"The secret teaching explains the reason for this reference by the symbolism of the prehistoric races. The 'First Cause' had no name in the beginnings. Later, it was pictured in the fancy of the thinkers as an ever invisible Bird that dropped an Egg into Chaos, which Egg became the Universe. Hence, Brahm was called 'Kalahansa,' the Swan of Eternity which laid at the beginning of each Mahamanvantara a 'Golden Egg.' It typifies the great Circle, or O, itself a symbol for the universe and its spherical bodies. * * * The first manifestation of the Kosmos in the form of an egg was the most widely diffused belief of antiquity. It was a symbol adopted among the Greeks, the Syrians, Persians, and Egyptians. In the Egyptian Ritual, Seb, the god of Time and of the Earth, is spoken of as having laid an egg, or the Universe. Ra is shown like Brahma gestating in the Egg of the Universe. With the Greeks the Orphic Egg was a part of the Dionysiac and other mysteries, during which the Mundane Egg was consecrated and its significance explained. The Christians—especially the Greek and Latin Churches—have fully adopted this symbol, and see in it a commemoration of life eternal, or salvation and resurrection. This is found in and corroborated by the custom of 'Easter Eggs.' From the 'Egg' of the pagan Druids, to the red Easter Egg of the Slav, a cycle has passed. And, yet, whether in civilized Europe, or among the abject savages of Central America, we find the same archaic, primitive thought; if we only search for it and do not disfigure—in the haughtiness of our fancied mental and physical superiority—the original idea of the symbol." The concept of the World Soul, in some form of interpretation and under some one of many names, may be said to be practically universal. Among many of the ancient schools of philosophy it was taught that there was an Anima Mundi, or World Soul, of which all the individual souls were but apparently separated (though not actually separated) units. The conviction that Life was One is expressed through nearly all of the best of ancient philosophies; and, in fact, in subtly disguised forms, may be said to rest at the base of the best of modern philosophies.

The ancient symbol of the Orphic Mysteries was the serpent-entwined egg, which signified Cosmos as encircled by the fiery Creative Spirit. The egg...

The Theogony of Hesiod contains the most complete account of the Greek cosmogony myth. Orphic cosmogony has left its impress upon the various forms...

In nearly all the sacred books of the world can be traced an anatomical analogy. This is most evident in their creation myths. Anyone familiar with...

"Yet another view held in primitive times was that the sky was a vast meadow over which a huge beetle crawled, pushing the disk of the sun before...

Nocturnal birds were appropriate symbols of both sorcery and the secret divine sciences: sorcery because black magic cannot function in the light of...

Eusebius, on the authority of Porphyry, declared that the Egyptians acknowledged one intellectual Author or Creator of the world under the name of...

I shine forth out of the Egg which is in the unseen world. Let there be given my mouth that I may speak with it in presence of the great god, Lord of...

The Archetypal and Creative Mind--first through its Paternal Foundation and afterwards through secondary Gods called Intelligences--poured our the...

The seven-headed snake represents the Supreme Deity manifesting through His Elohim, or Seven Spirits, by whose aid He established His universe. The...

Among certain American Indian tribes the thunderbird is held in peculiar esteem. This divine creature is said to live above the clouds; the flapping...

The dove, accepted by Christianity as the emblem of the Holy Ghost, is an extremely ancient and highly revered pagan yonic emblem. In many of the...

In the above chart the dark line between X 3 and A 1 constitutes the boundary of the original dot, while the concentric circles within this heavier...

O Râ, in thine Egg, who risest up in thine orb, and shinest from thine Horizon, and swimmest over the firmament without a peer, and sailest over the...

Every existing creature manifests some aspect of the intelligence or power of the Eternal One, who can never be known save through a study and...

For the instant or innate wheel of the stars and planets is no otherwise than as the birth of the seventh spirit of nature, before the time of the wor...

Thy limbs have been given thee, thou takest hold of thy bones, I have set for thee thy limbs; the earth is bent upon protecting thy flesh. Thou art...

There are, however, but few mature minds in the world; and thus it was that the philosophic-religious doctrines of the pagans were divided to meet...

It should be borne in mind that in the beginning the Supreme Substance, AIN, alone permeated the area of the circle; the inner rings had not yet come...

THE yoni and phallus were worshiped by nearly all ancient peoples as appropriate symbols of God's creative power. The Garden of Eden, the Ark, the...

The birth, or the rising or springing up of the seven planets, and of all the stars, is no otherwise than as the life, and wonderful proportion,...