Hermes Trismegistus

Title:	Hermetica
Sub-title:	The Ancient Greek and Latin Writings Which Contain Religious or Philosophic Teachings Ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus
Author:	Hermes Trismegistus
Editor/Translator:	Walter Scott
Forward:	A. G. Gilbert
Publisher:	Solos Press
ISBN:	1873616023
Pages:	255 pp.
Copyright:	1992, 1993
Reviewer:	Psyche
Contact Information:	psyche[at]spiralnature[dot]com
Category:	Occult, Philosophy, Spirituality
Review:	In the forward, written by A. G. Gilbert, the question is asked ‘Who then is Hermes Trismegistus and did he really exist?’ The opinion is taken that while ‘there is obviously no certain answer to this question,’ one ‘can at least explore the possibility and see where it takes us’ (pg 11). To accommodate Edgar Cayce’s visions and past life recollections, Gilbert is of the opinion that Osiris, Isis, Set, and Ra are not Gods, but men and women whose renown was such that they acquired the status of Gods, and that these ‘Gods’ did live much longer than we do today, for hundreds of years even. He believes Hermes to have been a ‘real person’, another acquired God-status through reputation. However, in Walter Scott’s introduction, he acknowledges that it is unlikely that an actual person Trismegistus existed but indicates that the Hermetica is compiled of various students of various masters, noting ‘there was an increasing tendency to lean on the support of authority and tradition’ (pg 34). The tradition at the time was to borrow names and material from a variety of sources, though Scott says this ‘meant little more than a man acknowledged the authority of two or more masters instead of only one, and made some attempt to blend or reconcile the teachings of those masters’. In order to claim an ancient lineage to prove authenticity, and the legitimacy of an idea and to reconcile the works of previous masters. For it was thought ‘everyone must...have learnt from some one else whatever wisdom he possessed; it hardly occurred to people that any one could possibly hit on a truth by thinking it for himself.’ (pg 35) In regards to its philosophy, Scott more or less dismisses much Egyptian influence, beyond the names themselves, though he believes the writers may have been influenced by Egyptian thought (pg 41). Contradictory in parts, seeming to confirm the suggestion that it is compiled by a variety of authors. For example, Hermes Trismegistus, in Libellus IV says: “God is in all things, as their root and the source of their being. There is nothing that is not a source; but the source itself springs from nothing but itself, if it is the source of all else. God then is like the unit of number. For the unit, being the source of all numbers, and the root of them all, contains every number within itself, and is contained by none of them; it generates every number, and is generated by no other number. Now everything that is generated is incomplete, and divisible, and subject to increase and decrease; but that which is complete is subject to none of these things.”(pg 63) Yet later in Libellus VI Hermes provides a different view, demonstrating that God does not contain all things: ‘There is nothing that God lacks, so that he should desire to gain it, and should thereby become evil. There is nothing that God can lose, and at the loss of which he might be grieved. There is nothing stronger than God, to do him wrong, and so provoke him to quarrel. God has no consort, to excite in him the passion of love; to disobedient subject, to rouse anger in him; there is none wiser than God, to make him jealous, what remains, save only the Good?’ (pg 68) The Hermetic God then, seems imbalanced, containing only the ‘Good’ and the number analogy no longer holds. Containing prophecies, discourses on the creation of the world, the planets and the zodiac, the relevant place of humanity in the scheme of the universe, God, the elements, daemons, and numerous other topics familiar to the Western Magickal Tradition. This edition edited, and condensed from Scott’s original 1924 publication, contains only some of the translated texts, not the original Greek and Latin, and missing the footnotes and annotations. The appendix is reproduced in its entirety, and consists of a fascinating account of the texts and fragments that have passed through history and how we have acquired them as they are now, the Corpus Hermeticum. Unfortunately, here the editors of this edition have left quite a bit of untranslated Greek and Latin where English translations would have been most helpful. Overall this is a fascinating text, but having purchased this text over the Internet rather than a store, I did not get the chance to peruse it prior to purchasing. Had I been able to do so, it would not have been my first choice. It is filled with a abundance of typographical errors in spelling, punctuation, words obviously omitted, and in one instance an entire paragraph is repeated with another inserted in between that is partially repeated later. For this reason, while the Hermetica an essential read, I would not recommend purchasing this particular edition of the text.
Review submitted:	10 February 2004