Introducing a new
series:
The Hermeticist Next
Door
Part I
“Christian” Magic
“The Spirit clearly says that in later times
some will abandon the faith and
follow deceiving spirits and
things
taught by demons.”
(1 Timothy 4:1, NIV)
Dan Brown’s popular novel The Da Vinci Code has created a storm of controversy. Many seem to
believe it’s completely true, some dismiss it, and yet others find it difficult
to separate fact from fiction. Discernment can be difficult, not only with Dan Brown’s tangled work but
with history in general.
What I have to say may seem more like a novel than history,
but recorded writings and historical descriptions exist that confirm what I am
about to say. It is a historical tale of deception in the Church that is not
only stranger than fiction but is actually true.
Proceed at your own risk because facing disguised demonic
teachings that pass for Christian—both past and present—can be disturbing,
shocking, and nearly unbelievable.
Origen is the Origin
Origen
is the origin of this story, which begins around 200 A.D. Some call this famous
Greek Church Father a great mystical Christian theologian; others call him a
heretic.
Origen was a man of extremes and imbalances, whose father
was martyred in a great persecution. As a youth, Origen fervently wanted to
join his father in martyrdom, but his mother hid his clothes so he couldn’t
throw himself into the clutches of the persecutors. He was extremely brilliant—probably
the most educated man of the time—and he wrote many books on the Holy
Scriptures and philosophy. But, in his fervency to put Matthew 19:12 literally
into practice, he also castrated himself.
Origen ranged far beyond Christian orthodoxy[i],
and, as a matter of fact, he was partially educated under a pagan philosopher—a
man named Ammonius Saccus (named Saccus
because he moved sacks as a laborer). Saccus is considered the Father of Neoplatonism
in Alexandria, Egypt, one of the great metropolises of the ancient world that
became a center of Christianity. A fellow student of Origen was a pagan named
Plotinus, known for propagating Neoplatonism.
Given this
background, Origen came up with some rather strange ideas. These included the
pre-existence of the soul; the eventual reunification of all creation into a god-figure
that was not the Christian Trinity; and that the devil and the fallen angels
and animals would all be saved, i.e., incorporated back into the “One.” For this
last idea especially, he was condemned as a heretic after he died.
What is Neoplatonism?
Neoplatonism
was a new version of the teaching
of the Greek philosopher Plato. It was a mixture of Egyptian religion,
Platonism, and Greek and other non-Christian and Eastern philosophies. It also
included magical practices, with an emphasis on demons. It is truly a doctrine
of demons that has endured throughout the centuries and has exerted
considerable influence within the Christian Church.
Augustine was a
Neoplatonist before his conversion under the influence of the Christian
Neoplatonist Ambrose of Milan. After becoming a Christian he became somewhat critical
of Neoplatonism, especially about following demons, and the fact that the
system didn’t have any place for Christ. However, he continued to hold some
Neoplatonist attitudes, though not necessarily consciously. For example, he
continued to view marriage as a lower state than celibacy (asceticism).
Neoplatonism was a
little different than Gnosticism, mainly in that the Gnostics tended to view
the world as evil, whereas the Neoplatonists tended to view it as just very low
on the totem pole. But both the Gnostics and the Neoplatonists viewed achieving
salvation as going up a spiritual “ladder,” attaining more and more knowledge
and holiness until they finally returned to the godhead they supposedly came
from. It definitely wasn’t salvation through faith by grace as taught in the
Scriptures (see Ephesians 2).
What most people
think of as Gnosticism in the early Church is what is called “negative”
Gnosticism, but Neoplatonism could be described as a “positive” Gnosticism. Positive
gnosis is very much like that view held by Neoplatonists and, in modern times,
by people like C. S. Lewis and Charles Williams.[ii]
The kinds of
teachings that Origen favored have persisted all throughout church history, and
they are still influential today. They all fit under the general category of
Hermeticism.
Hermeticism, Dan Brown, and Harry Potter
To date, I have
written extensively about Romanticism (see
previous posts). Due to my continuing research, however, I have come to view
Romanticism as the more general movement (or tradition) of an ancient tradition known as Hermeticism.
We can view Neoplatonism
as the philosophical arm of Hermeticism, but Hermeticism also includes
the practice of magic and alchemy.
Hermeticism was
essentially just an umbrella for a wide variety of occult teachings and practices.[iii]
It is basically Egyptian mythology and theology, which gathered pagan teachings
from many different cultures under the name of a mystical figure: Hermes Trismegistus
(“thrice graced”). Hermes was considered a great prophet, a great priest, and a
great king. (Sound familiar?—like
Christ?)
The Egyptian name
for Hermes Trismegistus was Thoth (the Egyptian god of wisdom and
magic). The Romans called him Mercury, and the Greeks called him Hermes, which
gives us the word hermetic, i.e., hidden or sealed.
As we will see, as Hermeticism
developed, some of its practitioners were considered Christians. They attempted
to integrate it with true Christianity—and even to replace true Christianity
with it. A long history of these teachings exists woven into the development of
the Christian Church, especially among Roman Catholic and Orthodox monks.
A highly honored manual
of Neoplatonism written by someone called ‘Pseudo-Dionysus’[iv]
appeared in the 5th or early 6th century. Pseudo-Dionysus
“acquired
almost apostolic authority” among Christians (see here).[v] (The Pseudo—meaning “false”—comes from
the fact that the man who wrote it was not the real Dionysus, who was an
associate of St. Paul.)
The book brought
this type of teaching into monastic thinking where it continues today,
especially within Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox Church. Accepting these
teachings as Christian is a harmful fraud; they are actually disguised
paganism. One of the evil results of these teachings is the diminishing of the
importance of family and the very creation itself, that God made man male and
female and created marriage. Asceticism distorts the Word of the Lord and is
anti-family. (The Book of Colossians warns about this false mysticism and
asceticism.)
This influence has continued up until today
and is rapidly growing in the Christian Church. Amazingly, many contemporary Protestants
continue this view. It partakes of the double view of paganism that the body is
both something to be worshipped, through sex, and something to be rejected. Later blog posts and articles will go
into this influence and discuss some of its practitioners in the Church in
detail.
Fast-forward now to
the Renaissance in the 1400s and to a very influential family in Florence
called the Medicis.
Lorenzo de Medici
(called “Lorenzo the Magnificent”) was a major Renaissance leader who had two
talents: making money and sponsoring art and literature on the model of ancient
Greece. Under his influence, a scholar named Facino translated some manuscripts
from Greek into Latin (read in Italy at the time by the educated classes). These teachings, a set of books called
The Corpus Hermeticum, became well
known by scholars in the Renaissance and influenced many of the Church leaders.
During this period,
an idea developed about gathering all religions together as one, in a way very
similar to what is happening today through the World Council of Churches and
other syncretistic[vi] movements. These
hermetic teachings were the unifying factor.
Amazingly, at the
same time, the teachings of the mystical Jewish books called The Cabbala were enthusiastically
incorporated into this scheme. They taught many things similar to Hermeticism,
and their promoters even called them “The Christian Cabbala.” This tradition
still exists today. (Cabbala is spelled many different ways.) The main
difference between Hermeticism and the Cabbala was the Cabbala’s emphasis upon divination
through the Hebrew words and letters of the Old Testament. The currently
popular book, The Harbinger, is
another version of Cabbalism.
A lot of these
writings incorporated mythological stories and themes, as well as secret
writings, mystical imagery, and symbols. While Hermeticism was becoming
popular, it was still treated as a mystery religion, suitable only for the
initiated—the wealthy and educated.
Hermeticism in the heart of the Protestant Reformation
One aspect of this strange
history that is very difficult for me to cope with is that this strong Hermetic
influence was not confined to Roman Catholicism. In fact, there was an explosion
of interest in Hermeticism among Protestants. And, the center of this
“Christian” Hermeticism ended up actually being in Germany shortly after the Reformation.
After the upsurge of so-called “Christian” Hermeticism in Germany, similar
upsurges occurred in Great Britain and other European countries.
Following are a few examples.
Sebastian Franck was a former Roman Catholic priest who became a Reform preacher in the
1500s. He was also a major supporter of Hermeticism. The following quote exposes
his real teaching:
“Franck derived his image of Hermes, as he acknowledges, largely from
Ficino, though he clearly assigns a distinctly earlier date to Hermes: he was a
contemporary of Abraham and thus clearly antedated Moses. Franck’s
interpretation of Hermeticism was far more radical, however, in that he
considered the Hermetic writings to be a pagan replacement for Christianity and
for Judeo-Christian revelation. The Pimander
contained ‘all that is necessary for a Christian to know.’”[vii]
[The Pimander was a name for The Corpus Hermeticum mentioned
earlier.]
This is just an
example of how highly regarded Hermeticism was, even in the heart of the Protestant
Reformation. The young Luther tended to look favorably upon some of these
Hermetic and mystical writings, but later in his life he called Hermeticism
fanaticism.
Another example.
Hermeticism in the Service of Promoting Tolerance
Christian apologetics had used Hermeticism to demonstrate that the
Christian religion was consistent with the philosophy and theology of the
ancient world. By the sixteenth century, however, circumstances had changed,
and Christianity had become the cultural matrix, but, even then, Hermeticism
served to indicate the compatibility of various cultures and religions. Indeed,
once again Hermeticism served Christian apologetics.” (Same article, Kindle
location: 1763, my bolding]
[Note: This same practice occurs
in the 20th century in the apologetic works of C. S. Lewis and his
fellow “Inkling,” Charles Williams.]
Jacob Bohme. Bohme
was a strange man—a sixteenth century shoemaker who started having visions. He represents
a turning point of the influence of Hermetic philosophy because he tried to
make it an acceptable aspect of Lutheranism.
“Bohme is a turning point in the history of Hermetic philosophy.
Hermeticism and Christianity had always been strange bedfellows, and as we have
seen, much of Hermetic thought—such as its conception of the divine or semi-divine
status of man—is heretical by Christian standards. [Giordano] Bruno [a
Dominican priest] even went so far as to advocate the abandonment of
Christianity and the return to a Hermetic, ‘Egyptian’ religion. Bohme, in
effect, acted to prevent the self-destruction of Hermetic philosophy in the
face of its clear conflict with the dominant, orthodox faith. David walsh
writes that ‘For the new occult philosophy to work, the old Christian
philosophy must be redirected. The individual with the theoretical genius to
effect their reconciliation and, thereby, become the transmitter of the new
symbolism to the modern world was Jakob Bohme.’”[viii]
Bohme used Christian
terminology but changed the real meanings. For instance, he used the word
trinity, but definitely not in a Biblical sense. His influence extended even to
England where he was quite popular. The English mystic William Law promoted his
writings, which even influenced John and Charles Wesley for a while.
Fortunately, they later turned away from Law’s influence.
Contemporary Examples of Hermeticism
Some obvious examples
of contemporary Hermeticism in English literature can be seen in Dan Brown’s
books, especially The Da Vinci Code
and Angels and Demons, as well as the
immense popularity of imaginative, magical literature. This genre includes
Tolkien’s The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, as well as his
lesser-known Silmarillion, along with
the fiction of C. S. Lewis. More recently, there is the popularity of the Harry Potter series and Phillip
Pullman’s trilogy, His Dark Materials, which
includes The Golden Compass.
In summary, the
above facts give but a taste of the pervasive, corrupting influence of Hermetic
thought and practice upon the Christian Church historically. Unfortunately, this
influence has never died away, and today it is expanding with great speed
within the Church. In coming posts, we will see that it is alive and spreading unconsciously
through the teachings of many well-known Christian leaders.
ENDNOTES
[i] I’ve
encountered confusion about the term orthodoxy. One pastor I knew actually said
orthodoxy means when a pastor wears a suit,
but in reality it’s the solid core of biblical theology, included in the main
Christian creeds and in the teachings of the Apostles: the Virgin birth, the
Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, and the Second Coming; and
including justification by faith in Christ alone through grace alone.
[ii] This
concept of positive and negative gnosis is described in Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition by Frances Yates.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991, 22.
[iii] Also known
as the Western Esoteric Tradition. It basically views humanity as on a
spiritual path to return to unity with the Divine.
[iv] Although Wikipedia
states that the works of Pseudo-Dionysus
were “mystical and show strong Neo-Platonist influence,” it still calls him a
“Christian theologian and philosopher.” You can see the confusion I mentioned
above.
[v] “Since
Pseudo-Dionysius represented himself as St. Dionysius the Areopagite, an
Athenian member of the judicial council, the Areopagus, who was converted
instantly by St. Paul, his work, strictly speaking, might be regarded as a
successful ‘forgery’, providing him with impeccable Christian credentials that
conveniently antedated Plotinus by over two hundred years. So successful was
this stratagem that Dionysius acquired almost apostolic authority, giving his
writings enormous influence in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance…” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.
[vi] Syncretism
is the uniting of religious ideas that conflict with one another.
[vii] The Secret History of Hermes Trismegistus:
Hermeticism from Ancient to Modern Times by Florian Ebeling. Cornell
University Press, November 11, 2011. Kindle Edition. Location: 1735.
[viii] Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition by
Glenn Alexander Magee. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2001. The quote at
the end of the quote comes from footnote 60: David Walsh, “A Mythology of
Reason,” 151.
