the Hermetic Tradition

The Hermetic Tradition, also referred to simply as Hermetism, is a magical tradition founded on the writings of Hermes Trismegistus. It is sometimes referred to as True Hermetism, to differentiate it from the Vulgar Hermetism, known as Hermeticism, that spread through the Gray Age among non-practitioners.

Hermetic Principles

the Magnum Opus

The Hermetic school of thought is centered on the path towards individual elightenment known as the Magnum Opus, the Great Work.
The goal of the Magnum Opus is for individuals to reach Chrysopoeia (Ancient Greek: χρυσοποιία), the "trasmutation into gold", the state of enlightemnet reached when a Magus entirely attunes with his Rubedo without losing his humanity. Thus the Magus can help others to reach the same enlightenment, furthering the will of the anima mundi.

the Rubedo

Understanding the Rubedo can be confusing, as the word is used interchangeably to refer to four different concepts. Depending on context, the term Rubedo can mean:

• The final step in the Magnum Opus, when the practitioner reaches enlightenment;
• The unique magical signature of an individual. The Rubedo determines a practitioner's propensity for a type of magic or another and also determines any magical abilities;
• A mage's "higher self", the source of his mana and magical power;
• A state of being where the higher self overcomes the mage's physical body, making it temporarily an avatar of his own magic. It can signify that the mage is in the final stages of the Magnum Opus if done correctly and under will, but can occur by accident to disastrous consequences.

The comprehension of one's own Rubedo is a meaningful part o Hermetic philosophy, and adepts strive towards it from the first moments of their practice. The road to this understanding is considered unique for each individual and Hermetism accepts most manners of self searching - meditation, induced trance states, &c. - but since the practice of magic itself taps into the Rubedo, thorough study of spellcraft is often considered the most important.

Dysiosis

The Rubedo is made of raw magic and does not comply to human behavior. Although it is part of the mage, it is also a part of the anima mundi, and behaves as a higher consciousness in tune with its own magical signature. Attempting spells beyond the practitioner's abilities can lead this higher consciense to take over, leading to several dangerous consequences. This event is known as Dysiosis.

Anima Mundi

The anima mundi, latin for "soul of the world", is the fountainhead of creation. It is everything and is in everything, and everything is by its will.
It is the source of the prima materia, of which mana is an emmanation of, and therefore of all magic and all reality. The Rubedo is indelibly connected to the anima mundi, making the practitioner a bridge between it and its sensible reality, and it's through that bond that hermetists strive to reach the hermetist transcendence of chrysopoeia.
Although the Corpus Hermeticum refers to the "will" of the anima mundi often, Hermetism does not see the anima mundi as an intelligent entity, but rather as a divine structure to which everything belongs. Its will is not a conscience, but a superconscience that transcends sentient understanding or any human concept of good and evil.

Hermetic Spellcrafting

The Hermetist teaching of magic is centered around what is called The Five Pillars, each representing a different area of arcane knowledge and craft.

• Arcana is the study of the many natural manifestations of magic. Special attention is given to the study of Mana, its behaviour and effects both without, in the natural world, and within the practitioner's body;
• Sigilistics is the study of sigils and their creation. Sigilistics is the consequence of the study of Arcana meeting the desire to effect change in the outside world. Sigils are designs meant to influence the behaviour of mana, such as runes, menhirs, stone circles, ritual architecture and others. The quintessential sigil is the magic circle;
• Ritual is the language of the anima mundi and therefore the language of magic, and the language through which magic is performed in the Hermetic Tradition. It stems from the will of the anima mundi is language made reality, and that spellcrafting is a language in itself. Rituals are practices that lead to concentration and attunement with one's Rubedo in order to perform magic. The use of sigils, chants, ingredients, and practices are all are part of the performance of ritual;
• Conjuring is the finality of the practice of magic and all of its disciplines. Recognizing one's own centrality in the practice of the magical arts reveals the truth of Hermeticism, as the mage becomes a bridge between his potency and the world. It is the emmanation and control of mana in order to manipulate reality;
• Enchanting is the most complex of all the five pillars, as it deals with the fundamental workings of the universe. To enchant is to bestow lasting magical change to the subject of the spell, and therefore to alter its fundamental nature.

History

Origins

Hermetism is the arcane tradition with the largest body of collected knowledge and historical recod in the western world due to the many adpets that continued to build upon its established foundations and record their personal journeys into the art of magic. Nonetheless, it remains hard to precisely determine where and when hermetic thought became the Hermetic Tradition due to the massive loss of arcane knowledge that occurred during the Gray Age.
Historians believe that the Hermetic Tradition as it is started in Ptolemaic Egypt when hermetic thought reached the metropolis of Alexandria. Being the cultural capital of the Mediterranean under the Pax Romana, the exchange of knowledge between students of the arcane created fertile ground for the development of arcane practices and thought.
While religious persecution wasn't at all absent from the Roman Empire - notably of Druids, Jews and Christians -, with the christianization of the state and the rise of Emperor Constantine I in 306 CE, the persecution of "pagans" started a long rise, forcing practitioners into exile and secrecy. This is considered the start of the descent into the Gray Age. From that moment onwards, Hermetism became decentralized, giving rise to several different branches, most of which were silenced, like many other traditions, by the events of the Gray Age.
The modern Hermetic Tradition is as much an effort of living practitioners to further the development of arcane knowledge as it is a long effort to reconstruct information salvaged from that period.

Vulgar Hermetism

The version of Hermetism that reaches non-practitioners today is historically filtered by judaeo-christian beliefs. Emerging during the Gray Age, Vulgar Hermetism - preferred by practitioners to the origintal term, Hermeticism, for clarity -, incorporated theistic views, describing Hermes as a priest and placing christian beliefs in the center of the prisca theologia - the "first religion", given to men by the christian God. The Corpus Hermeticum, after altered and properly reinterpreted to views that did not offend the powers that be, were raised to the status of sacred texts, with a large body of pseudoepigrapha being added to sanitize any contradictions that arose from the skewed interpretations. This brand of Hermetism, being considered acceptable, managed to escape persecution and develop among non-practitioners with little interference.
Although Vulgar Hermetism is viewed by hermetists as a travesty, it ultimately created the conditions necessary for two major events that led to the New Dawn. At first, the propagation of its ideas allowed practitioners to come out of exile and, instead, live in common society under the guise of esoteric christians to avoid persecution. This allowed mages to, through no small use of subterfuge, slowly meet their equals, and also identify emergent mages and guide them through the Arcana. Later, the spread of Vulgar Hermetism contributed to the Age of Enlightenment, as secular ideas spread from the Hermetic roots into culture and science at large.

Views on Other Schools and Practices

Due to its dominant status in the western world, hermetic views on arcane practice and schools of thought have great impact in how magical society operates. It is also greatly influenced by - and influencer of - the precepts established in the Cairo Concordat.
While it is sympathetic to most magical practice due to its individualistic view of progress, hermetists do take issue with exchange of power between magi and magical beings of any sort. This creates some discomfort between hermetists and followers of the Solomonic Tradition and other forms of eidolurgy, ranging from incomprerension to open animosity between more radical practitioners. While the hostility is often not an issue, the suspicion is shared by other schools of thought as well as independent magi, since establishing relations with magical creatures necessarily means that the arcane and the mundane worlds are brought closer, and this means risking breaches of the Veil - which eidolurgists swear to uphold just the same.
Adepts of Hermetism also have difficulty with understanding the Atlantean Tradition, not only due to its tragic history but also because of its collectivist view of arcane practice.

Summary

Origin: Graeco-Egyptian, Syncretic;
Characteristics: Individualistic, Monistic, Apotheotic;
Main Principles:

• the Magnum Opus;
• Anima Mundi;
• Ascension through the study of one's magic.

Due to historico-political circumstances, Hermetism is the dominant school of thought among western practitioners.