What Is Hermeticism and How Does It Relate to the Occult?

Hermeticism is a religious-philosophical tradition built around texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, a mythical blend of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth. These writings describe a single divine mind, a living ordered cosmos, and the possibility of spiritual rebirth through knowledge. Later magicians grabbed those ideas and turned them into practical systems of ritual, alchemy and symbolism, so a big chunk of Western occult practice rests on Hermetic foundations.

Key points

• Hermeticism grew from a mix of Greek and Egyptian thought in late antiquity and was preserved in texts like the Corpus Hermeticum.
• Ideas such as “as above, so below”, the microcosm and macrocosm, and cosmic correspondences became standard tools for occultists.
• Renaissance and modern occult groups, from alchemists to the Golden Dawn, treated Hermetic concepts as the intellectual backbone of magic.
• The much-loved book The Kybalion is a modern New Thought spin on Hermetic themes rather than an ancient manual.

Hermes Trismegistus; By user:Tomisti - [1], Public Domain, Link

Origins of Hermeticism: Greece, Egypt and Late Antiquity

Hermes Trismegistus appears when Greek and Egyptian cultures rub shoulders under Hellenistic and Roman rule. Greeks identified their messenger god Hermes with Thoth, the Egyptian deity of writing and wisdom, and treated “Hermes Trismegistus” as a legendary sage.

Texts linked to this figure are now grouped as the Hermetica. The main block, the Corpus Hermeticum, is a set of Greek treatises probably written between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, not in the time of the pyramids as early admirers hoped.

Those treatises were later edited in Byzantium, then translated into Latin in 1463 by the Florentine humanist Marsilio Ficino, at the request of Cosimo de’ Medici. Ficino even paused his work on Plato to handle Hermes first, and the translation was printed in 1471, helping to spark a Renaissance craze for “ancient wisdom”.

From my point of view, this timing matters. Hermeticism is not a relic straight out of Old Kingdom temples, but a late antique conversation about God, matter and the soul that later magicians adopted and romanticised. If you enjoy looking at lineages of ideas, our article on who the most famous occultists are shows how Hermetic themes carried forward through people like Agrippa and Paracelsus.

What Hermetic Texts Actually Talk About

The Corpus Hermeticum does not read like a spell book. It reads like intense spiritual tutoring. A divine teacher (often called Poimandres or simply Mind) instructs Hermes or other students about how the universe is structured and how a person can wake up to their true nature.

Key themes keep repeating:

• One ultimate God, described as pure intellect or mind, radiates and organises everything.
• The cosmos is alive and ordered, populated by spiritual beings and governed by reason.
• Human beings are split: we have mortal bodies tied to fate, yet share in divine mind and freedom.
• Salvation is framed as gnosis, direct knowing of God, leading to inner rebirth and a shift in identity.

The texts also stress ethics. Greed, cruelty and ignorance drag the soul downward; self-control, reverence and insight move it upward. It feels closer to a mystical philosophy classroom than to a grimoire. Personally, I think that surprises a lot of readers who expect lightning bolts and flashy rituals.

If you want a broader frame around how this fits into occult thought in general, it pairs well with the themes in What Are the Primary Principles of Occult Teachings?

The “Seven Hermetic Principles” And The Kybalion

Most internet posts about Hermeticism quote the “Seven Hermetic Principles”:

• Mentalism
• Correspondence
• Vibration
• Polarity
• Rhythm
• Cause and Effect
• Gender

These do not come from the ancient treatises. They come from a 1908 book called The Kybalion, first published under the name “Three Initiates” and now widely believed to have been written by New Thought author William Walker Atkinson.

The Kybalion borrows Hermetic language but mixes it with New Thought ideas about mind power and mental laws. It turns loose themes from older Hermetica into a tidy seven-part system, emphasising that the universe is fundamentally mental and that understanding these “laws” lets you work with reality more skilfully.

My honest take: The Kybalion is clever, readable and influential, but it is a modern construction. It is handy for beginners who like tidy frameworks, as long as you remember that you are reading Atkinson’s interpretation rather than a direct transmission from Roman Egypt.

Illustration du Diable au XIXe siècle, page 337

“As Above, So Below”: Why That Line Matters For Magic

The phrase “as above, so below” is the most famous Hermetic slogan. It is a modern paraphrase of a line in the Emerald Tablet, a short text attributed to Hermes that was adopted by medieval and early modern alchemists.

The line links different levels of existence. The basic idea is that higher and lower levels mirror or grow from each other. Two big consequences follow:

• The macrocosm (the universe as a whole) and the microcosm (the human being) reflect each other.
• Events in the heavens, the invisible worlds and the human psyche can be treated as variations of the same pattern.

Occultists read this as a licence for magic. If patterns repeat across levels, then:

• Talismans, colours and symbols can stand in for cosmic forces.
• A ritual circle can be mapped to spiritual “worlds” or spheres.
• Inner visualisation and altered states are expected to ripple out into physical life.

If you like the symbol side of this, it fits neatly with the way symbols are used in ritual work, as explored in How Do Occultists Use Symbolism in Their Rituals?

Historically, Hermetic authors mainly used this parallel structure as a way to talk about understanding and salvation. Later magicians used the same structure as a technical rule for how to build and time rituals.

Hermeticism And Alchemy

Hermetic material and alchemical texts became deeply entwined. Medieval and early modern alchemists often credited Hermes or “Hermes the Egyptian” as an authority, and the Emerald Tablet gained a reputation as a foundational text for the art of alchemy.

Alchemy itself sits on a sliding scale:

• At one end you have practical experiments with metals, pigments and medicines.
• At the other, you have symbolic readings that treat the furnace, the vessel and the stages of colour as signs of inner work on the soul.

Hermetic ideas fit comfortably in both. The notion of a living cosmos, suffused with mind, suits the belief that metals “grow” underground and can be accelerated in the lab. The idea of transforming the base into the noble mirrors the spiritual ambition to refine the self.

You can see the overlap in discussions of transformation and ritual in How Do Occult Rituals Work? and What Are Some Common Occult Rituals and Spells? where alchemy and inner change are regular themes. In my view, that blend of imagery and practice is exactly why alchemical art still shows up in tarot, lodge work and modern occult aesthetics.

Renaissance Magic And The Hermetic Comeback

Ficino’s Latin translation of the Corpus Hermeticum landed in Florence at exactly the right time. Humanists were hunting for ancient wisdom to sit alongside Christianity. Hermes Trismegistus was treated as a venerable authority whose teachings lined up neatly with Christian-Platonic theology, an idea later called prisca theologia, “ancient theology”.

For magicians of the Renaissance, Hermetic texts helped frame magic as part of divine philosophy rather than simple superstition. The logic went roughly like this:

• God structured the cosmos with meaningful links between planets, metals, plants and spirits.
• By understanding those correspondences, a wise person can create images, talismans and rituals that harmonise with that structure instead of fighting it.
• Magic then looks like applied Hermetic cosmology.

This mood fed into later Rosicrucian writing and contributed to the symbolic language of some strands of Freemasonry, where alchemy and Hermetic wisdom are treated as markers of hidden insight and moral refinement. It also sets the scene for groups covered in our article Are There Secret Societies Associated with the Occult?

Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/different-artifacts-on-the-black-table-7189440/

Hermeticism And Modern Occult Systems

By the late 19th century, Hermetic themes were stitched into several new occult projects.

The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn is a good example. Its teachings blend Kabbalah, astrology, tarot and more, but the underlying assumptions are very Hermetic: a graded universe of planes, a strong focus on correspondences, and the idea that the magician can climb through symbolic states toward a higher spiritual realisation. You meet the Golden Dawn again in Who was Aleister Crowley? and Are There Secret Societies Associated with the Occult?

Aleister Crowley inherited and reworked many of these ideas in Thelema. His emphasis on a “True Will” and contact with a higher aspect of the self sits comfortably next to Hermetic language about the divine intellect within humanity. Even when he sounds rebellious, the structure is still very Hermetic.

Modern witchcraft and Wicca are based more on seasonal rites and goddess-centred practice, yet they often use ritual formats that resemble Hermetic ceremonial magic: casting a circle, calling quarters linked to elements, using planetary and elemental colours, and treating the ritual space as a map of the cosmos. If elemental structure interests you, What Is the Role of the Elements in Wicca? shows how similar thinking shapes Wiccan circles.

Outside formal orders, The Kybalion and related New Thought material pushed Hermetic-flavoured ideas about mind, energy and vibration into popular occult culture, especially in English-speaking countries. That sits very close to explanations of what magick is and how intent is supposed to affect reality.

In practice, a lot of people doing tarot, sigil work or meditation today are quietly using Hermetic assumptions without realising where they came from.

Is Hermeticism Religion, Philosophy Or Magic?

Scholars often describe ancient Hermeticism as a philosophical religion. It talks like a mystery cult about salvation and rebirth, but argues like a philosophical school. The treatises describe initiatory experiences and praise, yet there is no sign of a central Hermetic priesthood or big public temple cult.

Modern practitioners handle the label in different ways:

• Some approach it mainly as a contemplative path: reading the texts, meditating on their ideas, and trying to live more in line with divine mind.
• Some occult orders call themselves Hermetic and build detailed ritual schemes around those doctrines.
• Others keep Hermeticism as background theory while focusing day to day on tarot, astrology, planetary magic or witchcraft.

If you called yourself a Hermeticist today, your practice might include regular study of the treatises, a simple daily meditation, occasional ritual work structured by correspondences, and steady reflection on whether your behaviour fits the ethical picture in the texts. It is less about dramatic theatrics and more about long-term mental and moral re-training.

For a wider comparison with religion and spirituality, How Does Occultism Differ from Other Religions? and What Is the Relationship Between the Occult and Spirituality? round out the bigger picture.

How Hermeticism Connects To The Occult Now

In modern usage, “occult” usually points to hidden or specialised systems of symbolism, ritual and inner experience. Hermeticism feeds straight into that.

From Hermetic texts and their later readers, occultists borrow at least four central ideas:

• The microcosm reflects the macrocosm, so studying the self teaches you about the universe and vice versa.
• Reality has levels or planes, from dense physical matter up through subtle energies to pure intellect.
• Symbols, planets, deities, colours and herbs belong to networks of correspondence that can be used in magic and divination.
• Knowledge and inner transformation matter more than flashy displays.

You can see this in very ordinary occult habits:

• A tarot reader uses elemental and planetary attributions for the suits and trumps, many of which come through Hermetic-style systems. These ideas sit neatly alongside our overview of what types of divination are used in the occult.
• An astrologer-magician chooses a planetary day and hour for a ritual because they accept a Hermetic-flavoured idea of celestial influence, a good companion to How is Astrology Connected to the Occult?.
• A ceremonial magician visualises moving through spheres or paths that symbolise stages of inner ascent.

My opinion is that Hermeticism supplies a framework that explains “why” for a lot of occult techniques. You can ignore that framework and still do magic, but knowing it often makes your practice feel more coherent.

Getting Started With Hermeticism

If you are curious about Hermeticism beyond memes, you do not need a degree in classics.

A straightforward route might look like this:

• Start with a short, modern introduction to Hermeticism that explains the historical setting, main texts and big themes in clear language.
• Move on to a readable translation of selected treatises from the Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius. Take them a section at a time and note any recurring phrases or images.
• After that, read The Kybalion and compare what it calls “Hermetic” with what you actually saw in the older material.

Keeping a notebook helps keep you honest. Choose one idea at a time, for example the link between mind and cosmos or the idea of rebirth, and test it in simple meditation or ritual experiments. Does it match your experience, or does it just sound clever on paper?

One thing to keep in mind: Hermeticism overlaps heavily with Platonism, Gnosticism, astrology, alchemy and later Kabbalah. You will bump into those connections very quickly. I would treat that as a feature, not a problem. It shows how ideas travelled and mutated over time.

Why Hermeticism Still Matters For Occult Practitioners

So, to answer the title directly: Hermeticism is a late antique tradition of spiritual philosophy and devotion around the figure of Hermes Trismegistus, and it relates to the occult because its view of God, the cosmos and the human soul became the backbone for much Western magical theory and practice.

For a modern practitioner, Hermeticism offers two main benefits. It gives a big-picture model that explains why techniques like ritual, talismans and divination might work at all. It also offers a demanding standard for personal growth: magic is supposed to go hand in hand with sharper thinking, better ethics and a deeper sense of connection to something higher.

If you already read tarot, cast charts or work spells, spending time with the actual Hermetic texts can be eye-opening. You start to see how many of your habits rest on old conversations between Greek philosophy and Egyptian religion, and you get to decide which parts still deserve a place in your practice.

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