THE PROBLEM OF HERMETIC COMMUNITIES IN THE CONTEXT OF HISTORICAL ANTHROPOLOGY

Abstract

The article attempts to show some shifts at the historiographical fields and emerging of the new directions within the modern historical investigations, namely, a "new cultural history» that became a historical anthropology later. Drawing upon the latter’s techniques an individual, or a group, or a community is being investigated. It is noted that the so-called «emic methods» have given a rise to the study of different types of communities of antiquity, particularly, some informal or alternative associations. The author comes to conclusion that applying the methods of historical anthropology towards the issue of the nature of the Hermetic congregations may contribute to solving many problems related to the core, eclectic nature, as well as to the philosophical and ideological basis of the Hermetic corpus.

Keywords

• a new cultural history
• historical anthropology
• emic methods
• formal and informal community (alternative)
• social types
• hermeticism
• hermetic corpus
• social drama