I find it incredibly frustrating that on one side there are those who want to deny ancient Egyptians their own culture, art, and architecture, and on the other there are those who want to deny the innovations of the societies that came later, claiming Egypt as the source of all knowledge. Ancient Egypt was amazing, and undoubtedly had influence, especially on the Greeks who ruled there, just as the Greeks would later influence the Romans. I am often confused by the desire of people to deny ancient civilizations their own accomplishments. That, to me, is what both sides of this dichotomy are doing. One side insists that Egypt's own accomplishments aren't really Egyptian, while the other claims that all accomplishments, including religions, and scientific discoveries belong to Egypt.
Well generally, you have racist, usually right-leaning, alternative historians who can't accept that people with dark skin did such amazing things on the one side of that divide. Then on the other side, "new age" spiritualist, usually left-leaning, who think that ancients knew way more than us. On both sides, their biases inform their ideas and neither can see that they're woefully ignorant.
Egypt was the only ancient civilization that was literate and had institutions to house them. Contrary to popular belief, there was no such thing as a Greek Philosopher. Because if it was, what alphabet did they use and what institutions did they have? The Greek alphabet is a misnomer. The greeks had no alphabet. The Egyptian apllied an alphabet to their language. The "Library of Alexandria" was in Egypt.. Aristotle, Plato, Herodotus are all made up names used to rename moorish works that was in Southern Europe after they fell. Furthermore, had there really been a Greek Science and Philosophy, then the whole of Europe would not have thought the world was flat. Biblical accounts and personages fall in this same categorey. That's because there are Pyramids in America, which the "WORD OF GOD" seem to have forgotten. And if the Bible history, people and place were real, they would not have to RENAME the entire "Middle East" (North Africa) to bible land after WW1 The Sphinx looks out toward the horizon. It was build as sort of a calendar. This celestrial calendar is 25,000 years in length. The question that Europeans (writers of fake history) never resolved is how long did it take the Egyptians to figure that out? They obviously had to keep written records. That's why a Greek Philosophy could never had existed. Even if it did, which it most certainly could not, school in those day were secret and not divulged to the general public. That's why it was called the Mystery System. The pyramids are dated to 6,000 years to stay within biblical timelines. Finally, there are more Pyramids in the Sudan, then there is Egypt. Therefore, it could not have been a greek philosphy and science. if they did, why didn't they build anything with it! We see that "Greek Architecture" is plainly egyptian.
@@GuyRBrewer109 incredibly sad summary. And inaccurate. Egyptian had an alphabet but adopted the Phoenician alphabet as Greece conquered them, thrusting it on them. The Greek then busied themselves absorbing what they could of Egyptian knowledge and putting it into a library in the Ptolemaic city they created, Alexandria, on the current Mediterranean coast where the Greek overlords had full control until the Romans came not near Memphis, Thebes or Aswan, the cities of Kemet. The knowledge of Egypt cannot be denied but the Greeks absorbed it along with Persian/Babylonian/Sumerian knowledge laying the basis for what is now considered Western thought and civilization. This style of absorption and stealing of ideas lead to European hegemony. Witness how Hindu-Arabic numbers supplanted a deeply ingrained (& flawed) Roman numeral system. Metallurgy, hydrology, astronomy, theology we’re likewise adopted from the east through the Greek translations
@@fsinjin60 Phoenecian is a GREEK WORD. Therefore, what was the real name of the people, being that they invented writing? The Greeks renamed a city that was already there. They did not build ANYTHING. Ptolemy was upset that the egyptians would not accept SERAPIS and confiscated their sacred wrtitngs and transfered them to "Alexandria" PERSIAN,BAYLONIAN and SUMERIAN all come from biblical literature created in the 15th century Renaissance era, 1453 in Ferra Italy. It was the old testament, composed largely of LOMBARD legend 1st written by Paul The Deacon and rewriiten by MOSES Maimonides in the 12th century. brought to Europe by the TEMPLARS. The MIDDLE EAST could not contain cities of the population described in the Bible anyway. Those babylonian Tablets are FAKE. Supposedly, found outside of a Mud Brick made temple! Mud Brick building don't last more than a few hundred years. Especially one in the middle of a desert. However, this "Temple" was around BEFORE the Pyramids? it's not enough arable land to sustain livestock or people and the Biblical City/State the bible decribes. How could that be in a desert? Egyptian farming was based off the yearly overflow of the Nile, which was like clockwork. The Euphrates or the Tigris are random and it's not enough rainfall. Again, these people were named using greek. What were the names they allegedly called themeselves? History does not say. Because Europeans control the education system and are racists, they use these lies to give themselves a civilized origin. However, the history of Europe is WAR and POLITICS. Even the "Greeks" were invaders to Greece. Vandals, Goths, Huns, Brits, Franks all were at war with each other. Where did they get the time to study anything?
I'm always sceptical when people claim censorship. The Hermetica never needed to be banned in the Middle Ages. What was the literacy rate back then? All books were secret except to monks and royalty.
And u don't need very high literacy rate to spread ideas with a book. Imagine a road and hub model, even if in a community there's one guy who can read, soon the idea of the book would have spread far enough and iterate people would also hear about it.
@@georgethompson1460 those first universities were actually just monks getting together to make a big monastery. secular universities as we know them wouldn't properly exist for a while
21st century and people still believe people were illiterate in the middle ages... might as well believe they didn't take showers and didn't brush their teeth.
It makes me laugh when I see a youtube headliner "secret knowledge, forbidden. " i always laugh inside thinking wow it's in a public area on youtube where anyone can see it. That is super secret. 😂
“Challenge the argument, not the person.” Great framework for comments and this video. I’m so glad you’re balancing misinformation and wishful thinking with facts, and doing it in a respectful manner. Definitely earned yourself a follow!
I actually disagree with this approach: the leader of modern flat Earth movement, Eric Dubay, apart from his 200 truths, wrote multiple articles on supporting the NSDAP, yes, Hitler's party... You can spend years trying to prove Earth's curvature or just flat-out dismiss FLERF bullshit as weirds led by a Holocaust denier.
Chuckle. I was reading the Hermetica as a kid, years before this guy says he came across it. It was in a small-town Ontario public library. I had heard references to it long before I came across it. You could order copies from ads in popular magazines. Mr. Gandy talks about it like he found it in some cobwebby vault under a castle in Transylvania.
I commented on another video recently. This channel needed to be on TH-cam 10 years ago, I can really learn about history without having to wade through TH-cam click bait geniuses. Here, I get to learn how archeology and ancient history tell the real truth about many over-hyped ancient history myths. Every discussion is expertly analyzed to present great arguments to support the conclusions presented in the video on multiples subjects. I guess if I watched too much Graham Hancock then I might have been devastated by all the facts I find on this channel. Thanks for all the research and details. The way you make your arguments to support your conclusion usually kicks ass. If I can say that..
If you want deeper analysis, one academia & independents alike fail utterly, is coming out of PLASMA SCIENCE & PLASMA DISCHARGES coming off PLANETS, on different orbits & closer to Earth... THOTH, is depicted exquisitely by the Egyptians, this "bird-headed" figure has prehistoric depictions, in the americas, PETROGLYPHS! Eden, Atlantis, and other mythological beasts, serpents, dragons & more can be found, not on Earth, but IN THE PREHISTORIC SKIES! th-cam.com/video/t7EAlTcZFwY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3WJnH0NMmrOUPi-h SYMBOLS OF AN ALIEN SKY, on YT by The Thunderbolts Project channel!
Philosophy/Psychology and a lot of scientific theories in all fields and also most of the art and movie and game industry are some form of imagination too. I can even say the whole world is imagination, from science we know what brain see is just some for of imagination, you see light interactions as color and object but you could see infinite number of different waves
Most modern people who actually use the Hermetic corpus & related texts for spirituality and magic tend to not go quite so hard with the pseudohistory of the texts in my experience.
Speaking as one such person myself, I feel that the age of the Hermetic texts or the ideas therein are details that might fascinate a nerd like me, but what makes them worth reading & reinterpreting down the centuries is the efficacy of some of the ideas in there to help people achieve their spiritual goals. I could go on and on but I’ll spare you. Thanks for the heart!
The world. The fantastic world. Certain authors: "This ancient group had all the wisdom, was widely influential, thoroughly oppressed, wrote the Republic, discovered the Higgs boson, and created civilization everywhere by means of trepanation."
All this is new to me. I even had to look up what hermetica meant. You have defo raised the bar with this one David....which is a good thing. It would be wrong for me to to comment any more until i have watched it a few times and researched it myself...only then will i have a valid opinion. Great stuff David, peace to ya.
Hereticism is fascinating! I mean real Hermetic philosophy of the early CE, not this New-Age, ancient aliens, Atlantis fraudulent Emerald Tablets crap. The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of essays written approximately between 100 and 300 CE, and a good place to start if you're at all interested in the subject. Don't waste your time on crap like the "Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean."" It was written in tjr 1980's and it's pseudo-spirtual conman drivel.
~42:28-43:00 I think you may be misinterpreting his argument, though not in a way that makes it stronger; I believe his point was not that the ideas of the Israelites from the time of Moses made it into the Hermetica, but that Moses, as a Jewish sage raised in Egyptian culture, brought the Egyptian ideas of the Hermetica into Judaism, hence explaining the similarities. I could be mistaken, but that was my understanding of his point based on how he stressed Moses being raised as an Egyptian, alongside his broader argument that Hermetic ideas were fundamentally Egyptian.
i appreciate the amount of research you did for this video. i've been researching and enjoying the colourful history of Hermes Trismegistus for a couple years,. it is indeed a minefield of fact & fiction, myth & legend, tall tales & subjective opinions. i'm happy to have found this video. i'll need to re-watch there is so much here. i really dig your channel, thank you for everything!
Pythagoras means Heart of the Serpent, he was born in Sidon, a fishing Port in Phoenicia. His mother recieved a message from the Oracle of Delphi that he would become a great Leader and Teacher. Sidon means Kingdom of the Fish, and the Essenes, who wrote the Dead Sea scrolls, worshipped Pythagoras. The Sarcophagus of Eschmun III found in Sidon names him as the Widow's Scion, aka Hiram Abiff, the Founder of Freemasonry, of which Tyre was the premier Capital (at least equal to Thebes). In 911BC Rameses II married the Queen of Sidon, home of Jezebel (Daughter or consort of Baal, basically "Queen") founding Neo Assyrian Babylon, an alliance between Egypt and Hiram, father of Jezebel and King of Assyria, and Egypt, forming the Phoenician colonies and building the first Temple of Melqart to commemorate the alliance. The Si in Sidon is the basis of the Latin Exe, or X, and is the basis of the Cross, or Chi Rho that Constantine painted on his shields. Also known as the Cross of Tyre, or Cross of Baal, being Ra-El, or Ba'El. Oddly enough irrational numbers can also be mapped using Euler's number, producing a Templar Cross in the process. This cross can also be seen around the neck of Nimrod in Assyria, and is consistent with the Union Jack, and Solstice Calendar found in the Vatican Shiva Lingam. Shiva is the Hebrew word for 7, their culture also found its way to Japan (via the Phillipines) ultimately becoming Shintoism. It was the Phoenicians who gave their name to the Pole Star, which they used to Navigate the Oceans using the Zodiac, thats what the Antikythera mechanism was for, and with it they wrote the Byblos Baal, what we now call the Bible. The first form of the Bible was written in 325BC and called the Vaticanus Greacus, or Son of the Sacred Serpent, a reference to Sirius, the basis of the Sothic Calendar, which uses a Hexidecimal or base 60 system found in all the Megalithic sites around the world. In the second century AD astronomer Valentinus Vettori transcribed it into a Lunar chart of 13 houses, what we now call the Zodiac. Horoscope means Star Watcher, and the Phoenician word for Saturn, or El, was Israel or El, (Fruit) of Isis and Ra. El is the primary God of the Phoenicians, representing the offspring of Egypt, and his consort Astarte represents the Assyrian half of the alliance. It may be possible to trace lineages and alliances through the naming of gods, which can be traced all the way to Ireland and the Vikings, and to Indonesia and the Americas, even as far away as New Zealand and Australia. It denotes Sirius as Son of Orion and Pleaides, which sits at 33 degrees of the Zodiac. The basis of the Sothic (dir Seth) Calendar of the Egyptians. The New Moon in this position marks Rosh Hashanah, the Egyptian, Celtic, Phoenician, and Assyrian New Year, the first New Moon of September, which is called September because it's the 7th House of the Zodiac, when the Sun is in Ophiuchus. The Phoenix, Benben, or Bennu is the Egyptian word for Heron, a Feathered 'Serpent'. It baptised itself in frankincense and myrrh at BaalBek, and then alights atop the Pyramid, upon the Holy Grail, or Alter of Ra every 630 years to take three days off the calendar during the course of the first New Moon of Nisan, which means "Prince". The Capstone of Pyramids is even called the Benben or Bennu. The Phoenix is found in all religions, which are all Astrological Allegory for the Moon travelling through the Constellations, as a soul migrating from body to body, this is the basis of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth, or the Hero's Journey. The various planets no doubt play their own roles as portents, omens, and aspects, this astrology is the science of the Bronze age, and lasted all the way up to the 20th Century. Resurrection was an early teaching of the Christian Church, and likely relates to the lineage of Kings (The King is Dead, long live the King.) Phoenicians represent the interim step between Egypt and Greece, their artisans and culture exceeding that of the Greeks, who literally adopted the Phoenician Alphabet, which we still use to this day, sounding out words phonetically. Phoenician is aliiterated in Venetian, and Vikings, being Kings of the Sea. The Bennu is the Egyptian Phoenix, to Phoenicians the Hoyle, no different to the traditions of the Etruscans, who saw birds as sacred, just as the Celts. Hebrew and Iber as in Iberia have the same root meaning over, as in overseas, as in those who travel "over the sea." A colony called Iberia also appears on the Eastern shores of the Black Sea, where the same Dolmens and Megalithic culture originating in Ireland and Brittany appeared circa 4500BC. _Phoenician_ means Scions of the Phoenix, the first Bible: Vaticanus Greacus Son of the Sacred Serpent (Prince). Then there's the Essenes, Sons of Light, the Tuatha De Danaan, Sons of Light, Annunaki, Sons of Light, Arthur Pendragon means Arthur Son of the dragon, Chertoff is Russian for "Son of the Devil" and Dracula also means Son of the Dragon, Masons have been known at times to call themselves the "Brotherhood of the Great White Serpent". The Ziggurat of Anu also denotes her as a great white Serpent, while New Grange and the Bru na Boinne in Ireland (4000BC) coated buildings with white quartz to denote the Moon. The Moon itself travels outside the Solar Elliptic by 5 degrees, which means it passes through specific constellations in a serpentine fashion that is always changing, but repeats every 19 years, the time it took to train a Druid or Magi, Magi meaning "Teacher" the Phoenix is also associated with this sacred number 19. The name "Pharoah" means "Great House" or "House of Light" and Cairo used to be called Babel. Pharaoh's themselves wore a hooded crown representing feathers, just as Native American Chiefs, ie the Feathered Serpent, they were also called the Commander in Chief. Aztecs also had Serpent Kings, (Canaan means Serpent Kings, and Sidon was a Son of Canaan, and Great Grandson of Noah) who were called to lead with cunning and guile, being the very virtue by which they claim the title in the first place; but to be seen in public as just and diplomatic. "As wise as Serpents, but gentle as Doves" the old Egyptian flag of an Eagle attacking a Snake is also reflected in the Modern Mexican flag, denoting the Constellations of Serpentis (13th sign of the Zodiac) and Aquila. The dimensions and 12 mathematical constants of the Great Pyramid are also expressed in New Grange, and Stonehenge, as well as in Watson Brake, (2500BC) and Teotihuacan, which correlates to the Phoenician/ Sumerian Hexidecimal system, which is what our modern systems of time are based on. Officially no one knows who invented astrology, the zodiac, navigation by the stars, and time keeping. But whoever built the pyramids, and pioneered the 24hr clock in Egypt 5000 years ago also knew the exact dimensions of the Earth, as well as the speed of light. These calculations can all be made using these Megalithic sites as surveyors use a theodolite. Specifically Teotihuacan, which sits 180 degrees opposite Cairo, and has the exact same footprint. The ideal positions to determine the speed of light using the transit of Venus, by which one can accurately determine Longitude for navigation. Capt cook did the same thing in 1774 when he 'discovered' Easter Island. The only culture that fits the bill was wiped out "not one stone upon the other" by the Romans in 146BC. Tyre, the capital of Phoenicia (israel) sat just offshore from Ur Shalom, City of the New Moon, or City of Peace. The root of the name Jerusalem, and was also seized by Rome in 70AD after a 13 year seige. The gap between is 216 years. Greek Dionysians built the Temple of Solomon (now called the Temple of Melqart) representing the Solar Lunar Metonic Calendar on which this system is based, they also carried mirrors, a practice associated with both the Magi and the Druids as well as Greek and Egyptian scholars, these Mirrors are Astrological charts called "Cycladian Frying Pans" and record the cycles of the planets. The first Temple of Melqart (the Phoenician form of Horus, or Hercules, or Pan, or Thor) representing the 13th Constellation of Ophiuchus or the Serpent Bearer (hence Orphic Serpent worship) had pillars of Emerald and Gold, representing Isis and Osiris. The Jerusalem Temple only took payment in "Shekels of Tyre" a currency minted during the Jewish rebellion against Rome. "Give that which is Ceasar's unto Ceasar" When Alexander sacked Tyre in 332BC they moved to Carthage meaning "New City" or New Jerusalem, where they built a second temple with Pillars of Bronze. Nebuchadnezzar also seiged Tyre for 13 years, taking the City captive in 573BC: the same time as the biblical account of the Jews. And again in 70AD after a three and a half year seige, also consistent with biblical accounts.
People are calling this a "debunking" video, but you are merely clarifying things. I like that. I've read the Hermetica some years ago, and it was interesting window to hellenistic ideas. In finnish edition the prologue all ready told many of the things you say here. This video works as a good prologue to the book.
Wonderful (as all the other videos from your channel). If i may add. "Dark ages" in a scholar presentation in the 21st century!! I thought we were past that categorization. As for "Renaissance" i would recommend the reading of Erwin Panofsky's "Renaissance and renascences in Western art" to discuss some of the fountains (one being the orthodox Dante) of that "movement". And last, a quote from Umerto Eco "I devoted myself to the Renaissance philosophers and I discovered that the men of secular modernity, once they had emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages, had found nothing better to do than devote themselves to cabala and magic."
The "dark ages" is a pretty good categorization of the 6th and 7th centuries. There are lots of gaps in history of many nations during those years. People confuse the dark ages with medieval period. The medieval perior came after the dark ages, and it was not all that dark.
A little late for the comment, but in regards to Eco's insightful quote, I was reminded of George Steiner, the literary commentator. In the 70's or 80's he did a series of four radio lectures called "Nostalgia for the Absolute" where he explored this idea. Since Nietzsche "killed" god in the 19th century, we devoted the entirety of the 20th killing ourselves in new and creative ways and filling the god-shaped hole in our soul/culture with psychoanalysis, aliens, political ideologies and the ideas of past and future utopias; all of them elevated to the fervor of fanatical religion (and fanaticism in such a large scale a we see at present being a relatively new phenomenon; past instances of fanaticism where relatively isolated, both in time a places).
@@juhonieminen4219 the post-wrm fall period was part of the Middle Ages which tend to be placed between 450ish and 1450ish. We have most of post-antiquity there
I appreciate you making this video. I have an amateur interest in how the ancients thought of the world and had tried to cut the "Hermes Trismagistus" Gordian knot but was never certain if I had gotten to real history or if there was still some legend intertwined. This video is likely to be a touchstone for me in the future.
Very enlightening video! Never cared to go too much to go deep into the hermetism, but this actually explains so much! The way I see it, esoterism and gnosticism pretty much naturally evolved into New Age beliefs and up to this day a lot of theories are based on hermetic-like sources and the "sacred knowledge" (Blavatsky, Cayce, etc.)
Also, one of the major and very important rulers of lands that are now my country and a Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II. was super-deep into mysticism/occultism/astrology/alchemy stuff so I always wanted to learn more about this part of history. I really hope your channel will blow up!
It worth reading Ronald Hutton, who is the foremost expert on Wicca / Paganism in the UK. His books dig deep into the origins of the esoteric, much of which he argues is a modern fabrication (but no less fascinating for that). I like his work because he is open-minded and treats Wicca as a religion that needs to be understood historically and anthropologically. He shows that Egyptian culture played a big role in the reinvention of witchcraft and paganism in the Romantic period.
Actually the Kabolica was one of the greatest books it dealt with the occult ...and astrology ....Hermes reportedly....lived 300 years however he said he would be back to remove his space ship from under the spinx to battle in a great war someday
As someone sympathetic to the Hermetica and who describes themselves as a Neoplatonist, even a superficial reading shows they are the product of Hellenism. That is not a bad thing.
as an ex occultist this is very helpful to hear. Also bear in mind, to anyone who learned any of this through that occult tradition, the idea of a "Book of Thoth" is further obfuscated by the writing of Aleister Crowley, who dubbed the Tarot to be the "Book of Thoth", and if I'm not mistaken, published a book by that name.
The problem was that she was a woman scholar a professor that didn't meet the elements some had about women's place and it's a pity if all the stories of Jesus were right women were not inferior to men !
I think that Gandy's version of the death of Hypatia is the most accurate. She complained to Cyril that her students were being forced to learn lies, she was a neoplatenist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician ( who incidentally wrote Euclid's geometry. having collected the few existing fragments and corrected his mistakes) at a time when Cyril's thugs were beating and killing farmers for planting crops, as it meant they didn't believe the second coming was at hand and who's slogan was "Nothing more needs to be known". She was at age 60 dragged from her home stripped naked and marched through the streets before having the flesh cut from her bones with broken tiles and glass and her bones burnt.
Overall, another great and informative video ~ thanks! I have to nitpick something as a priest & former English instructor: it's not entirely accurate, I would say, to characterize Thoth and Hermes as "fictitious characters," at least without any further comment/explanation. Fiction as a concept didn't really exist in antiquity ~ certainly not in the way that we understand it in the modern Western concept of imaginative literature that's intentionally created as such. It's fine if modern folks don't believe that ancient gods were real, but it's anachronistic and ethnocentric to imply that Hellenistic peoples "created" these "fictitious characters" in the way that modern novelists or screenwriters create fictitious characters. It makes more sense to talk of syncretism and the ... organic, for want of a better term? ... blending of ideas & beliefs as cultures come into contact with each other and intermingle to whatever extent. That Thoth and Hermes (and later Hermes Trismegistus) were in fact worshipped at least strongly suggests that to many of these ancient folks, these gods were quite real and not at all analogous to what we in the modern age understand to be fictitious.
Thank you! I have often wondered about this topic. I now have some ammuniton for when a friend starts babbling about the "ancient widsdom" in these texts. I have read them, some good things to model a life around. Thank you again. New subscriber who can't wait to keep delving into your library.
I'm a bit disappointed you didn't highlight the fact that the historicity of Moses -- and indeed whether Jews were at any time broadly enslaved in ancient Egypt as described in the Old Testament -- is widely disputed.
Hypatia for example did exist, but the accounts are all sorts of back and forth, where as Moses is only mentioned in the Jewish religious texts (aka the Torah, aka the Old Testament) and when that was written it was still seen as an old story, so noone even knows if Moses existed at all because there ain't anything about him or that incident at that time other than the Jewish stories.
I am curious why going against academia in nearly all sciences is so popular today... Their channels here on youtube WAY out perform academic channels in views and subscriptions by at least 100 times over. It's kinda nuts... Thanks for another informative video I knew nothing about. 👍
It plays to people's biases by giving a clear, complete narrative instead of the muddy confusion of real academic findings. We all want answers, the difference is our ability to be critical about the answers that present themselves.
It concerns me. I used to believe these fringe ideas, and I can tell you I did so because the alternative is so much more fun and interesting than the plain old human history. (Don't get me wrong. human history is fascinating but not compared to alternative history Not surprising since it's entirely made up so can be as fantastic as anyone's heart desires.)
@@andreaarchaeology Totally agree... I was hooked on Randall Carlson for awhile because he is such a great talker and makes the subject exciting... and it is a cool subject no doubt. But then when he started touching on things I kinda already knew a little something about, it was then started realizing how much he was misrepresenting the actual science work done, to outright denial or simple ignorance of it. I still visit his some of his channels (he has several) from time to time. I especially love when he pretends something he is doing or involved in was spurred on by him or is because of him. He can be very subtle about making you think some of these discoveries in some way involves him and his thinking.
@@swirvinbirds1971 Glad u mentioned him!!! The fact that he teams up with Graham Hancock makes me not trust him, but I don't know enough about geology to say why. I knew something was off with him. Used to love listening to him talk, even listened to some of his podcasts recently cuz part of me wants to believe but he had a bunch of fringe youtubers on as guests and I was suddenly so over it. I can't stretch my imagination far enough to convince myself that their theories make sense.
@@andreaarchaeology Watch Nick Zentner channel here on TH-cam. He is a Geology teacher at Central Washington University. He has many a great lecture on the Channeled Scablands and presents the data in an entertaining and easy to digest manner. You will eventually come to realize the many holes in Randall's Channeled Scablands claims. Here is a great video on The Younger Dryas that kinda pokes even more holes in Randall's Clovis and Megafauna claims. Like Mr. Milo in the video I too believe that an impact during the Younger Dryas is very possible. But the claim that it CAUSED the Younger Dryas, Killed the Megafauna, wiped out the Clovis people etc etc etc... That's a lot of claims that we still totally lack any evidence of and in fact have evidence against. th-cam.com/video/5B4INyco0ZU/w-d-xo.html
I love this! I wrote something on this topic quite recently out of extreme frustration that a cursory google search for hermes trismegistus still brings up nonsensical articles on this topic even on fairly reputable websites!
I don't know your background, so I can't comment on that, but at first I just imagined some random person searching this up, finding misinformation, and out of sheer rage, wrote an entire dissertation on about the pseudohistory (more like "pseudohistoriography"?) behind Hermes Trismegistus. That is a standard I wish to, yet don't think I can, live up too.
I honestly think that the hermetica and Hermes Trismegistus is the amalgamation of Greek and Egyptian culture and philsophy. An attempt at union between cultures. He is thrice greatest because he is the great gods and man combined in mind.
I look forward to watching your channel grow! 💙 These videos can be watched over & over, I continue to learn & have a few laughs (I appreciate your subdued & sly sense of humor when discussing unfounded & outlandish beliefs!!)
I have found in my own belief system that there are many extremely well regarded both ancient and current philosophical texts. These cover almost every genre you can think of. But, when I tried to read some of these myself I realised that they were so theoretically advanced and sophisticated that if I tried to adapt my belief system to them I would become hopelessly lost and in a land which I dont actually recognise which would affect my cognitive ability and psychological welfare to a point that I would not be able to function normally in order to live in a stable environment or have normal and stable relationships with my close knit family unit. While I cannot judge people who become obsessed with the contents and meanings of these auspicious pieces of literature, I myself try to stick to more sound and logical scripts. I like scripts where you can go back to the original and study it to make sure you understand the context and meaning of the words. Especially if I am going to use these words to guide me in character development and lifestyle. While some may build their belief systems and try to draw other people into the web of following gods like Thoth and Hermes I take a much safer route. It is good though that people do study these in order to verify their source and credentials. To have the resources and ability to study the original documents must be awe inspiring and exciting. This of course is provided you can do so with a level head and not wish to start your own cult. I have however read and enjoyed the works of the ancient Persian philosophers Sadi and Rumi. They are perfectly understandable and promote good character building in simple dialogue. No need for a masters degree in linguistics they are available in English .
I like this kind of thing, especially since I've just been reading about Nazi mysticism with pseudo-histories and religions invented out a mixture of elements and called authentic. I'd love a video about what modern neo-pagans say about ancient religions versus what is known about them.
Because there's a direct link between Scientology, Trump, and the techniques used by the right wing echosphere, who also tie to NXIVM (Elon promoted it) Epstein (Trump's bff for20+ years) and Saville, (who Brand idolised) and the Monarchy who (Shapiro and Piers Morgan defends). Tate dated Peterson's daughter and Elon went to the same Jesuit University as Trump, and Epstein hooked up Elon's brother, just like he did for Trump. Trump's lawyer Alan Dershowitz said he was introduced to Epstein by Lynn de Forrester Rosschild. Scientology is training these people in the tactics of brainwashing, basically what MK Ultra became, and probably run by the CIA, and Opus Dei, which is basically the same thing. Their principle strategy is Gaslighting. Gaslighting, aka Grooming. Accusation in a mirror (AiM), mirror politics, mirror propaganda, mirror image propaganda, is a hate-speech incitement technique where one falsely attributes to one's adversaries the intentions that one has for oneself and/or the actions that one is in the process of enacting. It was used in Rwanda, Guatemala, Brazil, and Burma, each having ties to Mossad. Trump, Barr, Bannon, Cippolone, Gore, Guiliani, Leo, Alito, Thomas, and Barrett are all Opus Dei. Trump trained alongside Epstein and Roger Stone under Roy Cohn, who used kids to blackmail politicians on behalf of Mossad. Cohn trained under Meyer Lansky, who trained under Hoover. Robert Mercer and Rupert Murdoch are both Knights of Malta. Saville, Bezos, Gates, Koch, Rogan, Walsh, Crowder, Kirk, Fuentes, Dore, Knowles, Kulinksi, Ball, Iverson, Icke, Woods, Watson, Cernovich, Abbott, Jones, Robinson, Woods, Pool, Rubin, Peterson, Posobeic, Duke, Molyneux, Yilanopouse, Gionet, Richardson, Tillerson, Greene, Manaforte, Flynn, Ducey, Acosta, Attwood, Stone, Pence, Desantis, Meadows, Trump, Eastman, Black, Kerik, Melania, Barr, Bannon, Hawley, Gingrich, Abrams, Comey, Cuomo, Kerry, Abrams, Gore, Spencer, Blassio, Pompeo, Bolton, McCarthy, Nugent, Cruz, Rubio, Gaetz, Santos, Tucker, Gutfield, O'Reilly, Beck, Scarborough, Devos, Kasich, Mercer, Murdoch, Rosschild, Ingram, Kelly, Lake, Conway, Coulter, Huckabee, McEnany, Hannity, Spicer, Christie, Prager, Maher, Colbert, Corbett, Hayes, Biden, Harris, Fauci, Pelosi, Menendez, Pirro, Manchin, Cooper, Maddow, AOC, Newsom, Uyger, Dawkins, Hitchens, Hancock, Sitchin, Ventura, Morgan, Cowell, Farage, Johnson, May, Merkel, Blair, Cameron, Brown, Blair, Mogg, Benjamin, Trudeau, Putin, Bolsanaro, Stalin, Lenin, Tito, Trotsky, Hitler. All Roman Catholic. Special mentions (adjucants): Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Miller, Watters, Greenwad, Blumenthal, Maté, Camp, Brand, Loomer, Shapiro, Thatcher, Bush, Obama, Merkel, Greer, Summers, Silverstein, Adelson. Greenblatt. Wexner. Also Hindu Nationalists Ramaswamy, Tulsi, Haley, Hirsi, DeSouza, Modi etc. Edward Snowden worked for Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim and was bought to us by Glen Greenwald, who now rubs shoulders with Jesuit Agent Provocateurs Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, whose mutual friend with Steven Crowder Brian Callen is the founder of Diligence, a spook Contractor to the CIA. Julian Assange helped Roger Stone and the Trump Campaign in 2016, being the first to suggest challenging the outcome if he lost, and asking to be made the Australian ambassador to the US. Margeret Sunbyrne, the head of the Sun Worship Cult he was raised in was also protected by the CIA in the Australian Supreme Court, on grounds of "National Security" Trump paints himself Orange to represent Apollo. Aleister Crowley inspired NXIvM and Manson, and was a master of mind control, his Protege L Ron Hubbard was the founder of Scientology, which uses the same mind control tactics displayed in right wing media. They were also instrumental in Trump's conception as the Moon Child, born on a Super Wolf Blood Moon on June 14 700 days before the founding of Israel, who he gave sovereignty over the Golan heights on its 70th anniversary, and was inaugurated aged 70 years 7 months and 7 days old. June 14 is the birthday of Osiris, Known as the Day of the Pharoah. Scientology uses the same tricks as Religion and Freemasonry, including isolation through strange acts (rituals/hazing) Gaslighting and intimadation, these can also be seen in right wing propaganda. Peterson's hero's journey comes from the transit of the moon through the zodiac, which is why they're called months. Blame the victim: The strategy is to make the aggressor's feelings the goalposts, everything is oriented around their needs and approval; a war of attrition using subjective language and logical fallacies such as incredulity, which amounts to disbelief, and acting as if this belief is something the victim is responsible for. "Look what you made me do" *In the context of child sexual abuse (CSA) the **_gaslighting_** is often used to convince the victim all the abusive behaviours are fine, normal and an expression of “love” (for eg Patriotism, Christianity, Service). It is used to ensure the victim doesn’t speak out about it and doesn’t fight back. It can also be used in concert with other **_grooming_** tactics like fear and isolation. Ultimately the aim is to legitimise a worldview that is detached from reality, and therefore arbitrary. Now they can call evil good and good evil* *>>Trivializing:* *The victim’s feelings are made to feel like they don’t matter, are **_unfounded_** or they are weak for thinking so.* (woke/ lib/ groomer/ unamerican etc) *>>Countering: This is quintessential gaslighting.* *They **_directly counter the memories and perceptions of the victim._* *>>Repetitive Questions: The abusive partner makes the victim doubt what they think or feel by asking the same question multiple times.* by doing so they preemptively assume the role of an authority by virtue of being rude. The shock value is the whole point, it's the politics of Terrorism. *>>Diverting: The abuser diverts the subject and puts the blame into outside circumstances.* *>>No true Scotsman, or appeal to purity* is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to *protect their generalized statement from a falsifying counterexample* by trying to _exclude the counterexample_ improperly. This is the Core of White Supremacist ideology. *"What Others Say" (Appeal to Populism)* The abuser tells the victim what other people "think" about the victim, the abuser and/or the situation on whole. Also known as an appeal to populism, the basis of Authoritarian Communism, and Cults, "if many believe it then it must be true" (whether people actually agree with the position and whether it is true or not). Bolshevism itself means "the Majority" and is no different to Fascist appeals to a "Moral Majority" Patriotism is a form of Authoritarian Communism. Other than direct contradiction and disbelief other strategies for Gaslighting include Begging the Question, and the use of Strawman arguments; refuting a reframed argument *different from the one actually under discussion* while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction. Through the exercise of overwhelming a subject with countless contradicting premises and subjective terms a game of Pigeon Chess is played to deter criticism and break down a person's defences, until they no longer trust their own feelings, and rely solely on an outside source for direction. This is clearly demonstrated in the Maga cult, and is repeated in the convoluted dogma and magical thinking of Evangelism, New Age Spirituality, Ancient Aliens, and Graham Hancock. Always alluding to a secret to be revealed, but always in vague nebulous terms and undefined benefits of a far away place with no means to verify one way or the other. "Trust me bro" Effectively they all play the same role of an Enlightened Guru with deep understanding of life matters who can solve all your problems. It's likely no coincidence Reagan emptied the mental health services in the US, over half of those in Jail and living on the streets have undiagnosed ADHD. Auyawasca and Psychotropics are also a staple in brainwashing, as is telling the target they've been brainwashed and that the Guru has the cure, right wing propaganda uses this language heavily by flipping the script and arguing they are the victims, that they're the ones being silenced and cancelled, that they oppose child abuse while also defending it, that the deep State is out to get them, when they're the Deep State and always have been. Aleister Crowley was a big advocate of using Psychotropics to brainwash, just like the CIA, Opus Dei and MK Ultra. Brand and Trump both use hand waving and holding them outspread in a "settle" gesture called pacing. They can also stare at an opponent, "asserting dominance" to put the target on the back foot and unsure how to respond. Peterson does this a lot, along with rapid fire speech, and using an insulting or demanding tone. By using these tactics as well as loaded language (Newspeak) and inference (plausible deniability) only to move the goalposts and reframe when challenged. Trump's Mentor Roy Cohn admitted to using kids to blackmail politicians on behalf of israel, and trained under him alongside Epstein and Roger Stone. Trump's Jesuit mentor was Norman Vincent Peale, a 33rd degree Master Freemason. He was born June 14 during a Super Wolf Blood Moon to Fred Christ and Mary McKleod, he keeps a book of Hitler's speeches called _My New Order_ and uses it verbatim at his rallies. The Von Drumph family come from the same place as Hitler, Vienna Bavaria, Capital of the Holy Roman Empire. He paints himself Orange to represent Apollo; the Dawnbringer of Aleister Crowley's Golden Dawn. Jamal Kashoggi's Mossad brother Adnan sold Trump a Superyacht for Russian Roman Abromavich, who was also paying Boris and Farage for Brexit. Most of israel's govt are non religious Russians.
@@gringlebandersnatch Of course religions change and adapt. But a lot of modern paganism comes from falsified "traditions." That the people who made them up often believed in their own con doesn't actually make it something other than a con. I don't mind people making up their own religions, but I do mind pseudo-history. I'd be very curious to know what @greghansen38 brings up, above. How do neo-pagan reconstructions compare to the ancient religions they think they're restarting?
I would have been very disappointed if I'd gone to that conference, hoping to hear Peter Gandy "speak" and all he did was read the intro to his book, which if I'd been a Gandy fan, I would have probably already read myself. Anyway, great video. I was not familiar with Gandy's work, but had read some works that talked about Hermes Trismegistus, many years ago, though in the "esoteric" vein, so I appreciated the historical perspective. I am enjoying your channel greatly!
Has this guy never heard of syncretism? It was very prevalent in the Hellenistic World. I guess knowledge isn't fun unless it's "secret" & "forbidden" somehow.
At 43:00, I think you misunderstood his point. What it sounded to me like he meant was that Moses himself was greatly influenced by his Egyptian upbringing, and that this influence then made its way via Moses into early Judaism itself, thus explaining how "Jewish ideas" can be found in the Hermetica, because they were not even necessarily exclusively Jewish in the first place. Not that this has any bearing on the larger notions being discussed in this video. I'm really enjoying going through your channel again recently, the tour of Egypt is a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the next part, but I like the level of condensed information and argument in your videos in general.
I know you said you were only doing history - but it is important to note: regarding “fictitious” characters - from the Egyptian perspective of the “neters” - gods as natural essence - saying that “Thoth” is fictitious is like saying that “motherhood” is fictitious. I suppose that is true though as the allegorical figure is a fiction. But it is important to point out the nature of how the ancient Egyptians saw gods. This Megalith guy sadly does not touch on this.
Why is it not plausible that the text we know as the corpus hermeticum was the Greek translation of the original texts? We know that the library of Alexandria held the knowledge of ancient civilizations, we know it was destroyed, how do we know that the original text wasn't lost and the translation survived?
@@WorldofAntiquity well yes, if I have no cultural frame of reference for a document I wish to translate, by default my own culture become the lense thru which I translate the document. I cannot just shift my mind to a culture I've never experienced regardless of how many texts of that culture I've read, and that's working on the assumption that it's even possible for 2 languages to be 100% perfectly relatable to each other.
@@g_regulator1695 I am not talking about a simple translation. The actual contents - the substance - of the works is not primarily Egyptian, but primarily Greek.
On 50:00 I will correct you, about the λόγος, Philo remakes the philosophy or Ηράκλειτος. For Philo it was not parthenogenesis. The Λόγος basis was there all the time.
Very interesting analysis and, as with all your videos, it's enjoyable and criminally under-watched! I do think some of your arguments against Gandy grow thin, sometimes because you misinterpret or mildly misunderstand what he's portraying. One element regards Hypatia. How so? First, you remark that, "What it appears Gandy is trying to make it seem as if the Christian church tried to wipe out the wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus - and unfairly at that." Second, you remark that Hypatia was killed as a political act, not a religious one. But that's not really the case, is it? Yes, it's true that Cyril and Orestes were engaged in a political struggle over the city. *Both* were Christians, it should be pointed out, except that Cyril's faction contained violent, and yes, quite religious fanatics. What we can say with more certainty is that a rumor began that Hypatia interfered between the two men, preventing resolution. The rumor spurred Peter the Lector to take action, resulting in Hypatia's gruesome murder. We could argue about whether Cyril gave the order or not, but frankly, Lector and his fanatics would not have needed much to prod them into the job and the rumor would have been enough. It seems hard to call her murder merely "political" when Cyril and Peter the Lector were electrified by religious position and fanaticism. All of which is to say that Gandy's points stand as he presented them: * Hypatia was one of the last great figures from the library. * A group of Christians, led by Peter the Lector, did indeed kill her. * Bishop Cyril was later canonized. * Christians destroyed the library (along with numerous others) alongside accusations of pagan superstition. All of that except the last point is true. I doubt you would disagree. But in that series of points, you injected that it "appears" Gandy is saying something. Except, Gandy never claimed that the wisdom of Hermes was a focus of Christian ire, and you even go on to remark that the church did in fact attack and destroy many pagan beliefs and writings (even as they incorporated others). Is it unreasonable to suspect that it could've been included in the destruction and censorship to some degree or another? Even still, in this case you are ascribing a motivation to Gandy and his description that we can't say actually exists. I noticed this a few times through your analysis of him, and was alternately surprised at how often you were agreeing with Gandy's points. What I mean by that is, your myth-buster targets tend to be more clearly erroneous and uninformed than it seems Gandy is on his subject, which is why it seems (to me) that some of your arguments were often thinner and more speculative than in previous videos. (I am binging on your stuff so I really can't compare this to your more recent content, but I suspect it will be as entertaining!) Side note: I am familiar with Gandy's book on mystery religions, having read it many years ago, but as an atheist I don't have much vested in the outcome of his speculations here other than what may be historically accurate. This is my first introduction to his take on Hermes.
He seems to be arguing that a syncretic text had one definitive source rather than just accepting it for what it is. If it contains valuable wisdom who cares who wrote it? My bells started ringing when he said the origins were "shrouded in mystery" rather than saying we don't know, or are unsure of, the origin. I was recommended your videos after I asked TH-cam to stop recommending UnchartedX to me, so maybe the algorithm isn't all bad. I've been bingeing all day, great work.
6:44 _In the temple of Thoth: shine like thunder_ _In the temple of Thoth: cry like rain_ _In the temple of Thoth: hear my calling_ _In the temple of Thoth: hear my name_
As a member of a hermetic order I find it upsetting to see the spiritual teachings of hermetic literature misrepresented in such a pseudo-historical way. We can both appreciate somethings spiritual and philosophical teachings while staying true to the real history of the tradition and its texts associated with it. I do not understand why such people need to take an already interesting subject and tar it with pseudo history, the value of any text should not be based upon its antiquity alone. Pseudo-history such as this only devalues such interesting works and pushes them into the realms of misinformation. Thank you world of antiquity for covering this topic, to clear up the misrepresentation of this and many other traditions.
Beside some other things, what strikes me is that at one point Peter Gandy refers to "the Ancient Egyptian Religion being practiced". Considering how many centuries this "religion" spans, the definite article followed by the singular form seems quite out of place to me. It's not as though Ancient Egyptian priests/writers/philosophers/magi/cultural elite members throughout all those centuries were all each other's static carbon copies. They may have had the idea of a very solidly fixed Heavenly order whose mirror image had to be maintained on Earth, they were still human beings, in spite of themselves. Edit: I came across this around the 22nd minute of the video, and now realize that Dr. Miano also addresses this point, towards the end of the video.
23:30 WAIT WHAT... Downfall of Alexandria linked to Holy Roman Empire... HOW?! Like if he means the HRE in modern day Germany, it was founded WAY later after Ancient Egypt's downfall and subsequent conquest by Romans then Muslims, IF he means the OG Roman Empire he mockingly called "Holy", then we KIND OF know that Caesar and Cleopatra predate Christianity, as they lived in BC era. So WHICHEVER Roman Empire he means, neither fit... Unless he somehow blames the Byzantines for Alexandria becoming irrelevant?!
Excellent. I wish I had your material when I was younger and more impressionable. I'm grateful for the subjects you cover. BTW, I don't think you answered why the ancient texts from the Library of Alexander were being relocated to other libraries. 🙂
Alexandria was a common target for attacks. After the first few threats to one-of-one texts concerned scholars would have begun swapping originals for copies and taking the originals off to other collections. Likely some to other libraries. Definitely not all, assuming less than 100% of the thieves were benevolently motivated lol.
I appreciate you framing this with a little skeptical academic distance and calling out the fictional characters up front. Too many videos will quickly dip into the assumption that all of this is magical and true. (It's like how in fiction, all prophesies always have to be true, even though in real life, virtually none of them are. A lot of people who talk about things like the Book of Thoth assume they're in a fictional world where mythology must be true.) One can always imagine what it must have been like to people who believed such things, but I think it's a mistake to emulate that state of mind in scholarship about it.
A portion of this digresses into whether or not the ancient enslaved Jews in Egypt of Moses' day were influential in Hermetica or not. The whole premise assumes that there were actually enslaved Jews in a period of "Moses' day" which is debatable and highly doubtful. I am interested in seeing a video dedicated to this topic on World of Antiquity.
In the UK a professor is the head of a university department. Is it the same in the US? Do you hold the chair in history at the State College of Florida?
No, it is different here. Departments are full of professors, associate professors, assistant professors, and adjunct instructors. I am a professor only in the colloquial sense (on my channel).
Who is Hermes Trismegistus? We are all Hermes Trismegistus! Iamblichus gives Hermes Trismegistus credit for discovery. Copernicus wasn’t the only one to follow. It was relatively common to give Hermes Trismegistus credit for discovery. Up until De Re Metallica as well. Whoever writes new discovery is Hermes Trismegistus, a nom de plume similar to Basil Valentine. What would be the “hidden history” of Hermanubis?
Well, this video is mostly about the original Hermes Trismegistus. I do have to ask, though, if I wrote a song and said I was inspired by the Beatles, would that mean I AM the Beatles?
@@WorldofAntiquity no I don’t think so. Just seemed to be a thing to sign off in that direction. Issac Newton made a translation of emerald tablet but I don’t think he was a “believer” either. All the alchemists were giving Hermes/ Mercurius the cred. Athanasius kircher was called Hermes Trismegistius by other Jesuits. Just seems to be what the cool kids were doing. Persians and Jews working in Baghdad still titled their works with dedication to Allah. Saw an interesting talk of Medieval atheism. In public always play the pious believer.
Idk I think you're focused on the schisms and not what it means. I think it only makes sense if you've reached enlightenment by receiving salvation from Christ. Remember that you're veiled. Eyes that cannot see or ears that cannot hear. If you drop the names and look for the message you'll see it all connects. The legend stays the same but the characters are ever changing.
I like the strong no-bullshit tone of this video, first time seeing this channel but I feel it is my type of content. The question however remains. I am digging into ancient/esoteric knowledge, myths, believes - and the whole journey keeps me wondering. How continent and millennia apart - such beliefs and knowings and images share what it feels like - similar base. Who, how and when came up with this in the first place? And is it possible all those ideas to originate from a single mutual point in time?
I suppose it depends on what it is, but in my experience, most of the images people show me, who are asking about it, are either not all that similar or are very basic in design.
@@WorldofAntiquity So you don't find the similarities of the development of complex myths, believes, architecture, culture, writings, civilization, agriculture and so on between the so called "old world" and the "new world" (America) kind of eerie - although it is accepted that the diaspora divided and held no contact between the groups for more than 15 000 years? I mean sure there is quite a lot crook new age gurus and what not - but the opposite academic stand feels in now way less of a simplification of the matter and the phenomenon. Even if we for sure know that they were divided for at least 15 000 years and come to somewhat similar in complexity and sometimes in the details - myths, believes, architecture, culture, writings, civilization, agriculture and so on - it is a statement for an incredibly synchronized and perhaps not truly understood internal psychological mechanism.
@@LyubomirIko *So you don't find the similarities of the development of complex myths, believes, architecture, culture, writings, civilization, agriculture and so on between the so called "old world" and the "new world" (America) kind of eerie* No, because I know the human propensity to find patterns where there are none. It is safer to rely on reason than on my imagination. *the opposite academic stand feels in now way less of a simplification of the matter and the phenomenon.* The academic approach is evidence-based. There are good reasons for this. *Even if we for sure know that they were divided for at least 15 000 years and come to somewhat similar in complexity and sometimes in the details - myths, believes, architecture, culture, writings, civilization, agriculture and so on - it is a statement for an incredibly synchronized and perhaps not truly understood internal psychological mechanism.* Sure, but also keep in mind that were were not all completely divided, and historians do recognize an interchange of ideas, culture, tech, etc. when it makes sense (such as when two societies are within reasonable distance of each other and have more than just superficial similarity).
30:37 I hear a baby cough during part of Gandy's video. What a lovely event to bring A CHILD/BABY TO! A LECTURE ABOUT THE HERMETICA! JEEZ, I thought my parents sucked!
glad I found this channel! what is your opinion on Mead's book Thrice Greatest Hermes? I know it's kinda outdated, not the preferred Copenhaver translation
Notice at around 38:35 Gandy says the Hermetica was written by "scholars" translating ancient Egyptian texts [or later "filtered through the understanding"] right after dismissing all modern and contemporary scholarship on the subject that says otherwise by strawmanning a single writer's [Casaubon's] opinion? This alone should demonstrate his bias and draw into question everything he claims here.
I'm new to studying the Hermetica. I think its fascinating. I do believe it's material is older than many scholars originally believed (2nd Century), because the concepts do seem to be Egyptian, though the manuscript that was eventually translated was influenced by the Hellenistic culture that was well established when it was written down. The claim that the text influenced some of the greatest minds to come out of the Renaissance has some merit if you look at people like Newton, Descartes, and Leibniz. A good case can be made that their interests in esoteric concepts that come out of the Hermetica influenced the way they approached their studies, and helped lead to some of their discoveries.
Do you know some details how was Newtown influenced by esotericism such that it helped the scientific achievements of his? Or were you just speculating?
My History Studies indicated the following: The guy that you are reviewing "gets it correct" The Hermedic Principals are largely 98% the "Universal Laws", thus Yes, it would be certainly Wisdom and very much has Value. It would be Wisdom from previous era, early Kings of Egypt. The Greeks merely copied them in their language and studied and expanded upon them in the Philosophical Era. The greater % of the "Greek Writings and what's attributed to the Greeks, were learned from the Ancient Egyptians". Greek was a widely spoken language after Alexander, and we had lost the ability to read Egyptian until the 19th Century. History/Ancient History is 1 of my degrees and one I most often continue to study and research. But, I've found, it is the most influenced and mutable over the ages to suit the Scholars and/or Rulers/Leaders. Facts Matter... but not to everyone. PS Hermetic subject is best understood when one has a good basic understanding of Quantum Physics. And yes it can be Spiritual b/c is is about Universal Laws, and that of the Divine Design. Hermedes is Greek for Thoth - they may have added a Greek slant. Thoth was the giver of Knowledge, Teacher. Confusing due to the Mainstream Archaeologists and Academics. Manley P Hall spoke to the subject. The Greeks came later, they may have colored the subject, but that's just that. Romans too. You actually prove your initial statement inaccurate. The Liibrary burned. The Bible was written in Greek first, then Latin but the Old Testament was first written in Hebrew. If the Pope wasn't still in Time, would it not be attributed to the Greeks? They really took Liberities with interpretations and the translations. They are Egyptian - period. 😘
This and your whole channel are really good my friend (been watching all your vids) - I was raised on Carl Sagan, and am a skeptic and scientifically-minded through and through. But I do have to say Terence Mckenna talking about H. Trismegistus is more fun in this case =P
Point of order: historians, especially mediaeval and early modern historians, haven't referred to the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance as "The Dark Ages" for decades. That period was far from "dark" .
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I find it incredibly frustrating that on one side there are those who want to deny ancient Egyptians their own culture, art, and architecture, and on the other there are those who want to deny the innovations of the societies that came later, claiming Egypt as the source of all knowledge. Ancient Egypt was amazing, and undoubtedly had influence, especially on the Greeks who ruled there, just as the Greeks would later influence the Romans. I am often confused by the desire of people to deny ancient civilizations their own accomplishments. That, to me, is what both sides of this dichotomy are doing. One side insists that Egypt's own accomplishments aren't really Egyptian, while the other claims that all accomplishments, including religions, and scientific discoveries belong to Egypt.
Well generally, you have racist, usually right-leaning, alternative historians who can't accept that people with dark skin did such amazing things on the one side of that divide.
Then on the other side, "new age" spiritualist, usually left-leaning, who think that ancients knew way more than us.
On both sides, their biases inform their ideas and neither can see that they're woefully ignorant.
👏👏
Egypt was the only ancient civilization that was literate and had institutions to house them. Contrary to popular belief, there was no such thing as a Greek Philosopher. Because if it was, what alphabet did they use and what institutions did they have? The Greek alphabet is a misnomer. The greeks had no alphabet. The Egyptian apllied an alphabet to their language. The "Library of Alexandria" was in Egypt.. Aristotle, Plato, Herodotus are all made up names used to rename moorish works that was in Southern Europe after they fell. Furthermore, had there really been a Greek Science and Philosophy, then the whole of Europe would not have thought the world was flat. Biblical accounts and personages fall in this same categorey. That's because there are Pyramids in America, which the "WORD OF GOD" seem to have forgotten. And if the Bible history, people and place were real, they would not have to RENAME the entire "Middle East" (North Africa) to bible land after WW1
The Sphinx looks out toward the horizon. It was build as sort of a calendar. This celestrial calendar is 25,000 years in length. The question that Europeans (writers of fake history) never resolved is how long did it take the Egyptians to figure that out? They obviously had to keep written records. That's why a Greek Philosophy could never had existed. Even if it did, which it most certainly could not, school in those day were secret and not divulged to the general public. That's why it was called the Mystery System. The pyramids are dated to 6,000 years to stay within biblical timelines. Finally, there are more Pyramids in the Sudan, then there is Egypt. Therefore, it could not have been a greek philosphy and science. if they did, why didn't they build anything with it! We see that "Greek Architecture" is plainly egyptian.
@@GuyRBrewer109 incredibly sad summary. And inaccurate. Egyptian had an alphabet but adopted the Phoenician alphabet as Greece conquered them, thrusting it on them. The Greek then busied themselves absorbing what they could of Egyptian knowledge and putting it into a library in the Ptolemaic city they created, Alexandria, on the current Mediterranean coast where the Greek overlords had full control until the Romans came not near Memphis, Thebes or Aswan, the cities of Kemet.
The knowledge of Egypt cannot be denied but the Greeks absorbed it along with Persian/Babylonian/Sumerian knowledge laying the basis for what is now considered Western thought and civilization. This style of absorption and stealing of ideas lead to European hegemony. Witness how Hindu-Arabic numbers supplanted a deeply ingrained (& flawed) Roman numeral system. Metallurgy, hydrology, astronomy, theology we’re likewise adopted from the east through the Greek translations
@@fsinjin60 Phoenecian is a GREEK WORD. Therefore, what was the real name of the people, being that they invented writing? The Greeks renamed a city that was already there. They did not build ANYTHING. Ptolemy was upset that the egyptians would not accept SERAPIS and confiscated their sacred wrtitngs and transfered them to "Alexandria" PERSIAN,BAYLONIAN and SUMERIAN all come from biblical literature created in the 15th century Renaissance era, 1453 in Ferra Italy. It was the old testament, composed largely of LOMBARD legend 1st written by Paul The Deacon and rewriiten by MOSES Maimonides in the 12th century. brought to Europe by the TEMPLARS. The MIDDLE EAST could not contain cities of the population described in the Bible anyway. Those babylonian Tablets are FAKE. Supposedly, found outside of a Mud Brick made temple! Mud Brick building don't last more than a few hundred years. Especially one in the middle of a desert. However, this "Temple" was around BEFORE the Pyramids? it's not enough arable land to sustain livestock or people and the Biblical City/State the bible decribes. How could that be in a desert? Egyptian farming was based off the yearly overflow of the Nile, which was like clockwork. The Euphrates or the Tigris are random and it's not enough rainfall.
Again, these people were named using greek. What were the names they allegedly called themeselves? History does not say. Because Europeans control the education system and are racists, they use these lies to give themselves a civilized origin. However, the history of Europe is WAR and POLITICS. Even the "Greeks" were invaders to Greece. Vandals, Goths, Huns, Brits, Franks all were at war with each other. Where did they get the time to study anything?
I'm always sceptical when people claim censorship. The Hermetica never needed to be banned in the Middle Ages. What was the literacy rate back then? All books were secret except to monks and royalty.
Literacy was lower, but books weren't known only by monks or royals. Europe had thriving universities from the 11th century onwards.
And u don't need very high literacy rate to spread ideas with a book.
Imagine a road and hub model, even if in a community there's one guy who can read, soon the idea of the book would have spread far enough and iterate people would also hear about it.
@@georgethompson1460 those first universities were actually just monks getting together to make a big monastery. secular universities as we know them wouldn't properly exist for a while
21st century and people still believe people were illiterate in the middle ages... might as well believe they didn't take showers and didn't brush their teeth.
It makes me laugh when I see a youtube headliner "secret knowledge, forbidden. " i always laugh inside thinking wow it's in a public area on youtube where anyone can see it. That is super secret. 😂
“Challenge the argument, not the person.” Great framework for comments and this video. I’m so glad you’re balancing misinformation and wishful thinking with facts, and doing it in a respectful manner. Definitely earned yourself a follow!
I actually disagree with this approach: the leader of modern flat Earth movement, Eric Dubay, apart from his 200 truths, wrote multiple articles on supporting the NSDAP, yes, Hitler's party... You can spend years trying to prove Earth's curvature or just flat-out dismiss FLERF bullshit as weirds led by a Holocaust denier.
Chuckle. I was reading the Hermetica as a kid, years before this guy says he came across it. It was in a small-town Ontario public library. I had heard references to it long before I came across it. You could order copies from ads in popular magazines. Mr. Gandy talks about it like he found it in some cobwebby vault under a castle in Transylvania.
I commented on another video recently. This channel needed to be on TH-cam 10 years ago, I can really learn about history without having to wade through TH-cam click bait geniuses.
Here, I get to learn how archeology and ancient history tell the real truth about many over-hyped ancient history myths.
Every discussion is expertly analyzed to present great arguments to support the conclusions presented in the video on multiples subjects.
I guess if I watched too much Graham Hancock then I might have been devastated by all the facts I find on this channel.
Thanks for all the research and details. The way you make your arguments to support your conclusion usually kicks ass. If I can say that..
If you want deeper analysis, one academia & independents alike fail utterly, is coming out of PLASMA SCIENCE & PLASMA DISCHARGES coming off PLANETS, on different orbits & closer to Earth...
THOTH, is depicted exquisitely by the Egyptians, this "bird-headed" figure has prehistoric depictions, in the americas, PETROGLYPHS!
Eden, Atlantis, and other mythological beasts, serpents, dragons & more can be found, not on Earth, but IN THE PREHISTORIC SKIES!
th-cam.com/video/t7EAlTcZFwY/w-d-xo.htmlsi=3WJnH0NMmrOUPi-h
SYMBOLS OF AN ALIEN SKY, on YT by The Thunderbolts Project channel!
People pulling and changing stories out of their imagination for centuries... and people today STILL take it (too) seriously.
Philosophy/Psychology and a lot of scientific theories in all fields and also most of the art and movie and game industry are some form of imagination too.
I can even say the whole world is imagination, from science we know what brain see is just some for of imagination, you see light interactions as color and object but you could see infinite number of different waves
@@GameCrafter467 lol he’s still in the fish bowl
No different than any other spiritual framework / religion.
@dannyvanhecke the Bible is definitely what you're talking about here.
Professor, I believe you can change the world with these kinds of clear rebuttals. Thank you for the time you take.
All the best.
Thank you. I appreciate your kind words!
Hermes Trismegistus became a pen name for many philosophers writing with hermetic principles as the frame work for their teachings.
The Thrice Great Moon
The Trinity
Amenhotep III
Same thing
@@Uncanny_Mountain No.
gotta love when the lecturer starts off with his personal spiritual experience. thanks again dr.miano your contributions are much appreciated.
Most modern people who actually use the Hermetic corpus & related texts for spirituality and magic tend to not go quite so hard with the pseudohistory of the texts in my experience.
Speaking as one such person myself, I feel that the age of the Hermetic texts or the ideas therein are details that might fascinate a nerd like me, but what makes them worth reading & reinterpreting down the centuries is the efficacy of some of the ideas in there to help people achieve their spiritual goals. I could go on and on but I’ll spare you. Thanks for the heart!
Well said, that is the main point I feel, improving one's self. There are many paths to get there.
"spiritual" 🙄 as a "philosophical materialist" I have to snicker at that word.
The world.
The fantastic world.
Certain authors: "This ancient group had all the wisdom, was widely influential, thoroughly oppressed, wrote the Republic, discovered the Higgs boson, and created civilization everywhere by means of trepanation."
All this is new to me. I even had to look up what hermetica meant. You have defo raised the bar with this one David....which is a good thing. It would be wrong for me to to comment any more until i have watched it a few times and researched it myself...only then will i have a valid opinion. Great stuff David, peace to ya.
Hereticism is fascinating!
I mean real Hermetic philosophy of the early CE, not this New-Age, ancient aliens, Atlantis fraudulent Emerald Tablets crap.
The Corpus Hermeticum is a collection of essays written approximately between 100 and 300 CE, and a good place to start if you're at all interested in the subject.
Don't waste your time on crap like the "Emerald Tablets of Thoth the Atlantean."" It was written in tjr 1980's and it's pseudo-spirtual conman drivel.
These debunking videos are great, and the best are they are done in a respectful manner. Love your work.
Thank you very much!
@@WorldofAntiquity And they're not just informative,
They're important! More so now that pseudoscience is becoming so popular!!!
~42:28-43:00 I think you may be misinterpreting his argument, though not in a way that makes it stronger; I believe his point was not that the ideas of the Israelites from the time of Moses made it into the Hermetica, but that Moses, as a Jewish sage raised in Egyptian culture, brought the Egyptian ideas of the Hermetica into Judaism, hence explaining the similarities. I could be mistaken, but that was my understanding of his point based on how he stressed Moses being raised as an Egyptian, alongside his broader argument that Hermetic ideas were fundamentally Egyptian.
Interesting, but mis-titled. Almost no content that describes the contents of the Heremtica. Hence the Hermetica is left unexplained.
i appreciate the amount of research you did for this video. i've been researching and enjoying the colourful history of Hermes Trismegistus for a couple years,. it is indeed a minefield of fact & fiction, myth & legend, tall tales & subjective opinions. i'm happy to have found this video. i'll need to re-watch there is so much here. i really dig your channel, thank you for everything!
Pythagoras means Heart of the Serpent, he was born in Sidon, a fishing Port in Phoenicia. His mother recieved a message from the Oracle of Delphi that he would become a great Leader and Teacher. Sidon means Kingdom of the Fish, and the Essenes, who wrote the Dead Sea scrolls, worshipped Pythagoras. The Sarcophagus of Eschmun III found in Sidon names him as the Widow's Scion, aka Hiram Abiff, the Founder of Freemasonry, of which Tyre was the premier Capital (at least equal to Thebes).
In 911BC Rameses II married the Queen of Sidon, home of Jezebel (Daughter or consort of Baal, basically "Queen") founding Neo Assyrian Babylon, an alliance between Egypt and Hiram, father of Jezebel and King of Assyria, and Egypt, forming the Phoenician colonies and building the first Temple of Melqart to commemorate the alliance.
The Si in Sidon is the basis of the Latin Exe, or X, and is the basis of the Cross, or Chi Rho that Constantine painted on his shields. Also known as the Cross of Tyre, or Cross of Baal, being Ra-El, or Ba'El. Oddly enough irrational numbers can also be mapped using Euler's number, producing a Templar Cross in the process. This cross can also be seen around the neck of Nimrod in Assyria, and is consistent with the Union Jack, and Solstice Calendar found in the Vatican Shiva Lingam.
Shiva is the Hebrew word for 7, their culture also found its way to Japan (via the Phillipines) ultimately becoming Shintoism.
It was the Phoenicians who gave their name to the Pole Star, which they used to Navigate the Oceans using the Zodiac, thats what the Antikythera mechanism was for, and with it they wrote the Byblos Baal, what we now call the Bible. The first form of the Bible was written in 325BC and called the Vaticanus Greacus, or Son of the Sacred Serpent, a reference to Sirius, the basis of the Sothic Calendar, which uses a Hexidecimal or base 60 system found in all the Megalithic sites around the world.
In the second century AD astronomer Valentinus Vettori transcribed it into a Lunar chart of 13 houses, what we now call the Zodiac. Horoscope means Star Watcher, and the Phoenician word for Saturn, or El, was Israel or El, (Fruit) of Isis and Ra.
El is the primary God of the Phoenicians, representing the offspring of Egypt, and his consort Astarte represents the Assyrian half of the alliance. It may be possible to trace lineages and alliances through the naming of gods, which can be traced all the way to Ireland and the Vikings, and to Indonesia and the Americas, even as far away as New Zealand and Australia.
It denotes Sirius as Son of Orion and Pleaides, which sits at 33 degrees of the Zodiac. The basis of the Sothic (dir Seth) Calendar of the Egyptians. The New Moon in this position marks Rosh Hashanah, the Egyptian, Celtic, Phoenician, and Assyrian New Year, the first New Moon of September, which is called September because it's the 7th House of the Zodiac, when the Sun is in Ophiuchus.
The Phoenix, Benben, or Bennu is the Egyptian word for Heron, a Feathered 'Serpent'. It baptised itself in frankincense and myrrh at BaalBek, and then alights atop the Pyramid, upon the Holy Grail, or Alter of Ra every 630 years to take three days off the calendar during the course of the first New Moon of Nisan, which means "Prince". The Capstone of Pyramids is even called the Benben or Bennu.
The Phoenix is found in all religions, which are all Astrological Allegory for the Moon travelling through the Constellations, as a soul migrating from body to body, this is the basis of Joseph Campbell's Monomyth, or the Hero's Journey. The various planets no doubt play their own roles as portents, omens, and aspects, this astrology is the science of the Bronze age, and lasted all the way up to the 20th Century. Resurrection was an early teaching of the Christian Church, and likely relates to the lineage of Kings (The King is Dead, long live the King.)
Phoenicians represent the interim step between Egypt and Greece, their artisans and culture exceeding that of the Greeks, who literally adopted the Phoenician Alphabet, which we still use to this day, sounding out words phonetically. Phoenician is aliiterated in Venetian, and Vikings, being Kings of the Sea.
The Bennu is the Egyptian Phoenix, to Phoenicians the Hoyle, no different to the traditions of the Etruscans, who saw birds as sacred, just as the Celts. Hebrew and Iber as in Iberia have the same root meaning over, as in overseas, as in those who travel "over the sea." A colony called Iberia also appears on the Eastern shores of the Black Sea, where the same Dolmens and Megalithic culture originating in Ireland and Brittany appeared circa 4500BC.
_Phoenician_ means Scions of the Phoenix, the first Bible: Vaticanus Greacus Son of the Sacred Serpent (Prince). Then there's the Essenes, Sons of Light, the Tuatha De Danaan, Sons of Light, Annunaki, Sons of Light, Arthur Pendragon means Arthur Son of the dragon, Chertoff is Russian for "Son of the Devil" and Dracula also means Son of the Dragon, Masons have been known at times to call themselves the "Brotherhood of the Great White Serpent". The Ziggurat of Anu also denotes her as a great white Serpent, while New Grange and the Bru na Boinne in Ireland (4000BC) coated buildings with white quartz to denote the Moon. The Moon itself travels outside the Solar Elliptic by 5 degrees, which means it passes through specific constellations in a serpentine fashion that is always changing, but repeats every 19 years, the time it took to train a Druid or Magi, Magi meaning "Teacher" the Phoenix is also associated with this sacred number 19.
The name "Pharoah" means "Great House"
or "House of Light" and Cairo used to be called Babel. Pharaoh's themselves wore a hooded crown representing feathers, just as Native American Chiefs, ie the Feathered Serpent, they were also called the Commander in Chief. Aztecs also had Serpent Kings, (Canaan means Serpent Kings, and Sidon was a Son of Canaan, and Great Grandson of Noah) who were called to lead with cunning and guile, being the very virtue by which they claim the title in the first place; but to be seen in public as just and diplomatic.
"As wise as Serpents, but gentle as Doves" the old Egyptian flag of an Eagle attacking a Snake is also reflected in the Modern Mexican flag, denoting the Constellations of Serpentis (13th sign of the Zodiac) and Aquila.
The dimensions and 12 mathematical constants of the Great Pyramid are also expressed in New Grange, and Stonehenge, as well as in Watson Brake, (2500BC) and Teotihuacan, which correlates to the Phoenician/ Sumerian Hexidecimal system, which is what our modern systems of time are based on.
Officially no one knows who invented astrology, the zodiac, navigation by the stars, and time keeping. But whoever built the pyramids, and pioneered the 24hr clock in Egypt 5000 years ago also knew the exact dimensions of the Earth, as well as the speed of light. These calculations can all be made using these Megalithic sites as surveyors use a theodolite. Specifically Teotihuacan, which sits 180 degrees opposite Cairo, and has the exact same footprint. The ideal positions to determine the speed of light using the transit of Venus, by which one can accurately determine Longitude for navigation. Capt cook did the same thing in 1774 when he 'discovered' Easter Island.
The only culture that fits the bill was wiped out "not one stone upon the other" by the Romans in 146BC. Tyre, the capital of Phoenicia (israel) sat just offshore from Ur Shalom, City of the New Moon, or City of Peace. The root of the name Jerusalem, and was also seized by Rome in 70AD after a 13 year seige. The gap between is 216 years.
Greek Dionysians built the Temple of Solomon (now called the Temple of Melqart) representing the Solar Lunar Metonic Calendar on which this system is based, they also carried mirrors, a practice associated with both the Magi and the Druids as well as Greek and Egyptian scholars, these Mirrors are Astrological charts called "Cycladian Frying Pans" and record the cycles of the planets. The first Temple of Melqart (the Phoenician form of Horus, or Hercules, or Pan, or Thor) representing the 13th Constellation of Ophiuchus or the Serpent Bearer (hence Orphic Serpent worship) had pillars of Emerald and Gold, representing Isis and Osiris. The Jerusalem Temple only took payment in "Shekels of Tyre" a currency minted during the Jewish rebellion against Rome. "Give that which is Ceasar's unto Ceasar"
When Alexander sacked Tyre in 332BC they moved to Carthage meaning "New City" or New Jerusalem, where they built a second temple with Pillars of Bronze.
Nebuchadnezzar also seiged Tyre for 13 years, taking the City captive in 573BC: the same time as the biblical account of the Jews. And again in 70AD after a three and a half year seige, also consistent with biblical accounts.
People are calling this a "debunking" video, but you are merely clarifying things. I like that. I've read the Hermetica some years ago, and it was interesting window to hellenistic ideas. In finnish edition the prologue all ready told many of the things you say here. This video works as a good prologue to the book.
@@juhonieminen4219 Yea yea sure sure👍
Classic gnostic angle, folks. Watch it, these people are slippery
Actual hermeticist here. we are philosofers not theologens. Hermes trismagistice is an architype of wisdom, not a god or literal person.
well said.
He was a man that lived and breathed though?
Wonderful (as all the other videos from your channel).
If i may add.
"Dark ages" in a scholar presentation in the 21st century!! I thought we were past that categorization.
As for "Renaissance" i would recommend the reading of Erwin Panofsky's "Renaissance and renascences in Western art" to discuss some of the fountains (one being the orthodox Dante) of that "movement".
And last, a quote from Umerto Eco "I devoted myself to the Renaissance philosophers and I discovered that the men of secular modernity, once they had emerged from the darkness of the Middle Ages, had found nothing better to do than devote themselves to cabala and magic."
Skeptic !
The "dark ages" is a pretty good categorization of the 6th and 7th centuries. There are lots of gaps in history of many nations during those years.
People confuse the dark ages with medieval period. The medieval perior came after the dark ages, and it was not all that dark.
A little late for the comment, but in regards to Eco's insightful quote, I was reminded of George Steiner, the literary commentator. In the 70's or 80's he did a series of four radio lectures called "Nostalgia for the Absolute" where he explored this idea. Since Nietzsche "killed" god in the 19th century, we devoted the entirety of the 20th killing ourselves in new and creative ways and filling the god-shaped hole in our soul/culture with psychoanalysis, aliens, political ideologies and the ideas of past and future utopias; all of them elevated to the fervor of fanatical religion (and fanaticism in such a large scale a we see at present being a relatively new phenomenon; past instances of fanaticism where relatively isolated, both in time a places).
No one talks about how crazy the individuals of "the age of reason" where. All gnostics and alchemist, almost all of them and no one goes near it.
@@juhonieminen4219 the post-wrm fall period was part of the Middle Ages which tend to be placed between 450ish and 1450ish. We have most of post-antiquity there
I appreciate you making this video. I have an amateur interest in how the ancients thought of the world and had tried to cut the "Hermes Trismagistus" Gordian knot but was never certain if I had gotten to real history or if there was still some legend intertwined. This video is likely to be a touchstone for me in the future.
Very enlightening video! Never cared to go too much to go deep into the hermetism, but this actually explains so much! The way I see it, esoterism and gnosticism pretty much naturally evolved into New Age beliefs and up to this day a lot of theories are based on hermetic-like sources and the "sacred knowledge" (Blavatsky, Cayce, etc.)
Also, one of the major and very important rulers of lands that are now my country and a Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II. was super-deep into mysticism/occultism/astrology/alchemy stuff so I always wanted to learn more about this part of history. I really hope your channel will blow up!
Thanks!
It worth reading Ronald Hutton, who is the foremost expert on Wicca / Paganism in the UK. His books dig deep into the origins of the esoteric, much of which he argues is a modern fabrication (but no less fascinating for that). I like his work because he is open-minded and treats Wicca as a religion that needs to be understood historically and anthropologically. He shows that Egyptian culture played a big role in the reinvention of witchcraft and paganism in the Romantic period.
Actually the Kabolica was one of the greatest books it dealt with the occult ...and astrology ....Hermes reportedly....lived 300 years however he said he would be back to remove his space ship from under the spinx to battle in a great war someday
@@tonyvee297 👀
As someone sympathetic to the Hermetica and who describes themselves as a Neoplatonist, even a superficial reading shows they are the product of Hellenism. That is not a bad thing.
I wonder if the romanticized, improved re-telling of history is motivated similarly to my own nostalgic memories of my life, making it feel good.
There is some truth to that, I'm sure.
I would attribute it to the Ego Mind of Humans, the Higher Mind is Truth Seeking.
But yes, your point does describe a fair amount.
as an ex occultist this is very helpful to hear. Also bear in mind, to anyone who learned any of this through that occult tradition, the idea of a "Book of Thoth" is further obfuscated by the writing of Aleister Crowley, who dubbed the Tarot to be the "Book of Thoth", and if I'm not mistaken, published a book by that name.
You'll find a lot of occult writings were just made up vanity nonsense, as I did when I grew out of my occultist phase
@@ryan.1990 that's quite correct. It's mainly a futile rebellion against the actual state of reality.
@@lorenfulghum2393 Beautifully and quite masterfully stated.
@@ryan.1990 yeah I tried reading some of Crowley's and Blavatsky's writings out of pure curiosity, and it was really hard for me to take seriously.
@@ryan.1990modern occultisn or we even agrippa?
"Gandy, at least, has a Master's Degree in Classics."
No small feat, indeed.
OMG the first time someone was honest about Hypatia on TH-cam.
It must be a miracle
Praise Hermes
The problem was that she was a woman scholar a professor that didn't meet the elements some had about women's place and it's a pity if all the stories of Jesus were right women were not inferior to men !
20:45 Coptic is Egyptian. It is a big part of how the Rosetta was solved.
I think that Gandy's version of the death of Hypatia is the most accurate. She complained to Cyril that her students were being forced to learn lies, she was a neoplatenist philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician ( who incidentally wrote Euclid's geometry. having collected the few existing fragments and corrected his mistakes) at a time when Cyril's thugs were beating and killing farmers for planting crops, as it meant they didn't believe the second coming was at hand and who's slogan was "Nothing more needs to be known". She was at age 60 dragged from her home stripped naked and marched through the streets before having the flesh cut from her bones with broken tiles and glass and her bones burnt.
What is your source?
"The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs" - marry your sister to keep it in the family.
Overall, another great and informative video ~ thanks! I have to nitpick something as a priest & former English instructor: it's not entirely accurate, I would say, to characterize Thoth and Hermes as "fictitious characters," at least without any further comment/explanation. Fiction as a concept didn't really exist in antiquity ~ certainly not in the way that we understand it in the modern Western concept of imaginative literature that's intentionally created as such. It's fine if modern folks don't believe that ancient gods were real, but it's anachronistic and ethnocentric to imply that Hellenistic peoples "created" these "fictitious characters" in the way that modern novelists or screenwriters create fictitious characters. It makes more sense to talk of syncretism and the ... organic, for want of a better term? ... blending of ideas & beliefs as cultures come into contact with each other and intermingle to whatever extent. That Thoth and Hermes (and later Hermes Trismegistus) were in fact worshipped at least strongly suggests that to many of these ancient folks, these gods were quite real and not at all analogous to what we in the modern age understand to be fictitious.
Thank you! I have often wondered about this topic. I now have some ammuniton for when a friend starts babbling about the "ancient widsdom" in these texts. I have read them, some good things to model a life around. Thank you again. New subscriber who can't wait to keep delving into your library.
I'm a bit disappointed you didn't highlight the fact that the historicity of Moses -- and indeed whether Jews were at any time broadly enslaved in ancient Egypt as described in the Old Testament -- is widely disputed.
Not just disputed. It was established that there is no evidence of any such person ever existing.
Don't get what's significant about that.. what is historically provable from that age??
@@harryhoudini8466 A great many things. We know of historical figures who actually existed for example.
@@pitdog75 Oh really? Can I hear more about these individuals we have proof existed?
Hypatia for example did exist, but the accounts are all sorts of back and forth, where as Moses is only mentioned in the Jewish religious texts (aka the Torah, aka the Old Testament) and when that was written it was still seen as an old story, so noone even knows if Moses existed at all because there ain't anything about him or that incident at that time other than the Jewish stories.
I am curious why going against academia in nearly all sciences is so popular today... Their channels here on youtube WAY out perform academic channels in views and subscriptions by at least 100 times over. It's kinda nuts...
Thanks for another informative video I knew nothing about. 👍
It plays to people's biases by giving a clear, complete narrative instead of the muddy confusion of real academic findings. We all want answers, the difference is our ability to be critical about the answers that present themselves.
It concerns me. I used to believe these fringe ideas, and I can tell you I did so because the alternative is so much more fun and interesting than the plain old human history. (Don't get me wrong. human history is fascinating but not compared to alternative history Not surprising since it's entirely made up so can be as fantastic as anyone's heart desires.)
@@andreaarchaeology Totally agree... I was hooked on Randall Carlson for awhile because he is such a great talker and makes the subject exciting... and it is a cool subject no doubt.
But then when he started touching on things I kinda already knew a little something about, it was then started realizing how much he was misrepresenting the actual science work done, to outright denial or simple ignorance of it.
I still visit his some of his channels (he has several) from time to time. I especially love when he pretends something he is doing or involved in was spurred on by him or is because of him. He can be very subtle about making you think some of these discoveries in some way involves him and his thinking.
@@swirvinbirds1971 Glad u mentioned him!!! The fact that he teams up with Graham Hancock makes me not trust him, but I don't know enough about geology to say why. I knew something was off with him. Used to love listening to him talk, even listened to some of his podcasts recently cuz part of me wants to believe but he had a bunch of fringe youtubers on as guests and I was suddenly so over it. I can't stretch my imagination far enough to convince myself that their theories make sense.
@@andreaarchaeology Watch Nick Zentner channel here on TH-cam. He is a Geology teacher at Central Washington University. He has many a great lecture on the Channeled Scablands and presents the data in an entertaining and easy to digest manner.
You will eventually come to realize the many holes in Randall's Channeled Scablands claims.
Here is a great video on The Younger Dryas that kinda pokes even more holes in Randall's Clovis and Megafauna claims. Like Mr. Milo in the video I too believe that an impact during the Younger Dryas is very possible. But the claim that it CAUSED the Younger Dryas, Killed the Megafauna, wiped out the Clovis people etc etc etc... That's a lot of claims that we still totally lack any evidence of and in fact have evidence against.
th-cam.com/video/5B4INyco0ZU/w-d-xo.html
Thanks for this excellent video.
My pleasure!
I love this! I wrote something on this topic quite recently out of extreme frustration that a cursory google search for hermes trismegistus still brings up nonsensical articles on this topic even on fairly reputable websites!
I don't know your background, so I can't comment on that, but at first I just imagined some random person searching this up, finding misinformation, and out of sheer rage, wrote an entire dissertation on about the pseudohistory (more like "pseudohistoriography"?) behind Hermes Trismegistus. That is a standard I wish to, yet don't think I can, live up too.
@@thelordandsaviorgigachadrr888 I studied late Rome as a postgrad so it was personal.
Great breakdown, important stuff. I'm glad I saw this after I read The Hermetica as opposed to before.
I love the analysis of Greek thought and the evolution of ideas. Thanks.
I honestly think that the hermetica and Hermes Trismegistus is the amalgamation of Greek and Egyptian culture and philsophy. An attempt at union between cultures. He is thrice greatest because he is the great gods and man combined in mind.
I look forward to watching your channel grow! 💙 These videos can be watched over & over, I continue to learn & have a few laughs (I appreciate your subdued & sly sense of humor when discussing unfounded & outlandish beliefs!!)
Thanks, Erin. I appreciate that!
Ok, but whyyyy is he presenting in such a cold room? Is this a winter outdoor event? hehehe.
Thanks for doing the research David. Much appreciated.
Thank you for doing the research, have been curious for Years!
The way you slice and dice their arguments… nice work!
This is one of the best channels I have ever come across
Thank you!
"You can't take Hermes out of hermetica" *mic drop*
This video is pure pure gold
Aw, thanks!
Agreed, thanks🙏❤️
The writings of Djehuti (channeled through priests obviously) are the ones attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. The were just translated into Greek.
This channel is a blessing
I have found in my own belief system that there are many extremely well regarded both ancient and current philosophical texts. These cover almost every genre you can think of. But, when I tried to read some of these myself I realised that they were so theoretically advanced and sophisticated that if I tried to adapt my belief system to them I would become hopelessly lost and in a land which I dont actually recognise which would affect my cognitive ability and psychological welfare to a point that I would not be able to function normally in order to live in a stable environment or have normal and stable relationships with my close knit family unit.
While I cannot judge people who become obsessed with the contents and meanings of these auspicious pieces of literature, I myself try to stick to more sound and logical scripts. I like scripts where you can go back to the original and study it to make sure you understand the context and meaning of the words. Especially if I am going to use these words to guide me in character development and lifestyle.
While some may build their belief systems and try to draw other people into the web of following gods like Thoth and Hermes I take a much safer route. It is good though that people do study these in order to verify their source and credentials. To have the resources and ability to study the original documents must be awe inspiring and exciting. This of course is provided you can do so with a level head and not wish to start your own cult.
I have however read and enjoyed the works of the ancient Persian philosophers Sadi and Rumi. They are perfectly understandable and promote good character building in simple dialogue. No need for a masters degree in linguistics they are available in English .
I like this kind of thing, especially since I've just been reading about Nazi mysticism with pseudo-histories and religions invented out a mixture of elements and called authentic. I'd love a video about what modern neo-pagans say about ancient religions versus what is known about them.
Thing is religions need to evolve and change and adapt. Granted not in the Nazis way, never in the Nazi way. They need the big katusha rocket
Because there's a direct link between Scientology, Trump, and the techniques used by the right wing echosphere, who also tie to NXIVM (Elon promoted it) Epstein (Trump's bff for20+ years) and Saville, (who Brand idolised) and the Monarchy who (Shapiro and Piers Morgan defends). Tate dated Peterson's daughter and Elon went to the same Jesuit University as Trump, and Epstein hooked up Elon's brother, just like he did for Trump.
Trump's lawyer Alan Dershowitz said he was introduced to Epstein by Lynn de Forrester Rosschild.
Scientology is training these people in the tactics of brainwashing, basically what MK Ultra became, and probably run by the CIA, and Opus Dei, which is basically the same thing. Their principle strategy is Gaslighting.
Gaslighting, aka Grooming. Accusation in a mirror (AiM), mirror politics, mirror propaganda, mirror image propaganda, is a hate-speech incitement technique where one falsely attributes to one's adversaries the intentions that one has for oneself and/or the actions that one is in the process of enacting. It was used in Rwanda, Guatemala, Brazil, and Burma, each having ties to Mossad.
Trump, Barr, Bannon, Cippolone, Gore, Guiliani, Leo, Alito, Thomas, and Barrett are all Opus Dei. Trump trained alongside Epstein and Roger Stone under Roy Cohn, who used kids to blackmail politicians on behalf of Mossad. Cohn trained under Meyer Lansky, who trained under Hoover. Robert Mercer and Rupert Murdoch are both Knights of Malta.
Saville, Bezos, Gates, Koch, Rogan, Walsh, Crowder, Kirk, Fuentes, Dore, Knowles, Kulinksi, Ball, Iverson, Icke, Woods, Watson, Cernovich, Abbott, Jones, Robinson, Woods, Pool, Rubin, Peterson, Posobeic, Duke, Molyneux, Yilanopouse, Gionet, Richardson, Tillerson, Greene, Manaforte, Flynn, Ducey, Acosta, Attwood, Stone, Pence, Desantis, Meadows, Trump, Eastman, Black, Kerik, Melania, Barr, Bannon, Hawley, Gingrich, Abrams, Comey, Cuomo, Kerry, Abrams, Gore, Spencer, Blassio, Pompeo, Bolton, McCarthy, Nugent, Cruz, Rubio, Gaetz, Santos, Tucker, Gutfield, O'Reilly, Beck, Scarborough, Devos, Kasich, Mercer, Murdoch, Rosschild, Ingram, Kelly, Lake, Conway, Coulter, Huckabee, McEnany, Hannity, Spicer, Christie, Prager, Maher, Colbert, Corbett, Hayes, Biden, Harris, Fauci, Pelosi, Menendez, Pirro, Manchin, Cooper, Maddow, AOC, Newsom, Uyger, Dawkins, Hitchens, Hancock, Sitchin, Ventura, Morgan, Cowell, Farage, Johnson, May, Merkel, Blair, Cameron, Brown, Blair, Mogg, Benjamin, Trudeau, Putin, Bolsanaro, Stalin, Lenin, Tito, Trotsky, Hitler.
All Roman Catholic.
Special mentions (adjucants): Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris, Miller, Watters, Greenwad, Blumenthal, Maté, Camp, Brand, Loomer, Shapiro, Thatcher, Bush, Obama, Merkel, Greer, Summers, Silverstein, Adelson. Greenblatt. Wexner. Also Hindu Nationalists Ramaswamy, Tulsi, Haley, Hirsi, DeSouza, Modi etc.
Edward Snowden worked for Pentagon Comptroller Dov Zakheim and was bought to us by Glen Greenwald, who now rubs shoulders with Jesuit Agent Provocateurs Tucker Carlson and Joe Rogan, whose mutual friend with Steven Crowder Brian Callen is the founder of Diligence, a spook Contractor to the CIA.
Julian Assange helped Roger Stone and the Trump Campaign in 2016, being the first to suggest challenging the outcome if he lost, and asking to be made the Australian ambassador to the US. Margeret Sunbyrne, the head of the Sun Worship Cult he was raised in was also protected by the CIA in the Australian Supreme Court, on grounds of "National Security" Trump paints himself Orange to represent Apollo.
Aleister Crowley inspired NXIvM and Manson, and was a master of mind control, his Protege L Ron Hubbard was the founder of Scientology, which uses the same mind control tactics displayed in right wing media.
They were also instrumental in Trump's conception as the Moon Child, born on a Super Wolf Blood Moon on June 14 700 days before the founding of Israel, who he gave sovereignty over the Golan heights on its 70th anniversary, and was inaugurated aged 70 years 7 months and 7 days old. June 14 is the birthday of Osiris, Known as the Day of the Pharoah.
Scientology uses the same tricks as Religion and Freemasonry, including isolation through strange acts (rituals/hazing) Gaslighting and intimadation, these can also be seen in right wing propaganda. Peterson's hero's journey comes from the transit of the moon through the zodiac, which is why they're called months.
Blame the victim:
The strategy is to make the aggressor's feelings the goalposts, everything is oriented around their needs and approval; a war of attrition using subjective language and logical fallacies such as incredulity, which amounts to disbelief, and acting as if this belief is something the victim is responsible for.
"Look what you made me do"
*In the context of child sexual abuse (CSA) the **_gaslighting_** is often used to convince the victim all the abusive behaviours are fine, normal and an expression of “love” (for eg Patriotism, Christianity, Service). It is used to ensure the victim doesn’t speak out about it and doesn’t fight back. It can also be used in concert with other **_grooming_** tactics like fear and isolation. Ultimately the aim is to legitimise a worldview that is detached from reality, and therefore arbitrary. Now they can call evil good and good evil*
*>>Trivializing:* *The victim’s feelings are made to feel like they don’t matter, are **_unfounded_** or they are weak for thinking so.* (woke/ lib/ groomer/ unamerican etc)
*>>Countering: This is quintessential gaslighting.* *They **_directly counter the memories and perceptions of the victim._*
*>>Repetitive Questions: The abusive partner makes the victim doubt what they think or feel by asking the same question multiple times.* by doing so they preemptively assume the role of an authority by virtue of being rude. The shock value is the whole point, it's the politics of Terrorism.
*>>Diverting: The abuser diverts the subject and puts the blame into outside circumstances.*
*>>No true Scotsman, or appeal to purity* is an informal fallacy in which one attempts to *protect their generalized statement from a falsifying counterexample* by trying to _exclude the counterexample_ improperly.
This is the Core of White Supremacist ideology.
*"What Others Say" (Appeal to Populism)*
The abuser tells the victim what other people "think" about the victim, the abuser and/or the situation on whole. Also known as an appeal to populism, the basis of Authoritarian Communism, and Cults, "if many believe it then it must be true" (whether people actually agree with the position and whether it is true or not). Bolshevism itself means "the Majority" and is no different to Fascist appeals to a "Moral Majority" Patriotism is a form of Authoritarian Communism.
Other than direct contradiction and disbelief other strategies for Gaslighting include Begging the Question, and the use of Strawman arguments; refuting a reframed argument *different from the one actually under discussion* while not recognizing or acknowledging the distinction.
Through the exercise of overwhelming a subject with countless contradicting premises and subjective terms a game of Pigeon Chess is played to deter criticism and break down a person's defences, until they no longer trust their own feelings, and rely solely on an outside source for direction. This is clearly demonstrated in the Maga cult, and is repeated in the convoluted dogma and magical thinking of Evangelism, New Age Spirituality, Ancient Aliens, and Graham Hancock. Always alluding to a secret to be revealed, but always in vague nebulous terms and undefined benefits of a far away place with no means to verify one way or the other.
"Trust me bro"
Effectively they all play the same role of an Enlightened Guru with deep understanding of life matters who can solve all your problems. It's likely no coincidence Reagan emptied the mental health services in the US, over half of those in Jail and living on the streets have undiagnosed ADHD.
Auyawasca and Psychotropics are also a staple in brainwashing, as is telling the target they've been brainwashed and that the Guru has the cure, right wing propaganda uses this language heavily by flipping the script and arguing they are the victims, that they're the ones being silenced and cancelled, that they oppose child abuse while also defending it, that the deep State is out to get them, when they're the Deep State and always have been.
Aleister Crowley was a big advocate of using Psychotropics to brainwash, just like the CIA, Opus Dei and MK Ultra.
Brand and Trump both use hand waving and holding them outspread in a "settle" gesture called pacing. They can also stare at an opponent, "asserting dominance" to put the target on the back foot and unsure how to respond. Peterson does this a lot, along with rapid fire speech, and using an insulting or demanding tone. By using these tactics as well as loaded language (Newspeak) and inference (plausible deniability) only to move the goalposts and reframe when challenged.
Trump's Mentor Roy Cohn admitted to using kids to blackmail politicians on behalf of israel, and trained under him alongside Epstein and Roger Stone. Trump's Jesuit mentor was Norman Vincent Peale, a 33rd degree Master Freemason. He was born June 14 during a Super Wolf Blood Moon to Fred Christ and Mary McKleod, he keeps a book of Hitler's speeches called _My New Order_ and uses it verbatim at his rallies. The Von Drumph family come from the same place as Hitler, Vienna Bavaria, Capital of the Holy Roman Empire. He paints himself Orange to represent Apollo; the Dawnbringer of Aleister Crowley's Golden Dawn. Jamal Kashoggi's Mossad brother Adnan sold Trump a Superyacht for Russian Roman Abromavich, who was also paying Boris and Farage for Brexit. Most of israel's govt are non religious Russians.
@@gringlebandersnatch Of course religions change and adapt. But a lot of modern paganism comes from falsified "traditions." That the people who made them up often believed in their own con doesn't actually make it something other than a con. I don't mind people making up their own religions, but I do mind pseudo-history. I'd be very curious to know what @greghansen38 brings up, above. How do neo-pagan reconstructions compare to the ancient religions they think they're restarting?
I would have been very disappointed if I'd gone to that conference, hoping to hear Peter Gandy "speak" and all he did was read the intro to his book, which if I'd been a Gandy fan, I would have probably already read myself. Anyway, great video. I was not familiar with Gandy's work, but had read some works that talked about Hermes Trismegistus, many years ago, though in the "esoteric" vein, so I appreciated the historical perspective. I am enjoying your channel greatly!
The mega slam you give him after he says about ten words at the start is hysterical!
Thank you for you efforts in historic exploration with logic and critical thought.
Has this guy never heard of syncretism? It was very prevalent in the Hellenistic World.
I guess knowledge isn't fun unless it's "secret" & "forbidden" somehow.
Promoting the lure of "secret wisdom" is a classic hustle. It's like the snake oil of book selling.
Great Work open honest references on each of the timelines to reflect truths of when these books are written !! ,Thank you !
At 43:00, I think you misunderstood his point. What it sounded to me like he meant was that Moses himself was greatly influenced by his Egyptian upbringing, and that this influence then made its way via Moses into early Judaism itself, thus explaining how "Jewish ideas" can be found in the Hermetica, because they were not even necessarily exclusively Jewish in the first place. Not that this has any bearing on the larger notions being discussed in this video.
I'm really enjoying going through your channel again recently, the tour of Egypt is a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to the next part, but I like the level of condensed information and argument in your videos in general.
Oh boy this is going to be a good one!
I'm very fond of Hermetic Philosophy. So I really enjoyed your history of it.
On the chicken and egg problem: All chickens require pre existing eggs. But not all eggs require pre existing chickens. Make of this what you want.
excellent work
Thank you!
I know you said you were only doing history - but it is important to note: regarding “fictitious” characters - from the Egyptian perspective of the “neters” - gods as natural essence - saying that “Thoth” is fictitious is like saying that “motherhood” is fictitious. I suppose that is true though as the allegorical figure is a fiction. But it is important to point out the nature of how the ancient Egyptians saw gods. This Megalith guy sadly does not touch on this.
Why is it not plausible that the text we know as the corpus hermeticum was the Greek translation of the original texts? We know that the library of Alexandria held the knowledge of ancient civilizations, we know it was destroyed, how do we know that the original text wasn't lost and the translation survived?
Because the contents are not only in the Greek language but are culturally Greek as well.
@@WorldofAntiquity well yes, if I have no cultural frame of reference for a document I wish to translate, by default my own culture become the lense thru which I translate the document. I cannot just shift my mind to a culture I've never experienced regardless of how many texts of that culture I've read, and that's working on the assumption that it's even possible for 2 languages to be 100% perfectly relatable to each other.
@@g_regulator1695 I am not talking about a simple translation. The actual contents - the substance - of the works is not primarily Egyptian, but primarily Greek.
On 50:00 I will correct you, about the λόγος, Philo remakes the philosophy or Ηράκλειτος. For Philo it was not parthenogenesis. The Λόγος basis was there all the time.
Yes, fair point!
Great job. Thank you.
Thank you for watching!
Very interesting analysis and, as with all your videos, it's enjoyable and criminally under-watched!
I do think some of your arguments against Gandy grow thin, sometimes because you misinterpret or mildly misunderstand what he's portraying. One element regards Hypatia. How so?
First, you remark that, "What it appears Gandy is trying to make it seem as if the Christian church tried to wipe out the wisdom of Hermes Trismegistus - and unfairly at that."
Second, you remark that Hypatia was killed as a political act, not a religious one. But that's not really the case, is it?
Yes, it's true that Cyril and Orestes were engaged in a political struggle over the city. *Both* were Christians, it should be pointed out, except that Cyril's faction contained violent, and yes, quite religious fanatics. What we can say with more certainty is that a rumor began that Hypatia interfered between the two men, preventing resolution. The rumor spurred Peter the Lector to take action, resulting in Hypatia's gruesome murder. We could argue about whether Cyril gave the order or not, but frankly, Lector and his fanatics would not have needed much to prod them into the job and the rumor would have been enough. It seems hard to call her murder merely "political" when Cyril and Peter the Lector were electrified by religious position and fanaticism.
All of which is to say that Gandy's points stand as he presented them:
* Hypatia was one of the last great figures from the library.
* A group of Christians, led by Peter the Lector, did indeed kill her.
* Bishop Cyril was later canonized.
* Christians destroyed the library (along with numerous others) alongside accusations of pagan superstition.
All of that except the last point is true. I doubt you would disagree. But in that series of points, you injected that it "appears" Gandy is saying something.
Except, Gandy never claimed that the wisdom of Hermes was a focus of Christian ire, and you even go on to remark that the church did in fact attack and destroy many pagan beliefs and writings (even as they incorporated others). Is it unreasonable to suspect that it could've been included in the destruction and censorship to some degree or another?
Even still, in this case you are ascribing a motivation to Gandy and his description that we can't say actually exists. I noticed this a few times through your analysis of him, and was alternately surprised at how often you were agreeing with Gandy's points. What I mean by that is, your myth-buster targets tend to be more clearly erroneous and uninformed than it seems Gandy is on his subject, which is why it seems (to me) that some of your arguments were often thinner and more speculative than in previous videos. (I am binging on your stuff so I really can't compare this to your more recent content, but I suspect it will be as entertaining!)
Side note: I am familiar with Gandy's book on mystery religions, having read it many years ago, but as an atheist I don't have much vested in the outcome of his speculations here other than what may be historically accurate. This is my first introduction to his take on Hermes.
He seems to be arguing that a syncretic text had one definitive source rather than just accepting it for what it is. If it contains valuable wisdom who cares who wrote it? My bells started ringing when he said the origins were "shrouded in mystery" rather than saying we don't know, or are unsure of, the origin. I was recommended your videos after I asked TH-cam to stop recommending UnchartedX to me, so maybe the algorithm isn't all bad. I've been bingeing all day, great work.
6:44
_In the temple of Thoth: shine like thunder_
_In the temple of Thoth: cry like rain_
_In the temple of Thoth: hear my calling_
_In the temple of Thoth: hear my name_
Bravo! Great video! I enjoy it so much. And through this criticism we can learn a lot in the way. Thx! Greetings from Chile!
- I really enjoy yours videos!! thank you very much!!
Your channel is so underrated. Very interesting and entertaining content!
Yes it is my friend....this channel is a class act. Peace to ya.
As a member of a hermetic order I find it upsetting to see the spiritual teachings of hermetic literature misrepresented in such a pseudo-historical way.
We can both appreciate somethings spiritual and philosophical teachings while staying true to the real history of the tradition and its texts associated with it.
I do not understand why such people need to take an already interesting subject and tar it with pseudo history, the value of any text should not be based upon its antiquity alone.
Pseudo-history such as this only devalues such interesting works and pushes them into the realms of misinformation.
Thank you world of antiquity for covering this topic, to clear up the misrepresentation of this and many other traditions.
This video is almost an hour long, yet I'd want more.
That's a real compliment!
Seriously. I could do an entire course on this subject.
Beside some other things, what strikes me is that at one point Peter Gandy refers to "the Ancient Egyptian Religion being practiced". Considering how many centuries this "religion" spans, the definite article followed by the singular form seems quite out of place to me. It's not as though Ancient Egyptian priests/writers/philosophers/magi/cultural elite members throughout all those centuries were all each other's static carbon copies. They may have had the idea of a very solidly fixed Heavenly order whose mirror image had to be maintained on Earth, they were still human beings, in spite of themselves.
Edit: I came across this around the 22nd minute of the video, and now realize that Dr. Miano also addresses this point, towards the end of the video.
23:30 WAIT WHAT... Downfall of Alexandria linked to Holy Roman Empire... HOW?! Like if he means the HRE in modern day Germany, it was founded WAY later after Ancient Egypt's downfall and subsequent conquest by Romans then Muslims, IF he means the OG Roman Empire he mockingly called "Holy", then we KIND OF know that Caesar and Cleopatra predate Christianity, as they lived in BC era. So WHICHEVER Roman Empire he means, neither fit... Unless he somehow blames the Byzantines for Alexandria becoming irrelevant?!
Excellent. I wish I had your material when I was younger and more impressionable. I'm grateful for the subjects you cover. BTW, I don't think you answered why the ancient texts from the Library of Alexander were being relocated to other libraries. 🙂
Alexandria was a common target for attacks. After the first few threats to one-of-one texts concerned scholars would have begun swapping originals for copies and taking the originals off to other collections. Likely some to other libraries. Definitely not all, assuming less than 100% of the thieves were benevolently motivated lol.
I appreciate you framing this with a little skeptical academic distance and calling out the fictional characters up front. Too many videos will quickly dip into the assumption that all of this is magical and true. (It's like how in fiction, all prophesies always have to be true, even though in real life, virtually none of them are. A lot of people who talk about things like the Book of Thoth assume they're in a fictional world where mythology must be true.)
One can always imagine what it must have been like to people who believed such things, but I think it's a mistake to emulate that state of mind in scholarship about it.
A portion of this digresses into whether or not the ancient enslaved Jews in Egypt of Moses' day were influential in Hermetica or not. The whole premise assumes that there were actually enslaved Jews in a period of "Moses' day" which is debatable and highly doubtful. I am interested in seeing a video dedicated to this topic on World of Antiquity.
In the UK a professor is the head of a university department. Is it the same in the US? Do you hold the chair in history at the State College of Florida?
No, it is different here. Departments are full of professors, associate professors, assistant professors, and adjunct instructors. I am a professor only in the colloquial sense (on my channel).
Always very interesting and insightful. Thanks.
As stated early in the video, if you want to believe in the wisdom of the book, you can. No need to justify the age or origins of the work itself.
23:30 - I cannot STAND it when people misuse the label “holy Roman Empire” - Theodosious was not an ottonian German king!
Who is Hermes Trismegistus?
We are all Hermes Trismegistus!
Iamblichus gives Hermes Trismegistus credit for discovery. Copernicus wasn’t the only one to follow. It was relatively common to give Hermes Trismegistus credit for discovery. Up until De Re Metallica as well.
Whoever writes new discovery is Hermes Trismegistus, a nom de plume similar to Basil Valentine.
What would be the “hidden history” of Hermanubis?
Well, this video is mostly about the original Hermes Trismegistus. I do have to ask, though, if I wrote a song and said I was inspired by the Beatles, would that mean I AM the Beatles?
@@WorldofAntiquity perhaps if Euterpe was the inspiration?
The Beatles would be inspired the deity rather than being the deity.
@@SacredGeometryDecoded Surely Copernicus never believed that Hermes Trismegistus was a deity.
@@WorldofAntiquity no I don’t think so. Just seemed to be a thing to sign off in that direction. Issac Newton made a translation of emerald tablet but I don’t think he was a “believer” either. All the alchemists were giving Hermes/ Mercurius the cred. Athanasius kircher was called Hermes Trismegistius by other Jesuits.
Just seems to be what the cool kids were doing.
Persians and Jews working in Baghdad still titled their works with dedication to Allah.
Saw an interesting talk of Medieval atheism. In public always play the pious believer.
@@SacredGeometryDecoded how cool you watch these videos SGD. I love your channel. I just recommend you to someone a couple of days ago.
A helpful analysis of Gandy’s extensive claims.
Idk I think you're focused on the schisms and not what it means. I think it only makes sense if you've reached enlightenment by receiving salvation from Christ. Remember that you're veiled. Eyes that cannot see or ears that cannot hear. If you drop the names and look for the message you'll see it all connects. The legend stays the same but the characters are ever changing.
This is a history channel, so I focus on the history.
I like the strong no-bullshit tone of this video, first time seeing this channel but I feel it is my type of content.
The question however remains. I am digging into ancient/esoteric knowledge, myths, believes - and the whole journey keeps me wondering.
How continent and millennia apart - such beliefs and knowings and images share what it feels like - similar base. Who, how and when came up with this in the first place? And is it possible all those ideas to originate from a single mutual point in time?
I suppose it depends on what it is, but in my experience, most of the images people show me, who are asking about it, are either not all that similar or are very basic in design.
@@WorldofAntiquity So you don't find the similarities of the development of complex myths, believes, architecture, culture, writings, civilization, agriculture and so on between the so called "old world" and the "new world" (America) kind of eerie - although it is accepted that the diaspora divided and held no contact between the groups for more than 15 000 years? I mean sure there is quite a lot crook new age gurus and what not - but the opposite academic stand feels in now way less of a simplification of the matter and the phenomenon.
Even if we for sure know that they were divided for at least 15 000 years and come to somewhat similar in complexity and sometimes in the details - myths, believes, architecture, culture, writings, civilization, agriculture and so on - it is a statement for an incredibly synchronized and perhaps not truly understood internal psychological mechanism.
@@LyubomirIko *So you don't find the similarities of the development of complex myths, believes, architecture, culture, writings, civilization, agriculture and so on between the so called "old world" and the "new world" (America) kind of eerie*
No, because I know the human propensity to find patterns where there are none. It is safer to rely on reason than on my imagination.
*the opposite academic stand feels in now way less of a simplification of the matter and the phenomenon.*
The academic approach is evidence-based. There are good reasons for this.
*Even if we for sure know that they were divided for at least 15 000 years and come to somewhat similar in complexity and sometimes in the details - myths, believes, architecture, culture, writings, civilization, agriculture and so on - it is a statement for an incredibly synchronized and perhaps not truly understood internal psychological mechanism.*
Sure, but also keep in mind that were were not all completely divided, and historians do recognize an interchange of ideas, culture, tech, etc. when it makes sense (such as when two societies are within reasonable distance of each other and have more than just superficial similarity).
30:37 I hear a baby cough during part of Gandy's video. What a lovely event to bring A CHILD/BABY TO! A LECTURE ABOUT THE HERMETICA! JEEZ, I thought my parents sucked!
Trismegistos means "thrice greatest" not "thrice great," which would be trismegas, if I might quibble.
New info for me to study!😊 Didn’t know about this thanks
glad I found this channel! what is your opinion on Mead's book Thrice Greatest Hermes? I know it's kinda outdated, not the preferred Copenhaver translation
Thanks again!
Had no idea Hermes Trismegistus was supposed to have invented wrestling
Notice at around 38:35 Gandy says the Hermetica was written by "scholars" translating ancient Egyptian texts [or later "filtered through the understanding"] right after dismissing all modern and contemporary scholarship on the subject that says otherwise by strawmanning a single writer's [Casaubon's] opinion? This alone should demonstrate his bias and draw into question everything he claims here.
I'm new to studying the Hermetica. I think its fascinating. I do believe it's material is older than many scholars originally believed (2nd Century), because the concepts do seem to be Egyptian, though the manuscript that was eventually translated was influenced by the Hellenistic culture that was well established when it was written down. The claim that the text influenced some of the greatest minds to come out of the Renaissance has some merit if you look at people like Newton, Descartes, and Leibniz. A good case can be made that their interests in esoteric concepts that come out of the Hermetica influenced the way they approached their studies, and helped lead to some of their discoveries.
Do you know some details how was Newtown influenced by esotericism such that it helped the scientific achievements of his?
Or were you just speculating?
My History Studies indicated the following:
The guy that you are reviewing "gets it correct"
The Hermedic Principals are largely 98% the "Universal Laws", thus Yes, it would be certainly Wisdom and very much has Value.
It would be Wisdom from previous era, early Kings of Egypt.
The Greeks merely copied them in their language and studied and expanded upon them in the Philosophical Era.
The greater % of the "Greek Writings and what's attributed to the Greeks, were learned from the Ancient Egyptians".
Greek was a widely spoken language after Alexander, and we had lost the ability to read Egyptian until the 19th Century.
History/Ancient History is 1 of my degrees and one I most often continue to study and research.
But, I've found, it is the most influenced and mutable over the ages to suit the Scholars and/or Rulers/Leaders.
Facts Matter... but not to everyone.
PS Hermetic subject is best understood when one has a good basic understanding of Quantum Physics. And yes it can be Spiritual b/c is is about Universal Laws, and that of the Divine Design.
Hermedes is Greek for Thoth - they may have added a Greek slant.
Thoth was the giver of Knowledge, Teacher.
Confusing due to the Mainstream Archaeologists and Academics.
Manley P Hall spoke to the subject.
The Greeks came later, they may have colored the subject, but that's just that. Romans too.
You actually prove your initial statement inaccurate.
The Liibrary burned.
The Bible was written in Greek first, then Latin but the Old Testament was first written in Hebrew.
If the Pope wasn't still in Time, would it not be attributed to the Greeks? They really took Liberities with interpretations and the translations.
They are Egyptian - period.
😘
This and your whole channel are really good my friend (been watching all your vids) - I was raised on Carl Sagan, and am a skeptic and scientifically-minded through and through. But I do have to say Terence Mckenna talking about H. Trismegistus is more fun in this case =P
Great stuff!
Point of order: historians, especially mediaeval and early modern historians, haven't referred to the period between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance as "The Dark Ages" for decades. That period was far from "dark" .
This is good. Thank you.
1:18
"The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs"
I was looking for that but couldn't find it!
The Greek historian you mentioned began by Egyptians "according to them", the fact that he started first by them and then the Greeks tells us things.