Thoth was the ancient Egyptian god of the moon and wisdom, specifically associated with writing, science, and magic, with the lines between these three concepts blurred in the Egyptian world. He was known by the Egyptian name Djehuty, which means “he who is like an ibis,” which was a symbol of wisdom in Egypt. With the arrival of Hellenization, Thoth became associated with the Greek god Hermes as Hermes Trismegistus, which resulted in Hermeticism.
The Self-Begotten
Some Egyptian traditions considered Thoth a creator god, the one who was self-begotten and self-produced. He was associated with the Ogdoad of Hermopolis, eight gods that emerged from the waters of chaos. There were four pairs of male and female gods, with the number four considered to represent completeness:
- Nun and Naunet – the primeval waters
- Heh and Hauhet – eternity
- Kuk and Lauket – darkness
- Amun and Amunet – air and the hidden
Their interaction caused an explosion of energy that launched creation, and they ruled over the world in a new Golden Age. When they died, they took up residence in the Duat, the Egyptian underworld.
In some versions of the myth, while ruling, they created a cosmic egg to give birth to the known world. Thoth, as the bird of light, was inside the egg. In other versions, it was Ra who emerged from the egg and created the world. Thoth was sometimes called the tongue and heart of Ra.
As a creator, Toth was the master of both mortal and divine law who oversaw Ma’at, the balance considered essential to the Egyptian universe. He did the complicated calculations necessary to create the rotation of the heavens, earth, and stars. As an extension of this, he was a god of time and the moon, which was also essential to the measuring of time.
Writing, Wisdom, and Magic
Thoth was sometimes considered the scribe of the gods, particularly Ra. Sometimes he invented writing, and sometimes it was Seshat who invented writing and Thoth who taught it to mankind. He was also thought to have written all the texts of great wisdom covering subjects such as astronomy, mathematics, geometry, medicine, and more. In stories, he often played the role of a wise counsellor who appears at the opportune moment.
He was also a god of the underworld, called A’an, who records the weight on the scales when the heart of the dead is weighed against the feather of Ma’at. In some versions of the Osiris myth, it is Thoth who gives Isis the magical words to bring her husband back to life and create the afterlife. In funerary texts, he is also represented as a guardian of the deceased and invoked in spells for the dead.
Thoth was closely associated with magic because they believed that writing had magical properties, the ability to make ideas concrete. Therefore, he is invoked in many spells.
The Book of Thoth
Many Egyptian texts were called the Book of Thoth, since most books were attributed to the god through divine inspiration. The book is mentioned in an ancient inscription on the sarcophagus of Imamy, which refers to “writing the word of God in the Book of Thoth.”
Clement of Alexandria, a 2nd-century CE church father living in Alexandria, suggested that the Book of Thoth was 42 books containing all the philosophy of the Egyptians.
The Ibis and the Baboon
Thoth was most often represented as a man with the head of a green ibis, but also sometimes a baboon. As the ibis, he was the reckoner of time and the changing of the seasons, wearing a lunar disk headdress. As was often the case, there were many variations in the god’s iconography, for example, sometimes wearing the double crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. When he appears as a baboon with a dog face, he is A’an, the god of equilibrium.
Worship
Thoth’s principal temple was located at Khumunu, Hermopolis, where millions of mummified ibis have been found. His prominence grew in the late period. Thoth was universally worshipped by scribes, and many had paintings and figurines and the god in their workspaces.
Hermes Trismegistus
When the Greeks came to Egypt, they associated Thoth with Hermes, their messenger god, and the two were eventually combined as Hermes Trismegistus (thrice greatest). He was sometimes considered a god and sometimes considered a human sage, often assimilated with the Old Kingdom architect Imhotep. It was believed that he wrote the Hermetica, which imparted secret knowledge.
The Hermetica is a diverse collection of 17 philosophical treatises reported to have been written between 100-300 CE but compiled in the 11th century by the Byzantine philosopher Michael Psellus. In general, they combine Platonic ideas and Egyptian religious elements.
The most famous text within the collection is the Emerald Tablet, which summarizes the philosophy and contains the famous idea “as above, so below,” encapsulating the idea that patterns and processes in one realm of existence are mirrored throughout other levels of reality, which underlies beliefs such as astrology. It also suggests that all phenomena contain their opposites and exist in dynamic tension, such as light and darkness, masculine and feminine, creation and destruction. Rather than viewing these as absolute dualities, these are complementary aspects of greater unity.
The Hermetica also contains practical texts on alchemy, astrology, and magical techniques such as instructions for spiritual transformation and how to manipulate natural forces through occult knowledge.
The Hermetica also teaches the idea that humans possess a spark of divine intellect, allowing them to comprehend cosmic mysteries and potentially achieve gnosis, which is direct knowledge of the divine. It also positions humans as potential co-creators with the divine, capable of shaping reality.
Hermeticism culminates in the idea of transmutation, which is the ability to change one state of being into another through conscious intention and ritual action. The most popular manifestation of this is to transform base metals into gold, but the idea extends beyond material concerns to spiritual matters.
These texts inspired many later magical orders.
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