Son
of Zeus and Maia; represented as messenger of the gods,
god
of science, commerce, eloquence, etc., identified by the Romans with
Mercury, and represented as a youth with winged rod (caduceus),
brimmed hat (petasus), and winged shoes (talaria).
2.
~ Trismegistus ('thrice-greatest'), name
given by Neo-Platonists etc. to Egyptian god Thoth, regarded as author
of all mysterious doctrines and esp. of secret of alchemy.
So
as far as the dictionaries are concerned we have Hermes Trismegistus
to thank for Hermetics.
It
even sounds like it came from him Hermes, Hermetics.
But
what of the word Trismegistus?
Well
its a Greek word meaning
Tris
= Three or triple
megistus
or megistos = Great or master or great master or Magician
Like
there where three titles to this man or god?
What
does the encyclopedia Britannica have to say about Hermes
Trismegistus?
Well
only one entry came up when searching
just the name Trismegistus.
from
mysticism
Nature and significance
The goal of mysticism is union
with the divine or sacred. The path to that union is usually developed
by following four stages: purgation (of bodily desires), purification
(of the will), illumination (of the mind), and unification (of one's
will or being with the divine). If "the object of man's existence
is to be a Man, that is, to re-establish the harmony which originally
belonged between him and the divinized state before the separation
took place which disturbed the equilibrium" (The Life and
Doctrine of Paracelsus), mysticism will always be a part of the
way of return to the source of being, a way of counteracting the
experience of alienation. Mysticism has always held--and
parapsychology also seems to suggest--that the discovery of a
nonphysical element in man's personality is of utmost significance in
his quest for equilibrium in a world of apparent chaos.
Mysticism's apparent denial, or
self-negating, is part of a psychological process or strategy that
does not really deny the person. In spite of its lunatic fringe, the
maturer forms of mysticism satisfy the claims of rationality, ecstasy,
and righteousness.
There is obviously something
nonmental, alogical, paradoxical, and unpredictable about the mystical
phenomenon, but it is not, therefore, irrational or antirational or
"religion without thought." Rather, as Zen (Buddhist
intuitive sect) masters say, it is knowledge of the most adequate
kind, only it cannot be expressed in words. If there is a mystery
about mystical experience, it is something it shares with life and
consciousness. Mysticism, a form of living in depth, indicates that
man, a meeting ground of various levels of reality, is more than
one-dimensional. Despite the interaction and correspondence between
levels--"What is below is like what is above; what is above is
like what is below" (Tabula Smaragdina, "Emerald
Tablet," a work on alchemy attributed to Hermes Trismegistus)--they
are not to be equated or confused. At once a praxis (technique) and a
gnosis (esoteric knowledge), mysticism consists of a way or
discipline.
The relationship of the religion
of faith to mysticism ("personal religion raised to the highest
power") is ambiguous, a mixture of respect and misgivings. Though
mysticism may be associated with religion, it need not be. The mystic
often represents a type that the religious institution (e.g.,
church) does not and cannot produce and does not know what to do with
if and when one appears. As William Ralph Inge, an English theologian,
commented, "institutionalism and mysticism have been uneasy
bedfellows." Although mysticism has been the core of Hinduism and
Buddhism, it has been little more than a minor strand--and,
frequently, a disturbing element--in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.
As the 15th- to 16th-century Italian political philosopher Niccolò
Machiavelli had noted of the 13th-century Christian monastic leaders
St. Francis and St. Dominic, they had saved religion but destroyed the
church.
The founders of religion may
have been incipient or advanced mystics, but the inner compulsions of
their experience have proved less amenable to dogmas, creeds, and
institutional restrictions, which are bound to be outward and majority
oriented. There are religions of authority and the religion of the
spirit. Thus, there is a paradox: if the mystic minority is distrusted
or maltreated, religious life loses its sap; on the other hand, these
"peculiar people" do not easily fit into society, with the
requirements of a prescriptive community composed of less sensitive
seekers of safety and religious routine. Though no deeply religious
person can be without a touch of mysticism, and no mystic can be, in
the deepest sense, other than religious, the dialogue between mystics
and conventional religionists has been far from happy. From both sides
there is a constant need for restatement and revaluation, a greater
tolerance, a union of free men's worship. Though it validates
religion, mysticism also tends to escape the fetters of organized
religion.
Copyright © 1994-2000
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
So
you see the more we dig the more we find.
And
now I will leave you to get a fuller picture for yourselves.
Welcome
to the links to Hermetics.
Your
WebMaster@hermetics.com