2.6 From Hermeticism through Sufism to Romanticism
I t would be remiss not to include some observations regarding Hermeticism
in relation to shamanism since it continues the premise of interconnectedness,
applying not only to ‘above and below’ but to macrocosm and microcosm.
Hermeticism appears to have been a pagan religious movement in Hellenistic
Alexandria in the first century and it embodies the original Greco-Egyptian doctrine
of Hermes (Bloom, 1996:176).
The Hermetica (texts) and the writings of Egyptian priests such as
Chaeremon and I amblichus articulate in Greek terms the efficacy of ritual utterance
and gesture, and most significantly, the power of images and places, the
relationship between an incomprehensible Divinity and the gods of traditional
devotion, ultimately merging with Christian and Gnostic texts (Assmann and
Frankfurter, 2004:161). I t is here that Hermeticism’s aetiology in much earlier
traditions, but clearly the shamanic-Judaic tradition of ancient I srael, may be
discerned. I n Hermeticism, as in Hebrew and in the later Judaic Kabbalah, sounds,
words, even individual letters, can be the equivalent of storage cells, repositories
charged with a form of divine or magical power. I n general, the Hermetical
approach is that of a mystical mode of thought, one that repudiates codified dogma,
the interpretative necessity and mediating authority of priests and, even the rational
intellect as the supreme means of cognition of reality and thus has correspondences
to shamanism.
Remnants of the shamanic tradition can also be found in the religion of
I slam that began in Arabia in the 7th century CE. I n areas where I slam overlapped
with shamanism, the Sufis, practitioners of the mystical tradition of I slam, adopted
certain shamanic techniques, among which trance and mystical experiences were of
key importance and in some instances shamans entered, or identified with, Sufi
monasteries (Price, 2001:72). Prior to this, in the second and third centuries CE,
Christians, some with gnostic and mystical inclinations, fled the persecution of the
Romans and took refuge in high mountain caves in Lebanon and I raq; Oueijan
asserts that they are mentioned in Sufi stories, poetry and pre-I slamic literature
and, indeed, that the word Sufi derives from the woollen garments which these
mystics wore (Oueijan, 1999:4).
I n turn, Romanticism was strongly influenced by Sufism, augmented by its
fascination with Orientalism (Oueijan, 1999:67-113) and in this influence we can