Thrice-Greatest Hermes, Vol. I — G. R. S. Mead (1906)

We have seen that Pietschmann considers the original of Thoth, the God of Wisdom, to be nothing more than the ibis-headed moon-god, thus intentionally deriving the origin of the Great Initiator from what he considers to be the crude beginnings of primitive ideas. But Thoth was the Great Reckoner, the Eecorder of the Balance of Justice, the Teller of the Karmic Scales. Now the mortal time-recorder for the Egyptians was the moon, " for if we consider the motion of the moon relatively to the sun, we shall find that the time that it takes in covering a space equal to its own disc is just an hour. . . . Now, that measure of the ' Hour ' was peculiarly sacred in Egypt; each of the twenty-four which elapse during a single rotation of the earth being consecrated to its own particular deity, twelve of light and twelve of darkness. ' Explain the God in the hour,' is the demand made of the adept in the Ritual when standing in the Hall of Truth. And that God in the hour, we learn, was Thoth, the ' Lord of the Moon and the Reckoner of the Universe.' " 2

Again, with regard to the moon-phases, the first day of the lunar month was called " the conception of the moon," the second its ' ' birth," and so on step by step till it was full. Now the time of all lower initiations was the full moon. Thus " in the lunar representations 1 Op. tit., p. 23. 2 Op. dt., p. 30.

on the walls of the temple of Denderah we have fourteen steps leading up to the fifteenth or highest, whereon was enthroned Thoth, the Lord of the Moon." l

For some such reasons was Thoth called Lord of the Moon, not that the moon gave birth to the idea of Thoth. We must not seek for the origin of the Wisdom-tradition in its lower symbols. For in the inscription on the coffin of Ankhnes-Ra-Neferab — that is of her "whose life was the Sacred Heart of Ra " — we read : " Thy name is the Moon, the Heart of Silence, the Lord of the Unseen World " 2 — of the space "as far as the moon," or the "sublunary region," as the old books say, the first after-death state, where souls are purified from earthly stains.

SOME OF THE DOCTRINES OF INITIATION

The end set before the neophyte was illumination, and the whole cult and discipline and doctrines insisted on this one way to Wisdom. The religion of Egypt was essentially the Religion of the Light.

But " most characteristic of all was the omnipotent and all-dominating sense of the fatherhood of God, producing the familiar and in some respects even joyous aspect which the Egyptians imparted to the idea of death." And " to the sense which the priests at least possessed, both of the divine personality and of their own ultimate union with the personal deity [the Logos], far more probably than to any artificial pretension to a supposed exclusiveness, may be ascribed the mystery enshrouding their religion."3

And as Light was the Father of the Religion of Illumination, so was Life, his consort or syzygy, the Mother of the Religion of Joy. " Life was the centre,

Op. cit., p. 194. 2 Op. cit., p. 161. 3 Op. cit., pp. 18, 20.

the circumference, the totality of Good. Life was the sceptre in the hand of Amen ; life was the richest ' gift of Osiris.' ' Be not ungrateful to thy Creator,' says the sage Ptah-Hotep, in what is perhaps the oldest document in existence, 'for he has given thee life.' 'I am the Fount of Light,' says the Creator in the Eitual. ' I pierce the Darkness. I make clear the Path for all ; the Lord of Joy.' " * Or again, as the postulant prays to the setting sun : " 0 height of Love, thou openest the double gate of the Horizon." 2

Here we have the full doctrine of the Light and Life which is the keynote of our treatises. Again, the doctrine of the endless turning of the spheres, which " end where they begin," in the words of "The Shepherd," is shown in the great fourth year festival of Hep-Tep or " Completion-Beginning," when " the revolution and the rotation of our planet were simultaneously completed and begun afresh." 8

THE TEMPLES OF INITIATION

That the ancient temples of initiation in Egypt were models of the Sophia Above, or of the " Heavenly Jerusalem," to use a Jewish Gnostic term, or, in other words, of the Type of the world-building, we may well believe. Thus it is with interest that we read the remarks of Adams on the temple of Denderah (or Annu), rebuilt several times according to the ancient plans, and an important centre of the mystery-cultus. The temple was dedicated to Hat-Hor, whose ancient title was the Virgin- Mother.