Is among others that of an enormous serpent standing on human legs; this reptile, the emblem of the Good Genius, is a veritable Agathodæmon. It is often represented bearded.... This sacred animal, identical with the serpent of the Ophites, is found engraved on numerous Gnostic or Basilidean stones.... The serpent has various heads, but is constantly inscribed with the letters ΧΝΟΥΒΙΣ.(474) Agathodæmon was endowed “with the knowledge of good and evil,” _i.e._, with Divine Wisdom, for without the latter the former is impossible.(475) Repeating Jamblichus, Champollion shows him to be: The deity called Εἰχτῶν [or the Fire of the Celestial Gods—the Great Thot‐Hermes],(476) to whom Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention of magic.(477) The “invention of magic”! A strange term to use, as though the unveiling of the eternal and actual mysteries of Nature could be _invented_! As well attribute, millenniums hence, the _invention_ instead of the discovery of radiant matter to Mr. Crookes. Hermes was not the inventor, or even the discoverer, for, as said in the last footnote but one, Thot‐Hermes is a generic name, as is Enoch—Enoïchion, the “inner, spiritual eye”—Nebo, the prophet and seer, etc. It is not the proper name of any one living man, but a generic title of many Adepts. Their connection with the serpent in symbolic allegories is due to their enlightenment by the Solar and Planetary Gods during the earliest intellectual Race, the Third. They are all the representative patrons of the Secret Wisdom. Asclepios is the son of the Sun‐God Apollo, and he is Mercury; Nebo is the son of Bel‐Merodach; Vaivasvata Manu, the great Rishi, is the son of Vivasvat—the Sun or Sûrya, etc. And while, astronomically, the Nâgas along with the Rishis, the Gandharvas, Apsarases, Grâmanîs (or Yakshas, minor Gods), Yâtudhânas and Devas, are the Sun’s attendants throughout the twelve solar months; in theogony, and also in anthropological evolution, they are Gods and Men—when incarnated in the _Nether_ World. Let the reader be reminded, in this connection, of the fact that Apollonius met in Kashmir Buddhist Nâgas. These are neither serpents zoologically, nor yet the Nâgas ethnologically, but “wise men.”