On 31 August 2012 a long filament of solar material that had been hovering in the sun’s atmosphere, the corona, erupted out into space at 4:36 p.m. EDT. The coronal mass ejection, or CME, traveled at over 900 miles per second. The CME did not travel directly toward Earth, but did connect with Earth’s magnetic environment, or magnetosphere, causing aurora to appear on the night of Monday, September 3. This is a a lighten blended version of the 304 and 171 angstrom wavelengths. Credit: NASA/GSFC/SDO.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA is an excerpt from professor Algis Uždavinys’ work,  ‘Philosophy and Theurgy in late Antiquity’, published by Angelico Press & Sophia Perennis in 2014. From page 112 to 115.

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THE SOUNDING BREATHS OP THE ALL-WORKING FIRE

The noise of the spinning (when the Chaldean Iynx is moved) imitates the noise of the divine Utterance, the Light-like Name of God. This noise is described by using the Greek verb rhoizeo (‘whirl or spin with a whistling noise’). It is attested to in the Graeco-Egyptian Magical papyri as well. for example, the ritualist invites the Mistress of the entire world to heed her sacred symbols and give a whir­ring sound (rhoizon). In this case, whirring refers to the sistrum (sesheshet) of Hathor (PGM vn.883-884). The Mistress Selene the Egyptian, whose image is to be made in the form of the universe, is Hekate, lady of night, here described as Aphrodite Urania (Celestial Hator). The spell itself belongs to certain rites of Heaven and the North Star.

The Greek verb rhoizeo is frequently used to describe the cos­mogonic noise of creation, unitated in the Oriental temple liturgies and festivals. In the Egyptian Sed-festival, aimed at the mystical rebirth of a pharaoh, the sacred music of Hathor (the Cow of Gold) was regarded as a means of cosmic deconstruction and subsequent re-creation of all kheperu.

As a fiery serpent goddess, Hator is called Ueret-Hekau (The Great of Heka), sometimes depicted as a leonine-headed figure with a sun-disc and uraeus. Ueret-Hekau serves as an elevating force in the process of pharaoh’s deification, that is his ascent and union with Amun-Ra. Her elevating whistling music may be regarded as analogous to the whirring sound (rhoizon) of the Hekate’s theurgic instrument which imitates both the harmony of the spheres and the rotation of the Platonic Ideas (The Chaldean Iynges, moving like the descending and ascending bau in the Egyptian Ramesside Theology).

The word iunx (plural iunges) is presumably derived from the verb iuzo, ‘shout, cry out’.  The Iunx-wheel (like the macrocosmic wheel of creation) is moved by the erotic heka power. The sound made by the whirling wheel should be accompanied by invocations. In the Hellenic milieu, these invocation are based on the correct pronunciation of the seven  Greek vowels, related with the seven planetary spheres of Babylonian-Hellenic cosmology, themselves belonging to one or another chain (seira) of manifestation. As S.I. Johnston remarks: ‘The invocation of deities by pronunciation of the seven vowels is akin to the use of ‘secret words’ (sumbola, sunthemata), with which…The Iynges were connected or even identified.’

Here we see an analogy (or even identity) between the fundamental noetic principles and the sounding elements (phoneenta stoicheia) of the theophanic universe: ‘The Heavens sing, and the sound is that of vowels.’

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This ‘singing’ stems from the Silent One and shows the way back to Him. The roaring ‘sounds’ of divine irradiation (ellampsis) may be described as rays of light, as winds or spirits, or as the life-bringing breaths, rotating like the spokes of a wheel. According to the Vedic tradition, Vayu ‘puts the inhalation and exhalation’ (prana-panau dadhati) into man, like into the Egyptian statue-like body which receives the vital essence, ka.

The Sanskrit pranah (breath, vital spirit) is roughly equivalent to the Greek pneuma. A.K. Coomaraswamy argues that these vital breaths of Brahma, Agni, or Vishvakarman (All Worker) are imagined  of a stream or torrent of light, sound, and life: they are the very waters (comparable to the Osirian Nile) that are released when Vitra is slain by Indra (in Illo tempore, when the beginning and the end meet). These streams ‘Are called nadyah ‘because they sounded (anadata)’ as they went their way…and in the same way ‘the Breath is a noise (prano va nadah)’, and when it sounds, all else resounds…’

Agni, like the Chaldean noetic and paternal Fire, himself is the Breath, the ever-living Fire from which creative Speech is flowing down through the fiery channels, sometimes compared to the Seven Rishis (rsis, divine seers, sages), or streams of wisdom, since the word rsis itself contains the root meaning ‘rush, flow, shine”. Hence, the solar Vishvakarman, the supreme Agni, is the principle which transcends the seven lights (or rays) of manifestation. He is comparable to Atum-Ra, or Amun-Ra, that is the divine Intellect. Essentially, Agni is beyond the seven pneumata, the pneumatic threads or wind-cords (vata-rajjuh) tied to the hypercosmic Sun, namely, Agni himself, or to the supercelestial Pole Star.

The fiery breaths or channels of Agni (the All-Working Fire) are analogous to the ethereal rays (ochetai) in the Neo-Platonic cosmology and related soteriological rites. The luminous solar vehicle (augoeides ochema) of the immortal soul was thought to be able to inhale the Sun-rays and thereby return to the Sun, the visible agalma or sunthema of the Paternal Fire. The later Neo-Platonists ‘were firm believers in the theurgic rites of elevation’, as J.F. Finamore pointed out. They maintained that the soul (riding upon its purified solar vehicle) can be raised up by the rays of Helios, the noetic Sun shining through the  visible Sun. The ascent of Herakles symbolized for them the soul’s homecoming to the noetic realm; therefore Emperor Julian said that Zeus elevated Herakles to himself “Through the thunderbolt (dia tou kerauniou), having ordered his son to come to his side by the divine sunthema of the ethereal ray (hupo to theio sunthemati tes aitherias auges.” (Oraison VII. 220a).

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