Thoth: The Egyptian God Behind Hermetic Philosophy

Have you ever wondered where hermetic philosophy actually comes from? The answer leads back to ancient Egypt - to a god with the head of an ibis who invented writing, created magic, and became the foundation for an entire tradition of Western esotericism.

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Who Was Thoth?

Thoth was no ordinary deity. In the Egyptian pantheon, he held a unique position - not as a creator god or king of gods, but as the divine scribe, the keeper of knowledge, the one who made civilization possible.

His Egyptian name, Djehuty (sometimes spelled Tehuti or Djehuti), may derive from dhw, meaning "ibis" - the bird sacred to him. He was depicted in two forms: as a man with the head of an ibis, or as a baboon. Both animals were associated with wisdom in Egyptian thought.

The Greeks transliterated his name as Thoth, and this is how he's known in Western tradition.

But Thoth was more than a symbol. The Egyptians believed he was the actual inventor of writing - the sacred hieroglyphs that they called medu netjer, "words of the gods." This made him fundamentally important. Writing wasn't just communication; it was magic. The ability to fix words in permanent form gave them power over time and death itself.

His Many Roles

Thoth accumulated responsibilities over Egypt's long history:

Scribe of the Gods

Thoth recorded the judgments of the gods, particularly in the Hall of Ma'at where the dead were judged. He stood beside the scales where hearts were weighed against the feather of truth, recording the verdict. Every soul's fate passed through his pen.

Lord of Time

As a moon god, Thoth governed the calendar. He divided time into months and seasons. The Egyptians credited him with inventing the 365-day year. Time itself was his domain.

Master of Magic

Egyptian magical texts invoke Thoth constantly. He was the source of heka - magical power. Priests and magicians claimed to work with knowledge originally revealed by Thoth. Every spell was ultimately his.

Mediator and Healer

In mythological conflicts between Horus and Set, Thoth served as arbitrator. He healed the Eye of Horus after Set damaged it. He represented balance, reason, and the resolution of opposites.

Guide of Souls

Thoth guided the dead through the underworld, teaching them the words of power needed to pass each gate. The spells in the Book of the Dead were attributed to him. He was the soul's teacher even beyond death.

Thoth Becomes Hermes

When Greeks settled in Egypt after Alexander's conquest (332 BCE), they noticed parallels between Thoth and their own god Hermes - both were messengers, both connected to writing and magic, both guided souls to the afterlife.

This led to interpretatio graeca - the Greek practice of identifying foreign gods with their own. Thoth became Hermes. But not just any Hermes.

The title "Trismegistus" - Thrice-Great - elevated him beyond ordinary divine status. This epithet may reflect the Egyptian practice of intensifying divine names, or it may indicate mastery of three realms: heaven, earth, and underworld.

Hermes Trismegistus became something new: not quite the Greek Hermes, not quite the Egyptian Thoth, but a legendary sage who had lived in the distant past and written down the secrets of the universe. He was presented as a contemporary of Moses, sometimes as Moses' teacher, as ancient as civilization itself.

The Hermetic texts attributed to him claimed vast antiquity. Renaissance scholars believed they predated Plato and contained the original revelation from which all later philosophy derived. We now know they were composed in the early centuries CE - but their influence was profound regardless.

The Hermetic Texts

The Corpus Hermeticum - seventeen Greek treatises attributed to Hermes Trismegistus - was rediscovered in the West when a manuscript reached Florence in 1460. Cosimo de' Medici ordered Marsilio Ficino to translate it immediately, even before completing his translation of Plato.

Why the urgency? Because the Medici believed they possessed the original source of all wisdom - teachings older than the Bible, older than Greek philosophy, the primordial revelation given to humanity at the dawn of time.

The texts contain philosophical dialogues on the nature of God, the cosmos, and the human soul. Key themes include:

• The divine mind: God as infinite Mind or Nous, from which all creation emanates
• Correspondence: "As above, so below" - the microcosm reflects the macrocosm
• The soul's journey: The human soul descends from divine origins and can return through knowledge (gnosis)
• Sacred science: Astrology, alchemy, and magic as methods for understanding and working with cosmic forces

The Emerald Tablet, a short text attributed to Hermes, became the foundational document of alchemy. Its famous opening - "That which is above is like that which is below, and that which is below is like that which is above" - encapsulates the hermetic worldview.

The Living Legacy

Thoth's influence extends far beyond academic interest in ancient Egypt. Through the Hermetic tradition, he shaped:

The Renaissance: Hermetic ideas fueled the Renaissance recovery of ancient wisdom. Figures like Ficino, Pico della Mirandola, and Giordano Bruno drew on Hermetic texts for their revolutionary philosophies.

Scientific revolution: Newton, Copernicus, and other founders of modern science studied Hermetic texts. The idea that nature operates according to hidden principles discoverable through investigation owes something to Hermetic philosophy.

Western esotericism: Virtually every strand of Western occultism - Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, the Golden Dawn, Thelema - draws on Hermetic sources. When modern practitioners invoke "hermetic principles," they invoke Thoth.

Psychology: Jung was deeply influenced by Hermetic and alchemical symbolism. His concept of individuation - the integration of conscious and unconscious - parallels the Hermetic soul's journey back to its divine source.

The ibis-headed god of ancient Egypt lives on in ways his original worshippers could never have imagined. Every time someone speaks of "hermetic" traditions, studies alchemy, or contemplates the relationship between microcosm and macrocosm, they're engaging with Thoth's legacy.

Common Questions About Thoth