The Hermetica...The Mind of God

The Hermetica...The Mind of God

At the heart of Hermes’ teachings is one simple idea – God is a Big Mind. Everything which exists is a thought within the Mind of God. This blog is a thought in the Mind of God. Your body is a thought in the Mind of God. These ideas which are being discussed are thoughts in the Mind of God. How can we understand this?

Consider for a moment your own experience. Thoughts and feelings exist within your mind. You know the outer world around you because your senses give you information which you also then experience within your mind. When your mind is completely unconscious, you don’t experience anything. Ultimately, everything that exists in your life is a thought within your mind. Your mind, however, is limited by being trapped in a physical body. Imagine for a moment that it is not. Imagine that it is free to be conscious of everything, at all times and in all places. Then everything that is, has been, and will be, would exist as a thought within your mind. This is the nature of God’s Mind. He is not limited by a physical body. He is the big mind within which everything exists.

Hermes describes the Mind of God as the Oneness which unites everything. What does that mean? Again, look at your own experience. You experience many different things with your mind. Right now you are reading this blog. Before that you may have been eating, or walking in the country. Yet all of these different things are experienced by one thing – your mind. It is the Oneness that unites all of your experience. In the same way, God’s Mind is the Oneness which unites everything.

Hermes says that this Oneness contains all opposites. This paradox can be understood by once more looking at the nature of your own mind. Some things you experience are hot and others cold; some are bright and others dark; some you call good and others bad. Nothing that you experience can be both cold and hot, because they are opposites. Yet both cold and hot are experiences which you have. Your mind is the one thing which contains all opposites.

Hermes teaches that the mind of a human being is made in the image of God’s Big Mind. If we can free our mind from the limitations imposed by the physical body, we can experience the Mind of God. We were created with the specific purpose of learning to do this. This is the spiritual goal of human life. To reach this destination we must expand our awareness. We must use the power of our little minds to reach out to God’s Big Mind.

To help us do this, Hermes narrates a dramatic story of how God creates and maintains the cosmos. It is through appreciating the awesome beauty of the cosmos and understanding the fundamental laws by which it functions, that we can come to know the Mind of God. It was this vision which fired the imaginations of the great minds of history. It inspired the birth of science by encouraging them to explore the Mind of God by seeking to discover more of how the universe works. Some great modern scientists, such as Albert Einstein and Stephen Hawking, still describe science as an attempt to understand ‘the Mind of God’. The Hermetic philosophy places man at the very centre of God’s creation. Hermes declares that ‘man is a marvel’. With his mind he may not only understand the universe, but even come to know God. He is not a mortal body which will live and die. He is an immortal soul which, through the experience of a spiritual rebirth, may become a god.

The Hermetica

Timothy Freke & Peter Gandy