ancient city of Alexandria

   The Hermetica 

Wisdom of the Ibis

The ibis was a common shore-bird of the Nile, often seen on the murky strand between solid earth and flowing water. So it proved an apt symbol for Thoth, Egyptian god of liminality - the space between certainties. Thoth was also lord of writing and magic. It seemed natural, then, in the Greco-Egyptian cauldron of ideas that was old Alexandria, that Thoth would merge with the Greek Hermes, also a deity of trickery, messages and marvels. This fusion gave rise to the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. The Hermetic tomes laid out a path of esoteric remembrance and rebirth that has wound through the centuries to the present.