Books: higher knowledge, hidden history, & spiritual Growth

        "Wise words, although written by my decaying hand remain imperishable through time; Imbued with the medicine of immortality by the ALL-Master. Be Unseen and undiscovered by all those who will come and go, Wandering the wastelands of life. Be hidden, until an older heaven births human beings who are worthy of your wisdom."- Last words of the Thrice-Great Hermes. 

    The science of hermeticism, its mythical philosophy, and seven hermetic principles are a unique manifestation of human spiritual consciousness in our striving to unravel the nature of God, the cosmos, and the human psyche. Also called natural law, yet Its origin is obscure and was debated by philosophers, theologians, and practicing hermetist until the 15th century. The Myth of its inception arises in the ancient land of Khem, Egypt's geographical name in antiquity as well as the root stem of the words for chemistry and alchemy, where the legendary Sage Hermes Mercurial Trismegistus purportedly founded and disseminated the divine philosophy of hermeticism to mankind. The name Trismegistus translates into "The Thrice Great One" for Hermes was believed to have been the third Incarnation of the Egyptian deity of Magic, Knowledge, and Wisdom known as Thoth.   

     The God Thoth was venerated in Egypt from at least 3000 BCE being credited with the creation of sacred hieroglyphic writing. Furthermore, he was said to have revealed to the Egyptians all knowledge on astronomy, architecture, geometry, medicine, and Religion as well as credited by the Greeks as being the architect of the Great pyramids. The philosophy was designated by Ancient/Medieval practitioners as Thoth's gift to mankind relying on the prestigious and sacred Sage's authority for its credibility as a source of Primordial Wisdom stretching far back into antiquity.

     The Philosophy of Hermes, along with notable philosophical works by Greek sages like Plato, was lost to the West after the fall of Rome in the early 5th century and with the advent of the Dark Ages was not rediscovered for over a thousand years until the era of the Enlightenment. The pagan hermetic adepts that could, fled to the Middle East in the wake of this onslaught by the Christian Emperor Theodosius II. Thus, in the Arabian East, the exemplary, priceless works and philosophy of Hermes, along with those of Plato, were never truly lost, with this ancient flame of knowledge being both preserved and protected by the few who comprehended its inherently pivotal importance to ascertaining a comprehensive understanding of our reality as well as our own nature.

  The works, collectively titled the Corpus Hermeticum, fostered a golden age in the burgeoning Arab soon to be Islamic states with several emerging hermetic schools of thought such as the Sabaeans and the Sufis. Here the many Pagan works were translated, the sciences that had attained such heights in Alexandria had appreciably evolved, and the ancient Pagan wisdom was surreptitiously studied and practiced. The Hermetica, or Corpus Hermeticum, became responsible for the secret inspiration of a salient subculture within Islamic Philosophy.

This Knowledge, finally reintroduced to Westerners during the 15th century, marks an inception point for the Renaissance Cultural Awakening that was to occur, and it was largely due to this reintroduction of higher forms of metaphysical science, natural law, and philosophical thought that the Enlightenment transpired at all. This rediscovery was due to the burgeoning intolerance of the Islamic Empires, which forced the holders and practitioners of the hermetic philosophical art to flee the East in search of a tolerant state eventually finding refuge in the tolerant city-state of Florence in Northern Italy.

     Once there, the pagan wisdom brought from the East trickled out and became firmly imprinted on the Florentine popular mind after the Byzantine scholar Gemistos Plethon made it available to the astonished populace reintroducing the entirety of Plato's lost works back into the Western Culturally Mind.

Subsequently, this led to a plethora of other Pagan works becoming translated into Latin for the first time.  The reemergence of these ideas initiated a momentous cultural flowering within this Italian city largely due to the influence of the magnanimous scholar and philanthropic ruler of Florence, Cosimo de'Medici. De'Medici established a New Platonic Academy to foster the collation of Pagan Wisdom, and the Academy was in essence an associative collective melting-pot of intellectuals, mystics, and philosophers who found inspiration in the Ancient Pagan Wisdom Philosophy. Additionally, the Wisdom tradition profoundly inspired great men like Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Botticelli, and Raphael who then began to paint grand frescoes of the old Pagan deities. 

    Cosimo de'Medici then dispersed his agents to ferret out additional lost Pagan works that were undoubtedly awaiting rediscovery. In the auspicious year of 1460 one of his agents by chance discovered the lost works of Hermes Trismegistus and brought them back to Florence. The people of Florence, already in complete awe after discovering that an ancient civilization of immeasurable sophistication had risen and fallen nigh 2000 years ago, were now under the impression that they held the texts of the oldest Sage of antiquity. 

Thus, Cosimo immediately commanded his favored Greek scholar Marsilio Ficino to halt his translations of Plato's works and begin expeditiously to unravel the translation of this mysterious Egyptian text, which was finished for Cosimo to read right before his passing. The unveiled knowledge lying inside these Hermetic texts would ignite the emergence of a magnificent new cultural awakening in Florence, leading to the disintegration of the Dark Ages and the Italian Renaissance promulgating throughout the European continent.