Egyptian:

1. Dreaming of living in ancient Egypt might actually be a past-life memory. Be sure to write the dream down immediately upon awakening, as an issue from that past life could be coming to the surface of your unconscious mind. Something in the dream probably relates to a concern in the present, and the dream may be giving you important insights.

2. Egypt is a land of mystery, and therefore if you dream of Egypt or things Egyptian there is probably some mystery in your life that you'd like to have resolved. Look to other symbols in the dream to discern what it is and what you should do about it.

3. Egypt is a land where a lot of secrets are being dug out of the ground. What secrets are you hiding? Or are others around you keeping things from you that you really need to know? If the other symbols in the dream support this idea, honest communication with those involved is definitely called for.

Source: Astrocenter, http://astrocenter.astrology.msn.com/msn/DreamDictionary.aspx

(See also: Dream Archives, Meaning of Dreams, Dream Interpretation, Dream Dictionary, Dream Dictionary - Egyptian , Meaning of Dreams about Egyptian , Dream Interpretation Egyptian )

Ptah, or Pthah (Egypt, Egyptian). The son of Kneph in the Egyptian Pantheon. He is the Principle of Light and Life through which "creation" or rather evolution took place. The Egyptian logos and creator, the Demiurgos.

A very old deity, as, according to Herodotus, he had a temple erected to him by Menes, the first king of Egypt. He is "giver of life" and the self-born, and the father of Apis, the sacred bull, conceived through a ray from the Sun. Ptah is thus the prototype of Osiris, a later deity. Herodotus makes him the father of the Kabiri, the mystery-gods; and the Targum of Jerusalem says: "Egyptians called the wisdom of the First Intellect Ptah"; hence he is Mahat the "divine wisdom"; though from another aspect he is Swabhavat, the self-created substance, as a prayer addressed to him in the Ritual of the Dead says, after calling Ptah "father of fathers and of all gods, generator of all men produced from his substance": "Thou art without father, being. engendered by thy own will; thou art without mother, being born by the renewal of thine own substance from whom proceeds substance".

(See also: Ptah, Pthah , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Ammon (Egypt, Egyptian). One of the great gods of Egypt. Ammon or Amoun is far older than Amoun-Ra, and is identified with Baal. Hammon, the Lord of Heaven. Amoun-Ra was Ra the Spiritual Sun, the "Sun of Righteousness", etc., for - "the Lord God is a Sun".

He is the God of Mystery and the hieroglyphics of his name are often reversed. He is Pan, All-Nature esoterically, and therefore the universe, and the "Lord of Eternity". Ra, as declared by an old inscription, was "begotten by Neith but not engendered". He is called the "self- begotten" Ra,, and created goodness from a glance of his fiery eye, as Set-Typhon created evil from his. As Ammon (also Amoun and Amen), Ra, he is "Lord of the worlds enthroned on the Sun’s disk and appears in the abyss of heaven".

A very ancient hymn spells the name "Amen-ra", and hails the "Lord of the thrones of the earth...Lord of Truth, father of the gods, maker of man, creator of the beasts, Lord of Existence, Enlightener of the Earth, sailing in heaven in tranquillity. . . All hearts are softened at beholding thee, sovereign of life, health and strength We worship thy spirit who alone made us", etc., etc. (See Bonwick’s Egyptian Belief.)

Ammon Ra is called "his mother’s husband" and her son. (See "Chnourmis" and "Chnouphis" and also Secret Doctrine I, pp. 91 and It was to the "ram-headed" god that the Jews sacrificed lambs, and the lamb of Christian theology is a disguised reminiscence of the ram.

(See also: Ammon , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Ammon-Ra (Greek) Amen-Ra (Egyptian) When the princes of Thebes had conquered all rival claimants to the sovereignty of Egypt and established themselves as rulers of the dual Empires, they followed in religious, mystical, and occult matters the thought of the powerful priesthood of Thebes. Thus after the 12th dynasty a new manner of visioning the ancient god Ammon came into prominence, under the name Ammon-Ra, although the latter's preeminence as chief god of Egypt did not occur until the 17th dynasty.

The attributes of the hidden deity Ammon were combined with the solar god Ra, and this deity was acclaimed by the priests as the chief of the gods of Egypt. Ammon-Ra seems to be devoid of most, at least, of the mystical symbols that are present in representations of the older deities, although the hymns to the god that were carefully prepared by the priests incorporated all the attributes and phraseology prevalent in the other scriptures.

(See also: Ammon-Ra , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Calvary Cross. This form of cross does not date from Christianity. It was known and used for mystical purposes, thousands of years before our era.

It formed part and parcel of the various Rituals, in Egypt and Greece, in Babylon and India, as well as in China, Mexico, and Peru. It is a cosmic, as well as a physiological (or phallic) symbol. That it existed among all the "heathen" nations is testified to by Tertullian. "How doth the Athenian Minerva differ from the body of a cross?" he queries. "The origin of your gods is derived from figures moulded on a cross.

All those rows of images on your standards are the appendages of crosses; those hangings on your banners are the robes of crosses." And the fiery champion was right. The tau or T is the most ancient of all forms, and the cross or the tat (q.v.) as ancient. The crux ansata, the cross with a handle, is in the hands of almost every god, including Baal and the Phœnician Astarte.

The croix cramponnée is the Indian Swastica. It has been exhumed from the lowest foundations of the ancient site of Troy, and it appears on Etruscan and Chaldean relics of antiquity. As Mrs. Jamieson shows: "The ankh of Egypt was the crutch of St. Anthony and the cross of St. Philip. The Labarum of Constantine . . . was an emblem long before, in Etruria. Osiris had the Labarum for his sign; Horus appears sometimes with the long Latin cross. T

he Greek pectoral cross is Egyptian. It was called by the Fathers the devil’s invention before Christ . The crux ansata is upon the old coins of Tarsus, as the Maltese upon the breast of an Assyrian king ...The cross of Calvary, so common in Europe, occurs on the breasts of mummies. . . it was suspended round the necks of sacred Serpents in Egypt. . . . Strange Asiatic tribes bringing tribute in Egypt are noticed with garments studded with crosses, and Sir Gardner Wilkinson dates this picture B.C. 1500." Finally, "Typhon, the Evil One, is chained by a cross".

(Eg. Belief and Mod. Thought).

(See also: Calvary Cross , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Holy Water. This is one of the oldest rites practised in Egypt, and thence in Pagan Rome. It accompanied the rite of bread and wine. "Holy water was sprinkled by the Egyptian priest alike upon his gods’ images and the faithful. It was both poured and sprinkled.

A brush has been found, supposed to have been used for that purpose, as at this day." (Bonwick’s Egyptian Belief.) As to the bread, "the cakes of Isis were placed upon the altar. Gliddon writes that they were ‘identical in shape with the consecrated cake of the Roman and Eastern Churches’. Melville assures us ‘the Egyptians marked this holy bread with St. Andrew’s cross’.

The Presence bread was broken before being distributed by the priests to the people, and was supposed to become the flesh and blood of the Deity. The miracle was wrought by the hand of the officiating priest, who blessed the food. . . . Rouge tells us ‘the bread offerings bear the imprint of the fingers, the mark of consecration ‘."

(Ibid, page 458.) (See also " Bread and Wine".)

(See also: Holy Water , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Osiris. (Egypt, Egyptian). The greatest God of Egypt, the Son of Seb (Saturn), celestial fire, and of Neith, primordial matter and infinite space.

This shows him as the self-existent and self-created god, the first manifesting deity (our third Logos), identical with Ahura Mazda and other " First Causes". For as Ahura Mazda is one with, or the synthesis of, the Amshaspends, so Osiris, the collective unit, when differentiated and  personified, becomes Typhon, his brother, Isis and Nephtys his sisters, Horus his son and his other aspects. He was born at Mount Sinai, the Nyssa of the 0. T. (See- Exodus xvii. 15), and buried at Abydos, after being killed by Typhon at the early age of twenty-eight, according to the allegory.

According to Euripides he is the same as Zeus and Dionysos or Dio-Nysos "the god of Nysa", for Osiris is said by him to have been brought up in Nysa, in Arabia "the Happy". Query: how much did the latter tradition influence, or have anything in common with, the statement in the Bible, that "Moses built an altar and called the name Jehovah Nissi", or Kabbalistically - "Dio-Iao-Nyssi"? (See Isis Unveiled Vol. II. p. 165.) The four chief aspects of Osiris were - Osiris-Phtah (Light), the spiritual aspect; Osiris-Horus (Mind), the intellectual manasic aspect; Osiris-Lunus, the " Lunar" or psychic, astral aspect; Osiris-Typhon, Da?monic, or physical, material, therefore passional turbulent aspect. In these four aspects he symbolizes the dual Ego -  the divine and the human, the cosmico-spiritual and the terrestrial.

Of the many supreme gods, this Egyptian conception is the most suggestive and the grandest, as it embraces the whole range of physical and metaphysical thought. As a solar deity he had twelve minor gods under him - the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Though his name is the "Ineffable", his forty-two attributes bore each one of his names, and his seven dual aspects completed the forty-nine, or 7 X 7; the former symbolized by the fourteen members of his body, or twice seven. Thus the god is blended in man, and the man is deified into a god. He was addressed as Osiris-Eloh. Mr. Dunbar T. Heath speaks of a Phœnician inscription which, when read, yielded the following tumular inscription in honour of the mummy: "Blessed be Ta-Bai, daughter of Ta-Hapi, priest of Osiris-Eloh. She did nothing against anyone in anger. She spoke no falsehood against any one. Justified before Osiris, blessed be thou from before Osiris! Peace be to thee." And then he adds the following remarks:

"The author of this inscription ought, I suppose, to be called a heathen, as justification before Osiris is the object of his religious aspirations. We find, however, that he gives to Osiris the appellation Eloh. Eloh is the name used by the Ten Tribes of Israel for the Elohim of Two Tribes. Jehovah-Eloh (Gen. iii. 21.) in the version used by Ephraim corresponds to Jehovah Elohim in that used by Judah and ourselves. This being so, the question is sure to be asked, and ought to be humbly answered - What was the meaning meant to be conveyed by the two phrases respectively, Osiris-Eloh and Jehovah-Eloh? For my part I can imagine but one answer, viz., that Osiris was the national God of Egypt, Jehovah that of Israel, and that Eloh is equivalent to Deus, Gott or Dieu". As to his human development, he is, as the author of the Egyptian Belief has it . . . "One of the Saviours or Deliverers of Humanity . . . . As such he is born in the world. He came as a benefactor, to relieve man of trouble . . . . In his efforts to do good he encounters evil . . . and he is temporarily overcome. He is killed . . Osiris is buried. His tomb was the object of pilgrimage for thousands of years. But he did not rest in his grave. At the end of three days, or forty, he rose again and ascended to Heaven. This is the story of his Humanity" (Egypt. Belief). And Mariette Bey, speaking of the Sixth Dynasty, tells us that "the name of Osiris . . commences to be more used. The formula of Justified is met with": and adds that "it proves that this name (of the Justified or Makheru was not given to the dead only". But it also proves that the legend of Christ was found ready in almost all its details thousands of years before the Christian era, and that the Church fathers had no greater difficulty than to simply apply it to a new personage.

(See also: Osiris , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Phoenix

(Egyptian-House of Enoch) Egyptian mythological bird of gorgeous plumage, sacred to the sun, reborn from the ashes of the funeral pyre which it made for itself when each life span of 500 or 600 years was over.

"At the top of a palm tree a bird's nest catches fire. It has been ignited by a spark struck from the hooves of celestial steeds drawing the chariot of Ra, the Egyptian sun god. Amid the flames a beautiful Arabian bird extends its golden neck and purple wings, but instead of flying off, it dances. Eventually, it is consumed by the fire and reduced to ashes. but this is not the end. Indeed, it is only the beginning - for 500 years later a new bird is reborn from the ashes. It seals the remains of the nest in myrrh, wraps it in aromatic leaves, and molds it into the shape of an egg. This it carries as a sacred offering to the temple of the sun at Heliopolis, then flies away to paradise. Five hundred years later it returns to earth, where it begins again the cycle of selfimmolation and resurrection - a process that continues forever. "

The phoenix, originating in the mythology of ancient Egypt, has become a universal symbol of rebirth and the most famous of all fabulous birds. Clad in feathers of red and gold, the color of the rising sun, it had a melodious voice that became mournful with approuching death. Other creatures were then so overcome by its beauty and sadness that they themselves fell dead.

According to legend, only one phoenix could live at a time. The Greek poet Hesiod, writing in the 8th century BC, said that the phoenix lived nine times the lifespan of the long-living raven. Other estimates went up to 97,200 years. When the bird felt death approaching, it built itself a pyre of wild cinnamon and died in the flames. But from the ashes there then arose a new phoenix, which tenderly encased its parent's remains in an egg of myrrh and flew with them to the Egyptian city of Heliopolis, where it laid them on the Altar of the Sun. These ashes were said to have the power of bringing a dead man back to life.

The profligate Roman Emperor Elagabalus (AD 205-22) decided to eat phoenix meat in order to achieve immortality. He dined off a bird of paradise, sent in place of a phoenix, but the substitute did not work. He was then murdered shortly afterward.

Scholars now think that the germ of the legend came from the Orient and was adopted by the sun-worshipping priests of Heliopolis as an allegory of the sun's daily setting and rebirth.

Like all great myths, it stirs deep chords in man. In Christian art the resurrected phoenix became a popular symbol of Christ risen from the grave. Strangely, its name may come from a misunderstanding by Herodotus, the Greek historian of the 5th century BC. In his account of the bird he may have mistakenly given it the name "phoenix" because of the palm tree (Greek: phoinix) on which it was customarily pictured sitting in those days. In their attempts to identify the gorgeously plumed phoenix of Egyptian myth with a real bird, scientists tended to discount New Guinea's birds of paradise otherwise likely candidates because of the island's great distance from Egypt. In 1957, however, Australian zoologists discovered that New Guinea tribes had exported bird of paradise plumed skins for centuries and that among those visiting the island, as long ago as 1000 BC, had been traders from Phoenicia in the Middle East.

Another significant discovery was that the tribespeople used to preserve the skins for export by sealing them in myrrh, molding them into an egg shape, and wrapping this in burned banana skins - a procedure that tallies almost exactly with the mythical bird's reputed treatment of its destroyed nest. Perhaps most significant of all is the fact that the brilliantly colored males of Count Raggi's bird of paradise are adorned with cascades of scarlet feathers that, during their courtship dance, they repeatedly raise aloft, while quivering intensely - a spectacle reminiscent of the phoenix dancing in its burning nest. On reaching the Middle East, descriptions of this spectacle, combined with the egg-like parcels of skins, may well have been sufficient to inspire the myth of the phoenix.

(See also: Phoenix , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Pharoah

(Egyptian- great house, house of Ra)) One of the kings of ancient Egypt. Its popular use stems from the Bible, but its use as a term for the king of Egypt begins during the 18th Dynasty. Egyptian priests made lists of their pharaohs and noted the most important events of their reigns. About 280 BC one of these priests, Manetho, grouped the pharaohs into 30 dynasties (a dynasty is a succession of rulers of the same line of descent).

(See also: Pharoah , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Lunar Gods. Called in India the Fathers, "Pitris" or the lunar ancestors.

They are subdivided, like the rest, into seven classes or Hierarchies, In Egypt although the moon received less worship than in Chaldea or India, still Isis stands as the representative of Luna-Lunus, "the celestial Hermaphrodite". Strange enough while the modern connect the moon only with lunacy and generation, the ancient nations, who knew better, have, individually and collectively, connected their "wisdom gods" with it. Thus in Egypt the lunar gods are Thoth, Hermes and Chons; in India it is Budha, the Son of Soma, the moon; in Chaldea Nebo is the lunar god of Secret Wisdom, etc., etc.

The wife of Thoth, Sifix, the lunar goddess, holds a pole with five rays or the five-pointed star, symbol of man, the Microcosm, in distinction from the Septenary Macrocosm. As in all theogonies a goddess precedes a god, on the principle most likely that the chick can hardly precede its egg, in Chaldea the moon was held as older and more venerable than the Sun, because, as they said, darkness precedes light at every periodical rebirth (or "creation") of the universe. Osiris although connected with the Sun and a Solar god is, nevertheless, born on Mount Sinai, because Sin is the Chaldeo-Assyrian word for the moon; so was Dio-Nysos, god of Nyssi or Nisi, which latter appelation was that of Sinai in Egypt, where it was called Mount Nissa.

The crescent is not - as proven by many writers - an ensign of the Turks, but was adopted by Christians for their symbol before the Mahommedans. For ages the crescent was the emblem of the Chaldean Astarte, the Egyptian Isis, and the Greek Diana, all of them Queens of Heaven, and finally became the emblem of Mary the Virgin. "The Greek Christian Empire of Constantinople held it as their palladium. Upon the conquest by the Turks, the Sultan adopted it . . . and since that, the crescent has been made to oppose the idea of the cross". (Eg. Belief.)

(See also: Lunar Gods , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Anubis

An Egyptian deity with the head of a jackal or dog and the body of a human. He leads the souls of the dead to the underworld and helps Osiris at his final judgment. Anubis' particular concern is with the funeral cult and the care of the dead, and, Anubis is often considered the inventor of embalming. Considered benevolent and good, Anubis was present in the underworld (Duat) at the weighing of the dead person's soul, and was also at home in the heavenly sky realms of Ra. Anubis was worshipped at Abydos and was also worshiped at Lycopolis, Abt and other cities. Although the god's name is translated in texts as Anubis, this is actually the Greek form of the Egyptian name Anpu.

(See also: Anubis , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Pert Em Hru (Egyptian) [from pert to come + em forth in + hru day]

To come forth in day; the title of several chapters of the Theban Recension of the papyrus manuscripts found placed with the Egyptian dead, generally called the Book of the Dead. The phrase itself refers to the successful entrance of the deceased into the realms of Osiris, after passing through the Judgment Hall.

A more significant meaning of the coming forth in the day or coming forth into light, relates to the fact that these papyri give in veiled language the rites of initiation as it was practiced from earliest times by the Egyptians, the light meaning the spiritual and intellectual splendor which clothes one who has successfully passed from darkness into light.

(See also: Pert Em Hru , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

HIEROGLYPHICS

(From Greek: "sacred carvings.") To the ancients all writing was magical or sacred, insofar as it could relate or influence events happening at distances of time (past, present, future) and space (heaven or earth). But to the Egyptians, particularly, their language was sacred already and Thoth-given. Pharaoh himself was "The Great Word." Indeed it is from the Egyptians that the Greek Logos ("word") came to have its occult meaning. The Egyptian word for "word," medu, also meant a "sceptre," "magic wand" or "sacred staff." Medu-Neter = "hieroglyph."

(See also: HIEROGLYPHICS , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

666

Many have been the designators of this apocalyptic finger, from Nero to the Popes, to Mohammed, to Ronald Wilson Reagan. But only through careful numerological analysis can we be certain of its true meaning. In The Dimensions of Paradise, John Mitchell shows clearly how this "number of the beast" is actually the Gnostic designation for Jesus Christ and the Crucifiction foisted on the world by the corrupt Church. Christ as an historical figure instead of a spiritual force was repugnant to the Gnostics. Decadent Babylon and the New Jerusalem are one and the same City of God, symbolizing the death rattle for the perverted religion and the birth of a new understanding. In Revelation, 666 refers to the phrase kai ho arithmos Chi-Xi-Sigma and stands for Jesus Christ as the idol on the cross rather than the Gnostic idea of the new Christ spirit, "the son of man," present in all men (much like our own "New Aeon" feeling). The New Jerusalem numbers are 3168, 1080, 1224 and 1764, but especially 864 and 666 (all of these, by the way, reduce to 9). New Jerusalem itself is 961 (seven), as is "the number of the leaves of the Tree of Life which are for the healing of nations."

A similar attribution can be found in Kenneth Grant's work (Outside the Circles of Time). For him, as for the writer of Revelation, the number has special apocalyptic meanings: "The Christians misunderstood the Unspeakable Name (IHVH) and supposed that by causing a rift between the Old Ones and the life-wave on earth they could 'save' mankind, and incidentally [of course!] gain total mastery of the planet." In order to do this, they inserted the Hebrew letter Shin (Grant calls this the letter of "Spirit," others associate it with "fire") between IH and VH, the Sh of Spirit. Thus we derive the name Yeheshuah or Johoshuah (IHShVH), which in Latin we call Jesus. The Xtians proceeded from there to identify this mythological name with a real person who, as Gerald Massey demonstrated, could only have been -- in an historic sense -- Jesus ben Pandira, an Egyptian who lived a century earlier. This wizard's mother was named Mary Magdalene, and he was stoned to death for sorcery. But the letter Shin, Grant tells us, "represents the triple-tongued flame of the Great Old Ones, whose supreme concentration -- Choronzon -- exhibits the triple Firetongue in the number 333." The latter is "mirrored in the final Heh of Tetragrammaton, the daughter-letter, whose number becomes the trebled Hex and the Unholy Act of Earth's destruction, under the rule of the Son of Typhon who is Set/Satan and the Anti-Christ."

Thus, to this very day, the idol that the entire "Christian" world bows down to is not the Christos spirit at all, but the Anti-Christ. The washed faces, the white gloves, the alb and pale lilies of Sunday worship cannot dispel the blood of ages. Average Galileans are unable to display love of any kind for their fellow-man. Instead, they constantly evoke the images of sin, corruption, misery and damnation. All "holy books" contain contradictions, lies and false teachings, but the Xtian Bible is a monument of fabrications and contradictions, second only to the Koran.

(See also: 666 , Magick, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body Mind and Soul,)

Genesis. The whole of the Book of Genesis down to the death of Joseph, is found to he a hardly altered version of the Cosmogony of the Chaldeans, as is now repeatedly proven from the Assyrian tiles.

The first three chapters are transcribed from the allegorical narratives of the beginnings common to all nations.

Chapters four and five are a new allegorical adaptation of the same narration in the secret Book of Numbers; chapter six is an astronomical narrative of the Solar year and the seven cosmocratores from the Egyptian original of the Pymander and the symbolical visions of a series of Enoichioi (Seers) - from whom came also the Book of Enoch.

The beginning of Exodus, and the story of Moses is that of the Babylonian Sargon, who having flourished (as even that unwilling authority Dr. Sayce tells us) 3750 B.C. preceded the Jewish lawgiver by almost 2300 years. (See Secret Doctrine, vol. II., pp. 691 et seq.)

Nevertheless, Genesis is an undeniably esoteric work. It has not borrowed, nor has it disfigured the universal symbols and teachings on the lines of which it was written, but simply adapted the eternal truths to its own national spirit and clothed them in cunning allegories comprehensible only to its Kabbalists and Initiates.

The Gnostics have done the same, each sect in its own way, as thousands of years before, India, Egypt, Chaldea and Greece, had also dressed the same incommunicable truths each in its own national garb. The key and solution to all such narratives can be found only in the esoteric teachings.

(See also: Genesis , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Anosh (Hebrew) Man, also anima, vitality; corresponds to the Egyptian ank. (BCW 7:297; 10:60)

(See also: Anosh , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Anuki (Egypt, Egyptian). "See Anouki" supra. "The word Ank in Hebrew, means ‘my life’, my being, which is the personal pronoun Anocki, from the name of the Egyptian goddess Anouki ", says the author of the

Hebrew Mystery, or the Source of Measures.

(See also: Anuki , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Horus (Egypt, Egyptian). The last in the line of divine Sovereigns in Egypt, said to he the son of Osiris and Isis.

He is the great god "loved of Heaven", the "beloved of the Sun, the offspring of the gods, the subjugator of the world".

At the time of the Winter Solstice (our Christmas), his image, in the form of a small newly-born infant, was brought out from the sanctuary for the adoration of the worshipping crowds. As he is the type of the vault of heaven, he is said to have come from the Maem Misi, the sacred birth-place (the womb of the World), and is, therefore, the "mystic Child of the Ark" or the argha, the symbol of the matrix.

Cosmically, he is the Winter Sun. A tablet describes him as the "substance of his father", Osiris, of whom he is an incarnation and also identical with him. Horus is a chaste deity, and "like Apollo has no amours. His part in the lower world is associated with the judgment.

He introduces souls to his father, the judge" (Bonwick). An ancient hymn says of him, "By him the world is judged in that which it contains. Heaven and earth are under his immediate presence. He rules all human beings. The sun goes round according to his purpose. He brings forth abundance and dispenses it to all the earth. Everyone adores his beauty. Sweet is his love in us."

(See also: Horus , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Anubis (Greek) Anpu (Egyptian) The Egyptian jackal-headed deity, lord of the Silent Land of the West (the underworld). To him with Thoth was entrusted the psychopompic leading of the dead. In the judgment after death, Anubis tests the balance in the scene of the weighing of the heart. His offices were likewise those of the embalmer, mystically speaking.

Originally the god of the underworld, he was later replaced by Osiris. In Heliopolis during the later dynasties he was identified with Horus, for he was often regarded as the son of Osiris and Isis -- more often of Osiris and Nephthys (Neith). Plutarch writes: "By Anubis they understand the horizontal circle, which divides the invisible part of the world, which they call Nephthys, from the visible, to which they give the name of Isis; and as this circle equally touches upon the confines of both light and darkness, it may be looked upon as common to them both . . . Others again are of opinion that by Anubis is meant Time . . . " (On Isis and Osiris, sec 44).

The mysteries of Osiris and Isis were revived in Rome, and Apuleius (2nd century) in The Golden Ass tells of the Procession of Isis, in which the dual aspect of Anubis was portrayed: "that messenger between heaven and hell displaying alternately a face black as night, and golden as the day; in his left the caduceus, in his right waving aloft the green palm branch" (Gods of the Egyptians, Budge 2:264-5). In most of his attributes, Anubis is a lunar power, Plutarch connecting him with the Grecian Hecate, one of the names for the moon; and this is further emphasized by his being a guide of the dead. Also identified with Hermes as psychopomp.

See also Hermanubis

(See also: Anubis , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Dynasties Among ancient peoples almost worldwide there have always been two types of dynastic government, the divine and the human. Ancient religious philosophy taught that government should try to follow the pattern set in the heavens or in the hierarchies of nature; and it was upon this fact that arose the early teaching of what became later known as the divine right of kings. In fact, early human history taught of the former existence of dynasties which ruled the various peoples of earth by the right of spiritual wisdom and knowledge, first through demigods, then heroes, and finally before the system passed into the merely human dynasties as we now know them, the dynasties of initiate-kings.

In ancient Hindustan there were two principal dynasties of kings, as given in the epics and the Puranas, named the Suryavansa (the Solar Dynasty) and the Chandravansa (the Lunar Dynasty). The former was said to have been descended from the sun through Ikshvaku, who according to mythology was the son or grandson of the sun, Vaivasvata-Manu, the progenitor of our present humanity. The Chandravansa was said to have sprung from Atri, the maharshi (great rishi), whose son again was Soma or the moon, whence the name lunar given to the dynasty.

In ancient Egypt there were thirty Dynasties of kings, as enumerated by the historian Manetho. But the Egyptian priests told Herodotus that there were three divine dynasties which preceded the reign of the human kings: that of the gods, of the demigods, and of the heroes. China too had its divine dynasties which preceded the human dynasties: thus the Chow rulers are placed at 1100 BC, but they were again preceded by the Sheng and the still earlier Hea (or Hia) dynasties. The Greeks taught the existence of divine dynasties followed by human, and Plato tells of divine and semi-divine instructors who first taught mankind the arts, sciences, and agriculture. The same general tradition is found in ancient America. The ancient Chaldeans used the figures 4 3 2 in their calculations concerning the time periods of their dynasties, which they said extended backwards from themselves for a length of 432,000 years.

The Secret Doctrine states that the earliest human races were instructed and guided by divine and semi-divine beings. Thus, the fourth or Atlantean race originally received its knowledge of cycles and astronomy, as well as of the arts and sciences, from divine and semi-divine dynasts. Before the Atlanteans, the Lemuro-Atlanteans were the first who had a dynasty of spirit-kings -- actual living dhyanis or demigods who had assumed bodies to teach and guide humankind; and they also instructed mankind in arts and sciences (SD 2:222).

An ancient Egyptian zodiac has been found which represented three Virgins: "The three 'Virgins,' or Virgo in three different positions, meant . . . the record of the first three 'divine or astronomical Dynasties,' who taught the Third Root-Race; and after having abandoned the Atlanteans to their doom, returned (or redescended, rather) during the third Sub-Race of the Fifth, in order to reveal to saved humanity the mysteries of their birth-place -- the sidereal Heavens. The same symbolical record of the human races and the three Dynasties (Gods, Manes -- semi-divine astrals of the Third and Fourth, and the 'Heroes' of the Fifth Race), which preceded the purely human kings, was found in the distribution of the tiers and passages of the Egyptian Labyrinth" (SD 2:435-6).

(See also: Dynasties , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)