Frances A. YatesGiordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition

If you're a Terrance McKenna fan you'll love this. Most of it is about the history leading up to Bruno giving you everything you need to take hermeneutical approach to his ideas. It's also just a great history lesson on the renaissance more broadly focusing on the undertones of the cultural discussion we don't see very often.

This is a classic and deservedly respected study; the scholarly precision is a healthy balance to the often-unguarded celebration of Renaissance magical material and, Bruno aside, includes a full and informed review of the state of textual analysis (at the time of writing) of the period's famous texts (and their provenance) which it is difficult to find summarised elsewhere. It stands as a first class academic introduction to the entire subject of European magic and its practice over the middle of the last millennium and would serve also as a useful aide even for those looking to excercise some of that magical content. Because of the textual history, even the study of the assumed Egyptian texts, still so widely accepted at face value, is made more complete by this research. Yates is one of England's great historians and this work represents her dedication to the enticing and exciting ideas which so moved Europe then. But most of all it is her wisdom as an historian, her insight into the shifting intellect of Europe during the Renaissance, especially in the meta-ideas about Man, Time, God, Science and Thought itself, let alone Magic and the origins of Knowledge, that makes this book such a beautiful and graceful study.

Frances Yates' work often stirs up strong emotions and the other reviews of this book bear witness to this fact. I had to study this book during my Masters programme in Western Esotericism at the University of Exeter. Hermeticism is a complex topic itself above and beyond its source in the anonymous or pseudepigraphic works of Hermes Trismegistus. However it is one that is well worth investigating, I would not recommend beginning with this book however and would suggest reading Goodrick-Clarke's Western Esoteric Traditions or Von Stuckrad's Western Esotericism beforehand to gain some foundational knowledge in the field. This book would make a lot more sense once some background knowledge has been obtained. I cannot add anything to Slater's comprehensive review for detail on the content of the book but can certainly support his summary.

Even when a recent Masters in Jewish Studies, this was one of the most intellectual books I've read. Yates is amazing. It seems like it took me forever to read it, and I kept a dictionary nearby. While reading it I was enthralled and always looked forward to my next session. There were frequent quotes in Latin, French, and maybe Spanish and German that were not translated to English. I believe it filled in all the gaps I had, and much more, regarding hermeticism. It was also a great lesson in general history, philosophical history, and the history of white and black magic.

It is very simple. This book is the obligatiry reference for the hermetic tradition. It presents a very interesting aproach of Giordano Bruno as well. It is as simple as looking up the name Frances Yates to give the credit of an incredibly serious investigation from one of the pilars of the Warburg Institute. All I can say about the book, is that is a must for anyone who cares to aproach the Renaissance and the hermetic philosophy.The edition is excellent and very pretty, and in a less superficial aspect, just look for the publishing press.

Others have extolled well-enough the virtues of this book, so I'd like to note a grievance. As is the case with many wonderful books, the publishers, in their infinite wisdom (please note the sarcasm), saw fit to leave untranslated a great many passages which are quoted from works in other languages — a notable example being the Latin "Conclusions" of Pico della Mirandola. Why this must be the case I cannot, for the life of me, imagine. I can only suggest that it is an especially repugnant academic pretension, which many in the literary field superstitiously believe confers upon them some aura of scholarly prestige. I do not hesitate to call it, more or less metaphorically, a species of black magic, which has long held sway over the publishing world. The fact — which would otherwise be glaringly obvious — is that readers (along with the books they read) are left very much in the dark; a decidedly unfortunate result, considering that so many of these works are already rather obscure, or occult, as concerning their subject matter. In conclusion, I'd just like to add: What the actual ****?

I wasn't sure what to expect. It was a book "you're supposed to read" if you're studying hermeticism and the western esoteric tradition. For such dry material I found it an interesting read, I attribute that to Yates' writing style. The one caveat I do have is that it puts direct quotes in Latin into the text to show how it was written, but doesn't have a translation. It would've been helpful for the Latin to have a best effort translation so I don't need to reference Google Translate every other page.

I began this book with limited knowledge of the Hermetic tradition. This highly knowledgeable and competent author leads you to understanding this maternal extremely well, particularly Bruno, without imposing external evaluations. Definitely worth reading closely.