COMING OUT OF EGYPT ALLEGORY
The word “Egypt” comes to us from the Ancient Greek “Aegyptos,” which is a Greek transliteration of the Kemetic phrase: “Het-Ka-Ptah.” Het means place and Ka means: “the physical projection of the soul,” which is the character or aura that attaches itself to the body ... and IS NOT the body. It also meant black/darkness and referred to the rich, black alluvial soil deposited by the Nile River, which allowed the agricultural basis of that civilization to flourish.
In Ancient Hebrew, whenever Egypt or “Mitzraim” is mentioned, it is synonymous with physical and mental Bondage (Slavery). When dealing with geographic references, the indigenous tradition of the Land of Egypt tells us the civilization was called Khemit, and the people and language were called Khemitian. Egypt in the esoteric and metaphorical Biblical Scriptures in not a place, but a state of being ... Representing the body/Mind experience.
When the Ancient Mystery School initiates identified with only the body and the flesh, they were considered to be in “captivity.” Therefore, To “come forth out of Egypt” was understood as leaving behind the idea of being merely a body and discovering the Soul. This was the beginning of the Spiritual experience and discovery of “God” ... the Divine within.
Hippolytus wrote about “those who are ignorant” ... “Egyptians in need of departing Egypt” ... that is - from their body-centered existence - believing themselves to be merely physical matter. Allegorically, the ignorant Egyptians represent those “without Gnosis,” ... without the knowledge of the Divine Spark within them awaiting resurrection. This ignorance was to be without the light, and in darkness. It was this group of people who remained identified with their physical selves (not Higher Self) and who did not possess the “knowledge/Gnosis” ... that they we are all Divine Sparks of God entrapped in these fleshy and carnal bodies. Among the ancients Greeks was the phrase “soma/sema.” This translates as “the body is the tomb.”
Just a thought ...
Justin Taylor, ORDM.
