hermetic

comparative more hermetic · superlative most hermetic · alternative Hermetic · alternative hermetical · alternative obsolete hermetick

1. Greekcapitalizedhuman sciencesPertaining to the ancient Greek Olympian god Hermes.
2. capitalizedPertaining to Hermes Trismegistus or the writings attributed to him.
3. capitalizedOne who follows/worships Hermes.

   "As above, so below" is an axiom from Hermetic mysticism, and in this Hermetic vision of physiology the tongue is connected through the spinal column to the penis.

   1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 16

4. Pertaining to alchemy or occult practices; magical, alchemical.

   Newton subscribed to the hermetic notion that the true knowledge of the universe had been earlier revealed by God to the ancients, the prisci theologi.

   1971, Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic

5. Hermetically sealed.
6. Isolated, away from outside influence.

   In other words, it is a mistake to regard this or any film text 'as if it were merely hermetic', or an isolated island.

   2010, Paul Bowman, Theorizing Bruce Lee: Film-fantasy-fighting-philosophy, →ISBN, page 106

   5 more examples

   Increasingly isolated in the military's hermetic world, as winter stretched endlessly onward, Gamelin was finally overcome by an insidious complacency in the adequacy of his fellow generals, their British counterparts and his own troops.

   2013, Martin S. Alexander, “Fighting to the last Frenchman”, in Joel Blatt, editor, The French Defeat Of 1940: Reassessments, →ISBN, page 325

   This meant, in the first place, reestablishing an intellectual contact which, given tight Francoist censorship and Spain's almost hermetic isolation from the outside world during the 1940s, had been practically nonexistent.

   2002, Sebastiaan Faber, Exile and Cultural Hegemony: Spanish Intellectuals in Mexico, 1939-1975, →ISBN, page 167

   In its early days, progressive rock drew on the hermetic streak of psychedelia, the supposition that music should contain hidden meanings which insiders would be aware of, but outsiders would be oblivious to.

   1996, Edward Macan, Rocking the Classics : English Progressive Rock and the Counterculture, →ISBN, page 85

   The spirit that roots Professor Wu, that endows him with his quiet serenity and his recent influence, is the inverse of the spirit that has been celebrated, lionized, and rewarded in the hermetic, self-perpetuating culture of the architectural world for most of the last seventy-five years.

   2006, Daniel Solomon, Global City Blues, →ISBN, page 6

   Thus, in concert with the privatization, intensification, and amplification of digitized sound, the digitized imagery renders not only the immensity, intimacy, and heightened detail of reverie but also the surrounding vagueness of its internalized and hermetic space.

   2011, Vivian Sobchack, “When the ear dreams”, in Jacques Khalip, Robert Mitchell, editors, Releasing the Image: From Literature to New Media, →ISBN, page 130

comparative more Hermetic · superlative most Hermetic

1. Alternative letter-case form of hermetic.

   "As above, so below" is an axiom from Hermetic mysticism, and in this Hermetic vision of physiology the tongue is connected through the spinal column to the penis.

   1981, William Irwin Thompson, The Time Falling Bodies Take to Light: Mythology, Sexuality and the Origins of Culture, London: Rider/Hutchinson & Co., page 16

   3 more examples

   It is a doctrine taught in the ancient Hermetic philosophy, and the esoteric science of the East, that there is a Universal Mind. It is enough for our present purpose to say, that this Mind connects all individual minds in a state of sympathy.

   1885, Warren Felt Evans, The Primitive Mind-cure, page 83

   As I am not drawing here on the font of imagination to refresh that of fact and experience, I do not suggest that the Tarot set the example of expressing Secret Doctrine in pictures and that it was followed by Hermetic writers; but it is noticeable that it is perhaps the earliest example of this art.

   1910, Arthur Edward Waite, The Pictorial Key to the Tarot, part II

   More affected by Cabbalic and Hermetic studies than Mede, he too uses allegory in his exposition of the Scriptures, and in teaching constantly quotes the prophetic books.

   1931, Henry More, Geoffrey Bullough, Philosophical Poems of Henry More Comprising Psychozoia and Minor Poems