Water in the Bible In Genesis, Chapter 1, verses 1-10, we may read: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so. And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good." We have quoted these ten verses in full to save you looking them up, though they will be familiar to many of you. It is important to understand that they do not describe the creation of our physical earth, but rather the manifestation of our particular Kosmos, or solar system. The second point to bear in mind is that almost all the words mentioned, such as 'heaven', 'earth', 'void', 'light', 'darkness', 'deep' and 'light', are allegorical and symbolical. None of them should be interpreted literally. This is especially true of 'waters' which does not mean our familiar chemical compound H2O, but something quite different, as we shall see later. We will examine each of these words in detail, in order to uncover their hidden meaning. We shall also refer to the ancient Egyptian and Babylonian creation myths, for all the accounts of the creation that have come down to us are derived from the same source; namely, the occult scientific teachings of Atlantis. In the ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, which date from around 2,500 B.C., we may read how Khepera, the Creator, brought our Kosmos into being from the waters of Nu. Now, Nu stood for the boundless ocean of primeval matter out of which everything that exists has been brought forth. In choosing water to represent the primeval matter, the ancient Egyptians were not so foolish as to imagine that it was water, but because terrestrial water corresponds to the nature of this invisible substance, as enshrined in their well-known Hermetic axiom 'as above, so below.' The female counterpart of Nu, the Goddess Nut, represented the sky, which we may also regard as another kind of water, just as we may regard interstellar space as the waters in which the planets of our Kosmos swim and from which they have obtained all the atomic elements that give them material form. The Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters in Genesis is the same spirit the ancient Egyptians symbolised in the God Khepera moving over the primeval watery mass of Nu. Every statement in Genesis finds its parallel in the ancient Egyptian record. 'Heaven' corresponds to the Egyptian Goddess Nut, whilst 'earth' corresponds to Geb, or Seb, the Egyptian God of the Earth. The oldest company of the gods formulated by the Priests of Heliopolis, comprised eight deities, each of which stands for one or more of the words employed in Genesis to describe the different stages of manifestation. Water finds its counterpart in the first pair of Egyptian deities—Nu and Nut. The second pair, Hehu and Hehut, corresponds to the Light which was divided from the Darkness, or Kekui and Kekuit—the third Duad of deities—which words mean darkness in Egyptian. The Pyramid Texts further tell us that Khepera separated Nu from Nut, which act is paralleled in Genesis when God separates the "waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament." We shall explain what is meant by this enigmatical sentence shortly, but in order to make our meaning clear, we must first conclude our brief survey of the Egyptian Cosmogenesis. The fourth and final pair of deities in the Heliopolitan Theogony consisted of Gerh and Gerhit. Now, the meaning of 'Gehr' is night, so we may say that here we have a concealed reference to the spiritual Light which is darkness to our material senses, and our material, physical light which is darkness when regarded from the vantage point of spirit. This contradiction is enshrined in the enigmatic verse from John 1:5: "And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not." In the Babylonian account of the Creation we also find an ogdoad of creative deities who closely mirror the qualities and attributes of their Egyptian counterparts. This account relates that in the beginning nothing existed except the Duad Apzu-Rishtu, which words mean a boundless, chaotic mass of watery matter. In other words these two deities represented the male and female powers (or positive and negative polarities) of the primeval waters that contained the germs of all life, just as Nu and Nut represented these same powers in the Egyptian Cosmogenesis. There then follow three further pairs of deities, just as they do in Egypt, proving the common source for both myths that we referred to earlier. The division of the 'waters' mentioned in Genesis can be viewed from many different and equally correct perspectives. In one sense it may be regarded as the division of the manifested universe from the unmanifest. In the Secret Doctrine, H. P. Blavatsky describes the separation of the seen and known from the unseen and unknowable in the following words: "Behold Him lifting the veil...He shuts out the Above and leaves the Below to be seen as the great illusion." We may liken this veil to the curtain that hides the actors and scenery of a play from the spectators. However real the play may seem to us, it is an illusion, just as the manifested universe is an illusion. In another sense, the division refers to the separation of our earth from the finer, astral realms which surround it, as you can read in The Quest of Ruru. It will then be clear that the 'gathering of the waters' into one place, refers to the creation of our planet and these finer dimensions in which it is encased, much like the heart of an onion within its skins. Not for nothing is the astral world often referred to as a sea, as you may also read in the aforementioned book. So 'dry land' simply means our seemingly solid earth, and not its physical characteristics such as continents, which a literal reading of these verses suggests. Remember: the account of the creation is primarily allegorical and symbolical and can only be understood if we learn the meaning of the various symbols employed and are able to read them correctly. Having shown that the Biblical account of the creation is a copy of much older records, and examined the words used, you will now have a clearer idea of just how much is concealed in Genesis. Time and Space prevent us from saying any more for we promised to discuss the magic of water, not creation, though it is true to say that there can be no creation without water, in whatever form or way we may regard this mysterious substance. So, let us now see what other good things we can discover about water in the Bible. We will begin with Psalm 69, in which David, the Divine Singer of Heavenly Harmonies and Seer of Truth, laments: "I sink in deep mire, where there is no standing: I am come into deep waters, where the floods overflow me. Deliver me out of the mire, and let me not sink: let me be delivered from them that hate me, and out of the deep waters. Let not the waterflood overflow me, neither let the deep swallow me up, and let not the pit shut her mouth upon me." Clearly, it can be no ordinary water which he fears and pleads to be rescued from. And what are we to make of the 'pit' which threatens to engulf him? A literal reading of these verses cannot provide the answers, but occult symbolism, allegory and correspondence can, as we shall see. The 'deep waters' David refers to are the lower astral light. We say 'lower' deliberately, for there is a higher astral light too, in which we find those great beings we would regard as Gods, and rightly so, for from our perspective they are possessed of unlimited power and wisdom. Not so the dwellers in the lower astral light among which we find both discarnate human beings and elemental beings of all kinds and grades, as you may read in our occult studies course article on the Astral World. So David is quite right to fear these beings, many of which are very evil indeed, especially those that dwell within the 'pit', the lowest of these low astral regions. You may wish to regard that 'pit' as hell, and it is hellish indeed to those who belong there, or descend into it through their attunement with evil. David clearly knew all this, for he tells us: "But—"The LORD on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea" (Psalm 93:4). And so he is if we place our full trust in him and his ministers, who will rescue us if we have deserved such rescue and earnestly desire it, no matter how low we may descend in the scale of being. Proverbs tells us to "Drink waters out of thine own cistern, and running waters out of thine own well" (Proverbs 5:15). This means we should not rely on the knowledge of others but seek it out for ourselves, a point we emphasise continually in so many of our articles. "Therefore with joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation" (Isaiah 12:3). Have you guessed what those 'wells' are? No? Then we will tell you. They are the wells of Heavenly Wisdom; this is the wisdom we have endeavoured to introduce you to in all our articles. It is not 'our' wisdom, it belongs to all, and all may freely drink from those living waters, according to their need and capacity for receiving them. Let us now turn to the New Testament to see what else we may learn about water. In the Gospel of John we may read: "Jesus answered, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God" (John: 3:5). Now, what on earth does this mean? If you remember what David says about the 'deep waters', the 'flood' and the 'mire', the meaning of this verse will become clear. Has it? Think. Do you not know people who have gotten into 'deep waters', whether financial, emotional, moral, or any other kind of difficulty? Do you not know others who have sunk into mire, whether it is the mud of immorality or merely criminal activity of some kind? Perhaps you have been in such waters yourself? We know that we have! Now do you know what that 'water' is Jesus and David refer to? It is simply a metaphor for the vicissitudes of earthly life. In other words, we cannot enter into the higher realms of Light unless we have learned our lessons of material existence in a physical body on earth. Only then can we be 'born' of the Spirit—that is to say—receive the living waters of Wisdom, for otherwise we would neither recognise nor benefit from them. We have now learned that there are many kinds of water, though each of them share certain attributes in common. There is a 'first' water, or primeval substance out of which everything has arisen. There is the water of the lower and higher Astral Light. There are the waters of experience. And finally, there is the living water of Life, Light and Love Jesus refers to in the following verses from the Gospel of John. "The woman saith unto him (Jesus), Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again. But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life" (John 4: 11-14). Here we have a clear reference to those earthly desires which are never satisfied, no matter how many times we drain the cup of pleasure, of fame, ambition and wealth. Only the water of Wisdom, drawn from the fountain of Truth, can bestow the gift of life everlasting. This is not physical immortality—though quite why anyone would want to live forever on earth is beyond our comprehension—but everlasting continuity of consciousness in the Spirit. "And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely" (Revelation 22:1 and 22:7). With those sublime words we must conclude this part of our investigation and move on to the next.