Egyptian Magic in Egyptian Magic by Florence Farr.
“The ram head is often placed on the stone scarabæus (symbol of self-creation) which replaces the heart in the body of a mummy; representing what the medieval mystics meant when they talked of the ‘Stone of the Wise.'” [via]
Consider also:
- “we have hitherto written of man as composed of soul and body; but the Initiated Egyptians regarded themselves as being far from simply soul and body. They gave names to several human faculties, and postulated for each a possibility of separate existence.”
- “There is considerable difficulty about this hieroglyph; if it represents the phœnix as it has been commonly supposed to do, it would be easy to understand that it was the symbol of a soul belonging to a more complex range of being, only to be evolved through a long series of labours on the part of its human counterpart; but if it is simply a form of a common hernshaw I should take it as implying a milder and less fiery nature in the soul.”
- “The bees hive in the mixing bowls and jars of stone, for so Porphyry understands the passage, because honey was the symbol adopted by the ancients for ‘pleasure arising from generation.'”
- “Understand, o my Son, in thy Youth, these Words which some wise One, now nameless, spake of old; except ye become as little Children ye shall in no wise enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
- “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.”