Viewing Hegel through a Hermetic lens doesn’t make him less of a philosopher, but it does change how we see his project. He wasn't just trying to describe the world; he was trying to complete it. By turning the "irrational" myths of the Hermeticists into a , Hegel attempted to provide a rational foundation for the ancient dream of universal harmony.
In the Hermetic tradition, the universe is a process of through creation. Hegel mirrors this in his concept of Geist (Spirit or Mind). For Hegel, history is the process of Spirit alienating itself into the material world and then returning to itself through human consciousness. 2. Key Overlaps Hegel and the hermetic tradition
The relationship between and the Hermetic tradition is one of the most fascinating "hidden" chapters in the history of Western philosophy . While Hegel is often presented as the ultimate rationalist, scholar Glenn Alexander Magee famously argued in Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition (2001) that Hegel’s system was deeply influenced by mystical and occult currents. 1. The Core Argument: Rationalizing the Mystical Viewing Hegel through a Hermetic lens doesn’t make
The central thesis is that Hegel did not simply invent his from thin air. Instead, he took the structures of Hermeticism —a tradition based on the idea that the human mind can know the divine because they are of the same essence—and translated them into the language of modern philosophy. In the Hermetic tradition, the universe is a