Whether the real setting and dating of the Hermetic tradition in late antiquity are, in fact, irrelevant to its reception in the Renaissance is an interesting hermeneutic question that cannot be answered here. In any case and for many other reasons, Yates’s views on the Hermetica became famous for some, notorious for others, especially when, in a 1968 article, she made Hermes a major figure in the preliminaries to the scientific revolution, just two years after J.E. McGuire and P.M. Rattansi had connected Newton’s physics with the ancient theology theme so closely associated with Hermes.
purported author of the Hermetic Corpus
Hermes Trismegistus is a legendary Hellenistic period figure that originated as a syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. He is the purported author of the Hermetica, a widely diverse series of ancient and medieval pseudepigraphica that laid the basis of various philosophical systems known as Hermeticism.
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Know, O man, that Light is thine heritage. Know that darkness is only a veil. Sealed in thine heart is brightness eternal, waiting the moment of freedom to conquer, waiting to rend the veil of the night.
Some I found who had conquered the ether. Free of space were they while yet they were men. Using the force that is the foundation of ALL things, far in space constructed they a planet, drawn by the force that flows through the ALL; condensing, coalescing the ether into forms, that grew as they willed. Outstripping in science, they, all of the races, mighty in wisdom, sons of the stars.
Long time I paused, watching their wisdom.
Saw them create from out of the ether cities gigantic of rose and gold. Formed forth from the primal element, base of all matter, the ether far flung. Far in the past, they had conquered the ether, freed themselves from the bondage of toil; formed in heir mind only a picture and swiftly created, it grew.
Forth then, my soul sped, throughout the Cosmos, seeing ever, new things and old; learning that man is truly space-born, a Sun of the Sun, a child of the stars.
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Humanity looked in awe upon the beauty and the everlasting duration of creation. The exquisite sky flooded with sunlight. The majesty of the dark night lit by celestial torches as the holy planetary powers trace their paths in the heavens in fixed and steady metre - ordering the growth of things with their secret infusions.
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