The Orion molecular cloud complex is a star-forming expanse stretching across the region of the sky defined by the Orion Constellation. Within this star-birthing complex exists more specific areas of star formation in nebulae such as the Orion Nebula and the Horsehead Nebula. Stars are birthed in giant phallic pillars of gas and swirling dust. The Orion Nebula, located in the Milky Way and the central star of Orion’s sword, is the closest major star birthing region to earth with stars being born in cocoons of gas and matter.
This contemporary knowledge, partly derived from orbiting space telescopes, correlates to a remarkable extent with ancient mythologies about the birth of the universe. The myth that is related by Ovid in the ‘Fasti’ is about the birth of the constellation of Orion. Ovid alludes to more ancient myths that underlie the legends and indicates that the name of Orion had changed over the course of the ages.
vocat Uriona: perdidit antiquum littera prima sonum1
According to Ovid the pronunciation of the first letter of Uriona had changed over time and the name of this deity had become Orion. This suggests that Orion is a corruption of the original Uriona which itself is potentially a simplification of the archaic deity Uru-anna (the ‘Light of Heaven’). This was the Akkadian/Sumerian deity that was the equivalent of the Mesopotamian archetypal god Anu, also titled as the ‘True Shepherd of Orion.’
In Ovid’s myth, Hyrieus, meets the three gods Jupiter, Neptune and Mercury (Zeus, Poseidon, Hermes). The gods have taken on human forms and are unrecognized by Hyrieus. Despite his poverty Hyrieus slaughters his only farm animal, an ox, on which the gods feast. After this act of extreme hospitality the gods grant him a wish and Hyrieus requests that they give him a son.
To fulfil this wish the gods stand over the hide of the slaughtered ox and jointly ejaculate over it, thus metaphorically inseminating it. Their foaming streams of ejaculate are woven together to reflect the shining constellations of stars in the night sky. The visual appearance of the semen splattered hide reflects, like a mirror, the visual appearance of the Milky Way in the heavens above. The hide is then buried in the ground and after ten months gives birth to the constellation of Orion.
The standard translation of Ovid’s myth offers the absurdly puritanical notion that the gods urinate on the hide in order to inseminate it. The justification for this puritanical mangling of the myth is that the name Uriona is superficially similar to the Greek word for urine – ‘ouron.’ This is a direct contradiction of Ovid’s statement that the name of Uriona derives from archaic mythical roots, indicating that the myth alludes to the archaic Akkadian/Sumerian name for Orion, Uru-anna.
tum superiniecta texere madentia terra:
iamque decem menses, et puer ortus erat.
superiniectum – splatter, throw or scatter over a surface
madentia – be made wet with bodily fluids
texere – plait together
In the Memphis Theology the Egyptian primal deity Atum creates the constellations from his own ejaculate. According to the Shabaka Stone this was the original act of creation. “This Ennead of Atum came into being through his semen and through his fingers.”
The theology of the Shabaka Stone is supported by the Pyramid Texts of Saqqara which confirm this theory of creation.
“To say: Atum created by his masturbation in Heliopolis.
To put his phallus in his fist
to excite desire thereby.
The twins were born, Shu and Tefnut.”2
Therefore the act of primordial creation is explicitly linked to the autoerotic mind of Atum and visual evidence of this was seen in the shining celestial trails of star clusters in the night sky. The foaming celestial star clusters, formed from the primordial semen, were envisaged as the ejaculatory splatter of the deity in the night sky.
The rivers of semen that stream from this act of deified autoeroticism define the creation myth of ancient Egypt. Atum is self-created through this act which gives birth to the sacred primordial mound that rises out of the undefined waters of the pre-existing state. Thus the raising of the phallus of Atum is the first act of creation.
Varro states that Aphrodite was born from fiery semen that fell from the sky and was formed from “the foam-masses.” These stellar foam masses correspond to the cosmic gaseous clouds from which stars are formed. “The poets, in that they say the fiery seed fell from the sky into the sea and Venus (Aphrodite) was born ‘from the foam-masses,’ through the conjunction of fire and moisture, are indicating that this vis ‘force’ which they have is that of Venus. Those born of this vis have what called vita ‘life’…”3
The use of the expression “foam masses” indicates that Varro is speaking of the myth referenced by Hesiod about the birth of Aphrodite Urania. In this vision the stars become the semen of the gods filling the night sky with heavenly foam. The supreme deity Ouranos was castrated with a gigantic scythe wielded by Chronos (Saturn) and from the foaming mutilated genitals Aphrodite emerged. According to Hesiod this seminal foam formed the heavenly body of the goddess.
“And so soon as he had cut off the members with flint and cast them from the land into the surging sea, they were swept away over the main a long time; and a white foam spread around them from the immortal flesh, and in it there grew a maiden… Her gods and men call Aphrodite and the foam-born goddess and rich-crowned Cytherea, because she grew amid the foam…”4
Shining aetherial foam represented the ejaculatory trace of the gods in the night sky. This is the vision that is contained in the Derveni Papyrus where it states that the deity “swallowed the phallus that first procreated the aether.”
There was an ancient belief, as is still the contemporary belief, that the genesis of human life lay in the foaming clusters of stars that were perceived in the Milky Way. Aether was defined as the upper atmosphere infused by the heat and light of the sun. It was thus classified as bright fiery air. This was an air that existed in the domain of the gods and the Derveni Papyrus states that it was created by the cosmic phallus and was therefore equivalent to the ejaculate of the deity.
The papyrus was excavated from the remains of funeral pyre predating 400 BC. Its placement on a grave indicates that the concept of a deified phallus creating the aether was intended to enable passage to the afterlife. In that respect the Derveni Papyrus shares its message of the immortality of the human soul with the images of phalluses in the Eleusinian Mysteries.
According to Tertullian the climax to the initiation into the Eleusinian Mysteries involved the revelation of a monumental image of phalluses. The revelation (revelatur) takes place in the innermost sanctuary (adytum) of the temple in Eleusis. Here those being initiated were exposed to an image (simulacrum) of erect phalluses (membri virilis). Tertullian states that the Eleusinian priests justify the image as symbolizing the veneration of nature.5
The linkage of the phallus to the soul reflects the belief that the soul, once free of the mortal body, ascended upwards to the stars. This transit was due to its fiery nature which corresponded to the fiery nature of the aetherial upper atmosphere and ultimately to the stars that were burning brightly in the night sky. This vision of the soul’s journey contrasts with the Homeric vision of souls as shades in a monochrome and uninspiring afterlife.
“… and to them a soul was given formed from those everlasting fires, which you mortals call constellations and stars, that, round and spherical in form, alive with divine intelligences, complete their orbits and circles with marvellous swiftness.”6
The Milky Way was defined as the location in which the human soul completed its ascent. The whiteness of the glowing light of the Milky Way was equivalent to the bright whiteness of aether in the upper atmosphere. Cicero in ‘The Dream of Scipio’ invoked a dream in which the human soul ascends to the Milky Way, described as a circle of bright white light. The circular reference relates to the Pythagorean concept of the harmony of the spheres in which the Milky Way is seen as an encircling halo of stars.
“Such is the life that leads to heaven and to this company of those who have now lived their lives and released from their bodies dwell in that place which you can see; now that place was a circle conspicuous among the fires of heaven by the surpassing whiteness of its glowing light – which place you mortals, as you have learned from the Greeks, call the Milky Way.”7
The description of the soul as formed of bright fiery light is similar to the way in which semen was described. The aetherial material was contained in the pneuma that created the foam and was related to the aetherial lightness of the human soul. Aristotle stated that this foam or froth was the defining characteristic of semen. “Semen, then, is a compound of pneuma and water (pneuma being hot air), and that is why it is fluid in its nature; it is made of water.”
The visual quality was reflected in the brightly foaming nature of the Milky Way. Foaming semen that is simultaneously whitish and also partly transparent has a far more convincing visual equivalence to the Milky Way that the opaque visual quality of milk. The name of the galaxy appears to be a euphemism and a deflection from its status in the mythologies.
The foam contained aether, the rarefied fifth element, that was associated with the substances that formed the stars. This aetherial material was contained in the pneuma that created the foam and was related to the aetherial lightness of the human soul. Semen had a dynamic potential, a ‘dynamis,’ and this concept of dynamic movement was analogous to the human soul. This was a divine foaming froth that contained the code for all creation. The vital foam was celebrated as containing the divine essence involved in the stellar architecture.
Related in concept to the lightness of the soul and the comparable lightness of seminal foam are depictions of the primordial Egyptian deity Shu. He is depicted with an ostrich feather on his head symbolizing lightness. The deity represents the dry air of the upper atmosphere and is therefore equivalent to the Greek theories about aether, the light fiery air of the upper atmosphere which was associated with the stars.
Clouds of aether were envisaged as surrounding the stars and it was the movement of stars through the aether that caused the fiery tails of comets and shooting stars. The associated Primordial Egyptian deity to Shu was Tefnut who represented moisture or moist air. By combining the two deities a vision of the foaming visual quality of the Milky Way is created. This aetherial foam that spread across the heavens was the result of the original creative masturbatory act of Atum.
These ancient Egyptian concepts of the formation of the universe correlate with modern theories. Images from telescopes in space, such as the Hubble and James Webb, show vast gaseous clouds from which stars are born. The closest of these to earth are in the Milky Way, specifically in the Orion Nebula which is located in the sword of the Orion Constellation. Here are located the vast cocoons of gas and dust that incubate stars.
- Ovid – Fasti 5.531-6
- Saqqara Pyramid Text – Utterance 527
- Varro – On the Latin Language 5.63
- Hesiod – Theogony 176-180
- Tertullian – Against the Valentinians 1.2-11
- Cicero – The Dream of Scipio 7
- Ibid. 8
THE LABYRINTH OF THE NIGHT 