Thoth, Hermes, and the Birth of Hidden Knowledge

At the top of ancient Egypt's pantheon sat the Ennead, nine primary gods and goddesses who formed the pillars of creation and cosmic order. These were not beings in the conventional sense. They were concepts. Osiris was death and rebirth. Isis was magic and motherhood. Set was chaos and war.

Egypt's origins remain obscure. Some researchers claim it is as old as Sumer, reaching back seven or eight thousand years. As Egypt grew and evolved, so did its pantheon. Around five thousand years ago, a deity emerged who was different from the rest. Not one of the original nine, but something added later. The god of the moon, wisdom, writing, science, and magic. The great Thoth.

Thoth was one of Egypt's most consistently worshipped deities across millennia. His origins, even within Egyptian belief, are mysterious. Late-period texts claimed he was part of the Ennead, but earlier sources suggest something stranger. Some say he was created by Ra, the sun god. Others say he emerged from Ra's forehead fully formed, tasked with a singular purpose.

Keep this detail in mind. It matters.

Thoth was depicted with the head of an ibis, a symbol of wisdom. His primary role was to record the words, desires, and knowledge of the gods. He was a scribe, a messenger, an intermediary between the heavens and the earth. Between the divine and the created.

Now, consider this carefully. A being who records knowledge, transmits it, and mediates between gods and humans. We have a word for this today. Prophet. Someone who receives revelation from the creator and delivers it to humanity.

And here is where things get interesting. Some researchers note that Thoth was deified later, not originally part of the creation pantheon. He was elevated. Transformed from something else into a god.

This pattern appears throughout ancient history. Figures who were once wise men, teachers, or prophets became demigods, then gods. I have covered examples before. Apollonius of Tyana, who Christianity may have borrowed from to create the figure of Jesus. A sage who became legend, then deity. Human nature's idolatrous tendency on full display.

Thoth follows the same arc. First, he is not in the pantheon. Then he appears as the keeper of divine sciences, the intermediary between gods and humans. Then he becomes a god himself.

But his story does not end in Egypt.

When the Greeks encountered Egyptian civilization, they saw Thoth and recognized something familiar. They called him Hermes. In Greek mythology, Hermes had the same role: messenger of the gods, mediator between divine and mortal realms. Once again, the prophet motif.

But Hermes was also credited with founding Hermeticism, one of the ancient world's most influential esoteric traditions. Do not dismiss this as empty mysticism. Even polytheistic religions, at their core, converge on the idea of a single creative force. Hermeticism is one of the clearest examples.

This ancient Egyptian occult philosophy, predating even Greece by millennia, taught the unity of all creation, the symbolic nature of matter and spirit, duality, and cycles of death and rebirth. Its central axiom: "As above, so below. As below, so above."

This philosophy shaped both monotheistic religions and what we call Western philosophy. Some argue it laid the groundwork for modern science itself.

The teachings attributed to the Egyptian god Thoth, later called Hermes Trismegistus (Hermes the Thrice-Great), were said to be inscribed on tablets of emerald. Over time, these teachings mixed with myth. Symbols replaced substance. And the origin of the Emerald Tablets became legend, lost in the mists of history.

But that did not stop seekers from searching. Some claimed to have found fragments. And the hunt continued.

In 356 BCE, a young Macedonian prince named Alexander began a conquest that would reshape the world. In just 36 years, Alexander the Great expanded his empire from Greece to India, absorbing cultures, religions, and knowledge systems as he went.

Alexander was not merely a conqueror. He was a student of Aristotle, trained in Greek philosophy, and obsessed with the idea that wisdom had originated in the East. He sought the teachings of Hermes, the secrets hidden in ancient temples, and the knowledge that predated recorded history.

One of Alexander's greatest legacies was the city he founded in Egypt: Alexandria. Designed as a bridge between East and West, a port where cultures and ideas could merge, Alexandria became the intellectual heart of the ancient world.

At its center stood the Great Library of Alexandria.

Scholars from across the empire brought texts, traders donated scrolls, and soon the library housed tens of thousands of works on philosophy, physics, mathematics, biology, and more. For centuries, it illuminated the path for future thinkers, spreading the Hermetic principle of unity and enlightenment across the known world.

Until it burned.

First damaged during Roman civil wars, then systematically destroyed by radical Christian groups who declared its contents "pagan" and "demonic," the Library of Alexandria was lost. They say the surviving fragments allowed modern civilization to progress. Perhaps. But the loss was incalculable.

Imagine what humanity might have achieved if religious zealots had not burned temples of knowledge in the name of their god. Not just Christians. All religions have done this to each other, erasing the past to assert dominance in the present.

The destruction of Alexandria created a dark age. But some texts survived. Scattered across the world, hidden in private collections, translated into Arabic, preserved by those who understood their value.

And in the 8th or 9th century, a mysterious book appeared. Written in Arabic, it was called Kitab Sirr al-Haliqa, the Book of the Secret of Creation. It was a translation, attributed to a figure named Balinus.

Pay attention to that name. It will matter.

The book contained a passage describing the discovery of the Emerald Tablet. Balinus claimed he entered an underground chamber and found the tablet in the hands of Hermes himself, inscribed with the words: "As above, so below. All things originate from one source and develop according to one plan."

Balinus wrote extensively on Hermetic knowledge, alchemy, and the unity of God. His works, translated into Latin, spread across medieval Europe.

But Balinus was not his real name. His real name was Apollonius of Tyana. Yes, the same sage whose life Rome plagiarized, whose teachings they stole, and whose identity may have been twisted into the figure called Jesus.

The Emerald Tablets had returned. And their influence was only beginning.