It is Phtah, however, "he who opens," the opener of life and Death,** who proceeds from the egg of the world to begin his dual work.
( Book of Numbers.
) According to the Greeks, the phantom form of the Chemis ( Chemi , ancient Egypt) which floats on the ethereal waves of the Empyrean Sphere, was called into being by Horus-Apollo, the Sun god, who caused it to evolve out of the Mundane egg.*** In the Scandinavian Cosmogony -- placed by Professor Max Muller, in point of time, as "far anterior to the Vedas" in the poem of Voluspa (the song of the prophetess), the Mundane egg is again discovered in the phantom-germ of the Universe, which is represented as lying in the Ginnungagap -- the cup of illusion ( Maya ) the boundless and void abyss.
In this world's matrix, formerly a region of night and desolation, Nebelheim (the mist-place, the nebular as it is called now, in the astral light) dropped a ray of cold light which overflowed this cup and froze in it.
Then the Invisible blew a scorching wind which dissolved the frozen waters and cleared the mist.
These waters (chaos), called the streams of Elivagar , distilling in vivifying drops, fell down and created the earth and the giant Ymir , who only had "the semblance of man" (the Heavenly man), and the cow, Audhumla (the "mother" or astral light, Cosmic Soul) from whose udder flowed four streams of milk (the four cardinal points: the four heads of the four rivers of Eden, etc., etc.) and which "four" allegorically are symbolized by the cube in all its various and mystical meanings.
The Christians -- especially the Greek and Latin Churches -- have fully adopted the symbol, and see in it a commemoration of life eternal, [[Footnote(s)]] ------------------------------------------------- * His triadic goddesses are Sati and Anouki.
** Phtah was originally the god of death, of destruction , like Siva.
He is a solar god only by virtue of the sun's fire killing as well as vivifying.
He was the national god of Memphis, the radiant and "fair-faced God." (See Saqquarah Bronzes , Saitic Epoch.
) *** The Brahmanda Purana contains the mystery about Brahma's golden egg fully; and this is why, perhaps, it is inaccessible to the Orientalists, who say that this Purana, like the Skanda, is "no longer procurable in a collective body," but "is represented by a variety of Khandas and Mahatmyas professing to be derived from it." The "Brahmanda Purana" is described as "that which is declared in 12,200 verses, the magnificence of the egg of Brahma, and in which an account of the future Kalpas is contained as revealed by Brahma." Quite so, and much more, perchance.
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 368 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
of salvation and of resurrection.
This is found in and corroborated by the time-honoured custom of exchanging "Easter Eggs." From the anguinum , the "Egg" of the "pagan" Druid, whose name alone made Rome tremble with fear, to the red Easter Egg of the Slavonian peasant, a cycle has passed.
And yet, whether in civilized Europe, or among the abject savages of Central America, we find the same archaic, primitive thought; if we only search for it and do not disfigure -- in the haughtiness of our fancied mental and physical superiority -- the original idea of the symbol.
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The universal fluid or medium of occult philosophy — Lévi's Great Magical Agent — that transmits will, thought, and magical influence between minds and matter, and preserves the impress of all forms and actions as a book of consciences; cognate with akasha and the anima mundi. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of hidden affinity) in being a substantival medium that can be charged, directed, and abused.
Nebelheim is equated with 'the nebular as it is called now, in the astral light,' and Audhumla is identified as 'the astral light, Cosmic Soul,' making the astral light a key creative medium in the cosmogonic narrative.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The passage systematically maps the same archaic symbol (the egg, the four streams, the cube) across Egyptian, Greek, Scandinavian, Hindu, and Christian traditions, demonstrating that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every cultural scale.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The entire passage is a comparative survey of cosmogonic narratives—the Mundane egg in Egyptian, Greek, Scandinavian, and Hindu traditions—describing how the universe came into being from a primordial void or egg.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The 'phantom form...which floats on the ethereal waves of the Empyrean Sphere' and Nebelheim as a non-physical mist-place operating in the astral light describe a non-physical dimension interpenetrating the physical cosmos.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage traces a directional descent from the undifferentiated egg/void through successive stages (cold light, scorching wind, streams, earth, Ymir, Audhumla) to full materialization, naming the staged cosmic process of spirit descending into matter.
The absolutely simple, undivided first principle from which all multiplicity and existence flows.
The 'egg of the world' and 'Mundane egg' function as the single undivided source from which all multiplicity (earth, Ymir, Audhumla, the four streams) flows.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The cosmogonic process is driven by the opposition of cold light (freezing) and scorching wind (dissolving), two extremes of the same thermal scale whose interaction produces creation.