Hermetic symbolism hidden in plain sight

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Okay, I think we do disagree to that extent though.

At least in our scientific sense of procreation a material needs to be 'organic' or, if not organic, producing signs of an internal self-perpetuating process even if and when that process needs food whether in the form of matter, electricity, etc. (and perhaps we'll consider AI silicone based life once it starts procreating). The closest analogy we can come up with for symbols, if we want to try and find their sentience, would be like a virus but....er...symbols don't self replicate or split on their own, even though viruses are non-living they still have that feature that they themselves carry out.

The conclusion I'm coming to is that we as human beings just don't have the greatest grasp on how much of our own internal reality we paint - that's especially true on a cultural level when its billions of minds at work. Odd things arise as far as I can tell because you'll find certain subcurrents - much like archetypes - within how people think. When we see oddities, hermetic symbols being a great example, it says less about cabals perhaps but a significant amount about either certain shifts in perception or, alternately, something sort of working its way through the amorphous 'hive mind' for the lack of a better term. The reason people seem to get surprised by this kind of thing is that they're expecting, by obliteration of central culture, complete Adam Smith style randomness. The universe though isn't random (or at least I should say has a heirarchy of rules with predicable impact) and it should be no shock when there are big statistical oddities in the movement of such things though culture in a similar way that shockwaves can move through matter.

Someone just recommended that I read 'The Kybalion' - I have to say I completely change my mind on this one.

Hermetic writing is about a journey of evolution and how that constant upward road is a road back to God where we both keep becoming more and more discrete, more powerful, and more loving as we go (that essentially real internal power and evil are converse based on the laws of the universe). They're pretty convinced that science has done nothing other than detail ancient teachings and that human cultural/informational evolution is about to hit another layer. I think if you're seeing the symbols everywhere its because people simply love the message of hope; I don't think its so much about fear of death or need to believe that they'll keep coming back more advance. It seems like a lot of the Zeitgeist type stuff is sort of dreaming and hoping for that next step and if you get into the sort of fringier/hairier people of the NDE movement you hear a lot about some type of revolution where we'll all realize that we're psychic beings, can create with our minds, and that we'll usher in a new phase where no one needs to work because we'll be able to telepathically communicate with plants, be able to self-cure things like cancer, diabetes, etc. and even control the weather with our minds to where essentially we'll have no technology either - our I phones, I pads, and world wide webs will be internal.

So, if you're seeing a lot more hermetic imagry I think it just has a lot to do with people sort of wanting to do the whole "A believer was here" mark on the fire hydrant, much like the designers of psychedelic commercial art want to share that "Yes, its okay to trip" that only those who have tripped see for what it is on their coffee cup or on other odds and ends that they buy from day to day.

i don't even really see what's wrong with hermeticism philosophically, but a lot of fundamentalists think its satanic or evil. My guess is that if there is some conspiracy, fundamentalist religion, the idea were God's imperfect, fallen sheep, religion was used to dumb down and control the masses, where the alchemical worldview, the idea that humans are co-creators with God, was left exclusively to the elites. It was a way of elevating kings to a demigod status and lowering everyone else to the level of livestock.

Do you think it was that or more to do with the variance of human intelligence?