David Litwa’s 16 Principles of Hermetic Spirituality

Trying to catch the essence or core of hermetic spirituality is a daunting task, something only the greatest scholars on the subject would dare to do.

One of these great hermetic scholars is David Litwa. In a talk for the Apostolic Johannite Church, he presents his 16 Principles of Hermeticism. In the talk, David Litwa gives his scholarly views on hermetic spirituality, of course with the disclaimer that because the Hermetic literature is so vast and so diverse he can’t pontificate one correct hermetic way.

If someone were to pick up Copenhaver’s book Hermetica and then they were to read Litwa’s book Hermetica II, which would give you most of the Hermetica, they would see variations because the treatises themselves are not written by one person but by many people and these original authors don’t always agree on what is really important.

The 16 principles below are therefore not anything like a creed, but they are 16 fundamental principles that Litwa, after years of reading the Hermetica, sees as part of the core of Hermeticism and he has tried to translate these into modern language.

Litwa is of the opinion that Hermeticism has so much to say today to people of all sorts of faiths, religions, and spiritual interests that it can once again be a living tradition and a living spiritual method.

The 16 Principles of Hermeticism

Principle 1
All religions are insufficient there is always a source above God or the gods.

Principle 2
The Source is beyond cognition but can be described as light and life.

Principle 3
Humanity is the Divine Child of the Source. The essential human (using the Hermetic language) cannot die and the essential human combines both
genders.

Principle 4
Deathlessness is realized through gnosis and gnosis is knowledge of what Humanity really is.

Principle 5
The world or nature or our Cosmic system is a second God, it’s a child of God, it’s an image of God.

Principle 6
Science and spirituality are sisters.

Principle 7
Humanity enters the mortal body by intercourse with Nature and as a consequence sex and sexuality are good.

Principle 8
The mortal body is part of the world and is therefore good, but the essential human in the mortal body is clouded by inner illnesses.

Principle 9
There are external forces that are called dicanic and daimonic energies and
zodiacal energies and planetary Powers which have an effect on human freedom.

Principle 10
All people have Nous, which is a higher consciousness, but only a few have activated it.

Principle 11
There are many rituals and sacraments but no need for priests, all that is needed is a spiritual guide who can be anyone.

Principle 12
The chief human virtue is reverence or eusebeia (Greek: εὐσέβεια), and reverence always involves childlike amazement at the beauty of the world of God and of other human beings.

Principle 13:
Rebirth into higher Divine Consciousness can and should occur in this life.

Principle 14
There is a heavenly place of punishment as well as retrials through
reincarnation.

Principle 15
Those with Nous, or the higher Consciousness, when their mortal bodies dissolve, enter into New Dimensions called respectively the Eighth and the Ninth sphere.

Principle 16
Ultimate deification, that is becoming a god, is to become a power in the ninth sphere, always contemplating God.

In the video below David Litwa explains every point above, so make sure to watch it.