Ogdoad

Ogdoad is the name assigned to a group of eight deities that played significant roles in the preliminary [Page 480]creation of the world according to the Kmtic (ancient Egyptian) priesthood of Khmnw (Hermopolis to the Greeks), which literally means city or nation of eight. The genius of Kmt's priests is reflected in their manner of addressing the conceptual vacuum logically created between the original formless void and the eventual world teaming with life. The priesthood of Khmnw focused on the premanifest world to lessen this area of the unknown. The priesthood acknowledged that the manifest world was characteristically finite, visible, and illuminated and had solid form. The manifest world, however, was the result of a previous state of existence in which an opposite set of characteristics reigned. The incarnation of these prenatal characteristics took place within the Eight Deities of the Ogdoad.

The earliest known records mentioning the Ogdoad are found in the Old Kingdom of Kmt in the Pyramid Texts (circa 2350 BC) and later in the Coffin Texts. Creation stories were apt to change over Kmt's 4,000-year history even when the deities remained consistent. In one creation story, the eight deities were said to have arisen from the Nun, the formless watery primordial substance, when Djhwdy, the initial creator in this version, called for them. Another rendition of the Ogdoad claims that the deities were self-created. In both of these renditions, the Ogdoad helps to give birth to the Sun deity as either Ra or Nfrtm, who proceeded to create the rest of the living creatures. The Ogdoad then lives on Earth during Kmt's golden era until they make the passage to the next life. Their passing, however, does not make them inert because they continue to manage the forces of the flood or the inundated Nile River.

Although the creation stories varied, the deities consistently emerged as four pairs, with each pair reflecting an equivalent balance of male and female force. Thus, there were four male deities pictori-ally represented as frogs and four female deities pictorially represented as serpents. There are alternative renderings of these deities, but the frog and serpent rendition provides the most insight to the relationship that these deities have with the Nun. Frogs and serpents were the first and most obvious forms of life that appeared on the banks of the receded Nile River.

The Eight Deities were Nun (male) and Naunet (female) of the watery void, Kuk (male) and Kauket (female) of darkness, Heh (male) and Hehet (female) of infinity, and Amun (male) and Amaunet (female) of invisibility. Reflecting the harmonic balance of gender duality, the description of the Ogdoad extends procreating potential to the inverted properties of the manifest world. The proof of their fecundity is in their resultant offspring, the Sun god, who goes on to create the other living creatures. The dialectical nature of the Ogdoad is proof of the Kmtic ability to articulate abstract concepts.