Throughout this study, ‘Hermetism’ is distinguished from ‘Hermeticism’. Following Father Festugière in La Révélation d’Hermès Trismégiste 1950, 89, and as defined by Roelof van den Broek in the Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism, 2005, 558–570, the term Hermetism is restricted to the specific religious world view and philosophic discourse in and around the Corpus Hermeticum which was devoid of any kind of magic, and the Asclepius, texts first published together in Latin in 1505 and now collectively known as the Hermetica.
The term ‘Hermeticism’ is reserved for that whole ensemble of magical ideas, related to Hermetism but including alchemy, magia, astrology and Cabala. These texts, mostly practical or technical, were known in antiquity and coalesced in the Renaissance. They are not part of this study. Even so, their beliefs saturate the culture in which Shakespeare lived and wrote; the plays show knowledge of both discourses, alchemy being the link between them, as the practical alchemical process, which transforms base metals into pure gold, functions as a trope of the gnostic ascent of the soul toward spiritual purity.