Template talk:Hermeticism

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I have removed all links to Neo-Hermeticist organizations and thinkers from this template, for the following reason:

It is my conviction that this template should deal with historical Hermeticism, and that the relationship between historical Hermeticism and Neo-Hermeticist organizations like the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn or Neo-Hermeticist thinkers like Franz Bardon is not strong enough to warrant the latter's inclusion in this template. The many other modern occultists loosely associated with Neo-Hermeticism that used to be present on this template were even less appropriate.

Perhaps there should be a separate template for Neo-Hermeticism, or one on modern occultism with a subcategory on Neo-Hermeticism; this would also render possible the inclusion of works like the Kybalion or the Initiation Into Hermetics, which surely are not appropriate here. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 12:41, 16 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

After some more work on Hermeticism-related pages, especially on the Kybalion, I slightly changed my mind on the question what should be included in this template and what not. Modern offshoots which have some demonstrable relation to ancient Hermetic texts and which have acquired a high degree of notability may perhaps be included in small amounts. For the moment, I have added Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and Kybalion. Apaugasma (talk|contribs) 22:56, 19 January 2021 (UTC)[reply]

• @Apaugasma: Hello again. Regarding showing part of the list uncollapsed, I can see that being helpful but would it be preferable to determine that on relevant articles rather than having the texts be expanded by default universally? Expanding the texts automatically is helpful on articles like Corpus Hermeticum but it may be more helpful to expand a different list on, for example, biographical articles. On some articles it may even be better to not expand anything, like stubs or Hermeticism-related sections of broader articles. I know of other sidebars with the option I'm suggesting and it shouldn't be hard to implement.

Also, thinking about it, isn't "related historical figures" a bit redundant? (Why list unrelated figures? Aren't "ancient/medieval/early modern" figures historical by definition?) Could simplify the headings to these list titles: "Ancient and medieval figures" and "Early modern figures". The "Hermetica" heading is also redundant. With some simplification, the top-border styles could be moved from headings to list titles, which would make the mercury symbol unnecessary.

If we agree on my suggestions, it would free up some room for another collapsed list; could make it a "related topics" list which could included the arts (which were cut) but also other articles that otherwise don't fit well into the existing lists, like Hermetism and other religions and Great Work (Hermeticism). -- Scyrme (talk) 02:40, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Scyrme! Yes, implementing an option to set the expanded section on the level of the article would be better. Given my rather limited template-editing skills, I guess that there's a bit of a gap between what I would like this template to look like and what I can make it look like.

I used the word "related" in order to give expression to the fact that most of these figures were not major Hermetic thinkers (these would be the authors of the Hermetic writings themselves, who were all anonymous) but rather were independent thinkers who merely took some inspiration here and there from an often very limited set of Hermetic texts. But this kind of nuance isn't really needed, and probably gets lost anyway, so I support your proposal to simplify to "Ancient and medieval figures" and "Early modern figures" if that is helpful.

Like the Mercury symbol (☿), I added the extra "Hermetica" heading in order to create a dividing line between that section and the section with the image above it. If there's another way to create these lines, that would be great (again my limited skills playing up), but I do think these lines create a sense of order that is very important in templates like these. Perhaps that sense of order can be created in other ways, so feel free to play around a bit, but if that doesn't work out I do think the lines should stay.

I'm not sure about adding an additional "Related topics" list. If we do, it should probably replace the 'Modern offshoots' list. But my concern is that there are not too many great articles to link to. The 'arts' (astrology, alchemy and magic) are really much broader subjects that barely mention Hermes or Hermeticism. Hermetism and other religions is a borderline-OR article that is a bit of a mess and that should probably either be merged into Hermeticism or deleted. Great Work (Hermeticism) does not cite any reliable sources, and I have serious questions as to the notability of this subject (perhaps another one to send to AfD, but I don't have either the time or the inclination at this point to do a proper WP:BEFORE). However, if you think it's helpful to have an additional "Related topics" list I see no major reason to oppose it. The most important thing for me is to have a well-ordered lay-out that actually helps people navigate to other articles. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 15:58, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Apaugasma: How does it look now? I've made the changes I suggested, and moved the top-border to the titles. If you'd rather there be no line between the two lists of historical figures, I'm fairly sure I can selectively remove the line between them without adding headings. (Although I think it looks fine as it is now; looks quite tidy.)

I added optional expandability; for each article, add "|expand=" to the template followed by the name of the list you want expanded. I've edited Corpus Hermeticum, Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa, As above, so below, and a few others to illustrate and make a start. The names can actually be made different to the displayed titles, but for ease of use I've set the names to be the same as the title text.

I haven't added "related topics" yet. Those particular articles were just the examples that came to mind first; I'm not particularly attached to the idea of including them. If you don't know of any particular good candidates for such a list, then it's probably best to just leave it out for now. -- Scyrme (talk) 18:23, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Scyrme: that looks absolutely great! However, it's perhaps a little too broad now for a sidebar. I tried, using the preview button, to convert the "Ancient and medieval figures" (the main culprit for the exaggerated width) and "Early modern figures" lists into one list simply called "Historical figures", and I liked the result much better. Perhaps you should check this out too, and if you like it, make the change. Thanks! ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 22:07, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

@Apaugasma: I did notice it was a bit wider than normal. Combining the lists as you suggested fixed the problem. I retained "Ancient and modern figures" and "Early modern figures" as subheadings within the list to avoid it becoming a single long block of names, which can be disorienting. How does it look to you?

It's possible to nest a collapsible list within a collapsible list using a template, but I'm not sure that would be helpful here, particularly as you wouldn't be able to auto-expand the list-within-a-list, at least not using the method I'm thinking of. We could try it if you're interested.

I think the template looks much better now, and am satisfied if you are. -- Scyrme (talk) 23:39, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]

I tweaked it a little more (removed repeated use of "figures"; rendered text of subsections smaller and underlined), but now it looks really great to me. It's a huge improvement, thanks again! I will now start adjusting the relevant articles. ☿ Apaugasma (talk ☉) 23:45, 29 December 2021 (UTC)[reply]