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CIVILIZATION AND RELIGION OF EGYPT - THEOSOPHY

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Bianca
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« Reply #15 on: February 11, 2008, 08:28:51 am »









Never was time when the germs of things were not, but there were cycles when they had
slept for ages upon ages in the bosom of Nu --

"Nu, of the dark waters."

Nu was the incomprehensible source of all things -- Chaos or Space. In a Hymn to Hapi,
the Nile-god, whose origin was traced back to Nu, the latter is set forth as being that


"which cannot be sculptured in stone ... It cannot be seen. Service cannot be rendered to It.
Gifts cannot be presented to It. It is not to be approached in the sanctuaries. Where it is, is
not known. No habitation can contain It."


Within Nu was the One ever-concealed, Mon (Monad?) or Amen -- the origin undoubtedly of
our word "Amen," which is not "Verily" as the translators would have it, but rather an affirmat-
ion of the omnipresent One Life or Deity.

In the Book of the Dead,


"Chaos ceases, through the effulgence of the Ray of Primordial light dissipating total dark-
ness by the help of the great magic power of the WORD of the (Central) Sun."


Chaos becomes Father-Mother, the "dark waters" incubated through Light, in other words
Spirit acting in matter.



(Secret Doctrine, I, 231).
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« Reply #16 on: February 11, 2008, 08:32:06 am »








All action, even of the highest Deity, is necessarily a limitation, a circumscribing or drawing
around of some portion of the eternal spirit-substance for the purpose of manifestation.

What is this "drawing around" but a circle or egg, the primal form of all things from atoms to
universes?

Mathematically expressed, this egg is the nought (zero) which contains the potentiality of
all forms. In this "egg" the One becomes the Dual Force, the secondary aspect of the One,
or Amen-Ra, the generator.

All the Egyptians' gods become dual -- positive and negative "forces" necessary both for the
maintenance of equilibrium and the production of life.

Hence Amen-Ra was Neith (or Nuit, the feminine of Nu considered in its positive aspect) in
his other half.

He was the Spiritual Sun, the "Sun of Righteousness," whose son is the Sun. For "When the
One becomes two, the three-fold appears."

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« Reply #17 on: February 11, 2008, 08:35:48 am »








Nu in late times, says Budge, was regarded as "Father of the Gods."


"A something in the water, which formed an essential part of it, felt the desire to create."


Let us connote here that


"Desire first arose in IT, which was the primal germ of mind."

"Having imagined in itself the forms of the beings and things that it intended to create, it
became operative, and the first creature produced was the god Tem or Khepera, who was
the personification of the creative power in the primeval water. .... Tem fashioned the form
of everything in his mind and made known his desire to create to his heart, which was perso-
nified as Thoth.

This god received the creative impulse and invented in his mind a name for the object that
was to be created, and when he uttered the name, the object came into being."(1)
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« Reply #18 on: February 11, 2008, 08:38:18 am »









Now Tem (Tum or Toum) is the Fohat of the Secret Doctrine. Fohat is said to be


"....that potential creative power in virtue of whose action the NOUMENON of all future
phenomena divides, so to speak, but to reunite in a mystic supersensuous act, and emit
the creative ray.

When the 'Divine Son' breaks forth, then Fohat becomes the propelling force, the active
Power which causes the ONE to become TWO and THREE -- on the Cosmic plane of mani-
festation." (S.D., I, 109).


So we find that Tem emanates from his own body Shu and Tefnut, the two Lion-gods, the
three forming the first triad, Tem saying:


"From [being] god one, I became three."

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« Reply #19 on: February 11, 2008, 08:42:30 am »








So fundamental was this trinitarian concept in the Egyptian teaching, that there is an
almost endless number of triads, each district and city having its special triad.

While not all consist of Father-Mother-Son, this combination was the most common and
the origin of the Christian Holy Family.

In fact, three aspects are essential in every act of creation or thought. For example, let
us try to recollect something we have forgotten -- arouse the sleeping "germs" of thought,
which is analogous to the "desire" present before the evolution of a world.

The former ideas, memories, or forms are "asleep" in the empty egg of the mind, but by
brooding over them, by trying to bring them back to mind, we move upon the "dark waters"
within until, finally in a flash, the latent forms wake up, and then we see what before was
not in manifestation.

Yet, even in this simple illustration is much of mystery.

If we could observe the entire process with our physical eyes, if it could be demonstrated
to us as creative processes were demonstrated in the Mysteries, we would comprehend far
better than if we were told.

However, these mysteries never were told.

Hence all these personifications were for the easier comprehension of people, who knowing
the relations between persons, could by analogy apply similar relations and correlations to
"powers" and elements.

It is for us to revitalize these ancient 'dramatis personae' and recognize in them not merely
personifications employed ages ago in Egypt, but as living forces in ourselves.
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« Reply #20 on: February 11, 2008, 08:48:25 am »








The triad which the French Egyptologist Champollion said was the starting-point of Egypt-
ian mythology included Kneph, Neith and Ptah.

Herodotus said that Menes erected a temple to Ptah in Memphis. Kneph, called


"the Eternal Unrevealed,"


was nevertheless represented by a snake, emblem of eternity, encircling a water-urn, his head
containing the "Concealed Breath" hovering over the water. This again is the "water" of Nu, the
prototype of that element which is essential to the germination and growth of all living things.

Neith was the Virgin-Mother,


"anterior to all the gods, without form or sex, who gave birth to
itself and without fecundation."


An ancient stele declares her to be Neut,


"the luminous, who has engendered the gods."


For the primordial substance is luminous -- the garment of light covering the darkness.
So Neith of Sais was a weaver and made the universe of warp and woof as a mother
weaves her children's garments. In the Stanzas of Dzyan,


"Father-Mother spin a web whose upper end is fastened to Spirit, the light of the one
Darkness, and the lower one to Matter ...; and this web is the Universe spun out of the
two substances made in one, which is Swabhavat." (S.D., I, 83).

And we, too, having the same power to think and act, weave the web of our own world
which often becomes an inscrutable net of fate instead of a vesture of light. Being connect-
ed with water, Neith was found on the prow of Egyptian vessels. Another form of her name
is Naus (Latin navis, boat), hence the boat became a symbol of the container or vehicle of
the sun.

Neith is found in the oldest period at Abydos, to which Mariette Bey assigns the date of
7000 B.C. Neith and Isis are interchangeable and we may find a hint as to the mission of
Madame Blavatsky in the title of her first great work, "Isis Un-veiled," by referring to the
famous inscription in the temple of Neith at Sais:


"I am all that has been, and is, and shall be, and my peplum no mortal has withdrawn."


Although a rent in the veil that conceals the arcane truths of the ancient Wisdom-Religion
was made, mortal eyes are so blinded by false ideas, prejudice and selfishness, that they
cannot see through it nor accept the ideas presented.
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« Reply #21 on: February 11, 2008, 08:51:42 am »









Ptah, the product of spirit and matter, was called the Wisdom of the First Intellect, the
manifested Mahat or Universal Mind.

In another aspect he, too, is Swabhavat, as indicated by a passage in the Book of the
Dead where homage is paid to him in these words:


"Thou art without father, being engendered by thy Will, Thou art without mother, being
born by the renewal of thine own substance from whom proceeds substance."


He is usually represented as making men on a potter's wheel, for he was the


"generator of all men produced from his substance."


He was also called "the Blacksmith God of Thebes," identified by the Greeks with Vulcan.

He, together with Khnoum or Khnemu (who is sometimes substituted for Kneph), carried out
the commands of Thot concerning the creation of the universe, Ptah's special task being the
creation of the eggs of the sun and the moon.


Ptah, or Osiris-Ptah, is Ra, the manifested sun, or more properly its Regent.
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« Reply #22 on: February 11, 2008, 08:54:33 am »








From earliest times the great cosmopolitan center of Anu (or Annu) the On of the Bible
and the Heliopolis of the Greeks -- the City of the Sun -- was the seat of the worship
of Tem.

Another form of the solar-god, according to Budge, was worshipped in Lower Egypt,
known as Ra, whose name does not seem to be Egyptian and whose origin is unknown --
it may be Asiatic. (!!)

In Anu was the famous Well of the Sun, from which tradition declares that the Virgin
Mary drew water when the Holy Family halted in the city. Fortunately for the story this
well had its source in the inexhaustible waters of Nu, otherwise it might have dried up
during the thirty odd centuries before the Christian era and we might have considered it
a well of wisdom of which the youthful Jesus partook.

This well was the property of the priests of Ra, who became so rich and powerful from
the tribute received from grateful travellers for the watering of their beasts, that they
were able by the VIth dynasty to elevate Ra to the position of over-lord of all the other
gods and from that time Tem, Khepera, Horus became Ra-Tem, Ra-Khepera, Ra-Herakhuti
(Horus of the two horizons) and so on.

Maspero claims that the complex beings (?) resulting from these combinations never
attained to any pronounced individuality, the distinctions referring merely to details of
their functions and attributes.
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« Reply #23 on: February 11, 2008, 08:57:18 am »









During the many centuries of Egyptian history many teachers must have come from time
to time, their presentations of the Wisdom-Religion differing according to the period, the
need and the nature of the Egos whom they taught.

That the Heliopolitan system was distinct from that of Amen at Thebes, that the priests
of Hermopolis held to their particular form of doctrine, and those of Osiris to theirs, and
that all as cults differed from one another and from Atenism is evident; nevertheless Ptah
of Memphis, Ra of Heliopolis, Amen of Thebes, and Osiris of Abydos, in certain of their
aspects -- and in all when considered as septenary, and esoterically understood -- are
one and the same.

Consequently wherever their fusion occurs it apparently was an attempt at unity of systems
tending toward unity of thought and understanding among a cosmopolitan people rather
than an effort to establish monotheism, as many Christian scholars would fein prove.
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« Reply #24 on: February 11, 2008, 08:59:37 am »








Maspero says that the sun appearing before the world was called Tumu (Tem) or Atum,
while our earthly sun was Khepera.

The similarity between the word "Atum" and "Atma," the Spirit, is too striking to require
comment.

Atum, according to this author, was also the prototype of man, (Coptic TME, man) becom-
ing a perfect "Tum" after his resurrection; that is, Perfected Man.

There were several traditions as to how Atum became Ra, but according to the most generally
accepted, Atum had suddenly cried across the water,


"Come unto me"!


and immediately the mysterious lotus had unfolded its petals, and Ra appeared at the edge
of its open cup as a disk, a new-born child, or a disk-crowned sparrow-hawk.



The Egyptians called the first day of the year, Come-unto-me.

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« Reply #25 on: February 11, 2008, 09:07:21 am »









In Chapter XVII of the Book of the Dead, the opening passage reads:


"I am Tem in rising. I am the only One. I came into being in Nu. I am Ra who rose in the
beginning... The pillars of Shu were not as yet created. It is Ra, the creator of the names
of his limbs, which came into being in the form of the gods, who are in the train of Ra"


(i.e., the gods who personify his phases) -- fourteen Spirits, seven dark and seven light...


"I am the Bennu bird (the Phoenix, type of resurrection) which is in Anu, and I am the
keeper of the volume of the book of things which are and of things which shall be."


In the eternity of his being occur vast cycles of activity followed by equal periods of rest:
"Millions of years" is the name of the one, "Great Green Lake" is the name of the other,
the "Lake" representing the cycle in which are swallowed up all things produced by
"The Begetter of millions of years."

In Chapter XLII he "who dwelleth in his eye" is beaming in "the solar egg, the egg to which
is given life among the gods." In Chapter XV he is "Yesterday," "Today," and "Tomorrow,"
the one "who reposeth upon law which changeth not nor can it be altered."

In Chapter LXXV he is the self-created god:


"I gave birth unto myself together with Nu in my name of Khepera, in whom I come into
being day by day. I am the creator of the darkness who maketh his habitation in the
uttermost parts of the sky ... and I arrive at the confines thereof. I sail over the sky
which formeth the division betwixt heaven and earth... None sees my nest, none can
break my egg."


In these extracts are all the fundamental teachings of Theosophy: Space, the One Life,
the Self-existing Deity, Law, Cycles, Reincarnation, Being, and a hint of the septenary
nature of cosmos.
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« Reply #26 on: February 11, 2008, 09:13:58 am »









In a Hymn to the Setting Sun, the deceased says:


"Praise be unto thee, O Ra, praise be unto thee, O Tem."


Chapter LXXIX reads:


"I am the god Tem, the maker of heaven, the creator of things which are, who cometh
forth from the earth, who maketh to come into being the seed which shall be, who gave
birth to the gods; [I am] the great god who made himself, the lord of life, who maketh
to flourish the company of the gods."


Tem, as already said, is Fohat, whose influence on the Cosmic plane


"is present in the constructive power that carries out, in the formation of things -- from
the planetary system down to the glowworm and simple daisy -- the plan in the mind of
nature, or in the Divine Thought, with regard to the development and growth of that
special thing."


(S.D., I, 111). He is "the north wind and the spirit of the west;" as "the setting sun of life",
he is the vital electric force that leaves the body at death, wherefore the defunct begs
that Toum should give him the breath from his right nostril (positive electricity) that he
might live in his second form.

Both the hieroglyphic(2) and the text of Chapter LXII show the identity of Toum with Fohat.
The former represents a man standing erect with the hieroglyph of the breaths in his hands.
The latter says:


"I open to the chief of An... I am Toum. I cross the water spilt by Thot-Hapi, the lord of the
horizon, and am the divider of the earth."


(Fohat divides Space and, with his Sons, the earth into seven zones) ...


"I cross the heavens, and am the two Lions. I am Ra, I am Aam, I ate my heir.... I am Toum,
to whom eternity is accorded...." (S.D., I, 674).
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« Reply #27 on: February 11, 2008, 09:17:58 am »









The above metaphor expresses the succession of divine functions, the substitution from one
form into another, or the correlation of forces.

Aam is the electro-positive force, devouring all others, as Saturn devoured his progeny.

The Egyptians used the forcible expression to eat where we would use the word absorb, or
assimilate.

The Rev. James Baikie, writing for the National Geographic, Sept., 1913, quotes one of the
Pyramid Texts which to him reveals an "almost savage set of religious conceptions," con-
trasting strangely with their high civilization.

The deceased is ascending to heaven as a fierce huntsman who lassoes the stars and devours
the gods.


"The great ones among them are his morning meal, the middle ones are his evening meal, and
the small ones his night meal.... Their magic is in his body; he swallows the understanding of
every god."


The last sentence contains the explanation of the Text. It is difficult to understand why a
Christian who eats the body of Christ and drinks his blood, should consider the ancient
Egyptians as more "cannibalistic" than himself!
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« Reply #28 on: February 11, 2008, 09:21:44 am »







Amen, whose name means "concealed," was regarded as an ancient nature-god in the
Vth dynasty, says Budge.

Esoterically, he is All-Nature, therefore the universe, and the "Lord of Eternity." Later his
worship was established at Thebes, where his sanctuary seems to have absorbed the
shrine of the ancient goddess Apit, from whom T-Ape (Coptic) the city derived its name.

It was far later that Thebes was known as the City of Amen -- Nut Amen, the No Amon of
the Bible (Nahum iii, Cool. The worship of Amen was carried into Nubia and the Soudan by the
Pharaohs of the XIIth dynasty; in the name of Amen the Hyksos had been expelled from the
country so that, in the course of time, Amen became known as the god of successful warriors.

The booty obtained from many campaigns was shared with the priests of Amen who became
exceedingly rich and powerful and, little by little, Amen absorbed the titles and attributes of
the other gods.

While the priests of Amen worshipped Amen, or Amen-Ra, as the Spiritual Sun, the masses of
people adored Ra, the visible luminary of the heavens.
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« Reply #29 on: February 11, 2008, 09:26:34 am »









An interesting passage from the Papyrus of Nesi-Khonsu, a Priestess of Amen-Ra, written
about 1000 B.C., proves that this order considered the visible sun, the Disk, merely as a
focus or "substitute" for the Central Sun, as Theosophy teaches.

The apostrophe to Amen-Ra reads:


"This holy god, the lord of all the gods, Amen-Ra....
 
the holy soul who came into being in the beginning; the great god who liveth by Maat (order
and regularity); the first divine matter which gave birth unto subsequent matter! the being
through whom every other god hath existence; the One One ...; the being whose births are
hidden, whose evolutions are manifold, and whose growths are unknown;... the divine form
who dwelleth in the forms of all the gods, the Lion-god with awesome eye;... the god Nu,
the prince who advanceth at his hour to vivify that which cometh forth upon his potter's
wheel;... the traverser of eternity ... with myriads of pairs of eyes and numberless pairs of
ears, whose light is the guide of the god of millions of years;...

whose substitute is the divine Disk."
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