Introduction

Hermeticism takes its name from Hermes Trismegistus, the 'thrice-great' sage to whom Greek-speaking Egyptians of the Roman period attributed treatises on God, the cosmos and the soul. Together with the Neoplatonism of Plotinus, Porphyry, Iamblichus and Proclus, these writings shaped the Renaissance revival of ancient wisdom led by Marsilio Ficino, Pico della Mirandola and Cornelius Agrippa. Here you will find the Corpus Hermeticum, the Emerald Tablet, theurgy, astral magic and the philosophy of correspondences that underlies much of later Western occultism.