Corpus Hermeticum 1: Poimandres · 1 of 6 · tr. G.R.S. Mead
Section 1a
Poemandres, the Shepherd of Men <This is the most famous of the Hermetic documents, a revelation account describing a vision of the creation of the universe and the nature and fate of humanity.
Authors from the Renaissance onward have been struck by the way in which its creation myth seems partly inspired by Genesis , partly reacting against it.
The Fall has here become the descent of the Primal Man through the spheres of the planets to the world of Nature, a descent caused not by disobedience but by love, and done with the blessing of God.
1.
It chanced once on a time my mind was meditating on the things that are, my thought was raised to a great height, the senses of my body being held back - just as men who are weighed down with sleep after a fill of food, or from fatigue of body.
Methought a Being more than vast, in size beyond all bounds, called out my name and saith: What wouldst thou hear and see, and what hast thou in mind to learn and know?
2.
And I do say: Who art thou?
He saith: I am Man-Shepherd (Poemandres), Mind of all-masterhood; I know what thou desirest and I'm with thee everywhere.
3.
[And] I reply: I long to learn the things that are, and comprehend their nature, and know God.
This is, I said, what I desire to hear.
He answered back to me: Hold in thy mind all thou wouldst know, and I will teach thee.
4.
E'en with these words His aspect changed, and straightway, in the twinkling of an eye, all things were opened to me, and I see a Vision limitless, all things turned into Light - sweet, joyous [Light].
And I became transported as I gazed.
But in a little while Darkness came settling down on part [of it], awesome and gloomy, coiling in sinuous folds, so that methought it like unto a snake.
And then the Darkness changed into some sort of a Moist Nature, tossed about beyond all power of words, belching out smoke as from a fire, and groaning forth a wailing sound that beggars all description.
[And] after that an outcry inarticulate came forth from it, as though it were a Voice of Fire.
5.
[Thereon] out of the Light [...] a Holy Word (Logos) descended on that Nature.
And upwards to the height from the Moist Nature leaped forth pure Fire; light was it, swift and active too.
The Air, too, being light, followed after the Fire; from out of the Earth-and-Water rising up to Fire so that it seemed to hang therefrom.
But Earth-and-Water stayed so mingled with each other, that Earth from Water no one could discern.
Yet were they moved to hear by reason of the Spirit-Word (Logos) pervading them.
6.
Then saith to me Man-Shepherd: Didst understand this Vision what it means?
Nay; that shall I know, said I.
That Light, He said, am I, thy God, Mind, prior to Moist Nature which appeared from Darkness; the Light-Word (Logos) [that appeared] from Mind is Son of God.
What then?
- say I.
Know that what sees in thee and hears is the Lord's Word (Logos); but Mind is Father-God.
Not separate are they the one from other; just in their union [rather] is it Life consists.
Thanks be to Thee, I said.
So, understand the Light [He answered], and make friends with it.
7.
And speaking thus He gazed for long into my eyes, so that I trembled at the look of him.
Malevolent planetary rulers or demiurgic powers that govern the material world and obstruct the soul's ascent.
[auto] The introductory note explicitly identifies the 'seven rulers of fate' as 'archons of the seven planets' with an ambivalent role regarding evil.
A state of awareness transcending ordinary human consciousness, often involving unity with the universe or higher dimensions.
The seer's mind is 'raised to a great height' and perceives 'a Vision limitless, all things turned into Light' — a state of awareness transcending ordinary human consciousness.
Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.
The passage presents a fundamental ontological opposition between Light (divine, ordered) and Darkness (awesome, gloomy, coiling like a snake), from which the entire creation sequence proceeds.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage is fundamentally a narrative of cosmic origin, describing the sequential emergence of Light, Darkness, Moist Nature, the descending Word, Fire, Air, and the mingled Earth-and-Water.
The doctrine that the divine is present within all things and the universe itself, pervading creation rather than remaining solely transcendent above it. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about whether that substance indwells its parts) and from kingdom_within (the divine present specifically IN THE INDIVIDUAL human, accessible without mediation) — divine_immanence is the general pervading-presence claim applied to all of creation, not a human-specific indwelling.
The Spirit-Word is described as 'pervading' the Earth-and-Water, and the Lord's Word is identified as what sees and hears within the human person, asserting divine presence within creation rather than solely above it.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage presents a clear downward cascade from Mind (God) through the Light-Word (Son) to Fire, Air, and Earth-and-Water, each level less luminous than the one above.
A channel of guidance received internally as a distinct voice or clear reply, addressable and answerable in dialogue, whose source — the practitioner's own higher consciousness, or an external discarnate or non-human intelligence — may be genuinely unknown to the one who receives it. Distinct from higher_self (one possible but not certain source of this voice, not the channel itself) and gnosis_direct_knowledge (unmediated apprehension of ultimate truth, not a two-way dialogic exchange with an addressable interlocutor).
Poimandres 'called out my name' and the entire passage is structured as a two-way dialogic exchange with an addressable divine interlocutor who responds to the seer's questions.
The claim that the divine realm is present inside the individual, accessible without external mediation.
The explicit statement that the Lord's Word is what sees and hears in the person, and that Mind is Father-God, places the divine realm within the individual, accessible without external mediation.
The divine conceived as active, present, and dynamic—not an abstract principle but a personal responsive reality.
Poimandres is a personal, responsive divine being who speaks, gazes, changes aspect, and engages in dialogue — not an abstract principle but an active, present reality.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
[auto] The text explicitly names the 'Holy Word (Logos)', 'Light-Word (Logos)', and 'Spirit-Word (Logos)' as the mediating creative force descending from Mind.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The narrator begins by stating 'my mind was meditating on the things that are' before receiving the vision.
The Hermetic doctrine that THE ALL is Mind, and the Universe is mental in nature — a created thought held in the mind of THE ALL. Distinct from unity_of_being in specifying WHAT the underlying oneness is (mind, not an unspecified single substance), and from logos (a mediating ordering word BETWEEN a transcendent God and a separate material world) in collapsing that mediation entirely — under mentalism there is no world outside mind to mediate to.
The entire cosmos is presented as originating from and sustained by Mind (Nous), with the Word as its expressive act — the universe is essentially a mental reality held in the mind of the divine.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The explicit identification of what sees and hears in the human person as the Lord's Word, with Mind as Father-God, makes the human being a privileged mirror of the divine cosmological structure.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
Mind (Nous) is presented as the undivided, all-mastering first principle ('Mind of all-masterhood') from which the entire multiplicity of creation flows.
The recognition of one's own true divine nature as the primary path to liberation; 'know thyself' as soteriology.
The revelation that 'what sees in thee and hears is the Lord's Word' identifies the person's own inner faculties as divine, making self-recognition a path to knowing God.
The doctrine that all existence is ultimately one substance or one divine reality; non-duality as a theological claim.
The declaration that Mind and the Word are 'not separate the one from other' and that 'in their union Life consists' asserts the fundamental oneness of the divine principles underlying all existence.