Thoth is the god of magic and, unsurprisingly, writing. Hieroglyphs were created as both a tool and an expression of magic. Any utterance associated with Thoth was regarded as a magical spell, highlighting the deep connection between magic and words. Moreover, there is something unique about humans' ability to produce the complex sounds of speech.
Thoth is usually depicted with a human body and the head of the sacred ibis, his most popular avatar. He can also be depicted as an ape or baboon.
In the video, there is an opening rite that I call the Abydos arrangement, as well as the sevenfold rite that flows from this, which I refer to as the “sefkhet”. Sefkhet, meaning seven, most commonly personified as the goddess Seshat, the female scribe, the one with the seven-rayed headdress or crown. She is the daughter of Thoth and Maat and shares some of their features, holding the same long measuring stick with which she and Thoth keep a tally of space and time.
The Abydos arrangement
The ritual we use to open our rites is related to the cult of Thoth. This is because it was found in an old training manual for scribes, known now as Papyrus Salt. Thoth is the patron of all scribes in ancient Egypt. And more than that, the more rarified group of mystical adepts were drawn from the scribes. So here is a diagram from the papyrus, which shows the symbolic arrangement used in the school of scribes, called the House of Life.
At the top of the same inner square is Thoth, represented in his Ibis form. Top right is Horus. They are inside a building or enclosure, represented by the square with four doorways at each of the cardinal directions. Inside is a large oblong containing the image of Osiris, which we call the unknown god in the opening. Below this inner room are the hieroglyphs of Nephthys (bottom left in west) and Isis (Bottom right in the East. ) Above the inner square room is the hieroglyph of Nwt, the star goddess, and at the bottom the hieroglyph for Geb, the earth god, shown as a goose, his symbolic animal. In a variation on this called the Abydos arrangement, Seth is substituted for Thoth, but they are related by blood.
In ritual, the above opening is followed by the Sefkhet or sevenfold ritual applies the same pattern. So, perhaps one can see there is this connection with Thoth, in some of the very crucial rites of Egyptian magick.
The above rites hark back to the Pyramid Texts, especially the massive stone coffin from the Pyramid of Teti. So this is based on the primary ritual, the essence of all the others, all of which focus on magical reconstitution and re-manifestation.
The scribes who documented these texts were intellectuals affiliated with mystery cults. While mystery cults likely existed since ancient times, the most reliable records date from the Nubian or Kushite period. The House of Life served as both a physical space and an institution where individuals were initiated and trained in the art of writing as well as the intricacies of a secret magical cult.
You will remember that Aleister Crowley chose the term Book of Thoth for his Tarot deck. I’m not sure if he was the first to do this in the recent times. Please do watch episode 12 of the Podcast where I say something new about the origins of the modern tarot deck.) The Book of Thoth is mentioned many times in Egyptian sources, in stories and in the equivalent of our modern grimoires. In the 1960s, an actual copy was found and later translated. It has similarities to the Papyrus Salt already mentioned. But it also tells us many new details about the mystery cult of the scribes.
The first important thing we learn is that it has an alternative title for the House of Life is “The chamber of darkness”, which was a subterranean place of initiation, similar to several we have described before,
This book is a dialogue, mostly between a disciple “he who loves knowledge” and a Master, a senior adept personifying or taking on the form of Thoth or related deities. The god Thoth could also appearing to the disciples in some kind of trance.
Early on in the dialogue the disciple exclaims (Line 15) “ May I awaken in the Chamber of Darkness.” After that they are confronted by various doors or gatekeepers. This house then acts as a theatre of memory and initiation, as the candidate moves through it.
The master name is Heseret, which is an epithet of Thoth (He-of-Heseret), which is also the name of the necropolis near Hermopolis where the cult of Thoth and Seshat was celebrated. Seshat’s name means female scribe; she is Thoth's daughter by the goddess Maat. So the master is either Thoth himself or a priest assuming the role of Thoth as he asks the disciple a series of transformation questions, in a dialectic form. This explains the alternative title of the book as Conversations in the House of Life.
Imhotep was a scribe who became a god. Naturally, he has many features of Thoth, his patron. But he was also the archetypal magician, a human who became godlike through gnostic skill. Imhoptep was said to be the architect of the first pyramid, that of Djoser at Saqqara. He was what we call a polymath, with medical and technical knowledge. His image was widely worshipped in Egypt. Imhotep, because of his skills as a builder, also looks like Ptah, the divine architect.
So here is a prayer from the Book of Thoth, dedicated to the scribe Imhotep:
Hymn of Praise (verse 404)
I will praise god for you,
O foremost one of the temples of Ptah (Imhotep)
In the festival of Imhotep before Osiris -Nanneferhotep
I will cause your name to live beside the living soul (ba)
I will divinise your soul (ba) before the soul (ba) of his divine heart
A hotep di nesew offering to your ka before the altar
Worshipping of your name before the sacred images.
Come you, o one who lives as a craftsman of Thoth,
praised one of the heart of Re,
may he cause that you recite
I will praise god for you.
I will cause your name to be rejuvenated.
I will cause your soul (ba) to enter before my father.
I am with you as an heir,
like a son of the Vizier (land of fathers)
Your teaching will act as a nursemaid to me.
You have captured me through the raising of the hand of one who created me.
I have become an heir of your divine instructions.
After I have become a son, let them cause my anime to be established.
Let me enter among the nobles.
Let them place me upon the path of the divine souls,
the wise ones who are in the primaeval times.
I will exercise self-control as a wise one.
I will be like unto a statue,
And I will become one with the assistants