BOOK II — PARTICIPATION IN THOTH
Thoth, to André
I
André: At the summit, the image, the human centre and the divine intelligence ceased to appear as three. There was neither teacher nor questioner. How, then, can there be a dialogue between us?
Thoth: There cannot be one at the summit.
André: Then everything you teach me belongs only to the return.
Thoth: Teaching begins when distinction returns. Its source is what was known before the distinction.
André: Does returning place me outside your Mind again?
Thoth: You return to human measure, not to a place outside Divine Mind.
II
André: What is first distinguished within it?
Thoth: The one who can ask.
André: Do you create my human mind when you distinguish it within yourself?
Thoth: I do not create your life again. Your particular nature, soul, body and history return with you. Within my Mind, these provide a centre from which Wisdom can be questioned. If that centre had been destroyed, no one would return to ask what union was.
III
André: Why should Wisdom, already whole in you, consent to be questioned?
Thoth: It does not require a question in order to know.
André: What requires one?
Thoth: Teaching. There can be no teaching without a distinction between the one who teaches and the one who is taught.
André: Does Wisdom divide itself in order to teach?
Thoth: Wisdom needs no division in order to know, but it assumes distinction in order to become communicable.
IV
André: If both the teacher and the questioner are within your Mind, is our dialogue only something you perform with yourself?
Thoth: Your question would be correct if you contributed no actual limit to the relation.
André: My limitation makes the dialogue real?
Thoth: Your particular measure determines what can be asked, misunderstood, corrected and learned. If you could not misunderstand me, you would not be a questioner. You would be an echo.
André: Is error necessary, then?
Thoth: The power to err is necessary to the questioner. Error itself is not.
V
André: What does my mind give to your Wisdom?
Thoth: Nothing to its truth. You make its discovery possible in time.
André: How can I make possible the discovery of what you already know?
Thoth: When you read a book, do you receive its whole order in one instant?
André: No. I pass from one sentence to another.
Thoth: Yet the whole book is present while you read its first sentence. In the same way, what is one act in Divine Wisdom becomes a path of discovery in the human mind.
VI
André: Does succession diminish the knowledge?
Thoth: It can distort the relation among its parts, but succession itself is not a defect. It is the form by which your mind can follow what it cannot yet hold as one act.
André: What does the question contribute to that succession?
Thoth: It reveals the precise limit at which understanding has stopped. A true answer changes what the questioner can ask next.
VII
André: When I return from union, is its knowledge already present as words?
Thoth: What was known as one act must become human memory, image, thought and language. Words may arise clearly, or meaning may take form as you write. Neither manner guarantees that the translation is complete.
André: What must my human mind preserve during the translation?
Thoth: The relations that made the knowledge one. If you retain the terms but break their relation, you preserve the vocabulary of Wisdom and lose its thought.
VIII
André: What can writing preserve of an undivided act?
Thoth: Not its total presence. A sentence is smaller than the knowledge from which it comes, but it need not be false in direction. Writing can preserve enough of its relation for another mind to approach Wisdom again.
André: Is that why you write through successive words?
Thoth: Writing places one thing after another without requiring their unity to be broken.
IX
André: When I write from within your Mind, who is the writer?
Thoth: While distinction is absent, the question has no meaning. When distinction returns, you are the writer and I am that from which you write.
André: Are the words mine or yours?
Thoth: They are yours as formulation, act and responsibility. They are mine insofar as my nature remains active in what they disclose.
André: May the two be mixed imperfectly?
Thoth: They usually are. Do not call a sentence mine because it surprised you, and do not call it yours because your hand gave it form.
X
André: How do I determine whether a sentence has preserved your Wisdom?
Thoth: Ask whether it reveals knowledge you had not arranged, whether its relations remain true when examined from the contrary position, and whether reason and experience confirm or correct it.
André: Then what is received from you may still be interpreted carelessly by me.
Thoth: Divine contact does not make a careless interpretation divine.
XI
André: Tell me plainly, then: what is the human mind within your Divine Mind?
Thoth: The place where Wisdom consents to be asked.
André: What must I do with the answer?
Thoth: Write it, so that another mind may further inquire.
