01/04/2022
January 4th - the Esoteric New Year . Ex FUNDAMENTALS OF THE ESOTERIC PHILOSOPHY - CHAPTER 18. Print copies of the book available ex TUP , Wizards , Mecosta Book Gallery, Amazon and also in e-edition online at no cost via TUP at the link following the text below.
"H. P. Blavatsky also says in her article that the celebration of the new year by esotericists should be in connection with the Budha-wisdom, a word coming from the same root from which Buddha, the Lord Gautama's title, was taken, the root meaning "to awaken." Now, again, what is Budha, from the same root? Budha is the Sanskrit name for the planet Mercury, which the Greeks called Hermes, and the Latins Mercurius, and which we, adopting the Latin name, call Mercury. Hermes has always been the particular overseer of mystics in many, perhaps all, nations. In ancient Greece, he was given the titles of psychagog and psychopomp, meaning "conductor of souls" to the nether world, likewise the Mysteries. No matter what form the interpretation of the ancient wisdom may have taken in ancient times, one invariably finds the planet Hermes, or Mercury, associated closely with the teachings of the Mysteries dealing with the afterworld. In India, Hermes was named Budha, as just said; and he was called the son of Soma, or the Moon.
For instance, in Homer's Odyssey, you read how Hermes led the souls of the dead suitors, "gibbering like bats," to the "meads of asphodel" (book 24). This allusion to the work of Hermes the psychopomp, the "helper," is a "mystery" which was taken directly from the Eleusinian Mysteries or, perhaps, from still earlier Mysteries."
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