ERMETISMO, FILOSOFICO. – A restricted spiritual current of the late Hellenistic period (3rd century A.D.) that takes its name from the Greek Hermes, insofar as he was assimilated to the Egyptian Thoth, god of wisdom and inventor of writing, astrology, and science.
According to the philosophical-religious outlook of the time, it accepts the division of the cosmos into three sections: the upper, the abode of light (and of divinity); the lower, inhabited by human beings, the seat of corruption and of the evil inherent in matter; and the intermediate, populated by spirits (demons) and souls. The elements of its speculation are not original but are drawn from Chaldean astrology, the physics of Aristotle, the psychology of Pythagoras and Plato, and the astrology systematized according to the new scientific vision of the world by the speculation of Hellenistic Egypt.
According to philosophical Hermetism, the initial pure and divine light comes into conflict with darkness; but, thanks to a voice that rises from the sphere of light, the matter of the world assumes an arrangement based on the four elements, of which air and fire are placed above, and water and earth below. In descending from its original abode of light to dwell on earth, the soul must pass through the seven planetary spheres, taking on the inclinations and passions proper to the character of each planet. After death, on returning to its original abode, it again passes through the seven planets, laying down in each the evil contracted during the first passage, and can thus present itself, liberated, to the eighth sphere, where the divine light resides.
Liberation in philosophical Hermetism is not procured by initiation into the mysteries of a savior god (philosophical Hermetism has neither worship nor mysteries), but by knowledge (gnosis), obtained through revelation and contained in the Hermetic books. Philosophical Hermetism, because it did not achieve wide diffusion, remained the preserve of restricted conventicles.