The Worlds of Creation
In Egyptian cosmology, the forces of creation are mirrored in nature-they are both transcendent and cyclic. In this view, all of the lifestreams, including human beings, nature, and the gods, partake of a process that ordains a return to the creative source and a reappearance in the phenomenal world, in a perpetual cycle of renewal, called Neheh (“forever”, “eternity”).
Returning to the world of creation was a theme continually emphasized in the liturgies of the temple and tomb. The powers that brought the deity into the temple were believed to originate even beyond the sway of divine beings, yet they could be harnessed to bring human beings into the realm of the gods. This return was not only possible, but an inevitability of mortal existence because humans, natural forces, and even the gods were subject to the cyclic forces that operate in the creative realms.
In the temple, the worlds of creation were ever present. On approaching the holy precinct, a temenos wall emulated the primeval ocean, from which life arose in the beginning of time. Passing through the portals to the house of the god, entry into the sphere of creative powers was indicated by forests of soaring columns that mirrored the initial appearance of life in the form of aquatic plants. And on entering the temple proper, the foundation of the material world was depicted in artistic representations of divine beings manifesting their nature through acts of creation in the physical world-the birth of royal persons, the initiation of natural laws and cycles, and the establishment of order in society.
In the first phase, the world of Manu (“horizon of waters”) comes into being as the macrocosm or celestial sphere, from which the elements of creation emerge. Its image is a watery mass of undefined powers, where all possibilities are articulated, but not manifest.
In the second phase, the world of Aakhut (“luminous horizon”) appears, in the fiery form of light that illuminates the primeval waters and impels patterns or forms to come into being.
In the third phase, the world of Rostau (‘horizon of spirits”) comes into being, symbolized as a mound upon which the forces of the upper worlds come to rest. This phase expresses the containment of the sacred fire in matter, the genesis of material life in microcosmic form.
The last phase of creation, the world of Ament (“horizon of the west”) represents the phenomenal world that we experience, where cyclic forces govern the conditions of existence-birth and death. Here, the return to the upper worlds becomes possible, as this realm expresses the fulfillment of the creative forces as well as their predestination for cyclic renewal. This world also possesses the mechanisms for the mutation of the physical form, which make possible the conscious experience of moving through several phases of existence.
— Rosemary Clark: The Sacred Magic of Ancient Egypt