Nun

Definition

In Egyptian cosmology, the primordial undifferentiated waters from which the first land and the first being emerged. Nun is the unformed substrate that precedes creation, the dark fertile depth out of which Atum rises in the Heliopolitan account.

Literal meaning

Egyptian nwn, the watery abyss. The Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom (c. 2400 BCE) name Nun as the matrix from which the Sun first lifts itself; the Coffin Texts and the Book of the Dead extend the image into the daily renewal of the solar journey.

Esoteric meaning

Nun is the cosmological name for what aether physics names the zero-point field and what the Hindu tradition names ākāśa. It is the field-medium considered before any pattern has yet ordered it, the dense unmanifest that consciousness draws form out of. In Netism the practitioner who reaches stillness reaches Nun, then receives the rising of the next pattern as Atum rose from the primordial mound.

Extended meaning

The Heliopolitan creation places Atum standing on the benben mound that emerged from Nun and speaking the Ennead into being. Hermopolitan cosmology personifies the qualities of Nun as the Ogdoad, four pairs of frogs and serpents naming hiddenness, infinity, darkness, and inertness. The daily defeat of Apep takes place in Nun's waters as the solar barque crosses them at midnight.

Comparative tradition

Sanskrit ākāśa, the fifth great element. Hebrew tehom, the deep over which spirit hovers in Genesis 1:2. Babylonian Tiamat, the primordial salt-water mother. Greek Chaos in Hesiod's Theogony. Polynesian Te Kore, the void-state that precedes night and day. Each tradition names the same field at the same cosmological location.