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I'm going to talk about the homeetica, which is, I noticed actually on the banner up here.

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You've got thought the IBIS headed God of Egypt.

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It's him, you've got to blame for all of this.

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It all goes back to Ancient Egypt, which is why we use the sub-head on the book, the

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Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs, which I know is we've stated it boldly.

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It is the Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs, but I noticed on the program they put a question mark

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after it, as is to say, is it?

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The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs?

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I mean, you could say, well, what's a question mark between friends?

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Yes, it's a question mark, isn't it?

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But as a writer, these things are quite important.

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You know, my favorite example of that is the phrase, sort of.

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It's a harmless little phrase, isn't it?

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We also say it, sort of.

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But if you add that to the sentence, I love you.

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Or if your doctor says to you, you're going to live.

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You could see it makes all the difference, doesn't it?

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Little things words, but very important.

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So yes, is it the Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs in the, however many years it is since

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we wrote this, that's actually become the major issue for me.

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The fact that I do think this text gives us the best possible lens for looking back into

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the mind world of the Ancient Egyptians.

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This, unfortunately, the books of the Hermetic Eve really had a terrible press.

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For many years, they were outlawed in Europe.

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They just simply weren't available during the Christian period.

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The Arabs nurtured them, kept them alive.

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And then during the Renaissance, they were reintroduced back into Europe.

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But even then, there was a hatchet job done on them saying, these are the books of

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the myth of the Greek faith.

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These, they'll tell you anything about Ancient Egypt.

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These are Greek texts written in Greek for a Greek speaking audience who were living in

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Alexandria and Egypt.

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And really, the Egyptian stuff in it, it's just decoration, just ornamentation to give

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it the impression that it's ancient wisdom.

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And that's why they've languished in such obscurity for so long.

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And in fact, until we did our book, they were only available as difficult, impenetrable

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texts, badly translated by a bunch of 19th century occult obscurantists.

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And nobody could really understand them.

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And I first came across them a long time ago.

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In 1978, I was 18, and I got inducted into a Western magical order, which claimed

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to go back to the famous Golden Dawn or infamous Golden Dawn.

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And we used to do these magical path workings during which I had the most extraordinary

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experience in the Temple of Thoth.

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And I was an impressionable young man, and I thought, well, that's amazing experience.

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And that was my first experience.

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And then 20 years later, when I was doing my MA in classics, I was lucky enough to get

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a pass into the British library, not the horrible one that's now in some pancreas, but

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the old one that was inside the British Museum, you might remember it, where you can go

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in there now.

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And I used to sneak off from doing my rather dull classics, of course.

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And you could order up any book you wanted.

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I would order up these alchemical books and hermetic books, and they'd be brought to you

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by somebody wearing white gloves placed in front of you, and you'd be given a pair of

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white gloves too, and you could, it was lovely, it was fantastic, feel like a real scholar.

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But at that point, I thought, what really needs to happen is these need to be made accessible

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to people in a way that's easy to understand, but with some information about where they

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came from and what they are.

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And out of that came the hermetica, and I was lucky at the time, I was living in Glastry

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and a lovely old cottage, other glass and debris, that's the place to do it.

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And I'd photocopyed all these texts, and I was sitting there surrounded, and I started cutting

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them up into little bits, and putting them together to try to get the books, as I thought

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they probably were at their time, trying to restore them into a format in which we could

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bring some order back into the way they'd been.

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They were available in all sorts of translations, some of them from the Arabic, so eventually

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it all came together, and then I thought, once it was done, and the publisher said, yeah,

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that's okay, but we've sent it off to an Egyptologist, and she thinks it's okay, but

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she's not sure about this lost wisdom of the fairos.

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She said, the fairos, some of the were remarkably stupid, you though, but we let that

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pass, and anyway, it got published.

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So like I said, it's a long time ago now, but I was looking through it the other day in

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preparation for this. Oh, and thank you Lucy for inviting me along to this. Where is she?

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I'm so, this is the first time I've been out talking for years, a year and a half ago, I had

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a massive stroke. Oh, that's nice. I've got an arbor.

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And I was already quite reclusive, but that really sort of, that experience had six and a half

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hours on the operating table. I got a big metal plate in my head, and all the rest of it.

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I went to see the consultant, he said, how are you at it? Fine. You said, you've got any questions?

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That's it? You're one of these lubs here, even, oh, they're screws. So anyway, so, so after that,

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I thought, am I co-author Tim Freak, I'm going to say, Pete, you should get out and talk

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on this subject. So when this offer came through from Gary, was it Gary? Where is he? Yeah.

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And he said, which you got into this gig at the eternal knowledge festival? And Tim

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is going, yeah, get out there. Do it too. So here I am. Yeah, and I'm really pleased to be

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here. And I'm so glad that so many of you have come to the list. So I was reading through

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the introduction. I thought I've got to put an introduction to this, so that people

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can really get a grasp on the history of it, because it's not just a set of interesting

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texts. These have had a profound influence on our culture. In fact, the very best things

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of our culture originate from the ancient teachings, which were mediated through the

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Greeks. And so what I thought I do is actually read the introduction, because I looked

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through it and I thought, yeah, it's still good. There's a few things I would add now,

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but actually it'll give you a good idea of the history and the influence of the hermatica.

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So with your permission, I'll read from the introduction, which starts with a forgotten

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spiritual classic. Yeah, I still agree with that. The hermatica is a collection of writings

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attributed to Thoth, a mystical ancient Egyptian sage, whose wisdom is said to have transformed

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him into a god. Thoth, who was venerated in Egypt from at least 3000 BCE, is credited

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with the invention of sacred, sacred, hieroglyphic writing, and his figure portrayed as a

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scribe with a head of an Ibes, can be seen in many temples and tombs. And here, amazing.

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He is the dispatcher of divine messages and recorder of all human deeds. In the great

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Hall of Judgment, the afterlife court of the god Asirus, Thoth would establish whether the

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deceased had acquired spiritual knowledge and purity and so deserved a place in the heavens.

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Thoth was said to have revealed to the Egyptians all knowledge on astronomy, architecture,

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geometry, medicine and religion, and was believed by the ancient Greeks to be the architect of the pyramids.

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The Greeks who were in awe of the knowledge and spirituality of the Egyptians identified Thoth with their own

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god Hermes, the messenger of the gods, and the guide of souls in the realm of the dead.

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To distinguish the Egyptian Hermes from their own, they gave him the title,

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Trismagistus, meaning, thrice great to honour his sublime wisdom. And the books attributed to him

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became collectively known as the Hermetic. Although largely unknown today, the writings attributed to Hermes'

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Thoth have been immensely important in the history of Western thought. They profoundly influenced the Greeks,

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and through their rediscovery in 15th century Florence, how to inspire the Renaissance, which gave birth to our own modern age.

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And the list of people who have acknowledged a debt to the Hermetic are reads like a whos who of the greatest philosophers, scientists and artists that the Westerns produced.

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Leonardo da Vinci, Durra, Botticelli, Roger Bacon, Paraselsis, Thomas Moore,

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William Blake, Kepler, Copernicus, Isaac Newton, Sir Walter Raleigh, Milton, Ben Johnson, Daniel Foe, Daniel Defoe,

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Shelley and his wife Mary, Victor Hugo, and Carl Jung. It heavily influenced Shakespeare, John Dunn, John D. and all the poet philosophers who surrounded the court of Queen Elizabeth first,

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as well as the founding scientists of the Royal Society in London. And even the leaders who inspired the Protestant Reformation in Europe.

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The list is endless, with the Hermeticus' influence reaching well beyond the frontiers of Europe.

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Islamic mystics and philosophers also trace their inspiration back to Thrice Great Hermes,

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and the esoteric tradition of the Jews equated him with their mysterious prophet Inoc.

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The Hermeticus is a cornerstone of Western culture. In substance and importance, it is equal to well-known

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Eastern scriptures like the Upanishads, the Dharma Pada and the Taudet Jing. Yet, unlike these texts,

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which are now readily available and widely read, the works of Hermes have been lost under the

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dead weight of academic translations, Christian prejudice and occult obscurities.

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Until now, no simplified rendering of these writings has been available to the general reader.

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All previous versions in the English language are very dense, impenetrable and loaded down with notes and

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subtexts that make them difficult to digest. This new version, however, makes this ancient wisdom more

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accessible. It presents carefully selected extract of the Hermetic texts linked together into a narrative

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and rendered into easily understood English. What emerges is an inspiring and illuminating taste of a

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forgotten classic. Forgive the hyperbole. We were young at the time, but there you go.

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The early origins of the Hermeticus are shrouded in mystery, but the evidence suggests it is a direct

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descendant of the ancient philosophy of the Egyptians. However, the handful of surviving works

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attributed to Hermes are not written in ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, but in Greek, Latin, and

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coptic. They were collated in the city of Alexandria and Egypt during the second and third centuries

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CE. Here, the Hermetic philosophy helped inspires some of the greatest intellectual achievements of the

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ancient world. Alexandria was a great center of learning, surpassing even Athens. It's founder,

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Alexander the Great, had conquered and united Greece, Persia, Egypt, and India into one vast empire.

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Cultures that had grown up more or less independently were brought together, and there was no

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bigger melting pot than Alexandria. Into this new cosmopolist or universal city, poured men and women

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of every race in nation. Greeks, Jews, Egyptians, Babylonians, Phoenicians, and even Buddhists from

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India, associated here together in relative peace. The Alexandriaans were renowned for their

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thirst for knowledge, and under the Enlightened Greek ruler, tolly me the first, a library and museum

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were founded where human beings first systematically collected the wisdom of the world.

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At its height, the library of Alexandria housed some half a million scrolls. These included the

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works of Euclid, Archimedes, the astronomy, who dominated the spheres of geometry, mathematics,

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and geography respectively, well into the mid-laidies. It contained the research of Aristotle,

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the Holocaust of Samos, who had shown that the earth is one of the planets orbiting the sun.

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Erartostinis, who had calculated the circumference of the earth to within a few percent.

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Scientists of the library knew about the procession of the equinoxes, and that the moon was

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responsible for the rhythm of the tides. But Alexandria was also rich in esoteric knowledge.

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Pythagoreanism, Chaldeian oracles, Greek myths, Platonic and Stoic philosophy,

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Judaism, Christianity, the Greek mystery schools, Zoroastrianism, astrology, alchemy, Buddhism,

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and of course the ancient Egyptian religion were all practiced, studied, compared, and discussed.

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The golden age of Alexandria came to an end with the birth of the intolerant Christian holy Roman

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empire. Despite the sophistication and cultural achievements of the ancients,

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the Christians refer to them dismissively as pagans, which means country to Allah.

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In four 15 CE, hippatia, one of the last great scientists and pagan philosophies,

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philosophers working at the Library of Alexandria was seized by a mob of Christians

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who removed her flesh with scallop shells and burnt her remains. Their leader, Bishop Cyril,

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was later canonized, Saint Cyril. The great library was finally destroyed as so much pagan superstition,

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and this wealth of knowledge was scattered to the wind. The Christian Roman Emperor Theodosius

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closed pagan temples across the empire and began the previously unknown phenomenon of book burning.

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For the West, the fifth century ushered in a thousand year period, appropriately known as the Dark Ages.

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History shows, however, that wherever the works of Hermes have been studied and venerated,

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civilisation has flourished. pagan scholars and sages flew fled to the newly emerging

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Arab culture, taking their knowledge and the hermetic writings with them. 200 years later, the

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Muslims created an empire whose learning and scientific achievements were unsopathed. By the

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beginning of the ninth century, the first university was established in Baghdad, called the House of Wisdom.

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Here many pagan works were translated. The sciences that reached such heights in Alexandria

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were significantly developed, and the ancient pagan spiritual wisdom was covertly studied and

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practiced. From its exalted position among the sacred scriptures of Egyptian spirituality,

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the hermeticur became the secret inspiration for an important undercurrent in Islamic philosophy

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and the holy book of unorthodox religious sects such as the Savians.

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We would never have heard of the mysterious Savians, had they not come into conflict with the

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religious authorities of their day. Several centuries after the death of its founder Muhammad,

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Islam was beginning to succumb to the same desire for orthodoxy that had arisen in the Christian

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West. Heretics were to be rooted out if necessary with violence. In 830 CE, a powerful

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caliph was passing through the city of Haran when he noticed the strangely dressed Savians

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and questioned their leaders. Asked to produce their sacred texts, they returned with the books of Hermes.

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The genius philosopher scientist Thabbit Ibn Kura was a Savian who in 810 CE wrote the following

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rousing defense of hermetic paganism. We are the heirs and propagators of paganism, he wrote.

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Happy as he who for the sake of paganism bears the burden of persecution with firm hope.

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Who else have civilized the world and built cities if not the nobles and kings of paganism?

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Who else have set in order the harbors and the rivers and who else have taught the hidden wisdom?

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To whom else has the deity revealed itself given oracles and foretold the future if not the

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famous men among the pagans? The pagans have made known all of this. They have discovered the

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art of healing the body. They have also made known the art of healing the soul. They have filled

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the earth with settled forms of government and with wisdom which is the highest good. Without

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paganism the world would be empty and miserable. Good old Thabbit but a great speech.

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I think he was probably decapatated though soon after. Another unorthodox orthodox group within

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the Islamic Empire who also traced their ancestry back to Thrive's great hermys with a poet's

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and mystics known as the Sufis. The 12th century Iranian Sufi philosopher Yai's Surawadi made it

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his life's work to link what he called the original Oriental religion with Islam. He claimed that the

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sages of the ancient world had preached a single doctrine. This had been originally revealed to

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Hermes whom Surawadi identified with the prophet known as Idris in the Quran and the Jewish

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prophet Inok. In the Greek world he claimed this philosophy had been transmitted through Pythagoras

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and Plato and in the Middle East through the Zoroastrian major. It had been secretly passed on

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until it had reached himself through a direct line of enlightened sages including his own master

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the Sufi mystic al-Halaj. Not surprisingly both Surawadi and al-Halaj were executed by the religious

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authorities for heresy. Al-Halaj by crucifixion. Hermes and the reawakening of Europe.

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With the Arab Empire becoming increasingly intolerant the owners of the Hermetic books travelled

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in search of a safe refuge. In the 15th century many fled to the Tolerance city state of Florence

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in northern Italy where this wisdom again inspired a great cultural flowering. In 1438 the Byzantine

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scholar Gimisto Pletthon made available to the All-Struck Florantines the entire lost works of Plato.

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These and other pagan works were translated into Latin for the first time.

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The ruler of Florence the philanthropist and scholar Cosimoda Magici established a new

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platonic academy a group of intellectuals and mystics who found their inspiration in the ancient

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pagan philosophy. In influence great names like Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Bote Gerele and Raffael

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who began painting pictures of the ancient pagan gods. Bote Gerele's Venus and Mars for

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example was painted at a precise astrological moment as a talisman of occult radians capable of

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magically transporting the viewers to an altered state of spiritual awareness.

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Cosimoda Dicci said that engines to look for other lost pagan works that might still be

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awaiting discovery. In 1460 one of them came across the lost works of Thrites' great Hermes and brought

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them to Florence. The Florenceines already reeling from the discovery that an ancient civilization

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of immense sophistication had risen and fallen nearly 2,000 years before them, the Greek civilization.

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Now believe they had in their hands one of the most ancient sages of them all.

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Cosimoda ordered his young Greek scholar, Marsilio Ficino, to cease his work on translating

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Plato and to begin immediately on this new Egyptian text. Ficino had it in ready in time

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to read to Cosimoda just before his death. The emergence of a glorious new culture in Florence

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signaled the end of the dark ages. We call this period the Renaissance, meaning rebirth,

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which is a fitting name for at the heart of the Hermetic philosophy is the idea of being spiritually

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reborn. And the ancient pagan wisdom arrived in Florence at a fortuitous moment in history.

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Within a few years the first printing presses arrived in Italy and the pagan wisdom was printed

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and dispersed throughout Europe. Students of the new learning as the Florenceine experiment

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became known were sent out as emissaries beginning new movements wherever they went.

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Ruclin, the father of the Reformation and teacher of Erasmus and Luther, left Florence and so the

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earlier seeds of the Protestant Reformation in Germany. Thomas Linnecker founded the Royal College of

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Physicians in London, the mathematician Nicholas of Cusah, the physician Paracellisus,

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the architect Bruno Leski and the astronomer Toskenelli whose famous map inspired Christopher Columbus,

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all owed their inspiration to the Florentine re-awakening of the spirit of ancient paganism.

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Copernicus's momentous claim that the sun, not the earth, was at the center of the solar system,

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was a choice, not a discovery. He made it after studying the Hermetic Platonic Philosophy

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at in Italy in university. And on the first page of on the Revolution of the Celestial Orbs,

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published in 1543 Copernicus quotes the words of Thrice Great Hermes. The sun is the visible god.

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As in Alexandria or a thousand years earlier, the Renaissance-Fuld Science, Art, Literature and Religion,

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as parts of a united hole to be studied together. All aspects of human life were now opened up

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as legitimate areas of investigation. It was a situation that challenged the authority of the Roman Catholic

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Church. And in 1492, with the aid of the King of France, they crushed the Republic of Florence.

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But although the Heideys of the New Academy were over, the suppression was too late to prevent

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the ripples of its influence expanding ever-outwards. Florentine scholars were dispersed across

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Europe and became known as the fifth essence. The taste for all things Italian, art, sculpture,

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fashion, literature and philosophy was insatiable. Within less than 200 years, the Renaissance

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had conquered Europe. In England, the works of Hermes had a profound effect on the circle of

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courtiers surrounding Elizabeth I. Sophia Lipsidney, so Walter Raleigh, John Dunne, Christopher

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Marlow, William Shakespeare, George Chapman and Francis Bacon were all acquainted with the works

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of the Egyptian sage. Elizabeth is a personal astrologer whom she referred to as her philosopher,

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was the enigmatic Hermeticist John D. He was a brilliant mathematician and the first person to

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translate the complete works of Euclid into English. Dr. D owned the greatest library in England,

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and his home was regarded as a third university. He was visited by scholars from all over

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Europe and made frequent journeys to Prague where the first detailed commentaries on the

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hermetica were being written. At this time, Prague was the capital of Bohemia and in lighten

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Republic where hermetic scholars, Platonic philosophers, Jewish rabbis and scientists of every nation

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found sanctuary at the court of Rudolf II. Europe was being ravaged by the wars of religion

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between Protestant and Catholics, but in Bohemia another way was proposed, proposed, hermeticism.

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Evangelists of the new Egyptian religion, such as Giordano Bruno, traveled extensively in Europe.

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Bruno interpreted the new Sun-Scented Cosmos proposed by Copernicus in an entirely mystical way

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as the rising of a new dawn of a new age. He believed that the Egyptian religion of

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Hermes was the ancestor of the Greek mystery schools, the religion of Moses and the Jews,

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and the birthplace of Christianity. In Bruno's imagination, it was now poised to become the

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unifying religion in which Jews, all denominations of Christians, platonic humanists, and even Muslims,

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could meet and resolve their differences. Bruno's courage and conviction was nowhere more clearly

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demonstrated than in his decisions returned to Italy, where within a short time he was arrested

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by the Roman Catholic Church. He endured eight years of torture during which he refused to

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recant, and in 1600 was led out into the square of flowers in Rome and ceremonially burned

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to life. In fact, we dedicate the book to the memory of Giordano Bruno who's a great hero.

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The vision of a universal, himetic religion was faded to fade, but its influence remains

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strong among visionaries and scientists. Surrounded Newton, for example, like many men of his time,

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was passionately interested in alchemy, the patron god of which was stri-sgrade Hermes,

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indeed the word alchemy means from Egypt. The astronomer Kepler published quotes from the

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hematica in his greatest work on the harmony of the world. In 1640, the poet John Milton celebrated

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the wisdom of Hermes writing, this is from Ilivenso Rosso, his poem, or let my lamp had midnight

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be seen in some high lonely tower where I may oft outwatch the bear with thrice-great Hermes,

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or on sphere the spirit of Plato to unfold what worlds or what vast regions hold the immortal

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mind that half forsook her mansion in this fleshly note. At the same time, as Milton was writing,

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however, the ground was being cut away from under the authenticity of the hematica.

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Previously, these works have been believed to be of extreme antiquity,

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dating back to the time of the ferros. But in 1640, a scholar called Isaac Casibon published a textual

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analysis of the hematica, which showed, quite correctly, that the grammar, the capillary,

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form and content of the Greek versions of these works, dated them to no earlier than the second

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and third century CE. They were not written by an ancient Egyptian sage, he claimed,

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but by scholars working in the city of Alexandria. Their philosophy was nothing more than an exotic

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blend of Greek, Christian, and Jewish philosophy mixed up with astrology and magic.

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The Egyptian names that pepper the text were mere decoration. Casibon was one of the most brilliant

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Greek scholars of his time, and with the encouragement of the Christian status quo, his

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damning criticism was generally accepted. Casibon had dealt the Egyptian sage a fatal blow,

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and the books of hermys were destined to be forgotten as fakes and forgery.

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In the modern world, we know from the actions of the tabloid press, just how one well-timed

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hatchet job can unjustifiably undermine someone's reputation for good, and this is exactly what

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happened to thrice-great Hermes. Casibon was a fine scholar, but he was motivated by a hidden political

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agenda. The ultra-orthodox James I was now on the throne of England, and he employed Casibon

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and others to purge the magically inclined court of Elizabeth. Her metacists like John D were ostracised,

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and later Casibon's son Merrick wrote a book which portrayed the great philosopher as a confused

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occultist, D died alone, and forgotten. Nonetheless, some of Casibon's claims regarding the

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hematica are true. The books of Hermes are undoubtedly the product of many authors, and not one

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ancient sage, and they were certainly composed in the first few centuries of our era. Hermes was

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credited with these writings, even though we know they were the composite works of many scholars,

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but this does not discredit them or Hermes. It was a common practice in antiquity for authors to

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describe their work to the God who gave them inspiration. This was a mark of respect, not an attempt

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to deceive. On the second charge, Casibon is also right to claim that Hermeticos written down in

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second century Alexandria, but all the modern evidence suggests that it does express

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Egyptian beliefs filtered through the understanding of the Greek scholars of the period.

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And even if all Casibon's criticisms were correct, this would neither diminish the

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hematica's wisdom nor alter the fact that it is profoundly influenced on the greatest minds in history.

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It is as old as the Christian Gospels, it's older than the Quran. It is one of the great

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sacred texts of the world and it's worthy of respect and study for these reasons alone.

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But when Casibon was writing, very little was actually known about ancient Egypt.

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The higher a glyphs themselves were not translated until two centuries after his death.

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Consequently, many modern scholars now believe that he was wrong to see the hermetic philosophy

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as a second century innovation. Especially since the discovery of the pyramid texts of Sikara

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at the end of the last century. These higher a glyphs are over 500,000 years old and yet contained

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doctrines that are identical to those expanded in the hermetica. This suggests that the hermetica may

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indeed contain the wisdom of the pharaohs, which scholars in second century Alexandria reworked

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for a contemporary readership. The hermetica contains passages reminiscent of Jewish, Christian,

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Greek works, which Casibon saw as proof that the hermetica is a forgery created from a

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hotchpots of these other philosophers. Alexandria was such an eclectic environment. This is plausible.

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The ancients themselves, however, believed that these traditions were influenced by the Egyptian

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philosophy contained within the hermetica. The Jews are said to have lived for many years in exile

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in Egypt and their greatest profit Moses was brought up as an Egyptian. Many early Christians lived

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in Egypt and the Greeks were in awe of the Egyptians compared to whom they felt like children.

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The ancient Greek historian Herodotus writes, the Egyptians are religious to access,

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beyond any other nation in the world. They are meticulous in anything which concerns their religion.

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It was only, if I may put it so, the day before yesterday, that the Greeks came to know the origin

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and forms of the various gods. The names of all the gods came to Greece from Egypt.

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For the names of all the gods have been known in Egypt from the beginning of time.

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Casibon, particularly claims that the hermetica philosophy plagiarised the Timeyus, a work written by the

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Greek philosopher Plato in the 5th century BCE. Like the hermetica, it too includes the doctrines

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of astrology and reincarnation. Yet these ideas played no part in early Greek religion.

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So where did they come from? The answer is ancient Egypt. Over 100 years before Plato,

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the Greek sage Pythagoras had set out on a journey to acquire the knowledge of the world.

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This led him to Egypt, where he spent 22 years in the temples, being initiated into the

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religion of the Egyptians. According to the ancient Greek scholar Diogenes Leartius, Plato purchased

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three books of Pythagorean doctrines based on Egyptian wisdom and these he adapted into the Timeyus.

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So the similarities between the works of Plato and the hermetica are not surprising.

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Since many of Plato's ideas were direct descendants of ancient Egyptian philosophy.

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Hermetic philosophy also influenced Christianity through the Alexandrian Church

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fathers, St. Clement and St. Oregon, who synthesised pagan and Christian religious doctrines.

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It is due to such theologians that the hermetica concept of the word is found in the opening

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verse of the gospel of John. In the beginning was the word. Hermes' thought was known to the

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anciences the scribe of the gods and master of the word. In the hermetica, God utteres a word

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which calms the chaotic waters of creation. The word is even called the Son of God.

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In Christianity, Jesus Christ who is also called the Son of God is identified as an embodiment of

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the power of the word. St. Augustin, the influential fourth century theologian,

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who was familiar with the works of Hermes' rights, that which is called the Christian religion

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existed amongst the ancients and never did not exist. From the beginning of the human race

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until Christ came in the flesh at which time the true religion which already existed began to be

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called Christianity. The influence of the hermetica on early Christianity is beyond that.

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In 1945, works of Hermes were discovered amongst scriptures belonging to

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not stick Christians of the first centuries. And according to a note on one of the texts,

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early Christian communities possessed many copies of the works of Hermes.

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Just a few yards from the place where these scriptures were found are ancient Egyptian tombs

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and these were inhabited by early Christian hermits such as St. Paccumius,

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the founder of the first Christian monastic community. The walls of these tombs are covered in

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higher glyphs ascribed to the great God-though. They describe a spiritual rebirth into knowledge of God

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and in such places early Christians poured over the hermetica. Under its powerful influence,

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they composed their own philosophy of a saving notice, a direct knowledge of God, but this time

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bestowed by their Messiah Jesus. All the evidence suggests that Cazobond was wrong to simply

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dismiss the hermetica as some cobbled together mixture of different philosophies. The hermetica

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was undoubtedly written by Alex Andrian scholars for a Greek speaking readership, but it contains

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a powerful echo of the ancient wisdom on which it was based. It offers us one of the best windows

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available to gaze into Egypt's remotest past. With its help, we can understand the mystical

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evasion that inspired the awesome pyramids. But what is the himetic philosophy that has held

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such a profound fascination for some of the greatest minds in history? At the heart of Hermes teaching

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is one simple idea. God is a big mind. Everything which exists is a thought in the mind of God.

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This book is a thought in the mind of God. Your body is a thought in the mind of God. These ideas

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are thoughts in the mind of God. But how can we understand this? Consider for a moment your own

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experience. Thoughts and feelings exist within your mind. You know the outer world around you

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because your senses give you information which you also experience within your mind. When your mind

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is completely unconscious, you don't experience anything. Ultimately, everything that exists in your

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life is a thought within your mind. Your mind, however, is limited by being trapped in a physical body.

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But imagine for a moment that it is not. Imagine that it is free to be conscious of everything

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at all times and in all places. Then everything that is has been and will be would exist as a thought

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within your mind. And this is the nature of God's mind. He is not limited by a physical body.

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He is the big mind within which everything exists. Hermes describes the mind of God as the

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oneness which unites everything. What does this mean? Again, look at your own experience.

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You experience many different things with your mind. Right now you are listening to me reading this book.

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Before that, you may have been eating or walking in the country. Yet all of these different things

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are experienced by one thing. Your mind. It is the oneness that unites all of your experience.

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In the same way, God's mind is the oneness which unites everything. Hermes says that this oneness

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contains all opposites. And this paradox can be understood by once more looking at the nature of your own mind.

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Some things you experience are hot and others cold. Some are bright and others dark. Some

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you call good and others bad. Nothing that you experience can be both hot and cold.

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Because their opposites, yet both cold and hot are experiences which you have. Your mind

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is the one thing which contains all opposites. And Hermes teaches that the mind of a human being

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is made in the image of God's big mind. If we can free our mind from the limitations imposed by

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the physical body, we can experience the mind of God. And we were created with a specific purpose

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of learning to do this. This is the spiritual goal of human life. To reach this destination,

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we must expand our awareness. We must use the power of our little minds to reach out to God's

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big mind. And to help us do this, Hermes narrates a dramatic story of how God creates and maintains

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the cosmos. It is through appreciating the awesome beauty of the cosmos and understanding the

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fundamental laws by which it functions that we can come to know the mind of God. And it was

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this vision which fired the imaginations of the great minds of history. It inspired the birth

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of science by encouraging them to explore the mind of God by seeking to discover more of how

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the universe works. Some great modern scientists such as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawken

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still describe science as an attempt to understand the mind of God. The Hermetic philosophy

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places man at the very center of God's creation. Hermes declares that man is a marvel. With his mind,

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he may not only understand the universe but even come to know God. He is not a mortal body which

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will live and die. He is an immortal soul which through the experience of spiritual rebirth

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may become a God. A book of this size, however, cannot contain all the hermetic teachings.

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It can, however, give an inspirational and intriguing taste of their core doctrines.

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The main surviving philosophical hermetic texts are 18 books known as the corpus hermeticum

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of which 17 survived book 25 is still missing. The heresclepius, the stabias and various fragments.

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These works are dense and somewhat impenetrable but in this new version we have selected key

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texts and combined them to bring out the essential wisdom and inherent poetry that they contain.

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In this endeavor we feel we are following in the footsteps of the scholars of Alex Andjir

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who collated these books from the ancient material that was available.

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As sources are contained in notes at the back of the book but for most readers it will be enough

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to follow a progressive exposition of the essence of hermeticism condensed into more manageable

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sections. Like many Greek texts the hermetic teachings are often presented in the form of dialogues

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between teacher and pupil. The voice has changed in the different texts which can be confusing

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so we have chosen to avoid this device and simply present a monologue by hermys addressed to the reader.

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Although we have used the familiar term God in the explanatory notes which accompany each chapter

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we have avoided this name in the text itself. Instead we have used the word

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Atom, one of the ancient Egyptian names for the supreme one God. We felt that using this

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unfamiliar Egyptian name would allow the reader to the opportunity to build up their own conceptual

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picture of what Hermes means by the term. Free of any associations they may have with the word God.

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It's a daunting task to present a new version of any work that is written in a foreign language

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and uses a distinct and unique conceptual vocabulary, approaching a text which is also of

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extreme antiquity and has already been through the hands of numbers of translators is doubly

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difficult as Hermes himself writes. My teachings will seem more obscure in times to come

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when they are translated from our Egyptian mother tongue into that of the Greeks.

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Translation will distort much of their meaning expressed in our native language

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the teachings are clear and simple for the very sound of an Egyptian word resonates with the

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things signify by it. All possible measures should be taken to prevent these holy secrets being

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corrupted by translation into Greek which is an arrogant feeble showy language. Unable to contain

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the cogent force of my words. The Greek language lacks the power to convince and Greek philosophy

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is nothing but noisy chatter. Our Egyptian speech is much more than talk, its utterances are replete

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with power. In the ancient Egyptian language the sound of a word had a magical power which

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complemented its meaning, a view of language which we unconsciously retain when we talk of

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spelling a word. Translation inevitably means that we have lost this original power and clarity.

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Hermes teaches however, that through the power of the mind all things are possible. We have

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tried through the power of contemplation which Hermes advocates to distill the essence of his

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teachings for a new generation of spiritual seekers and although human culture has changed

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beyond recognition from the times of the ancient Egyptians, the essential mysteries of life

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have remained what they have always been and always will be. For those who have arrived to these

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mysteries the writings of Hermes are as relevant today as they were in the past. We hope this new

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version captures as much as possible of the Hermetic Vision playing some small part in restoring

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to this ancient wisdom that is expected. Thank you. So yeah, although that was written in 1997,

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I still hold with that. I still think that it's a fascinating insight into the ancient Egyptian

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culture and the Greek culture and the Renaissance and all of our culture really and it's a particular

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hobby horse of mine which I might get on right off into the sunset which is that memory, the correct

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memory of who we are, where we've come from is essential to understanding who we are right now

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and where we're going and we live in a culture which has been so bolderised by the Christian takeover

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which is endured for a couple of thousand years and has given us a completely mistaken

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idea of who we are. Our memory is wrong and there's a phrase which struck me many years ago when

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I first heard it and I still think it's true a nation without a history is like a man without a memory

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and if any of you have had the misfortune to know somebody who's had Alzheimer's or lost their

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memory their identity dissolves you all woke up this morning you knew who you were what you were

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doing where you'd come from you know what you'll be doing later on your identity is your personality

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your memory of is your identity and without a correct memory we don't know who we are and where we're

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so for me history is a sacred science because now with modern technology we are beginning to

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understand more and more about who we are where we've come from and also it's about giving credit where

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credit is June you know studying classics I began to realize that in the 19th century when

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classics was invented as the syllabus for boarding schools to train up young people who would go out

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and run the British Empire and of course you couldn't suggest to these people that the Egyptians

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or the Indians or the Persians had contributed anything to Western culture these were the

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people that you were being trained up to go and dominate so essentially classics

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imbued a racist philosophy and according to some classes it still does there is still this attitude

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that the east has nothing to teach us and I would like to be a part of

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trashing this pernicious doctrine because I think it's all our past we are once again living in

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a cosmopolitan society globalization the wisdom of the world is available to us and this narrow view

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of the west as having created itself out of nothing began with the Greeks who are nothing to their

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forebest is wrong and I hope that I work as done something towards bringing our memories back

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as they should be thank you very much