O CAIBALION, Cap. 1 - A Filosofia Hermética (Introdução) - Lúcia Helena Galvão

UPI ATTENTIONbra Good afternoon everyone, welcome back, Today we start a new undertaking, which is the reading of this book. For those who have already been in a lecture of ours, or even those who have never come but want to visit our YouTube channel, you will see that there on YouTube we have more than 100 free lectures, and among these, some of the reading circles that I have been doing. The idea was to take the most beautiful books I've ever read and share with you, chapter by chapter, chew them, digest them. Sometimes they are very beautiful,

but not so simple to understand. And when we read together, even I get out winning. So we have a complete sequence, for example, of the Prophet of Kali Jibril, there on YouTube, 26 lectures. We have a complete sequence of In Search of Wisdom, by Sri Ram, 15 lectures. And the intention of this book is that there are also 15 conferences, one on each chapter. It's a small book, but it has 15 chapters here. And it is one of those books that I recommend, that you have as a headline. For those who are interested in some

kind of Oriental philosophy, for those who are interested in reading Helena Blavatsky, for example, which is very worthwhile, Caibalion is a wonderful introduction. It helps a lot in this understanding of Oriental works, which are sometimes a little more complex, and even Western works by a writer like Helena Blavatsky. So, welcome to the beginning of this new challenge. It is not such a simple book. If you come to YouTube, I already gave a lecture about this book. One hour lecture about the whole book. There are 126 pages. Obviously, I had to extract a few things, I

had to skip, make a selection, which is necessary for a time like this. But it is that kind of book that you have a little pain in your heart. So, I would like to have talked about this. In one hour it is impossible, but in 15 hours it will be possible. So, we will chew chapter by chapter. I hope it is a pleasant experience for you. I have loved doing these reading groups and intend to perpetuate them, and I even accept suggestions for new titles for the future. Well, this book, we will talk a little

about it in a moment, it has a poetry inside, a poem, that he says, as the poet says, but he does not say which is the poet. If you type it in Google, you will not find it anywhere. I have no idea where he got it from. But I really like this little verse, this five-verse poem he puts, because it is almost a summary of the central idea of ​​the book. Very beautiful and very interesting. It is a poem that says the following, Do not let the flame go out, kept for centuries in this dark

cave, in this sacred temple, supported by pure ministers of love, do not let this divine flame go out. Basically, tradition or transmitting, is the etymology of the word Caibalion. And you will be convinced that the central word of this poem is that. Tradition, transmitting, passing on the flame. Imagine, if you have the opportunity to watch some of these lectures that we have on YouTube, I think that most of them, at some point, we quote Plato. He is such an important philosopher, that he is like a water divider in human thought. Imagine that Plato, to get

to our days, spent a thousand years in a dark, complicated Middle Ages. Someone kept the flame burning at that moment, so that it would reach us. You will say, well, but it is the school apatristic, the Christianity adopted Plato. He adopted Plato the Christian way, adapting his worldview. Plato, the way of Plato, practically disappeared and was resurrected in the Renaissance. But someone, during those thousand years, must have kept these books, these works. Do you know that, for example, Aristotle's Poetic Art, we received this work through a single copy, that was left in the hand of

a Byzantine wise man. Do you know that? One copy. A lot was lost. The works, for example, of Chrysippus of Celos, who was a great historical writer, he wrote close to 500 small treatises. Have you ever heard of any work of Chrysippus of Celos or his name? There was none left. None. A lot was lost. But some things came to us because someone kept the flame burning, in the night of time. And we gained an unusual time with that. If someone knows something about Plato's philosophy, imagine if we had lost Plato. We would have to

wait for someone of his level to come back to say something, for us to start, because not everyone reaches those conclusions alone. It is a gain for humanity, Plato's work has come to us in the way it did, which is something fantastic. In fact, it is one of my projects in the future, to give a lecture on each book of Plato. And it is worth it, who knows. A reading cycle, each lecture on a book of Plato. We earn a lot with these works. So imagine that there is an anonymous group of beings who kept

it alive. We know about Plato, but who kept Plato? During the Middle Ages, where reading philosophy, in fact, almost no one read in the Middle Ages. You know that even the kings, the few who heard, Charles the Great, were illiterate, they did not even know how to sign their own name. Or illiteracy was funny in the Middle Ages. Who kept it alive, who protected it, who valued it? We know that a lot in the Arab world, and some very isolated names within Europe. We owe it to these beings. What this poem says is, be one

of these beings, preserve the flame, keep the flame of true human knowledge, deep, because the true and deep knowledge is considered that which, when placed in your life, can make you a better human being. Understand, there is a very simple maxim, which was said by a teacher called Jorge Angel Ibraga, who is the founder of Nova Acrópole, which says the following, if you take a plane in Rome, a plane that was driven by horses, and a jet plane today, you have no doubt that the vehicle advanced too much. But the man who drove the vehicle,

not necessarily. Not necessarily this plane pilot today is more fraternal than that man, or maybe more understanding, or maybe with a greater mastery of his emotions, self-knowledge, a mastery of his own selfishness. Maybe not. That is, the machine has evolved, but the man who drives the machine, not necessarily. And if you see, from the philosophical point of view, as Plato said, as great masters of philosophy said, knowledge is only useful when it makes us better. Because the machines that match the action of man in the world will match what man wants to do in the

world. And if he is very selfish, this technology sometimes only enhances this selfishness. That is, if you are going to the abyss, it is better to go on foot. Because if you go by imported car, you will arrive faster. If destiny is the abyss, it is better to go slowly. So speed, agility, efficiency, when you don't know where you want to go as a human being, is something of dubious utility for the advancement of humanity. In fact, this has everything to do with our lecture today. Hermes Trismegistus spoke about it. The care that must be

taken with information, while man has no information. While he is not well informed, be careful not to spread knowledge about a man who is not deep. Because if a man has a bad character, a sick character, information will enhance this sick character. Or wouldn't it be better if Adolf Hitler was absolutely inept? The brilliance he had, the intellectual, the sensational oratory ability, enhanced his psychopathy. Adolf Hitler was better than incompetent. So the enhancement of man's abilities, without him first humanizing himself, was a very big concern of Hermes Trismegistus, of the basis of Caibalion, of the

great and mythical writer of Caibalion, of the Hermetic Laws. Be careful! So, the essence of this poem transmits the essential knowledge so that man continues to grow as a human being. This is the book. It was written in 1908. We'll talk about it soon. But what do you mean? It's not Hermes Trismegistus, Egyptian? It is! The maxims! They took the seven maxims, the seven laws. Hermes Trismegistus, a millenary Egyptian sage, said that he would communicate seven laws that explain the whole manifest universe. The whole manifest universe in all the planes, from the subtle to the

concrete. Seven sentences of this size. And they are inside the Hermetic body, inside the Emerald Table. But you look at it and... What was he trying to say with that? This book takes these seven maxims and comments, one by one, and comments with a lot of authority. But this book, published in 1908, was published anonymously. It is signed by the author as the Three Initiates. To this day, no one knows who these three Initiates are. Someone who had some knowledge took the seven laws of Hermes Trismegistus and commented. And he put this title, The study

of Hermetic philosophy of ancient Egypt and Greece. Whoever it was, it was someone who knew very well what he was saying. Because the book is of indisputable quality. It talks about this knowledge that was born in Egypt, which then goes to Greece, goes to Rome and becomes a heritage of humanity, which is Hermeticism. Well, there are suspicions. There are suspicions on the part of the commentators who study this book throughout history. It is said that the main suspect is this citizen, William Walker Atkinson. Who is William Walker Atkinson? Nobody knows, he was a somewhat mysterious

figure. He belonged to an order called New Thought. And he wrote mostly with pseudonyms. Imagine a person who wrote about 100 works throughout his life. But 10 with his name. It seems that he did not like his name. I do not know why, it's a beautiful name. He did not like it, because he did not use it. He has more pseudonyms than Ferdinand Pessoa. He did not use his own name. One of the names he used to use a lot was Yogi Ramacharaka. Have you heard of this name? People think it's a Hindu, but it

was not. It was this citizen, an American. He used countless names. Because the publisher who published the first edition of this book worked in the same building as the order to which it belonged, people suspect it is him. I honestly have doubts. I do not know if any of you have the habit of writing amateurishly. Those who like to write have a characteristic. They become sensitive to the style of other writers. I present a text to you and say, Machado de Assisio will say, it does not look like him. There is no way. I read

some books by William Walker Atkinson. Do you know something that has nothing to do with Caibalion? It is a very heterogeneous work of quality. He even writes about how to make money. It is a very heterogeneous work. And very little like Caibalion. So it's a suspicion, and no one has any proof of it. There is another strong suspicion, that would be Mabel Collins, who was a direct disciple of Helena Blavatsky, of Theosophy. But there is no proof. Mabel Collins I even take into consideration, because she has another fantastic work, which is The Light of the

Way, and she has style, she writes well. But there is no certainty of that either. The fact is that whoever wrote it, did not want his name to go down in history. He left a sober comment on the seven hermetic laws of ancient Egypt. There is a first French edition. The book was published for the first time in 1908, and today it is a success published worldwide. What is this book about? About this citizen, Hermes Trimegistus. Hermes Trimegistus was a man, who lived in Egypt, on a highly controversial date, who was so wise, that later

his name received this epithet, Trimegistus, the three-time initiated. I will explain to you what initiation is. For the Egyptians, an extremely wise man was the initiated, initiated only once. Hermes Trimegistus was three times initiated, he was a great master. It is said that people from all over the world came to learn from him, he received disciples from all over the world. If you go to a website today, you will find at least three or four different dates, which are supposed to be the dates he lived. And you will even find those who say he did

not even live, that he is a mythical character. It is not surprising that if you take... Lao Tse says the same thing, some say the same about Confucius, Buddha... This existence of great men in history is very controversial. The precise historical evidence is few. So there is a lot of speculation, and there are even those who do not believe that he existed. I am not a follower of this theory. I think that someone who does a work that lasts, at least for about four thousand years of history, must have been a person of weight. When

you see a footprint of this size, it must have been a giant who passed through here. An arbitrary set of compilations of opinions would not generate a historical impact like this. I believe that to perpetuate so much, it must have been the shadow of what this man was. At least four thousand years of history is the shadow of who this man was. It was not just anyone who did this. I do believe that he may have had disciples who supported him, who passed this knowledge on, but that there was someone special there. I have no

doubt. Now, see that the dates, the book itself, Caibalion, speaks of 2700 BC, but it is a date that contradicts itself a little. Because he says, Hermes Trismegistus would have lived during the Xerxes' invasion, which was a people of Semitic origin who invaded Egypt. The first Xerxes dynasty is in 990 BC. That is, it does not coincide with the date he himself gave. Then he says, he was a master of Abraham. Abraham would have lived, according to Genesis, in 1944 BC. But in the Renaissance it was said that he was a master of Moses. Moses

lived in 1512. That is, anywhere between 3,000 and 1,500 BC, you can situate, because no one is sure of anything. There is no precise date about when Hermes Trismegistus lived. There I brought you a curiosity, that image, because that is a painting, a fresco, of an Italian cathedral, called the Cathedral of Siena. Which shows nothing more, nothing less, than Hermes Trismegistus teaching Moses. Moses as being a disciple of Hermes Trismegistus. It is such an unthinkable thing, that if you consider that there was an inquisition there, which, no matter how much it sent people to the

bonfire, the beginning of the Renaissance had a great freedom of expression, and was supported by the Church. Then, when the Counter-Reformation began, the Church closed and cut the wings of the Renaissance. But at the beginning of the Renaissance there was a lot of boldness, and the Church endorsed it, supported it. Because you imagine painting Hermes Trismegistus inside a Christian cathedral, teaching Moses. Another Italian cathedral has the Hypatia of Alexandria inside, surrounded by Christians, and she is teaching. That is, the first Renaissance philosophers, especially Florence, the Platonic school of Cared, of Marsilio Fittino, this person was

very brave and bold. We will talk about it later. They translated the Corpus Hermeticum into Latin for the first time in history. They were very bold. And the Church, until a certain moment, admitted it well. So it's interesting to see the painting of Hermes Trismegistus inside a Christian cathedral, teaching Moses. This exists, and it exists until our days. So the date he lived, very controversial, difficult to designate, was a master who influenced everyone known at the time. This the book itself will say. He has influences that reach India. They extend to Greece, to Rome, via

India, they also enter other peoples of linguistic origin in Indo-European, as Celts, as Scandinavians, to all corners. From ancient religions. And the book even dares a little more. It even says about modern, traditional religions. If you look closely, you will find traces of the Egyptian wisdom behind. You will find the traces of Caibalion. The world understanding that Caibalion put. If you take a wise man like Clement of Alexandria, who was from the Church, he said that Hermes Trismegistus was the inventor of theology. The creator of theology. There were men from the Church, St. Albert the

Great, read the Hermetic Corpus in Greek, Coptic, there was no Latin version. And he liked it, he was a saint of the Church. That is, he had a very great impact throughout history. It is said that even today, if you look carefully, study the religious body, of the Semitic monotheisms, of some oriental religions, you will find the influence of Hermeticism. That is, it has extended a lot, both in space and time. These works, which are what remains of Hermes Trismegistus today, are fragments of what happened. Some ancient writers say that he had more than 45

treatises on medicine. It was one of the things that Hermetic knowledge covered very well. He dealt a lot with medicine. The vision of the health of Hermes Trismegistus was well known in the ancient world. All this was lost. What we have today, of Hermes Trismegistus, are basically these works. We have, in quotes, for example, Minerva Mundi, which does not exist in Portuguese. But if you look for it in English or Spanish on the internet, you will find it. Think of it as Corée Cosmaux, the Virgin of the World, who speaks of the myth of the

Virgin. She says that the Virgin is matter. Matter is the Virgin who was fertilized by the Spirit. It is the Volatil, the matter, which is fertilized by the Fix, the Spirit. It is the basis, after medieval alchemy, of the combination of the Fix and the Volatil, of the Spirit and the matter. It is a small treatise, but it is quite beautiful. Minerva Mundi, the Emerald Tablet, is a little thing, it was a tablet. It was a piece of stone where some laws were written in a very enigmatic way, but very similar to the maxims of

Caibalion. And finally, a slightly larger work, which is the Corpus Hermeticum. The Corpus, that is, the set of discourses belonging to Hermes Trismegistus, which have been presented to us. Divided, above all, between Asclepius... I don't know if you've heard of Asclepius or Scolapius, the god of medicine. In this dialogue, Hermes teaches Asclepius the secrets of medicine, especially the apex of the secret of medicine, which is the fact that things come from the spiritual plane to the physical plane. Both health and illness are not born here, they only reflect here. They come from the spirit, pass

through the soul and impact the body. The body is an organ of impact. If you only heal the body, you block it. At a certain point, the illness would manifest in another. That is, he will talk about the subtle origin of the balance or imbalance of man. He teaches this to Asclepius. It is a speech by Hermes to Asclepius. And the other, which is the Pimander, where he talks to himself. It is an interior dialogue about the nature of man. What I find interesting... In the Pimander, he will divide everything in seven. For him, seven

is a sacred number. We will see that several original pieces of this work were found in those coptas manuscripts of Nag Hammadi. From three hundred and something BC. Several pieces were studied by the Gnostics, the primitive Christians. The first Christians, the Basilids, the Ophi... Sorry, what was it called? The Ophita sect, the Basilids sect, the various Gnostic sects that existed at the beginning of the Christian era, studied Hermes Trismegistus. And when he found some of these manuscripts, he found several original pieces of the Hermetic body. I find this very interesting. Do you know what it

is like to find an original piece of an Egyptian work? Very interesting! That was not known until then. One of the symbols... I'll just come back here to show you. The image, if you see a stick in his hand with two intertwined snakes, this one is called Caduceus of Mercury, this is directly associated with Hermetic knowledge. Because it was the way he expressed the worlds, intertwined from the most subtle to the most concrete. Now it's probably a symbol that existed before him. Because you find in many scriptures, archaeological remains of very ancient civilizations. This, for

example, King Gudea of Lagash, had a cup. This King Gudea was Sumerian. This cup is dated today by archaeologists in 2600 BC. You see that it is full of Caduceus of Mercury, the two intertwined snakes. There is a story that is said, already in the Greek-Roman era, that the god Mercury passed through a place and there were two snakes fighting each other. He takes and puts his staff. Then the two snakes that were fighting each other harmonize and climb the staff, they verticalize. This is interesting because it is very associated within the symbolic alphabet. The

snakes crawling are the energies of man that are directed to Earth, to instinct, to selfishness. The snakes climbing somewhere means that these energies verticalize to push man's consciousness up. Be careful even in dreams, because sometimes we are simplistic. We take that dream book, the newspaper stand, and dream of a snake. Wisdom, not always, it depends on what the snake is doing in your dream. A crawling snake is more associated with instinct. Climbing something, climbing a tree. I will not go into this subject because we have to talk about Gnostic Gospels, but a snake climbing a

tree, a snake climbing a stick, means that this consciousness is verticalizing. So, this symbol that is directly associated with Hermes Trimegistus, which is the symbol of accountability, medicine also uses it, a lot of people use it today. There was the Roman Mercury with this stick in his hand, it was known as the Caduceus of Mercury. This is the symbol of man. Imagine that this lowest sphere is the physical body, the intermediary is the psychic body, mind and emotions, and up there is the spiritual body. Man would be composed of these three worlds. He has a

physical body whose tonic is to survive and procreate, both instincts. He has a spiritual body whose tonic is to achieve values, virtues and wisdom. And he has a psychic body in the middle of the way that has no tonic, that keeps jumping like crazy. Because we do not learn to educate our emotions and our mind. So, he does not close the circuit of the three worlds, because we have no control over our own psyche. Do you realize that? When we are little, what do they teach you? To cuddle, to sit, to walk, to master a

pencil, to master a razor, to master the physical body. Nobody teaches you to master both emotions or your mind. It's like it was arbitrary and there was no way to master it. We get beaten all our lives because our emotions are like this. Our thought is scattered, it does not focus on anything. We get beaten all our lives. And it is said that man can not only, but should, should master these tools. To make them an expression of his superior self in matter. To be able to close the bridge. It is said that when man

balances his psyche, the spiritual passes through it and manifests itself in the world. Then he becomes a tool in the hand of a God. His own inner God, his essence. When you balance the three worlds, a staff passes through it. And the law is established, it comes from heaven to earth. You create a bridge between heaven and earth. As if it were the staff that Mercury put between the earth. If we were to talk about it, there are so many things we could talk about it. Because Western mythology is strongly marked by this symbol. You

can see the myth of King Arthur. Arthur, Gwynevere and Lannister, they were the three worlds. Gwynevere, the human soul, which are our thoughts, our emotions, falls in love with the body and betrays the spirit. This is Gwynevere's betrayal of Arthur. If you see the great breakup that took place between Jung and Freud, it has to do with that. Freud considered the existence of the psychic world, but he believed that the psychic contents come from the physical, which are the eras and thanatos, the instincts, that come and generate psychic contents. Jung did not. He said there

is something above, that influences this psychic world. This was unacceptable to Freud, to the standards of Freudian thought. Jung was a man a little out of his time, far beyond his time. He was very inspired by Hermetism through medieval alchemy. He liked it a lot. Medieval alchemy was hermetic, pure hermeticism. If you take a book of Jung, you will see it full of alchemical drawings. He did it as a way of understanding the things he wanted to express, he expressed it through ancient symbols. This symbol shows that Hermes Trismegistus' intention was to communicate heaven and

earth to man, to make man express what he has from the deepest, the highest. He was such a wise being in Egypt, that the Egyptians, in his death, deified him. They transformed him into a god, Ibis, Toti. Then the Greeks came and transformed him into their god, which is the god Hermes. Can you see his drawing here? You can see it in the corner, with the hat. He has a hat with wings, with wings on his heels. Do you remember him? This was Toti's version in Greece. And then he became Mercury in Rome. But always

with the same idea, messenger of the gods, communicator between heaven and earth. Is anyone here a Gemini? There is another one, full of Geminians. Geminian is the communicator, the main characteristic of the sign, governed by Hermes Mercury. It is a sign governed by Hermes Mercury. Now, a small detail about these two representations, which are representations of the time. The Egyptians considered that a good symbol of wisdom was Ibis. Because he has this fine beak, in the middle of a lot of insects, he can pinch anyone he wants. He has discernment, the ability to choose between.

The etymology of the word intelligence, intelligence, intelligence, choosing between, the ability to do, choosing the right grain. This embodied the idea of ​​wisdom very well for the Egyptians. Now, the Greek was a man very much focused on anthropomorphism, the admiration of the human form, very much focused on aesthetics. They did not see wisdom through an Ibis, it made no sense to them. So they take this content, wisdom, and create their own symbol, Mercury, a beautiful young man, who is Hermes, with the stick, flying Hermes. And then the Romans do the same thing, they transform it

into a very similar symbol, Mercury. Now, our civilization, when it wants to express a concept, like wisdom, like love, how does it represent? It has to use symbols from the past. We did not create our symbol. Do you realize that? We did not create it. For love, you have to take Venus. In a court, when you want to represent justice, you put a Themis, with a tray, with a scale in hand, blindfolded, you have to take borrowed symbols. Our civilization, which created the atomic accelerator and the jet plane, did not create its own symbols. And

symbols serve to express very metaphysical concepts. Maybe we did not create them because we do not want to express metaphysical concepts. We are in a very materialistic era. Is there a problem in working with borrowed symbols? Why did the Greeks not take Ibis? Did they create their symbol? Because each civilization has its own psychic structure. And with more adequate symbols, you pass the concept much more effectively. Let's say you ask me, what is justice? I show you an image of Themis, dressed as a Greek. Do you know what your mind will say? In Greece, it

was easy to be just. I wanted to see if they lived today. I wanted to see Plato doing these things he says, like the clutching of the bridge of the braguette. Especially, there are escape routes. Why? Because you put a very distant clothing in time and space. You would have to wear the wisdom of the 21st century to show that it can exist here. This would leave you without escape routes. It would be much easier to understand this concept. It would be fundamental for the formation of man. But our society works with invested symbols. Maybe

this bridge to the metaphysical is not more important nowadays. If you educate a young person, you inform him, not form him. Then we don't have our own symbols. I think this is a demonstration. If I asked Plato, what is the 21st century? He would say, there are no symbols. I would say, you don't need to explain anything else. Because who doesn't build bridges, is the one who doesn't want to get to the other side. It's obvious! Why would I build a bridge if I don't want to go there? This is a symptom of a very

materialistic society. Very shallow. Extensive, but very shallow. It's the cycle we live. Going a little further, historical references. Don't worry, I won't read all of this to you. But just so you have an idea of how everyone talked about it. Lactantius talked about Hermes Trimegisto. Clement of Alexandria. They talked well, in general. But St. Augustine came and... He didn't like Hermes Trimegisto. And the reason is a little curious, right? Pictorial. St. Augustine said the following. That there was a lot of knowledge within the Hermetic work, which was knowledge revealed by Christianity. And if this was

said before, it must have been the devil who whispered to this man's ears to demoralize Christianity, which would come in the future. It seems funny, right? But he really associated Hermes Trimegisto with a demonic being. And this influenced a lot of people. It generated a lot of prejudice. But still, there was inside the church a Roger Bacon, who was a minister of the church. A St. Albert Magno, who became a saint, who read Hermetic bodies. Anyway, he had a lot of people who were interested in his work throughout history. Now, the Renaissance, the thing was

really very strong. The Renaissance, people, is a sensational time to know. We think of the Renaissance, we only think of painting, sculpture, which is already sensational. But what happened in the philosophy within the Renaissance is an extraordinary thing. And this philosophy is what is behind Leonardo's painting, Michelangelo's sculpture, a conception of a fantastic humanistic universe. We had a historical hook that was very interesting. It was the fact of the fall of Constantinople in the hands of the Ottoman Turks. Well, the Byzantine knowledge, in terms of philosophy, was much higher than the European one. It was

full of philosophers. Then comes Islam, which was not a religion that was very favorable in that context to philosophy. There were even some contexts, but not there at that time. So, all those philosophers are expelled and go to Italy. And they descend in Florence, one after the other. There was a citizen called Giorgio Gemistus Pleton, who influenced very strongly Cosme of Médicis. Cosme of Médicis founded in his house a Platonic Academy. The Platonic Academy was born again within Florence. Florentine Academy of Cared. They celebrated every year the anniversary of Plato. They studied the Republic, they

studied Plato's works as a whole. And within this context, which arose in the hands of Cosme of Médicis, the Hermetic Corpus. A part of the treatises of the Hermetic Corpus arose, of the supposed 15, today we already know that there are more, 14 of these treatises. And he gave it to a brilliant young man, who was his protector, who was called Marsilio Fittino. Marsilio Fittino translates, in 1463, in the 15th century, in the 4th century, he translates into Latin for the first time the Hermetic Corpus. You have no idea who this influenced. It influenced only

two people, God and everyone. This was a revolution in the intellectual thought of the Renaissance. Because this little group that attended the school of Cared, was from the heavy class. There was a Sandro Botticelli, a Rafael Sanzio, Leonardo da Vinci, who was more connected to Milan, to Sforza, but even he was passing by. Everyone was influenced by this school. These great names we know, everyone was influenced by this school. Then came Pico della Mirandola, who was a genius. This was a focus of diffusion of the ancient thought. They translated Zoroastrianism, also with a more Deistic

content, they brought Platonic knowledge in weight. This had a very great influence. But, curiously, long before that, the Hermetic knowledge was still alive in the Middle Ages through the medieval alchemists. If you take a good treatise on ancient alchemy, which I only recommend to work with ancient things, because today there is a great fantasy around it, you will see that the alchemists were Hermetic. Inside their rehearsal tubes, where they supposedly wanted to turn lead into gold, what they were trying to do was to turn the man of lead into the man of gold, what they

were looking for was to make the Hermetic knowledge liveable. Now, if you see how an alchemist lived, they were men who lived a very simple priestly life. Why did they want to produce so much gold? What a crazy ambition! This was a facade to protect themselves from the Inquisition. Because being ambitious and wanting gold will not give you a problem with the Inquisition. It's a big problem, everyone is. But, being a philosopher and wanting to evolve man, then you are in trouble with the Inquisition. So, it was a chemical facade, when in fact they were

Hermetic. This knowledge... And it's curious, you will see that the Emerald Tablet, the Corpus Hermeticum, today, if you take a philosopher, they will tell you that it was written in the early Christian era, and it started to circulate in the Middle Ages. It really circulated a lot in the Middle Ages, even in the Coptic version. But, how? It was not from the time of Hermes Trismegistus. How was it written? Never confuse the date of a historical work with the day it was written. Because for these great civilizations, writing was already decadence. Because writing exposes a

work to be profaned, to be read by anyone. You know, Enrique Veda, Hindu, was written in six centuries before Christ. It was the Brahmins' obligation to decorate Enrique Veda. He could not write, he profaned the work. Writing subjects a work to be read by anyone. So, when a sacred book is written, it is a sign that there is already such a great decadence that people are afraid of losing everything. So they prefer not to risk, they prefer to condense. They prefer to run the risk of being profaned. You will say that Enrique Veda was born

in the 6th century before Christ. This is ridiculous. Everyone knows he is millenary. But it was written there. The Hermetic Corpus, where the first Christians were, was also written there. Until then, no one knew it was written. It was a tradition transmitted orally. And this is not uncommon in various traditions. Sacred books are not written, it is very risky. They decorate the sacred books. And they pass by the ear, which is exactly the essence of the Hermetic knowledge. As I told you, that curiosity in the Ramadhi was in 1945. The shepherds were grazing their sheep,

and they threw a stone, I don't know why. And they heard a noise of clay breaking. Clay vases, with rolls and more rolls. That's how Nag Ramadhi was discovered and also the Korans, the columns of Korans, the manuscripts of the Dead Sea. By chance. Nag Ramadhi was the most curious. They took several of these vases and took them home with parchment inside. And their mother used it to heat the fire. Several, several, several. Someone must have appeared there, a lost historian in that region, because Nag Ramadhi is close to Cairo, 60 kilometers away, a small

town in Nali. And they said, let's give it to us, this thing has value. But you don't know how much it was lost. Inside these manuscripts there are original pieces of Asclepius. That is, parts of the Hermetic body. You know, for example, Nag Ramadhi is from Gnostic Christianity. The Korans, which are the manuscripts of the Dead Sea, are from the Jewish Essenes. You know that among the manuscripts of the Dead Sea, among several passages of the Old Testament, they found a huge passage in the Republic of Plato. Among the Essenes of the Dead Sea. Isn't

that curious? They studied philosophy, they studied Plato. The Republic of Plato has a huge passage there. Just so we know that these people had a very interesting dedication to philosophy, a universalist vision. Well, this is very important for us to understand Hermes Trismegistus. Because, basically, he is a three-time initiated. And what is being initiated? This is an image of a wonderful book. By the way, I already gave a lecture about it. It exists there on YouTube, called Medieval Alchemy. And I relied a lot on this book, called Mutus Liber. The silent book of medieval alchemy.

This is an alchemical image. This is Jacob's Ladder. This image is very useful for us to understand this concept of initiation. For the Egyptians, for the classical people in general, man came to the world for one thing only, not two. To get out of ignorance and reach wisdom. There are not two reasons for man to be in the world. There is only one. To get out of ignorance and reach wisdom. Because wisdom is the full human condition. Now they say, it is not possible to rise everyone up together. Do you know why? Because man is

without a reference. He needs two or three heroes who go first. Who arrive there in the second, third step and say, guys, go up, it's here. Because man needs external images to inspire himself. Epictetus, a Roman philosopher, said, the seeds of greatness in man need images to grow and germinate. So you say, let's be wise? I like it, but what is a wise man? I have to have it. I have to get the Confucius' Analects and say, this is it. You have to have an image. How can you walk to something you don't see? They

say it is fundamental for the evolution of humanity that a half dozen, it doesn't have to be many, some, go first. And show, being human is this. It's cool, come on. So, the initiations were like monasteries. Initiation is different from philosophy. Philosophy is a search for wisdom, but beings that still have a lot to walk. Initiations are beings of a very high level. It's a monastery system, where masters and disciples try to make a life process where they accelerate their own growth to help and enlighten those who come after. So imagine that you will live

60 years and you will learn half a dozen things about coexistence. I'm being optimistic, see? Because there are people who live 60 years and don't learn anything about coexistence. But let's say that a 60-year-old person had learned half a dozen things about coexistence. And if inside a system, in an Egyptian school, with a master you had high confidence, he generated experiences in your life so you learned half a dozen things in one year? If you endured, you would leave the other side with an experience of a life acquired in one year. It's just an example.

That is, they accelerated the growth of their human beings a lot. Through a system of trust between master and disciple. Then these very mature men, very prepared to deal with life, were spread throughout Egypt and were reference. So Egypt had wise men, initiated. Then some people looked at these wise men and said, Wow, what a wonderful thing a wise man! I love it and I want to be like that! Who loves wisdom? Philosophers! A layer of people striving to mirror this example. Society looked at these philosophers and said, Look how wonderful! I also want to

be like that! I want to be a seeker of wisdom. In other words, all society was pulled up by the presence of a wise man. And then they said, This is culture! Cultivates what man understands best. Verticalizes man. Much falls between us, only between us who are in this room and the listeners who attended this lecture. If we, today, did a process of taking the risk, everything that our culture of the 21st century orders to do, all the modifications that culture makes circulate, wouldn't we become better human beings? I find it very dubious. I find

it very unlikely. Imagine, you follow all the modifications of the day. Do you think you would become better? Very unlikely. Do you know what that means? Our culture is not cultivating man. It pulls down, animalizes, makes superficial, banal. He says that a culture where there is the presence of wise men, if you do what culture preaches, you grow. It is a culture that pulls up. From the moment there is no possibility of wisdom, culture will consecrate what kind of values? Where do the values come from in a society that has no wisdom? From the collective

unconscious, from the unconscious desires of people, from passions, from instincts. Because if it doesn't come from above, it comes from below. Culture consecrates instincts, selfishness, interests, and becomes a counterculture. So it is said that society is like a pyramid. There has to be the apex of the pyramid, there has to be a few wise men. Everyone looks up and sees it as a possibility. And they generate an ascensional movement as a predominant cultural element. An invitation to become more and more human. So these schools of initiation were not just an option for individual growth for

very special men. It was a social need within Egypt. Society was structured around this point, which was wisdom. And there was always, until a certain point, when the decline of Egypt begins, in the historical era, we see that there is no more of that. If you read a modern novelist historian, Christian Jaques, he will talk about the fall of the last initiatory school of Egypt. Already in the Roman era, all the decline that was occurring generation after generation, he writes about it in a very beautiful way. He is the author of that great series, Ramses.

Anyway, but the fact is that Egypt was like that. Hermes Trismegistus was an initiated master who had his disciples and transmitted knowledge within the system of a monastery. And he says that this knowledge was shared with wise men from various civilizations, who came from all over the world. There was a great wise man there, and he went there. You know that Greece was fashionable to go to Egypt. Then it was fashionable in Rome to go to Greece. And it was that that Egypt was great. People go back to try to recover this knowledge. So, the

basic word, the basic phrases of Hermeticism, well known, I put it for you. The first one says, The ears of understanding are only opened. What does that mean? A master who holds knowledge, he only passes his knowledge to a disciple with a lot of moral basis, with a very well built character, that is, from mouth to ear. When you buy that pot from Tupperware, you will say, she is crazy, what does Tupperware have to do with Hermeticism? You will see there written, Hermetically closed. Do you know where this expression of our language comes from? Hermetically

closed. Hermeticism. Schools were so closed, they kept so much secrecy in relation to their knowledge that created this expression that even affected the Neolatinic languages. That is, even Tupperware was inspired by the Hermes Trismegistus. They were like that, knowledge was not passed publicly. Then Plato will write a sentence that I find very interesting, that I will even put in the next slide, that says, it is preferable absolute ignorance than knowledge in inadequate hands. If you realize what that means. Let's try to make a statistical reasoning. Imagine the domain of atomic energy, nuclear fission, which is

what we have been using for some time. From the works of Oppenheimer and everything else. If you think about it, we have in the world some atomic plants that generate energy. But if we were to make a calculation between the damage that this knowledge generated and the profit that this knowledge generated, which one would win? At this point in the championship? Tell Hiroshima and Nagasaki, for example. If we did not have atomic plants, we would make hydroelectric plants and live very well. But what we have already spoiled with this, what we have already caused of

genocide, the risks we run with some crazy people out there, who run after nuclear energy all the time. You realize that maybe, from the point of view of our moral level, of the generalized infantility of today's humanity, it would be better if she did not have this toy? Like a baby with a knife in his hand, he risks cutting himself. Do you realize? That's what Plato says, that it is preferable absolute ignorance and inadequate hands. These internal schools had criteria for the person to enter, it was a kind of vertical, but a vertical that considered

the morals of people, self-control, values, and not so much the extension of knowledge. Because, extension, it is to acquire quickly. If you do not have any knowledge, I teach you, you learn quickly. If you do not have character, there is no way to teach you this quickly. This is a construction process that is sometimes very long. So, they measured the verticality, not the extension of knowledge, the formation, not the information. This other phrase, which is also hermetic, when people asked, why do not you share knowledge with society? They said, we must give milk to children

and meat to men. Society is children, milk. When a man is mature, he can consume the essence of knowledge, which is meat. He will not use it in his own detriment, nor in the detriment of humanity. It is no longer a baby with a knife in his hand. It is a man who knows how to handle a knife. It will not be a psychopath who will cause a crime. It will be a person who will cut vegetables. That is, he knows what to use each thing for. He knows that things are not good in the

image itself. Good or bad is the use that is made of it. Anyway, hermeticism had as a characteristic a very reserved knowledge. This is the phrase I told you about Plato. He preferred absolute ignorance to knowledge in inadequate hands. So, it is a registered mark. Knowledge passed from master to disciple. Egypt as a land of mysteries is a curious business. I told you, in the Middle Ages, most people were illiterate. Knowledge was very scarce. But when a strange person appeared, circling the fields, people said, he came from Egypt. Why? It was marked in the collective

unconscious that Egypt is synonymous with wisdom, mysteries, a business that scares. Even if people didn't know anything else, this idea was marked that in Egypt there was something special that happened there. Even today, when people want to make a kind of esoteric store, a kind of mysterious thing, they put a lot of Egyptian things hanging. This is not always what is being offered. But, anyway, it means that Egypt has mysteries. So, it is strictly associated with the unconscious memory of humanity, which Egypt knew a lot. It's interesting, isn't it? It never faded, not even in

the Middle Ages. Diffusion through the ancient world and key master of religions. This book says it is the key master of Semitic monotheisms, of Babylonian religions, Persians. It influenced India a lot, it influenced the Greek world, the Mediterranean world as a whole, even the Scandinavian and Celtic religions. It is the basis of religions that not only existed in the past, but also of the traditional religions that we have today. There is a lot of Hermetic knowledge infiltrated behind. Maybe misunderstood, maybe not very well aware, but there is. He will say something very interesting, that the

Hermetic school, the Hermes Trimegistus, the Egyptian masters as a whole, had a lot of concern that the knowledge they had, the secret doctrine they had, would not become theology, would not crystallize in a creed. They say that when this knowledge becomes a creed, the vision of the universe, the laws, become dogmas. Instead of admiring those who know these laws, they start to worship them. This makes it discharacterize very quickly. The book says, for example, that when he passed through Persia, when the Egyptian knowledge became a religion, Zoroastrianism, the religion of Ahura Mazda, this quickly became

a dogma. It became anthropomorphic and hid the personality of certain characters. He says that this loses the ability to reflect and learn through the knowledge that philosophy kept. The same thing happened in India. When the Brahmins adopted a more theological version than a philosophical one, there was a great decline of Brahmanism. So much so that Brahmanism had to reinvent itself, creating the six schools of philosophy, called the six darsanas. It had declined in such a way that no one knew what it was doing. This is history. That's where the Vedanta of Sankaracharya was born, which

was a school of philosophy. When knowledge crystallizes into dogma and starts to generate anthropomorphic figures and very superficial cults, this is difficult. The deep understanding of the mysteries is lost. The symbols become reality. He says that religions are necessary, but be careful so that there is no loss of philosophy and only the theological side remains. Because in a little while no one knows what it means. If you take a dogmatic religion, any symbolism, and try to reason with that priest, it's not historical, it's a symbol. In general, you won't be well interpreted. The philosophical side

is seen as a negative thing. So they say, be careful so that you don't lose the secret doctrine, so that you don't lose all the knowledge that has been transformed into a religious dogma. Religions are necessary, but philosophy cannot cease to exist. Preservation by a few through time, which is something we have already talked about. We don't know who passed on this knowledge to our days, but it was always a minority. But he says that whenever humanity needs it, this knowledge will resurface. Whenever the disciple is prepared, the master will arise. That is, humanity needed

it in the Middle Ages, it flourished in alchemy. At some point when this knowledge has people able to understand it, it will resurface. It has not been lost. It is hidden in the unconscious of humanity. If you have conditions and need it, it will resurface. The hermetic alchemy I told you about had nothing to do with the transformation of metals, but with the transformation of man. It was an example of the flourishing of this knowledge. And it says that, in some way, we live in a time that is as obscure as the Middle Ages, another

kind of obscurantism. It is not religious obscurantism, it is materialist obscurantism, of selfishness, of superficiality. Maybe this knowledge had a good time to flourish for those who have conditions to understand it. A critical moment. I took this portrait of an alchemist, which is an image of the Boutos Lieber, for you to see who is inside, which is the symbol of the enchauffé. It is the king, a man. There is no metal, no chemical substance that is inside. It is a king with a scepter and a crown. It was what they wanted to produce as the

final product of their work. A man who was born on his own, with power over himself, with self-domination, with wisdom. This was the product of alchemy. It was not the production of gold, it was the production of gold men. And finally, in our little lecture today, there is a phrase by Caibalio, wherever the masters' vestiges are, the ears of the prepared disciples will open in peace. It is another version of the same phrase. Whenever the disciple is prepared, he will arise. If you need something to grow as a human being, if you need some knowledge

to be a reference, not for selfish reasons, but to be a reference so that others can grow through you, somehow this knowledge will arise in your life. This is very well portrayed in the fairy tales, which I also like a lot. The prince says, I will save the princess. The prince is a boy, who sometimes has no beard yet, and the princess is with a dragon. But he says, I will, and he compromises himself. It is an altruistic cause. He is not doing anything for himself, he is doing it because he considers the cause as

just. He leaves the kingdom without any chance, without any possibility, ready to become a dragon barbecue. But in the middle of the way, the latent powers flourish, an old man appears, he reveals to him, he gives him a cloak so that he becomes invisible, he reveals a secret, a little bird appears and tells him something. The hidden powers emerge, they flourish along the way, the knowledge that he needs arises. And when he comes before the dragon, he is armed to the teeth and able to win. Why? He is committed to something elevated, noble and selfless.

He is not motivated by selfish interests. And this makes the knowledge flourish in his life. Whenever the disciple is prepared, it emerges. So it says that in times of historical decadence, this knowledge that once was from Egypt, was not from Egypt, it was from humanity. When humanity needs it, it flourishes again. Formative, vertical knowledge, so that man understands and improves the laws of life, and learns to interact positively with this life, with this nature, in the sense of building on oneself, helping to build the humanity to which it belongs, which is our destiny on Earth.

So we will see that this was our introduction for today, Introduction on Theme 1. Next week we will do chapter 2 of the book, which is a general view of the seven principles. It will go through the seven very quickly. This here. Then chapter 3, 4, 5, it will take one by one, and approach in more depth. Evidently, as our intention was to have a reading group, it would be very good if there was reading. That is, that you read. A reading group gets much better when it is more interactive, when there is your participation,

when it brings questions. That is the intention, and we do, in fact, a reading group. And the chapters are small, so there is no way you have that mental excuse that I did not have time. You can not read from one meeting to another. I'm sure you will read, it will be much more interesting for everyone. And it's a good book for you to have. I guarantee you that you will not regret having a book like this in the headlines. Right? So those who want to continue to participate with us, make an effort and read

chapter 2. Let's go back.