Corpus Hermeticum The Discourse of the Mind Explained
- Dec 21, 2025
- 4 min read
Tractate VII — The Discourse of the Mind
How the Divine Intelligence Thinks Through You
This Tractate shifts the focus inward, from cosmology and ethics to the living mechanics of consciousness itself.
Hermes now speaks directly of Mind, not the personal mind that chatters, reacts, plans, and fears, but the Universal Mind that thinks through all beings and reveals itself in flashes of recognition.
The aim of this discourse is simple and radical:
To understand the nature of Mind
is to understand the nature of yourself.
What Mind Actually Is
Hermes teaches that Mind is not something you possess.
It is something you participate in.
Mind is the radiance of God
the invisible architecture behind all perception,
the field of awareness in which images, emotions, thoughts, and intuitions arise
.Mind is the source.
Thought is the echo.
Mind is the light.
Reason is the reflection.
To know Mind is not to analyze it.
It is to experience the awareness beneath every experience.
Two Kinds of Mind
Hermes distinguishes two modes of consciousness.
1. The Mortal Mind
reactive
fragmented
overwhelmed by sensation
driven by fear, desire, memory, and comparison
easily clouded
easily misled
This is the mind that lives inside survival.
2. The Immortal Mind
spacious
luminous
capable of direct knowing
untouched by fear
rooted in the Divine
present in every human as potential
This is the mind that belongs to God.
Hermes says most people never encounter the second.
They live in the noise of the first and mistake it for the whole truth of their consciousness.
But the immortal Mind is always present, waiting for recognition.
How the Immortal Mind Speaks
Hermes describes its qualities with precision:
It reveals, it does not argue,
It knows, it does not guess.
It arrives as clarity, not as tension.
It opens the heart, it does not tighten it.
It expands perception rather than narrowing it.
It carries a sense of rightness without force.
When people say they have felt guidance, insight, intuition, or deep peace, they are describing a brief alignment with the Mind that transcends the mortal one.
The Greatest Obstacle
What prevents this alignment?
Hermes answers without hesitation:
Self-absorption.
Not selfishness, but the constant contracting around personal emotion, personal drama, personal identity, and personal fear.
The smaller the self becomes, the less the greater Mind can be perceived.
When the heart softens,
when attention widens,
when reactivity settles,
the immortal Mind shines through naturally.
You do not create it.
You allow it.
The Work of Discernment
Hermes gives an urgent teaching:
Learn to distinguish the voice of Mind
from the voice of the passions.
The passions include:
fear
jealousy
anger
pride
craving
shame
despair
These produce thoughts that feel hot, tight, rushing, or collapsing.
Mind produces thoughts that feel spacious, steady, and unhurried.
It is practical.
If you cannot tell the difference between reactive thought and illuminated thought, your perception will be unstable and your path uncertain.
The Birth of True Reason
Hermes redefines reason.
True reason is not mental argument.
It is the capacity to see through appearance to the structure beneath it.
Reason, in the Hermetic sense, is the bridge between mortal mind and immortal Mind.
When reason matures, a person no longer reacts to life.
They respond from clarity.
What This Means for You
This Tractate is an invitation to ask:
Which mind am I living in?
The mind of reactivity
or the mind of awareness?
The mind shaped by fear
or the mind sourced from the Divine?
Hermes is not asking you to transcend your humanity.
He is showing you that you are not limited to it.
There is a level of Mind in you that sees without distortion.
To align with it
is to begin the real Hermetic path.
IFS Integration
Meeting the Two Minds Within
IFS reveals something Hermetic philosophy intuited long ago:
Not all thoughts come from the same place.
Parts generate reactive thought, urgent, protective, emotional, and narrowing.
Self generates clear thought, calm, spacious, perceptive, and unforced.
This Tractate maps beautifully onto that understanding.
Reflection Questions
Choose one or more.
Which part of you speaks the loudest when you feel unsafe or overwhelmed?
Which part believes its thoughts are the whole truth?
How do you recognize the difference between clarity and reactivity in your system?
What happens in your body when Self energy becomes present?
Optional Deep Dive
IFS Practices for Discernment of Mind
IFS Journal Prompt
Invite a reactive part to speak on the page.
Ask it:
what it is trying to protect•
why it feels urgency•
what it believes would happen without its vigilance
Then thank it.
No correcting.
just presence.
Parts-Art Exercise
Draw two images:
one representing the reactive mind•
one representing the quiet, spacious Self
Notice how each one feels in your chest and breath.
Somatic IFS Practice
Place one hand lightly on your temple and one on your heart.
Whisper inward:
Show me the mind that is older than my thoughts.
Feel for the shift, the subtle widening, the softening behind the eyes, the awareness that is not produced by effort.
This is the beginning of Hermetic Mind.
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