"In the earliest mythology the woman was dominant. Men derived their descent from the mothers. This was in the time of the first creation. In the second, when the woman was derived from the man, . . . , the male comes uppermost, the matriarchal woman succumbs to patriarchal man. This is glanced at obliquely in the doom pronounced upon the woman by lahu-Elohim for" plucking the forbidden fruit". " Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and conception; in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." There is to be an end of matriarchal supremacy, and descent, as previously reckoned from the motherhood, is to be suppressed in this the second of two creations for the Adamic race. The two races of Adam are referred to by Esdras (I I. vi. 55-56) : " O Lord, thou madest the world for our sakes. As for the other people, which also come of Adam, thou hast said that they are nothing, but be like unto spittle." Both were Adamic, however, but the first came from the red earth or the mother-blood only; the second were derived from the fatherhood. In the Latin version of Esdras those who are nothing are the people of the first-born world, whereas those of the second creation are called the " only-begotten." In the mythical rendering of this two-foldness the first Horus was born but not begotten. He was the child of the mother only. The second Horus is the only begotten of the father, twice born and once begotten. In the primary phase he corresponds to the totemic people who were born under the matriarchate, those of the first-born world. In the second he is a representative of the people who are called the " only begotten " because they are the children of the fathers. The two primary castes or classes of Aryas in India, the sons of light and the children of darkness, were based upon the same original distinction betwixt those who were born of the matriarchate and those who are begotten under the divinized fatherhood. The Rabbins have retained some fragments of totemic tradition without the gnosis. It is said in the Targum of Palestine, "The Lord God created man in two formations". This dual formation, or creation, is common to the märchen, which we are tracing to the original mythos. The first men recognizable were made of red earth, which, when interpreted, means that flesh was shapen from the mother's blood. Then, say the Melbourne blacks, the god Pungel blew the spirit of life into the man at his navel (Nat. Gen. vol. ii. pp. 34-40). The Arunta tribes likewise hold. that the animistic spirit enters the navel to cause conception in their women. In the Egyptian texts it is [Page 441] also said of those who derive from the mother, the Amu, the Tamehu, and the negroes, " Sekhet has created them and she creates their souls," the souls that were created under the matriarchate, and were only souls of blood, whereas the Ruti were derived from Ra the holy spirit. In a magical text supposed to be of Akkadian origin there is a version of the "cutting out" of the woman from the man which is a little nearer to nature than the creation of the female from a rib of the male in the Hebrew Genesis. It is said the woman was derived from the flank of the man. (Boscawen.) Scattered fragments of the ancient wisdom now identified as Kamite are often to be found in what the Christian writers ignorantly scout as the wild and foolish fables or the absurd fancies of egregious Talmudists. Here is an instance. It is related that the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam whilst he extracted something from his members which was dispersed over the globe so that the whole earth might be inhabited by his seed (Endeckt. Judenthum). This account is nearer to the original than the version given in Genesis. The creation of the human race by Atum is biological. The " double primitive essence” of life was first assigned to Ptah. This consisted of blood and protozoa, and the twin source was personalized in Atum, who as creator was an image of the male and female blended in one person. Atum is described as producing his children by spontaneous emission, and also by the drawing of blood from his members, which was a way of showing the duality of source that was made one in the primal parent thus personified in Atum or in Adam, and in the male with the image of the female cut twice over on his member, once in the ovoid figure and once in the opening by sub-incision.

According to the second Hebrew account of creation, " Iahu-Elohim formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life " (Gen. ii. 7), which can have no direct relationship to aught that ever did occur in this our human world, nor had it any such signification in the esoteric version of the mystery teachers. But this can be followed in the mysteries of Amenta, in which Ptah was the vivifier of the manes for the after-life. The process of vivification was by opening the mouth of the dead and inspiring the breath of life into the nostrils. In the chapter by which the mouth of a person is opened for him in the earth of Ptah the Osiris pleads, " Let my mouth be opened by Ptah, and let the muzzles which are on my mouth be loosed by the god of the domain. Let my mouth be opened by Ptah with that instrument of steel or ba-metal wherewith he openeth the mouths of the gods and the manes." (Renouf, Rit., ch. 23.) Breath was restored to those who had been deprived of it. In the chapter by which air is given in the nether-world it is said, " O Atum, let there come to me the air which is in thy nostrils " (chs. 54 and 56). Again, the Osiris says, " My nostrils are opened in Tattu," the place of being permanently established; and by these ceremonies performed in mysteries man became a breathing soul after he had passed into the land of life. For it was the man who had died on earth to reappear as a sahu-mummy in Amenta whose mouth was opened and his nostrils inspired with the breath of a second life derived from Atum-Iu = Iu-Elohim. Atum likewise is the giver of breath in the new life of [Page 442] Amenta. He gives it to the spirit in the egg. This is a re-creation of Adam, or man, as manes in the earth of eternity, not the creation of a human being from the dust on the surface of our earth, as it has been misrendered in the Hebrew version."

- Gerald Massey, EGYPTIAN WISDOM AND THE HEBREW GENESIS