To be sure, the term “Hermeticism” has a very twisted, twisting, twisty history, but Evola does the equivalent of appropriating it and detaching it from any sense beyond a strictly post-classical alchemical tradition.īut, to be fair, Evola is someone to completely avoid regardless. If you want to learn about Hermeticism proper, Evola ain’t it. In the particular sense that we shall use it, hermetism is directly concerned with the alchemical tradition, and it is the hermetico-alchemical tradition that will be the object of our study. It will not refer to the ancient Greco-Egyptian cult of Hermes, nor will it refer solely to the teachings comprising the Alexandrian texts of the Corpus Hermeticum.
In the present work we shall use the expression “hermetic tradition” in a special sense that the Middle Ages and the Renaissance gave it. From his own preface (in English translation): When he uses the term “Hermetic tradition”, he refers to his own take on medieval and Renaissance alchemical symbolism informed by Theosophically-influenced Vedic and Hindu spirituality. It’s annoyingly how often he comes up in the circles I run in, but let’s just cut to the chase: by Julius Evola‘s own admission in his introduction to La tradizione ermetica ( The Hermetic Tradition), the book has nothing to do with Hermeticism as it actually is.
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