In Search of Hermes / Mercury

Books for Digging Much Deeper into the spirit of Hermes

The Inner Planets: Building Blocks of Personal Reality - Howard Sasportas and Liz Greene at Amazon
For those folks mostly interested in astrological Mercury, this is my most traditional reading suggestion. Focus of the book is on the astrological planets of Mercury, Venus, and Mars looked at from an archetypal perspective.

Hermes, Guide of Souls Karl Kerenyi at Amazon
The Greek mythology of Hermes written by my all time personal favorite mythologist. This is not written from an astrological perspective.

Eternal Hermes: From Greek God to Alchemical Magus - Antoine Faivre at Amazon
Absolutely fascinating (albeit a wee bit scholastically mind-numbing for the average reader) book on Hermes the shape-shifter in all of his many forms down through the ages. Draws upon rare books and esoteric manuscripts on Hermes, the Hermetic tradition, and explores the mysterious figure of Hermes Trismegistus. Faivre is thought by many of his peers to be one of the top academic scholars in the field of esoterism. Again, this extraordinary book is not written from an astrological perspective. If it's too expensive at Amazon, then try to find it at the library.

Hermes and His Children - Rafael Lopez-Pedraza at Amazon
Warning: this book was written primarily for Jungian therapists back in 1967. While recommendation is primarily reserved for dyed-in-the-wool Jungian psychology fans - there are, nevertheless, tidbits of fascinating ideas and insights that you are unlikely to encounter anywhere else. This is not written from an astrological perspective. Again, if too expensive at Amazon, try to find it at the library.

Gnosis and Hermeticism from Antiquity to Modern Times This volume introduces what has sometimes been called "the third component of western culture." It traces the historical development of those religious traditions which have rejected a world view based on the primacy of pure rationality or doctrinal faith, emphasizing instead the importance of inner enlightenment or gnosis: a revelatory experience which was typically believed to entail an encounter with one's true self as well as with the ground of being, God.

The contributors to this book demonstrate this perspective as fundamental to a variety of interconnected traditions. In Antiquity, one finds the gnostics and hermetics; in the Middle Ages several Christian sects. The medieval Cathars can, to a certain extent, be considered part of the same tradition. Starting with the Italian humanist Renaissance, hermetic philosophy became of central importance to a new religious synthesis that can be referred to as Western Esotericism." The development of this tradition is described from Renaissance hermeticists and practitioners of spiritual alchemy to the emergence of Rosicrucianism and Christian theosophy in the seventeenth century, and from post-enlightenment aspects of Romanticism and occultism to the present-day New Age movement.

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