Dr. Mervat Nasser - The Return of Hermopolis As Healing Memory

On Thursday 4th August we are delighted to be joined by Dr. Mervat Nasser who will present her book THE NEW HERMOPOLIS (Rubedo Press).

In The Quest for Hermes Trismegistus, Gary Lachman referred to Hermeticism as the religion of the mind, a perfect description for an intellectual discourse that clearly speaks to our psyches and gives us the necessary tools to be truly human. It is no exaggeration to say that it is a blueprint of what we came to know in our modern time as Humanistic Psychology. The Hermetica may be seen to clearly espouse the following humanistic principles: The power of the human creative potential. The necessity of integrating opposing forces  within one’s self to achieve wholeness. The realisation of the ever-changing, ever evolving nature of the universe that is described as a linguistic phenomenon with multiple interpretations and a variety of discourses. The acknowledgment of the connection between the universal and the particular.

(Excerpt from Mervat's book - The Path to the New Hermopolis. The History, Philosophy and Future of the City of Hermes)

ABOUT HERMOPOLIS It is the ancient city of ‘Thoth’ - the god of wisdom, the inventor of writing and the ultimate communicator of all arts and knowledge. It lies in El-Minia governorate, middle Egypt and its existence can be traced back to  early times in the Egyptian history. In  Ashmunin ( Hermopolis Eest), the  relics of the legendary Thoth’s Temple can be found  and in Tuna El-Gebel (Hermopolis West), the burial site of  the priests/ scholars who served in Ashmunin-the most important is the ‘Petosiris Tomb’ who was the Hermopolitan priest in Alexander the Great times. ABOUT NEW HERMOPOLIS New Hermopolis is an individual social enterprise founded & funded by Dr Mervat Abdel-Nasser with the mission of harnessing the unique heritage of this region towards its cultural and economic development. It is built on a private land (10 acres) between rural, and desert landscape, and lies within walking distance from its ancient counterpart in Tuna El Gebel (20 KM from the main town of Mallawi/Minia, 320 kilometres from Cairo), and central to all the antiquities of this region.

ABOUT MERVAT Dr Mervat Abdel Nasser MD, MPhil, FRC Psych Consultant Psychiatrist, Researcher in Egyptology & Writer Founder & Director of New Hermopolis Mervat is a graduate of Cairo Medical School and fellow of the Royal college of Psychiatrists, London. She holds a master’s degree in philosophy and a doctorate in psychiatry from London University. She also has two diplomas in moral philosophy and the history of medicine.

Mervat served as a clinical psychiatrist and university academic in England from 1977-2007. Her clinical practice focused on general adult psychiatry with special interest in the field of culture and mental health. She achieved international stature and reputation through her various publications exploring the interface of mind and culture.   Mervat has as well a long-standing interest in Egyptology and has written on the subject in both Arabic and English, including several books addressed to the young reader. Mervat took an early retirement in 2007 from her job as a consultant psychiatrist and senior university academic in the UK and returned to Egypt to pursue her dream of establishing the project of New Hermopolis. She has since dedicated herself entirely to this cause. www.newhermopolis.org