7 Hermetic Questions for… Sirius Aor
Sirius Aor has been studying hermeticism for almost 8 years. Initially unknowingly in a practical way on his spiritual path, and when he found the Hermetic Corpus 7 years ago, many of his inquiries were affirmed by the scriptures and the teachings of Hermes.
For Sirius finding the Corpus Hermeticum from the Copenhaver translation has been the most important tool to transcend the stories and fantasies of a spiritual world full of self-help, with no solid philosophical foundation to support claims devoid of meaning and energy.
As part of his self-taught studies, he decided to share with others what he was reading, but in the absence of a contemporary translation of the Corpus Hermeticum into Spanish, he decided to start translating Copenhaver’s Hermetica and to share the readings in study groups where he was consolidating a space that allowed him to deepen his personal inquiries while talking about what these texts symbolize in everyday life.
With time and the support of the University of Alqvimia (with whom he has been working through study groups) he decided to consolidate the project of a lecture, organizing his ideas and extracting the fundamental aspects of Hermeticism as a practical doctrine.
It was thus that, by chance, Sirius came across the Way of Hermes, and took the course to find that his learnings correspond in a very similar way with what we in the Way of Hermes have developed.
Today he continues his Hermetic studies, deepening his knowledge of God, to create all the tools and technologies necessary to share these teachings to a world that is experiencing the rebirth of this path.
He is dedicated to building the hermetic course that will be released publicly in the year 2024, but since he started seriously its development he shares his teachings on his Instagram, creating poetic and reflective texts that rewrite the teachings in his own words.
He has a Patreon platform where he receives support to continue his studies while providing recommendations on what he is studying and a YouTube channel with some of his initial inquiries in sacred geometry and some other teachings in Spanish.
Dear Sirius Aor, we are very happy that you want to do this interview. Of course, we are very curious why you are interested in an ancient spiritual tradition like Hermeticism. Can you tell us more about that?
I studied in a Catholic school for 11 years and there was a history that limited my understanding of the universe and my experience in a way that was not satisfactory. The idea that if I behaved well I would go to heaven and if I behaved badly I would be eternally in hell bothered me, the notion that in 90 years I had to understand everything there was to understand to go to heaven didn’t convince me.
When I was 7 years old, while I was in my room, (for no apparent reason) I asked myself, who am I, who is this speaking and dwelling inside me? I had a vision of a black and empty space that expanded in all directions, but fear took over me and I decided to go back to what I was doing.
That experience was tattooed in my memory, and without knowing what it meant, spirituality for me was a continuous search for something more. Nothing that society, culture, and religion explained to me gave me any satisfaction, nothing corresponded to the way I felt.
So it was out of curiosity that I tried ayahuasca with a group that uses Alqvimia to make changes in the psyche, break the limitations of consciousness, and expand the understanding of oneself. One thing led to another and curiosity took over my will, I had arrived at a place where discipline was a virtue, and reverence for God was the path to righteousness. Everything I began to study from that moment on had the foundation that broadened the path of my inquiry.
In 2016 I received the translation of Hermetica by Brian P. Copenhaver and formally began my inquiry into the teachings of Hermes. By this time I had heard of Hermes, but the universe of things said about him makes it very confusing to study it.
Even reading the original texts is a task that requires time and dedication, because his teachings are the door to a reality that is not easy to digest. That is why it usually requires a teacher to guide you through the sea of the Mysteries.
For me I had to go through Hermeticism alone, advance and fall, and get up again to continue, like a mountaineer who discovers paths in the mountains, tracing the maps that an army will use in its journey, a work of few, frustrating but that builds and strengthens the explorer and creative spirit of new times.
This is how the universe gives us masters who devote themselves to traversing the unknown and share their Art generously, seeking only to provide part of their Light along the way. That is the Way of Hermes.
The Truth was always there and at one moment the understanding was simply enabled to see how what I had always been doing was the Way of Hermes, that was surrounded by great Masters, that everything is a teaching. It costs a lot to heal the structures that do not allow us to understand that simple Truth, the Consciousness Itself Is Always Already the Case.
I complemented the study with other non-dual currents, thanks to the digital media we have today, I listened to Zen and Dzogchen masters, the Bhagavad Gita and Advaita Vedanta teachings, I met Ramana Maharshi and Ram Dass, little-known masters like Schwaller de Lubicz, Jessa O’My Heart and Adi Da Samraj.
I listened to Justin Sledge, Dan Attrell, and Wouter Hanegraff and experienced firsthand how we are living in a very important moment for these ancient traditions. I recognized that we are all talking about the same thing, I recognized the vision of Hermes in me when at 7 years old the answer came prematurely.
From one moment to another The Knowledge of God flooded my life and I could see the Light in what I was doing, and a universe of Understanding opened up and Reverence became my Sadhana and Life turned to vivify everything and Synchronicity took over my thoughts and suddenly I could see beyond what my personality was looking for, I had to surrender to Hermes and surrender to his Doctrine.
Below you will find seven questions based on sections from the hermetic text Asclepius, also known as the Perfect Discourse. We are very curious about your personal views on the timeless wisdom of Hermes and maybe how it relates to our modern world.
“This therefore is the all, as you remember; it is the essence of the all and it is the all. The soul and the cosmos being embraced by Nature are set in movement by her with such diversity of quality, evident in all images, that countless forms are known to exist by the contrast of their qualities. Yet these forms are also united so that all things appear as one whole and from the one.”
(Asclepius 2)
Question 1: How do you view this statement about the One of – and in – All?
The function of Hermetics is Oneness, yet the multiplicity of objects we see confuses our vision and understanding of a principle that unifies all creation. I once had a discussion with someone who claimed the multiplicity of universes and gods and ideas that took his understanding away from Oneness, I just asked a question, isn’t life one in all these universes and possible forms? And if life is a principle that unifies all these forms, is it very difficult to think of a single principle that unifies all things?
For our analytical, objective and scientific mind, a single principle is very difficult to explain, it is difficult to understand. But Hermes teaches us that both matter and space as well as the intelligence that gives order, are governed by the same principle, that otherwise, each one would compete to give more and to impose itself on the other, it is like our psychophysical constitution, it is not as if one breathes and another speaks and another walks, it is the same one that does all these things.
A unique and universal principle, which transcends all subjectivity and objectivity, it is a changeless principle, without time or space, it is the consciousness that gives rise to the Light of the Nous, always present. We can experience this sensation, we can remember our presence in different moments of our life, and observe how we have never ceased to Be, how our body changes, how knowledge expands, how we feel differently or react differently, how ideas change and our environment changes, but we cannot explain how we have never ceased to Be.
“Thus, O Asclepius, Man is a great miracle, a being to be adored and honoured. He passes into the nature of God as though he were God. He understands the race of daemons as he knows that he originates from the same source. He views with contempt that part of nature in himself which is human since he has put his entire trust in the divinity of the other part.”
(Asclepius 6)
Question 2: Do you also think that man is a (divine) miracle and why?
What other being has ever questioned its own existence? Nature has produced beautiful creatures, that dilute without resistance to what is happening, creatures that are what they are and are exuberant in their function, they are symbols of water, wind, earth, sound, and light. But what other creature can understand all the things it sees, what other creature feels in itself the nature of a flower, of a star, of a horse, of water, of light?
It is evident that Man possesses faculties that are distinct from those of other forms of life, from the mineral world, through the vegetable and the animal, the human being possesses faculties that transcend the usual programming of the reflexive nature that responds to impulses to satisfy its bodily needs.
There is a part in Man that recognizes and is recognized in everything, that sees the heavens and the cycles, that is capable of differentiating his bodily nature from what is eternal and of transcending the pain and suffering involved in being alive, the torments of existence.
That is why I believe that Man has a responsibility different from the rest of living beings, he is capable of creating and destroying as no other creature is capable, and that function is inherited from a father who created everything and who at any moment can destroy everything because in essence he is everything and nothing.
Therefore, and alone in our existence, we must learn to be responsible and have the capacity to understand the faculties that were given, understanding, reverence, and discipline, to observe the magnificence of the miracle that writing these words implies, of the orderly movement of atoms and particles, of the intelligence of genetics, of the amazement of the spirals that constitute our universe. What arrogance to think that all this is by chance. It is a miracle and we are responsible for recreating it in our short lives.
“How much happier is the nature of a man when it is tempered by self-control! He is united to the gods through a common divinity. He inwardly despises that part of himself by which he is earth-bound. All other beings, to whom he knows he is necessary through divine dispensation, he binds to himself in a knot of love. He raises his sight to heaven while he takes care of the earth. Thus he is in the fortunate middle position: he loves those things that are below him and is beloved by the beings above.”
Asclepius 6
Question 3: How do you view the role of man as ‘middle manager’ of the world? And how do you possibly put that into practice?
One question leads to the other and the answers are connected, the human being is a link between earth and sky. A symbol that we can observe in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man, who touches with his feet and hands the square and the circle.
Hermes says that the gods stand above in their function and that only man is capable of traversing the depths of creation and rising to the highest vision of Truth and Light.
Its quality and function link it with higher thought and it suffers from its lower, unconscious, intestinal movements. He is responsible for the intangible aspects of his psyche and the tangible impulses of his sexuality.
What has been given as a faculty must be practiced, must be understood and man must learn to govern his lower nature and his higher faculties, with the attention centered on the Heart which is the Sun, ruler of heaven and earth, only he knows what his own essence is and what it is all about.
If we possess these faculties, it is because we must learn to use them, if we are able to create and destroy as god, then man must learn from his father so that his passage on earth, temporary and limited, brings with it the highest and most diligent works of the spirit.
“Not all men, O Asclepius, have attained true understanding, but through a rash impulse and without the true insight of reason most, pursuing an illusion, are deceived. This begets evil in minds and transforms the nature of the best living creature into that of a wild beast and makes it behave like a savage monster.”
Asclepius 7
Question 4: How do you view this insight that our focus on appearances is bad and makes us behave like animals?
Continuing with the same discourse, we keep talking about the same thing, Man must know himself, must govern himself, but what is one, what is one to know and to know about one, that we must govern, who governs what or whom?
Hermetic, as well as many of the non-dual traditions, teaches that the basis of this “government” has to do with the understanding of what is essential, that we are Light and Life, that our Word (Logos) is the expression of the universal Soul and Mind, that only what is eternal and always already the case, is reality, everything else changes, is animated by the essential principle, is born, grows and dies, and its rite is to be born, grow and die, is the way in which Life perpetuates itself in the eternity of time and space.
Human Nature is made up of an animal part, the soul that inhabits the body, and the universal Soul that elevates us to the Nous, to the light and the essential intelligence that gives origin to all things.
Both faculties or “parts” of Man must be integrated and collapse into the vision of Oneness, otherwise one will seek to rule the other, and we will be deceived by higher visions that disassociate us from the body, or by animal pleasures that are unsatisfactory, because they belong to the impermanent cycle of things and appearances.
The Heart alone is essential, and of all creatures, only man is capable of understanding his dual nature and collapsing his activity into the action of the One.
[25] “For none of the heavenly gods will go down to earth, leaving behind the bounds of heaven, yet the human rises up to heaven and takes its measure and knows what is in its heights and its depths, and he understands all else exactly and – greater than all of this – he comes to be on high without leaving earth behind, so enormous is his range. Therefore, we must dare to say that the human on earth is a mortal god but that god in heaven is an immortal human. Through these two, then, cosmos and human, all things exist, but they all exist by action of the one.” – CHX, 25, Copenhaver
“Now I will speak to you as a prophet: after us there will be no one who has that simple love, which is the nature of philosophy. This consists in frequent contemplation and reverent worship by which alone the divinity may be known. Many destroy philosophy by their multifarious reasoning.”
Asclepius 12
“Those men who come after us will be deceived by cunning sophists and turned aside from true, pure and holy philosophy. To worship the Supreme Being with single mind and heart and to reverence what has been made of his substance, to render thanks to the divine will, which alone is infinitely full of the Good: this is a philosophy that has not been dishonoured by the perverse curiosity of the mind.”
Asclepius 14
Question 5: How do you view this criticism that religion, philosophy, spirituality or worldview is made unnecessarily complicated by many people?
The quest for the intangible is as unsatisfactory as the quest to fill bodily hunger, the soul feeds on philosophy but the soul itself of all higher or lower aspects, the unified activity of Good, Truth, Light, and Life, requires nothing, it simply Is.
In the quest to explain the reasons for our existence, dissatisfaction has reigned in the spheres of ideas and bodily pleasure, it is a reflection of the same disease.
“There is but one religion of god, and that is not to be evil.“
CHXII,23
To seek to define the indefinable is evil, to seek to satisfy that which does not require satisfaction is evil, therefore man is evil because he seeks, confused and in ignorance.
The only true philosophy, religion, and or spiritual path is that which awakens the only thing that is truly Sacred in all that occurs in this space, our connection with the Heart, which is above and beyond the objects of our observation – obsession and the subject that is observing – consuming the objects of our attention.
The prophecy of Hermes is a wake-up call to the lack of attention to the essentiality of the Real Feeling of existence, which does not change with time or conditions, which is eternal and which is common to all sentient beings. Only Reverence and Understanding are capable of restoring the True meaning and energy of the Hermetic teachings.
“The dark will indeed be preferred to the light, and death thought better than life. No one will have any regard for heaven and a spiritual person will be deemed mad, and a materialist, wise. An angry man will be considered strong and the most evil regarded as good. ‘All the teaching about the soul that I have explained to you is that the soul is born immortal or expects to attain immortality. This teaching will not only be laughed at, but considered an illusion. It will be held as a capital offense, believe me, for a man to have given himself over to reverence of the divine mind.”
Asclepius 25
Question 6: How do you view this prediction? Does it describe our current times?
This is only part of the prophecy because at some point the grace of God will come and everything will be restored. But for me, more than looking at it in historical terms about the current conditions, more than understanding the era of darkness as a determined period of time and space, this is a symbol of our own journey in existence, of our own awakening and how in one life or several, the process of understanding is a Divine Gift, and that we must take advantage of each lowest tide to go up to the refuge of salvation that is before us and by the hand of a master restore a life free of torments, the Art of Living.
If we speak in historical terms, it has never been so easy to access these teachings, we never had the opportunity as a species to listen to great masters in the daily life of our family. God is always knocking at the door, it is always a good opportunity to transcend the ignorance of our species.
There is no doubt that some of us are still considered crazy, and immorality reigns in the culture and government agencies, but that is not important, that will change, and that is the promise that we must build upon.
“The world is good, O Trismegistus?”
Asclepius 27
“It is good, Asclepius, as I will teach you. For just as God husbands and distributes to all individuals and classes all the good things which are in the world [mundo], senses, soul and life, so the world [mundus] apportions and provides all those things which seem good to mortals: the succession of births in due season, the germination, growth and ripening of the fruits of the earth and similar things. Throughout all this God, abiding above the vault of the highest heaven, is everywhere observing all that is around.”
Question 7: Do you also see the world as inherently good and filled with goodness?
It is for all this that hope is the last thing to be lost, or so they say, hope, in English “Hope” comes from both its Germanic and Greek etymological roots, to have confidence in the process.
Just as a child of a good father trusts entirely in him for his care and growth, we must trust that God has arranged all that is necessary to Be, and for his children to Be all that they are determined to Be. To Be is Oneness, is to Be One, and that function hurts, because separation hurts, because we suffer not being able to be what our essence demands, that is why understanding is to know that all this is a mere sacrifice to the Reverence and the evolution of the Consciousness.
That is why Reverence and Understanding is to trust and transcend the suffering of the torment of being alive. Only then can we begin to experience the Good that was always there, that has always propelled us to grow. Without resistance, there is no growth.
Thanks again for doing this interview. Your answers show how Hermeticism may be an ancient spiritual system, but can still have relevance in our modern times. Is there anything else you want to add to the interview, maybe something we forgot to ask that you think is important to mention regarding Hermeticism?
Undoubtedly, Hermeticism is a practice that requires maturity in the one who wishes to perform it, maturity because we must be able to break with the inertia and automatic behaviors that our animal nature has taken us through. Perhaps it is very important to clarify that the doors of hermeticism are an open secret, but that the door is an invisible portal, and crossing it requires preparation, or rather a correct attitude.
Nevertheless, everything we experience is a Hermetic Touch in our life and without a doubt everything we experience from the most everyday to the most complex is a lesson that we learn sooner or later, in the bed of our mind, in our Sunday meditation or while cooking and sharing our life with our loved ones.
It is important to create the space for those who wish to go deeper to find the means to do so, in freedom, and at their own pace, that is why the Way of Hermes, this portal, and the course you have created are so valuable in these times of self-discovery. That is why I have dedicated all my time to building whatever is necessary to contribute my small grain of sand to my brothers of race, the Sons of Light.