In Heliopolis (Egyptian Annu), the city of the Sun god-creator, an important Egyptian religious center, the so-called Pyramid Texts were found, inscribed inside the royal pyramids of the V and VI dynasties. They originate from the middle of the third millennium BC and are among the oldest known religious literary works. These writings consist of a series of myths, including the Heliopolitan Ennead, which represents a synthesis of Egyptian beliefs and thoughts on the creation of the Universe and everything that exists, as well as the role of each deity in the process of creation.
The fundamental characteristic of the Heliopolitan system is the vision of original unity, the supreme principle from which the ennead or “nine” emanates, a community of deities from which all visible and invisible life originates. The Heliopolitan Ennead consists of Re-Atum, Shu and Tefnut, Geb and Nut, and Osiris, Isis, Seth, and Nephthys. This oldest vision coincides with those that have been maintained in the other initiation centers, Memphis, Hermopolis, and Thebes, throughout the centuries. However, each of these centers emphasizes different aspects of the Circle of Creation, Existence, and Return, and gives different names to the same divine forces in nature.
Creation – Nun, Atum, Re-Atum
Before light and shadow, heaven and earth, life and death, presence and absence came into existence, there was nothing except an unimaginable power, isolated, unique, belonging to Chaos, Nun, the boundless, immobile cosmic ocean, the inexhaustible source of the Universe. In those surfaceless waters, everything that would become and would once again envelop the world was contained.
Everything that is created will return to Nun
I myself, endure, unknown, invisible to everything…
No text states why the process of creation started, but at a distant moment, at the very beginning of time, the spirit of the primordial water felt, as the myth says, an unstoppable inner longing to know itself, to realize its own consciousness. With this first impulse, which represents a great mystery, the path of descent began. invisible into visible, potential into active, and the first moment of a new cycle of manifestation which, being born from Nun, was initiated by Atum. Atum is therefore a new phase, a new quality of Nun itself, which does not cease to exist and is therefore called “Born from himself”, “The Perfected”, All and Nothing, Non-Existence, Being-Whole. Atum separated himself from the depths of Nun, through the effort of will or by uttering his own name, emerging in the form of a primordial mountain or a small island in the middle of the ocean. This process took place in a long, unknown series of cycles, with the power of their heart’s core creating a foundation carrying within it the seed of the future, the cosmic egg in which everything is contained.
I evolved from the primal essence that has been evolving through countless developments since the beginning of time. There was nothing on this earth at that time, and I created everything. There was no one to work with me at that time. I carried out all the developments with the help of the divine Soul that I created there, which remained dormant in the watery abyss. I did not find a place there where I would have stopped. But in my heart, I was strong, I made myself a support, and I made everything that was created by myself.
Papyrus of Princess Nesi Hensu
From the initial seed, shaped within Atum, Re-Atum or the manifested Atum, the Sun god, the creator of the Sun, emerged, sailing with his boat through the waters of time and space as the eternal driving spirit present in everything that lives.
Shu and Tefnut
Re-Atum’s boat, in its journey, crossed the watery abyss, creating two forces that would represent the first divine couple: Shu (air) and Tefnut (space). First came Shu, the airy and light-filled space, followed by Tefnut, the life-giving dew and moisture that sustains space. They represent two sides of the same soul, the first duality that, together with Re-Atum, will form a trinity and enable a new phase of creation.
Throughout many centuries, my Eye followed them, and we were three gods instead of one, me, the Unique One.
Geb and Nut
The meaning of the name Shu, “to lift,” signifies the principle of divine intelligence are the agency that separates their previously tightly connected children: Geb, the earth god, from Nut, the goddess of the sky. This marks the entry of creation into its third phase. Shu is the air that constantly flows between Geb and Nut, and has the role of balancing these two principles that originated from him, and Tefnut. During the day, it separates them, and Nut only touches Geb with the tips of her fingers and toes, and at night, it brings them closer together as Nut descends to Geb, bringing stars and darkness.
Nut swallows the Sun every evening
and gives birth to it every morning
younger than it was the night before.
In this way, Shu, like the heart, gives rhythm to life on a metaphysical level, together with his other half Tefnut – the nurturer and guardian of the space in which their children dwell.
By the bond established between Geb and Nut, the earth and the starry sky, a new life is set in motion, thus fulfilling the fourth and final phase of Creation. This is when Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys are born, constituting the eternal bridge for the transmission of the invisible, divine plan into the visible, human realm. They The creators of humanity care about the evolution of humans on Earth, which is achieved through cycles of life and death.
Oziris
Oziris is the principle of invisible life that drives life on the visible plane. His being is sunny and celestial; he is the supreme good or divine king who gives humans laws and knowledge and teaches them many useful skills.
In the myth of Oziris, a battle with his brother Set, the god of the desert, storms, and the underworld, is described. Set defeats Oziris by tearing his body into fourteen parts. Isis, Oziris’ wife and sister, with the help of her sister Nephthys, collects the scattered pieces and together they perform the first ritual of mummification. Thanks to this, Oziris is resurrected, being born in the world of the dead as the ruler of those who are dead to everything transient. Therefore, Oziris was considered a symbol of the perfect human and in that sense was depicted in the form of a mummy with bound legs because he surpassed the temptations of duality and ceased to walk in the passing dimension. The myth of Oziris There are talks about the temptations that must be overcome on the evolutionary path, about sacrificing transient elements in order to achieve immortality.
Isis
Isis embodies the principle of love and represents the prototype of the divine mother. She is the strength and patience of the earth that can gather, connect separate elements and breathe new life into what seems dead. In doing so, she herself goes through numerous trials. Her name is presented as a throne or a staircase, meaning “step,” because her life consists of conscious steps directed towards a clear goal. In this sense, she symbolizes help to humanity in its internal ascent, mediating in the establishment and maintenance of the steps that lead from earth to heaven. Using her exceptional magical powers, she assists in Osiris’ resurrection and by magical means conceives and gives birth to Osiris’ successor Horus, the avenger of his father.
Although Horus does not belong to the ennead, he represents an important deity and is associated with the beginning of a new phase, the return of creation to its own. counterpart, the feminine principle of Set, is Nephthys, who represents the power of invisible but ever-present protection that is extended over what is destroyed. While Isis breathes life and protects it after birth, Nephthys is the one who tends to the spark of life after it has been extinguished, nurturing it in the realm of the unseen. Together, they form a delicate balance in the cosmic battle between light and darkness, creation and destruction. Life preserves itself in sensitive moments immediately after death, helping the deceased to overcome the trials of the underworld. That is why she is the support and assistance to her sister Isis and conveys the hidden form of the same power.
The complete incarnation of the principles embodied by Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys concludes the long process of Creation during which a bridge was built from heaven to earth, from the divine to the human. Man was created thanks to the will of divine beings, and knowledge was given to him about how to live, shaping the path in his heart and building it with his own hands. In this way, man, on a small scale, will replicate what Atum accomplished at the beginning of time and all who came from him later, only in reverse, according to the principle of Thoth-Hermes: “What is below is equal to what is above, to achieve the miracles of the One.”