> In 1466 the philosopher and magician Marcilio Ficino acquired a
> manuscript in Florence reviving the memory of certain remarkable
> doctrines once taught and practiced on the soil of the land of Egypt.
> Under the name of Hermes Trismegistus - - - "Thrice Great Hermes" - -
> -
> it contained a series of Greek language texts and set in ancient Egypt
> (where Greek had served as the diplomatic language under both the
> Ptolemaic Pharoas and also the Roman era).  These Hermetic books, most
> of them in the form of dialogues, described the process of divine
> interaction with the material world and a program for human
> enlightenment that strikingly paralleled some of the formulations of
> Plato and his followers, of Hebrew mystics, and to a certain extent of
> Christianity.  The dialogues spoke of Egyptian hieroglyphs, Egyptian
> wisdom, and Egyptian ways of attracting the powers of God and the
> spirits to bring long life, good health, and spiritual enlightenment.
> Ficino and his contemporaries read the ancient books with amazement,
> debating whether Hermes Trismegistus came before or after Moses; some
> scholars suggested that Hermes might be the master from whom Moses had
> first learned the secret wisdom of Egypt.  The more they read, the
> more Ficino and his friends became convinced that the texts of Hermes
> Trismegistus must rank among the most influential works of all time.
> Their society - - - the Platonic Academy - - - held court in Florence
> as the true Hermetic Order spreading by means of ceremonial magic that
> truth, harmony, and divine wisdom upon a decadant civilisation only
> then undergoing, - - - indeed, some would say, causing - - - that
> great rebirth in life, culture, and art which the world would soon
> come to call the renaissance.