Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination

In Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination (2022), Wouter J. Hanegraaff challenges the long-standing scholarly assumption that the philosophical Hermetica are purely theoretical treatises. He argues instead that they are practical manuals designed for a contemplative regimen—the "Way of Hermes"—that induces radical alterations of consciousness.

By overcoming the hallucinatory veil of appearances (phantasmata), the practitioner attains a direct, unmediated knowledge of reality known as Gnosis. Hanegraaff's approach relies heavily on maintaining a strict actor/analyst distinction, carefully separating what historical practitioners experienced from how modern historians categorize those experiences.