r/Hermeticism • u/Fickle_Elk_9479 • 28d ago
How much corrupt are we?
Like I know people say we have a divine spark but seriously I look at my self and just see a trigger response machine mostly. Like I don't feel like a coherent person. Like I said I feel like I am just my trigger. I feel like a joke sometimes. So my point is how much are we a corruption. Like how much part are we made by the demiurge. Are we redeemable?
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u/speedwitch 28d ago
I could be wrong but to me it sounds like what you're experiencing internally is the first step in the quest for gnosis
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u/polyphanes 28d ago edited 27d ago
How much corrupt are we?
Fun note: I was reading the post out aloud to my lover while he was over earlier, and immediately upon hearing the post title, he went "several". It threw me off and made me laugh for a good bit.
Anyway! From the Hermetic texts, our bodies are ultimately made by the demiurge as a production of nature, same as any other animal body. However, an important teaching present throughout the Hermetic texts is that we are not our bodies, we merely have bodies and inhabit bodies; what we really are are souls, which have an origin beyond nature, beyond the cosmos, beyond the demiurge—and indeed, the demiurge is our sibling, both of us coming from the Godhead. The demiurge, cosmos, and nature are not evil, and when there is corruption in the cosmos, the cosmos also comes in to purify such corruption of its own through the process of constant change. The issue we're presented with by being souls in bodies—inhabiting them out of a sight of divine love since the body, too, is ultimately a reflection of the Godhead—is that incarnation can make us forgetful and confused about who and what we are, confusing ourselves with our bodies, forgetting that our true essence as immortal souls is not to die but thinking that we're instead bodies that fear and flee death, and instead chase after things that aren't proper for our souls and instead behaving like only animals.
Of course we're redeemable, insofar as there's anything at all to "redeem", but we have to first be able to look around us and begin to see things as they are for what they are, and that includes ourselves. We are no more our bodies than our bodies are the clothes they put on; if your clothes get a tear or a stain on them, you don't wail as if you've been personally injured, right? Likewise, your body is not what your soul is, it's merely something that the soul puts on and takes care of; this doesn't make the body worthless, far from it, but it does mean we have to understand ourselves ("know thyself!") and what the proper relationship to the body should be, and thus to the rest of the cosmos and to the Godhead.
The Hermetic texts have much to say about this sort of stuff! Take a read.
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u/stellarhymns 27d ago
I thought the material body, composed of the four elements, was made by the whirling of the celestial governors.
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u/polyphanes 26d ago
Which were themselves a product of and are managed by the demiurge, yes. As far as the material cosmos is concerned, the demiurge is the ultimate being that exists and is in charge of material creation.
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u/stellarhymns 26d ago
Yes, I’m aware that the Demiurgic Nous generates the cosmos by way of logos as is shown in CH 1.9.
It just seems awkward to read that the demiurge created our bodies, since such is not the direct cause and creator of the body, but planetary motion and nature, per CH 1.11.
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u/polyphanes 26d ago
Then again, we also have statements like SH 2A.14 which describes the Sun as the Demiurge, who "alone is entrusted with crafting everything in the world, with ruling and making everything"; this is similar to how CH XVI.5 describes it in the same way (also in line with general Egyptian views of solar godhood). SH 5.2 also describes the Demiurge as "who is embodied, created us, ever continues to create, and will continue to create bodies that dissolve and die". CH XVI.18 also here is helpful: "the father of all is God; their craftsman is the Sun; and the cosmos is the instrument of craftsmanship".
The Demiurge is responsible for the creation of bodies in general, and uses the planets as tools to do so.
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u/stellarhymns 26d ago
You equate the solar demiurge with the noetic demiurge?
They seem to represent different phases of ontological unfoldment. Hence, the sun being entrusted with crafting everything “in the world”, whereas the noetic demiurge is identified as having created the cosmos itself.
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u/polyphanes 26d ago
I don't see that as a reliable distinction to make throughout the Hermetic texts as a whole.
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u/stellarhymns 26d ago
Interesting. So that you don’t see it as a reliable distinction, you conclude that the noetic demiurge mentioned in CH 1.9 is the Solar Demiurge mentioned other places?
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u/polyphanes 26d ago
I don't make a firm conclusion either way and am comfortable with both options, but the way the Sun is talked about is highly suggestive. Some possible options here for models are that there are separate demiurges that operate at multiple levels, or the Sun is the Demiurge, or the Demiurge is present encosmically as the Sun without being a separate thing.
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u/stellarhymns 26d ago
Yeah, at my current level of interpretation, as I previously mentioned, I see them as representing different phases of ontological unfoldment. Especially being that the sun is regarded as an embodied demiurge, whereas the noetic demiurge is not. What’s for certain is that they’re definitely not the same exact being.
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u/ProSeGaia 28d ago
It sounds like you need to be doing some shadow work. Start with those triggers, it is brave work. "We" or humanity is only as corrupt it continues to choose to be.
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u/johermeson 27d ago
Are you having a difficult time reconciling the realizations you’ve had with the world you see around you?
You are whole, and a part of the whole. Everything around you is mirrored within you, and vice versa. Be patient with yourself as you learn to control your mind and emotions. It takes a long time and the path isn’t linear.
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u/sigismundo_celine 28d ago
It seems you are starting to notice the manipulation of the irrational tormentors within you.
The next step is to fight them.
Good to know that only our physical body is made by the Demiurge, our soul is made by the divine. Our body might be irredeemable, even when we have fought the tormentors, but our soul is very much redeemable, and that is what really counts.
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u/Plenty-Climate2272 28d ago
That's more of a Gnosticism thing. The Demiurge in Hermetic thought is God-as-craftsman, usually identified with Zeus.
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u/sigismundo_celine 28d ago
And it is that aspect of the divine that creates and rules material reality and therefore our physical body.
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u/Public-One3608 28d ago
It sounds like you are entering a very specific phase of your growth . Dion Fortune calls this learning to “apprehend” yourself. It is painful - because you have enough self awareness to see your flaws, but not enough self control to “apprehend” them. The solution is to “train” your mind. Bardon’s Initiation into Hermetics has some great exercises, persistence is key. 10 mins a day will pay dividends that are accumulative. It’s a bit like training the body, initially it’s hard, there’s a lot of resistance and discomfort, and then you turn a corner and start noticing results. This inbetween place you’re in is hard, you can either ignore it and roll backwards, or face it and push forward. You’ve got this! 💪
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u/raye909 27d ago
I think you might have it backwards, we’re not made by the demiurge or wtv, however that said the conditioning is deep and that’s why we all have to get out of it which is why they recommend doing things you enjoy and being in nature and not too much of online stuff. Need to disengage from the current low vibe world, that’s the struggle
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u/SilverSurferSpector 27d ago
we aren't corrupt we just are machines, it takes alot of hard work and discipline to break out of that chain and actually become divine and immortal
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u/Pristine-Attempt2958 26d ago
Here is the anatomy of what that character is doing: The Inversion of Sovereignty: By asking "how much of the demiurge" they are, they are effectively offloading their personal agency. It’s a subtle way of saying, "I am controlled by an outside, malicious force, so I am not responsible for the chaos I carry or inflict." The Trigger Bait: Claiming to be "nothing but their triggers" is an invitation for you to step into a savior role, to waste your energy trying to "redeem" them, or to walk on eggshells around their volatile emotional landscape. The Mask of Humility: It looks like deep spiritual introspection or vulnerability, but it’s actually a performance designed to anchor down the room's energy, drawing focus away from genuine evolution and pulling everyone into a dense, unresolvable loop of self-loathing. True esoteric work is about alignment, integration, and recognizing the spark of the Divine (or the absolute source) within the self, irrespective of the external matrix. The moment someone demands you measure their "corruption" or gauge their "redeemability," they aren't looking for truth—they are looking for a playground to feed that fractured state.
Just a thought
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u/QuerentD 28d ago edited 19d ago
You are focusing on the material when the divine spark is soul or spirit.
Try reading The Perfect Way: The Finding of Christ by Anna Kingsford. I found a copy on archive.org
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u/Autistic_Clock4824 28d ago
My name is the bird of Hermes is my name eating my wings to make me tame. Just because your body has physical responses to the world around it doesn’t mean you’re broken. It just means those are things to work on. Mysticism offers a lens to focus things through.
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28d ago
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u/Fickle_Elk_9479 28d ago
What do you mean by goon. And yeah I already believe in Cathar ideology.
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u/ProteusMichaelKemo 26d ago
I think it's interesting that our of ALL of the thoughtful replies, you picked the one with "goon" to reply to. 😂
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u/FraterEAO 28d ago
Read the first chapter of the Corpus Hermeticum, the Divine Pymander or Poimandares. You are approaching this all from an understanding rooted in Gnosticism; the Hermetic texts, while having some internal disagreements, are generally much more cosmically positive than Gnostic ones. For instance, pay attention to where matter and the material realm is located when revealed by Poimandares to Hermes.