Sacred Texts  Gnosticism and Hermetica 

Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. 1

by G.R.S. Mead

[1906]
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This is the first volume of three of G.R.S. Mead's comprehensive survey of the literature attributed to the legendary Egyptian sage, Hermes Trismegistus.

Title Page
Preface
Contents
Poem
I. The Remains of the Trismegistic Literature
II. The History of the Evolution of Opinion
III. Thoth the Master of Wisdom
IV. The Popular Theurgic Hermes-Cult in the Greek Magic Papyri
V. The Main Source of the Trismegistic Literature According to Manetho, High Priest of Egypt
VI. An Egyptian Prototype of the Main Features of the Pœmandres’ Cosmogony
VII. The Myth of Man in the Mysteries
VIII. Philo of Alexandria and the Hellenistic Theology

IX. Plutarch: Concerning the Mysteries of Isis and Osiris

Foreword
Address to Klea concerning Gnosis and the Search for Truth
The Art of Knowing and of Divinising
The True Initiates of Isis
Why the Priests are Shaven and wear Linen
Of the Refraining from Flesh and Salt and Superfluities
On the Drinking of Wine
On Fish Taboos
The Onion and Pig Taboos
The Kings, the Riddles of the Priests, and the Meaning of Amoun
Of the Greek Disciples of Egyptians and of Pythagoras and his Symbols
Advice to Klea concerning the Hidden Meaning of the Myths
The Mystery-Myth
The Undermeaning a Reflexion of a Certain Reason
Concerning the Tombs of Osiris
Concerning the Theory of Evemerus
The Theory of the Daimones
Concerning Sarapis
Concerning Typhon
The Theory of the Physicists
Concerning Osiris and Dionysus
The Theory of the Physicists Resumed
The Theory of the Mathematici
The Theory of the Dualists
The Proper Reason according to Plutarch
The Symbolism of the Sistrum
The True “Logos,” again, according to Plutarch
Against the Weather and Vegetation God Theories
Concerning the Worship of Animals, and Totemism
Concerning the Sacred Robes
Concerning Incense
Afterword

 

X. ‘Hermas’ and ‘Hermes’
XI. Concerning the Æon-Doctrine
XII. The Seven Zones and their Characteristics
XIII. Plato: Concerning Metempsychosis
XIV. The Vision of Er
XV. Concerning the Crater or Cup
XVI. The Disciples of Thrice-Greatest Hermes