Starts: Saturday 28 October for five weeks
Time: 10:00am - 11:30am (BST, GMT from the 2nd week of term)
Tutors: Diane Piper and Matthew McNeill
In the year 1460 an agent of Cosimo de’ Medici returned from the outer reaches of Bulgaria to Florence carrying an ancient Greek manuscript. This manuscript was found to be a long lost codex of writings referred to by ancient historians as the Corpus Hermeticum. The codex, containing fourteen treatises, is attributed to Hermes Trismegistus who has been identified with the ancient Egyptian Ibis god Thoth and is believed to contain the nucleus of the inner teachings of the Ancients.
The ancient Egyptian god Thoth or Tehuti is associated with that faculty of mind which receives divine insight. Can this insight be discovered in experience through these texts? The corpus directly discusses some of the most important questions of life and is arguably one of the most profound sources to be discovered at the very roots of our own culture offering a gateway to ultimate revelation.
This 5-week course will explore the texts ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus through his best known works, the Corpus Hermeticum and the Asclepius. We will study the texts and a set of short commentaries produced during the translation by Mr MacLaren.
The course will be online and will begin on Saturday 28 October 2023, from 10.00 to 11.30am and will be led by Matthew McNeill and Diane Piper
