(93) Water is a symbol of life; hence Plato and the gods before Plato, call it (the Soul) at one time the whole water of vivification, and at another time a certain fountain of it.

(92) Timaeus: And the fourth kind, which lives in the water, came from the most utterly thoughtless and stupid of men, whom those that remolded them deemed no longer worthy even of pure respiration, seeing that they were unclean of soul through utter wickedness; wherefore in place of air, for refined and pure respiring, they thrust them into water, there to respire its turbid depths. Thence have come into being the tribe of fishes and of shellfish and all creatures of the waters, which have for their portion the extremest of all abodes in requital for the extremity of their witlessness. Thus, both then and now, living creatures keep passing

(34) Both science, and the occult teachings, inform us that animal life had its origin in the slime of the primeval ocean beds, and took the form of the "single cell" creatures. The best known form of single-cell animal is the Moneron (plural, monera), which is composed of but a single cell, and is like a tiny drop of glue. It belongs to the lowest class of animal-life, known as the Protozoa. The Moneron lives in water, and is a very minute shapeless, colorless, slimy, sticky, drop of protoplasmic substance. It has no organs of any kind, and all of its parts are similar—it lacks the separate organs or parts with which to perform the offices of the living creature as found in the higher forms of life. And yet this organless creature performs the processes of like known, respectively, as nutrition, reproduction, sensation, and will-action. Every part of the Moneron is capable of absorbing food and oxygen—it is all stomach and all lungs. Moreover, it is all reproductive organism. It envelops its prey by enclosing the latter as a drop of glue encloses a tiny gnat; and it then absorbs the nourishment from its food through every portion of its surface coming in contact with the food. It moves by prolonging a portion of itself outward, like a tiny tail or finger—this constitutes the "false foot" by which it propels, pushes, or pulls itself forward or backward, or sidewise. When it gets ready, it pulls back the "false foot" into its general substance, and is the same as before. It has no distinction of sex, but reproduces itself by simply growing larger and then dividing itself into two—and the process is over, there being two Monera where only one Moneron was the moment before. And yet this simple creature receives impressions from outside, and responds thereto. It seeks its food, and escapes its enemies. It has all the mind it needs.

(1) 'For this reason is water in the fifth oblation called Man. This germ, covered in the womb, having dwelt there ten months, or more or less, is born.

(3) The symbol of Life has always been the Flaming Fire, in all occult teachings. The Eternal, Universal Fire, or Flame, which kindles ever all that presents itself to its influence, yet ever remains unchanged and undiminished in its Essence, has ever been the favorite symbol of the occultists for the Universal Life in Manifestation. When the term "Spirit" is used to indicate "Life," then the Flame or Fire has always been the symbol for Spirit.

(20) Accordingly such food, in order to clear understanding, is to be rejected. Wherefore also the Egyptians, in the purifications practised among them, do not allow the priests to feed on flesh; but they use chickens, as lightest; and they do not touch fish, on account of certain fables, but especially on account of such food making the flesh flabby. But now terrestrial animals and birds breathe the same air as our vital spirits, being possessed of a vital principle cognate with the air. But it is said that fishes do not breathe this air, but that which was mixed with the water at the instant of its first creation, as well as with the rest of the elements, which is also a sign of the permanence of matter.

(4) The symbol of the Cosmic Egg, of which the World Soul is the Animating Germ, is a very old one, and one widely spread in usage in the ancient world. As a prominent occultist has said: "Whence this universal symbol? The Egg was incorporated as a sacred sign in the cosmogony of every people on the earth, and was revered both on account of its form and its inner mystery. From the earliest mental conceptions of man, it was known as that which represented most successfully the Origin and Secret of Being. The gradual development of the imperceptible Germ within the closed shell; the inward working, without any apparent outward interference of force, which from a latent nothing produced an active something, needing nought save heat; and which, having gradually evolved into a concrete, living creature, broke its shell, appearing to the outward senses of all a self-generated, and self-created being—must have been a standing miracle from the beginning.

(82) For before the times of the world the water was very thin or rarified, like air, and then the life was generated therein also, which water is now so mortal, corrupted, perished and spoiled, and so rolleth and runneth to and fro.

(17) Regarding the ox-fish they say, that it exists in all seas; when it utters a cry all fish become pregnant, and all noxious water-creatures cast their young.

(1) 'Of all living things there are indeed three origins only , that which springs from an egg (oviparous), that which springs from a living being (viviparous), and that which springs from a germ.

(22) Water also springeth in every living and moving creature in this world. In the water consisteth the body of everything, as the spirit consisteth in the air, be it in animals [or in flesh] or in vegetables.

(6) This, too, is said, that those fish are so serpent-like in that deep water, they know the scratch (mâlisn) of a needle's point by which the water shall increase, or by which it is diminishing.

(91) Timaeus: they sow upon the womb, as upon ploughed soil, animalcules that are invisible for smallness and unshapen; and these, again, they mold into shape and nourish to a great size within the body; after which they bring them forth into the light and thus complete the generation of the living creature. In this fashion, then, women and the whole female sex have come into existence. And the tribe of birds are derived by transformation, growing feathers in place of hair, from men who are harmless but light-minded —men, too, who, being students of the worlds above, suppose in their simplicity that the most solid proofs about such matters are obtained by the sense of sight.