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 ALBERT PIKE ON Pillars & TABLETS DJED PILLAR

THE AGYIEUS PILLAR

The Eormensyl is the great pillar which divides the heavens from the earth. It is the axis-mundi through which the gods interact with their earthly kin. While it is a symbol of division it is also the eternal "center" of the universe. It is likely that many tribes had their own Eormensyls in the elder days. For more information on these concepts we recommend Mircea Eliade's "The Myth of the Eternal Return"

From a Website on Symbols of Heathenism

 "Young children in our own culture, like all preliterate people, are entirely at home in the world of magic and they make constant use of it. An interesting example of this comes in Jung's autobiographical account of his own childhood. The unhappiness of his external circumstances drove him into a secret world of magic and ritual - e.g. the manikin he made and kept in a pencil box in the attic of his father's vicarage, his fire rituals, and so on. He had a favourite day-dream in which he was the ruler of a medieval town. He lived in a fortified castle where he guarded a Great Secret from the world. This was a thick copper column. At the top was a network of tiny capillaries through which a special spiritual substance was drawn in from the air. Once in the column this was condensed and transformed into the most wonderful gold coins, which the column then discharged below."

Anthony Stevens, Private Myths - Dreams and Dreaming, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1995, p.171

 

PILLARS OR TABLETS 

  "Manetho extracted his history from certain pillars which he discovered in Egypt, whereon inscriptions had been made by Thoth, or the first Mercury [or Hermes], in the sacred letters and dialect; but which were after the flood translated from that dialect into the Greek tongue, and laid up in the private recesses of the Egyptian Temples. These pillars were found in subterranean caverns, near Thebes and beyond the Nile, not far from the sounding statue of Memnon, in a place called Syringes; which are described to be certain winding apartments underground; made, it is said, by those who were skilled in ancient rites; who, foreseeing the coming of the Deluge, and fearing lest the memory of their ceremonies be obliterated, built and contrived vaults, dug with vast labor, in several places."

Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, Faber, London & New York, see: Inge, W.R.

NTR - DJED PILLAR.  

The setting up of the Djed-Pillar originated in BUSARIS and moved to Memphis.

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p. 238, Rundle Clarke, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt. 

"... flat, whereas the mummy-case was painted as if to stand upright, although in fact it was placed flat inside the sarcophagus. The reason for this discrepancy is that the sarcophagus was put into the tomb before burial, whereas the mummy-case was brought to the tomb at the funeral and during the final commitment ceremonies sttod upright to receive the final consecration, the 'Opening of the Mouth'. In fact, the whole purpose of the mummy-case was to hold the body upright during the rites which preceded interment. Hence the mummy-case nearly always has a series of interlocked representations of the cosmic pillar which are designed to emphasize the uprightness of the divine world. It is in these complexes of uprighness that the Djed comes into its own as a dominant symbol. This can be seen very clearly on the back of a case in the Birmingham Museum. The central figure is the Djed in its final state, with the tie-pieces of the loin-cloth showing at the sides and, above it, the horns and double feather crown - the so-called Atef -  which Osiris wore in his triumphant phase. 29 At the sides of the Djed rise male serpents (with beards!) and, above them, lotus flowers crowned with stylized feathers. The serpents are double figures of the great Primeval Serpent, who reared up out of the Abyss at the beginning. Similarly, the lotuses are figures of Nefer-tum, the original cosmic flower, whose petals opened to reveal the sun, which then rose up and flew ( hence the feathers) across the sky. In both cases the symbol recalls a myth of origins, having as central idea a rising upwards. The two creation symbols have been double to provide supports for the central Djed, itself a symbol of the same thing but, with its Osirian connotations, immediately connected with the identification with Osiris and the rise and permanence of the soul. The whole design is a triple statement about the victory of the vertical as the manifestation of eternal life.  

THE AGYIEUS PILLAR 

For illustrations of the Agyieus Pillar, see: Lexicon Iconographicum Mythologiae Classicae, Artemis Verlag, Zurich & Munich, 1984. 

"Agyieus was defined.. . as a pointed or a conical pillar. . . For Hesychios, Agyieus was the pillar-shaped altar, standing before the doors'... Agyieus worship, predominantly but not exclusively   (p. 58 ) associated with Apollo, developed out of the cult of the Agyieus pillar. . . and was thus fused with the Minoan pillar-worship. . . The omphalos persists in association with Apollo in the Cretan coinage. There is even some evidence to suggest that the cult of the sacred stone side by side with the cult of the guardian of gates and ways, which formed the essence of the conception of Agyieus in ancient Greece, was paralleled at an earlier date in Anatolia in a way which confirms the Oriental origin of Apollo. . . Although the epithet [of Agyieus] was normally regarded as proper to Apollo, it was sometimes associated with Dionysus and Zeus. This. . . indicates that the cult of the pillar antedates the association with Apollo."

            R. F. Willetts, Cretan Cults and Festivals, pp. 259-260.

            From, Danielou, Shiva and Dionysus, p. 58-59.