This is one of a few articles, which look at philosophy and religion as is seen in the Corpus Hermeticum or Hermetica. The focus of this is actually the Latin Aesclepius which is clearly also a Hermetic text by the reference to the same entities. The original article for which this is a stub can be found here.
Prevent Men Discovering the Priceless
My focus here is what did the prophecy of Hermes mean when it said the following:
“In time to come, no-one will pursue philosophy with single-mindedness and purity of heart. Those with grudging and ungenerous temperament will try and prevent men discovering the priceless gift of immortality.”
The prophecies of Hermes – The Corpus Hermeticum
My focus here is those who, with a “grudging” and “ungenerous temperament”, will prevent men from discovering the truth. My question is “if this prophecy has come true, then what forces could we be seeing at work here?” What does it mean in the real world?
Grudging
Grudging is a complicated word. It actually comes from the sound a stubborn pig will make. It means being unwilling or reluctant. Firstly, I will admit that study of these sorts of text are not easy and they require work! Anyone trying to study them begrudgingly or reluctantly will not get far. We live in a world where if you want something worth having you need to strive for it. You can live in accordance with the Dao and avoid striving for anything, but then you need to strive to learn to be content without the things you want.
What I notice a lot is a lot of people who didn’t fancy spending the time studying the text actually leading others away from it. It’s like “I got a BSc in Chemistry without studying Organic Chemical reactions so you shouldn’t either. That’s just for students who want to work in pharmacy and no-one wants that.” Ummm not suitable for a degree and it’s irresponsible for someone’s spiritual life.
People who lead others away from Hermetics, think they have attained something spiritually, but when they are challenged to put into words what they have attained, they can’t say anything firm only vague assertions. They try to lead others, but actually have little idea of where they’re going. As soon as something gets hard, they run away and then they lead people away from it AGGRESSIVELY. I have heard comments about Hermetics being “unnecessary”, “masogynistic”, “too science focused” and not “sufficiently regarding nature” from people who have never read a single Hermetic text. They don’t know what they’re talking about and will stubbornly stand by their baseless accusations. I also hear from people who think they are masters of Hermetic arts who also have never read a Hermetic text. Nothing earlier than Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Initiation into Hermetics.
Let’s just be clear here about my own spiritual practice. When I worked on my inner earth element and immediately I came face to face with the importance of money. I got over its power to make me feel like a failure. I got a skill that was in demand and now I earn a lot of money. I started a company that has changed people’s careers by giving them opportunities to grow skills that they can put on their CV. 2 people turned around from dead-end jobs to jobs they love. One person feels for the first time in his life, he actually has a nurturing family. 2 people were able to cease being on antidepressants. One person was able to recognise their drug addiction go into rehab and totally change their lifestyle. 4 people speak openly about the work we did together giving them meaning. It has resulted in me buying my first home and housing my queer family. True magic is powerful, it creates this kaleidoscope of creativity and change that surrounds me. I have just turned to work on air and oh my goodness things are changing fast. To begin with, my respect for rationalism has gone out of the window. It has lost its power over me. Suddenly, my two future housemates are looking into academic pursuits to support the changes in their careers. So I know I am doing something magical. When someone says “oh that magic was powerful” I ask myself what it achieved in the real world. Because if it just makes you feel like your socks are getting blown off and it doesn’t manifest anything then I question it. It might seem disrespectful, but I have a right to question things if someone intends to lead others.
A lot of people with vague magical powers that haven’t seen power and change in their life; a lot of people who wouldn’t recognise a Hermetic text if it was tattooed on their body are out there ready to lead people away from this information. In arguments, it’s like coming face to face with a power that flows through a lot of people working against Hermetics. A power that’s trying to hide Hermetics.
So there is this powerful current of grudging behaviour that leads people away from the study of philosophy. This is really hard to bear. When I spent more time among pagans I used to get so annoyed about how people would try to lead others in a path of which, they had very little knowledge.
Ungenerous Temperament
The second part of this prophecy talks about the ungenerous temperament of those who would prevent people from learning. What could that ungenerous temperament mean?
For me, this is like capitalism. It is ungenerous. Capitalism in fact works by not being generous to keep up demand for products, too much generosity and capitalism actually fails. How could capitalism work against people discovering the truth?
Well, actually there is very little money to be made from presenting such a plain philosophy. You can make money out of courses, but then most courses about Hermetics are completely focused on the practical actions of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn since practical is ego-stroking and therefore sells better.
So the difficulty of learning will be the death of and hiding of this philosophy. Hermetic philosophy doesn’t instantly reward its partakers. It challenges. Some people cannot handle being challenged. A lot of people can’t handle being challenged and so they won’t read about Hermetic Philosophy. It then doesn’t become profitable.
A lot of people believe in capitalism to determine goodness, but I ask them to remember that globally the packaged salads industry is worth 10 billion US dollars, but packaged sweets is a 210 billion US dollar industry. So we can see that what people choose for themselves isn’t always what’s in their interest.
It becomes clearer every day that the occult is still hidden by virtue of the fact that people cannot be bothered to read the readily available secrets. There’s a way that the secrets maintain themselves. The Occult remains hidden despite being in plain sight.
Egyptians by their Language Alone
The same text leads on to say the following which has an uncanny likeness for truth.
This land will exceed all others in cruelty. The dead will outnumber the living, and the survivors will be known as Egyptians by their language alone. For in their actions they will be like men of another race. O Egypt! Nothing will remain of your religion but an empty tale which even your own children will not believe. Nothing will be left to tell of your wisdom but old graven stones.
The claim that the dead will outnumber the living is somewhat predictable. Anyone with a passing acquaintance with math will note that unless you give birth to far more people than are dying you will always eventually reach a point where the dead outnumber the living.
But the survivors who are Egyptian only by their language is shocking because today Egypt plays host to one of the oldest churches in the world. Older than the Catholic church is the Coptic church who’s hymns and scripture are in Coptic, which is the last evolution of the Egyptian language, but they are not a pagan culture they are a Christian church. This is where you might consider them having the actions of another race. Other than recreationists who frequently fail to have anything more than a basic understanding of Egyptian history, there are no practitioners of the Egyptian religion. Those who try to recreate can only guess based on our modern interpretation of the hieroglyphics.