eBook - PDF

Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination

Name: Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination
ISBN: 9781009302869

Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity

Wouter J. Hanegraaff,

English
PDF
Available on iOS & Android

eBook - PDF

Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination

Altered States of Knowledge in Late Antiquity

Wouter J. Hanegraaff,

About this book

In Egypt during the first centuries CE, men and women would meet discreetly in their homes, in temple sanctuaries, or insolitary places to learn a powerful practice of spiritual liberation. They thought of themselves as followers of Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary master of ancient wisdom. While many of their writings are lost, those that survived have been interpreted primarily as philosophical treatises about theological topics. Wouter J. Hanegraaff challenges this dominant narrative by demonstrating that Hermetic literature was concerned with experiential practices intended for healing the soul from mental delusion. The Way of Hermes involved radical alterations of consciousness in which practitioners claimed to perceive the true nature of reality behind the hallucinatory veil of appearances. Hanegraaff explores how practitioners went through a training regime that involved luminous visions, exorcism, spiritual rebirth, cosmic consciousness, and union with the divine beauty of universal goodness and truth to attain the salvational knowledge known as gnôsis.

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Yes, you can access Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination by Wouter J. Hanegraaff in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Theology & Religion & History of Religion. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.