The Egyptian Ennead
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The Ennead
The ennead which literally means the company of nine, is a term used to refer to the Egyptian Gods of creation. The company was led by the creator, Atum (the undivided) or Re (the self differentiating power) or sometimes Amen (the immeasurable hidden power) who was accompanied by eight or sometimes nine other gods. The term became a general one and the total of nine was not always strictly adhered to. Here however for the sake of clarity we will concentrate on the Heliopolitan ennead.
The nine gods are shown in a boat together either sailing through the sky or travelling the paths of the dead in the amenti; the underworld. They should be seen as inseparable. They form a series but an indivisible one. They describe a process of creation which defines how the sun and the world came into being. As we are dealing with eternal concepts, the process they describe should not be seen as a serial one but rather the explication of the aspects of a unified whole. As with all creation descriptions they are described in a sequence where one thing follows from another but this is really a way of speaking or thinking rather than an actually implying that the parts of the process are truly distinct. The ennead are shown together because they are totally interdependent.
The ennead is pattern of images which helps remind the informed person of the origin of the perceived world. Seen in this way it is a helpful aid to remembering both our own origin and the world around us, both of which spring from the same source.
To look at the ennead I will first go through the gods which form its components.
Atum dwells in and is not different to the Nun (the primordial watery infinity which has no form but contains all possible forms of being). Originally Atum is shown in the form of a serpent and also in human form. His name refers to his undivided nature and he has the title ;neb-er-djer; which means;lord to the limit;. An undivided continuum, his body encompasses everything that comes to be, or has the potential to come to be. In the Egyptian cosmology when the world dissolves back to its origin it is Atum (and Osiris; see below) who remain as the indestructible and formless aspects of reality.
Shu – the god of air (or wind) is the issuance of Atum. Air creates space in the Nun which allows existence. In some imagery, existence is seen as occurring within a bubble of air in the Nun, which is a watery infinite abyss. Other images show Atum spitting or ejaculating in order to create; and Shu is the god personifying this initial movement or projection by Atum as starting the creation process.
Tefnut; arises at the same time as Shu and is female (a lioness) and partner to Shu. Her name can be interpreted as father-mother and she represents the substantial response to Shu by Nun. The movement of Shu creates a rotation in Nun forming droplets, hence her personification in moisture. Again the image of spitting gives some clue to this.
When Shu and Tefnut have come into being the sun disc also appears as the expression of Atum who becomes Atum-Re - the sun. Shu and Tefnut become the two lions of yesterday and today and are shown with the sun disc between them. At this point the creative power of Atum has given itself visible expression through the subtle separation of its male and female aspects.
Shu and Tefnut have two 'children' called Geb (the earth god) and Nut (the sky goddess). Geb refers to the compaction of the substantial nature of the Nun which starts with the spinning moisture droplets of Tefnut and become consolidated into the earth. Nut as the sky is the boundary with all that is not in Geb, the edge between this and the infinitely extended Nun. Although we must be careful not to think that this is not a real separation as the Nun permeates a supports Geb, as witnessed by the water that can be found underground even in the desert. Shu is shown holding Nut and Geb apart.
Nut and Geb have four 'children' who are the establishment of the power of Atum into a structured matrix of inter-relating function. They are not different to the gods named above but are a phase of stabilisation of the same power as it enters into a new phase of being. These are Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys. At this 'point' we can think that Atum has established himself, has created the stability for the endurance of his being, within the Nun. The feeling is that the previous steps in the process have now made themselves firm and definite. One of the symbols related to Osiris is the djed pillar which in hieroglyphic writing means 'stability'. Both Osiris and his sister-wife Isis are also written using the throne symbol which is transliterated as 'st'. The English words 'to sit' or 'stand' have some resonance and it is helpful to consider this as the creative power as having found a place to sit or stand. Indeed many Egyptian images of creation refer to this 'finding a place to stand', usually on a primeval mound which emerges from the watery Nun and is the origin of the earth.
Osiris is written in hieroglyphs using a throne and an eye. The eye refers to the ability to see and also to the daughter of the Atum, Tefnut and ultimately to all goddesses. We can consider Osiris' name to mean either 'a place to see from' ,or 'he who dwells (sits or stands) in the eye'. Either interpretation is equally valid because the essential feature of Osiris is the recognition of being. The establishment of Atum's creation rests in this recognition which is fundamentally a self-recognition. Osiris is an 'is' point, a point at which having disturbed the waters of Nun through his creative urge, Atum, the indivisible power recognises himself to exist. Osiris along with every other god or power is not different to the Atum continuum and is said to dwell in Atum before this creative cycle is started, and is said to persist even when it has come to an end. In some ways the Atum-Osiris phase is the culmination of the process, as Osiris is a 'self'. In ancient Egypt's Book of the Dead the deceased was referred to as the 'Osiris - N', where N is the individuals name. Thus it can be concluded that each man and woman was an Osiris in themselves; it was this part of being which was thought to persist after death, an essential self which is our true nature. In the same way the god Osiris is the 'self' of Atum - his own self-recognition which stabilises the process in a moment of reflective awareness. Although described as an event in the process of creation we need to remember that Osiris is there eternally in Atum within the Nun.
Isis is the sister and wife of Osiris. Her name is also written with the throne symbol. She should be seen as emerging with Osiris. Like all goddesses she is the 'eye' of the creator and her female nature refers to the substantialised aspect of Osiris. To be able to see, or recognise, implies a field of awareness; a field is another Egyptian goddess image. She is the same standing or sitting which allows Osiris to fulfil his function of recognition. The undivided power, Atum has established for himself a place to see, to see his own creation if you like, or to see himself expressed in being, viewed in one way this is his consciousness (Osiris), or it is his place of being, his eye, his heart - his substance. This is Isis, not separate but a reflex of Osiris. So just as we could not have vision without eyes, it is not our eyes that see, our eyes are the vehicle for seeing if you like, whilst it is our consciousness that does the seeing, Isis is like the eye.
Set is another important god in Egyptian thought. In later mythological portraits he was to be become a figure of opposition and struggle. Here he is seen as a component of the process of establishment. Once Osiris has recognised his own being through Isis his vision focuses on the form of what he perceives. He recognises the colour, shape and location of the emergent forms of being which flow from the expression of Atum. In recognising it, it appears fixed – in the same way as when we name something it becomes fixed in our minds. In a way a world of form is being created – although as these forms were latent in Atum all along, and were always there. This focussing is Set. The reason that this later becomes a difficulty is due to the tendency for fixity in form to dominate and absorb the Osirian awareness. Stories tell of Set murdering Osiris and shutting him in a coffin, which refer to this fixing of consciousness in form in a way that makes it lose its original spontaneity. However as one of the ennead, Set is a reference to the recognition of form and location, which emerges as the Osirian awareness establishes itself.
As a reflex to Set there is the goddess Nephthys, who as 'lady of the house', relates to Set in a similar way as Isis relates to Osiris. Through the function of Set the field of activity which Isis represented can now be seen as a structured environment - hence 'lady of the house'. Isis and Nephthys are two sisters often shown together. Two fields of awareness. To understand the difference picture this. You are standing on a small hill looking at a vast panorama, a huge landscape or an ocean for instance. What catches your eye is the movement and variety. The sky stretches overhead and you take in the scene full of movement and flow. Then you enter a house. Everything is structured and orderly -possibly with as much variety as outside but what catches your eye is the way things are ordered - books on a bookcase for instance. The difference is like Isis and Nephthys.
To recapitulate the images being used here. An infinity which like an ocean with no limit holds within itself all the possibilities of being. It is watery in that it is fluid and transparent and full of potential, like a field of energy. The totality of expressible forms lies within it, like an infinite body. The forms of being emerge and return to the ocean just as waves appear and fall back in the oceans we a familiar with on earth. A force from within causes disturbances in the field like waves and eddies. Some of the watery energy is spun into vortexes which appear to have an energy of their own. Zones of activity are formed which allow a reflective process to occur. Form and colour and location become apparent. In an instant, as in a snap shot photograph the form and colour and location are momentarily frozen, before they lose energy and are redissolved into the infinite to begin the process again.
To complete this picture we need to consider another aspect of Osiris. As well as representing what I have called the 'is' point of reflective consciousness Osiris is also the god of the dead. This is partly due to the process of Osirification which the Book or the Dead deals with and also his role as 'Foremost of the Westerners' (Khent-amenti). In the same way as the Nun holds within itself all the potentialities of form the Osirian consciousness has the ability to retain the forms it perceives. This is the basis of memory. One strand in the formation of Egyptian religious thought is ancestor worship. Egyptians valued and drew strength from their ancestors who became deified through the Osirification process. The dead lived in the west where the necropolis was located. Thus as foremost of these westerners Osiris was the chief ancestor and was said to dwell in the underworld in the Island of Flame. Thus it is said that Osiris is yesterday, the history of consciousness to the current day. The dual aspects of Osiris are not contradictory because the act of recognition requires the retention of the image perceived in order that it may be recognised. The Osirian consciousness then becomes 'surrounded' by these retained images - which is the Island of Flame. The original immediacy of the perceiving consciousness is 'lost' and Osiris is confined to the underworld of his own making, until he is released back to the Nun. His murder by his brother Set is another reference to this process.
The ennead which literally means the company of nine, is a term used to refer to the Egyptian Gods of creation. The company was led by the creator, Atum (the undivided) or Re (the self differentiating power) or sometimes Amen (the immeasurable hidden power) who was accompanied by eight or sometimes nine other gods. The term became a general one and the total of nine was not always strictly adhered to. Here however for the sake of clarity we will concentrate on the Heliopolitan ennead.
The nine gods are shown in a boat together either sailing through the sky or travelling the paths of the dead in the amenti; the underworld. They should be seen as inseparable. They form a series but an indivisible one. They describe a process of creation which defines how the sun and the world came into being. As we are dealing with eternal concepts, the process they describe should not be seen as a serial one but rather the explication of the aspects of a unified whole. As with all creation descriptions they are described in a sequence where one thing follows from another but this is really a way of speaking or thinking rather than an actually implying that the parts of the process are truly distinct. The ennead are shown together because they are totally interdependent.
The ennead is pattern of images which helps remind the informed person of the origin of the perceived world. Seen in this way it is a helpful aid to remembering both our own origin and the world around us, both of which spring from the same source.
To look at the ennead I will first go through the gods which form its components.
Atum dwells in and is not different to the Nun (the primordial watery infinity which has no form but contains all possible forms of being). Originally Atum is shown in the form of a serpent and also in human form. His name refers to his undivided nature and he has the title ;neb-er-djer; which means;lord to the limit;. An undivided continuum, his body encompasses everything that comes to be, or has the potential to come to be. In the Egyptian cosmology when the world dissolves back to its origin it is Atum (and Osiris; see below) who remain as the indestructible and formless aspects of reality.
Shu – the god of air (or wind) is the issuance of Atum. Air creates space in the Nun which allows existence. In some imagery, existence is seen as occurring within a bubble of air in the Nun, which is a watery infinite abyss. Other images show Atum spitting or ejaculating in order to create; and Shu is the god personifying this initial movement or projection by Atum as starting the creation process.
Tefnut; arises at the same time as Shu and is female (a lioness) and partner to Shu. Her name can be interpreted as father-mother and she represents the substantial response to Shu by Nun. The movement of Shu creates a rotation in Nun forming droplets, hence her personification in moisture. Again the image of spitting gives some clue to this.
When Shu and Tefnut have come into being the sun disc also appears as the expression of Atum who becomes Atum-Re - the sun. Shu and Tefnut become the two lions of yesterday and today and are shown with the sun disc between them. At this point the creative power of Atum has given itself visible expression through the subtle separation of its male and female aspects.
Shu and Tefnut have two 'children' called Geb (the earth god) and Nut (the sky goddess). Geb refers to the compaction of the substantial nature of the Nun which starts with the spinning moisture droplets of Tefnut and become consolidated into the earth. Nut as the sky is the boundary with all that is not in Geb, the edge between this and the infinitely extended Nun. Although we must be careful not to think that this is not a real separation as the Nun permeates a supports Geb, as witnessed by the water that can be found underground even in the desert. Shu is shown holding Nut and Geb apart.
Nut and Geb have four 'children' who are the establishment of the power of Atum into a structured matrix of inter-relating function. They are not different to the gods named above but are a phase of stabilisation of the same power as it enters into a new phase of being. These are Osiris, Isis, Set and Nephthys. At this 'point' we can think that Atum has established himself, has created the stability for the endurance of his being, within the Nun. The feeling is that the previous steps in the process have now made themselves firm and definite. One of the symbols related to Osiris is the djed pillar which in hieroglyphic writing means 'stability'. Both Osiris and his sister-wife Isis are also written using the throne symbol which is transliterated as 'st'. The English words 'to sit' or 'stand' have some resonance and it is helpful to consider this as the creative power as having found a place to sit or stand. Indeed many Egyptian images of creation refer to this 'finding a place to stand', usually on a primeval mound which emerges from the watery Nun and is the origin of the earth.
Osiris is written in hieroglyphs using a throne and an eye. The eye refers to the ability to see and also to the daughter of the Atum, Tefnut and ultimately to all goddesses. We can consider Osiris' name to mean either 'a place to see from' ,or 'he who dwells (sits or stands) in the eye'. Either interpretation is equally valid because the essential feature of Osiris is the recognition of being. The establishment of Atum's creation rests in this recognition which is fundamentally a self-recognition. Osiris is an 'is' point, a point at which having disturbed the waters of Nun through his creative urge, Atum, the indivisible power recognises himself to exist. Osiris along with every other god or power is not different to the Atum continuum and is said to dwell in Atum before this creative cycle is started, and is said to persist even when it has come to an end. In some ways the Atum-Osiris phase is the culmination of the process, as Osiris is a 'self'. In ancient Egypt's Book of the Dead the deceased was referred to as the 'Osiris - N', where N is the individuals name. Thus it can be concluded that each man and woman was an Osiris in themselves; it was this part of being which was thought to persist after death, an essential self which is our true nature. In the same way the god Osiris is the 'self' of Atum - his own self-recognition which stabilises the process in a moment of reflective awareness. Although described as an event in the process of creation we need to remember that Osiris is there eternally in Atum within the Nun.
Isis is the sister and wife of Osiris. Her name is also written with the throne symbol. She should be seen as emerging with Osiris. Like all goddesses she is the 'eye' of the creator and her female nature refers to the substantialised aspect of Osiris. To be able to see, or recognise, implies a field of awareness; a field is another Egyptian goddess image. She is the same standing or sitting which allows Osiris to fulfil his function of recognition. The undivided power, Atum has established for himself a place to see, to see his own creation if you like, or to see himself expressed in being, viewed in one way this is his consciousness (Osiris), or it is his place of being, his eye, his heart - his substance. This is Isis, not separate but a reflex of Osiris. So just as we could not have vision without eyes, it is not our eyes that see, our eyes are the vehicle for seeing if you like, whilst it is our consciousness that does the seeing, Isis is like the eye.
Set is another important god in Egyptian thought. In later mythological portraits he was to be become a figure of opposition and struggle. Here he is seen as a component of the process of establishment. Once Osiris has recognised his own being through Isis his vision focuses on the form of what he perceives. He recognises the colour, shape and location of the emergent forms of being which flow from the expression of Atum. In recognising it, it appears fixed – in the same way as when we name something it becomes fixed in our minds. In a way a world of form is being created – although as these forms were latent in Atum all along, and were always there. This focussing is Set. The reason that this later becomes a difficulty is due to the tendency for fixity in form to dominate and absorb the Osirian awareness. Stories tell of Set murdering Osiris and shutting him in a coffin, which refer to this fixing of consciousness in form in a way that makes it lose its original spontaneity. However as one of the ennead, Set is a reference to the recognition of form and location, which emerges as the Osirian awareness establishes itself.
As a reflex to Set there is the goddess Nephthys, who as 'lady of the house', relates to Set in a similar way as Isis relates to Osiris. Through the function of Set the field of activity which Isis represented can now be seen as a structured environment - hence 'lady of the house'. Isis and Nephthys are two sisters often shown together. Two fields of awareness. To understand the difference picture this. You are standing on a small hill looking at a vast panorama, a huge landscape or an ocean for instance. What catches your eye is the movement and variety. The sky stretches overhead and you take in the scene full of movement and flow. Then you enter a house. Everything is structured and orderly -possibly with as much variety as outside but what catches your eye is the way things are ordered - books on a bookcase for instance. The difference is like Isis and Nephthys.
To recapitulate the images being used here. An infinity which like an ocean with no limit holds within itself all the possibilities of being. It is watery in that it is fluid and transparent and full of potential, like a field of energy. The totality of expressible forms lies within it, like an infinite body. The forms of being emerge and return to the ocean just as waves appear and fall back in the oceans we a familiar with on earth. A force from within causes disturbances in the field like waves and eddies. Some of the watery energy is spun into vortexes which appear to have an energy of their own. Zones of activity are formed which allow a reflective process to occur. Form and colour and location become apparent. In an instant, as in a snap shot photograph the form and colour and location are momentarily frozen, before they lose energy and are redissolved into the infinite to begin the process again.
To complete this picture we need to consider another aspect of Osiris. As well as representing what I have called the 'is' point of reflective consciousness Osiris is also the god of the dead. This is partly due to the process of Osirification which the Book or the Dead deals with and also his role as 'Foremost of the Westerners' (Khent-amenti). In the same way as the Nun holds within itself all the potentialities of form the Osirian consciousness has the ability to retain the forms it perceives. This is the basis of memory. One strand in the formation of Egyptian religious thought is ancestor worship. Egyptians valued and drew strength from their ancestors who became deified through the Osirification process. The dead lived in the west where the necropolis was located. Thus as foremost of these westerners Osiris was the chief ancestor and was said to dwell in the underworld in the Island of Flame. Thus it is said that Osiris is yesterday, the history of consciousness to the current day. The dual aspects of Osiris are not contradictory because the act of recognition requires the retention of the image perceived in order that it may be recognised. The Osirian consciousness then becomes 'surrounded' by these retained images - which is the Island of Flame. The original immediacy of the perceiving consciousness is 'lost' and Osiris is confined to the underworld of his own making, until he is released back to the Nun. His murder by his brother Set is another reference to this process.
