The origin of Hermeticism is lost in the night of times. Some myths give it a divine origin, placing it in the "in illo tempore" in which God taught Adam, the First Man, through Raziel, the Angel of Mysteries. Others, more poetic, say that in previous times the celestial beings fell in the love with the beautiful women who inhabited the Earth, thus betraying, in the alcove, the divine secret of the works of Nature. There are still people who believe that it began with the teachings of Hermes Trimegistus, the mythical Egyptian sage.
Anyway, Hermeticism, namely that of Christian expression (Gnosis), Jewish (Kabbala) and Muslim (Sufi), is just another way to name the Grand Teaching which since the beginning of humanity was passed on continuously through a long chain of awakened individuals in terms of higher consciousness, almost always organized in initiatory Schools. In these centers of wisdom, discreetly present in all major civilizations and traditional cultures the so-called hermetic knowledge has been cultivated, primordial sources from which drank knowledge, spirituality and art of all times, both in the West and in the East.
One such knowledge, designated as Meditative Practice was and would remain until today, the key or the "sine qua non" condition to have access safely and generously to other hermetic knowledge, among which come to the highlight the contemplation of divine works, the wisdom of symbols, the law of correspondences, and also astrosophy, theurgy, alchemy and hermetic medicine.
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