What Is Hermeticism?
The hermetic tradition represents a non-Christian lineage of Gnosticism, which is the name for a variety of ancient religious ideas and systems dating back to the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D.
The surviving writings of Hermeticism are known as the Corpus Hermetica, which is composed of a series of letters from a master, Hermes Trismegistus, wherein he tries to enlighten his disciple. These letters were lost to the western world after classical times, but survived in the Byzantine libraries.
In the Fifteenth century, the letters were rediscovered and translated into Latin by the court of Cosimo de Medici (yes, grandfather to Lorenzo de’ Medici, the patron of Leonardo Da Vinci and several other renaissance artists). These letters were so influential during the time that they acted as a catalyst in the development of Italian Renaissance thought and culture.
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