Writing

Egyptian religion

• Writing is sacred to Thoth.

  Egyptian tradition treats Thoth as the scribe of the gods. Writing here is a funerary and temple literacy, not the Hermetic treatise’s boast.

  from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972

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• Writing appears in Egyptian religion.

  Egyptian funerary religion is a literate technology of spells. Writing is the craft of that below, not a later occult alphabet.

  from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972

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• Thoth is used in Writing.

  Thoth’s office is literacy. Visiting Thoth should reach writing as an Egyptian craft, not only “knowledge” as a blur.

  from Raymond O. Faulkner (translation) · Book of the Dead, New Kingdom spells; Faulkner trans. 1972

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• Writing is connected to Book.

  A book is writing that can be carried. The spells of the dead are one such carrying; a printed tarot booklet is another, later job.

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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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• 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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Hermeticism

• Writing is associated with Hermes.

  The Homeric hymn’s Hermes invents a lyre and bargains in speech. Later Hermetic books make him a teacher of written secrets; those are two Hermeses.

  from Brian P. Copenhaver (translation) · Corpus Hermeticum, c. 2nd–3rd century CE (Greek treatises)

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Norse tradition

• Writing contains Rune.

  Runes are one historical script. They are letters before they are later occult tokens.

  from Anonymous (Eddic poems); Carolyne Larrington (translation) · Poetic Edda, medieval Icelandic compilation; Larrington trans. 1996/2014

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Vedic tradition

• Zero is associated with Writing.

  A numeral is a written mark. Plofker’s history is about Indian mathematics, not an occult alphabet of the void.

  from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009

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Eighteenth-century Europe

• Cipher is historically related to Writing.

  The later English sense of cipher as secret writing is a word’s career, not zero’s mathematical job.

  from Kim Plofker · Mathematics in India, 2009

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Islam

• Qur’an is associated with Writing.

  The Qur’an is recited and written. Scripture as speech-mark, not a Hermetic tablet.

  from M.A.S. Abdel Haleem (translation) · The Qur’an, 2004 (this translation); Arabic text 7th century CE

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Shinto

• Kojiki is associated with Writing.

  The Kojiki presents itself as a written record of recitations. An eighth-century compilation, not a parish oral-only file.

  from Ō no Yasumaro (compiler); Donald L. Philippi (translation) · Kojiki, 712 CE; Philippi trans. 1968

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Egyptian religion · Nile valley

• Ibis is associated with Writing.

  Thoth’s ibis is tied to writing in Egyptian grammar. The bird does not write; the god of the sign does.

  from Plutarch · On Isis and Osiris, c. 100 CE

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