Post #663414

I expect that I might get a teensy amount of pushback from a claim I made on this one. I say that hermeticism is panentheistic, while platonism isn't. Someone might point out that NEOplatonism is panentheistic, since Plotinus taught that reality emanates from the monad - I concede that he really taught that! But Platonism proper, the stuff Socrates and Plato actually *taught* makes no such claims. The problem is, Plotinus didn't teach Platonism per se. Plotinus mixed a whole LOT of influences in with platonism to make his mathematical turbo-philosophy religion; calling neoplatonism "platonism" proper is like saying a martini is the same thing as a shot of gin. This is important on account of the claim those freaks made concerning "enochian" magic, john dee, and their version of "hermeticism." John dee, whatever it was he actually believed, didn't base any of his wicked magical system on the predicate of panentheism: in fact, his mythmaking concerning an "enochian" language wouldn't make any sense, since summoning demons would be an ontological process rather than a verbal one if that were the case. His actual writings suggest more of a classic platonic theory of forms, and even that is just vague gobbledygook he used to kersnipper more gold from the English treasury. But much of esotericism relies on you not knowing that they're taking these mutually exclusive philosophies - like hermeticism and platonism - and mixing them up without addressing the tension in their exclusive truth claims. The fools that bow down to "trismegistus" and his teachings like to think that everything is connected via divine presence in all things; the dorks listening to Plato think that matter is separate from transcendentals and ideas, but take their properties from those objects. These can't both be true, but that doesn't stop the occultist from employing both systems and it doesn't stop demons from entertaining their dumb little rituals. RT: https://poa.st/objects/de1cff45-8f1a-45cb-8230-cdb9e8cc18ab