In Egypt during the first centuries CE, men and women would meet discreetly in their homes, in temple sanctuaries, or insolitary places to learn a powerful practice of spiritual liberation. They thought of themselves as followers of Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary master of ancient wisdom. While many of their writings are lost, those that survived have been interpreted primarily as philosophical treatises about theological topics. Wouter J. Hanegraaff challenges this dominant narrative by demonstrating that Hermetic literature was concerned with experiential practices intended for healing the soul from mental delusion. The Way of Hermes involved radical alterations of consciousness in which practitioners claimed to perceive the true nature of reality behind the hallucinatory veil of appearances. Hanegraaff explores how practitioners went through a training regime that involved luminous visions, exorcism, spiritual rebirth, cosmic consciousness, and union with the divine beauty of universal goodness and truth to attain the salvational knowledge known as gnôsis.

Winner, 2023 PROSE Theology and Religious Studies Award, Association of American Publishers

‘This book contains much that will matter to historians and others interested in visionary practices from late antiquity to the present.’

Claire Fanger Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion

‘This impressively learned monograph is a welcome addition to the steady stream of recent scholarship on the Hermetic writings, a testimony to a rekindled interest in this most extraordinary collection of texts.’

Christian Wildberg Source: Aries – Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism