The Hermetic Stream

The Hermetic stream of the Order's teaching is the oldest of the three. It descends from the philosophical and religious writings attributed to Hermes the Thrice-Greatest, composed in the Hellenistic world and recovered by the scholars of the Renaissance, and from the alchemical tradition that grew up alongside them. It teaches that the cosmos is one living whole, ordered by correspondence, so that the small reflects the great and the human being is a world in miniature; and that the soul, having descended through the spheres into matter, may by knowledge and by purification ascend again to its source.

What the Order takes from the Hermetic stream

From this stream the Order takes the foundations of its entire curriculum. The Page, in the First Degree, studies the Emerald Tablet with the commentary written for the Order by Caspar Lindqvist; the doctrine of the four elements and their operation in the body, the emotions, the mind and the will; the seven principles by which the Hermetic philosophers described the working of mind in the cosmos; and the ascent of the soul through the planetary spheres, which the Order treats as a map of the inner life. The Page also begins the practice of the daily examination, by which the Hermetic maxim "know thyself" is made a discipline rather than a sentiment.

Correspondence

The doctrine of correspondence is the heart of the Hermetic philosophy. It holds that the universe is not a heap of unrelated things but a web of analogies, so that the movements of the heavens, the operations of nature, the structure of the body and the states of the soul all follow one pattern. The practical consequence is that the seeker may learn about the invisible from the visible, about the inner from the outer, about the Divine from the human. The Order teaches correspondence not as a system to be memorised but as a habit of attention to be cultivated. The Page is asked to keep a notebook of correspondences observed in daily life, and these notebooks, submitted to the Preceptor, are often the most revealing part of the First Degree.

Alchemy

The alchemical tradition is the practical arm of the Hermetic philosophy. The Order teaches alchemy in two senses. In the first, which is taught in the First Degree, alchemy is the science of transformation in general: the recognition that every substance, including the substance of the self, passes through stages of dissolution, purification and recombination on the way to its perfection, and that these stages may be known and cooperated with. In the second sense, which is pursued only in the Inner Court and under the guidance of the Warden of Studies, alchemy is a laboratory practice upon the substances of nature, undertaken as a meditation and as a confirmation of the inner work. The Order does not teach the making of gold and regards those who promise it with suspicion.

The ascent of the soul

The Hermetic writings describe the soul's descent into matter through the seven planetary spheres, acquiring at each the qualities proper to it, and its ascent after death by the same path, surrendering at each sphere what it had acquired. The Order teaches this as a description of the inner work undertaken in life. Each sphere corresponds to a faculty of the soul and to a characteristic distortion of that faculty; the work of the seeker is to purify each faculty in turn, so that what was a chain becomes a ladder. The meditations of the First Degree follow this ladder, and the symbolism of the seven is carried throughout the Order's ritual.

The Hermetic and the chivalric

It may be asked what the philosophy of Hermes has to do with knighthood. The Order answers that the Hermetic doctrine of correspondence is itself a doctrine of fidelity: the lower is faithful to the higher, as the knight is faithful to the lord. The Hermetic seeker, having learned that the self is a microcosm, learns also that the self is responsible for the macrocosm in its own small measure; and from this responsibility the chivalric virtues follow of necessity.