Hermeticism, the Origin of Trispectivism

When I lived in Guatemala and attended to a retreat center called “Las Pirámides del Ka” I was recommended a book about an interesting perspective of life. The book concerned an ancient philosophy known as Hermeticism, which was formed from writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. One of the many websites devoted to Hermeticism states that “The Hermetists believe and teach that The All, “in itself,” is and must ever be Unknowable. They regard all the theories, guesses and speculations of the theologians and metaphysicians regarding the inner nature of The All as but the childish efforts of mortal minds to grasp the secret of the Infinite.” This passage refers to the Kybalion philosophy on Gnostic. The Kybalion is one interpretation of the Hermetist All (you can find a link here, chapter IV). I do not agree, however, to the idea that the writing is too complicated to comprehend and that a mortal mind cannot grasp the divine reflection (a quite repetitive notion in all religions). The difficulty it projects is that if the passage itself is said by mortal mind, who can actually know what is really is to grasp which makes is no different than many French philosopher that like to poster and sound too complicated in order to be appreciated (a future post about the subject is under construction).

This citation certainly does not explain what this philosophy is, yet it relates to the driven passion of the unknown behind it. In Trispectivism, I do not refer to Hermeticism but more to my perception of what it can present to us in a more pragmatic point of view.

Today, after more than two millenniums, human interpretation regarding Hermeticism varies from a belief to an order or cult, and almost to a religion. You can read about it on the Internet and have your own interpretation, but what I wish to achieve by discussing it is to provide a background to what I refer to as Trispectivism. Actually, you do not have to understand Hermeticism and the theory of The All to comprehend the idea and application of Trispectivism; it is more than enough to know that it was an important milestone. Thus, by no means do I want to be considered a Kybalian, a Hermetist, or a member any kind of group, religion, or belief. As many new theories in life, trispectivism is a derivation, an interpretation in order to facilitate self-awareness by the means of an ancient, yet to be fully understood, philosophy.

Trispectivism, what it is all about?

What is trispectivism, well, etymologically speaking, the word is constructed from three parts: tri, which means “three”; spectiv, which derives from the Latin word specere, meaning “to look”; and the suffix ism, which, when added to a word, usually indicates an act, state, theory, belief, or principle.

It basically means that a person, any person, always have the trispectivism in mind, the division into three perspectives. According to this division, there are three different unitemporal and omnipresent aspects that create the basics of trispectivism:

• The individual
• The universal
• The interaction, the unity of the two

The concept, as such, is not new, and those who have never heard of it will not feel lost or confused for the simple reason that it is as natural as living. Every living creature has it, feels it, and realizes and reacts to it, subconsciously or not.

Trispectivism is what we should think of whenever we want to have a more profound understanding about any aspect—think about the individual, the I or the individual All; secondly, think about the universal, the collective aspect, the universal All; and lastly, think about the Intercommunication, Interconnection or Interdependence between the two.

The degree of each of the three aspects that you should consider differs with the concept you are analyzing. Using trispectivism means that first you should consider the issue (any issue) as a complete All in which you find the universal All as every aspect that has an effect on it, no matter direct or indirect, lasting or brief. From that universal All, you can now extract aspects and see as an individual All.

Every time you examine one aspect, your perspective changes and an important introspective process is unavoidable. This introspection, or analysis, is actually the third concept of trispectivism, meaning the Interconnection of the individual All with the universal All.

Difficult or seems too imaginative to grasp? Like any perspective we are not accustomed to, it is hard to comprehend without examples. This is why I wrote this book, to present the reader with some insight about the life we share and as many examples, ideas and aspects to ponder about as it is possible to fit in 287 pages. In this blog, I will continue with this task and write about trispectivism in life (as well as other useful references).

Trispectivism is born!

For the past 10 months I was entangled in its arduous preparation but as with all good thing (and even more if you work hard for it), in the end, what we are left with is the joyful result.

Trispectivism is a book that belongs to the self-awareness genre. Self awareness is, contrary to what many people think, quite different from the self-help genre. While the later pretends to provide the reader with a system or a method for finding happiness, self awareness’s one and only goal is for the reader to have the tools to better understand her life. This, in turn, is a large part of the way to happiness.

Moreover, the idea (not to say philosophy for fear misunderstanding of the term) behind trispectivism is not new, it is a based on an old philosophy of about the 4^th century BC called Hermeticism and where its main idea is the theory of the philosophy called, “The All”. According to the theory each individual (an object or a subject, animated or not) is an entity, an All. At the same time, the universe, meaning, the ensemble of all things (animated or not, existent or not), is also an All, and the third and probably most important (and ignored) aspect, is the combination of the two, meaning, the interaction and intercommunication with the complete All. The book explains these aspects and follows the use and recognition of this modified theory applying it in various aspects of life (Physics, Biology, Music, Sexuality, Religion, Nutrition, day to day chores etc.)

The target public (the example reader) is the curious person that is interested in perspectives and understanding. I would rather think that they are the large majority in the market, that the curiosity takes us to read and be interested in different aspects of life, especially in the area of self-awareness and consciousness.