The Initiatory Hermetica, Inner Stargates & Going Full Godhead w. David Litwa

Added: 2026-05-10

[00:00:00]My conversation today is with scholar of ancient Mediterranean religions and early Christianity, Dr. M. David Litwa.

[00:00:08]Dr. Litwa is known for his profound interpretation of early Gnostic Christianity and Hermetic philosophy and has contributed a significant amount of research and output through venues such as his YouTube channel Gnosis, his website The Gnostic Archives, public lectures, interviews, and courses.

[00:00:27]Over the last several years, he has translated and arranged the Hermetic texts in two volumes in a format which deviates from all previous standard translations in that it is arranged as a progressive trajectory of initiation.

[00:00:43]An absolutely beautiful new printing of Hermetica One is now available via Fons Unlimited.

[00:00:51]This is just in time for a live seminar Dr. Litwa is offering this summer 2026 on Hermetica One, which promises to be an exciting opportunity to dive deeper into Hermetic philosophy and to receive and share your personal insights on the path.

[00:01:08]For more [snorts] about Dr. Litwa's seminar and to order the Fons Unlimited printing of Dr. Litwa's Hermetica One, see the links in the description.

[00:01:17]I'm Ike Baker and this is the Arcanum podcast.

[00:01:26]>> [music] [music] [music] >> All right, I've got a very uh special episode today. I'm here with uh Dr. David Litwa. Thank you so much for joining me. Uh I've been a fan of your work for years now. Thank you for everything that you've contributed uh in in these fields of study.

[00:01:56]Thank you, Ike. It's a real pleasure to be here. Thanks for the invitation.

[00:02:00]Sure. So, anytime I have a guest on, even somebody with who's as well known as you are in in in our communities, I I treat it as an introduction. So, if you wouldn't mind uh I was wondering, how did your journey into the study of of these antique or ancient forms of religion?

[00:02:19]How did that begin?

[00:02:23]Well, I'm not sure I can pinpoint a specific area. When I was or a specific time, when I was in graduate school, I started a kind of spiritual journey. I didn't know it was a spiritual journey at the time, but I got really interested into deification.

[00:02:42]Uh in the Patristic tradition, this was called theosis, but I I I wasn't really interested in like being a theologian. I I was always in the secular academic study of religion. So, but I was reading great some of the great Greek mystical thinkers like Gregory Palamas and Maximus the Confessor. At one point, when I finished my seminary degree, I was totally on fire for Maximus, and I I applied to PhDs. I was like, I want to study Maximus.

[00:03:18]Ended up getting rejected, and then I just found myself going back and back and back further into the sources until I thought I hit what was rock bottom at the time, that is the foundation rock.

[00:03:35]It ended up not being so, but I ended up studying deification in Paul.

[00:03:40]And so, I reapplied to PhDs and got into several places to study early Christianity.

[00:03:53]So, I ended up going to UVA and I had even before I was accepted, I had half written a book on called We Are Being Transformed, which is deification in Paul.

[00:04:07]And so, halfway through the PhD, I just went ahead and published this book.

[00:04:11]They, you know, my graduate advisor wasn't He wasn't angry, but he was like, "No one has ever done that before." Um >> [laughter] >> Um but, I was just really fascinated and I wanted to do something else for the actual dissertation. So, I went ahead and published this book and I just argued that yeah, Paul absolutely believes that we are going to be transcendent beings in a higher non-human condition, that our bodies are going to be made of some pneumatic substance, which is maybe some kind of higher fire or light or some kind of luminous reality. And that we're not going to eat, we're not going to drink, we're not going to have flesh, we're not going to have sex, that we are going not towards humanity 2.0, but we're going into full godhead. That's exactly right at the center of the Christian tradition.

[00:05:04]And later on, as happens so often, people weren't ready for that message and they just were like, "No.

[00:05:16]Actually, salvation means we're going to inherit flesh. But, it's just going to be nicer flesh. Um >> [laughter] >> Meaning that, you know, we're not going to have sex, but uh and we're not going to need to eat, but we're still going to have a stomach and teeth and genitals and uh and we're, you know, we're we're going to be in heaven.

[00:05:34]I don't know, doing what? I I have no idea.

[00:05:37]Hula hoops or, you know, jumping jacks.

[00:05:39]I mean, who knows? But, anyway, that's how Paul gets received in the 2nd century, even though, as the Gnostics, you know, love to point out, this is the guy who says flesh and blood shall not inherit the kingdom of God.

[00:05:54]Uh, how can you possibly think that the message is about resurrecting this ugly stuff uh that just gets wrinkly and old. Uh, you know, and the fact that it doesn't get wrinkly and old in the in in in heaven, you know, well, that's wonderful, but it's still not living the full life of our noetic capacity.

[00:06:17]>> [snorts] >> You know, being in this platform, that's the whole problem. It's the wet platform. It doesn't allow us to reach our full potential. It's like a it's a cage. I mean, that's Plato's image. And you don't thrive in a cage. You you you belong on a star body surfing through the universe. And so, you know, I I think that's where Paul was headed.

[00:06:41]But anyway, I realized that Paul wasn't rock bottom. In fact, you could go much deeper.

[00:06:47]And so, uh I I looked at deification as a tradition in in Western spirituality.

[00:06:54]And this is this is, you know, I produced a book called Becoming Divine Deification in in Western Culture. And so, I looked at Paul, but I went way back earlier than Paul. I I started looking at the Egyptian tradition.

[00:07:08]And I I wouldn't describe, you know, Egyptian tradition as really Western, but it's that it's that site where Western spirituality gets a lot of its um shall we say motivation and inspiration.

[00:07:23]And it's also the site where, you know, humans had been thinking about deification for thousands and thousands of years prior to Christianity. I mean, everybody knew that the pharaoh was Horus in the palace.

[00:07:36]Everyone knew that he was a god on earth, that he's sitting on a throne.

[00:07:40]Uh, and as in his capacity as pharaoh, he speaks the word of God, and he is God and God in flesh and you know, interestingly, none of that is particular esoteric, you know, like everyone knew that in these uh, rituals that they performed in order to affirm and confirm the Pharaoh's divinity. These were all mostly public rituals, uh, and that everyone saw, and you know, the Pharaoh would be divine, he would be renewed in his divinity, and it would be, you know, like a parade, and you know, people would be totally going crazy in the temples and uh, having a blast, uh, getting drunk at night and and you know, I mean, it there was nothing like hidden about it, but you know, one of the things that I I guess that Egypt gets known for later is this emphasis on hidden rituals, and there might have been hidden rituals of deification, but for the most part, it was all focused on Pharaoh, uh, the Pharaoh, and so I that's what I focused on.

[00:08:41]And yeah, I just came up with the theory that you know, when we're talking about when Christians, particularly Christians in Egypt, when they talk about deification, they are using native Egyptian tradition, you know, a memory that goes back literally thousands of years, and what we call heretical Christianity or Gnostic Christianity, depending on who you ask, that's really just Egyptian Christianity. And what we call Orthodox Christianity is the Italian Roman response to it.

[00:09:19]Um, you know, so I wouldn't describe myself as like an esotericist. I think that a lot of the the things that I study are you know, a matter of public knowledge, but they've become esoteric in the sense that people have repressed them. Like they are memories that have been repressed. Like, they could have become normative and orthodox, but there's a whole other wing of Christianity that has, you know, for thousands of years been engaging in practices of of of its own cultural self-amnesia.

[00:09:53]Actually putting down these other alternative traditions and promoting, you know, a certain branch or or stream which is very narrow in its bandwidth as kind of orthodox and normative. And most people who live, most Christians, they have no idea that there's another side, you know. So, this became my my mission later in life to to talk about that other side and uh you know, in my journey through the academy I didn't do it willingly, but now I'm fully on fire to, you know, just have my own online academy, have my own YouTube channel, and to talk about this stuff full time. Uh I didn't plan it this way, but this is how it turned out, and I'm totally on board.

[00:10:41]>> [laughter] >> Yeah. I mean, that's uh it's it's interesting, too, because yeah, you know, I I consider myself somebody who is a Christian. Um but I I broke with my, you know, lowercase O orthodoxy. I was also raised Catholic. Um I broke with that a long time ago. Uh now I I um I belong to a a church of what it what it what styles itself as pre-Nicene Christianity. And and I um you know, we work a lot with um uh you know, the Apocrypha and the the Gnostic stuff. It's it's really important, I think, uh for me, but I think uh a lot of us now straddle this line where um the practice of religious uh whatever worship, devotion, faith, um and the wealth of uh scholarly sort of criticism online that is is is people are becoming enmeshed in this now, people of the faith. You know, you get guys get guys like J. Dyer who's you know, kind of a a rabid Orthodox Christian. Um you know, and but but looking at these things uh through the exegetical and methodological lenses of the academy, it it it's a very hairy ground to a hazy ground for me and I I want to I want to hear your thoughts on it and maybe maybe you have some maybe maybe you don't, but um it it becomes difficult to defer to uh academic criticism when you are uh situated in a faith because obviously faith does not religious faith does not view itself or religious ideology does not view itself as ideology. It views itself as truth.

[00:12:31]Um so I I'm I'm wondering if uh I don't know if you are a person of of faith or or or not or maybe you were at one point. How do you navigate these waters or how do you suggest uh people can embody a a um you know, a a sort of medial midpoint expression of of these two somewhat I don't want to say conflicting, but perhaps like competing uh lenses.

[00:13:03]You mean scholarship and faith? Yeah.

[00:13:06]Yeah. Yeah.

[00:13:07]Yeah. Well, I think that for a lot of people in my audience, you would fall into the camp of spiritual but not religious and that's probably where I fit in as well.

[00:13:22]I think this is a growing category. I think it's a meaningful category.

[00:13:27]I think that yeah, and to be spiritual you can definitely be Christian. You could definitely be anything else as well. You could be a full-on hermetist.

[00:13:35]I I think that you know, or or gnostic.

[00:13:38]There are many self-identifying gnostics and just hermetic thinkers today and you know, that I think that they have you know, that that spirituality you can adopt it at any time. It's a living faith. It's a living reality.

[00:13:53]So, and it it it's alternative and it's contrarian and it's countercultural. And so anyone anyone can do that.

[00:14:01]And you can do that within or without the academy.

[00:14:06]Um as it turns out, I mean the the academy is is difficult because you've you've got a situation where that religious ideology, let's just call it that, has been in control for such a long time that you know, if you look at the Roman Catholic Church. If you just looked at it from a purely secular business perspective, it's just a very successful business that's been running for about, you know, 1,800 years give or take uh a few centuries.

[00:14:38]And they're rich. Uh the business has been doing well. I mean, if you got a business that runs over millennium, I mean, you start increasing the the wealth, right? Uh and you know, that's they're they're doing well. They're still doing well. And they they you know, in the 18th and 19th century, they you know, Protestants and Catholics, especially in America, they created all these schools.

[00:15:03]So, you know, even Harvard is originally, you know, a religious foundation and you and you've got um you know, the same thing with so many others, you know, all the famous schools, Princeton and Brown and you know, I mean, they're all religious foundations.

[00:15:17]And a lot of people who want to go to school today or want to, you know, get a theology degree, well, they would go to a seminary or religious school, Catholic or Protestant of some variety, and that's where, you know, those are the people who have the formal schools with the with the name recognition.

[00:15:35]And that that's where all the money is, that's where all the funding is, you know, because they've been around, right?

[00:15:43]But you can absolutely, I think, thrive in these places.

[00:15:48]And there are I I I think, you know, the main problem with the academy no longer um it is no longer, you know, the fact that it's faith-based, uh you know, because you can go to a secular place like Harvard or Princeton or Yale, and you can study whatever religion you want, but the problem is even Harvard or Princeton or Yale, who, you know, would pride themselves on being free and open, they don't really study Gnosticism. Uh this is one of the things that I've that I've noticed.

[00:16:22]We did have Karen King there for a while, but, you know, when she left, nobody replaced her. I mean, there was no sense that, "Oh, well, we have to have a Gnosticism scholar." Um Elaine Pagels retired about the same time.

[00:16:38]Princeton wasn't like, "Oh, yeah, we need we need to study Gnosticism." No, once she's gone, she's gone. I mean, uh so, we lost we we lost other figures, you know, the greats.

[00:16:53]And uh you know, like John Turner in Nebraska, and uh so, these people died, they or they retired, and now even America, which prides itself on, you know, being this, you know, Harvard is number one, you know, but there's no place to study Gnosticism uh academically anymore. Uh even David Brakke is on his way to retirement soon. So, literally, like where are you going to go? There's no place to go. And why is that? Because the ideology reproduces itself, right? Ultimately, you know, back in the '70s, we were really excited over Nag Hammadi. We thought that we would change the face of early Christianity and of New Testament studies that everyone would be forced, you know, just compelled to take the Gnostics seriously because they had produced all this rich literature that was, you know, there's more books in Nag Hammadi than in the New Testament. It's just an amazing find. And now, nowadays, fact is, New Testament and most early Christian scholars completely ignore it as if it's not even there. Uh, so so these are These are the results of ideology reproducing itself. And that ideology is basically orthodoxy. So, people are interested in canonical texts a thousand times more than they are interested in anything outside of that.

[00:18:24]So, how do you thrive in this situation?

[00:18:27]Well, you've got to be very creative.

[00:18:29]And And I think that you are a model of that, of being creative in this space.

[00:18:34]Uh, you you have to invent yourself. And the Gnostics, since the very beginning, we have been inventing ourselves, right?

[00:18:41]We We don't necessarily have the institutional prestige. And listen, I would welcome, you know, institutional prestige. Like I I like I I I I would definitely apply uh and apply myself to to have that.

[00:18:57]But the reality is that's just not how the ac- the ac- the academy works. And the other issue with the academy is, you know, it these days it's more interested in in peace and justice and, you know, gender and gender ideology and uh uh sexual identity and so like even though Gnosticism has a lot to say to those subjects, I would argue they don't care. Like they're they like Gnosticism is is too niche or too marginal to talk to the modern issues, you know, which you know, have to do with race, color and sexual orientation and justice for the poor.

[00:19:41]By the way, all that is really important and I don't in any way want to say like oh my god, you know, we shouldn't be studying that. Of course we should.

[00:19:49]But it has resulted in the I think the disease of the academy is that the only diversity that they look at is the superficial kind of diversity that has to do with your skin color or your ethnicity rather than the intellectual diversity embedded within say Christianity itself.

[00:20:12]So, you know, a Yale or a Princeton or a Harvard or an Ivy League school is more likely to hire someone you know, interested in ethnicity and antiquity or gender and antiquity than it is in Gnosticism and antiquity. Those are two kinds of diversity uh but you know, this is just the kind of academic culture that we're in. So, we we've we've really been marginalized and we're used to it.

[00:20:47]We're used to it. So, we just keep on keeping on.

[00:20:51]Yeah, I mean that's so it's so interesting, right? Talking about like you know, the sort of the academic as it or the academy as an institution kind of mirroring uh the the a orthodoxy. It's just like the Gnostics are don't fit in anywhere. And I feel that pain.

[00:21:12]>> [laughter] >> People who are interested in I really appreciate you saying really love that. It's one of the things the nuance that you bring to it and the profundity of understanding of of narcissism because it's I don't know, you know, especially on the online communities which is by the way that's where a lot of people are going now because a lot of people have checked out of the, you know, beat me over the head with superficial diversity. I want the real the intellectual diversity as you're pointing out. I think it's a brilliant distinction.

[00:21:43]And so they're going to people like, you know, they're going to see Justin Sledge. They're going to, you know, listen to your stuff.

[00:21:50]These people are kind of checking out in mass in preference of what's in what's going on in these digital spaces. But with that right comes like I want to say a a lack of peer review.

[00:22:03]And so narcissism gets thrown around in a lot of different ways and it gets interpreted by some commentators who are maybe maybe maybe less qualified than yourself say for instance to talk about or certainly you know David Brakke.

[00:22:16]Whose book by the way The Gnostics was like my first introduction to this idea that you know, there were early Christianities not just one but also how Gnosticism as a term is becoming sort of outmoded. And I think that ties into the prostitution of the term in online spaces. So for somebody like you how would you describe the key features of what you would call Gnosticism? Is it still a relevant term? Do you find it useful or how would you go about delineating that?

[00:22:52]Well, I blame academics for the skepticism about the term Gnosticism.

[00:22:57]And I should say in preface that it really all began 1995 or 1996 with the publication of the one of the greatest and still you know, in the top 10 books on Gnosticism, which is Michael Williams' Rethinking Gnosticism.

[00:23:14]Absolutely fantastic work. Would recommend it to everyone and anyone.

[00:23:21]But in the at the end of that book he does a classic academic move, which is to say we don't know what we're talking about.

[00:23:31]And uh so we shouldn't talk about it.

[00:23:34]Uh we shouldn't use the term Gnosticism.

[00:23:36]And then Karen King, who at the time had just been Harvard had just been hired by Harvard to have the oldest endowed chair and was like a full-on full-time scholar of Gnosticism she publishes a book in 2003 saying what is Gnosticism?

[00:24:01]Let's not use that term.

[00:24:04]Now again, fantastic book. You'll learn a lot.

[00:24:09]But here's the reality, the political reality on the ground.

[00:24:15]That's like me as an economist who studied the economy for years publishing a book saying what is the economy?

[00:24:26]I don't know what I'm studying.

[00:24:28]Let's not use this term economics.

[00:24:31]You know.

[00:24:32]Or that's like me studying for years like civil engineering and then writing a book, what's civil engineering? Who knows what it is?

[00:24:42]Building bridges?

[00:24:44]Skyscrapers? I don't know. What is it?

[00:24:47]Who knows? It's just a bunch of things.

[00:24:49]People can't agree. Let's not even use that term.

[00:24:53]That would be ridiculous.

[00:24:57]That would be ridiculous. That is literally sawing off the branch on which you're sitting. It's literally pulling out the rug from under yourself.

[00:25:08]So, the irony is the the woman, the fantastic, the most brilliant scholar of Gnosticism, arguably, of the 21st century so far, Karen King, who held the highest academic posts, arguably, in the United States, who was a full-time scholar of Gnosticism, said that Gnosticism didn't exist.

[00:25:31]She retired.

[00:25:33]Guess what?

[00:25:34]They weren't looking to fill a place for Gnosticism.

[00:25:38]Why?

[00:25:39]Because she just said didn't exist.

[00:25:45]Whoa.

[00:25:46]Like Now, you might be brilliant, but that is the worst political move you could make.

[00:25:56]And it has the power to ruin a generation.

[00:25:59]Because it it also gives the trump card to the conservatives and the evangelicals who who never been quite you know, they they're well-funded. They know what they're studying, the Bible at, you know, Dallas Theological Seminary. They never write a book saying, "What's the Bible?

[00:26:16]You know, let's not use that term."

[00:26:19]Uh they know exactly what that is, okay?

[00:26:22]They don't want people studying Nag Hammadi.

[00:26:26]They don't want people studying Gnosticism.

[00:26:30]And so, they look at Karen King. They don't read her book.

[00:26:34]They just have to look at the title and say, "Well, she doesn't know what it is.

[00:26:39]So, why should we study it? I mean, for God's sake, the people who study it don't know what what they're talking about."

[00:26:46]Um So, I just about 3 years ago, I because I was a devoted follower of of Bracky, of of Michael Williams, of um of Karen King. Bracky's a little bit different. We can talk about his take on things, but I just said, "Enough is enough. Um let's just get this term let's just bring this this back." So, gnosis or narcissism. I published this book understanding gnosis.

[00:27:16]Um the most important thing I can describe for people is narcissism doesn't have an essential trait.

[00:27:25]But, it is definitely a thing. It's a reality. It's a combination, like so many other great human ideas and ideologies, it's a combination of things, a mental and cognitive schema where you bring together a number of ideas, and all together they form a family of ideas.

[00:27:46]Uh each idea has a kind of family resemblance to the other ideas.

[00:27:52]And so, what are these things? These are things like a lower creator, the divine spark in humanity, the idea that God is a human being with a capital H, a syncretic attitude of mind that is radical openness and cosmopolitan thought, transgressivity, uh morality. And this is something that, you know, I I this is one of my hobby horses. People are like, "Well, morality, like is that a gnostic trait?" Absolutely, it is. Absolutely, it is. They are extremely extremely moral people, and they think seriously about morality.

[00:28:32]Secrecy. Okay, that's another big one.

[00:28:35]Um they like secrecy, or I should say the rhetoric of secrecy. They're often actually not very secret, but they like to to say that they have a lot of secrets.

[00:28:43]Um I also published this book. This is the Gnostic Thomas.

[00:28:49]No one wants to say that Thomas is Gnostic because they want it to be read.

[00:28:56]And if you call something Gnostic, that means that everyone will ignore it. Um but I think I think the opposite. Um I think we should be calling this Gnostic because this book does exactly what I say a Gnostic does.

[00:29:12]It combines a It's like a cognitive set of traits where it's very clear that with the combined set, not with one or two, but with the combined set of traits, this forms a distinctive kind of spirituality that we could call Gnostic.

[00:29:31]So, salvation by gnosis, that's a big one.

[00:29:35]What is gnosis? Experiential, you know, it's it's not something you get from a math textbook.

[00:29:41]The idea of inner light and self-knowledge, a secret ship outlook, opposition to Archontic figures, human or divine, opposition to flesh, opposition to the world. All of that's in Thomas. Now, interestingly, those traits are also in a variety of other Christian texts.

[00:29:59]They're just not combined in the same way as they are in gnosis or Gnosticism.

[00:30:08]So, if you're in Europe, you will refer to gnosis. If you're in the Anglo-speaking world, you refer to Gnosticism.

[00:30:18]So, I I don't want that to be a confusion. I I I view those as basically equivalent. We should definitely keep talking about gnosis and Gnosticism. And if anyone tells you that we shouldn't, even if they have a PhD, please inform them that you might be super smart, but if you want a job in the 21st century, if you want to raise disciples who will study these texts, if you want to have an impact in the modern academy, you will say that gnosis and Gnosticism exists.

[00:30:58]Yeah, beautifully said. Beautifully said. I I think also, you know, particularly in something like the Gospel of Thomas, where you do have actually canonical precedent, um when when Christ says, you know, uh that he speaks to certain >> [clears throat] >> uh speaks to the the the people who are not the the apostles in uh parables, and then for some it is given to know, and for others uh so on and so forth. And then the the Gospel of Thomas is is really interesting to me, if if I'm remembering correctly, because in in the canonical Gospels, Thomas is the one who sort of doubts Jesus' appearance, and he says uh Jesus sort of chides him for it, but in the Gospel the Gnostic Gospel of of Thomas, I believe he is the the the one who understands, you know, uh sort of the cognoscenti, uh you know, or or the the one who can understand the esoteric secrets. And that to me has always been again a keystone of what I consider Gnosticism. Um it so I'm also curious I'm also curious what you would you consider Docetism uh one of those sort of like defining features that you find throughout Gnosticism, or is that less so, less common?

[00:32:13]The the family of traits.

[00:32:17]I'm not sure that has itself a kind of coherence to it. Um it it kind of falls in the larger category of I would say well, it it's difficult to know what what exactly to call it, but it's the sense that it's it's What what scholars call Docetism is really a way of talking about the divinity of Christ.

[00:32:47]And that's the overall category that it fits into.

[00:32:53]So, the argument that Christians had in the early centuries was well, and I'm going to put this in a very crude concrete way, but it's it's absolutely the the way that they that they put it in.

[00:33:05]If you believe that Jesus is a divine being, then you can't believe that he took a You just can't believe that.

[00:33:14]Right? Because that is itself impurity, and and a divine being doesn't do that.

[00:33:18]And according to ancient theories of digestion digestion is a process of corruption within [clears throat] your God. So, Christ as a divine being can't contain corruption, so he can't digest his food.

[00:33:33]So, he doesn't take a either. Um So, these are the things that they thought about. Right?

[00:33:42]I mean, and and there were various theories, but but this is all and understand the the larger context of this.

[00:33:49]Whether you think, you know, Jesus has a body exactly like ours or that it's sort of like an improved version of our body or that it's more ethereal or pneumatic, this is really an argument about how do you conceive of the divine present on Earth.

[00:34:07]And so, Christians genuinely disagreed about this.

[00:34:11]And I don't like the term Docetism because it's a it's a heretical term that the heresy hunters used against their Gnostic opponents.

[00:34:25]And what the Gnostics were doing was exactly the same as what other Christians were doing. They were thinking seriously about okay, if if Jesus is a divine being, what did his body look like?

[00:34:39]And they were just unprepared to say that it's exactly like my human body, which, you know, shits and sweats, and, you know, if you cut it, pus comes out, and snot comes out when I have a cold, and they were just not prepared to say that that stuff ever bothered Jesus.

[00:35:02]And, you know, it's interesting that even the so-called Orthodox, like Epiphanius, is a famous example for this.

[00:35:10]In the Panarion, which is his big, fat work against heresies, he is constantly accusing other people of Docetism, but then, you know, you got to like read the text, like somewhere in the middle of the Panarion, buried in, you know, the 600 pages of it, he actually admits, "I don't think that Jesus takes a shit."

[00:35:35]Right? So, you know, when push comes to shove, here this, you know, pillar of Orthodoxy, you know, accepts the basic thing that these Gnostics are trying to say. Jesus isn't in the exact same human body as you and me. It just doesn't work.

[00:35:55]Yeah, that's that's interesting. All the the uh the idea of sort of contradiction and hypocrisy uh uh in not in the person, as well as what we're trying to figure out, you know, theologically. Um so, I mean, I could talk about Gnosticism all day, and I'm I'm really happy um that we finally got to have this conversation, but um was it your work in the uh Nag Hammadi uh that brought you to the door of uh the more Hermetic writings, since there's a few sprinkled in there. Uh how did you decide, "Hey, I'm going to kind of go this way now?"

[00:36:33]No, I was a follower of Hermes long before I, you know, [clears throat] started the Gnostic uh path. Um yeah, I I became interested in Hermetica for the same reason that I talked about earlier, because I saw in the Hermetica a theory of deification, and I was really interested in understanding native Egyptian deification. So, in in my book Becoming Divine, I've got a chapter on pharaonic deification, but I've also got a chapter on Hermetic deification.

[00:37:02]And that's how I initially got into it.

[00:37:04]And actually, in in the new book, which I've got a paperback copy, no one else has this yet, but uh um I've got a paperback of of the new Found Edition. Um I just I put in this essay, which is the first essay I ever wrote on the Hermetica, and it's and it's called Hermetic deification. And because I was really excited about this process that I saw developing in late antiquity, where the native Egyptian thinkers, whether they be Christian or not, they were bringing together insights deeply embedded in in their Egyptian culture.

[00:37:48]And one of these was this ability of human beings to transcend the divine human borderline.

[00:37:57]And it just turned out that thinkers in other areas were were kind of less willing to go there.

[00:38:03]But there was something distinctive about that Egyptian culture, probably because they had been, you know, experiencing it for thousands and thousands of years, that they always thought of the pharaoh as a god on earth.

[00:38:16]And so, if you could somehow democratize that sense of deification, You know, you can you get something like Hermetic spirituality.

[00:38:28]And so that that's what was what interested me because I I viewed and I I still view that Hermetic spirituality is it is a great great great great grandchild of a much older Egyptian spirituality that had a lot to do with the deification.

[00:38:47]That in the end we were all pharaohs in in spirit.

[00:38:53]We're all Horus in the palace. You know, we all have a divine double.

[00:38:58]We we all are identified with a daemon.

[00:39:03]We all are daemones in flesh. We all have that in ourselves. You know, we might not be a awakened to that reality, but that's the message of Hermetic deification. That you've got the the nous. And they use Platonic they use the Platonic terminology of nous. But of course they didn't mean as as Hanegraaff points out, they didn't mean like oh, your mind or your brain. They meant something so much deeper than that.

[00:39:30]Uh something that reached back much deeper than anything Greek philosophy had to offer. It was that deep what I call divine consciousness.

[00:39:41]Very hard to translate it, but I I call it in the book I I translate nous as either higher consciousness or divine consciousness.

[00:39:48]And even that is imperfect, but it's a whole lot better than mind, you know, or you know, understanding.

[00:39:54]Um you know, because it just runs so much deeper than that. So absolutely I I uh I I did deepen my knowledge of the Hermetica by reading Nag Hammadi, but I was I was long before I ever really studied Nag Hammadi, before I studied Coptic, I was into the the Greek Hermetica. And then you know, for the book I I did I went ahead and translated the Coptic Hermetica as well because I I think that it's it's it's a lot in some respects a lot more accurate than the Greek. So, um yeah.

[00:40:29]But it was a it was a circular path, I guess. Um >> [snorts] >> Yeah, and and you've you've arranged the the the different books within the the Corpus Hermeticum and the the broader Hermetica. You've arranged them as a a sort of a a trajectory of readings along the path of initiation. That's how you would conceive of it, right?

[00:40:54]Yeah, and I do this in open opposition to Christian Wildberg who a number of years back wrote an article saying that you know, Hermes is constantly referring to a path of initiation, a path of progress, a curriculum in which he'll refer to general discourses and then to detailed discourses and then he'll bring you deeper than the detailed discourses into full-on revelation.

[00:41:22]And Wildberg's point in the article was that the general discourses they don't really exist. They were maybe oral or something like that, but but they don't really exist and and and these are kind of like fake references to give the reader the impression that there was a real progression going on here.

[00:41:46]And I when I was reading the Hermetica, I just basically came to the opposite conclusion that no, there are actually there is an actual path here and I had detected this, you know, even earlier than uh you know, Hanegraaff's Hermetic Spirituality. And when Hanegraaff you know, I was a reviewer of that book before it even came out. And when Hanegraaff you know, studied this, I was you know, I was like, yes, yes and amen.

[00:42:17]I mean, that this is absolutely the case.

[00:42:19]And the problem is when people read the Hermetica, it's just a jumble, you know, like there was you know, we the West inherited the Hermetica from what was originally a like a single manuscript and it was just like it was just like a jumble. We don't know how the Byzantine Christians we don't know how they organized it, why they organized it the way they did. Uh it's not like they were caring or venerating the text and that they had a certain logic to the order of the tractate. It's it just looks like they had thrown it into a blender and then you know, it had exploded and and all the all the tractates were just just like there, like wherever the pieces were were left.

[00:43:03]Um now maybe they put the Poimandres first out of a an intentional decision, but you know, with with all of the other texts, you get the sense like there's no rhyme or reason to the order.

[00:43:15]And that's a shame because the texts themselves are constantly referring to the rhyme or reason of the order. This is a path. And then when we got the discourse on the eighth and ninth, it became absolutely crystal clear where Hermes is talking about there are steps that you take. There is a ladder. There is a progression and you are on this progression and unless you go through the progression, you'll never have the noetic insights.

[00:43:41]And you know, so Thoth spends half the tractate or or whoever's speaking there spends half the tractate saying, no, I've gone through the progression, right? Like um don't leave me hanging, Hermes, you know, please, for God's sake. Um So, absolutely we know there's a progression and but for whatever reason up to the year whatever it was when I published this 2024 originally, no one had ever had the guts to change the progression or to change the order.

[00:44:10]And so like I guess you know my one claim to fame with the Hermetica is that I changed the order.

[00:44:19]>> [laughter] >> Because I really think that there's a Hermetic progression. And I always say to people if you can think of a better progression >> [clears throat] >> you change the order too. Like you don't have to follow my order. Like that's the thing. Like I don't want to create a new Hermetic orthodoxy.

[00:44:34]Uh like oh you have to read it in the Litwa order.

[00:44:38]No you don't. I'm just awakening your mind to the fact that the tractates are unordered and I'm giving you my best sense of if you were a Hermetic practitioner or you were serious about Hermetic spirituality as I hope you would be you would read it in this order. That this would be a beneficial order for you to read it in.

[00:45:00]Right? So that's the idea. And so for the seminar which we're going to talk about there's I'm doing a live summer seminar this summer.

[00:45:09]I should say this northern summer because I'm I'm in the southern hemisphere.

[00:45:14]Um but we're doing a Hermetic live seminar and we're just going to go through the progression. So it'll [snorts] be the first time where I go through the exact progression that's in the book.

[00:45:23]And the book is essentially the textbook. So it's like a summer reading course and that's what we're going to do. And we're going to bring insights to the table. I'm going to tell you what I think. I want you to tell me what you think. Um you know we're going to introduce lots of fun and exciting commentary and dialogue and discussion.

[00:45:44]Maybe a couple ritual elements. So it should be a a great fun.

[00:45:50]Yeah that's that's excellent. And and just um can you remind us one once more?

[00:45:54]I I saw that probably 2 weeks ago you guys have already almost sold out of pre-orders for um the the found unlimited Edition of the Hermetica uh uh or your translation of Hermetica 1.

[00:46:08]When does that get published again?

[00:46:14]Literally, it's on the boat. It will arrive in Canada momentarily. Okay.

[00:46:19]>> Okay. And then when it's in Canada, it will be shipped out.

[00:46:23]But yes, we everything has been packed and shipped.

[00:46:27]And I understand from Gabriel, who is the the founder of Fount, that we are in fact sold out.

[00:46:36]>> Amazing. There might be Gabriel said that there might be some extra copies in the shipment.

[00:46:44]But there it was a limited edition. I think there were 600 copies.

[00:46:51]They are now gone. [snorts] Okay.

[00:46:55]But you should definitely talk to Gabriel in case there are some you know, a few other copies laying around. What will happen now is that Gabriel will release a non-limited edition Mhm. Cool. through the Amazon platform.

[00:47:17]And that's at his discretion. And that will be more of a print-on-demand kind of a book.

[00:47:24]That won't be as pretty. It'll be the same content, but it won't [clears throat] be as as pretty. But it will also be quite reasonable. So you haven't completely missed the boat. But yes, for the limited edition you you you should definitely contact Gabriel tonight if you are you know, wanting to get in on it.

[00:47:47]>> [laughter] >> Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. So I I wanted to to kind of backtrack just for a second because I I I want to genuinely get your opinion on this. Anytime I talk to anybody who studies the Hermetica and I'm I'm interested uh or is an expert on the Hermetica, I'm interested to get their take. So, I'm I'm very much in I love the Hermetica. I loved your version of it. It was gifted to me actually by an extremely dear friend.

[00:48:10]I uh I also you know, my my main I would say footing is in or my foundation is in Platonism and Neoplatonism. That's really my my main areas of expertise.

[00:48:24]The way that I would understand something like the word the term nous in something like Platonism or or let's say Neoplatonism late Platonism as as they are want to call it now. Um The way that I understand it is that you know, it gets translated shittily if I may coin a term but as intellect. And the way that it's actually effectively described in things like the seventh letter and the the Republic so on and so forth.

[00:48:58]It's really it's not this Cartesian intellect that we'd be used to nowadays where it's like okay, you know, but that's the the main problem is when people look back at Platonism, they're looking effectively through an Aristotelian filter and the guy loved to categorize things. Whereas like you know, I think Plato was trying to show that this nous actually is the only part of us the only part of the soul that actually can comprehend at least the signatures of God of noetic materia so on and so forth in something like the Phaedrus.

[00:49:30]Now, that's that's in stark stark contrast distinction to what we would think intellectual you know, the intellect is that you'd think like somebody that was referring to intellect with that would kind of be at odds with this existence of God and the gods. But I'm very curious because it obviously it gets developed to the nth degree. It's a little bit of a neurotic tradition, right? The the Greek rationalism.

[00:49:57]But do you feel in any significant way that Hermetic philosophy was in dialogue with Neoplatonic philosophy? Being the same time, same places. Were they negotiating these things or was it just just a matter of coincidence that a lot of the Hermetica is expressed in a in a Greek idiom?

[00:50:18]Well, I think I think news you can transit it intellect and and it's it's not to say that in every case that would be wrong.

[00:50:25]But yeah, to use a metaphor for the Hermetic authors and I presume for a lot of the the Neoplatonists like Iamblichus, you would have the news mean something more. It is the more, it is what the Gnostics would call the divine spark. It's like your own inner stargate or you know, it's your gateway into the transcendent. Why? Because it is transcendent. You don't need to activate it by drugs. I mean, they might have taken drugs, but the reality is the news itself is is that divine element in us.

[00:51:00]It's already divine. You just have to activate it, get the the lights turned on as as it were. So it's a it's not a it's not part of your normal human composition. Like I mean, we can dissect the brain and if you study the brain, I'm I'm an amazed at you know, recent studies on the brain. But you can cut the brain into a thousand pieces, study them. You can you know, study every one of the hundred billion neurons. None of that is the news which is that transcendent. So it's not your faculty. It's it's it can't be categorized under any human and and it can't be studied. It it's it's nothing that you it's nothing that would appear in a laboratory because it's nothing empirical because the divine itself isn't empirical. It's the god in you. So I think absolutely Platonus would understand this.

[00:51:54]My sense is that and usually it's Platonus who's the first Neoplatonist.

[00:51:59]Um whether that's right or not we can debate I think I think Platonus would have definitely been aware of Hermetic groups.

[00:52:08]And I think he would if you know some people like Zik Mazer thought that Platonus was riffing on the Gnostics. I think he could have absolutely riffed on the on the Hermetists. The issue for someone like Platonus, Platonus is is like someone who like went to Harvard, Yale and Princeton and like he studied 11 years with Monius Sarcus and so he's got to have a bit of a chip on his shoulder. So I think for him you know he never revealed where he was born. He was like not overly proud of his Egyptian heritage even though people say he was born in Lycopolis. I don't know exactly where we know that but anyway he my sense is that someone like Platonus would is is like a tenured faculty at Harvard who looks at an online group uh you know of magical practitioners you know and you know for a tenured professor at Harvard it's kind of like do I need to look at these people? I mean you know like let them have their chats or whatever you know on Discord you know like I'm writing my next book or if if you know you're a typical academic you have 700 emails a day most of them dealing with surveys um uh on you know administrative matters so you know you can spend all your time doing that.

[00:53:33]Um so I don't think Platonus like had a lot of time for those people. I think he at one time he got dragged into going to into an Egyptian temple and they did a little ritual ceremony.

[00:53:45]And at the end of it I get the impression like Plotinus is like, "Meh." You know, like when he was like "Yeah, we saw my Daimon and it was a god. I mean, didn't we know that already? I mean, you know, you know, that kind of attitude."

[00:53:58]Um but yeah, like it it's I I think he definitely was aware if if there were true Hermetic communities and I think that there were, Plotinus would have known about them. He just wasn't happy to to chat about it.

[00:54:14]Yeah, that's a good point. He does come across in the things that are written about him like um his I I don't want to call it. I guess maybe a hagiography by Porphyry, but I don't I don't really know if There's a bit of that. Yeah, definitely.

[00:54:29]>> It's a little bit, you know, and he starts it off with it seemed Plotinus was always ashamed to be in a body.

[00:54:34]That's an incredible way to start somebody's biography.

[00:54:38]But that's those are good points. Um Now, I want to I want to go back to the seminar and talk about what you have forthcoming. Maybe you can give us a little bit more detail about it, some dates, some times, how to sign up.

[00:54:53]Yeah, definitely.

[00:54:54]I can give I the the sign up link. It's just a link and we can put it in the description or whatever our show notes or whatever it's called these days. And um yeah, you just sign up and then when you sign up, you'll get immediate access to my standard introductory Hermetica course which is a lecture course that I did now about 2 years ago.

[00:55:21]And so in order to prep for the seminar, so the seminar is like a graduate seminar, but if you know nothing about the Hermetica you can prep yourself by going through the video lectures and the the readings of this course.

[00:55:35]And then we start officially um let's see Monday it'll be Monday night on the on the East Coast so New York time it'll be 8:30 in the evening we're going to start June 8th 8th of June okay and we're going to run through most of the summer so we got 10 sessions we're going to go through August 10 okay and again it's just a simple link um and yeah I want to get as many people there as feel called to like shall we say find other people interested in this material who have academic interest but also have spiritual interests uh and who really just want to learn more about a viable intellectual and spiritual path to deepen self-knowledge to deepen your own spirituality to to deepen your own engagement just with a very vibrant and meaningful tradition you know so like I I don't claim that this is more special than like you know you could do the same with like reading a Buddhist text or something but I think that for a lot of us who've grown up in in Western culture the Hermetica is like the foundation like and and if you're like a member of the Golden Dawn or if you are into um into Platonism or or into the academic study of esotericism if you go back you know you kind of hit bedrock with the Hermetica so it's it's it's useful for people to know what's at the foundation even if like you're starting with Ficino or you know somebody in the 19th century um you know you you can still go back fruitfully and read the primary texts.

[00:57:35]And and that's the goal. We're we're and we're reading it in the spiritual progression. And we're just talking it's just a seminar. It's just a grad seminar. There's nothing special or flashy. I'm not going to be lecturing at you. Uh I'm going to be giving you my two cents, but I'm really hoping you'll be giving me your two cents. So, >> [laughter] >> that's the idea. Will will any part of this be um recorded for maybe people who who want to view it later on and and purchase it or is it just going to remain live?

[00:58:06]Yeah, so for people who sign up um as long as everyone agrees, there there might be a case where someone might not agree to it being recorded. So, I can't make an absolute guarantee, but as long as everyone is cool with that, we will record the sessions.

[00:58:22]And um so you should sign up anyway, even if you know that, you know, you're going to be in Disney World for 2 weeks and you're going to miss the sessions or whatever. I don't you know, life happens. I'm not trying to ruin your summer. I'm trying to enrich it, you know. So, if you can't if you can't, you know, be present, uh totally fine. Um I'm 90% sure we're going to have the recordings, you know, for everyone who signs up.

[00:58:48]Yeah, so for anybody that's listening, you know, forget hot girl summer, it's Gnostic summer, okay?

[00:58:55]>> [laughter] >> With Dr. Litwith, it's going to be fantastic. And and the hot girls are in the Gnostic circles, right? I mean, Definitely. Like that's that's definitely my experience.

[00:59:06]Yeah, man. Sophia >> with the eyes of the heart as well, you know, we're not just uh controlled by this this flesh. So, you know, Yeah, well, how does my favorite my favorite Gnostic Yoda put it? Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.

[00:59:22]>> [laughter] >> We're looking for real luminosity. Yeah, real luminosity. I mean, we have beautiful people in in both in body and soul and you know, that's what I'm looking for. Um Yeah. So, definitely. Uh so, everybody gets a canned question uh at the end of every episode. Almost.

[00:59:42]Some people I give a I give a pass to, but um Could you recommend Could you recommend to our listeners this evening three of your favorite books on either uh you know, the Hermetica, Gnosticism.

[00:59:56]They can be primary materials, they can be commentary. Um how about it?

[01:00:04]Yeah, definitely. So, I think if you're in the Christian tradition, I would recommend and I've got this on the forefront of my mind because I just published a separate edition on it. I would recommend reading the our first our very first known edition of the New Testament, which is pretty different than what's in the New Testament. Um and so, I call it Marcion's Bible. Like, if you're if you're Christian, I think this is useful to know what the first edition the first known edition look like. Um I I think that that's very helpful.

[01:00:44]Um you know, I'm more of a I'm much more of a primary text kind of a guy than a than a secondary text kind of a guy. We mentioned earlier like you know, you could read Michael Williams' Rethinking Gnosticism.

[01:00:57]Um but I think you know, my advice to people is always dive into the primary text before you do anything in the secondary literature.

[01:01:07]And you know, definitely before you binge on a YouTube kind of a kind of a thing. So, uh some people just like do endless scrolliosis online. But the really the best thing that you can do is just kind of like read Nag Hammadi the Nag Hammadi scriptures just like from cover to cover. And I recommend the Mar of Myer translation um which is very, very readable. And uh yeah, it's called Nag Hammadi scriptures.

[01:01:34]Uh just just know the primary text. Let that be your Bible for 6 months and, you know, enjoy. Uh that that would be my advice.

[01:01:43]Um and definitely you know, since we've talked about the Hermetic and definitely get a whether it's my translation or someone else's, get a full uh copy of the Hermetic. Uh so, for me, I've divided it into Hermetica 1 and Hermetica 2.

[01:02:04]Um but read all of the Hermetica, you know, find it all.

[01:02:10]Not a lot of people read what's in Hermetica 2, which is in the Stobaean Hermetica.

[01:02:15]But read it all, you know, don't don't just don't just read like the the Corpus Hermeticum.

[01:02:22]Get a sense for the whole body literature because a lot of the things preserved by Stobaeus, you know, that's where you really see the native Egyptian material kind of cropping out. And I I think that that's really so essential for you to see that.

[01:02:39]Like a lot of people, including Justin Sledge, uh whom, you know, we talked about this oh, I guess it was about a year ago, is is still not totally convinced that the like there's a kind of Egyptian core to the Hermetic to the Hermetica, you know, that this could still just be like a version of Greek philosophy. And, you know, I've really been convinced of the opposite of that. And I I think that's because I really began my study of the Hermetica with the Stobaean Hermetica rather than the normal path, >> [laughter] >> which is what Walter Hanegraaff studies.

[01:03:12]Um and, you know, even if you like that's why I say always begin with the primary rather than the secondary because if you read Water Hanegraaff's work on Hermetic spirituality, which is a fantastic book and a great book which I reviewed, he says pretty much nothing about the Stobaean Hermetica. So, you wouldn't even know that it existed you know, unless you went went looking.

[01:03:34]So, [laughter] but I think the Stobaean Hermetica is really really really important and it's got that unique set of discourses to Isis to her son Horus called the Kore Kosmou and and all this native Egyptian stuff that you would never get in the traditional set of Hermetica. I've got something of a bias against the traditional Hermetica because that's the Hermetica preserved and organized by uh Byzantine scribes. And you know, Stobaeus we don't know if he's Christian or not, but what he compile what he compiles isn't based on Christian concerns. It's more based on his philosophical concerns for the education of his son. So, what he gives you is a is something that might be in fact more representative if you were reading the Hermetica say in 5th century. And uh you know, Stobaeus John of Stobi was a Macedonian. If you if you're a Macedonian, you know, you got to read that stuff. So, anyway, uh that those would be my recommendations. Always primary over secondary. Definitely, all the way.

[01:04:41]Amazing. This was an an extremely fun uh Thank you so much for coming on, Dr. Levitt. Thank you.

[01:04:49]Um Congratulations on the the the sale of the book and uh I I highly recommend your course to all our listeners, the live seminar, and to check out all your other stuff, the Gnostic Archives, the the Gnosis Used YouTube channel. I mean, you are an incredible wealth of information in I I agree with you an often underserved area right now. So, thank you so much for coming on.

[01:05:14]Thank you. I appreciate it. Yep, you too. Keep spreading the word.

[01:05:20]>> [music]