/lit/ - Literature

[Anonymous No.11425899]

What the fuck is hermeticism, Western esotericism, and mysticism anyway? I'm confused.

[Anonymous No.11425904]

>>11425899
Google those terms.

[Anonymous No.11425913]

>>11425899
Just go to this link : https://www.google.com.au/search?q=those+terms

[Anonymous No.11425926]

>>11425913
australians still hold the trophy for biggest shitposters i see

[Anonymous No.11425927]

>>11425904
>>11425913
OP here. I want to know if they're redpilled or not, i.e. if they represent comopatibility with white nationalist 4chan beliefs or plebbit shit.
Is it against women, nonwhites, and liberalism?

[Anonymous No.11425944]

>>11425927
No, it's mostly actually comes from Jews, occultism and westerm esoterism have historically been the esoteric undercurrent behind almost all Semitic-controlled attempts at subverting the western from protestantism to pornography.

[Anonymous No.11425945]

>>11425927
what a fucking retard

mysticism's horizons are infinitely wider than your petty political tribalism

read a book nigger

[Anonymous No.11425946]

>women
We like women, without them our people are lost. They are to be protected and cherished. It's everyone else that is against women.
>nonwhites, and liberalism
Well, bits and pieces of it contain the unspoken truth so yeah of course it is against them.

[Anonymous No.11425952]

>>11425944
ah yes the orphic foundation of platonic/neoplatonic theurgical mysticism having its roots in Babylonian and Egyptian metaphysics is definitely a semitic plot to control the future of western civilization you fucking mongo

[Anonymous No.11425959]

>>11425927
>>11425946
No. Hermeticism isn't even white in origin.

[Anonymous No.11425960]

>>11425927
>>11425946

[Anonymous No.11425965]

>>>/x/

[Anonymous No.11425968]

>>11425959
Proofs?

[Anonymous No.11425970]

>>11425946
>They are to be protected and cherished
eh. They're just people, same as men, idk why they deserve special treatment

[Anonymous No.11425980]

>>11425970
>women are the same as men
The modern world has really done a number on you my friend.

[Anonymous No.11425984]

>>11425980
i didnt say they were the same, im sure they are different, though i dont think we have the neuroscience and genetics to be able to say with much authority what the differences are.

i said they are just people, and i dont see why we owe them anything

[Anonymous No.11425985]

>>11425968
Hermes was Egyptian.

[Anonymous No.11425990]

>>11425899
Hermeticism is Jewish Alchemical Mysticism.
Western Esotericism is a large topic that ranges from a sort of Hermetic alchemy (like Free Masonry) to more traditional Heathen Religious Mysticism.
Mysticism is an even larger term that ranges across cultures throughout the world. I recommend reading Mysticism and Philosophy by W.T. Stace for a good overview of the topic. Stace goes through many different so called Mystical accounts of experiences in an attempt to pin down what a "mystical experience" really is and offers several possible interpretations on the "objectivity" of such. Good read.

[Anonymous No.11425991]

>>11425990
>Hermeticism is Jewish Alchemical Mysticism.

imagine being this deluded

[Anonymous No.11425992]

>>11425984
How old are you?
>>11425985
You just proved my point.

[Anonymous No.11425995]

>>11425985
Hermes is literally a Greek god.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermes

Hermes Thrice The Great, which is featured in OP´s image, was a synthetic religious figure that embodied both the greek god Hermes and Egyptian Thoth.

[Anonymous No.11425998]

>>11425992
I'm 24, but what does that have to do with what I said.

[Anonymous No.11426002]

>>11425995
>greeks
>egyptians
>white

[Anonymous No.11426003]

hermeticism is a specific belief system
western esotericism is a set of belief systems that includes hermeticism
mysticism is a set of belief systems that includes some belief systems that are also subsets of western esotericism, but also many that aren't

[Anonymous No.11426004]

>>11425984
>though i dont think we have the neuroscience and genetics to be able to say with much authority what the differences are.
I saw me mum in the nud and she had big knockers and no willy so we can lock those in

[Anonymous No.11426005]

>>11425998
Because you are very naive.

[Anonymous No.11426006]

>>11425991
honestly I don't fuck with hermeticism or Western esoterecism. But I think that alchemy is an expression of the Semetic culture-soul and I know that there were several Jewish thinkers that were involved with the compilation of the Hermetic Doctrine.

[Anonymous No.11426009]

The path is self-knowledge, leading to an inner rebirth, a greater and more stable consciousness. Various symbols and ideas represent what are seen as principles of the world and also of ourselves. For instance, in that picture, the sun and moon represent duality, the opposite active and passive forces of the world. We are to unite these opposites in ourself. The macrocosm is the microcosm, man is seen as being a miniature of the world and of God. As we come to know ourselves and what is in ourselves, we commune with God, a Great Awareness which is both within and without us, beyond the limits of time and space. It is psychological self-development, but this isn’t reducing it — the psyche is one of the greatest wonders of the world.

Hermeticism is one aspect of Western esotericism, based on the supposed writings and sayings attributed to the sage Hermes Trismegistus (“The Thrice-Greatest”), who probably didn’t exist. Hermeticism seems to include Egyptian, Greek, and Gnostic influences.

Western esotericism is a general tradition running through the history of the West with surprisingly similar motifs and themes — including what I summed up in my first paragraph — mutually influencing and borrowing from each other, believing there is one Great Wisdom behind different traditions. This stream includes Hermeticism, Gnosticism, Christianity, Neoplatonism, Freemasonry, Rosicrucianism, and Kabbalism. A common thread running through these is that certain knowledge must be revered and kept secret from the masses, not discussed at large because people would not understand such knowledge and would revolt against it. There is thus a common theme of initiation into certain mysteries. This has a parallel in Christ’s “Cast not thy pearls before swine, lest they trample them.” Another common motif related to this is that there are fundamentally two types of man: ascending or progressing man, and descending or devolving man. Ascending man, touched by esotericism, is spiritualized and ascends closer and closer to greater enlightenment. Descending man is pulled down by the prison of matter to lower and lower levels of un-self-awareness and non-spirituality.

Mysticism is a term which can be applied to all I’ve spoken of and more. Typically, it’s used to mean the direct seeking after ineffable spiritual realities and spiritual experiences within oneself. This often involves overtones of merging with “God”, “the Absolute”, “the All”, “the Void”, and so on. As such, Buddhism can be mystical, Christianity can be mystical, Hinduism can be mystical, Islam (as in Sufism) can be mystical, and so on. It shares a root with the word “mystery”, coming from a Greek word meaning “secret”.

[Anonymous No.11426013]

>>11426005
An annoying response anon. you could point out where you disagree with me instead

[Anonymous No.11426014]

>>11426003
thanks, was trying to understand the esotericism vs mysticism divide. where does occultism fit in here

[Anonymous No.11426016]

>>11426005
lol says the faggot whose probably never interacted with a woman that isn't some airhead american thot

go outside

[Anonymous No.11426017]

>>11425899
they're all a load of old bollocks mate

[Anonymous No.11426018]

>>11425927
It isn't always but they can actually go well together, like evola and even jordan peterson to some extent.

[Anonymous No.11426025]

>>11426014
I think it's a kind of esotericism, but depending on the doctrine it could have mystical elements

[Anonymous No.11426034]

>>11426018
JP doesn't seem to be entirely on board with creating a white nation, so I'm not a fan of his. Hope you understand (and is white).

[Anonymous No.11426036]

>>11425990
>Hermeticism is Jewish Alchemical Mysticism.

Alchemy, Judaism and Hermeticism are all different traditions.

Has there been Jewish alchemists? Probably.
Has there been hermetic alchemists? Probably.
Has there been alchemists who did not study hermeticism? Probably.
Has there been anti-semitic hermetic alchemists? Probably.

You see where I am going?

>Western Esotericism is a large topic that ranges from a sort of Hermetic alchemy (like Free Masonry)

Historically inaccurate. There did appear in the 19th century certain organizations that did incorporate alchemical, rosicrucian and freemasonic rituals to their main scheme like Brotherhood of Luxor, Golden Dawn and (Theosophical Society) to a degree, but they were trying to synthesize almost everything in their sight together.

[Anonymous No.11426039]

>>11425944
>jews
>esoteric
what did he mean by this

[Anonymous No.11426047]

>>11426005
>regards age as a merit badge
Opinion discarded

[Anonymous No.11426055]

They were a bunch of guys who could read, do math and perhaps knew a thing of two of the medicine of that time, they were emotionally intelligent like psychologists are today, they could cook very well and tell you of the properties of the things you were eating. It's hard to imagine from a conected world how it was in medieval and ancient times to be around some of those guys. Imagine not knowing what day is today, worrying about your crops, going to a fucking hermit and this guy knows how many days to spring, even though you don't know how he knows it without looking at your field, and in fact he was just taking note of the movement of the stars by day and calculating it. They had all this knowledge because they had access to libraries and collected works from various places, they talked to strange foreign people, to priests, sometimes to nobles, took strange drugs perhaps and all of that. Since all of that knowledge was not laid out in any homogeneous way, they were constantly trying to connect each one of those knowledges. As above so below. They were creating correspondences between human psyche, matter, politics, math, colors, music, biology and the stars. And also some absurd stuff that not even themselves could tell at the time if it was worth to consider. It requires a different form of thinking from the usual because when they say "condensation" they mean several different things, not simply a chemical remark. That's why it's hard to tell how much of it was science, how much of it was poetry or art, or even codified messages to each other. That's also why each field, speciall in science and in new age cults, feel themselves as carriers of the truth knowledge of what they were going to, as if astronomy was just "correct astrology" or chemistry "correct alchemy", when it was in fact much more than that. Western mysticism is also not that unknown as people think, there are common sense things, fables, jokes, inspired by occult knowledge, people like Durer or Leonardo were into it, priests and theologists influenced by it, political scientists, etc. Newton was an alchemist before his later works that got him acclaimed, several of his alchemical works were destroyed in a fire. None of them were hooked in the questions we ask today about science vs the supernatural or this or that religion, because they were philosophers too and knew that are more nuanced things that language itself have trouble passing forward. Their works are thus, patches of different structures of thinking about the world, often shown in ambiguous or strange ways, often in need of accompanying explanation which is precisely what one would receive in their presence.

[Anonymous No.11426056]

>>11426034
I'm not white

[Anonymous No.11426059]

>>11426036
yea I wasn't very clear, when I was looking into hermetecism I just noticed there was a lot of Jewish stuff in it and it made me associate it with Jewish thought, I address it here >>11426006

also, isn't Hermeticism included under Western Esoterecism, if so I don't think I was inaccurate, just not precise, and possibly misleading.

[Anonymous No.11426065]

>>11426036
>Has there been anti-semitic hermetic alchemists? Probably.
do you have an example

[Anonymous No.11426093]

>>11426065
me (I'm redpilled)

[Anonymous No.11426109]

>>11426059
It is still inaccurate, your post I mean. Same way this guy is talking about societies that rose in the 20th century in the West. >>11426055

It is theosophical society´s fault that western imagination came associated with "Secret Adepts of Alchemical Knowledge of Elixir of Life" who would be some elite strata of society, kinda like superhero type of people you might see in comic books. Count of St. Germaine, Cagliostro all being members of this secret White Brothehood whose adepts have taken a mission to help us misguided and naive to take our society to higher levels of being!

Of course, this is total pseudo-religion and historically inaccurate understanding of history, initiation and gnosis in general.

Like Guénon rightfully argues,
>That a truly occult organization, no matter what its nature, never leaves behind written documents of it´s existence

The moment an organization, person of any magnitude or text that purports to be "esoteric" or "occult" has etymologically lost the very esoteric or occult nature to begin with.

Of course there are alchemical texts and others veiled with symbolical allegories that need a degree of knowledge to understand to begin with: but there cannot be no true Gnosis without true initiation: all other is counter-tradition and pseudo-initiation.

[Anonymous No.11426123]

>>11426109
interesting. Makes me wonder, is this "true" occultism more like a Mystical experience (such as how Stace would describe it) of Original origin?

[Anonymous No.11426124]

>>11426065
One should probably start to read the history of Islamic alchemy to begin consider hundreds of possibilities for such abominations of Men to exist

[Anonymous No.11426172]

>>11426109
>Like Guénon rightfully argues,
>That a truly occult organization, no matter what its nature, never leaves behind written documents of it´s existence

How the fuck does he or anyone know about these societies? And even if they themselves are initiated, how could they trust their own initation? How can one tell their 1000 years society is not a 100 years corrupt scam of a different society being sold as the ancient truth?

We only see the crumbs and can not possibly infer whether they were let out there for us to pick or simply fell from the plate they were eating from.

Even desertors, traitors, polemicists, even mistaken and manipulated people who might have had some access to this knowledge, even if half knowledge, offer us a glimpse of how things were thought out back then. More than that is preposterous. The way a society imagines itself and its past is the way it is for that society.

[Anonymous No.11426182]

Someone give me a book to read for an overview of the occult.

Preferably one with a cheap ebook version/torrentable ebook version.

[Anonymous No.11426185]

>>11426172
Guénon was initiate of actual Sufi lineage of Islam, lineage that can be traced historically to Prophet Muhammed and his relatives.

This makes him a member of a initiative chain that can be traced to the founder of religion itself.

[Anonymous No.11426197]

What's the difference/overlap between religion and mysticism then? You can get esoteric christianity, but isn't christianity already esoteric?

[Anonymous No.11426205]

>>11426185
Oh wow! Directly descendent from insane pedophiliac warmongerers. Such wisdom.

[Anonymous No.11426209]

>>11426197
>isn't christianity already esoteric

absolutely not, mysticism is about personal union with/becoming God, exoteric religion is just these truths filtered down into images for the rubes

[Anonymous No.11426213]

>>11426209
or religion is social engineering that hijacks particularities of human psychology and mystics are just mentally ill

[Anonymous No.11426218]

>>11426197
The opposite of being esoteric is being exoteric. Any attempt to simplify religion to gain adepts is exoteric. "It's this, this and that. Now go spread the news", this is not mysticism, it's religion.

[Anonymous No.11426219]

>>11426213
sunday school-tier

[Anonymous No.11426221]

>>11426219
yeah but admit it's possible

[Anonymous No.11426245]

I have admittedly very limited knowledge of actual esoteric texts but I have read a few gnostic texts and apocryphal gospels, and the Kybalion, but honestly it all sounds like bullshit. I thought we were passed the entire "the world is One" shtick. I feel strangely drawn to esoteric ideas but in reality none of it works.

[Anonymous No.11426250]

>>11426221
nah. read a book.

>>11426245
>reading the kybalion and thinking you got a good grasp of esotericism

lol

[Anonymous No.11426257]

>>11426250
>thinking you got a good grasp of esotericism
>I have admittedly very limited knowledge of actual esoteric texts
You might want to learn to read if you're gonna browse a literature board.

[Anonymous No.11426259]

>>11426250
ive read plenty of books on this subject and I still see it as a possibility. It is small-minded to just deny it

[Anonymous No.11426260]

>>11426257
then why are you offering your admittedly uninformed opinion?

[Anonymous No.11426267]

>>11426259
no, it is small-minded to continue to believe in the jrpg conception of religion and spirituality when you've "read plenty of books on the subject". religion is a control mechanism but if you still haven't learned to see through to the spirit of the letter that is nevertheless all too easily co-opted and corrupted by worldly authorities for their own ends you haven't learned much or are just starting out

[Anonymous No.11426269]

>>11426209
>>11426218
But doesn't Christianity have esoteric elements - i.e inner Christianity is the living teaching of the Risen Christ: resurrection

[Anonymous No.11426273]

>>11426267
I understand the perspective you're hinting at dude, I am very given to mystical thought in general, I just don't see how it's possible to discount the other view.

[Anonymous No.11426274]

>>11426269
yes but extremely attenuated esoteric elements, you're better off just dropping christianity as a whole, its apophasis is always a compromise with God and doesn't go full-bore like the negation in, say, buddhism

[Anonymous No.11426288]

>>11426093
based
>>11426124
pure white Aryans only pls

[Anonymous No.11426295]

>>11426260
Maybe someone can point me to actual helpful texts.

[Anonymous No.11426305]

>>11426295
read the corpus hermeticum and then the chaldaean oracles

[Anonymous No.11426393]

>>11426009
best post ITT
just listen to this anon, OP

[Anonymous No.11426446]

>>11426274
The Gospels reveal more and more to you the more you know of spiritual wisdom. What Christ taught can be reconciled with what the Buddha taught; however, Christ spoke in mysteries, in parables. One example: “Watch for ye know not the day and hour” and the parable of the man watching his house in the night so the thief doesn’t come and steal his goods isn’t apocalyptic or referring to merely remembering Christ/certain religious rites, it’s referring to self-observation and constantly being present in the light of the fact that we will die. In short, mindfulness as per the Buddha.

I agree that exoterically understood Christianity doesn’t have much significance compared to other more practical and direct seeming religious systems. Once you understand the symbolism, however, you see Christ truly was an esoteric genius. You have to get the house with its unruly servants ready for the master (a common parable in the Gospels) — you have to get your disordered, chaotic, fragmented, non-unified self in order so that it can receive the True Self. You have to empty yourself (go through kenosis), to undo yourself, so you can receive the Holy Ghost. Paul: “Not I, but Christ liveth in me.” You see the unreality and the emptiness of yourself, and this emptiness is also a fullness. I agree that in Buddhism the empty aspect of the ego is much more straightforwardly discussed. In true Christianity, the model is “empty the self to receive the Holy Ghost/Christ in you”.

I think the genuine mystical experience is the same and can be arrived at through different paths, it’s just put in different symbols or interpreted in different ways due to cultural conditioning.

[Anonymous No.11426668]

>>11426013
>>11426016
>>11426047
Samefag

[Anonymous No.11426745]

>>11426446
yes christ is a genius but once you do understand the empty self past a certain threshold the whole "receiving the Holy Spirit" seems like an extra mediatory step that isn't really needed

[Anonymous No.11426832]

You guys ready for Hermetic 2?

>This volume presents in new English translations the scattered fragments and testimonies regarding Hermes Thrice Great that complete Brian Copenhaver's translation of the Hermetica (Cambridge, 1992). It contains the twenty-nine fragments from Stobaeus (including the famous Kore Kosmou), the Oxford and Vienna fragments (never before translated), an expanded selection of fragments from various authors (including Zosimus of Panopolis, Augustine, and Albert the Great), and testimonies about Hermes from thirty-eight authors (including Cicero, Pseudo-Manetho, the Emperor Julian, Al-Kindī, Michael Psellus, the Emerald Tablet, and Nicholas of Cusa). All translations are accompanied by introductions and notes which cite sources for further reading.

[Anonymous No.11426856]

>>11426832
Not with that price tag.

[Anonymous No.11426860]

>>11426856

Hermetica eventually got a paperback release.
Here's hoping.

[Anonymous No.11426882]

>>11426245
>bullshit
Same. Looked here and there and gave it a shot multiple times, but there are always statements that are just obvious non-sense.

I don't understand how 21st century people can read that LARP shit for any other purposes than curiosity about what people used to believe.

[Anonymous No.11426883]

>>11425927
Evola was into it >>shrugs<<. Check out his book "The Hermetic Tradition"

[Anonymous No.11426908]

>>11426002
white is an american idea

[Anonymous No.11427139]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y28n

>Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Renaissance obsession with Magic. In 1461 one of the powerful Medici family’s many agents carried a mysterious manuscript into his master’s house in Florence. It purported to be the work of an ancient Egyptian priest-king and magician called Hermes Trismegistus. When Cosimo de Medici saw the new discovery, he ordered his translations of Plato to be stopped so that work could begin on the new discovery at once. Hermes promised secret knowledge to his initiates and claimed to have spoken with the spirits and turned base metal into gold. His ideas propelled natural magic into the mainstream of Renaissance intellectual thought, as scholars and magi vied to understand the ancient secrets that would bring statues to life and call the angels down from heaven.But why did magic appeal so strongly to the Renaissance mind? And how did the scholarly Magus, who became a feature of the period, manage to escape prosecution and relate his work to science and the Church?With Peter Forshaw, Lecturer in Renaissance Philosophies at Birkbeck, University of London; Valery Rees, Renaissance historian and a translator of Ficino’s letters; Jonathan Sawday, Professor of English Studies at the University of Strathclyde.

[Anonymous No.11427150]

>>11425927
Please kill yourself

[Anonymous No.11427183]

>>11425927
The Hermetica is redpilled on exclusive homosexuality.

[Anonymous No.11427298]

>>11425927
9/10

[Anonymous No.11427307]

>>11425927
I totally agree with you, misogynists and racists is not welcome, here are some ideas on how we can stop them:
Ban r9k and pol to get rid of nazis and women haters.
Ban anyone who identifies as or uses the word "incel"
Implement upvotes(so that the popular threads are on top instead of the controversial).

[Anonymous No.11427338]

[Anonymous No.11427341]

>>11427338

[Anonymous No.11427345]

>>11427341

[Anonymous No.11427350]

>>11427345

[Anonymous No.11427352]

>>11427350

[Anonymous No.11427404]

>>11427338
>>11427341
>>11427345
>>11427350
>>11427352
never read any of these, just trying to contribute and bumping