EGYPT

It is in Egypt that we encounter the roots of the entire Western tradition, including the Hermetic arts. If you would unravel the mystery of alchemy and qabalah, dedicate yourself to Egyptian studies. In Egypt we also find the roots of Greek philosophy and science. The Egyptians held that life was a miracle and they rightly worshiped creation as a product of magic. They drew no lines of difference (other than focus) in the degree or quality of consciousness between man, animal and god. Similarly, every member of Kamite society, from peasant to king, though not interchangeable, was of importance. Nor did they make the slightest division between religion, science, art and magic. The Gods were entities to be understood, so that their powers could be used to alter or maintain the natural course of things. (The Gods are actually forces of nature). An initiate, or magician, was simply a man of superior intelligence and will who had lined up his goals to parallel and augment those of the Gods. 20th Century America has been compared to Egypt in its predilection for building huge things and its materialistic philosophy. But America's psychotic compulsion to change everything as rapidly as possible, its lust for technological gimmicks and its attempt to control, counter and even destroy Nature, would have seemed blasphemous and meaningless to the Egyptians.

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

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 )

Akhenaton

(Egyptian, "he who acts effectively for the invisible solar disk")

Pharaoh of Egypt ca. 1350 to 1334 BC, often called (erroneously) the first monotheist of recorded history.

He first came to the throne as Amenhotep IV and worshiped traditional gods. However, after his fourth year, he elevated a minor deity, the Aton, i. e. , the "disk of the sun" (a form of the sun god, Re), to the position of state god of Egypt and changed his name to Akhenaton to reflect his devotion to that deity.

His pantheon consisted of a trinity that included the Aton, Akhenaton, and Nefertiti (also the name of his wife), which was the focus of popular worship. While Akhenaton was worshiped as the unique son of the Aton, Nefertiti was celebrated for her fertility. Common people were excluded from worshiping the Aton itself. Egyptians could worship only the royal couple; the couple in turn worshiped the sun disk. The new religion was maintained by Akhenaton's popular appeal as king, but it quickly passed away after his death.

Akhenaton's motives in promulgating his beliefs were political and religious, since he elevated himself to the status of a god higher than customary for an Egyptian king. Akhenaton's religion recognized both Egyptians and foreigners as equal beneficiaries of the same god, and it overturned established conventions in Egyptian language and art.

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

Karnak (Egypt, Egyptian). The ruins of the ancient temples, and palaces which now stand on the emplacement of ancient Thebes. The most magnificent representatives of the art and skill of the earliest Egyptians. A few lines quoted from Champollion, Denon and an English traveller, show most eloquently what these ruins are.

Of Karnak Champollion writes: -  "The ground covered by the mass of remaining buildings is square; and each side measures 1,800 feet. One is astounded and overcome by the grandeur of the sublime remnants, the prodigality and magnificence of workmanship to be seen everywhere. No people of ancient or modern times has conceived the art of architecture upon a scale so sublime, so grandiose as it existed among the ancient Egyptians; and the imagination, which in Europe soars far above our porticos, arrests itself and falls powerless at the foot of the hundred and forty columns of the hypostyle of Karnak! In one of its halls, the Cathedral of Notre Dame might stand and not touch the ceiling, but be considered as a small ornament in the centre of the hall."

Another writer exclaims: "Courts, halls, gateways, pillars, obelisks, monolithic figures, sculptures, long rows of sphinxes, are found in such profusion at Karnak, that the sight is too much for modern comprehension." Says Denon, the French traveller: "It is hardly possible to believe, after seeing it, in the reality of the existence of so many buildings collected together on a single point, in their dimensions, in the resolute perseverance which their construction required, and in the incalculable expenses of so much magnificence! It is necessary that the reader should fancy what is before him to be a dream, as he who views the objects themselves occasionally yields to the doubt whether he be perfectly awake. . . . There are lakes and mountains within the periphery of the sanctuary. These two edifices are selected as examples from a list next to inexhaustible. The whole valley and delta of the Nile, from the cataracts to the sea, was covered with temples, palaces, tombs, pyramids, obelisks, and pillars. The execution of the sculptures is beyond praise. The mechanical perfection with which artists wrought in granite, serpentine, breccia, and basalt, is wonderful, according to all the experts animals and plants look as good as natural, and artificial objects are beautifully sculptured; battles by sea and land, and scenes of domestic life are to be found in all their bas-reliefs."

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

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,)

Book of the Dead

Also Egyptian Book of the Dead (known to the ancient Egyptians as The Book of Coming Forth by Day.

A collection of ancient Egyptian religious and magical texts, hymns and formulas concerned with the ensuring the safe passage of the soul (Ka) through Amenti (the Egyptian afterworld).

The Egyptians believed that knowledge of these formulas, hymns, and prayers enabled the soul to ward off demons attempting to impede its progress, and to pass the tests set by the 42 judges in the hall of Osiris, god of the underworld. The soul passing these tests was allowed to mingle with the gods. If it failed the tests, it was devoured by a monster that was part hippopotamus, part crocodile, and part lion.

The texts of the Book of the Dead also indicated that happiness in the afterlife was dependent on the deceased's having led a virtuous life on earth. Part of the Book of the Dead is believed to have originated in the predynastic period of Egyptian history. In the 5th and 6th dynasties the Book of the Dead was inscribed on the sarcophagi in the pyramids of the kings and therefore became known as the Pyramid Texts. By the 18th Dynasty it was inscribed on papyri, which were frequently from 50 to 100 feet long and illustrated in color. These papyri were placed in or near the coffins of the dead and were sometimes called Coffin Texts.

(See also: Book of the Dead , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Reincarnation. The doctrine of rebirth, believed in by Jesus and the Apostles, as by all men in those days, but denied now by the Christians. All the Egyptian converts to Christianity, Church Fathers and others, believed in this doctrine, as shown by the writings of several.

In the still existing symbols, the human-headed bird flying towards a mummy, a body, or "the soul uniting itself with its sahou (glorified body of the Ego, and also the kamalokic shell) proves this belief. "The song of the Resurrection" chanted by Isis to recall her dead husband to life, might be translated "Song of Rebirth", as Osiris is collective Humanity. "Oh! Osiris [here follows the name of the Osirified mummy, or the departed], rise again in holy earth (matter), august mummy in the coffin, under thy corporeal substances", was the funeral prayer of the priest over the deceased.

"Resurrection" with the Egyptians never meant the resurrection of the mutilated mummy, but of the Soul that informed it, the Ego in a new body. The putting on of flesh periodically by the Soul or the Ego, was a universal belief; nor can anything be more consonant with justice and Karmic law. (See "Pre-existence".)

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

Ank'h

(Egyptian= Life) The ancient Egyptian "looped cross". It signifies eternal life.

(See also: Ank'h , New Age Spirituality, Body Mind and Soul)

Tat (Egypt, Egyptian). An Egyptian symbol: an upright round standard tapering toward the summit, with four cross-pieces placed on the top. It was used as an amulet.

The top part is a regular equilateral cross. This, on its phallic basis, represented the two principles of creation, the male and the female, and related to nature and cosmos ; but when the tat stood by itself, crowned with the atf ( or atef ), the triple crown of Horus - two feathers with the ureus in front - it represented the septenary man ; the cross, or the two cross-pieces, standing for the lower quaternary, and the atf for the higher triad. As Dr. Birch well remarks:

" The four horizontal bars . . . represent the four foundations of all things, the tat being an emblem of stability".

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

Nut (Egyptian) Also Noot, Noun, Nout, Nu. Goddess of the sky or cosmic space -- whether of the solar system or the galaxy -- daughter of Shu and Tefnut, wife of Seb (the cosmic earth or outspread space), mother of Osiris and Isis, and of Set and Nephthys or Neith; the heavens personified.

Some manuscripts distinguish between Nut, the day sky, and Naut, the night sky, although the two are but lower and higher aspects of one cosmic divinity. Her attributes partake of those of the other nature goddesses in the Egyptian pantheon: she is addressed as Lady of Heaven, who gave birth to all the gods. The favorite representation of Nut is of a woman bending so that her body forms a semicircle -- a part of the endless circle of space -- upon which the stars are portrayed, while her consort, Seb, prostrate beneath her, completes the circle. Again, the solar boat is represented sailing up over the lower limbs, in order to pursue its journey over the day sky; and sailing down her arms to complete its cycle in the night sky.

Nut is an important goddess of the Underworld and figures largely in the Egyptian Book of the Dead. She is one of the twelve deities who judge the deceased. Her office was to supply food and water, enabling the one entering the Underworld (Tuat) to rise in a renewed body, even as Ra, the sun god, arose from the egg produced by Seb and Nut. Thus, wherever possible, the sarcophagus had the figure of the goddess represented upon it, her protective wings spread over the deceased, her hands holding the emblems of celestial water and air.

The Greek nous

"was the designation given to the Supreme deity (third logos) by Anaxagoras. Taken from Egypt where it was called Nout, it was adopted by the Gnostics for their first conscious AEon which, with the Occultists, is the third logos, cosmically, and the third 'principle' (from above) or manas, in man. . . .

"In the Pantheon of the Egyptians it meant the 'One-only-One,' because they did not proceed in their popular or exoteric religion higher than the third manifestation which radiates from the Unknown and the Unknowable, the first unmanifested and the second logoi in the esoteric philosophy of every nation. The Nous of Anaxagoras was the Mahat of the Hindu Brahma, the first manifested Deity -- 'the Mind or Spirit self-potent'; this creative Principle being of course the primum mobile of everything in the Universe -- its Soul and Ideation" (TG 234).

Some of the most abstract attributes connected with Nut place her at times as the Second Logos; but because the Second contains the Third Logos, and therefore the Mother being in a sense identical with her Daughter, it follows that not infrequently the attributes of Nut place her as the higher portion of the Third Logos.

(See also: Nut , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary)

Atef (Egyptian) Father; the Atef-crown was one of the crowns of Osiris (also of Khnum, less frequently of other deities) and of some kings of Egypt, especially the Ramessed line. It consisted of the tall white conical cap of Upper Egypt, flanked with a pair of ostrich plumes and having the solar disk and uraeus in front; oftentimes the cap was omitted.

 The atef was emblematic of the sovereignty of Egypt under the attributes of light, truth, and divinity -- the feather being the hieroglyph for truth; also the "two feathers represent the two truths -- life and death" mystically, while the uraeus is the symbol of initiation (TG 42, 355).

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

COBRA

The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous explains the metaphorical aspects of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The first entry is about serpents. It seems the Egyptians used the cobra to designate royalty because of its power over life and death. Since, when coiled, its tail disappears, it is also a fitting symbol for eternity. The Greeks called the serpent oura, or "tail", whence the "Uraeus", which is the Greek word for the cobra-shaped crown worn by kings and gods alike. To demonstrate its "eternal" aspect, the Greeks depicted the serpent devouring its own tail (Ouroboros "tail-devouring"). Oddly enough, the Greek letter rho is similar in shape to the beta, and some scholars think oura (read ouba) is taken from an old Hebrew word for sorcery ob. (See OBEAH).

This is all very instructive, to be sure, but what interests us is that the Egyptians believed that the cobra was so deadly that it didn't even have to sink its fangs into a person. It barely needed to graze him. In fact, it merely had to "breathe" on someone to inflict its venom. Now, since we already know that the "king" cobra was associated with royalty, its not surprising that the Greeks should call it, in their language, "the little king" or basilisk, bringing along with the word the Egyptian version of its natural history.

By the time we reach the Middle Ages in Europe, the basilisk (since cobras don't exist in Europe) had turned into a fabulous beast with wings and a fiery breath fatal to every living thing. A similar transformation happened to the poor white rhinoceros of Africa; in Europe the unicorn was turned into a fabulous horse with a horn. And when we learn that the most fearsome of sea serpents, the Nichus, was born of a medieval monk's mistranslation of an original misspelling of the Latin version of the "Nile" river (Nilus), an obnoxious pattern emerges: the decay of truth into superstition, simply because of linguistic ignorance.

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

Sphinx

(Egyptian - arranged after the order of Enoch) The mythical sphinx has a human head and a lion's body. In ancient Egypt, it originally was represented an ancient lion goddess.

Later the lion's head was replaced with the head of the reigning pharaoh. It also represented the sky-god Horus. From Egypt the idea of the sphinx spread to the Syrians and Phoenicians and finally to the Greeks. These peoples gave the creature the head and bust of a woman. They added an eagle's wings to represent majesty and a long serpent's tail to indicate wiliness. In later Greek literature the sphinx was no monster, but a beautiful, wise, and mysterious woman.

According to a legend this monster put a riddle to all those who passed by and devoured those who failed to guess it. After many had died in this way, the Theban hero Oedipus answered the riddle correctly and so caused the monster's death. The great Egyptian sphinx at Giza gazes across the Nile, to the east. It was carved from a solid block of stone about 3000 BC, and it is 187 ft long. The head and bust were carved from a solid block of rock left in a quarry from which stone was taken for the Great Pyramid. The paws were built up with stone. It is thought that a temple stood between the legs and that Egyptians came here to worship the rising sun. The sacrificial altar that is now located between the paws was built by the Romans.

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

Aethiopians, Ethiopians An undefined but powerful group of peoples, generally placed south of Egypt and east of Babylon; often spoken of as being at one time a monarchy and able to contribute kings to the Egyptian throne. Blavatsky shows the archaic racial connection between Egypt and India (SD 2:417; IU 1:569-70).

Migrants from northwestern India to Africa took with them the names of their great river, variously called Aethiops or Nila, now called the Indus. These immigrants were the so-called Sons of Horus or Blacksmiths of Egyptian records, mighty builders but somewhat later than the Atlantean descendants who built the first pyramids. This makes the Aethiopians -- and also, therefore, some of the Egyptians -- Aryans. A highly advanced urban civilization of Mohenjo-Daro has been discovered on the Indus "between Attock and Sind," exactly the location mentioned in The Secret Doctrine as the abode of the Aethiopians.

The reason classical Greek and Roman writers speak of the Egyptian Aethopians was that the Aethiopians of southern Egypt were then considered to be the last remnants of an Aryan immigration from South India, which took place in prehistoric antiquity, and Greek and Roman writers not infrequently contrasted and identified the Aethiopians of Egypt with the Eastern Aethiopians.

It was originally these Eastern Aethiopians who were known to the prehistoric Greek nations as the Aethiopians -- the only ones then considered as rightfully bearing this name. These Eastern Aethiopians inhabited the central and especially the southern part of the Indian peninsula including Ceylon, and therefore were the descendants of one of the last subraces of that portion of Atlantis existing earlier on a land south of India called Lanka, of which Ceylon, then one of its northern highlands, is the only present geological remnant.

See also Ethiopia

(See also: Aethiopians, Ethiopians , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Noon (Egypt, Egyptian). The celestial river which flows in Noot, the cosmic abyss or Noo. As all the gods have been generated in the river (the Gnostic Pleroma), it is called "the Father-Mother of the gods".

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

Serapis [from Greek Sarapis from Egyptian Asar-Hapi Osiris-Apis]

The most important deity at Alexandria during the time of Ptolemy Soter, its worship spread throughout Egypt and into the Roman Empire, establishing itself firmly even in Rome. Plutarch recounts that Ptolemy Soter in his desire to make Alexandria the chief center of his empire, sought to unite Greeks and Egyptians in a common worship. He dreamed that a strange god appeared to him and, on telling his friends, one said that he had seen such a statue at Sinope.

The king immediately imported this statue, the Greeks, declaring that it represented Pluto, ruler of the underworld, with his guardian dog Cerberus, while the Egyptians stated that it portrayed Asar-Hapi (Osiris in the underworld) with Anubis. Plutarch states that Osiris is the same as Sarapis, "this latter appellation having been given him, upon his being translated from the order of Genii to that of the Gods, Sarapis being none other than that common name by which all those are called, who have thus changed their nature, as is well known by those who are initiated into the mysteries of Osiris" (On Isis and Osiris, sec 28).

A hieroglyphic text found on stelae and other objects in the Serapeum at Sakkara states that Apis is called "the life of Osiris, the lord of heaven, Tem (with) his horns (in) his head," he who gives "life, strength, health, to thy nostrils for ever." Thus Serapis is represented in the form of a man with the head of a bull; the horns being crescent-shaped, encircling the solar disk; in his hands he bears the scepter with the flail and crook of Osiris.

The fundamental idea ruling the worship and standing of Serapis among the later Egyptians corresponds to the Greek cosmic Logos, and particularly the creative or Third Logos, equivalent to the Hindu Brahma; and the bull-attributes connected with Serapis worship likewise refer to the generative power universally ascribed among ancient peoples to the bull, and in the cosmic sense to the creative urge inherent in the Logos itself, constantly producing, bringing forth, and reproducing.

(See also: Serapis , Mysticism, Mysticism 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,)

Tuat (Egyptian) Also Tiau, Tiaou. The region of the underworld or of the dead, though it was not situated under the earth, or answer to the popular conception of the Christian hell, even though the Tuat is often described as a place of retribution. One of the post-mortem states described in The Egyptian Book of the Dead as being situated in the region of the moon.

In popular mythology the Tuat was separated from the world by a range of mountains and consisted of a great valley, shut in by mountains, through which ran a river (the counterpart of the Nile, reminding one of the Jordan of the Jews and Christians), the banks of which were the abode of evil spirits and monstrous beasts. As the sun passed through the Tuat great numbers of souls were described as making their way to the boat of the sun, and those that succeeded in clinging to the boat were able to come forth into new life as the sun rose from the eastern end of the valley to usher in another day. Tuat was also depicted as the region where the soul went during night, returning to join the living on earth during the day.

Originally it was described as the abode of the night-sun, through which the sun god Ra passed during the night, only to arise renewed in the morning. "What is the Tiaou? The frequent allusion to it in the 'Book of the Dead' contains a mystery. Tiaou is the path of the Night Sun, the inferior hemisphere, or the infernal region of the Egyptians, placed by them on the concealed side of the moon. The human being, in their exotericism, came out from the moon (a triple mystery -- astronomical, physiological, and psychical at once); he crossed the whole cycle of existence and then returned to his birth-place before issuing from it again. Thus the defunct is shown arriving in the West, receiving his judgment before Osiris, resurrecting as the god Horus, and circling round the sidereal heavens, which is an allegorical assimilation to Ra, the Sun; then having crossed the Noot (the celestial abyss), returning once more to Tiaou: an assimilation to Osiris, who, as the God of life and reproduction, inhabits the moon" (SD 1:227-8).

The Tuat was divided into twelve regions, called fields (sekhet), corresponding to the number of hours of the night; or again it was described as being composed of seven circles (arrets), each under the guardianship of a watcher. The realm of Osiris is represented as Sekhet-Aarru or -Aanre (the fields of Aanroo), which was divided into 15 Aats (houses), having 21 Pylons. One of the regions of the Tuat was known as Amenti (Egyptian Amentet, "the hidden place"]

, a term often applied to the whole region of the dead.

(See also: Tuat , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul)

SET/SETH

Dark god of Egypt -- ruled the Redlands, or Desert, hence those things that were most fearful to the Egyptians. Sometimes associated with Satan. That etymological connection, however, is very uncertain. Satan, in Hebrew means "to accuse," hence Satan is the "adversary" or "critic." On the other hand S-T or Sh-T, in Egyptian, nearly always has something to do with the "South" or travel thereto, a sense that is totally lacking in the Hebrew word.

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

Apis (Greek) Hap (Egyptian) The sacred bull of Memphis into which Osiris was thought to incarnate. Classical Greek authors all mention the veneration with which the Egyptians regarded the bull, Manetho stating that it was under Ka-kau (2nd dynasty) that Apis was appointed a god.

The Egyptians believed that after the death of a sacred animal, on reaching 28 years (the age Osiris was killed by Typhon), the soul of Apis joined Osiris, forming the dual god Asar-Hapi (Osiris-Apis), which the Greeks in the Ptolemaic period renamed Serapis. "As in the exoteric interpretation of the Egyptian rites the soul of every defunct person -- from the Hierophant down to the sacred bull Apis -- became an Osiris, was Osirified . . ." (SD 1:135).

Generally speaking the bull was the symbol for terrestrial and physical generation, linking it with the moon -- as indeed was Apis; although the bull is also connected with the sun, as in the case with Mnevis, the sacred bull of Heliopolis. In any event, "it was not the Bull that was worshipped but the Osiridian symbol; just as Christians kneel now before the Lamb, the symbol of Jesus Christ, in their churches" (TG 26).

See also BULL, SERAPIS

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