the "Crater Hermeticus," where the participants are eager to learn how rebirth works. As a scientist, I find that whenever you try to understand a complex object or piece, the most guaranteed way to grasp it is to make it yourself. If I have this glass in front of me, I can measure it and analyze it, but the best way to truly understand it is to create it myself. For example, if I gather the raw materials, melt them, and mold them, the bottom line is that understanding something completely requires rebuilding it yourself. I’d like to thank you for that brilliant observation, as it truly resonates. It’s absolutely correct; only by creating something do you really understand it. That is a fantastic insight. You can also apply this to figures like Zosimos, the alchemist, who sought to understand matter by working in it—by making things. That’s how you really know them. Absolutely. I personally want to thank you for this reach, as most of the hermetic literature is lost or discouraged and often unread. But you have translated it into an easily readable English language—this hermetica, Lazzarelli, and others’ translations—which has helped me appreciate and delve into this literature. Thank you so much for your work. Well, thank you very much! It’s wonderful to have such an attentive reader, and I appreciate your feedback. You never know who will read your book, so it’s gratifying to hear this. There’s a saying about the argument I mentioned in my email: the relation between Thoth and Amun suggests that wisdom cannot be taught through writing because the meaning is often lost. Yet Ammon argued that meaning is not lost; instead, you can teach through writing. You wrote a book, and I understood it. So that’s a form of alchemy, suggesting it is possible. Yes! Well, this is very nice to hear; it’s great to acknowledge that experience cannot be transmitted through language as it must be lived. However, I believe texts can influence you, allowing you to reconstruct meaning derived from those texts. You can reassemble fragmented parts into a cohesive idea—when you see what the writer means, you truly grasp their perspective and experience. It’s a kind of teleportation: you do something here, and it reassembles there. It’s a form of magic. Even Amun suggested to Thoth that you cannot teach wisdom through writing because meaning will be lost. But Thoth persisted, stating that by writing a book and communicating with a third person, that person could sow the seeds and form their own understanding. If someone misunderstands, that’s their problem. But if someone comprehends directly what I mean, that’s a valid form of hermetic magic too. Indeed, we come to a natural conclusion about our conversation, where the act of understanding, as you say, is what we call hermeneutics. The word “hermeneutics” essentially refers to the art of understanding—understanding texts, but also everything else. Hermeneutics means the art of understanding, which derives its name from Hermes. This act of understanding bridges gaps that cannot be bridged, and that is what Hermes does: he bridges the unbridgeable. Thank you for helping others bridge these gaps through your work! Well, thank you! I really enjoyed this conversation, and I appreciate it. Okay, bye-bye!