Thoth (Egypt, Egyptian). The most mysterious and the least understood of gods, whose personal character is entirely distinct from all other ancient deities.

While the permutations of Osiris, Isis, Horus, and the rest, are so numberless that their individuality is all but lost, Thoth remains changeless from the first to the last Dynasty. He is the god of wisdom and of authority over all other gods. He is the recorder and the judge. His ibis-head, the pen and tablet of the celestial scribe, who records the thoughts, words and deeds of men and weighs them in the balance, liken him to the type of the esoteric Lipikas.

His name is one of the first that appears on the oldest monuments. He is the lunar god of the first dynasties, the master of Cynocephalus - the dog-headed ape who stood in Egypt as a living symbol and remembrance of the Third Root-Race. (Secret Doctrine, II. pp. 184 and 185). He is the "Lord of Hermopolis" - Janus, Hermes and Mercury combined. He is crowned with an atef and the lunar disk, and bears the "Eye of Horus ", the third eye, in his hand. He is the Greek Hermes, the god of learning, and Hermes Trismegistus, the " Thrice-great Hermes ", the patron of physical sciences and the patron and very soul of the occult esoteric knowledge. As Mr. J. Bonwick, F.R.G.S., beautifully expresses it: " Thoth has a powerful effect on the imagination . . . in this intricate yet beautiful phantasmagoria of thought and moral sentiment of that shadowy past. It is in vain we ask ourselves however man, in the infancy of this world of humanity, in the rudeness of supposed incipient civilization, could have dreamed of such a heavenly being as Thoth. The lines are so delicately drawn, so intimately and tastefully interwoven, that we seem to regard a picture designed by the genius of a Milton, and executed with the skill of a Raphael." Verily, there was some truth in that old saying, " The wisdom of the Egyptians ".When it is shown that the wife of Cephren, builder of the second Pyramid, was a priestess of Thoth, one sees that the ideas comprehended in him were fixed 6,000 years ago ". According to Plato, "Thoth-Hermes was the discoverer and inventor of numbers, geometry, astronomy and letters". Proclus, the disciple of Plotinus, speaking of this mysterious deity, says: "He presides over every species of condition, leading us to an intelligible essence from this mortal abode, governing the different herds of souls".

In other words Thoth, as the Registrar and Recorder of Osiris in Amenti, the Judgment Hall of the Dead was a psychopompic deity; while Iamblichus hints that " the cross with a handle (the thau or tau) which Tot holds in his hand, was none other than the monogram of his name". Besides the Tau, as the prototype of Mercury, Thoth carries the serpent-rod, emblem of Wisdom, the rod that became the Caduceus. Says Mr. Bonwick, " Hermes was the serpent itself in a mystical sense. He glides like that creature, noiselessly, without apparent exertion, along the course of ages. He is . . . a representative of the spangled heavens. But he is the foe of the bad serpent, for the ibis devoured the snakes of Egypt."

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

Ark of the Covenant. Every ark-shrine, whether with the Egyptians, Hindus, Chaldeans or Mexicans, was a phallic shrine, the symbol of the yoni or womb of nature. The seket of the Egyptians, the ark, or sacred chest, stood on the ara - its pedestal.

The ark of Osiris, with the sacred relics of the god, was "of the same size as the Jewish ark", says S. Sharpe, the Egyptologist, carried by priests with staves passed through its rings in sacred procession, as the ark round which danced David, the King of Israel. Mexican gods also had their arks. Diana, Ceres, and other goddesses as well as gods had theirs. The ark was a boat - a vehicle in every case. "Thebes had a sacred ark 300 cubits long," and "the word Thebes is said to mean ark in Hebrew," which is but a natural recognition of the place to which the chosen people are indebted for their ark. Moreover, as Bauer writes, "the Cherub was not first used by Moses."

The winged Isis was the cherub or Arieh in Egypt, centuries before the arrival there of even Abram or Sarai. "The external likeness of some of the Egyptian arks, surmounted by their two winged human figures, to the ark of the covenant, has often been noticed." (Bible Educator.) And not only the "external" but the internal "likeness" and sameness are now known to all. The arks, whether of the covenant, or of honest, straightforward, Pagan symbolism, had originally and now have one and the same meaning. The chosen people appropriated the idea and forgot to acknowledge its source. It is the same as in the case of the "Urim" and "Thummin" (q.v.).

In Egypt, as shown by many Egyptologists, the two objects were the emblems of the Two Truths. "Two figures of Re and Thmei were worn on the breast-plate of the Egyptian High Priest. Thmé, plural thmin, meant truth in Hebrew. Wilkinson says the figure of Truth had closed eyes. Rosellini speaks of the Thmei being worn as a necklace. Diodorus gives such a necklace of gold and stones to the High Priest when delivering judgment. The Septuagint translates Thummin as Truth". (Bonwick’s Egyp. Belief.)

(See also: Ark of the Covenant , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Astrology (Ancient Greek) The Science which defines the action of celestial bodies upon mundane affairs, and claims to foretell future events from the position of the stars. Its antiquity is such as to place it among the very earliest records of human learning.

It remained for long ages a secret science in the East, and its final expression remains so to this day, its exoteric application having been brought to any degree of perfection in the West only during the period of time since Varaha Muhira wrote his book on Astrology some 1400 years ago. Claudius Ptolemy, the famous geographer and mathematician, wrote his treatise Tetrabiblos about 135 A.D., which is still the basis of modern astrology.

The science of Horoscopy is studied now chiefly under four heads: viz.,

(1) Mundane, in its application to meteorology, seismology, husbandry, etc.

(2) State or civic, in regard to the fate of nations, kings and rulers.

(3) Horary, in reference to the solving of doubts arising in the mind upon any subject.

(4) Genethliacal, in its application to the fate of individuals from the moment of their birth to their death.

The Egyptians and the Chaldees were among the most ancient votaries of Astrology, though their modes of reading the stars and the modern practices differ considerably. The former claimed that Belus, the Bel or Elu of the Chaldees, a scion of the divine Dynasty, or the Dynasty of the king-gods, had belonged to the land of Chemi, and had left it, to found a colony from Egypt on the banks of the Euphrates, where a temple ministered by priests in the service of the "lords of the stars" was built, the said priests adopting the name of Chaldees.

Two things are known:

(a) that Thebes (in Egypt) claimed the honour of the invention of Astrology; and

(b) that it was the Chaldees who taught that science to the other nations.

Now Thebes antedated considerably not only "Ur of the Chaldees", but also Nipur, where Bel was first worshipped - Sin, his son (the moon), being the presiding deity of Ur, the land of the nativity of Terah, the Sabean and Astrolatrer, and of Abram, his son, the great Astrologer of biblical tradition. All tends, therefore, to corroborate the Egyptian claim.

If later on the name of Astrologer fell into disrepute in Rome and elsewhere, it was owing to the fraud of those who wanted to make money by means of that which was part and parcel of the sacred Science of the Mysteries, and, ignorant of the latter, evolved a system based entirely upon mathematics, instead of on transcendental metaphysics and having the physical celestial bodies as its upadhi or material basis. Yet, all persecutions notwithstanding, the number of the adherents of Astrology among the most intellectual and scientific minds was always very great.

If Cardan and Kepler were among its ardent supporters, then its later votaries have nothing to blush for, even in its now imperfect and distorted form. As said in Isis Unveiled (1. 259): "Astrology is to exact astronomy what psychology is to exact physiology. In astrology and psychology one has to step beyond the visible world of matter, and enter into the domain of transcendent spirit." (See " Astronomos.")

(See also: Astrology , 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)

Hap, Hapi (Egyptian) God of the Nile; Hep (later Hap) is a name believed to be given to the river by the predynastic Egyptians. The deity is always represented in the form of a man with the breasts of a woman: symbol of fertility and nourishment.

As Egypt was divided into the North and South, the deity took on two aspects: Hap-Reset, the North Nile, pictured with a cluster of papyrus plants upon his head, and Hap-Meht, the South Nile, depicted with lotus plants. He was called the vivifier, creator of things which exist, father of the gods. In one aspect, Hap was identified with Osiris, especially Osiris-Apis or Serapis; thus Isis came to be regarded as his consort.

Likewise he had absorbed the attributes of Nu, the primeval watery abyss from which Ra, the sun god, emerged on the first day of the new world period; therefore he was designated the father of living things, for without the waters of Hap, all living things would perish. Blavatsky points to his psychopompic role and his equivalence with the angel Gabriel (BCW 10:55-6).

Hap among the ancient Egyptians was considered to have two existences, the celestial and the earthly, and in a sense was in Egypt what the river Jordan, both mystical and earthly, became to the Jews and Christians. Again, it is both the river of life and the river of death, crossed at the beginning of the peregrinations undertaken by the deceased.

See also NILE GOD

(See also: Hap, Hapi , Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Occultism, Occultism Dictionary)

Atlantide (Ancient Greek) The ancestors of the Pharaohs and the forefathers of the Egyptians, according to some, and as the Esoteric Science teaches. (See S.D., Vol. II., and Esoteric Buddhism.) Plato heard of this highly civilized people, the last remnant of which was submerged 9,000 years before his day, from Solon, who had it from the High Priests of Egypt. Voltaire, the eternal scoffer, was right in stating that "the Atlantide (our fourth Root Race) made their appearance in Egypt It was in Syria and in Phrygia, as well as Egypt, that they established the worship of the Sun." Occult philosophy teaches that the Egyptians were a remnant of the last Aryan Atlantide.

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

Chaos (Ancient Greek) The Abyss, the "Great Deep". It was personified in Egypt by the Goddess Ne?th, anterior to all gods. As Deveria says, "the only God, without form and sex, who gave birth to itself, and without fecundation, is adored under the form of a Virgin Mother".

She is the vulture-headed Goddess found in the oldest period of Abydos, who belongs, accordingly to Mariette Bey, to the first Dynasty, which would make her, even on the confession of the time-dwarfing Orientalists, about 7,000 years old. As Mr. Bonwick tells us in his excellent work on Egyptian belief - "Ne?th, Nut, Nepte, Nuk (her names as variously read !) is a philosophical conception worthy of the nineteenth century after the Christian era, rather than the thirty-ninth before it or earlier than that". And he adds: " Neith or Nout is neither more nor less than the Great Mother, a yet the Immaculate Virgin, or female God from whom all things proceeded". Ne?th is the

"Father-mother" of the Stanzas of the Secret Doctrine, the Swabhavat of the Northern Buddhists, the immaculate Mother indeed, the prototype of the latest "Virgin" of all; for, as Sharpe says, "the Feast of Candlemas - in honour of the goddess Ne?th -  is yet marked in our Almanacs as Candlemas day, or the Purification of the Virgin Mary"; and Beauregard tells us of "the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin, who can henceforth, as well as the Egyptian Minerva, the mysterious Ne?th, boast of having come from herself, and of having given birth to God". He who would deny the working of cycles and the recurrence of events, let him read what Ne?th was years ago, in the conception of the Egyptian Initiates, trying to popularize a philosophy too abstract for the masses; and then remember the subjects of dispute at the Council of Ephesus in 431, when Mary was declared Mother of God; and her Immaculate Conception forced on the World as by command of God, by Pope and Council in 1858. Ne?th is Swabhdvat and also the Vedic Aditi and the Puranic Akasa, for "she is not only the celestial vault, or ether, but is made to appear in a tree, from which she gives the fruit of the Tree of Life (like another Eve) or pours upon her worshippers some of the divine water of life". Hence she gained the favourite appellation of "Lady of the Sycamore", an epithet applied to another Virgin (Bonwick).

The resemblance becomes still more marked when Ne?th is found on old pictures represented as a Mother embracing the ram-headed god, the "Lamb". An ancient stele declares her to be "Neut, the luminous, who has engendered the gods" - the Sun included, for Aditi is the mother of the Marttanda, the Sun - an Aditya. She is Naus, the celestial ship ; hence we find her on the prow of the Egyptian vessels, like Dido on the prow of the ships of the Phœnician mariners, and forth with we have the Virgin Mary, from Mar, the "Sea", called the "Virgin of the Sea", and the "Lady Patroness" of all Roman Catholic seamen.

The Rev. Sayce is quoted by Bonwick, explaining her as a principle in the Babylonian Bahu (Chaos, or confusion) i.e., "merely the Chaos of Genesis . . . and perhaps also Mot, the primitive substance that was the mother of all the gods". Nebuchadnezzar seems to have been in the mind of the learned professor, since he left the following witness in cuneiform language, "I built a temple to the Great Goddess, my Mother".

We may close with the words of Mr. Bonwick with which we thoroughly agree "She (Ne?th) is the Zerouana of the Avesta, ‘time without limits’. She is the Nerfe of the Etruscans, half a woman and half a fish" (whence the connection of the Virgin Mary with the fish and pisces) ; of whom it is said: "From holy good Nerfe the navigation is happy. She is the Bythos of the Gnostics, the One of the Neoplatonists, the All of German metaphysicians, the Anaita of Assyria."

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

Ammon (Greek) Amen (Egyptian) Also Amun, Amon. In the Egyptian 5th dynasty, Amen and his consort Ament were among the primeval gods, mentioned immediately after the deities connected with primeval matter, Nau and Nen (gods of the cosmic watery abyss). He was envisaged as "All-nature," the universe itself, especially in its occult and secret aspects.

After the 12th dynasty, however, this god additionally became looked upon as having solar attributes, and therefore was called Amen-Ra -- the chief deity of the powerful priesthood of Thebes, whose sway encompassed the whole of Egypt. Ammon was identified particularly with the hidden aspect of the sun, for the hymns are addressed: "he who is hidden to gods and men," "he who is unknown," "thy name is hidden from thy children in thy name Amen."

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

Hathor (Greek) Het-Hert (Egyptian) (from het-hert the house above)

One of the oldest known Egyptian deities. Het-Hert refers to the sky or heaven, known by the Greeks as Hathor. Originally, Hathor was a cosmic goddess, consort of Ra, mother of light -- the production of which was considered the opening act in cosmogony, producer of the twin deities Shu and Tefnut (the sky and the moisture of the sky). Later she was regarded as the great Mother, bringing forth all the gods and goddesses -- Mother Nature personified. She has been associated with all the goddesses of Egypt, partaking of all their attributes; but her principal title was Lady of Amentet (the Holy Land or underworld).

The Greeks identified Hathor with Aphrodite, for she was the patron deity of beauty and joy in life, of artists and their creative work as was the celestial and earthly Venus. Her chief position, however, was goddess of the Underworld, providing the deceased with food and drink.

Astronomically she was associated with the star Sept (Sothis or Sirius), which rose heliacally on the first day of the Egyptian New Year. When the sun god Ra entered his boat, Hathor went with him and took up her position as a crown upon his forehead.

Hathor was closely connected with Neith (at Sais), and in Ptolemaic times with Nekhebet, Uatchet, and Bast.

"Hathor is the infernal Isis, the goddess pre-eminently of the West or the nether world" (SD 1:400). Yet this was but the lower aspect of Hathor, Neith, and Isis. Neith, or the celestial Hathor, was one of the most spiritual, recondite, and abstract of all the deities of the Egyptian pantheon, in this sense the celestial womb of light, out of which came in hierarchical procession the world or the cosmos and all in and of it.

See also NEITH

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

Ophites (Ancient Greek). A Gnostic Fraternity in Egypt, and one of the earliest sects of Gnosticism, or Gnosis (Wisdom, Knowledge), known as the "Brotherhood of the Serpent".

It flourished early in the second century, and while holding some of the principles of Valentinus had its own occult rites and symbology. A living serpent, representing the Christos-principle (i.e., the divine reincarnating Monad, not Jesus the man), was displayed in their mysteries and reverenced as a symbol of wisdom, Sophia, the type of the all-good and all-wise.

 The Gnostics were not a Christian sect, in the common acceptation of this term, as the Christos of pre-Christian thought and the Gnosis was not the "god-man" Christ, but the divine EGO, made one with Buddhi. Their Christos was the "Eternal Initiate", the Pilgrim, typified by hundreds of Ophidian symbols for several thousands of years before the " Christian" era, so- called.

One can see it on the "Belzoni tomb" from Egypt, as a winged serpent with three heads (Atma-Buddhi-Manas), and four human legs, typifying its androgynous character; on the walls of the descent to the sepulchral chambers of Rameses V., it is found as a snake with vulture’s wings - the vulture and hawk being solar symbols. "The heavens are scribbled over with interminable snakes ‘ writes Herschel of the Egyptian chart of stars. "The Meissi (Messiah?) meaning the Sacred Word, was a good serpent", writes Bonwick in his Egyptian Belief. "This serpent of goodness, with its head crowned, was mounted upon a cross and formed a sacred standard of Egypt." The Jews borrowed it in their "brazen serpent of Moses".

It is to this "Healer" and "Saviour", therefore, that the Ophites referred, and not to Jesus or his words, "As Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so it behoves the Son of Man to be lifted up" - when explaining the meaning of their ophis. Tertullian, whether wittingly or unwittingly, mixed up the two. The four-winged serpent is the god Chnuphis. The good serpent bore the cross of life around its neck, or suspended from its mouth. The winged serpents become the Seraphim (Seraph, Saraph) of the Jews. In the 87th chapter of the Ritual (the Book of the Dead) the human soul transformed into Bata, the omniscient serpents says: - " I am the serpent Ba-ta, of long years, Soul of the Soul, laid out and born daily; I am the Soul that descends on the earth", i.e., the Ego.

(See also: Ophites , 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,)

Aanroo (Egypt, Egyptian). The second division of Amenti. The celestial field of Aanroo is encircled by an iron wall. The field is covered with wheat, and the "Defunct" are represented gleaning it, for the "Master of Eternity"; some stalks being three, others five, and the highest seven cubits high.

Those who reached the last two numbers entered the state of bliss (which is called in Theosophy Devachan) ; the disembodied spirits whose harvest was but three cubits high went into lower regions (Kamaloka). Wheat was with the Egyptians the symbol of the Law of retribution or Karma. The cubits had reference to the seven, five and three human "principles

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

Nofir-hotpoo (Egypt, Egyptian). The same as the god Khonsoo, the lunar god of Thebes. Lit., "he who is in absolute rest". Nofir-hotpoo is one of the three persons of the Egyptian trinity, composed of Ammon, Mooth, and their son Khonsoo or Nofir-hotpoo.

(See also: Nofir-hotpoo , Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,)

Artes (Egypt, Egyptian). The Earth; the Egyptian god Mars.

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

Holy Water As practiced in the Roman Catholic Church the rite is virtually identical with that of the ancient Egyptians: the water which has been blessed or consecrated is used to sprinkle the worshipers and objects used in the church service.

It was unquestionably adopted from the ancient Mysteries, and became a rite of external symbolic purification. In Egypt and 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 (p. 418)) 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 418)" (TG 144-5).

(See also: Holy Spirit , 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,)

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)

Sokaris (Egypt, Egyptian). A fire-god; a solar deity of many forms. He is Ptah Sokaris, when the symbol is purely cosmic, and "Ptah-Sokaris-Osiris" when it is phallic. This deity is hermaphrodite, the sacred bull Apis being its son, conceived in it by a solar ray.

According to Smith’s History of the East, Ptah is a "second Demiurgus, an emanation from the first creative Principle" (the first Logos). The upright Ptah, with cross and staff, is the "creator of the eggs of the sun and moon ". Pierret thinks that he represents the primordial Force that preceded the gods and "created the stars, and the eggs of the sun and moon ". Mariette Bey sees in him "Divine Wisdom scattering the stars in immensity ", and he is corroborated by the Targum of Jerusalem, which states that the "Egyptians called the Wisdom of the First Intellect Ptah".

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

Thoth, Thot (Greek) Tehuti (Egyptian) Egyptian goddess of wisdom, equivalent to the Greek Hermes, Thoth was often represented as an ibis-headed deity, and also with a human head, especially in his aspect of Aah-Tehuti (the moon god), and as the god of Mendes he is depicted as bull-headed. Although best known in his character of the scribe or recorder of the gods, holding stylus and tablet, this is but another manner of showing that Thoth is the god of wisdom, inventor of science and learning; thus to him is attributed the establishment of the worship of the gods and the hymns and sacrifices, and the author of every work on every branch of knowledge both human and divine. He is described in the texts as "self-created, he to whom none hath given birth; the One; he who reckons in heaven, the counter of the stars; the enumerator and measurer of the earth [cosmic space]

and all that is contained therein: the heart of Ra cometh forth in the form of the god Tehuti" -- for he represents the heart and tongue of Ra, reason and the mental powers of the god and the utterer of speech. It has been suggested that Thoth is thus the equivalent of the Platonic Logos. Many are his epithets: his best known being "thrice greatest" -- in later times becoming Hermes Trismegistus.

In The Egyptian Book of the Dead, the deceased must learn to master everything he encounters in the underworld, and does this through the instruction of Thoth, who also teaches the pilgrim the way of procedure. Finally when the deceased reaches the stage of judgment, it is Thoth who records the decree pointed out to him by the dog-headed ape on the balance, the scales of which weigh the heart against the feather. The gods receive the verdict from Thoth, who in turn announce it to Osiris, enabling the candidate to enter the realm of Osiris, as being one osirified. Thus Thoth is the inner spiritual recorder of the human constitution, who registers and records the karmic experiences and foretells the future destiny of the deceased, showing that each person is judged by himself -- for Thoth here is the person's own higher ego; as regards cosmic space, Thoth is not only the cosmic Logos, but its aspect as the intelligent creative urge inherent in that Intelligence.

Thoth was also arbiter of the gods as in the battle between the god of light and the god of darkness, restoring the equilibrium which had been destroyed during the conflict. Similarly in the fights between Horus and Set, when the evil has a temporary ascendancy, Thoth restores harmony. Interestingly,

"Thoth remains changeless from the first to the last Dynasty. . . . the celestial scribe, who records the thoughts, words and deeds of men and weighs them in the balance, liken him to the type of the esoteric Lipikas. His name is one of the first that appears on the oldest monuments. He is the lunar god of the first dynasties, the master of Cynocephalus -- the dog-headed ape who stood in Egypt as a living symbol and remembrance of the Third Root-Race" (TG 331).

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

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.

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