Egyptian Thoth: The Original Hermes Who created the tablet and the 42 books of the Hermetica that includes alchemy, astrology, philosophy, geography, medicine, theology, and music texts? A deeper look into legend reveals that Thoth, an ancient figure straddling the realms of humans and gods, was the author of the Emerald Tablet and accompanying texts. Because of cultural cross-pollination between Greece and Egypt, Thoth was adopted by the Greeks as the god Hermes. In Jewish, Christian and Islamic traditions, Thoth is thought to be Seth, the younger brother to Adam and Eve’s older sons Cain and Abel. Gnostic traditions hold that Seth/Thoth is the earliest ancestor of Noah, Moses, Abraham, Enoch, and Jesus. Seth/Thoth also inspired one of the earliest Gnostic cults, the Sethians, who heavily influenced modern Christian tradition and beliefs. Some scholars assert that the Torah is the “Lost Book of Thoth.” Hauck tells us that “Thoth is impossible to categorize because he transcends definitions of gods and men.” At the Egyptian Temple of Seti, dated 1300 B.C.E., is an image of Thoth with the head of an ibis and an early caduceus, now a symbol of medicine. “The Book of Breathings,” said to be one of his scrolls, is an instruction on how to develop consciousness to survive beyond death — the immortality sought by alchemists through history. From: Emerald Tablet 101: The Birth of Alchemy (3/3/2020 by Gaia Staff)