The Hermetic revival of the Renaissance was due to the rediscovery of the corpus Hermetica, which is believed to be an intrinsically ancient document. Thereafter, the Alchemy of the Italian Renaissance began constructing upon the ideas they embraced, and the foundations of modern chemistry were laid. It had accompanied a profound paradigm shift in the Renaissance worldview as though, had the eruption of gnostic, Neoplatonic, and Hermetic writings in the early Christian period. These contemporary occurrences suggest that Alchemy is a perpetual subject and that it reflects the mind of its time. When the cultural imagination was greatly at work, transforming an old model into a new one, the fascination of Alchemy was intensified and its creative powers contributed to the changes that took place. In consequence, the highly sophisticated, considerable volume of manuscripts and the ancient secret texts of Divine Knowledge emerged.
This was the particular era that St. Germain lived. It was an era of political confusion and it inspired many altruists to investigate the wisdom of the Esoteric, Gnostic science. St. Germain joined a Rosicrucian society at the age of 21; eight years later, he attained the Magnum Opus and his destiny became to usher his magnificent personality into the world.