...good friend will hover around you if you acknowledge my effort, always being around you and guiding you. I believe that if you are satisfied with these samples I provide of this science, I will seek to give you even more light in these mysteries, initiating you ever more deeply into these secrets through new samples and new writings, leading you to higher knowledge.

Examine everything and search! The path on which you wander is not blissful, but the view you gain upon it is magnificent.

First Instruction in the Egyptian Art of Giving Oracles.

First Section.

The Book of Thoth the legendary book of ancient Egyptian wisdom, or what is the same, the book that deals with God, humanity, and nature, is summarized in 78 drawn hieroglyphic figures.

If you, O human, have fathomed these depths, if you have reached the innermost part of the sanctuary to lay these significant, speaking figures in order—just as the ancient sages understood how to arrange them according to their holy mystical language *) The ancient sages, especially those of the Orient and in Egypt, had a double language and a double way of writing;: then you have, fortunate one!

The marginal note explains that ancient wisdom was often hidden behind two levels of meaning, one for the public and one for the initiated.

climbed to the highest level of wisdom, upon which Tris Mercurius Athotis a name for Hermes Trismegistus, the mythical founder of alchemy and hermeticism once stood. Then you can cry out with the pious, virtuous Morien Morienus, a legendary hermit and alchemist, as he said to King Kalid Khalid ibn Yazid, an early patron of alchemy: "He who has everything needs nothing more."

O, you only true initiates of natural philosophy, who rightly do not admit that God can be reconciled or moved to pity through faith without works, or through prayer without labor! You who rightly do not believe that through foolish conjuring—which mocks human as well as divine reason—demons must be forced to expose the secrets of nature to man and reveal them to him: you, I say, come here, open this Book of Thoth, and see! It supports your faith, it confirms your principles.

Here you will find how the fanatic Illuminatus a member of a secret society or one claiming special enlightenment, falsely believing in himself, hopes in vain for the dis-

The Egyptians had two types of writing: one which they used in common life; another for recording their philosophy and natural wisdom, which consisted of hieroglyphic signs and figures. Translator's note.

-covery of secrets from the lips of the Most High. You will see how this science is only scattered about in the individual works of the universe, the attainment of which that fanatic always expects in vain from immediate divine enlightenment.

Yes, we must search and inquire after it in the individual parts of creation. We must not, as those careless, automatic people do, flatter ourselves that by a sudden miracle the Deity will place the key to the entrance of nature into our hands. This is what those unfortunate people believe, who are yet happy enough that they do not dare to climb toward God's wisdom themselves.

Here you will also learn from this sublime book how far the human understanding leads astray. You will see how many others, in contrast to those weak-minded ones, are struck by having enough baseness of soul to hope for a reward for their effort from hellish spirits—enemies of the Deity, enemies of man, and of all nature. They hope for a happiness which will only be granted to them as criminals who believe everything on good luck and commit everything carelessly.

O, friends! You who seek that holy hidden wisdom on the trails of nature, according to the will of God and the ever-active impulse in your breast—that wisdom which is planted by the Creator in the first seeds of all beings—do you distrust my hint when I call out to you: "Come, open the Book of Thoth, you will find!"? No, do not distrust me. My age, my experience, my untiring searching, and my very office of peering into the corners of the human heart, have allowed me to find your true education to know God, nature, and oneself. It is an education that you have never found or attained despite all your efforts.

Yes! Study in the divine Book of Thoth, in the book of God, humanity, and nature, which true sages among the first Egyptians recorded. These were sages who, not corrupted by the taste for petty arts or by restless, stormy passions, devoted all their time to recognizing this great Triad the Trinity or threefold nature: God, humanity, and nature. To us, this triad is still unknown, yet without its knowledge,

it is unavoidable to mix truth with error and error with truth.

But I already hear how you, always accustomed to being deceived by impostors, ask me distrustfully whom I provide as a guarantor of my integrity and as a guarantor of this well-intentioned advice? Hear then! It is Tris Megistus Hermes Trismegistus himself who gives this teaching and this advice to you. You cannot possibly reject him since he presents himself as your guarantor.

Open the Book of Thoth and among the thousand divine beauties, his prayer will shine toward you at the first glance on the first page:

God, I desire to get to know the
things that are around me, — —
I desire to understand what they
are — and to understand what
you yourself are.

The science of numbers is the main thing of all higher knowledge. It is very easy and simple to understand and realize it before all others. You need nothing but to direct your understanding toward morality in order to get to know and comprehend it; for morality and the science

of numbers are one and the same. Take, for example, the sentence: "The highest or the uppermost is equal to the lowest." With physical knowledge, the physical truths are proven: 2 + 2 = 4. God is 1.

From this truth, which the unjust or insane atheist wishes to turn into a nothing, into a zero, while the idolater wants to increase it to a larger number of deities—from this unity, I say, flows the first Triad group of three in relation to our Book of Thoth.

Namely: 1. The wise man, who looks into the future and prophetically reveals its secrets; 2. The seeker of knowledge, who strives to learn the fates of his life from the former; and 3. All people, all living and inanimate beings, who have a relationship to the chain of fates in the life of that seeker of knowledge who asks about the secrets of the future.

O, you questioning, noble seeker of knowledge, who rightly hopes to learn the fates of your life—but also you ignorant, careless one, who does not

arm yourself with caution and foresight against the blows of the future—do you not see, I must cry out here, all the infinite causes that camp around you for your happiness or misfortune? Yes, hear it! Only foresight, only foresight is what can turn away the fall of a tile from your head and protect your foot from the strike of a stone.

Certainly, there is a science of seeing beforehand. But it is also only a fruit of long years, of long experience, and deep, sharp understanding. There is a science of foretelling! But it is a science that can only be attained if one has fathomed all other human knowledge, for it supports itself upon these—excepting perhaps the science that teaches us to know a single true God. But now back to the thread of instruction!

1. Represents here the strong, sublime man; 2. Represents the weak, powerless man; and 3. Can represent and indicate both the strong and weak man. If it is the strong, the questioning seeker of knowledge can promise himself happy events; if it is

however the weak, the questioner has nothing but misfortune to fear.

As in the first blueprint of creation and the basic units of the entire number system, we now look for a Fourth here as well: and it is the Book of Thoth which immediately offers itself as the sought-after Fourth (4). This book, at the same time, when considered as a whole, as a single book, becomes the representation of Unity (1).

From this whole, from this unity of the Book of Thoth, there now flows a new Triad threefold set, which is certainly subordinate to the upper one (namely the strong man, the weak man, and the man who is sometimes strong and sometimes weak). Since the Unity (1) of the Book of Thoth, from which we want to derive that Triad, is only the type and representation of the divine unity: so also this Unity (1)—since the Book of Thoth contains the science of the entire universe within itself—is composed of 78 leaves. This composite, however, now gives us that Triad, as it gives opportunity to the wise revealer of the future and to the one who searches and asks him about it.

1. To mix the leaves; 2. Then to cut them; and 3. To lay the two parts or portions, which have arisen from the opening and cutting of the Book of Thoth, back upon each other and to unite them. Note here at the same time how the strong man *) The strong man is namely, as already explained above, the one who reveals the future from the leaves, from the Book of Thoth., by always bringing the book back to Unity (1), must resist the will of the weak man <em></em>) The weak man is the one who asks about the future and requests the former (the strong man) for the revelation., as the latter is always endeavoring to lay the book into the number 2—into two parts; but I will speak of that further below.

But who will now bring out the Quaternary the number four or the number 4? From what will this arise? you will ask. From the division of the book into three rows, I answer you, if you lay the entire book in three rows; and if you then, as you must do, always direct your attention to the middle row and use it.