LECTURE: “Hermes the Thrice Great” by Elizabeth Clare Prophet – August 17, 1981
LECTURE: “Hermes the Thrice Great”
by Elizabeth Clare Prophet – August 17, 1981
LECTURE CONTENT AND CHAPTERS
0:00:17 Invocation
00:03:47 Excelsior and audience sing song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1x
00:04:48 Messenger reads “Hermes Trismegistus” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, pg 356- 357
00:09:02 Excelsior and audience sing song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X
00:10:08 Messenger reads from Masonic Hermetic, Chapter XXXVII, “The Life and Writings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus”
00:14:53 Excelsior and audience sing Song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X
00:15:59 Messenger reads from The Divine Pymander, pages i vi of Introduction
00:25:43 Messenger reads from Masonic Hermetic, Chapter XXXVII, “The Life and Writings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus”
00:29:02 The Emerald Tablet of Hermes – Messenger reads from The Divine Pymander, pages viii-x of Introduction by Hargrave Jennings
00:33:37 Messenger reads from Masonic Hermetic, Chapter XXXVII, “The Life and Writings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus”
00:34:11 Messenger’s teaching on old drawing of Hermes
00:34:44 Messenger’s reading from Masonic Hermetic, Chapter XXXVII, continues
00:35:19 Messenger’s teaching on the adversary, the anti self, the dweller on the threshold
00:37:40 Teaching on the Egyptian figure wearing the ancient Masonic apron
00:41:16 Slaying of that dragon by transmutation – The Path of becoming the Christ
00:47:53 The Emerald Tablet, and Hermes as he walked the earth thousands of years
00:56:26 The Spirit/Matter universe
01:01:31 Regeneration via the threefold
01:04:15 Messenger and audience sing Song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X
01:05:18 Meditation on the cosmic clock, a Hermetic teaching
01:06:23 Messenger leads preamble to decree 30.15, singing song 455, “Djwal Kul, Come!” 1X
01:14:38 Audience sings Song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X
01:15:38 Messenger reads from The Divine Pymander, The Seventh Book, pages 41-50
01:35:23 Audience sings Song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X
01:36:22 Messenger continues reading from The Divine Pymander, THE SECRET SONG. The Holy Speech.
01:44:00 Audience sings Song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X
01:44:59 Messenger invites audience to prepare for Dictation
LECTURE TRANSCRIPT
INVOCATION:
In the name of the I AM THAT I AM, I call forth the kindling light of Sanat Kumara. I call unto the infinite light of freedom. I call for the mighty action of the sacred fire from the heart of the Lord God Almighty. Elohim, come forth. Archangels, come forth. Chohans of the rays and the Maha Chohan. I call for the infinite light of God‑freedom. Blaze forth within these hearts. O violet‑flame action of the sacred fire, expand. Clear the way for the emerald light, the emerald matrix, the emerald tablet of the heart of Hermes, and the emerald ray from out the Elohim of God. I call for the clearing of these temples for the light of purity by the crystal and the Ruby Ray. I call for the clearing of the four lower bodies. I call for the healing light. Healing light of the Word out from Brahman, come forth. In the name of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, I call forth the infinite light of the Eternal One. Blaze forth the light, O infinite Word. I AM the clearing of these chakras. In the name of the I AM THAT I AM, I AM the clearing of the way and the raising of the solar light. I call unto the great sun disc. O disc of light from heaven’s height, descend now in all your perfection. Make our auras bright with freedom’s light and the masters’ love and protection. I call for the great sun disc of Helios and Vesta, of Aton. Let the mighty I AM Presence as the Sun of all being radiate forth now the wisdom and love of the all‑seeing eye of God. I call for the clearing. I AM the binding of all fear. I AM the binding of all doubt. I AM the release of love that swallows up all anti‑love and reveals the image of the Lord Christ as the true man of the heart and of the soul and of the mind. O Word of God, come forth. In the name of the I AM THAT I AM, in the name of the entire spirit of the Great White Brotherhood, beloved El Morya, beloved Lanello, beloved Saint Germain, beloved Jesus Christ, in the name of the Cosmic Virgin, Alpha and Omega, Raphael and Mother Mary, Cyclopea and Virginia, beloved Hilarion, we invoke the expansion of the mind of God by the heart of Helios and Vesta from out the great Causal Body of Hermes. In the name of the I AM THAT I AM. Amen.
[Excelsior and audience sing song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X.]
“Hermes Trismegistus” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.
[Messenger reads from The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, pages 356‑57.]
Text from “Hermes Trismegistus” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
[Excelsior and audience sing song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X.]
[Messenger reads from Masonic Hermetic, Chapter XXXVII, “The Life and Writings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus”:]
Excelsior and audience sing Song 542, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X.] I shall read to you from The Divine Pymander of Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, translated from the Arabic by Dr. Everard, published in 1650. I shall read from the Introduction by Hargrave Jennings written in 1884.
[Messenger reads from The Divine Pymander, pages i‑vi of Introduction.]
VIEW PDF with Introduction
[Messenger reads from Masonic Hermetic, Chapter XXXVII, “The Life and Writings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus”:]
The Emerald Tablet of Hermes.
[Messenger reads from The Divine Pymander, pages viii‑x of Introduction by Hargrave Jennings.]
VIEW PDF with Introduction by Hargrave Jennings
[Messenger reads from Masonic Hermetic, Chapter XXXVII, “The Life and Writings of Thoth Hermes Trismegistus”:]
In an old drawing of Hermes, we see him standing upon the back of the serpent Typhon. He is the personification of universal wisdom, and therefore he vanquishes the dragon of ignorance and perversion; ignorance being the ignoring of the law, perversion being the perversion of the law.
[Messenger’s reading from Masonic Hermetic, Chapter XXXVII, continues.]
This adversary, the anti‑self, is the dragon Typhon. The great Ascended Master Hermes emerges from mythology as a key member of the Great White Brotherhood assisting initiates on the path. This portrait of him is the archetype of the initiation of the neophyte, who must proceed in an orderly manner to begin to slay portions of the dragon, that is, portions, elements of the lower nature with which he can lawfully deal. Ultimately, the last initiation is to slay the dweller on the threshold, the entire conglomerate of that fallen consciousness which has devoured the spiritual light. Thus, the soul must rise, ascend to God with prudence, descend back to earth with the sacred fire and the light that he has garnered through the disciplined path, enter into interaction with his own reality, and reach the moment of self‑mastery whereby he can slay the entire identity or the id of the not self. [Interruption.] We see in one hand that Hermes carries the Caduceus, a winged rod with two fighting serpents entwined about it. The signification of the fighting serpents denotes the ultimate tension of the rising of the energies of the sacred fire along the spiral of being from the base of the spine to the crown to the third eye. Thus, in one hand the Caduceus, in the other, the immortal Emerald, upon whose surface was inscribed in raised letters the sum of philosophy. Each one the symbol of God‑mastery in the fifth ray of science, wholeness, and truth.
We see in the symbol of the dog the symbol of the Dog Star, which we call the God Star, which is Sirius, our home. Thus, we have the clue that the Ascended Master Hermes came from the God Star Sirius, passed through the planet Mercury, whence he became known as the God of Mercury, came to earth, and delivered to the descendents of Sirius, the seed of Sanat Kumara, all of the learning and the knowledge which I have chronicled for you, in order to give to the people of light, the natives of the God Star, that sword of the spirit and the sword of matter in the hand whereby they could defeat the anti‑wisdom, the anti‑knowledge, or the anti‑Hermes of the Nephilim gods, the fallen ones who came to planet Earth in their spaceships from the planet Marduk.
Upon the forehead of Hermes appears the uraeus. It is the sacred asp or serpent denoting the rising of the sacred fire. It is the secret symbol of the constellation of Scorpio. The hierarchy of Scorpio are the initiators of the evolving light‑bearers in the all‑seeing eye of God in the raising of the kundalini fire. This symbol represents the regeneration of the same power that in the form of a dragon lies helpless under his foot. The dragon, then, becomes the conglomerate of energy misqualified. When it is slayed, when the form is broken, then the energy is released and may be drawn up again as the sacred fire of the Mother, as the ascension flame out of the great ascension temple of Egypt. Thus, until we break the mold of the not‑self, the anti‑self, the anti‑God, or the anti‑Hermes, we have a vast portion of God’s light bequeathed to us vested in the anti‑self. The masters teach that we go about the slaying of that dragon by the process of transmutation, by the twelve lines of the Cosmic Clock, by dealing with portions of misqualified energy, until we have extracted the light of God‑power, the light of God‑love, the light of God‑wisdom, and so forth, as it has been embedded in portions and pockets of that dragon form. Ultimately, then, the dragon is weakened and the chela on the path is strengthened for having the restoration of his light. Thus, there comes a moment, first of equilibrium and then of the superiority of the Keeper of the Flame, when he no longer fears the entire conglomerate or the dragon of his human creation. He no longer fears his karma. He no longer fears the planetary dragon of the anti‑self that is tied to the personal not‑self. And therefore, in the courage of truth, living truth, and all that he has learned on the path, in the oneness of his soul with the entire spirit of the Great White Brotherhood, he stands in Christ as the challenger of the Antichrist. Translating this from the microcosm to the Macrocosm, he then becomes the challenger of the planetary conspiracy of every consciousness of Antichrist, the conglomerate of that dragon which gives power to the beast of the collective human consciousness of the race. This becomes the Nephilim conspiracy all taken into one, the planetary dragon, that gives power to the beast, which is the carnal mind of mechanization man, and therefore, the dragon sustaining the not‑self of the entire planetary momentum of the mass consciousness. This we take up as the great challenge of community. For this cause, Jesus Christ came into the world to bear witness to the truth of the liar and his lie, leaving the unmistakable record that the liar will always slay the Christ. That record is the crucifixion itself that none should forget when the Christ is raised up, the crucifiers appear. We realize, then, that the universal Church as the community of the called‑out ones‑‑which is the meaning of Ecclesia, the Greek word‑‑that community of called‑out ones is actually the representation on earth of those who are walking as initiates of the fifth ray under Pallas Athena, the great Mother of truth, under Mother Mary, Archangel Raphael, Cyclopea and Virginia, Meta, Hilarion, and many, many healing masters, masters of science, masters of wholeness. We walk this path perfecting it under the hierarchy of Scorpio and its opposite, the hierarchy of Taurus, which represents those who have attained to Buddhahood, to Christhood, and are now the builders. The builders are those who form community, engage in a sacred labor, and work that mighty work of the ages in the building of a physical, tangible focus of the Great White Brotherhood so that incoming souls of the next dispensation of the new age, the avatars, the archetypes of the new root races, will have a physical forcefield otherwise known as the cradle, the cradle of a new civilization that they might enter into it, be received there where there is the mystery school, where there is education from the earliest moments of birth, where there is bequeathed to them by these Keepers of the Flame, these chelas of the fifth ray, all that they, then, have accumulated as the worth, the mysteries, the teaching, and the truth of all previous dispensations. Hermes figures as the great archetype of the messenger of the Gods, and so do we as we take up this mantle of his Emerald Tablet and his emerald matrix. It is the divine alchemy of securing upon earth the focus of the God Star Sirius, the place prepared so that the new wave may incarnate, and through that new wave the golden age appears. All who were a part of the Essene community, all who were a part of Crotona, Pythagoras’ school, and other mystery schools of the Brotherhood knew that the purpose of their coming together under the test of the ten was to make way for the next generation, the avant‑garde of the next age. Thus, the sign of Scorpio becomes the sign of the God Star Sirius,
Regeneration is the sign of Scorpio as it is the sign of the regeneration, the raising of the sacred fire. Through regeneration we attain to the vision of our individual emerald matrix. Concerning the Emerald Tablet, its statements clearly hide to all but the true alchemist their inner meaning. We who have touched the hem of the garment of God concerning the ancient mysteries of alchemy through the heart of Saint Germain may hear glimpses of the inner light that we have already gleaned. It takes a meditation upon the Emerald Tablet to understand it. It is a teaching that is transferred from the Ascended Master Hermes directly to the alchemist. The first steps of the alchemist are, of course, to take up the teachings of beloved Saint Germain in his first and second alchemy studies, especially diligent practice of the creation of the cloud. The practice of the creation of the cloud puts one into contact with nature, with spiritual elements of one’s higher consciousness, and with the blending of the two for the transmutation in the physical octave and the resolution into the divine harmony of any and every discordant condition upon which you may be meditating. As you know, the creation of the cloud and Saint Germain’s expounding upon his own book is contained in our album by that name. It will set you on your way to the inner understanding of the divine alchemy. There are, of course, teachings of the Great White Brotherhood that are not given except in the etheric retreats. There are teachings that are not spoken in the physical octave. There is learning that you will receive that will only be given to you in the secret chamber of your own heart. This is why Jesus spoke in parables. Meaning upon meaning, layer upon layer can be discerned by the spiritually minded out of these parables. And so it is with the Emerald Tablet. It contains the mystery of creation and the mystery of alchemy. It has long been regarded in the mystery schools as one of the oldest and most profound expositions of spiritual alchemy. It presents an alchemical formula which has been used by the adepts and alchemists for thousands of years to assimilate the most essential understanding of both physical transmutation and spiritual regeneration. It is amazing to hear these words regarding thirteen simple statements that appear to have said absolutely nothing [audience laughs], and yet they have said absolutely everything. And so it has been said that the most profound truth of the universe can be reduced to the most simple statement. The Emerald Tablet generally considered in the esoteric tradition that Hermes gave forth his divine instruction before the historical lineage of Egyptian kings had begun. According to Egyptologist Bunsen, there was a line of sixty‑one kings in Egypt before the time of Moses, which would mean the civilization was thriving for several thousand years before Moses. The historian Diogenes Laertius, however, traces the Egyptian priesthood back 48,863 years before Alexander the Great. And astronomical records also indicate Hermes first appeared tens of thousands of years before the flood in Atlantean times.
According to Manly Palmer Hall, the Rosicrucian initiate Dr. Sigismund Bacstrom describes the Emerald Tablet of Hermes as follows:
“The sense of this table may sufficiently convince us that the author was well acquainted with the secret operations of nature and with the secret work of the philosophers. He likewise well knew and believed in the true God. It has been believed for several ages that Kam, or Shem, one of the sons of Noah, is the author of this monument of antiquity. A very ancient author, I do not recollect his name, who lived several centuries before Christ, mentions this table and says that he had seen it in Egypt at the court, that it was a precious stone, an emerald, whereon these characters were represented in bas‑relief, not engraved. That it was in his time esteemed above 2,000 years old and that the matter of this emerald had once been in a fluid state like melted glass and had been cast in a mold, and that to this flux the artist had given the hardness of the natural and genuine emerald by art.”
I know from personal experience that the Emerald Tablet existed as a physical emerald tablet. I also know that Hermes walked the earth spanning tens of thousands of years, mystifying all, allowing some to conjecture that there were many Hermes, and that the latest one translated the uses of the earlier one. This is like the Wonderman of Europe, Saint Germain appearing and reappearing over several centuries in Europe. It is a dispensation of the ascended masters to do so. I do know that Hermes was on Atlantis, walked its streets, was in its temples and halls of learning, and gave forth his teaching as described in these summaries. We must realize that the ascended masters have long recognized the great peril of the fallen ones coming with their artifices, their black magic, their incantations, their misuse of science‑‑inverting spiritual science into a materialism, inverting the truth of God, the medicine of God, into a chemistry that is involved in a death spiral rather than a life spiral, inverting the very food we eat into darkness when it came forth out of light. We find that most of the disciplines that are given in our universities today represent the perversion of Hermes by the Nephilim rather than the original truth of the great scientist. We also know that these things are hidden from the wise. They’re hidden from the foolish and given to the wise. They’re hidden from the worldly wise and given to those who are prudent and humble. And so the rediscovery of the divine science of God as it applies to the Matter/Spirit universe is left to the initiates, to the chelas of the Almighty One, to the followers of the path of truth. It cannot be revealed until the heart, the mind, the chakras, the temple, and the being are saturated with light. God requires that you present to him a Spirit/Matter universe. Descending in the generations of earthy evolution, we have had bequeathed to us physical bodies, emotional/mental bodies. We have the cup or the bowl. But for many thousands of years we have not been taught how to pour into the bowl the sacred fire. When the sacred fire is poured into the bowl, then we find Spirit and Matter occupying the same place, and this is what is called the Spirit/Matter universe. Spirit and Matter in their original form were never divorced. The divorcement occurred through the misuse of the light of the Matter sphere and the spiritual energies of God by the fallen ones. So they have bequeathed to us their education, their religion, their philosophy, their science, which is for their own mechanization man devoid of the Spirit. The teachings which most of us receive in these fields today are without the spiritual fire and they are designed to teach mechanization man how to survive on planet Earth without a God flame, without giving obeisance to the eternal light, without giving devotion to the threefold flame or the mighty I AM Presence. After all, if you’re going to raise up a Cain civilization and have an alternative to the City Foursquare, to the cities of the Sun, to the etheric octave, you’re going to have to go about it with great precision to see to it that those involved in it can endure. So we have a materialistic science, a materialistic medicine, and so on and so forth. Now we come to those who realize that earth and the physical plane is not the ultimate destination, who realize that though we are called to build, we must build in the etheric octave and we must build mansions and cities of the Spirit that endure. And we are in a state of transition whereby the only reason that we are in the physical octave is to experiment as alchemists with this building‑‑the building of the temple of self, the building of community, the building of all things that are about us necessary to life, the building of the inner man, the weaving of the Deathless Solar Body. All that we go about is so that we may duplicate here below that which is, is above. And this is one of the great statements of Hermes in the Emerald Tablet. That which is above is that which is below, that which is below is that which is above, meaning that all that we do here is intended to be the likeness and the reflection of the inner etheric blueprint. When we attain to the ability to build that likeness, then things equal to the same thing being equal to each other, we ascend into an etheric plane. So the goal of perfection, the desire of our spirit for perfection, is to attain the goal of the etheric matrix. Etheric matrix, emerald matrix, are one and the same. So we are building at this level, all a part of the Path of initiation so that we may perfect our consciousness, our use of energy, our understanding of the elements that the alchemists call fire, air, water, and earth, and now whose combinations have been listed in the table of elements that we study in chemistry. So when we realize that the goal of life here is to perfect the talent, the ability, so that it can become the perfect vessel for the etheric blueprint, we find that perfect vessels in the physical then, endowed with a flame by our own threefold flame, become a magnet to draw down the etheric energy. We understand that the etheric energy as a sacred fire must endow the Matter universe with a flame, else that which is Matter or physical will disintegrate, decay, and go into dissolution, because the light that is locked in it has a momentum of upward movement and it has the God desire to return to the Great Central Sun. So unless we can give it the sacred fire, endow it with a flame, and therefore give it the object of its desiring, which is the spiritual sun of our hearts, that matter resists being put into a form or imprisoned in physical forms, physical manifestations, because no part of God desires to remain in form unless that form is balanced Spirit/Matter, Alpha/Omega. God has given to his sons and daughters a threefold flame, a spark of life. It is the great mystery of the Word incarnate, how the sacred fire of spirit can occupy Matter, how the two can interrelate and yet they are the divine polarity. You, then, are the potential of a Spirit/Matter cosmos. At this moment, that which is necessary for you to transcend yourself physically is to draw down and intensify the spiritual light, expanding the threefold flame. When the threefold flame expands, it rotates, it accelerates, and you experience regeneration. Regeneration means you move from the generations of physical evolutions to the generation of the seed of God, who is Christ the Lord. And then you find that you have the power to transmit not only to your offspring, but to the creation of your hands that sacred fire. Thus, when we have families and bring forth children, it is important that the seed and the egg are charged with the sacred fire of the resurrection, and thereby we may transmit the individual Christ consciousness of our own attainment to our offspring. And our Christ consciousness, coming together as the light of Alpha and Omega to form the new soul, the new vehicle for the soul, becomes the magnet whereby the Christ consciousness, the high Christ consciousness of the incoming soul, is attracted to that form. So in order to even have and give birth to spiritually‑evolved beings whom we would call avatars, those who are the Manchild, the ones who have the Holy Spirit in their mothers’ wombs, we ourselves must be able to bring to these components of creation the sacred fire. Thus, in the mystery schools and among the Essenes there was preparation for generations, whereby parents passed on to their children the sacred fire, and then finally in the lineage there would come one who was the avatar, John the Baptist, Jesus Christ being the ultimate fulfillment of the purposes of Israel, the purpose of the birth of the Christ culminating from the first atom to the last atom. I would like to read to you directly from the Divine Pymander of Hermes translated out of the Arabic and published in 1650. I would like to read to you the teachings on regeneration as I have opened that concept to you. I would like to give you the opportunity of having the maximum strength of mind and heart and body to listen to this, and so I will give you a brief break so that you may return for this reading. Won’t you stand as we sing, “Praise the Lord…” [Messenger and audience sing song 340, “Praise the Lord…,” 1X.] Won’t you go and return. Even if you are not going to get a drink or whatever, it would be good to go outside and breathe the fresh prana. We’ll have the sanctuary emptied. [Pause for break. Audience sing song 178, “Venus, Our Lady of Love,” 1X.] We’re going to meditate on the cosmic clock, the twelve hierarchies of the sun, the twelve virtues of God. This is a Hermetic teaching. Now when you hear that phrase you will understand that that which is Hermetic is that which originated with Hermes, called the God Hermes, who is the Ascended Master Hermes. Now the Hermetic teaching on the cosmic clock was delivered to us by Mother Mary and other ascended masters. Djwal Kul has given Hermetic teaching on that clock in Intermediate Studies of the Human Aura. He’s given to us a decree which was put to song which we will sing as we meditate. Number 295. We’re going to give the preamble first. You will hear in the subsequent readings just how Hermetic this teaching is. The preamble, together.
[Messenger leads audience in giving preamble to decree 30.15 and in singing song 295, “Djwal Kul, Come!” 1X. Interruption.]
The Seventh Book of Hermes Trismegistus. “His Secret Sermon in the Mount of Regeneration, and the Profession of Silence.”
VIEW THE SEVENTH BOOK OF HERMES
[Audience sings song 542, “Praise the Lord…” 1X.]
[Messenger reads from The Divine Pymander, The Seventh Book, pages 41‑50.]
[Audience sings song 542, “Praise the Lord…”]
We will prepare for our dictation….
Additional text from The Divine Pymander – Translation by John Everard
This lecture, “Hermes the Thrice Great” by Elizabeth Clare Prophet is part of the Emerald Matrix Series and was given on August 17, 1981 at Camelot in Malibu, California.
The ascended master Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus is also known as the God Mercury.
Who is Hermes Trismegistus?
Hermes was known in ancient times as the great sage to whom is attributed sacred writings and alchemical and astrological works. Because of his learning and profound skill in the arts and sciences, the Egyptians gave him the name Trismegistus, which means “thrice-great.” The title “thrice-great” also applies to his role as philosopher, priest and king.
The ascended master Hermes Trismegistus is also known as the God Mercury. Hermes walked the earth for tens of thousands of years. He was on Atlantis, walked its streets, was in its temples and halls of learning and gave forth his teaching. He figures as the great archetype of the messenger of the gods.
James Campbell Brown writes in his History of Chemistry:
A series of early Egyptian books is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, who may have been a real savant, or may be a personification of a long succession of writers…. He is identified by some with the Greek god Hermes [equated with the Roman god Mercury] and the Egyptian Thoth…. The Egyptians regarded him as the god of wisdom, letters, and the recording of time.
The historical record
Until the seventeenth century, Hermes was thought to have been a contemporary of Moses. His writings were considered by Christians to be almost as sacred as the Bible. Church Father Justin Martyr even went so far as to compare him to Jesus. The Greek Church Father Clement of Alexandria spoke of forty-two “Books of Thoth” dealing with priestly education, temple ritual, geography, astrology, guidance for kings, hymns to the gods and medicine. Regrettably, these were lost in the burning of the library at Alexandria.
Scholars today tell us Hermes was an ancient Egyptian sage, or perhaps a succession of sages. They believe that a whole line of teachers or a priesthood may have written under the name Hermes. The prevailing theory is that the Hermetic writings may span several centuries, dating as late as the first or second century A.D.
According to an ancient Egyptian historian, Hermes wrote 36,525 books. His subjects included alchemy, astrology and theology. He was looked to as the custodian of wisdom and literature. In order to enlighten the people, Hermes had his instructions engraved in hieroglyphics upon tables or columns of stone throughout Egypt.
Some have placed Hermes in the time period before the Flood. Archaeologist James Churchward traces Thoth back to the days of Atlantis. The Egyptians honored Thoth as the god of wisdom, learning and literature. They saw him as the inventor of all arts and sciences, including writing, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, theology, political economy, medicine, surgery, music and musical instruments. He was believed to be the scribe of the gods.
Scholar Hargrave Jennings writes:
Another Thoth, or Hermes, is said to have lived at a later period. He was equally celebrated with the former, and to him is particularly appropriated, by some, the name of Trismegistus. According to Manetho [an Egyptian priest and historian c. 300 B.C.], he [this second Thoth] translated from engraved tables of stone, which had been buried in the earth, the sacred characters of the first Hermes. He wrote the explanation of them in books, which were deposited in the Egyptian temples.
The emerald tablet
Hermes Trismegistus has been referred to as the father of alchemy. According to one legend, a slab of emerald found in his tomb had inscribed upon it Hermes’ precepts for making gold. This emerald tablet contained the familiar Hermetic axiom: “What is below is like that which is above. And what is above is like that which is below.”
One ancient author who claimed to have seen the stone said that it was an emerald on which the characters were represented in bas-relief, not engraved. The material had once been in a fluid state like melted glass and had been cast in a mold, and it had been given the hardness of a genuine emerald by alchemical means.
The emerald tablet has long been regarded in the mystery schools as one of the oldest and most profound expositions of spiritual alchemy. It presents an alchemical formula that has been used by the adepts and alchemists for thousands of years to assimilate the most essential understanding of both physical transmutation and spiritual regeneration. However, its statements clearly hide to all but the true alchemist their inner meaning.
The ascended master Hermes has taught of the emerald tablet of the heart:
I, Hermes, messenger of the Gods and also the one called Mercury, have tarried, lo, these tens of thousands of years and beyond that there might be a torch of remembrance, an inscribing of the Law upon the emerald tablet of thy heart.
For, lo, the emerald tablet in the secret chamber of thy heart is even now unveiled by thine own Holy Christ Self, the priest-philosopher-scientist who officiates at the altar of unalterable change. It is that change that must come, that must be because I AM and because thou art also the God-man.
He instructed us to
… neglect not the heart; and call the sacred fire to melt and transmute daily all hardness of heart, spiritual neglect and records of death surrounding the sun center of your own heart chakra. Let us be diligent to expand the heart, for out of it are the issues of life.
The Hermetic tradition
The Hermetic tradition teaches that it is through mystical experience that man attains liberation. Scholar Sidney Spencer writes:
The Hermetic mystic sees his unity with all beings. The purgation and illumination of the soul which he attains brings him the consciousness of universal fellowship, and it is his task to do good to all.
In the Mahatma Letters the Master K.H. praises Hermetic philosophy:
Hermetic Philosophy suits every creed and philosophy and clashes with none. It is the boundless ocean of Truth, the central point whither flows and wherein meet every river, whether its source be in the East, West, North, or South. As the course of the river depends upon the nature of its basin, so the channel for the communication of Knowledge must conform itself to surrounding circumstances. The Egyptian Hierophant, the Chaldean Mage, the Arhat, and the Rishi, were bound in days of yore on the same voyage of discovery and ultimately arrived at the same goal though by different tracks.
According to scholar Walter Scott, some of the Hermetic texts may have been written down by the pupils of Ammonius Saccas, a renowned third-century Alexandrian teacher and one of the founders of the Neoplatonic movement. He was a teacher of Origen. Helena Blavatsky considered that the most important goal of the Theosophical Society was to revive the work of Ammonius Saccas. Blavatsky wrote:
It was Ammonius who first taught that every religion was based on one and the same truth; which is the wisdom found in the Books of Thoth (Hermes Trismegistus), from which books Pythagoras and Plato had learned all their philosophy.
Dictation by Hermes Trismegistus (God Mercury), The Lineage of the Messengers of Mercury
Dictation by God Mercury through the Messenger Mark L. Prophet – August 30, 1970
Dictation by Hermes Mercurius Trismegistus, The Emerald Tablet of the Heart – August 17, 1981
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