Tehuti and The Book of Thoth
You are reading: 42 books of tehuti
tehuti was the chief deity of the city of khemnu/kemenu, which the greeks called hermopolis (the city of hermes). according to the legend of kemet, the temple of khemnu housed fragments of the cosmic egg that, being itself the divine ibis, had hatched on the island of creation, from the egg the first sun had emerged.
tehuti brought the idea of creation into existence by expressing the thoughts of the creator; ptah then put those spoken words into practice. Tehuti was considered the mind behind the cosmic order, the architect of the universe. Tehuti’s association with the creation myth also extends to the divine birth of the pharaohs themselves. Tehuti was said to lead Amun, the king of the gods, to the bedchamber of the queen he awaited.
Ra is said to have appointed Tehuti ‘Scribe of the Ennead’ before retiring from earth knowing that Tehuti’s wisdom would enable him to serve as a teacher and guardian of the humanities. it was tehuti who was appointed to keep the affairs of mankind in order. The written word was an essential tool in organizing and administering Kemet’s government, bringing order and structure to a vast territory.
tehuti was not only associated with the creation of the physical world, as the creator of the written word in the form of hieroglyphics, he is also credited with authoring the book of am tuat (the book of the dead). The Book of Am Tuat is a book of spells, prayers, and rituals that would help the dead on their journey to the afterlife. the deceased person would be judged by a panel of 42 assessors of the dead, corresponding to the 42 administrative areas over which kemet ruled. This is where the legend of ‘the 42 books of Tehuti’ originates from.
tehuti’s many roles include being the god of the moon (=mercury), the spoken word, writing, calendars, chronology, the measurer of time (the latter is due to the fact that he traveled with ra in the solar boat), knowledge and magic. the most recognizable association is that of the god of writing, as such he is often depicted as an ibis-headed man, holding a writing style and an ankh. he has multiple associations: an ibis, a baboon, or a dog-headed ape who wears the combined lunar disk and crescent on his head.
tehuti’s daughter was seshat (although alternative myths state that she was his wife). Seshat, the female scribe, is depicted wearing a panther skin dress and has a seven-pointed star above her head. Like Tehuti, she too was associated with measurement: reliefs in Middle Kingdom temples show her recorded gains in foreign battles. she is often referred to as “the one who is the principal in the house of books” and “the lady of the builders” (which some suggest shows her role as a consort of tehuti).
tehuti and the moon
tehuti allowed nut to give birth to her five children (ausar, auset, heru the eldest, set, and nebthet) by using her cunning to win a game of checkers with the moon. By gaining one seventy-second of the moonlight, he succeeded in creating an additional five days (the epagomenal days), allowing Nut to give birth to her five children without breaking Ra’s decree that her children could not be born. on any existing calendar days.
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As the god of magic, Tehuti taught Auset the craft. tehuti helped auset when her lover ausar had been killed by her jealous brother set, allowing him to resurrect her dismembered husband and impregnate her, thus ensuring that she would have an heir . ausar then became lord of the underworld. it was tehuti who restored the queen mother auset’s head, when an enraged heru had decapitated her mother. After the final battle between Heru and Ausar for the throne of Ausar, it was Tehuti who asked Ausar as lord of the underworld to intervene in the final judgment of the Ennead (the eight founding gods) and rule in favor of Heru’s claim to the throne of kemet .
In the underworld, one of the functions of tehuti was to record the result of the deceased person who had entered the courtroom. anpu (anubis) would compare the weight of the dead person’s heart on the scales with the weight of the ma’at feather to see if they balanced each other. and it was Tehuti who declared that the deceased was “true of voice” or claimed if he was.
medu neter, the words of the gods
priests, members of the ruling classes, and scribes of ancient kemet were literate. the scribes (sesh) were known as followers of tehuti and held a unique and respected position due to their skills and the connection to the words of the gods that provided those skills.
The hieroglyphs were known as “medu neter”, which translates as “words of the gods”. when the temple priests performed services in the temples and read the temple texts, they were thought to be reading and speaking the magical and divine words of the gods themselves. the words were considered so sacred and so powerful that, as a precautionary measure, certain hieroglyphs were inscribed on two separate halves to lessen their power. words were considered very powerful and capable of wreaking havoc if activated by mistake. the priests performed magical rituals to activate the divine power contained in the texts.
thoth and the tarot
true, without falsehood, true and very true, what is above is the same as what is below, and what is below is the same as what is above, for the performance of miracles of a single thing. ~ the emerald tablets of thoth
thoth is known as hermes trismegistus or “thrice great”. Trismegistus’s title seems to have originated from the fact that the Lower Egyptians knew him as Thoth, the Greeks called him Hermes, and the Romans called him Mercury. The thrice great association is also related to the fact that there are three pyramids on the giza plateau and certain esoteric texts such as alchemy of the soul refer to three temples of knowledge.
according to the teachings of the flower of life, pharaoh akhenaten and his wife nefertitti were instrumental in trying to guide kemet to help unlock the key to humanity’s existence that lies in the web of the Egyptian mystery school said to have been founded by Tehuti himself.
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Like the Atlantean, Tehuti was said to be an Atlantean priest who left Atlantis before its destruction and moved to Kemet, where he founded a new civilization based on the superior knowledge of Atlantean society. as a priest, he had knowledge of the gift of immortality. It is said that he created the three pyramids at Giza to instruct initiates in the art of transforming the physical and spiritual body using the Merkabah, which is symbolized by the star tetrahedron that we see Tehuti holding in his palm.
Thoth’s magical association extends to his title of Hermes Trismegistos. Hermeticism (derived from European magical, astrological, and alchemical doctrines) depends on this association. As Hermes Trismegistos, Thoth became the legendary author of several treatises, including the Emerald Tablets and the Hermetic axiom “as above, so below.”
the roman version of ‘thoth’ was mercury. this god of thought was somewhat androgynous by nature. A symbol of magic and intelligence, Mercury was associated with the quicksilver, the element Mercury, and the closest planet to the Sun. mercury is one of the three principles of alchemy.
When you look at the variety and depth of mythology surrounding Tehuti and Thoth, it is no surprise that he is credited as the author of the Book of Thoth and the Emerald Tablets of Thoth. According to esoteric legend, the Book of Thoth was said to be the repository of the greatest Egyptian mysteries. this was said to be a book of magic that was so powerful that a single spell containing it would give the person who spoke it access to all knowledge beyond the knowledge learned in the book and the wisdom of thoth himself.
Pythagoras, an initiate of the mystery school, is said to have written that thoth took him by the hand, led him under the great pyramid and taught him about the sacred nature of geometry and the true nature of reality. there are certainly many people who claim to have had direct communication with thoth as a form of god, which leads us to the initial possibility that thoth is more of an interdimensional being than a myth.
Because many occultists believe that the tarot is an esoteric remnant of the book of thoth, the tarot as a system, regardless of the origin of the deck, is often given the generic name of the book of thoth. according to some, the tarot was intended as a tool that would guide the initiate on a journey of illumination and discovery that would lead to both inner and outer knowledge and wisdom that parallels the Greek understanding of the meaning of hieroglyphics.
the path of the magus card in the tree of life is 12, which goes from keter, the “primum mobile” or the first eddies, to binah or “understanding”. This emphasizes Thoth’s position as a conduit for the ruler’s will to be transmitted to humanity. the magician card represents the three in one thoth – hermes – mercury aspect of him as a deity.
source: http://www.the-book-of-thoth .com/content-192.html
tagged: africa, kemet, kmt, ntrw, sesh, tehuti, thoth
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