Egyptian Magic in Egyptian Magic by Florence Farr.

“Remembering that in the representations of the AB the principles are reversed as though reflected in a vessel of blood—the concave germ being uppermost.” [via]

Consider also:

  1. “In the same way the AB (will) or Red Vessel of the Heart is represented in the Book of the Dead as containing an egg, and a concave germ: when this concave germ is developed by cultivation the real life and full development of the Ego could begin: this is to say the KA could progress in its celestial evolution, just as the body could progress in its terrestrial evolution.”
  2. “Of course in thousands of cases the celestial body was restricted; the fatal moment of conception loaded the terrestrial being (composed of the SAHU, HATI, and AB within the KAB or material body) with chains of destiny too strong for him to break through.”
  3. “No sooner, however, is the co-operation of the parent forces accomplished than the SAHU hastily attaches itself to the vitalized germ and remains with it as an invisible pattern towards which solid matter gravitating forms the material body.”
  4. “A symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame; while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not to imagination: the one is a revelation, the other an amusement.”
  5. “This letter may have been the expression of a moment’s enthusiasm, but was more probably rooted in one of those intuitions of coming technical power which every creator feels, and learns to rely upon; for all his greatest work was done, and the principles of his art were formulated, after this date. Except a word here and there, his writings hitherto had not dealt with the principles of art except remotely and by implication; but now he wrote much upon them, and not in obscure symbolic verse, but in emphatic prose, and explicit if not very poetical rhyme.”