Scarabæus
In Egypt, the symbol of resurrection, and also of rebirth; of resurrection for the mummy or rather of the highest aspects of the personality which animated it, and of rebirth for the Ego, the “spiritual body” of the lower, human Soul. Egyptologists give us but half of the truth, when in speculating upon the meaning of certain inscriptions, they say, “the justified soul, once arrived at a certain period of its peregrinations (simply at the death of the physical body) should be united to its body (i.e., the Ego) never more to be separated from it ”. (Rougé.) What is this so‐called body? Can it be the mummy? Certainly not, for the emptied mummified corpse can never resurrect. It can only be the eternal, spiritual vestment, the EGO that never dies but gives immortality to whatsoever becomes united with it. “The delivered Intelligence (which) retakes its luminous envelope and (re)becomes Daїmon ”, as Prof. Maspero says, is the spiritual Ego; the personal Ego or Kâma Manas, its direct ray, or the lower soul, is that which aspires to become Osirified, i.e., to unite itself with its “god ”; and that portion of it which will succeed in so doing, will never more be separated from it (the god), not even when the latter incarnates again and again, descending periodically on earth in its pilgrimage, in search of further experiences and following the decrees of Karma. Khem, “the sower of seed ”, is shown on a stele in a picture of Resurrection after physical death, as the creator and the sower of the grain of corn, which, after corruption, springs up afresh each time into a new ear, on which a scarab beetle is seen poised; and Deveria shows very justly that “Ptah is the inert, material form of Osiris, who will become Sokari (the eternal Ego) to be reborn, and afterwards be Harmachus ”, or Horus in his transformation, the risen god. The prayer so often found in the tumular inscriptions, “the wish for the resurrection in one’s living soul” or the Higher Ego, has ever a scarabæus at the end, standing for the personal soul. The scarabæus is the most honoured, as the most frequent and familiar, of all Egyptian symbols. No mummy is without several of them; the favourite ornament on engravings, house hold furniture and utensils is this sacred beetle, and Pierret pertinently shows in his Livre des Morts that the secret meaning of this hieroglyph is sufficiently explained in that the Egyptian name for the scarabæus Kheper signifies to be, to become, to build again. (TG).
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- Quotes: H. P. Blavatsky
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Shortly: In Egypt, the symbol of resurrection, and also of rebirth; of resurrection for the mummy or rather o...