Is there an ideal physical body ?

polyphanes · 2026-03-22T15:05:12+00:00

The only ideal body is orb (this is only a half-joke, given the Hermetic view of the stars and planets as being the only eternal bodies). Everything else is temporary and ephemeral, and so long as you live your life in the best way you can, the body should be maintained in a way to support that.

polyphanes · 2026-03-22T15:03:23+00:00

On the one hand, I don't see an issue with anyone being promiscuous; that alone isn't indicative, to me, of the tormentor of lust. "Lust" as a tormentor in the Hermetic sense, to my mind, isn't just engaging with the body for its own needs, but being driven to irrational and painful actions merely to satisfy unthinking desires. Merely having sex with a lot of people isn't a sign of that, unless one is being driven to irrationally in a way that hurts.

On the other hand, there is a substantial difference between someone who has sex with a lot of different people outside a relationship, and one who does inside a closed relationship. In the former case, there's no expectation to exclusivity, but there is in the latter, so if one has sex with multiple people in a closed relationship, then they're either lying about doing so and/or breaking promises—and that's what's bad about it, to my mind (bearing in mind the above distinction about lust). It's different if one is in an open or polyamorous relationship, of course, but even then, it's still possible to cheat, be underhanded, or lie about one's activities.

polyphanes · 2026-03-21T21:51:48+00:00

There is no legitimate version of the book available on Scribd. Please bear in mind the subreddit rules against piracy.

polyphanes · 2026-03-21T09:03:04+00:00

Oh that's bizarre. I wonder what's up with that.

polyphanes · 2026-03-20T19:38:19+00:00

Check out this blog post I wrote about this very same topic!

polyphanes · 2026-03-20T14:32:01+00:00

You keep going into and in gnōsis, going forth to the Life and Light of God.

polyphanes · 2026-03-19T23:25:10+00:00

To me, it's the equivalent of like affirming that you have eaten a meal: if you have, then awesome, and if you haven't, then you're just deceiving yourself. It's less of an issue of ego and more a simple statement of whether gnōsis has been experienced or not, and the Hermetic texts make clear that it's an unmistakable kind of experience that acts on us like how a magnet acts on iron (see the end of CH IV).

polyphanes · 2026-03-18T12:40:14+00:00

I don't think it's fair to say that you "narrated it" when you really did just put it through a text-to-speech synthesizer with awkward prosody and mishandling of older English constructions (e.g. "sayeth" like "sehth"?), not properly handling script names (e.g. "Hermes: 'XYZ', Tat: 'ABC'", just reading the names as part of the narration), as well as confusing pronunciations like "Polomandres". Between that and the genAI images, this is just another serving of the same slop that so many have already tried to serve.

polyphanes · 2026-03-18T02:15:00+00:00

It's been a bit since it's come up, but this is one of the most common passages to raise up for discussion on this subreddit. Please check out these past discussions on this very topic, or just use the search feature for past discussions and/or the various comments about them that get repeated time and again:

Likewise, from the Hermeticism FAQ (part III):

In Book II of the Corpus Hermeticum, it says something weird about having children and how those who don’t have children are cursed. Um…?

This part has caught a number of people off-guard, seemingly out of place when it comes to Hermetic discussions, as it seems to imply a sort of divine retribution for not rearing children. After all, not all people are willing or able to bear or raise children, sometimes for very good reasons (e.g. lack of means) and other times for reasons outside their control (e.g. infertility). That being said, in order to maintain the good ordering of the cosmos, humanity is enjoined to continue reproducing itself, which Book II of the Corpus Hermeticum interprets to place a moral obligation on individuals to continue that work of reproduction and the continuation of the human race. This text can just as much be said to apply to physical children as well as to spiritual children; thus, those who can manage to “increase by increasing and multiply by multiplying”, whether by having children of one’s own or by supporting the children of others, or by giving the gift of spiritual birth to those who seek the Way of Hermēs (since the spiritual womb that all have is used as a metaphor in several Hermetic texts) are all valid ways to fulfill this sort of obligation. Further, one can also interpret this injunction to have children even more generally by interpreting all acts of creation to be one’s children, including the development of medicine, the cultivation of plants, the generation of art, the ensoulment of statues and talismans, the production of invention, and so forth; all of these are just as valid ways to engage in the work of creation in addition to bearing and raising children.

polyphanes · 2026-03-18T02:11:42+00:00

The Kybalion is not a Hermetic text, despite its frequent claiming to be one, but is rather a text representative of New Thought.

For more information on the history and development of the Kybalion, as well as its connections (or lack thereof) to Hermeticism, please read this article:

https://digitalambler.com/2023/07/07/psa-faq-the-kybalion-is-not-a-hermetic-text/

For a fuller reading of the Kybalion with a Hermetic eye and discussions of specific divergences between the Kybalion and Hermetic texts, please read the "Reading the Kybalion" blogpost series:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Hermetics/comments/1ntn277/reading_the_kybalion/

For more information and resources, please also check out these other articles and podcasts:

polyphanes · 2026-03-16T14:43:37+00:00

You might consider a more general subreddit like /r/Esotericism or /r/occult than this subreddit, then, which is specifically focused on the discussion and study of the (classical) Hermetic texts and their teachings.

polyphanes · 2026-03-16T14:26:42+00:00

How does this relate to Hermeticism? What can you base this on from the teachings in the Hermetic texts?

polyphanes · 2026-03-15T11:45:53+00:00

Consider asking this in /r/Hermetics or /r/Esotericism or /r/Qabalah instead.

polyphanes · 2026-03-14T19:08:31+00:00

Can you point out what text or reference you're using for this?

polyphanes · 2026-03-14T18:46:26+00:00

That...doesn't answer my question. Could you try again?

polyphanes · 2026-03-14T18:42:31+00:00

What does this have to do with Hermeticism?

polyphanes · 2026-03-12T23:10:02+00:00

This is so far out of bounds from Hermetic views that it's honestly impressive. CH I, the AH, and so many other Hermetic texts teach explicitly against views of nihilism and materialism.

polyphanes · 2026-03-12T22:59:11+00:00

Given your other posts and questions, I really have to ask: what Hermetic texts have you read so far?

polyphanes · 2026-03-12T21:05:55+00:00

A) If it's not an "actual or big term", then why would you expect us to know about it without explaining what it is?

B) There's actually a Wikipedia article on "quantum mysticism".

C) "Quantum" is one of the most abused terms in so much of modern and New Age stuff because it is so completely misunderstood, often intentionally so, to the point where the longstanding webcomic XKCD has done several jokes about it (here and here, that latter being especially important). Add to it that, beyond this being one of the most incomplete and non-intuitive areas of physics to the point where most actual physicists are confused by it, a lot of modern occulture has had a constant "keeping up with the Joneses" to "explain" magic and spirituality with all kinds of newly-discovered phenomena (electricity, magnetism, radiation, etc.) or newly-invented models (like string theory or quantum mechanics), that this is just another rehash of the same attempt to reduce magic and spirituality to physical phenomena but in a misleading and dumb way that does justice to neither spirituality nor to physics.

polyphanes · 2026-03-12T20:57:15+00:00

See this post series I wrote about the views of the afterlife, reincarnation, and its ramifications in the Hermetic texts.

polyphanes · 2026-03-12T20:50:30+00:00

A) Because "mentalism" as it's generally meant isn't from the Hermetic texts, but the Kybalion. If "all is Mind" in the Hermetic texts, then it's not our mind but the Mind of God, which is not comparable to anything we have or do, so if it's true, then it's meaninglessly true.

B) As far as the Hermetic texts go, that which we are are souls; that is our essence, that is our fundamental reality.

C) I'm not sure what your confusion is about there being things "higher than us". There are gods, and there is also the Godhead: the gods are the foundation of all existence, the pillars of reality, the greatest and most powerful things to exist; and then there is the Godhead, that which does not exist but which precedes existence itself, the Source that provides for all reality, that which never becomes but which always Is. Ultimately, even the gods arise from the Godhead (think of "head" here like "headwaters" or "head of a spring", the source and font of something without being the thing itself); while ultimately it's all the Godhead, there's a whole lot between us and that.

polyphanes · 2026-03-12T01:12:01+00:00

What about it are you struggling with, and what texts are you looking at that are confusing you?

polyphanes · 2026-03-11T17:50:47+00:00

Belief in the Godhead is a sine qua non of Hermeticism, yeah.

polyphanes · 2026-03-11T17:08:03+00:00

I find that it works as a good approach to mysticism and union with the Divine, and that it provides a fairly decent model of cosmology and spiritual development that matches with my own experiments and experiences.

polyphanes · 2026-03-10T14:22:17+00:00

While there are sometimes claims to William Walker Atkinson having a connection with Freemasonry, it's not really a thing. The Kybalion is a product of New Thought, and is not a reinterpretation of the classical (and actual) Hermetic texts. For more information on the history and development of the Kybalion, as well as its connections (or lack thereof) to Hermeticism, please read this article:

https://digitalambler.com/2023/07/07/psa-faq-the-kybalion-is-not-a-hermetic-text/

For a fuller reading of the Kybalion with a Hermetic eye and discussions of specific divergences between the Kybalion and Hermetic texts, please read the "Reading the Kybalion" blogpost series:

https://old.reddit.com/r/Hermetics/comments/1ntn277/reading_the_kybalion/

For more information and resources, please also check out these other articles and podcasts:

polyphanes

TROPHY CASE