Hermeticism takes its name from hermes-trismegistus — a syncretic figure combining the Greek Hermes and the Egyptian Thoth. Its central teaching is the doctrine of correspondence: “as above, so below; as within, so without.”
The Corpus Hermeticum presents the cosmos as a living, ordered whole, mirrored in the human soul. Liberation comes through understanding this mirroring — through study, contemplation, and the purification of the inner being.
Hermeticism shaped Renaissance magic, early modern science (Newton was a serious alchemist), and much of Western esotericism — including Rosicrucianism, ceremonial magic, and modern occult traditions.