Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition

I studied Hegel in college and found him impenetrable. Since then and in following my own interests, I've taken an interest hermeticism, neoplatonism, and alchemy, so it was amazing to this book on accident.It makes its case brilliantly, and I love it not only for the arguments and comparisons it puts forward, but it does an excellent job at summarizing facets of hermetic, alchemical, and kabalistic thought as well as accounting for hermetic influences and contemporaries of Hegel's. It renders this work invaluable not only for those who've sought to understand Hegel, but for those seeking clarity on names and influential figures in these areas of interest in Europe.In my opinion, to try to understand Hegel apart from his hermetic influences is to neuter him and requires big conceptual leaps to "think around" it to make sense. This is how it was presented to me in school when both myself and, I assume, my professors, were ignorant of hermeticism. While I now I have to go back to re-read Hegel with this new lens, I feel very grateful to the author for this incredible book and the labor that went into it.

Wow this book! I am a 10-year amateur (though highly committed) philosophy reader, and I have read about the hermetic tradition before... This book is highly enjoyable, for anyone interested in mysticism, it is a great introduction and a bit more, for those interested in Hegel's philosophy, it is a radical different way of looking at his system of thought that makes absolute sense and totally adds up! The book is clear in every way: layout, argumentation, style, etc. and it is absolutely clear Hegel was deep into this ancient tradition by the end of the book. It is one of the best books I have read these last years, congratulations to the author!

This is a must read for any serious study of Hegel.

Was Hegel a Hermetic occultist? Maybe. Glen Magee takes us on a tour of Hegel's writings, but unlike other Hegel scholars, Magee places Hegel against the occultic backdrop of his homeland and upbringing. This allows Magee to take seriously the Hermetic references Hegel makes.But before we can answer that question, we must define Hermeticism. It is a broad tradition of thought that grew out of the writings of Hermes and was expanded and further developed through the infusion of other traditions: alchemy, Kabbalism, mysticism, etc (Magee 1). Magee argues that there are striking similarities and correspondences between Hegel’s thought and theosophic hermeticism: Masonic subtext of initiatory mysticism in Phenomenology, A Boehmian subtext to the Preface of Phenomenology, Kabbalism in his doctrine of Objective Spirit, and Alchemical images in Phil. of Right.Hegel’s journals included diagrams which could only be found in hermetic grimoires. Later in life he began to publicly identify with occultic figures (4). Hegel knew that men like Boehme and others were tagged as hermetics and if he publicly identified with their teachings, he knew he would be seen as a hermeticist.Magee, following Dame Frances Yates, gives a brilliant overview of Hermetic history in the Renaissance.THE CASE BEGINSWhile we have no evidence that Hegel was a Masonic initiate, he collaborated with Masons, wrote Masonic poetry to Masons, and otherwise breathed the hermetic and theosophic air of Swabia.Whatever else one may think about Freemasonry, and regardless of which conspiracies are true (and no doubt they all are), Freemasonry became a repository for hermetic ideas (53). Unlike their Scottish counterparts, German lodges “were teeming with magical, theosophical, mystical ideas” (56).We know that Hegel was influenced by Lessing’s play Nathan the Wise (55) and Lessing was a Mason.Memory as Occultic Practice“Philosophy establishes nothing new; what we have brought forth by our reflection is what everyone already took for granted without reflection” (Hegel, EL, 22, quoted in Magee 85).Hegel acknowledges he is within the mystical tradition (EL, 82).Memory mediates a society’s passing down of Absolute Spirit (Magee 87).Magee posits the Mythology of Reason as the key to unlocking Hegel (88).Speculative Philosophy holds up a mirror (speculum) to the Idea itself: it allows the Idea to comprehend itself (88). In fact, following the Kabbalist tradition, the “mirror” allows one to behold the deeper essence of Spirit (120).Hegel’s thought seeks to unify conceptual thinking with mythopoetic thinking (91).Hegel’s Magic Words are the categories of his philosophy. Our access to recollection/Memory is through Imagination (93). Hegel does not seek to tell us what “Substance” or “Absolute” is; it seeks to bring it into being.This brings us back to the Hermetic Art of Memory. “Imagination” is to evoke from memory the Perennial Philosophy. In other words, to echo Jung, it draws out from within the unconscious.Kant and the TriadsHegel said Kant rediscovered (wiedergefundne) the teaching about triads, the triadic form (100, PG 29, 37), thus implying it is a perennial idea. Most importantly, Hegel says Kant rediscovered it, not that it derives from Kant.Hegel saw Hermetism and Alchemy as manifestations of a collective subconscious and that is how he could take them seriouly (Magee 103).The Divine TriangleA triangle of Triangles, where each center was also a perimeter. The triangle also has planetary and alchemical symbols. Then there is a letter Hegel wrote to the magician Windischmann on the latter’s mental torments (116). Magee argues that the triangle represents a turning point, a “nocturnal contraction of his essence.”Aristotle had made a connection between aether and pneuma (Generation of Animals 736b29-737a1). The element in the stars is aether. Insofar as we are capable of receiving that form, we have astral substance.Hegel drew upon the implicit Hermetic and Boehmian influences of his upbringing in writing PG. We can see a Hermetic Structure:A = A; All is one (hen kai pan). This is the mystical doctrine of “coincidence of opposites).Alchemical ElementsHegel floods his works with alchemical references like “the foaming chalice.” This allows Hegel to identify Spirit with the Infinite, thus avoiding a bad infinity (147). At the end of this Grail Quest Hegel has claimed to attain “Absolute Knowing.”The Four ElementsWhen Hegel speaks of the square he generally has in mind the four elements (192). The triangle is the symbolic form of spirit, the square of nature. Hegel is saying that man’s consciousness exists within these four elements. And by Hegel’s time, Magee notes, the “four elements/square” had become so connected with alchemy that one couldn’t dissociate the images (193). Further, magicians and alchemists routinely made tables where the elements of one sphere corresponded to the elements of another. Hegel makes such an association in Phil. Nature, sec. 280).Conclusion:Is Hegel a Hermetic? While we don't have any journal that says, "Today I embraced Hermeticism," we can see that he came from an occultic background, utilized occultic symbols, identified with occultic figures in public at the end of his career, and otherwise followed the same Occultic path.

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Marvelous book! Deserves to be read many times. Shines the obscure Hegel. But sorry to say that there are some misprintings throughout the book. Typical one is German word "Ungrund", which is wrong, I think. Should print "Urgrund". Day by day I regret reading Hegel too late. I strongly believe this book shortens the time to understand Hegel deeply. Thank you very much Professor Glenn Alexander Magee!! S.K. from Korea.

This an excellent contribution to an emerging field in Academic study. There are now several chairs of philosophy/cultural studies dealing with Western Esotericism in Universities in Europe - so far I am unaware of any in the US but I could be wrong. I have been a student of both the occult and academic versions of philosophy for 40 yrs or so and this sort of work is greatly needed. There has been a pervasive influence throughout the span of Western history from the occult and its various parts, but the majority of academic scholars still cannot understand this (see Wouter Hanegraaff's latest 2012 book on this issue.) If one goes back to Kant for example, they will find that Kant based his opposition to metaphysical/speculative philosophy, the very core of Hegel's thought, on a reading of Swedenborg's Arcana Coelestia: he was repelled bt what he himself could not understand. And thus the academic philosopher today!! Hegel was adamantly against such a view of philosophy (someone once told me that Hegel called him Immanuel Pussyfoot Kant because of Kant's inability to get to an understanding of the so-called thing-in-itself.) If one is already familiar with occult philosophy, Hegel often reads like a Golden Dawn initiate on the Path of Return.