• Thoth (unknown)
__________________________________________________Thoth is an unusual god. Though some stories place him as a son of Ra, others say that Thoth created himself through the power of language. He is the creator of magic, the inventor of writing, teacher of man, the messenger of the gods (and thus identified by the Greeks with Hermes) and the divine record-keeper and mediator.
Thoth's role as mediator is well-documented. It is he who questions the souls of the dead about their deeds in life before their heart is weighed against the feather of Maat. He was even sent by Ra to speak with Tefnut and ask her to return when she abdicated her position and went to Nubia. He is also the great counselor and the other gods frequently went to him for advice.
Thoth is considered a lunar deity and is often depicted wearing the lunar crescent on his head. There is a story told of how Thoth won a portion of Khonsu's light, and this may be the reason. As a lunar deity his totem animal is the baboon, a nocturnal animal that goes to sleep only after greeting the new day. - source
• Trevisan, Bernard or Bernard of Treves (c. 1406 - 1490)
He was born into a noble family in Padua and spent his entire life spending his family fortune in search of the Philosopher's stone. He began his career as an alchemist at the age of fourteen. He had his family's permission, as they also desired to increase their wealth. He first worked with a monk of Citeaux named Gotfridus Leurier. They attempted for eight years to the fashion the Philosopher's stone out of hen eggshells and egg yolk purified in horse manure.
He then worked with minerals and natural salts using distillation and crystallization methods borrowed from Geber and Rhazes. When these failed he turned to vegetable and animal material, finally using human blood and urine. He gradually sold his wealth to buy secrets and hints towards the stone, most often from swindlers. He traveled all over the known world, including the Baltics, Germany, Spain, France, Vienna, Egypt, Palestine, Persia, Greece, Turkey, and Cyprus, to find hints left by past alchemists. His health had been deteriorating, most likely from the fumes he had created with his alchemy. He retired to the Island of Rhodes, still working on the Philosopher's stone until his death in 1490.
In the sixteenth century alchemical works were attributed to Bernard. For example, Trevisanus de Chymico miraculo, quod lapidem philosophiae appellant was edited in 1583 by Gerard Dorn. - sourceFree on-line text: Parable of the Fountain__________________________________________________
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• Trismegistus, Hermes (unknown)
__________________________________________________The alleged teacher the magical system known as Hermetism of which high magic and alchemy are thought to be twin branches. The name Trismegistus means thrice greatest Hermes, and is the title given by the Greeks to the Egyptian god Thoth or Tehuti, a lord of wisdom and learning.
At one time the Greeks thought two gods inseparable. Thoth governed over mystical wisdom, magic, writing and other disciplines and was associated with healing, while Hermes was the personification of universal wisdom and the patron of magic.
The myths go further. Both gods are associated with sacred writings. As scribe for the gods, Thoth was credited with all the sacred books. In various Egyptian writings he is called twice very great and five times very great. Hermes is credited with writing 20,000 books by Iamblichus (ca. 250-300 BC), a Neo-platonic Syrian philosopher, and over 36,000 books by Manetho (ca. 300 BC), an Egyptian priest who wrote the history of Egypt in Greek, perhaps for Ptolemy I.
The combined myths of these gods report that both Thoth and Hermes revealed to humankind the healing arts, magic, writing, astrology, science, and philosophy. Thoth wrote the record of the weighing of the souls in the Judgment Hall of Osiris. Hermes led the souls of the dead to Hades.
According to legend Hermes Trismegistus is said to have provided the wisdom of light in the ancient mysteries of Egypt. "He carried an emerald, upon which was recorded all of philosophy, and the caduceus, the symbol of mystical illumination. Hermes Trismegistus vanquished Typhon, the dragon of ignorance, and mental, moral and physical perversion."
Surviving Hermes Trismegistus is the wisdom of the Hermetica, 42 books that have profoundly influenced the development of Western occultism and magic. - source
• Trithemius, Johannes (1462 - 1516)
Johannes Trithemius was born on February 1, 1462. His Latin name, Trithemius, derives from Trittenheim, his city' of birth. He broke with his family to pursue a scholarly life and studied at Heidelburg. Having taken refuge in the Benedictine abbey of Sponheim during a snowstorm he resolved to stay and at the age of 21 became its abbot. As Abbot of Sponheim, Trithemius studied, wrote and amassed a large library. In 1506 Trithemius left Sponheim and became the Abbot of the Monastery of St. Jacob in Wurzburg. He died in 1516.
Trithemius is an excellent example of the Renaissance fusion of Christianity, Hermetic Philosophy and its attendant sciences of magic, astrology and alchemy and Cabbala. His magical system depends on the sympathy and harmony between the three worlds of the material, celestial and angelic/Ideal.
Trithemius says, "The word magic is the Persian term for what in Latin is called wisdom, on which account magicians are called wise men, just as were those three wise men who, according to the Gospel, journeyed from the East to adore, in his crib, the infant who was the Son of God in the flesh."
Trithemius' work had considerable influence on later Renaissance writings on magic, particularly on Cornelius Agrippa. - sourceFree on-line text: Solved: The Ciphers in Book III of Trithemius's Steganographia__________________________________________________
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