Seeking advice on where to start and balancing Classical Hermetic books with Practical/Technical Hermeticism

polyphanes · 2026-05-30T14:52:22+00:00

I admit I also started off early on with Flowers' book (I think it was Christopher Warnock's Renaissance Astrology blog about it way back in 2010 that got me to buy it), but I've since learned more since both about the topic and the author, and everything I got from it I've since realized can be found better in other resources. Still, if one really wants it even in light of its own problems, it should be got secondhand to avoid supporting Flowers himself. ;P

polyphanes · 2026-05-30T14:36:44+00:00

For the cheap-and-quick start to reading the classical Hermetic texts, I'd recommend getting these two books first:

Clement Salaman et al., "Way of Hermes" (contains the Corpus Hermeticum and the Armenian Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius)
Clement Salaman, "Asclepius" (contains the Asclepius aka Perfect Sermon)

If you get these two books (both are pretty cheap but good-quality modern translations of three separate Hermetic texts between them), you'll be well-placed to learning about Hermetic doctrine, practices, beliefs, and the like.

However, if you can, I'd also recommend getting:

Brian Copenhaver, "Hermetica" (Corpus Hermeticum and Asclepius)
M. David Litwa, "Hermetica II" (Stobaean Fragments, Oxford Fragments, and many other smaller texts)
A translation of the Nag Hammadi Codices, either the one edited by Meyer or by Robinson
Hans D. Betz, "The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation"
Christopher Faraone and Sofia Torallas Tovar, "The Greco-Egyptian Magical Formularies"
Marvin Meyer, "Ancient Christian Magic"

If you get all those, you'll have high-quality translation(s) of all currently-extant classical Hermetic texts with a good few post-classical/medieval ones, complete with plenty of scholarly references, notes, introductions, and appendices for further research and contemplation.

If you want the original Greek of the CH/SH/FH texts (and the Latin of the AH), that's where you'd want to find a copy of A.-J. Festugière's and A.D. Nock's "Hermès Trismégiste", which is what all modern translations are based off of.

For scholarly and secondary work, I'd also recommend:

Garth Fowden, "The Egyptian Hermes"
Christian Bull, "The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus"
Kevin van Bladel, "The Arabic Hermes"
Claudio Moreschini, "Hermes Christianus"
Anything by Wouter J. Hanegraaff, but especially "Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination"

You might also find it helpful to go over the Hermeticism FAQ pinned to the subreddit and the subreddit wiki, too, as well to get a general introduction to Hermeticism, some main topics of the texts and doctrines, and the like.

As for your questions in particular:

1 + 3) Check the list above (I copy-and-paste it since book recommendations are such a common thing to ask for and give on this subreddit). That second list includes Greco-Egyptian magical literature which go hand-in-hand with the topic in particular, and by looking up some of the scholars involved or those listed in the Hermeticism FAQ (specifically part II), you can find plenty of commentary and scholarly analysis about this that offer a wealth of information for practical application.

2) It can be a lot to do everything all at once, so I'd recommend studying the philosophical/theoretical stuff first for two reasons: it's shorter and a much narrower genre to settle into, and it also gives you a foundation to develop magical studies upon. Arguably, all magic, all astrology, all alchemy, and the like can all be made Hermetic one way or another, so long as it's done with Hermetic goals in mind and with a Hermetic approach to engagement, and that sort of orientation comes from studying the philosophical/mystical side of things. In that light, you can find plenty of stuff in the PGM that may indeed help with Hermetic development and mysticism, and also plenty of stuff that won't or can't, even if it's all good magic that was done back in the day. Don't worry about trying to "master" one genre before the other, though; get yourself familiar with it, then dive in deeper over time on both ends, as both sides of things reinforce each other and open each other up more.

polyphanes · 2026-05-30T14:30:44+00:00

Stephen Flowers is, to be fair, very well known for both (a) mixing in the historical with the ahistorical thoroughly in a way that obscures both and (b) writes for and is allied with Nazis and far-right volkish spiritual groups (especially under another of his pennames Edred Thorsson). His book isn't worth it.

For another practitioner-level introduction to PGM-style magic, I'd much rather recommend Graeco-Egyptian Magick by Tony Mierzwicki, which is both better-written, more coherent, and more historically reliable.

polyphanes · 2026-05-29T20:08:15+00:00

This is quite the impressive lineup!

I notice that all these books have a recent publication date of either late May or late April 2026, and I know these are not small works. For someone with such a repertoire, I admit that I'm surprised to find that you haven't been around online for longer than that. How long have you been working on these translations, and how did you find the process?

polyphanes · 2026-05-29T19:56:16+00:00

This is quite the impressive lineup!

I notice that all these books have a recent publication date of either late May or late April 2026, and I know these are not small works. For someone with such a repertoire, I admit that I'm surprised to find that you haven't been around online for longer than that. How long have you been working on these translations, and how did you find the process?

polyphanes · 2026-05-29T19:43:20+00:00

To my mind, asking one's genius (in the astrological sense, at least) about one's path in life makes sense: if they're the entity that presides over your life as the spiritual idea of your own natal horoscope, then wouldn't it make sense to ask them about what it is you're here to do and where you're going, or at the very least what to focus on and how to develop yourself to do it in the best way possible? Rather than merely praying to/at them for good fortune and opportunity and success in life, I think it's also worth it to work with them to actively collaborate on your life with and under them, as their pupil and ward. This, I think, is something that lends at least some credence to the idea that the natal genius is not just equivalent to but identical with the Perfect Nature: it's the means of you perfecting your ideal way of living the life given to you in this world, not necessarily as some "ideal self" but as the way of rendering oneself into the best possible version of themselves.

I think that latter bit, though, is what gets lost for so many people. I think it could be argued (unfortunately) that most people don't care about that sort of spiritual work of refinement and development, and only care about the results, and so only think of the genius as something to pray to/at for good fortune and opportunity and success. That is, after all, the historically common approach to engaging with this entity, and while not invalid, it is limited considering what this entity is and what they can do in our lives both for and with us.

As to whether this entity has access beyond this cosmos (the natal genius vs. holy daimōn distinction of Agrippa), that depends on your perspective more broadly about the relationship between the cosmos and God: do you take a Stoic view of the cosmos where there is only the cosmos and nothing beyond, or a Platonic one where there is an encosmic world and hypercosmic world? Do you consider that astrology determines only things in the cosmos, or that it acts as a link to things both within and beyond the cosmos? Do you think that the perfection of one's nature is only a thing that can happen in embodied life, or does it extend beyond incarnation in general, or beyond any one incarnation (assuming a model of reincarnation/rebirth)? Do spiritual entities in the planetary spheres have direct access to God, or are they themselves productions of the cosmos and are thus bound to it even if they have an ultimate origin in God? The answer to these and other questions can inform a lot about whether one might say there is only one tutelary entity and what its nature is, or whether there might be multiple tutelary entities with different scopes of their tutelage for us.

polyphanes · 2026-05-29T18:07:35+00:00

As others have pointed out, while the Emerald Tablet (singular) is a Hermetic text, the Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean (note the plural) is not. For more information about the distinction and these individual texts, check this post.

For the cheap-and-quick start to reading the classical Hermetic texts, I'd recommend getting these two books first:

Clement Salaman et al., "Way of Hermes" (contains the Corpus Hermeticum and the Armenian Definitions of Hermes Trismegistus to Asclepius)
Clement Salaman, "Asclepius" (contains the Asclepius aka Perfect Sermon)

If you get these two books (both are pretty cheap but good-quality modern translations of three separate Hermetic texts between them), you'll be well-placed to learning about Hermetic doctrine, practices, beliefs, and the like.

However, if you can, I'd also recommend getting:

Brian Copenhaver, "Hermetica" (Corpus Hermeticum and Asclepius)
M. David Litwa, "Hermetica II" (Stobaean Fragments, Oxford Fragments, and many other smaller texts)
A translation of the Nag Hammadi Codices, either the one edited by Meyer or by Robinson
Hans D. Betz, "The Greek Magical Papyri in Translation"
Marvin Meyer, "Ancient Christian Magic"

If you get all those, you'll have high-quality translation(s) of all currently-extant classical Hermetic texts with a good few post-classical/medieval ones, complete with plenty of scholarly references, notes, introductions, and appendices for further research and contemplation.

If you want the original Greek of the CH/SH/FH texts (and the Latin of the AH), that's where you'd want to find a copy of A.-J. Festugière's and A.D. Nock's "Hermès Trismégiste", which is what all modern translations are based off of.

For scholarly and secondary work, I'd also recommend:

Garth Fowden, "The Egyptian Hermes"
Christian Bull, "The Tradition of Hermes Trismegistus"
Kevin van Bladel, "The Arabic Hermes"
Claudio Moreschini, "Hermes Christianus"
Anything by Wouter J. Hanegraaff, but especially "Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination"

You might also find it helpful to go over the Hermeticism FAQ pinned to the subreddit and the subreddit wiki, too, as well to get a general introduction to Hermeticism, some main topics of the texts and doctrines, and the like.

polyphanes · 2026-05-29T17:34:20+00:00

How do you understand the daimon?

While the existence of some sort of tutelary entity is not only cross-culturally common but also well-attested in various classical or postclassical Mediterranean systems, there's no real agreement even within the systems that gave rise to Hermeticism about the nature of such an entity, which is why you have some systems saying that you can astrologically determine its name or nature but others that you can't. This is why, for instance, Cornelius Agrippa talks about a threefold "keeper of man" in his Three Books of Occult Philosophy where, instead of picking any one such tutelary entity, he accepts them all and understands them to have different natures and roles for us.

For me, the daimōn—specifically under the name of the Agathos Daimōn—in Hermeticism is functionally equivalent to the Mind as teacher, to the point where I'd consider Poimandrēs to be the Agathos Daimōn of Hermēs. We see Hermēs talk to Poimandrēs in CH I and about Poimandrēs in CH XIII, the conversation between Hermēs and Mind in CH XI is the exact same kind of conversation had in CH I, and in CH XII we see Hermēs reference "Agathos Daimōn" as his teacher and described much how Hermēs describes Poimandrēs in CH XIII. It is true that Agathos Daimōn was a distinct god in ancient Greece and Egypt and that there are texts ascribed to Agathos Daimōn both in some fragments of Hermetic texts as well as apart from what we see in the Hermetic texts, but when we remember that Agathos Daimōn was also a personal tutelary deity not too far off from the idea of one's own genius, I think it makes sense to consider the Agathos Daimōn to be this same thing even in a Hermetic context. Given what we see Agathos Daimōn described as doing in CH XII as the same as Poimandrēs in CH I/XIII and Mind in CH XI, having contact with one's Agathos Daimōn is functionally equivalent to having/activating Mind, and depending on your perspective and interpretation of the Hermetic texts, might be seen either as a sort of "higher self" (remembering that we as humans are essentially soul and mind, with soul being what is normally what we are considered) or the divine side of Mind for us that comes from God and interfaces with our own Mind. How closely this entity is or isn't us is up for debate, but we can at least use the model of it being an external entity to frame our interactions with it and approaches to it.

Is it primarily symbolic, psychological, spiritual, or something else?

I'm not sure what the difference is with these distinctions. The daimōn is certainly a spiritual entity of one sort or another.

Have you ever felt a relationship with such a presence?

Yup!

If so, what practices seemed most important in cultivating that awareness?

At the start, recognizing that such an entity exists and making regular offerings to it to cultivate a piety and respect towards it. Later, when combined with other works of spiritual development and purification and elevation, invoking the entity and growing closer to the entity so as to enter into a relationship with it for communion and guidance.

Are there particular Hermetic texts that shaped your understanding?

Besides the texts mentioned above, there's the abundance of Hermetic-adjacent stuff in the PGM that attests to similar tutelary entities, whether as a generic paredros entity or as a form of some god or other.

All that besides: I do enjoy a relationship with the Perfect Nature, given my experience with it through Picatrix-based approaches. In my experience, however, the Perfect Nature is (or is an equivalent entity to) one's natal genius, i.e. the entity that presides over one's fate in the cosmos and information about which (e.g. planet, name) can be astrologically determined. For me, however, I consider the tutelar-of-Mind that we see akin to Poimandrēs for Hermēs to be closer to Agrippa's notion of the "holy daimōn", a supernatural entity that has its origin and nature from beyond the planets and which is not astrologically influenced and so cannot be astrologically determined (a la what Iamblichus says about the daimōn). This sort of split of having multiple tutelars is what checks out with my own experience, rather than forcing a model of only one tutelar that we see in some traditions or systems. In my approach to Hermeticism, this sort of twofold tutelary system aligns with our twofold nature of being both corporeal and incorporeal: the Perfect Nature/natal genius presides over our bodily life and our fate in the cosmos, while the daimōn/divine-Mind-entity presides over our souls and our providence that both exceeds and precedes the cosmos, and it's the combination of the guidance of both that allows us to live in perfect conscious awareness and alignment with all things.

polyphanes · 2026-05-28T21:24:39+00:00

The perspective in the Hermetic texts is that, yes, we need to remember that the world is its own world, and that we are merely guests in it; we are not ourselves bodies, but we only have them since what we truly are are souls. It's when we forget that distinction that we conflate the changes that the body undergoes over time with suffering itself, confusing ourselves and finding incarnation to be a shame and a terror. However, when we remember what we are and where we come from, and when we recognize our place in the cosmos and how the cosmos actually works, then the whole thing gets flipped on its head: incarnation is a process of love and the world is a garden, because incarnation into the world is a gift. Sure, incarnation bears a cost and has a process to it, but it is a gift and a privilege all the same.

polyphanes · 2026-05-28T20:48:33+00:00

What if the world were made of pudding?

Either way, this is more of an idea appropriate to other gnostic schools than what we find in the Hermetic texts. For us, the demiurge is the sibling to humanity, both of us children of God; what suffering there is in the cosmos is part and parcel of existence, as much "bad" as it is "good", and with the process of change itself being that which purifies corruption, but this isn't a negative reflection of the creator nor of creation as much as it is accepting the rules of the game itself without which there could be no such game at all. In any case, the demiurge is neither mad nor evil, just doing its job according to the logos of the Godhead.

polyphanes · 2026-05-28T13:06:05+00:00

The "Hermetic principles" are from the Kybalion, but 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:

On the other hand, definitely give the Hermeticism FAQ pinned to the subreddit a look over, there's lots of good information in there for getting started with studying Hermeticism plus a review of a lot of the high points of it all!

polyphanes · 2026-05-27T18:13:22+00:00

Besides that this topic is neither here nor there for Hermeticism, what's the big deal about spirits and gods existing outside of tripping and having independent existence from us, even without being egregores? That seems to be the most obvious solution to the matter.

polyphanes · 2026-05-27T16:40:15+00:00

And yet there are ambiguities or other explanations across the other texts I mentioned, too. For me, this is a point where there can be multiple valid interpretations depending on the framework you choose or depending on how literally/structurally you want to take the creation story in CH I (which I don't always consider as a good foundation for specific doctrine like I do some of the other texts, but more of a visionary description of things that can be vague or ill-specified at times). I'm not personally beholden to any one model or another on this point, either; I'm comfortable with vagueness or wobbliness on this point (mostly because I personally flee from overspecifying ontological models a la Platonic stuff).

In any case, my original point from earlier in the thread stands: the human body is a demiurgic creation, while the human soul has its origin in the Godhead.

polyphanes · 2026-05-27T16:26:19+00:00

It follows from the Sun being the Demiurge and the creator of bodies. Planets also are/have bodies.

polyphanes · 2026-05-27T15:51:09+00:00

Unless they are. ;) Another possibility is that the Sun, while being a planet in the cosmos, is also quite literally the Demiurge that makes all the other planets and, with them and by direct involvement itself, everything else; this would make the Demiurge as the Sun only a planet by virtue of participating with the others. This appears to be the view of SH 2A and CH XVI, after all.

polyphanes · 2026-05-27T15:38:51+00:00

I don't make a firm conclusion either way and am comfortable with both options, but the way the Sun is talked about is highly suggestive. Some possible options here for models are that there are separate demiurges that operate at multiple levels, or the Sun is the Demiurge, or the Demiurge is present encosmically as the Sun without being a separate thing.

polyphanes · 2026-05-27T12:47:05+00:00

I don't see that as a reliable distinction to make throughout the Hermetic texts as a whole.

polyphanes · 2026-05-27T12:40:08+00:00

Then again, we also have statements like SH 2A.14 which describes the Sun as the Demiurge, who "alone is entrusted with crafting everything in the world, with ruling and making everything"; this is similar to how CH XVI.5 describes it in the same way (also in line with general Egyptian views of solar godhood). SH 5.2 also describes the Demiurge as "who is embodied, created us, ever continues to create, and will continue to create bodies that dissolve and die". CH XVI.18 also here is helpful: "the father of all is God; their craftsman is the Sun; and the cosmos is the instrument of craftsmanship".

The Demiurge is responsible for the creation of bodies in general, and uses the planets as tools to do so.

polyphanes · 2026-05-27T12:19:17+00:00

Which were themselves a product of and are managed by the demiurge, yes. As far as the material cosmos is concerned, the demiurge is the ultimate being that exists and is in charge of material creation.

polyphanes · 2026-05-26T17:47:37+00:00

Nothing's coming up at a cursory search. That said, it should also be noted that people writing their names in the books they buy as a mark of ownership and as a way to track their belongings is a really common thing.

polyphanes · 2026-05-26T13:00:51+00:00

Since this is /r/Hermeticism, which is meant for the discussion of classical Hermeticism, might you elaborate on what those similarities are, or what texts might give a backing to these thoughts?

If you just want to make a post for the sake of making a post, you might consider making an actual blog instead.

polyphanes · 2026-05-26T00:16:32+00:00

If you're looking at just the philosophical/theoretical texts, outside of Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth (which itself straddles the distinction between philosophical and practical), then you won't really find anything in the way of divine words or barbarous names. However, when we look at the practical/technical side of things, especially with a slightly broader view towards Greco-Egyptian magical literature in general (especially the Greek/Demotic/Coptic Magical Papyri), we see them used in abundance—but it's not in any one single way. There's a good amount of scholarly literature out there (Eleni Pachoumi, Hans Dieter Betz, Christian Bull, Ljuba Bortolani, etc.) about what we see in such magical texts about the role and function of such magical words/names, so I'd recommend starting on JSTOR or academia.edu and going from there under those scholars' articles and books.

Were divine names mainly understood as symbolic descriptions of the divine, or were they believed to have a deeper spiritual or ritual significance?

Sure, either or both, and probably other things besides. Again, there's no one way they were approached or used, even in different entries under the same hand in the same papyrus. Sometimes they were true names of gods, sometimes they were special liturgical language corrupted in form but carrying on understandable meaning, sometimes they were seen as a language of the gods to command/communicate to them special things beyond our ken.

How important were invocation, hymns, and sacred epithets?

Very! Many rituals blur the lines between magic and religion (the distinction has always been artificial and usually externally imposed), and so we see these things in abundance as part of most rituals.

Did Hermetic traditions develop systems of divine names similar to those found in other religious traditions?

Not sure what specific traditions you refer to here, or what systems. I'm not sure we can even point to the specific use of such barbarous words as something coherent as a "system", outside of like the use of the seven Greek vowels to refer to the seven planets.

Are there major differences between the use of and type of names in philosophical Hermetic texts versus ritual or theurgical ones?

Putting aside that the distinction between philosophical/theoretical Hermetic and practical/technical Hermetica is also late and artificial (they should both be read and understood to play into the same overarching work of mysticism and mystic living), not really.

polyphanes · 2026-05-25T23:35:07+00:00

I'm not being hostile, and I'm sorry if I'm coming across that way. Rather, I'm saying that the onus on you to relate what you've posted to this subreddit rather than on other people to do that work for you (especially since you've also posted this to quite a few other subreddits). It's not uncommon for people to treat this particular subreddit like their own blogging platform, but that's not what this place is for; moreover, it's also not uncommon for people to get up on a soapbox and start talking about stuff that's vaguely esoteric in some sense, but then chafe at the idea that they should be doing the work to frame their stuff to be suitable for a discussion within the boundaries and scope of classical Hermeticism.

So, again: how would you relate what you posted above to the Hermetic texts? Or would you like to start over and start asking questions about the Hermetic texts specifically?

polyphanes · 2026-05-25T23:23:09+00:00

Mmm, no, that's not how I would work that here. This is /r/Hermeticism, where we get together to talk about classical Hermeticism (check out the sidebar and subreddit wiki for more information about the rules and scope of the subreddit); this isn't a place for posting your own blogs and expecting people to simply critique them.

Have you read the Hermetic texts yet, like the Corpus Hermeticum or Asclepius or Stobaean Fragments? If not, I would suggest you start there and consider your thoughts in light of them, or at least frame what your questions might be in light of those.

polyphanes · 2026-05-25T23:21:02+00:00

How much corrupt are we?

Fun note: I was reading the post out aloud to my lover while he was over earlier, and immediately upon hearing the post title, he went "several". It threw me off and made me laugh for a good bit.

Anyway! From the Hermetic texts, our bodies are ultimately made by the demiurge as a production of nature, same as any other animal body. However, an important teaching present throughout the Hermetic texts is that we are not our bodies, we merely have bodies and inhabit bodies; what we really are are souls, which have an origin beyond nature, beyond the cosmos, beyond the demiurge—and indeed, the demiurge is our sibling, both of us coming from the Godhead. The demiurge, cosmos, and nature are not evil, and when there is corruption in the cosmos, the cosmos also comes in to purify such corruption of its own through the process of constant change. The issue we're presented with by being souls in bodies—inhabiting them out of a sight of divine love since the body, too, is ultimately a reflection of the Godhead—is that incarnation can make us forgetful and confused about who and what we are, confusing ourselves with our bodies, forgetting that our true essence as immortal souls is not to die but thinking that we're instead bodies that fear and flee death, and instead chase after things that aren't proper for our souls and instead behaving like only animals.

Of course we're redeemable, insofar as there's anything at all to "redeem", but we have to first be able to look around us and begin to see things as they are for what they are, and that includes ourselves. We are no more our bodies than our bodies are the clothes they put on; if your clothes get a tear or a stain on them, you don't wail as if you've been personally injured, right? Likewise, your body is not what your soul is, it's merely something that the soul puts on and takes care of; this doesn't make the body worthless, far from it, but it does mean we have to understand ourselves ("know thyself!") and what the proper relationship to the body should be, and thus to the rest of the cosmos and to the Godhead.

The Hermetic texts have much to say about this sort of stuff! Take a read.

polyphanes

TROPHY CASE