Corpus Hermeticum The Greatest Among Humans is Ignorance Explained
- Dec 21, 2025
- 4 min read
Tractate VI — The Greatest Ill Among Humans Is Ignorance
Seeing Through the Fog That Blinds the Soul
Hermes turns sharply in this Tractate.
After revealing the nature of the Good, he now exposes the force that keeps humanity from perceiving it.
Not evil.
Not malice
.Not corruption.
Ignorance.
In Hermetic teaching, ignorance is not a lack of information.
It is a state of inner blindness, a forgetfulness of origin, a sleep of the soul.
This Tractate is a wake-up call, spoken with urgency and compassion.
Hermes is not scolding humanity.
He is naming the condition that causes unnecessary suffering and blocks the mind from remembering what it already is.
What Ignorance Actually Means
Hermes defines ignorance as the inability to distinguish:
the real from the unreal
the eternal from the temporary
the self from the not-self
Most people, he says, live turned outward.
Their attention is captured by sensation, emotion, distraction, fear, comparison, and desire.
The external world becomes a storm they try to navigate without ever realizing they are the sky behind it.
Ignorance is not stupidity.
It is identification with things that cannot support the weight of identity:
the body• the personality
the social roles
the emotional weather
the shifting opinions of others
When a human being forgets their origin, they forget their nature.
And when they forget their nature, they suffer without understanding why.
The Signs of Ignorance
Hermes describes ignorance as a kind of intoxication.
Its symptoms look familiar even now:
chasing pleasure beyond satisfaction•
fearing death as annihilation•
believing that fortune is proof of worth•
craving praise and approval•
mistaking emotion for truth•
building identity on instability•
blaming life for one’s own inner confusion•
treating temporary things as ultimate
Ignorance makes the soul reactive,
easily wounded
easily flattered,
easily threatened.
It is not a moral failing.
It is a misunderstanding.
But misunderstandings have consequences.
The Roots of Ignorance
Hermes teaches that ignorance arises from forgetfulness.
The soul descends into a body, enters the density of matter, and becomes hypnotized by sensation.
The world becomes loud, and the inner voice becomes faint.
Children, Hermes says, are born closer to truth.
But as they grow, they absorb the collective sleep of humanity.
To awaken is not to gain something new.
It is to recover what was lost in the descent.
True Knowledge
Knowledge, in the Hermetic sense, has nothing to do with facts.
True knowledge is recognition:
I am not separate from the Source.
I am a spark of the Divine Mind.
I am not merely this personality.
I am more ancient than my wounds.
Hermes teaches that a person who knows themselves becomes incapable of being oppressed by fear or overwhelmed by fortune.
Not because life gets easier,
but because they are no longer confused about what they are.
Ignorance makes the world heavy.
Knowledge makes it transparent.
What This Means for You
This Tractate invites an honest look inward.
Where does your own system confuse temporary states with the truth of who you are?
Where do parts of you react as if emotion is identity?
As if fear is prophecy?
As if pain is meaning?
As if praise is proof?
Hermes is not asking you to deny your humanity.
He is teaching you how not to mistake your humanity for your core.
Ignorance dissolves the moment you remember yourself.
IFS Integration
Meeting the Parts Who Live in Forgetfulness
Ignorance shows up in internal systems as parts who carry:
fear of unworthiness•
beliefs formed in trauma•
identities shaped by survival•
misunderstandings inherited from family or culture
These parts are not “ignorant” in a judgmental sense.
They simply do not see the larger Self that holds them.
Reflection Questions
Choose one or more.
Which part of you mistakes its emotional state for absolute truth?
Which part forgets your inner steadiness the fastest?
Which part believes the world is louder than your own Self?
Which part feels safest staying asleep?
Optional Deep Dive
IFS Practices for Dissolving Inner Ignorance
IFS Journal Prompt
Invite a part that feels small, afraid, or confused to speak.
Let it tell you:
what it believes about you•
where it learned that•
what it fears would happen if it relaxed•
what it longs to know is true
Simply witness it.
Parts-Art Exercise
Draw two images:
one showing the part lost in the fog of forgetfulness•
one showing the deeper Self as a quiet, luminous presence behind it
Let imagery do what analysis cannot.
Somatic IFS Practice
Sit slowly.
Place one hand on your heart, one on your solar plexus.
Whisper inward:
Show me the part of me that forgot what I am.
Allow the sensation of that part to rise.
Do not fix it.
Let your presence be the antidote.
Hermetic awakening is not about becoming extraordinary.
It is about remembering what has always been true.
Ignorance is the veil.
Self-knowledge is the lifting of it.
This Tractate calls you gently, insistently, toward the clarity that has lived in you since before your first
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