The Eighth Reveals the Ninth

"The Eighth Reveals the Ninth” is a Hermetic text written between the second and fourth centuries. The only extant version is a Coptic translation of a Greek original that is now lost. Scholars tend to assume the original version was composed in Alexandria, Egypt, although a location farther south along the Nile is also possible. Recent scholarship on the ancient Hermetic writings suggests that the visionary and ecstatic episodes depicted in them had a place in the ritual life of practitioners. In texts such as “The Eighth Reveals the Ninth,” the dialogue depicted between mythic figures most likely prefigured a ritual drama between a teacher and a disciple. The aim of the ritual dialogue would be for the initiate to experience the dramatic spiritual vision (described in the source below) and be reborn as a child of the Father of the All, and a brother to all other souls in the Hermetic community.

The text is structured as a dialogue between Hermes Trismegistus, a mythic figure who serves as the embodiment of the Mind of the Father of the All, and an unnamed student (alternately identified as “son” or “my child”). The child is an advanced disciple who has practiced reverence towards the gods (eusebia), overcome the torments of the body (such as lust, envy, and anger), and absorbed the Hermetic teachings. They are ready for the final initiation: the spiritual rebirth that comes from a vision of the Source of All (the divine principle behind life) in the Ennead, or ninth sphere.

In the ritual, Hermes activates the Nous (mind) in the student so that the student can withdraw their attention from things of the senses, emotions, and (nondivine) thoughts. Hermes teaches the student to pray. In the practice of prayer, the child is able to empty the heart and mind of all things worldly. Conjoined together, the heart and mind become the organ of perception, permitting ascent through the spheres to the “Ogdoad,” or the eighth sphere beyond the seven visible planets. Hermes and the child ascend. In the eighth sphere, they are granted a vision of the universal Nous, the underlying, divine light of the Ennead. Through it, they witness the Source of All shining through from the realm beyond the Ennead.

Based upon scholarly reconstructions of the Hermetic communities from Jean-Pierre Mahé, Garth Fowden, Anna Van den Kerchove, and Wouter Hanegraaff, it seems clear that the initiate would have changed dramatically from this experience. The experience of spiritual regeneration marks the end of a long process of education, psychological healing, and mental discipline. The ‘child’ is reborn into Life itself; upon physical death, the child will continue as one of the souls singing hymns of praise to the Father encountered in the ascent. The ritual also bestows a new social identity as one of the transformed children of the Father, and would have granted the initiate a new station within the community.

This text only resurfaced with the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Codices in 1945. As such, it does not have centuries of impact like the Greek language texts collected into the Corpus Hermeticum in the fifteenth century. Nevertheless, this Coptic text has had a significant impact on our understanding of the ancient Hermetic communities, most importantly by helping scholars to reconstruct the visionary and ritual lives behind this community, putting to rest a longstanding assumption that the Hermetic tracts were merely philosophical. The Hermetica are deeply philosophical, but they also provide a window to the ritual acts that these communities would use to catalyze visionary ascents. 

Immediately prior to this point in the text, Hermes and the child had embraced one another and begun to pray to the “invisible God to whom one speaks in silence,” the creator whose Life pervades all of materiality. They have ascended through the first seven spheres and asked for a vision of the eighth and the ninth.

Translation by Matthew Dillon.

Hermes: Rejoice over this! For already from them the agency, which is Light, comes to us. For I see! I see ineffable depths! How can I say . . . . I am Mind, and I see another Mind, which moves the soul. I see that which moves me from a pure forgetfulness (sleep). You give me power! I see myself! I desire to speak. Fear restrains me. I have found the beginning of a power that is above all powers, that which is without a beginning. I see a fountain bubbling up with life. I said, oh son, I am Mind. (NHC VI, 6.57.28–58.17)

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———. La Révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste, Tome III: Les Doctrines de l’ Âme. Paris: J. Gabalda et Cie., 1953.

———. La Révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste IV: Le Dieu Inconnu et la Gnose. Paris: J. Gabalda et Cie., 1954.

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Hanegraaff, Wouter J. Hermetic Spirituality and the Historical Imagination: Altered States of Knowledge in Antiquity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. 

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———. Hermetica, Vol. 2: The Ancient Greek and Latin Writings Which Contain Religious or Philosophic Teachings Ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus. Whitefish, MT: Kessinger Publishing, 2010.

Van den Kerchove, Anna. La Voie D’Hermes: Pratiques Rituelles et Traites Hermétiques. Leiden: Brill, 2012.