I was a little taken aback by all the talk of inviting Mithras to dinner and becoming his servant, because the prior sections had made it sound like Mithras was one of several gods who would be serving you. “Hermetic Magic” is different because it is less group oriented, it is mostly about staying up all night singing ancient formula that must be pronounced exactly correct, and visualizing the god Mithras descending to you on a cloud. LaVey’s “Satanic Bible” was shocking to me because, up until part four, it had not gone into much detail about the need to wear black robes and defile the Eucharist with friends. Then we get to part four, where we learn what rituals we must participate in to become a real magician. Part III, Praxis, reviews the tools a willing magician might use to stimulate his own imagination, and reinforces the lessons of the previous two sections. The various gods and goddesses of different traditions are really just interchangeable masks worn by the final, true reality (whatever that may be).
But, Flowers and LaVey both claim, calling upon Typhon and/or Satan is really just a psychological way of addressing one’s own psychic power. They reveal something about the universal nature of human myth and magic, which is basically that thought forms have an energy that can be used to manipulate reality.
Hermetic magic flowers series#
Like LaVey, Flowers’ Part II, “Theory”, is basically a series of essays about his own studies. Flowers mentions Greeks, Egyptians, and Jews, making the case that one can remain within the Judeo-Christian tradition while dabbling in Hermetic Magic. The first of his four parts, “A History of Hermetic Magic”, makes the reader feel he is doing the smart thing by participating in a respectable tradition with deep, historical roots. Flowers some respect for borrowing his format from Anton LaVey. Ultimately, I think that Flowers’ approach, seeing the origin of Hermeticism in synthesis and then immersing oneself in pre-modern Hermeticism and then finally producing a new synthesis, within this tradition, is the correct approach.Having read this book, I am now a Hermetic Mage. Flowers points to all the key sources, the Corpus Hermeticum, the Greek Magical Papyri, which you can then read in the original. In point of fact, this is a very good introduction to the history, theory and practice of magic within classical (1st to 4th centuries AD) Hermeticism. Ultimately, I realized that basically any problem I had with Hermetic Magic stemmed from bad vibes off of the “postmodern” title. Then I realized that this was totally traditional! Flowers’ epistle is certainly within the mainstream of Hermetic thought and one would not balk at it if it was part of a newly found ancient Hermetic manuscript.
I also wasn’t wild at first about the “Epistle of Abaris” which is Flowers’ own creation of a Hermetic text. On the other hand, what should we call the worldview that is necessary for astrology, alchemy and magic? A bit of a conundrum! Flowers is entirely correct, however, in pointing to a change from the modern worldview as a prerequisite for true contemporary Hermeticist. I’m not wild about the term “postmodern” which already has a current definition that to my mind doesn’t fit how Flowers uses it, because postmodernism is still atheistic/materialistic. Instead Flowers does a good job of outlining the true history of classical Hermeticism, explaining its mixed Greek and Egyptian roots, its subsequent history, cosmology, Hermetic gematria and the operative magical use of Hermeticism in the Greek Magical Papyri. I was definitely prepared to dismiss this as another frothy New Age production with the term “hermetic” used as a synonym for esoteric, occult or simply “cool”. Hermetic Magic by Stephen Flowers is subtitled “The Postmodern Magical Papyrus of Abaris”
A Necessary Synthesis #1 Flowers' Hermetic Magic.A Necessary Synthesis #2 Agrippa's Synthesis.A Necessary Synthesis #3 Leopold's Talismans.
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