The Forbidden Universe (28 page)

There is something else that Atum conceals but implies by his very presence. The gods of both Enneads, besides representing deities concerned with specific aspects of nature and human endeavour, are all really aspects of Atum. Moreover, not only is everything created by Atum, but it is also created
from
him, which makes his creative energies and forces present in everything. Effectively Atum is the universe, as well as possessing a part, or energy, which lies outside and transcends it.

Human beings, too, contain Atum’s ‘divine spark’ within themselves, making them just as god-like as the likes of Horus and Thoth. The only difference is that humans are locked into the world of matter in a way that the gods are not. This echoes the origin of another vital Hermetic principle: that human beings are potentially gods, and some even manage to actualize that potential. This was also, as we have seen, a central tenet of Hermeticism’s philosophical partner, Neoplatonism, which focused on the journey of the soul to the divine in preparation for enlightenment, drawing on another crucial aspect of the Heliopolitan theology.

But there is something else that the myth of Atum has to tell us, something extraordinary. The creative flow from the god to the material universe is not just a one-way phenomenon. Just as it ‘exhales’ from Atum, it ‘inhales’ the life force of individuals, which then travels back to its source. Horus, therefore, also represents what Karl Luckert
calls the ‘turnaround realm’, the point at which the life force can begin the journey back towards Atum. We might need Atum – but he also needs us.

The Pyramid Texts are concerned with those rituals that ensure the return of the King to Atum after his death, projecting his soul into the stars. It is commonly assumed that this stellar existence and the ability to commune with the creator is a prerogative of the King alone, becoming his only after death. However, neither is necessarily the case. The Pyramid Texts are specifically concerned with the King because they happen to be in royal tombs, but nowhere do they say that this afterlife is reserved for him alone. Indeed, the logic of the Heliopolitan theology, in which every individual is a manifestation of Atum, suggests that it happens to everyone.

The ‘return journey’ described in the Pyramid Texts refers to the afterlife simply because, again, they are in a tomb. But as with most other cultures, it was also believed that certain special individuals – priests or shamans, for example – could undertake this journey in life (usually in an altered state of consciousness), gaining insight or illumination.
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This journey was also the aim of the Neoplatonists.

Remarkably, the cosmology of the Hermetica is, ultimately, also that of the first flourishing of the Ancient Egyptian culture. The belief of Renaissance Hermeticists such as Bruno and Newton that the Hermetic works
represented
the wisdom of that great civilization is absolutely vindicated. And Isaac Casaubon – whose work is still trotted out to trash the value of the Hermetica – was just plain
wrong
.

Other researchers have recognized the connection between the religion of Heliopolis and the Hermetica, as can be seen from the subtitle of Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy’s 1997 translation of extracts from the Hermetica:
The Lost Wisdom of the Pharaohs
and their translation throughout of ‘God’ as ‘Atum’.

Of course, the obvious big question is where did the priests of Heliopolis get their ideas from? Did they dream them up, getting lucky with material that just happened to be scientifically accurate? Or was their belief system based on a genuine understanding of the way the universe is organized?

Sadly, a definitive answer about the origins of the Atum religion remains impossible because of a lack of relevant historical information. Some would no doubt prefer to explain the mystery as a legacy from an earlier, advanced, but lost, civilization, which would only push the question back further, not answer it. And inevitably some would conjure up the lazy if sensational notion that we can lay all these wonders at the door of ancient astronauts (a
desperately
non-Hermetic idea that implies human beings are just too stupid ever to have built wonders like the pyramids). But we suggest the greatest clue lies in the religion itself.

A major component of the magical worldview hardwired into humanity is that specially trained individuals can enter into a state of communion with the gods in which they are given intensely
practical
information. This idea is also the basis of the Heliopolitan ‘return journey’, Neoplatonic theurgy, the Hermetic gnosis and the occult art of memory. Such communion is not to be understood as bestowing enlightenment in the Eastern sense of the ultimate goal being the achievement of a purely spiritual state – or at least not exclusively – but as providing an understanding of how the universe works in very practical ways. This practice can then be used to extend human knowledge and induce
enlightenment
in the western sense, as in the Age of Enlightenment.

To judge the results of this communion we have to look no further than the great names who found enlightenment in the Hermetica, itself the ultimate expression of the ancient Heliopolitan system. Encouraging the belief that all things are possible means that the most ambitious dreams can actually be lived – and often for the greater good.

Having looked beyond the historical clichés we see now that the scientific revolution, usually considered to have started with Copernicus and ended with Newton, was in fact the
Hermetic
revolution. Science emerged from the world of the occult in a very real and direct way. All the major players relied not just on the Hermetica’s exhilarating image of humanity but also on its model of creation, which opened up their minds to the nature of the universe and its testable realities. Without Hermes Trismegistus we might never have reached the scientific age, or at least we might only have done so much later in our history.

Hermeticism always encouraged a scientific mindset, even if that was, from a modern perspective, inseparable from a more esoteric worldview. By the end of the
seventeenth
century the scientific component had been brutally torn from its arcane twin and given an independent existence, but the fact remains that modern science
emerged from
Hermeticism.

Today most people accept the simplistic notion that chemistry emerged from alchemy, and astronomy from astrology, as a new generation realized the error of the old ways and ditched ‘irrational’ practices in favour of what could be weighed, measured and tested. And yet, as we have seen, most of the greatest movers and shakers of both
Renaissance and even Enlightenment science did their best work because of their occult beliefs, not despite them. Their passion for the esoteric went way beyond mere eccentricity or an occasional hobby but was a source of electric inspiration. This was especially so in the case of Isaac Newton, whose world-changing theories were a direct application of Hermetic magical principles to physical phenomena.

This book grew out of our desire to set the record straight, to bring the Hermetic tradition back out of the shadows to take its rightful place centre stage in the history of western civilization and culture. The Hermetica has had a greater impact on our civilization than any other collection of texts apart from the Bible, and a greater impact on modern history than any other collection of texts
including
the Bible. Even those who dismiss all things occult and Hermetic might at least have the grace to acknowledge that without them the world would be very different, and arguably much the poorer. Science as we know it may not ever have come into existence. At the very least, the time to acknowledge our debt to the Hermeticists is long overdue.

And what achievers they were … The Hermetic tradition directly or indirectly inspired giants such as Copernicus, Kepler, Gilbert, Galileo, Fludd, Leibniz and Newton. As well as these big names, the tradition included figures who should be remembered as their equals but who have been relegated to history’s second or third divisions: Tommaso Campanella, John Dee and, above all, Giordano Bruno. Apart from the luminaries featured in our story, the tradition inspired much else in the artistic and literary realms, including the works and ideas of Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli and William Shakespeare – a pretty impressive list, surely, by anyone’s standards.

Hermes’ books played a central role in the golden age of Arabic science, which preserved the knowledge of the
classical world, developed it and passed it back to Europe in the late Middle Ages. And the Hermetica was
the
mainspring
of the Renaissance. Of course other ideas, attitudes and philosophies also contributed to that great flowering of the human mind and spirit – but the great tradition was what glued everything together.

Yet historians have long taught that other elements, such as the renewed interest in classical philosophy and learning, were at the core of the Renaissance. Hermeticism was grudgingly acknowledged, if at all, as a contributory factor, often hidden behind by the more familiar but off-puttingly dry ‘Neoplatonism’, or the slightly more interesting but vague label ‘humanism’.
¹
But an objective examination of the motivations behind the great names of the period shows the opposite to be the case. The Hermetic philosophy was at the core of the Renaissance: it was the other factors, such as a renewed passion for the works of the ancient Greeks, which were of secondary importance – and often a poor second at that.

Hermes’ influence also continued as the Renaissance matured into the Age of Enlightenment, drawing to him as he did some of the new era’s greatest intellects, including Newton and Leibniz.

Most of all, however, and with a fine flourish of irony, Hermeticism
was
the scientific revolution. This is no exaggeration. Just consider the following discoveries, which all owe an eternal debt to the Hermetica:

• The heliocentric theory
  
• The laws of planetary motion
  
• The concept of an infinite universe
  
• The idea of other solar systems containing habitable planets
  
• The theory of gravity
  
• The Newtonian laws of motion
  
• The circulation of the blood
  
• The Earth’s magnetism
  
• The basic principles of information theory and the basic principles of computer science