Like Godwin I think we need to approach the Hypnerotomachia from the perspective of Henry Corbin’s Mundus Imaginalis . . . what type of esoteric stream was taking place, not merely neo-pagan, or neo-Platonic, more likely Hermetic . . . for example, these clues from Henry Corbin:
“Unfortunately, there are those who can only think in terms of “conversion”; that is, in terms of a process that would permit them to assign you a collective label. No. To speak of “conversion” is to have understood nothing of “esotericism”. A philosopher knows very well that to be a Platonist is not to register one’s self in some Platonic Church, and even less to prohibit one’s self from also being anything else besides a Platonist. Each and every ‘Orafa, whether from the East or from the West, cannot but think and weigh things in terms of interiority and interiorization, which means making in one’s self a permanent accommodation and abode for the philosophies and the religions towards which one’s Quest conducts one. And such a one must keep his or her secret: Secretum meum mihi. A secret that belongs to the Castle of the Soul. It is not through some external sociological choice that he will outwardly manifest this profound internal reality. It is in the “personal” work that he produces, the exteriorization of which results from the concordance of all of his or her “modes of being”. The “community”, the omma of the esotericists, found in all places and in all times, is the “inner Church”, and there is no confessional act of adherence required for one to be a part of it.
But it is precisely this inner connection that is the true connection because it is not such as can be prescribed and is moreover invulnerable, and because it is in this sole case that one may truly say that the mouth speaks of the abundance of the heart.”
Henri Corbin
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