The final “Hermetic” period of Hegel’s life is his time in Berlin, from 1818 until his death on November 14, 1831. This is contrary to what one might expect. It might be assumed that Hegel’s “Hermeticism” was merely an aberration of youth, which the “arch rationalist” moved away from as he matured. Surprisingly, precisely the reverse seems to be the case. In Berlin, Hegel developed a friendship with Franz von Baader, the premiere occultist and mystic of the day. Together they studied Meister Eckhart. The preface to Hegel’s 1827 edition of the Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Outline makes prominent mention of Böhme and Baader. His revised 1832 edition of the Science of Logic corrects a passage so as to include a reference to Böhme. His preface to the 1821 Philosophy of Right includes alchemical and Rosicrucian imagery. His 1831 Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion show the influence of the mystic Joachim of Fiore, as well as certain structural correspondences to the thought of Böhme. In sum, all the evidence indicates that in the last period of his life, Hegel’s interest in the mystical and Hermetic traditions intensified, and that he became more bold about publicly aligning himself with Hermetic thinkers and movements.
The divisions of Hegel’s philosophy follow a pattern that is typical of many forms of mystical and Hermetic philosophy. The Phenomenology represents an initial stage of “purification” of raising the mind above the level of the sensory and the mundane, a preparation for the reception of wisdom. The Logic is equivalent to the Hermetic “ascent” to the level of pure form, of the eternal, of “Universal Mind” (Absolute Idea). The Philosophy of Nature describes an “emanation”’ or “othering’’ of Universal Mind in the form of the spatio-temporal world. Its categories accomplish a transfiguration of the natural: we come to see the world as a reflection of Universal Mind. The Philosophy of Spirit accomplishes a “return of created nature to the Divine by means of man, who can rise above the merely natural and “actualize” God in the world through concrete forms of life (e.g., the state and religion) and through speculative philosophy.
– Hegel and the Hermetic Tradition (2001), pp. 3-4