The first Hermetic text to ever come to Britain didn’t feature Hermes but Aristotle. This will probably come as a surprise, but if you read on all will make sense… You will also learn how to gain superpowers from the scent of an apple
In the 10th century, there was a beautiful authentic tradition of Hermeticism in the Arabic world (visualise groups of dedicated people dressed in white, contemplating the planets together). However, in very much same way that the western world tends to treat all yogic traditions as one, they did see all Greek writings as being of the same tradition. So for them, it was very easy to produce a text teaching monotheistic, Islamic-influenced writing expressing Hermetic principles with Aristotle as the central figure.
The Kitab al-Tuffahah is a Persian text that described Aristotle on his death bed. His disciples have surrounded him, worried they are about to lose their guru. They have some final questions for him and really want to keep him there as long as possible. They do so using the scent of an apple. In case you are not aware, an apple is a very tempting fruit indeed! It’s just the thing to bring him back from the edge of death each time they want him to answer a question. Now, this Aristotle is not the one we would know but actually answers questions much like Hermes would directly from gnosis (no reasoning needed).
His discourse is so powerful that the disciples take on a new view of the world – “You have made us the lovers of death."
When this text hits Europe the Christian readers loved it. For them, the symbolism of fruits had a strong connotation to the rewards of faith. They had no idea this was not a genuine Aristotelian work and were thrilled to learn he was a good, faithful monotheist.
What few of them saw and indeed few do nowadays is the strong magical message in this work. If you can find the root of something (its existence in the mental realm) then you can bear the fruits of it into manifestation on this material world.
You can meditate blessings into your life.