Weontv said:
I have a few questions here regarding the Hermeticists and Alchemists of Egypt and other places in history. If any of them have already been answered I apologize, I still haven't read through every transcript but I am working on it.
Most of the work on this topic would be pure research. I was chasing those things down for a number of years and finally, after examining all the evidence, came to the conclusion that Hermeticism/Alchemy was a load of nonsense created by pagan neo-Platonists in reaction to the polemics of Christians. With time and care you can actually trace it's growth and development but it is a lot of work because you have to follow numerous threads.
It all started with Plato... who took it upon himself to re-interpret Pythagoreanism very wildly and freely. In order to understand this, you have to understand that Pythagoreanism was closely connected to Orphism. You could say that Orphism and Pythagoreanism were the "fundamentalist religious reactions" of their times. And that's not to say that they were on the wrong track. They may very well have been on the right track only by the time Plato got done with them, everything was so distorted that figuring out what was really ancient Orphism and Pythagoreanism has taken a long time and a lot of work.
You can start with my book "Comets and the Horns of Moses" which gives a great deal of background as to what was generating religious thinking during the Greek Dark Ages which were factors in the development of Greek philosophy.
http://www.amazon.com/Comets-Horns-Moses-Laura-Knight-Jadczyk/dp/1897244835/ref=sr_1_1
Then, see:
The Greek Historians of the West: Timaeus and His Predecessors by Lionel Pearson
http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/1555400787/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o06_s00
Timaeus of Tauromenium and Hellenistic Historiography by Christopher A. Baron
http://www.amazon.com/Timaeus-Tauromenium-Hellenistic-Historiography-Christopher/dp/1107000971/ref=sr_1_22
Redefining Ancient Orphism: A Study in Greek Religion by Radcliffe G. Edmonds III
http://www.amazon.com/Redefining-Ancient-Orphism-Study-Religion/dp/1107038219/ref=sr_1_2
Lore and Science in Ancient Pythagoreanism by Walter Burkert
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Ancient-Pythagoreanism-Walter-Burkert/dp/0674539184/ref=sr_1_1
Inventing the Universe: Plato's Timaeus, the Big Bang, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge by Luc Brisson
http://www.amazon.com/Inventing-Universe-Scientific-Knowledge-Philosophy/dp/0791426920/ref=sr_1_10
Conversion: The Old and the New in Religion from Alexander the Great to Augustine of Hippo by A. D. Nock
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0801859107/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00
Rome and the Western Greeks, 350 BC - AD 200: Conquest and Acculturation in Southern Italy by Kathryn Lomas
http://www.amazon.fr/gp/product/0415620120/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o05_s00
Each of these books pretty much sum up a lot of other material.
Anyway, you'll see that the neo-Platonists then came along and re-interpreted Plato, adding another layer of nonsense not to mention the Jewish input to the so-called "gnostic/hermetic" tradition which was schizoidal at best.
See: Jews in the Hellenistic World: Volume 1, Part 1: Josephus, Aristeas, The Sibylline Oracles, Eupolemus
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521285518/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00
After reading all of the above, you'll realize that the remainder of your questions are irrelevant.
Or, you can wait for my next book which will cover these topics in some detail and save you from having to read hundreds of books and thousands of papers and articles (because I've already done it).
