The magic papyri themselves are important in that their invocations illustrate a striking resemblance: the Thothian method of using curative gnosis to heal and enlighten the body and heart was used by Hermes in the same capacity, namely to imbue life and banish Chaos. In one scroll, for example, Hermes is the �almighty one, who breathest spirit into men to give them life, whose name is hidden, and beyond the power of men to speak� (58). As such, Hermes could either literally breathe life back into the dead or imbue a living penitent with divine spirit or knowledge (gnosis), for he is the �lord of life� and �givest me good health� (59).

To further illustrate this esoterically curative aspect of Hermes, a popular myth of the later Hellenic period begins with Hermes being sent by �God,� or Zeus, to go to the

lower world of mortals and spread gnosis while simultaneously �abolishing agnosis,� or voluntary ignorance (Mead 78). Hermes� role among the mortals, then, is not only to enlighten them with divine wisdom, but to maintain an esoteric Order by banishing Chaos from the minds of people by imbuing in them an internalized Logos.

Thus, Hermes, like Thoth, was regarded as the �Mind,� or Logos, a �guide to souls� who through �Spiritual or Intelligible Light shines forth in the world and man� directly through man�s �mind and heart� (Mead 63). Through this intertwining of spiritual and bodily purification as a means of placing gnosis and Logos within the individual, adherents of Thoth and Hermes began to recognize how incredibly similar these two gods were around the mid 3rd century B.C.E. (Mead 35).

To emphasize this similarity, these gods were seen as �Lords of Rebirth� in addition to their roles as curative agents of the mind (or heart) and body, who guided their worshippers along a spiritual journey of ascension wherein, through the progressive imbuement of gnosis, they were spiritually reborn as pure beings (Mead 35). This spiritual progression is typified by the Three Egyptian Mysteries, which allowed one to consciously trascend the mortal world and achieve unity with the divine. The Three Egyptian Mysteries categorized living men into three progressively higher groups: Mortals, who were instructed in divine doctrine, but had no inner vision; Intelligences, who had seen Wisdom and become �true men� who had �received the Mind;� and finally Beings (or Sons) of Light � those who had become one with the light and had reached a state of �nirvanic� consciousness (Mead 35). Becoming imbued with gnosis through a spiritual journey thus became a keystone in the later Trismegistus literature.

Yet, these curative methods of imbuing followers with Logos and knowledge were not the only way Hermes and Thoth passed on their gnosis, as one could traverse into numinous locations, such as caves or mountains, to receive hidden revelations from them through secret books of ancient origin. As related by the Book of Crates, an early 6th century Arabic text, there was a common Egyptian and Graeco-Roman myth regarding the emerging figure of Thoth-Hermes and the discovery of tablets containing �thesophical, astrological, or alchemical revelations� that had been written by him (Faivre 89).

These revelations were often associated with ancient books or steles uncovered by �fortuitous discovery,� usually within underground caves or upon/within mountains (Faivre 89). While the revelation could also be one achieved �in the course of a dream or ecstatic state,� the motif of the seeker uncovering an ancient book, �hidden like a treasure,� was more common (Faivre 89).

The locations of these more common revelations further stress this motif of hidden knowledge being revealed to the seeker by an ancient, infallible source. Caves, as well as mountains, were regarded as recesses of numina that were removed from the human world (Religion 102 notes, 4-19). In the Graeco-Roman underworld, for example, the natural human order was subsumed by the foreign order of Hades, which often allowed one to uncover hidden knowledge from one of the dead at a price.

In revealed knowledge myths attributed to Thoth and later to Thoth-Hermes, or Hermes Trismegistus, this other-worldly location is often a tomb, sometimes the tomb of the god himself. In one account detailed in the Book of Crates, a high priest delves into a forgotten tomb and eventually sees the:

�ancient one, the most comely of men, seated at a lectern; he was cloothed with white raiment and held in his hand a board of the lectern, on which was placed a book�when I asked who this ancient one as, I was told: �He is Hermes Trismegistus, and the book that is before him is one of those that contains the explanation of secrets that he has hidden from men� (Faivre 89).

The seeker is then allowed to read the book after reading a prepatory scroll inscribed with geometric and astrological diagrams and subsequently grasps their �secret qualities� and properties (Faivre 89). These concepts of initating one into the mystery to receive gnosis, hidden knowledge found through an ancient, infallible source, and journeying to a numinous and forgotten place to receive revelation and move along a path of spiritual ascension are all key aspects of these and successive western mystic traditions, such as Gnosticism, Sufism, and Hermeticism.

Given this degree of religious similarity and inevitable exchange between Greece and Egypt in the Hellenic period, then, Hermes� power and origins were added upon and changed, such that an adherent would proclaim �I know thee, Hermes�I know thy names in the Egyptian tongue, and thy true name as it is written on the holy tablet in the holy place at Hermes� city (Hermopolis in Egypt), where thou dost have thy birth� (Mead 60).

As the figure of Thoth had become enmeshed with Hermes, the Greek god became egyptianized. The Hellenized Hermes was now of an Egyptian origin and, aside from the power of his Greek influence, also possessed the powers and obligations of Thoth through the use of Thoth�s divine names and titles (Mead 60). This �more intimate contact of Greek thought and philosophy with Egyptian lore and mystic tradition began immediately with the brilliant era of the Lagides,� which roughly approximates the

Middle Ptolemaic period (roughly late 4th century B.C.E. to the middle of the 3rd century B.C.E.) (Mead 60).

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