Heart Of Osiris

Old Egyptian religion and the Mystery of the God Thoth

These days if you light Geographic national or the Discovered Direct you can be sure to meet a program that talks about old Egypt and the Pyramids. It is rather evident that Pharaonic Egypt continues to exercise a deep fascination on the spirits of the people. The modern people are not the exception, but the rule, for almost every period in the history was hypnotized by the mystery of old Egypt. Begin with the Greeks, continuing with the Roman, the Islamic culture, the Renaissance down below to the present, Egypt continues to embody the mystery of the beginnings of civilization. For most of the people, the legs of Egypt is a dead deep buried culture in the sands of the Valley of Kings: but for a lot of these studies or practicing Hermeticism, this is always a lot living. Today, it becomes more and more of probable one than the at least left the old Egyptian heritage gone through the face of the god Thoth to a ramification of him, Hermes Trismegistus, and then on to the modern times.

The old Egyptian religion always is envelopped in the mystery, despite the translations of the hiedroglyphes. Today we associate this religion especially with the worship of Osiris and of Isis, just like the sun god Re. Nevertheless, it appears now that the god Thoth was an equally, or god finally more important than these.

I must acknowledge that I met problems that try to dig up the mysterious face of Thoth. There is scarcely does not import what to day writes of him: my principal sources had to remain at the level of classic of 1922 by P. Boylan (1) and a 1973 book by Jesus Christ. Bleeker (2), no of which no covers the last antique transformation of Thoth in Hermes Trismegistus. For Hermes and Hermes Trismegistus there is completely a lighting up book writes by the founder of research of Esotericism of the west, A. Faivre (3). Nevertheless to the final the news on Thoth are sadly disjunctive, is not updated and fragmentary, as if destined to perpetuate the myth and the mystical one of this shady god!

The name of Thoth is envelopped in the mystery to begin with ae" the learned ones were not able to establish an etymology (4). What is known is that it was the moon god, and it principally associated with the ibis. Why the ibis is not clear or. It was supposed that the ibis' the beak has the form of the moon of crescent (5) or that the black and the white one of the feathers suggest the phases of the moon (6). Which is rather frank is that the ibis is a nevertheless living bird especially on the ground and close to the Delta of Nil ae" therefore a trinity of the elements of air, the earth and water.

What's more moon, Thoth was described as the writing god, the pencil pushers, wisdom, the magic, the night, the dead and law natural. If this seems as a characteristic mixture, there is in fact a deeper connection between all these elements. Thoth is the key minor, the counterpart of lunary to the brilliant Re sun god ae" his younger brother, his messenger and his pencil pusher (7). Thoth represents the mysterious and dark moonlight lights up paradoxalment and disconcerts the spirit. Maybe C.J. Jung put it in the better manner when it said than the moonlight is soft, smooth, and unites objects instead of them differentiates as the light of the sun done (8). We customarily say that there is "magic" to the moon. Therefore Thoth is the master of magic and all these ambiguous arts that the two clarify and confuse: the divination, astrology and the alchemy. There is light (wisdom, the comprehension, the law) and obscurity (the mystery, the death) in the face of Thoth. In fact it has the mysterious capacity to unite the two, therefore his attribute of appeaser, of avenue betweener. In a popular myth, it is the the one that does the peace between the Horus in conflict (the sun, the order, good) and Seth (obscurity, the chaos, the evil). It puts thus an end to the war while sacrificing his arm in the name of peace, but to the continuation it restores the fullness of all the three injured (9). Is this maybe of this triad of Horus ae" Seth ae" Thoth that Hermes Trismegistus (three times Big) comes from? In any case, the capacity of Thoth to heal brands of injuries him the archetype of doctors.

As the "doctor", Thoth seems to hold also the keys to renewal and the renaissance of the body. In another important myth, it is the the one to breathe the life in the god Osiris dead, and the proclaims the god of the skies (10). In the famous one The book of the Death, The pass person far takes the picture of ae" or becomes Thoth (11). Maybe this is a first sign of this pleasant quality of Thoth that transformed him later in Hermes Trismegistus: his basic humanity. It is, after all, the the one that knows hearts of the people (12).

Thoth is also the custodian of the cosmic order ae" maybe not in the manner let us understand us the order now, but as a balance between the order and as the chaos (Horus and Seth). It is not astonishing that it was called "", the balance god (13). As the the one in the middle of the factions in conflict, it rule a law of the just measure: for example, it is credited with to appease the Tefnet of burning goddess and transforming it in a benevolent goddess (14). It is also the legislator and the judge, doing the decisions in the consideration to the heir of holds court Egypt, Osiris' the place among the gods, the quarrels of Horus and Seth etc.

As a conclusion, I will leave simply Thoth introduces itself according to a fragment:

"I, Thoth, am the eminent, pure writer of handsae¦l' writer of the truth, of which the horror is the lieae¦ the lord of the lawsae¦j' sign my-one-t (the order, the universal law) to the gods, I try (each) the word for his vedracitedae¦je am the leader of the sky, the earth, and the hells" (15). This is god with a complaint to universality, the hidden knowledge, and ecclesiastical one, ordering Word, that is a professor to stretch humanity.

References:

(2), (5), (14) Bleeker, C. J. (1973). Hathor and Thoth: Two Faces Keys of the Old Egyptian Religion. The studies in the History of Religions 26. Leiden: Bearded.

(1), (7), (9), (10), (11), (12), (13), (15) Boylan, P. (1922). Thoth, the Hermes of Egypt: An Etude of Some Aspects of Theological Thought in Old Egypt. London: Oxford University

(8) Jung, C.G. (1963). Mysterium Coniunctionis: An Investigation in the Separation and Synthesis of Psychological Opposites in the Alchemy, Transl. by R. F. C. Shell. New York, N.Y: The panthedon Reserves.

(3) Faivre, A. (1995). The Hermes Eternel: Of Greek God to Alchemical Magus. Quick grandiose: In a hurry Phanes.

(6) Plutarque. (1908). On the Morals: Isis and Osiris, Freezes by C.W. King. Online. Available to: http://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/plu/pte/pte04.htm/ . To acceptability to November 06 2008.

(4), (13). Wikipedia. (2008). 'Thoth'. Online. Available to: Http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thoth/. To acceptability to November 06 2008.