The Scribe … God or Person
Great Pyramid
No adequate explanation exists for the way in which Egyptian civilisation appears to have sprung fully formed with an extraordinary culture, that persisted for at least 3,000 years. We can still see the engineering feat of building the Great Pyramid – the first ever building of anything like that size in stone – which also defies adequate explanation. The suggestion that the blocks were dragged up earth ramps is highly suspect, as at the higher levels, the ramps themselves would have been an extraordinary engineering achievement ( and one we could hardly match today) requiring ramps … ! As for the accuracy in cutting the stone … we just don’t know how that was done, or how stones of such great size and weight were shaped to an extraordinary level of tolerance.
Origins
Thoth as Scribe
But even more remarkable, but more hidden, was the profundity of the Egyptian culture and religious philosophy, affecting every aspect of their life. What flourished in Egypt more than 5,000 years ago, has influenced world civilisation East and West. The great debt we owe to Egypt was acknowledged by Pythagoras, who is reputed to have studied there for years, and also by Plato in his story about Solon. In his Timaeus, Plato says : the Egyptian priest said to Solon, “You Greeks are always children, and there is no such thing as an old Greek.”
The Greeks understood their debt to Egypt, but now, in the West, we are less aware of the wisdom that has its roots in those far off times. A great mentor of mine, Arnold F. Price, who is still revered for his work on the incomparable Diamond Sutra, used to point out that clear evidence exists of periods of decline in Egypt, followed by reformations and a return to their founding principles. He maintained that their civilisation lasted so long because they embodied deep mystical truths in every aspect of their lives.
These truths are often attributed to the one known as The Scribe.
Ibis
He is called Djehuty by the Egyptians and we know him by the name Thoth (Greek). We also know him by the title Hermes, as his function as a Messenger of the Gods is similar to that of the Greek God of the same name. So Thoth is both God and man. The bird that is symbolic of this God is the Sacred Ibis.
The traditions of Thrice Greatest Thoth
Egyptian Priestess and Ibis
The teachings of The Scribe have come down to us as the work of Thrice Greatest Thoth. Modern Scholarship sees this wonderful dialogues as the work of an exceptional ‘pagan’ scholar. His teachings were considered by the Christian Church fathers as the prisca theologia – the first or pristine teachings that are within and underlie all the great theologies that have come since. We would not disagree.
But whoever actually wrote the so called Divine Pymander of Hermes Trismagistus, drew on a deep tradition. From whence that came we know not. But, in Time Sphere, the possibility is suggested that it originates from a great civilisation, long forgotten or denied. In this we agree with Graham Hancock and Colin Wilson, that the evidence of a remarkable human civilisation pre-dating Egypt, and the source of the Sphinx, is hard to deny – although it is denied daily in the official text-books.
The Wisdom of Hermes
Hermes with caduceus
The Wisdom of Ancient Egypt has passed down to us, and is the source of our deepest and most significant mystical truths. The intellectual part of this tradition is often referred to as Hermeticism or the Hermetic Stream, in honour of the deity said to the the Guide to Souls, Hermes or Mercury.
Ideas are conceived and expressed by individuals. For that reason, it follows that within Egypt there were human beings of remarkable intellect and spiritual vision, who were the progenitors of the Great Teaching that has flowed through time. Perhaps there was one. Perhaps there was a succession. We honour them in their embodiment of The Scribe.
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