Fasnachts-Brunnen...Tears of the Creator...The Carnival Fountain...Totentanz...Black Work representative of the Great Works of the wise men: the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of Life, Universal Medicine.

Did Egyptian mythology inspire Tinguely's patrons? The various deities are said to have been created by the sweat of the original Creator Principle. The tears of his eyes would have been used to create humans. Man would be this work in black (he was first created with the black earth of the Nile (Al Kemya which became Alchime) of the Creator who weeps because of his behaviour. He is what makes the divine weep. He is gifted with treachery and can never share the clear divine vision; everything he sees, thinks and does is imperfect. In a way, this is the notion of the fall, a principle of inversion that explains the light with its bearer: Lucifer. The stream of water coming out of the eyes is sometimes crossed by sunlight during the movement of the head and could symbolise this inner light? The black head of the primordial men ADAM KADMON was created with the black earth which is called Kemya, to have given rise to the word Al Kemya. Alkemia became known as alchemy in Europe and particularly here in Basel. Perhaps tears are like light, coming out of the eyes with the sun like a principle of the creative gaze, the eye that sees everything, even the invisible? Is Basel a city of alchemy? We would have to remember Paracelsus and a secret language to try and understand the tears of joy shed by the spectator moved by the OPERA... in Italian and the work in English; here THE BLACK WORK. Would medieval alchemy refer to ancient Egypt to describe the phenomena: The tears of Isis in the black stone of the origins are joyful because they express the rebirth in movement of the head that says YES to this new birth. The tears of Isis regenerate the dead body of the pediment and reveal its living strength. Perhaps Tinguely had the freedom to create for clients who knew enough about alchemy? Paracelsus and Jung are not necessarily far away...The Carnival Fountain (also: Tinguely Fountain or Carnaval) is a fountain created by the artist Jean Tinguely and is located on the theatre square in the Swiss city of Basel. Why CARNIVAL? in French Char Naval!!! Like CARNAVAL??? Look at the waters plays!!!!!! Carnival is liked with DEVIL 😈 and Occultism, occult your eyesight It was built between 1975 and 1977 on the site of the stage of the old, demolished city theatre and was a gift from the 50-year-old Migros trading cooperative to the city of Basel. It is a new landmark for Basel, but is not a listed building[.
Black-Work, archetypal situation at the beginning of the Work.Black crows are symbols of the initial Black Phase (the Nigredo) of alchemy, during which the subject of transformation is purified by breaking it. Where the stage of the old municipal theatre once stood, Jean Tinguely placed playful machine sculptures in a water basin in 1977, giving Basel a new landmark: the Swiss artist had a shallow fountain basin filled with black asphalt in order to place water-spouting figures powered by low voltage electricity. These ten iron eminences are in constant motion and in dialogue with each other, just like the mimes, actors and dancers who once performed in this very spot.

The sculpture is like a visual guide to the operations of alchemy, we will use an alchemical mandala actually used by the alchemists in trying to understand the relationships between the processes of transformation.

de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fasnachts-Brunnen

This is how man is born of the Creator, who cries because of his behaviour. He is what makes the divine weep. He has a gift for betrayal and can never share the clear divine vision; everything he sees, thinks and does is imperfect....The initiatory path offers an escape from this state of affairs, thanks to the tears of the Widow, which open the door to Mastery. She sheds tears of silver, lunar rays, from which the brothers can draw the raw material they need to make gold. In correspondence with the moon, she changes the nature of the stone, fertilising it with her tears and introducing divine gold into its heart. This gold is the Mastery of those who live in the unity of Wisdom, the Initiates who have passed into the Eternal East. The Principle of Creation, for its part, is neither gold nor silver, but it gives both when it thinks of itself, through its feminine aspect, white, silver, and its masculine aspect, gold. In fact, these two metals do not have sexual characteristics and they also include their complement within them. Silver, the queen of peace, has within it the fixed male nature, and gold is all silver, although animated by masculine fire. Tears are emanations of the light of the Principle and are associated with the creative gaze. They are both of the nature of fertilising water and of fire. On the one hand, they are tongues of fire, symbols of the transmission of the Spirit received by the Master when he rose from the dead. But the alchemists also called them dew or water of life. It is the principal Water, both terrestrial and celestial, mercurial water, the primordial material of the alchemical work. Egyptian mythology perhaps suggests that the deities were made by the sweat of the "Creative Principle". HUMANS are said to have come from the tears of his eyes. MAN is pronounced "rmt" and tears "rmyt"; man as an emanation of the Creator weeping over his behaviour. He makes the divine weep because he is gifted with treachery and will never share the divine's clear vision.
never share the clear divine vision; everything he sees, thinks and does is imperfect. The tears fall like the fall of Paradise or that of Lucifer, the bearer of light.
The “Azoth” (shown above) is a meditative emblem that appeared in several different forms during the late Middle Ages. The version we are using is based on an illustration first published in 1659 in the Azoth of the Philosophers by the legendary German alchemist Basil Valentine. The word “Azoth” in the title is one of the more arcane names for the First Matter. The “A” and “Z” in the word relate to “alpha” and “omega,” the letters at the beginning and end of the Greek alphabet. Thus the word is meant to convey the idea of the absolutely complete and full meaning of the First Matter and its transformations. In this sense, the Azoth represents not just the chaotic First Matter at the beginning of the Work but also its perfected essence (the Philosopher’s Stone) at the conclusion of the Work.At the center of this striking drawing is the face of a bearded alchemist at the beginning of the Work. Like looking into a mirror, this is where the adept fixes his or her attention to begin meditation at the center of the mandala. The downward-pointing triangle superimposed over the face of the alchemist represents Water in its highest sense as divine grace or the gift of life pouring down from Above. Therefore, within the triangle we see the face of God, and the drawing clearly implies that the face of God and the face of the alchemist are the same. Of course, this idea was considered blasphemy to the medieval Church, which explains why this drawing was circulated secretly in so many different forms during the Middle Ages. It was not until the Renaissance, when the idea of the divine nature of man, that the drawing was first published.The schematized body of the alchemist is shown in perfect balance with the Four Elements as depicted by his arms and legs. His feet protrude from behind the central emblem, and one is on Earth and the other in Water, indicating he is grounded in the real world. In his right hand is a torch of Fire and in his left hand a feather symbolizing Air. Although he is firmly planted in the world of matter, the alchemist has easy access to the powers of spirit.The alchemist also stands balanced between the masculine and feminine powers in the background. He is really the offspring of the marriage between Sol, the archetypal Sun King seated on a lion on a hill to his right, and Luna, the archetypal Moon Queen seated on a great fish to his left. “Its father is the Sun,” says the Emerald Tablet, “its mother the Moon.”

The jovial, extroverted Sun King holds a scepter and a shield indicating his authority and strength over the rational, visible world, but the fiery dragon of the rejected contents of his unconscious waits in a cave beneath him ready to attack should he grow too arrogant. This dragon is created by the fiery nature of consciousness any time we forcibly reject part of the contents of our psyche and relegate it to the shadows. We have given this undesirable part life energy in the very act of rejection. The fact that light casts shadows is inherent in masculine consciousness, and it becomes a source of demons that plague us throughout our lives.

The jovial, extroverted Sun King holds a scepter and a shield indicating his authority and strength over the rational, visible world, but the fiery dragon of the rejected contents of his unconscious waits in a cave beneath him ready to attack should he grow too arrogant. This dragon is created by the fiery nature of consciousness any time we forcibly reject part of the contents of our psyche and relegate it to the shadows. We have given this undesirable part life energy in the very act of rejection. The fact that light casts shadows is inherent in masculine consciousness, and it becomes a source of demons that plague us throughout our lives. The melancholy, introverted Moon Queen holds the reins to a great fish, symbolizing her control of those same hidden forces that threaten the King, and behind her is a chaff of wheat, which stands for her connection to fertility and growth. The bow and arrow she cradles in her left arm symbolize the wounds of the heart and body she accepts as part of her existence, for feminine consciousness accepts the world as it is, with all its pain and suffering.In simplest terms, the King and Queen represent the raw materials of our experience – thoughts and feelings – with which the alchemist works. The King symbolizes the power of thought and planning, which are characteristics of spirit. The Queen stands for the influence of feelings and emotions, which are ultimately the chaotic First Matter of the soul. The much heralded marriage of the King and Queen produces a state of consciousness best described as a feeling intellect, which can be raised and purified to produce a state of perfect intuition, that Egyptian alchemists referred to as “Intelligence of the Heart.” This special kind of intelligence or way of knowing is at work in the alchemist, for he is born of the sacred marriage of masculine and feminine consciousness.Between legs of the alchemist dangles the Cubic Stone, which is labeled Corpus (meaning “body”). The five stars surrounding it indicate that the body also contains the hidden Fifth Element, the invisible Quintessence whose “inherent strength is perfected if it is turned into Earth” in the words of the Emerald Tablet.Where the head of the alchemist should be, there is a strange winged caricature. This represents the Ascended Essence, the essence of the soul raised to the highest level in the body. This image evolved through the decades with this drawing, and at one time or another was shown as a golden ball, a helmet, a heart, and finally as a depiction of the pineal gland (a light-sensitive, pinecone-shaped organ at the center of the brain). Touching the wings of the Ascended Essence are a salamander engulfed in flames on the left side of the drawing and a standing bird on the right. Below the salamander is the inscription Anima (Soul); below the bird is the inscription Spiritus (Spirit). The salamander, as a symbol of soul, is attracted to the blazing heat of the Sun, while the bird of spirit is attracted to the coolness of the Moon. This is a visualization of the fundamental bipolar energies that drive the alchemy of transformation. This is similar in meaning to the Tai Chi symbol representing the interplay of the feminine yin and masculine yang energies. In this process, one thing takes on the characteristics of the other as it becomes its opposite. This is the relationship between Mercury and Sulfur in alchemy, and explains why Mercury is sometimes associated with soul and other times associated with spirit. The same is true of Sulfur. The alchemists believed that within this interplay could be found the source of the life force. Carl Jung called this overall process of one thing changing its opposite by the unfortunately unwieldy name of “inandromedria.” Spiritus, Anima, and Corpus (Spirit, Soul, and Body) form a large inverted triangle that stands behind the central emblem of the alchemist. Together they symbolize the Three Essentials behind anything, the celestial archetypes that the alchemists termed Sulfur, Mercury, and Salt.

azothalchemy.org/azoth_ritual.htm
The alchemist also stands balanced between the masculine and feminine powers in the background. He is really the offspring of the marriage between Sol, the archetypal Sun King seated on a lion on a hill to his right, and Luna, the archetypal Moon Queen seated on a great fish to his left. “Its father is the Sun,” says the Emerald Tablet, “its mother the Moon.”

the image or representative of the Great Works of the wise men: the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of Life, and the Universal Medicine.

Other hieroglyphics seen in connection with Isis are no less curious than those already described, but it is impossible to enumerate all, for many symbols were used interchangeably by the Egyptian Hermetists. The goddess often wore upon her head a hat made of cypress branches, to signify mourning for her dead husband and also for the physical death which she caused every creature to undergo in order to receive a new life in posterity or a periodic resurrection. The head of Isis is sometimes ornamented with a crown of gold or a garland of olive leaves, as conspicuous marks of her sovereignty as queen of the world and mistress of the entire universe. The crown of gold signifies also the aurific unctuosity or sulphurous fatness of the solar and vital fires which she dispenses to every individual by a continual circulation of the elements, this circulation being symbolized by the musical rattle which she carries in her hand. This sistrum is also the yonic symbol of purity.

A serpent interwoven among the olive leaves on her head, devouring its own tail, denotes that the aurific unctuosity was soiled with the venom of terrestrial corruption which surrounded it and must be mortified and purified by seven planetary circulations or purifications called flying eagles (alchemical terminology) in order to make it medicinal for the restoration of health. (Here the emanations from the sun are recognized as a medicine for the healing of human ills.) The seven planetary circulations are represented by the circumambulations of the Masonic lodge; by the marching of the Jewish priests seven times around the walls of Jericho, and of the Mohammedan priests seven times around the Kabba at Mecca. From the crown of gold project three horns of plenty, signifying the abundance of the gifts of Nature proceeding from one root having its origin in the heavens (head of Isis).

In this figure the pagan naturalists represent all the vital powers of the three kingdoms and families of sublunary nature-mineral, plant, and animal (man considered as an animal). At one of her ears was the moon and at the other the sun, to indicate that these two were the agent and patient, or father and mother principles of all natural objects; and that Isis, or Nature, makes use of these two luminaries to communicate her powers to the whole empire of animals, vegetables, and minerals. On the back of her neck were the characters of the planets and the signs of the zodiac which assisted the planets in their functions. This signified that the heavenly influences directed the destinies of the principles and sperms of all things, because they were the governors of all sublunary bodies, which they transformed into little worlds made in the image of the greater universe.

Isis holds in her right hand a small sailing ship with the spindle of a spinning wheel for its mast. From the top of the mast projects a water jug, its handle shaped like a serpent swelled with venom. This indicates that Isis steers the bark of life, full of troubles and miseries, on the stormy ocean of Time. The spindle symbolizes the fact that she spins and cuts the thread of Life. These emblems further signify that Isis abounds in humidity, by means of which she nourishes all natural bodies, preserving them from the heat of the sun by humidifying them with nutritious moisture from the atmosphere. Moisture supports vegetation, but this subtle humidity (life ether) is always more or less infected by some venom proceeding from corruption or decay. It must be purified by being brought into contact with the invisible cleansing fire of Nature. This fire digests, perfects, and revitalizes this substance, in order that the humidity may become a universal medicine to heal and renew all the bodies in Nature.

The serpent throws off its skin annually and is thereby renewed (symbolic of the resurrection of the spiritual life from the material nature). This renewal of the earth takes place every spring, when the vivifying spirit of the sun returns to the countries of the Northern Hemisphere,

The symbolic Virgin carries in her left hand a sistrum and a cymbal, or square frame of metal, which when struck gives the key-note of Nature (Fa); sometimes also an olive branch, to indicate the harmony she preserves among natural things with her regenerating power. By the processes of death and corruption she gives life to a number of creatures of diverse forms through periods of perpetual change. The cymbal is made square instead of the usual triangular shape in order to symbolize that all things are transmuted and regenerated according to the harmony of the four elements.

Dr. Sigismund Bacstrom believed that if a physician could establish harmony among the elements of earth, fire, air, and water, and unite them into a stone (the Philosopher's Stone) symbolized by the six-pointed star or two interlaced triangles, he would possess the means of healing all disease. Dr. Bacstrom further stated that there was no doubt in his mind that the universal, omnipresent fire (spirit) of Nature: "does all and is all in all." By attraction, repulsion, motion, heat, sublimation, evaporation, exsiccation, inspissation, coagulation, and fixation, the Universal Fire (Spirit) manipulates matter, and manifests throughout creation. Any individual who can understand these principles and adapt them to the three departments of Nature becomes a true philosopher.

From the right breast of Isis protruded a bunch of grapes and from, the left an ear of corn or a sheaf of wheat, golden in color. These indicate that Nature is the source of nutrition for plant, animal, and human life, nourishing all things from herself. The golden color in the wheat (corn) indicates that in the sunlight or spiritual gold is concealed the first sperm of all life.

On the girdle surrounding the upper part of the body of the statue appear a number of mysterious emblems. The girdle is joined together in front by four golden plates (the elements), placed in the form of a square. This signified that Isis, or Nature, the first matter (alchemical terminology), was the essence- of the four elements (life, light, heat, and force), which quintessence generated all things. Numerous stars are represented on this girdle, thereby indicating their influence in darkness as well as the influence of the sun in light. Isis is the Virgin immortalized in the constellation of Virgo, where the World Mother is placed with the serpent under her feet and a crown. of stars on her head. In her arms she carries a sheaf of grain and sometimes the young Sun God.

The statue of Isis was placed on a pedestal of dark stone ornamented with rams' heads. Her feet trod upon a number of venomous reptiles. This indicates that Nature has power to free from acidity or saltness all corrosives and to overcome all impurities from terrestrial corruption adhering to bodies. The rams' heads indicate that the most auspicious time for the generation of life is during the period when the sun passes through the sign of Aries. The serpents under her feet indicate that Nature is inclined to preserve life and to heal disease by expelling impurities and corruption.

In this sense the axioms known to the ancient philosophers are verified; namely:

Nature contains Nature,
Nature rejoices in her own nature,
Nature surmounts Nature;
Nature cannot be amended but in her own nature.

[paragraph continues] Therefore, in contemplating the statue of Isis, we must not lose sight of the occult sense of its allegories; otherwise, the Virgin remains an inexplicable enigma.

From a golden ring on her left arm a line descends, to the end of which is suspended a deep box filled with flaming coals and incense. Isis, or Nature personified, carries with her the sacred fire, religiously preserved and kept burning in. a special temple by the vestal virgins. This fire is the genuine, immortal flame of Nature--ethereal, essential, the author of life. The inconsumable oil; the balsam of life, so much praised by the wise and so often referred to in the Scriptures, is frequently symbolized as the fuel of this immortal flame.

From the right arm of the figure also descends a thread, to the end of which is fastened a pair of scales, to denote the exactitude of Nature in her weights and measures. Isis is often represented as the symbol of justice, because Nature is eternally consistent.

THOTH, THE DOG-HEADED.
Click to enlarge
THOTH, THE DOG-HEADED.

From Lenoir's La Franche-Maconnerie.

Aroueris, or Thoth, one of the five immortals, protected the infant Horus from the wrath of Typhon after the murder of Osiris. He also revised the ancient Egyptian calendar by increasing the year from 360 days to 365. Thoth Hermes was called "The Dog-Headed" because of his faithfulness and integrity. He is shown crowned with a solar nimbus, carrying in one hand the Crux Ansata, the symbol of eternal life, and in the other a serpent-wound staff symbolic of his dignity as counselor of the gods.

THE EGYPTIAN MADONNA.
Click to enlarge
THE EGYPTIAN MADONNA.

From Lenoir's La Franche-Maconnerie.

Isis is shown with her son Horus in her arms. She is crowned with the lunar orb, ornamented with the horns of rams or bulls. Orus, or Horus as he is more generally known, was the son of Isis and Osiris. He was the god of time, hours, days, and this narrow span of life recognized as mortal existence. In all probability, the four sons of Horus represent the four kingdoms of Nature. It was Horus who finally avenged the murder of his father, Osiris, by slaying Typhon, the spirit of Evil.

p. 48

The World Virgin is sometimes shown standing between two great pillars--the Jachin and Boaz of Freemasonry--symbolizing the fact that Nature attains productivity by means of polarity. As wisdom personified, Isis stands between the pillars of opposites, demonstrating that understanding is always found at the point of equilibrium and that truth is often crucified between the two thieves of apparent contradiction.

The sheen of gold in her dark hair indicates that while she is lunar, her power is due to the sun's rays, from which she secures her ruddy complexion. As the moon is robed in the reflected light of the sun, so Isis, like the virgin of Revelation, is clothed in the glory of solar luminosity. Apuleius states that while he was sleeping he beheld the venerable goddess Isis rising out of the ocean. The ancients realized that the primary forms of life first came out of water, and modem science concurs in this view. H. G. Wells, in his Outline of History, describing primitive life on the earth, states: "But though the ocean and intertidal water already swarmed with life, the land above the high-tide line was still, so far as we can guess, a stony wilderness without a trace of life." In the next chapter he adds: "Wherever the shore-line ran there was life, and that life went on in and by and with water as its home, its medium, and its fundamental necessity." The ancients believed that the universal sperm proceeded from warm vapor, humid but fiery. The veiled Isis, whose very coverings represent vapor, is symbolic of this humidity, which is the carrier or vehicle for the sperm life of the sun, represented by a child in her arms. Because the sun, moon, and stars in setting appear to sink into the sea and also because the water receives their rays into itself, the sea was believed to be the breeding ground for the sperm of living things. This sperm is generated from the combination of the influences of the celestial bodies; hence Isis is sometimes represented as pregnant.

Frequently the statue of Isis was accompanied by the figure of a large black and white ox. The ox represents either Osiris as Taurus, the bull of the zodiac, or Apis, an animal sacred to Osiris because of its peculiar markings and colorings. Among the Egyptians, the bull was a beast of burden. Hence the presence of the animal was a reminder of the labors patiently performed by Nature that all creatures may have life and health. Harpocrates, the God of Silence, holding his fingers to his mouth, often accompanies the statue of Isis. He warns all to keep the secrets of the wise from those unfit to know them.

The Druids of Britain and Gaul had a deep knowledge concerning the mysteries of Isis and worshiped her under the symbol of the moon. Godfrey Higgins considers it a mistake to regard Isis as synonymous with the moon. The moon was chosen for Isis because of its dominion over water. The Druids considered the sun to be the father and the moon the mother of all things. By means of these symbols they worshiped Universal Nature.

The figure of Isis is sometimes used to represent the occult and magical arts, such as necromancy, invocation, sorcery, and thaumaturgy. In one of the myths concerning her, Isis is said to have conjured the invincible God of Eternities, Ra, to tell her his secret and sacred name, which he did. This name is equivalent to the Lost Word of Masonry. By means of this Word, a magician can demand obedience from the invisible and superior deities. The priests of Isis became adepts in the use of the unseen forces of Nature. They understood hypnotism, mesmerism, and similar practices long before the modem world dreamed of their existence.

Plutarch describes the requisites of a follower of Isis in this manner: "For as 'tis not the length of the beard, or the coarseness of the habit which makes a philosopher, so neither will those frequent shavings, or the mere wearing [of] a linen vestment constitute a votary of Isis; but he alone is a true servant or follower of this Goddess, who after he has heard, and been made acquainted in a proper manner with the history of the actions of these Gods, searches into the hidden truths which he concealed under them, and examines the whole by the dictates of reason and philosophy."

During the Middle Ages the troubadours of Central Europe preserved in song the legends of this Egyptian goddess. They composed sonnets to the most beautiful woman in all the world. Though few ever discovered her identity, she was Sophia, the Virgin of Wisdom, whom all the philosophers of the world have wooed. Isis represents the mystery of motherhood, which the ancients recognized as the most apparent proof of Nature's omniscient wisdom and God's overshadowing power. To the modern seeker she is the epitome of the Great Unknown, and only those who unveil her will be able to solve the mysteries of life, death, generation, and regeneration.

MUMMIFICATION OF THE EGYPTIAN DEAD
Servius, commenting on Virgil's Æneid, observes that "the wise Egyptians took care to embalm their bodies, and deposit them in catacombs, in order that the soul might be preserved for a long time in connection with the body, and might not soon be alienated; while the Romans, with an opposite design, committed the remains of their dead to the funeral pile, intending that the vital spark might immediately be restored to the general element, or return to its pristine nature." (From Prichard's An Analysis of the Egyptian Mythology.)

No complete records are available which give the secret doctrine of the Egyptians concerning the relationship existing between the spirit, or consciousness, and the body which it inhabited. It is reasonably certain, however, that Pythagoras, who had been initiated in the Egyptian temples, when he promulgated the doctrine of metempsychosis, restated, in part at least, the teachings of the Egyptian initiates. The popular supposition that the Egyptians mummified their dead in order to preserve the form for a physical resurrection is untenable in the light of modern knowledge regarding their philosophy of death. In the fourth book of On Abstinence from Animal Food, Porphyry describes an Egyptian custom of purifying the dead by removing the contents of the abdominal cavity, which they placed in a separate chest. He then reproduces the following oration which had been translated out of the Egyptian tongue by Euphantus: "O sovereign Sun, and all ye Gods who impart life to men, receive me, and deliver me to the eternal Gods as a cohabitant. For I have always piously worshipped those divinities which were pointed out to me by my parents as long as I lived in this age, and have likewise always honored those who procreated my body. And, with respect to other men, I have never slain any one, nor defrauded any one of what he deposited with me, nor have I committed any other atrocious deed. If, therefore, during my life I have acted erroneously, by eating or drinking things which it is unlawful to cat or drink, I have not erred through myself, but through these" (pointing to the chest which contained the viscera). The removal of the organs identified as the seat of the appetites was considered equivalent to the purification of the body from their evil influences.

So literally did the early Christians interpret their Scriptures that they preserved the bodies of their dead by pickling them in salt water, so that on the day of resurrection the spirit of the dead might reenter a complete and perfectly preserved body. Believing that the incisions necessary to the embalming process and the removal of the internal organs would prevent the return of the spirit to its body, the Christians buried their dead without resorting to the more elaborate mummification methods employed by the Egyptian morticians.

In his work on Egyptian Magic, S.S.D.D. hazards the following speculation concerning the esoteric purposes behind the practice of mummification. "There is every reason to suppose," he says, "that only those who had received some grade of initiation were mummified; for it is certain that, in the eyes of the Egyptians, mummification effectually prevented reincarnation. Reincarnation was necessary to imperfect souls, to those who had failed to pass the tests of initiation; but for those who had the Will and the capacity to enter the Secret Adytum, there was seldom necessity for that liberation of the soul which is said to be effected by the destruction of the body. The body of the Initiate was therefore preserved after death as a species of Talisman or material basis for the manifestation of the Soul upon earth."

During the period of its inception mummification was limited to the Pharaoh and such other persons of royal rank as presumably partook of the attributes of the great Osiris, the divine, mummified King of the Egyptian Underworld.

OSIRIS, KING OF THE UNDERWORLD.
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OSIRIS, KING OF THE UNDERWORLD.

Osiris is often represented with the lower par, of his body enclosed in a mummy case or wrapped about with funeral bandages. Man's spirit consists of three distinct parts, only one of which incarnates in physical form. The human body was considered to be a tomb or sepulcher of this incarnating spirit. Therefore Osiris, a symbol of the incarnating ego, was represented with the lower half of his body mummified to indicate that he was the living spirit of man enclosed within the material form symbolized by the mummy case.

There is a romance between the active principle of God and the passive principle of Nature. From the union of these two principles is produced the rational creation. Man is a composite creature. From his Father (the active principle) he inherits his Divine Spirit, the fire of aspiration--that immortal part of himself which rises triumphant from the broken clay of mortality: that part which remains after the natural organisms have disintegrated or have been regenerated. From his Mother (the passive principle) he inherits his body--that part over which the laws of Nature have control: his humanity, his mortal personality, his appetites, his feelings, and his emotions. The Egyptians also believed that Osiris was the river Nile and that Isis (his sister-wife) was the contiguous land, which, when inundated by the river, bore fruit and harvest. The murky water of the Nile were believed to account for the blackness of Osiris, who was generally symbolized as being of ebony hue.

sacred-texts.com/eso/sta/sta10.htm

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