Ennead

Ultimately they took to themselves goddesses, and thus the total number of beings working in different ways at the organization of the universe was brought up to nine.

Hence they were called by the collective name of the Ennead, the nine gods, Pauit Nitiru, and the god at their head was entitled Pauiti, the god of the Ennead.

When creation was completed, its continued existence was ensured by countless agencies with whose operation the persons of the Ennead were not at leisure to concern themselves, but had ordained auxiliaries to preside over each of the functions essential to the regular and continued working of all things.

The theologians of Heliopolis selected eighteen from among the innumerable divinities of the feudal cults of Egypt, and of these they formed two secondary Enneads, who were regarded as the offspring of the Ennead of the creation.

The first of the two secondary Enneads, generally known as the minor Ennead, recognized as chief Harciesus, the son of Osiris.

Harciesus was originally an earth god who had avenged the assassination of his father and the banishment of his mother by Sit, that is, he had restored fullness to the Nile and fertility to the Delta.

When Harciesus was incorporated into the solar religions of Heliopolis, his filiation was left undisturbed as being a natural link between the two Enneads, but his personality was brought into conformity with the new surroundings into which he was transplanted.

He was identified with Ra through the intervention of the older Horus, Hauriris, Harmachis, and the minor Ennead, like the great Ennead, began with the sun god.

and then the entity appears a childlike figure both male and female robed in green with a crescent or horn-shaped headdress this is the central image of the vision a green-robed androgynous child with horns or a crescent before we even get to the commentary what are we looking at the green robe as we will see triggers associations with the druids and venusian principles the androgyny points to a state of wholeness a unity of opposites which is often a requirement for the alchemical or magical and the crescent the moon time cycles duality the binding of opposites the entity we are told is one of nine and they each have a word and the key phrase you spoke the words back to them only you can speak them this suggests that the magician is not passive this isn't a vision that the priestesses are simply watching they or perhaps next bet are actively engaged in dialogue with these beings acting as a translator or a key what is the significance of the number nine here and why is the act of speaking the words back to them so crucial What does it mean that only you can speak them? The number nine is one of the most loaded magical numbers in existence.

Barrett's immediate association with the Ennead, the company of nine gods in Heliopolis, is almost certainly correct.

But we need to dig deeper than just that surface association.

In Egyptian cosmology, the Ennead is the original company of gods, the family of creation.

Atum created Shu and Tefnut, who created Geb and Nut, who created Osiris, Isis, and Set, and Nephthys.

That's nine.

He suggests the entity could symbolize the rebirth, so to speak, of the netters through us.

This ties directly into Egyptian mythology.

It derived its form partly from the twisted snakes on the caduceus of Hermes and partly from the serpentine motion of the celestial bodies, possibly also from the moon's nodes.

The Ennead, nine, was the first square of an odd number, three by three.

It was associated with failure and shortcoming because it fell short of the perfect number ten by one.

It was called the number of man because of the nine months of his embryonic life.

Among its keywords are ocean and horizon because to the ancients these were boundless.

The Ennead is the limitless number because there is nothing beyond it but the infinite ten.

It was called boundary and limitation because it gathered all numbers within itself.

It was called the sphere of the air because it surrounded the numbers as air surrounds the earth.