The Hermetica: The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs
by Peter Gandy and Timothy Freke
December 24, 2020 [12:00 AM — 1:30 AM]
Los Angeles, CA
Recommended by Michael Hana
I’ve been researching more about Ancient Egypt as our main initiative for 2025 approaches its launch, continuing to be amazed by my heritage. After reading this book, which I recommend, I feel like I’m entering 2021 with an enlightened mindset and an “immortal soul” as the book mentions. This version of the forgotten spiritual classic is the simplest and most accessible, making it an enjoyable and easier read. While I was reading it realized and underlined the significant similarities to Buddhist scriptures, Quran verses, Biblical text (especially Romans 1:29), and philosophical passages from the Classical period and the Renaissance. It’s amazing that all these sources have an indirect connection or are derived from Ancient Egyptian philosophy and how Alexandria played the role of a universal city hosting a global melting pot of intellectuals during ancient times.
Through Hermes’s translated words, it discusses the nature of pure philosophy, the mystical vision of the creation of the Cosmos, the attempt to describe God and see God by contemplating his creation, painting the Cosmos as a living being, exploring the nature of time and change, the powers through which God administers creation, the hierarchy of creation (which I drew a graph to summarize it, as pictured) which is the way God creates and maintains the Cosmos and all it contains, the making of mankind, the civilization of human beings and their cultural development, the nature of mankind and its relationship to God, the Zodiac’s impact on making everyone unique and how to shape your own destiny, how souls incarnate into physical bodies, death and immortality, ignorance of the soul, how to attain knowledge of God, and awakening our immortal soul through spiritual rebirth.
What’s particularly interesting is the descriptions of the immortal soul, the explanations of time and the present moment, the discussion on the evolution and ideology behind mankind’s culture and thoughts, and the relationships between destiny vs. necessity with divinity vs. mortality.