concept
Knowledge
What can be known, taught, stolen, or paid for. Writing-gods, stolen cattle, and laboratory craft do not share one epistemology.
Also known as wisdom
Hermeticism
Knowledge appears in Hermeticism.
Hermetic treatises are framed as teaching. The knowledge they promise is a late antique literary knowledge, not Thoth’s scribal office in the Duat.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
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Key is associated with Knowledge.
Hermetic and later occult diction calls a teaching a key. That is a metaphor of access, not a physical lock at Hades’ gate.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
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Hermeticism is connected to Knowledge.
Hermeticism is a tradition of claimed teaching. Its page should walk to knowledge as the treatises frame it.
from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)
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Alchemy
Knowledge is connected to Alchemy.
Alchemy presents itself as a knowable craft. Hermeticism and alchemy share books and later readers; they are still not one laboratory.
from Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet), medieval Latin tradition (Arabic antecedents)
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Knowledge is connected to Writing.
Writing is one technology of keeping knowledge. Oral Ifá verse and a funerary spell-book are different keepings.
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Mirror is associated with Knowledge.
A mirror shows what is in front of it. Later moralists made that into self-knowledge; the moral is later than the object.
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Tarot is associated with Knowledge.
A reading presents itself as knowledge of a situation. The pictures are a European printed pack, not Thoth’s palette.
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Trickster is associated with Knowledge.
Trickster stories often steal or leak knowledge. The role explains a plot; it does not make every clever god the same being.
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Star is associated with Knowledge.
Sailors and herders have used stars as a clock and a road. The knowledge is practical orientation, not a revelation.
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Writing is associated with Knowledge.
Writing stores what someone wanted kept. It does not decide whether the kept thing is true.
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Book is associated with Knowledge.
A book claims to hold teaching. Hermetic treatises and a dream-handbook are both books; they are not one school.
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Medicine is associated with Knowledge.
A healing craft claims knowledge of what to do. Temple dream, herb, and later clinic disagree on the source of that knowledge.
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Lamp is associated with Knowledge.
A lamp is for seeing. Later writers made seeing into knowledge; the vessel is still a vessel of flame.
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Norse tradition
Knowledge is connected to Memory.
What cannot be remembered cannot be used as knowledge. Snorri’s worry about Muninn is one local picture of that risk.
from Snorri Sturluson · Gylfaginning, c. 1220
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Odin is associated with Knowledge.
Snorri’s Odin sends Huginn (“thought”) and Muninn (“memory”) to gather news. The knowledge is reconnaissance, not a modern idea of inner wisdom.
from Snorri Sturluson · Gylfaginning, c. 1220
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Rune is associated with Knowledge.
In Old Norse a rún can be a secret or a piece of advice as well as a letter. The double job is the language’s, not a later occult alphabet.
from Anonymous (Eddic poems); Carolyne Larrington (translation) · Poetic Edda, medieval Icelandic compilation; Larrington trans. 1996/2014
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Memory is connected to Knowledge.
What is remembered can be used as knowledge. Forgetting is the risk Snorri’s Odin names when he worries Muninn might not come back.
from Snorri Sturluson · Gylfaginning, c. 1220
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Well is associated with Knowledge.
Snorri’s Mímisbrunnr is a well of wisdom won at a cost. The knowledge is a Norse drink, not a Hermetic treatise.
from Snorri Sturluson · Gylfaginning, c. 1220
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Hellenic religion
Hermes is associated with Knowledge.
The hymn’s Hermes invents the lyre and bargains with Apollo. The knowledge is craft and speech, not Hermetic revelation.
from Anonymous (Homeric hymn) · Homeric Hymn to Hermes, c. 6th–5th century BCE
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Serpent is associated with Knowledge.
Pausanias describes Asklepieia where the god of healing was approached; the serpent is part of that cultic furniture. Healing here is Greek temple medicine, not a global serpent-essence.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Dream incubation is associated with Knowledge.
The useful dream at Epidaurus is knowledge for a cure. It is not the Pythia’s daytime speech at Delphi.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Oracle is associated with Knowledge.
An oracle claims to give knowledge on a god’s behalf. The claim is institutional, not a proof that the future is known.
from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE
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Labyrinth is associated with Knowledge.
The Cretan story is a problem that is solved by a thread. Knowledge here is a trick for getting out, not a Hermetic key.
from Ovid · Metamorphoses, 8 CE
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Initiation is associated with Knowledge.
A mystery claims to give a knowledge that is not for the uninitiated. The claim is institutional, not a proof of content.
from Anonymous (Homeric hymn) · Homeric Hymn to Demeter, c. 7th–6th century BCE
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Athena is associated with Knowledge.
Athena’s counsel is craft and civic intelligence in Greek sources. Later “goddess of wisdom” posters flatten that craft into a motto.
from Homer · Iliad, c. 8th–7th century BCE (this form); Anonymous (Homeric hymn) · Homeric Hymn to Athena, c. 7th–5th century BCE
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Egyptian religion
Thoth is associated with Knowledge.
In the Book of the Dead Thoth records and calculates. The knowledge is literacy and judgment in a funerary court, not Greek rhetoric.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Eye is associated with Knowledge.
The restored eye in Egyptian myth is a recovery of order and sight. Knowledge here is restored function, not Hermetic gnosis.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Isis is associated with Knowledge.
Isis is a speaker of effective words in Egyptian tradition. The knowledge is effective speech, not Hermetic gnosis.
from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972
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Nahua tradition
Quetzalcoatl is associated with Knowledge.
Sahagún’s materials attach priesthood, calendar knowledge, and a civilizing legend to Quetzalcoatl. That is a colonial-era compilation of Nahua memory, not a Greek Hermes.
from Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators · Florentine Codex, c. 1577
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Astrology
Planet Mercury is associated with Knowledge.
Later astrological handbooks give Mercury a share in speech and craft. That is a planetary job-description, not Thoth’s palette in the Duat.
from Claudius Ptolemy · Tetrabiblos, c. 150 CE
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Celtic tradition
Celtic tradition is connected to Knowledge.
The Mabinogion is a medieval Welsh prose of otherworld, raid, and recognition. It is literature, not a field recording of a pagan church.
from Anonymous (Welsh prose); Sioned Davies (translation) · The Mabinogion, medieval Welsh manuscripts; Davies trans. 2007
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Vedic tradition
Zero is associated with Knowledge.
Indian mathematics treats śūnya as a numeral and a place in positional notation. That is a history of calculation, not a Theosophical emptiness.
from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009
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Twentieth century
Owl is associated with Knowledge.
Modern stationery and school emblems make the owl “wise.” That is a later motto, largely via Athena, not a bird’s diet.
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Roman religion
Minerva is associated with Knowledge.
Minerva’s brief includes crafts and counsel in Roman framing. Not automatically Athena’s owl.
from Ovid · Metamorphoses, 8 CE
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sources
- Corpus Hermeticum · Brian P. Copenhaver (translation)
Brian P. Copenhaver, Hermetica (Corpus Hermeticum).
- Tabula Smaragdina (Emerald Tablet)
Tabula Smaragdina, medieval Latin Emerald Tablet.
- Gylfaginning · Snorri Sturluson
Snorri Sturluson, Gylfaginning, in the Prose Edda.
- Homeric Hymn to Hermes · Anonymous (Homeric hymn)
Homeric Hymn 4, to Hermes.
- Book of the Dead · Raymond O. Faulkner (translation)
Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead.
- Florentine Codex · Bernardino de Sahagún and Nahua collaborators
Bernardino de Sahagún, General History of the Things of New Spain (Florentine Codex).
- Description of Greece · Pausanias
Pausanias, Description of Greece.
- Metamorphoses · Ovid
Ovid, Metamorphoses.
- Tetrabiblos · Claudius Ptolemy
Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos.
- Poetic Edda · Anonymous (Eddic poems); Carolyne Larrington (translation)
The Poetic Edda, trans. Carolyne Larrington.
- Homeric Hymn to Demeter · Anonymous (Homeric hymn)
Homeric Hymn 2, to Demeter.
- The Mabinogion · Anonymous (Welsh prose); Sioned Davies (translation)
The Mabinogion, trans. Sioned Davies.
- Mathematics in India · Kim Plofker
Kim Plofker, Mathematics in India.
- Iliad · Homer
Homer, Iliad.
- Homeric Hymn to Athena · Anonymous (Homeric hymn)
Homeric Hymn 28, to Athena.