But among these great Masters of Ancient Egypt there once dwelt one of whom Masters hailed as “The Master of Masters.”  This man, if “man” indeed he was, dwelt in Egypt in the earliest days.  He was known as Hermes Trismegistus.  He was the father of the Occult Wisdom; the founder of Astrology; the discoverer of Alchemy.  The details of his life story are lost to history, owing to the lapse of the years, though several of the ancient countries disputed with each other in their claims to the honor of having furnished his birthplace—­and this thousands of years ago.  The date of his sojourn in Egypt, in that his last incarnation on this planet, is not now known, but it has been fixed at the early days of the oldest dynasties of Egypt—­long before the days of Moses.  The best authorities regard him as a contemporary of Abraham, and some of the Jewish traditions go so far as to claim that Abraham acquired a portion of his mystic knowledge from Hermes himself.

As the years rolled by after his passing from this plane of life (tradition recording that he lived three hundred years in the flesh), the Egyptians deified Hermes, and made him one of their gods, under the name of Thoth.  Years after, the people of Ancient Greece also made him one of their many gods—­calling him “Hermes, the god of Wisdom.”  The Egyptians revered his memory for many centuries-yes, tens of centuries—­ calling him “the Scribe of the Gods,” and bestowing upon him, distinctively, his ancient title, “Trismegistus,” which means “the thrice-great”; “the great-great”; “the greatest-great”; etc.  In all the ancient lands, the name of Hermes Trismegistus was revered, the name being synonymous with the “Fount of Wisdom.”

Even to this day, we use the term “hermetic” in the sense of “secret”; “sealed so that nothing can escape”; etc., and this by reason of the fact that the followers of Hermes always observed the principle of secrecy in their teachings.  They did not believe in “casting pearls before swine,” but rather held to the teaching “milk for babes”; “meat for strong men,” both of which maxims are familiar to readers of the Christian scriptures, but both of which had been used by the Egyptians for centuries before the Christian era.

And this policy of careful dissemination of the truth has always characterized the Hermetics, even unto the present day.  The Hermetic Teachings are to be found in all lands, among all religions, but never identified with any particular country, nor with any particular religious sect.  This because of the warning of the ancient teachers against allowing the Secret Doctrine to become crystallized into a creed.  The wisdom of this caution is apparent to all students of history.  The ancient occultism of India and Persia degenerated, and was largely lost, owing to the fact that the teachers became priests, and so mixed theology with the philosophy, the result being that the occultism of India and Persia has been gradually