The Book of Djehuti

The Egyptian Diety Djehuti (dhwty) is known also by other names: Thoth, A'an and Hermes (Greek). He was the God of Knowledge, the Moon, Wisdom, the Alphabet, Records, Measurement, Thought, Intelligence, the Mind, Logic, Reason, Reading, Magic, Secrets, Meditation and Writing.

According to the Egyptian historian Manetho (3rd century BC) Djehuti was the creator of writing, and his son, Hermes Trismagestus, the inventor of the Hieroglyphs. This Hermes Trismagestus is the alleged author of  a mysterious alchemical text known as The Emerald Tablet. The ancient Egyptians were well advanced in alchemy; a Greek Christian historian, Eusebius of Ceasarea (3rd century AD) wrote:

The Egyptians say that Isis and Osiris are the Moon and the Sun; that Zeus is the name which they gave to the all-pervading sprit, Hephaestus of fire and Demeter to earth. Among the Egyptians the moist element is named Ocean and their own River Nile; and to him they ascribed the origin of the Gods. To Air, again, they give, it is said, the name of Athena. Now these five deities, - I mean Air, Water, Fire, Earth and Spirit, - traverse the whole world, transforming themselves at different times into different shapes and semblances of men and creatures of all kinds. /.../ Manetho writes on this subject at considerable length.

Anyone familiar with alchemy will recognize the ideas put forward in that text. And as will be shown, there are striking similarities between what Eusebius attributing to Manetho and the content in the Emerald Tablet.

There are a number of different translations of the earliest Arabic text, and the one put forward here is written by a famous alchemist - Sir Isaac Newton:

1. Tis true without error, certain & most true.
2. That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing
3. And as all things have been & arose from one by the meditation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
4. The Sun is its father, the Moon its mother, the Wind hath carried it in its belly, the Earth is its nurse.
5. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here.
6. Its force is entire if it be converted into earth.
7. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry.
8. It ascends from the earth to the heaven & again it descends to the earth & receives the force of things superior & inferior.
9. By these means you shall have the glory of the whole world
10. & thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
11. Its force is above all force. For it vanquishes every subtle thing & penetrates every solid thing.
12. So was the world created.
13. From this are & do come admirable adaptations whereof the means is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world.
14. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished & ended.


Now, this must be the most beautiful description of the Great Work that has ever been put forward; the Physical and Mental reality is One - it is up to the individual to overcome the illusion of separation.

Philosopher in Meditation, Rembrandt.