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On Cracking the Orphic Egg

or,

On the Soul as a Reflection of the Cosmos

Among the symbols found in the mythology attributed to Orpheus, few are as striking as the Cosmic Egg. (Indeed, it is the Orphicaeum logo!) In the essay that follows, we will systematically examine this symbol: First in its cosmogonic aspect, where the Egg gives birth to the Universe, and then in its psychological and spiritual dimensions, where the Egg becomes an allegory for the immortal soul. By unfolding the layers of the story, we find that the Orphic Egg reveals a vision of reality as both microcosm and macrocosm, bound together by Necessity, Time, and the Divine Mind.

In the Hieronyman Theogony, Orpheus posits that the first principles, the things which existed before anything else, and to which everything else owes its own existence, were Water and Mud (with Earth being a compacted form of Mud)^[1]. From the mixture of these two principles, a third was born: a serpent or dragon (the original Greek word used is δράκωντα) with wings and the faces of a Bull and a Lion, and in its center the face of a God. This third principle is called both Unaging Time (Chronos) and Herakles^[2]. Necessity (Ananke), also called Adresteia, then united with Unaging Time because they are of the same nature, and Necessity is further described as “incorporeal, spread throughout the whole Cosmos, touching its limits”^[3]. Damascius then detours briefly to describe that this Chronos is the same Chronos in the Orphic Rhapsodies^[4]. Damascius says that in the Rhapsodies, Chronos generates an Egg, and that the Hieronyman tradition, too, makes the Egg an offspring of Time^[5]. The God that hatches from the Egg is described as being both male and female, having the heads of Bulls on either side and a serpent coiled around, and this God is called Protogonos^[6]. Two separate authors apart from Damascius tell us that the upper half of the Eggshell became Ouranos, the Heavens, and the lower half became Ge, the Earth^[7]. One of them also says that Protogonos is called Phanes as well^[8].

According to the Rhapsodies, Chronos comes before anything else^[9]. We are told that Time “never gets old and has imperishable counsel”, and in the same line, that at the beginning of the Universe, Time gave birth to Aether and “a great Chasm” which stretches infinitely in all directions^[10]. This Chasm is clearly the same as Ananke in the Hieronyman Theogony. The Rhapsodies continue that everything in the dark mist was undivided^[11] and everything in the Aether was covered by gloomy Night^[12]. Time laid a shining Egg with the Aether^[13], and the son of Aether, Protogonos Phaethon^[14], “began to move in an incredible circle”^[15]. We are then told that “the hermaphrodite and highly-honoured Protogonos”, also called Phanes, broke through the divided shell of the Egg and “sprang upwards first of all”^[16], separating the misty chasm and windless Aether^[17]. Phanes is also equated with Eros^[18] and Metis^[19], “in whose tracks the mighty daimon forever trod”^[20]. Later, the Rhapsodies tell us that the infant Dionysus is made the King of the Cosmos by Zeus^[21]: “and so father Zeus formed all things, and Bacchos completed them”^[22]. Dionysus, also called Oinos, was not able to hold the throne for long, however, as Hera and the Titans conspired against him with a knife^[23], dividing him into seven equal pieces and leaving only his heart, preserved by Athena^[24]. Zeus had Apollo gather “all the parts of Oinos in the world”^[25], then struck down the Titans in anger, generating mortal life in the process^[26].

Due to the similarity in pronunciation of their names, Chronos is often equated with Kronos, whom we are told by the anonymous author of the Derveni Papyrus is the Striking Mind which excites the things-that-are to jump around^[27]. In the same stroke, the Derveni author tells us that the upper half of the Egg shell, the Heavens or Ouranos, is similarly called so because it is the Determining Mind which sets boundaries for the things-that-are^[28]. Both of these Gods as described in the Derveni Papyrus are notable in that they share a grim mythological event: castration leading to overthrow. The Derveni author tells us that the genital organ in these myths is a symbol of generation, and specifically it refers to the generative power of the Sun. Kronos castrates and overthrows Ouronos, and Zeus does the same to Kronos, encircling creation within Himself. Orpheus equates the Sun & the penis of Ouranos/Kronos with Phanes, saying “the reverend one He swallowed, who first sprung forth from the Aether”^[29].

The Derveni author reads these myths as an allegory for the creation of the Universe by the Divine Mind. Mind separated Fire from the other elements at such a distance, insulated by Air, that Water and Earth were able to cool and congeal^[30]. However, Mind did not set Fire away at a distance far enough for Water and Earth to cool beyond activity: Mind intended that the things-that-are continue to jump around^[31]. The Derveni Papyrus is cut off before it can explain so, but it is often taken that the sparagmos later in the mythology represents the Mind’s dispersal through the things which arose naturally from the isolation of Fire: Because they share in the Divine essence of Matter, but especially because they inhale Divinity with the Breath of Life, they tug at the Mind of God^[32], tearing it in different directions. Some of the Mind enters Matter, giving birth to mortal life. The seven body parts of Dionysus in the myth are symbolic of the seven classical planets or “heavenly bodies”, which are gathered in the Cosmos at the command of Zeus. Astrology was a normal part of life in antiquity, and this Orphic view of the planets as physical embodiments of the Mind of God is less unusual when compared to the Astrological one, which posits that the planets are either causes or signs of things to come^[33].

As we can see, the myth of the Orphic Egg is a complex analogy for the creation (or generation / birth / emanation) of the Universe. However, as the sparagmos hints, it can also be viewed separately as an allegory for the Soul, with a few minor adjustments. If we allow that the ancients had a geocentric worldview which placed the Earth at the center of the Universe, and if we allow our symbolic Egg to be one that is not yet cracked open, we arrive at the following:

The shell represents the limits of the observable universe and thus the whole of the Cosmic Mind. In Homer, we are told that the world was divided equally among Zeus, Poseidon, and Hades^[34]. Because the shell is the Heavens, it is under the domain of Zeus. The yolk represents the Earth at the center, the realm which we as mortals inhabit. Socrates in Plato’s Gorgias speculates, based on Orphic or Pythagorean concepts, that “we are now dead, and this body is our tomb”^[35], which would make the Earth the realm of Hades^[36]. Finally, the albumen, also known as the egg-white, represents the Aether, which is the Milky Way, and can be inferred as the Cosmic Sea and the domain of Poseidon. This, the uncracked Egg, the limitless potential at the dawn of the Universe and yet also the Universe as it is right now, is our symbol for the Soul:

The shell represents the Mind of the Soul, under the domain of the Cosmic Mind, Ouranic Zeus, like the Heavens and the farthest limits of the Universe. If we consider Plato’s tripartite Soul, the Shell is the λογιστικόν or the Soul’s Reason, and is located in one’s head. The yolk represents the Will of the Soul, under the domain of Hades, the Cthonic Zeus, like the Underworld realm of Earth that we inhabit. In Plato’s system, this is the ἐπιθυμητικόν, or the Soul’s Desire, located in the stomach. The albumen is representative of Emotions, which exist in the aether between Mind and Will, under the domain of Poseidon, the Aetherial or Oceanic Zeus, like the cosmic sea or the Milky Way. The Emotions in Plato’s tripartite Soul are the θυμοειδές or Spirit, which is located in the chest.

When making this comparison, it becomes intuitively clear what this lesson is actually about: it is not about the Egg at all. In truth, it is that the Soul is a microcosm, a focused reflection of our fractal macrocosm that is the actual Cosmos, Zeus. Our uncracked Egg, like the limitless potential before the creation of the Universe, contains within itself the Universe already. Similarly, our Souls contain within themselves everything that we need in order to be our best self. It is only through Time and Necessity that the Limits of Mind are able to be broken, and the transition from Theory to Practice can take place. No longer is the Cosmos (or one’s purified Soul) only an idea in the Mind of God: the shell has cracked.

If we revisit the myth from this angle, Unaging Time and Necessity give rise to the Soul in the Aether of Emotion. Separating it, they create its Mind and its Will. Unaging Time and Necessity, still intertwined in the Emotions, then begin to stir the Mind and the Will into alignment, sparking the pious Desire in the Emotions which fuels the Soul’s new paradigm. The sparagmos is also an echo of this alchemical process: One must recognize one’s limits, tear oneself apart to find them, and subsequently rebuild oneself without them. The Seven Classical Planets are also represented in myth by the seven strings of the lyre played by Orpheus^[37], who conveniently happens to be the historically-attributed author of these myths.

This all reveals a deeper truth about the nature of mythology itself. These events are not a linear sequence that only happened once. Instead, they are ontological principles which are happening always. For example, the castration of Ouranos by his son Kronos, seen as the extension of a Divine Mind which only Determines into one which also Acts, is an echo or repetition of a timeless principle: a thing must undergo constant refinement until it best serves its purpose. This same principle is echoed or repeated when Zeus in turn castrates and overthrows Kronos, swallowing Phanes to establish a new paradigm, which as a whole is seen as the extension of a Mind which Acts indiscriminately into one which has assumed total control over Action completely.

To our linear perception, when stuck on the symbols and not the meanings, these are repetitions. In reality, when we consider the puppeteers and not only the puppets, the repetitions are harmonic expressions of the same eternal and ever-present act; the Music of the Spheres. In that way, they are echoes, in the same way as the reverberations of a lyre string. Just as the lyre string must be plucked from time to time to make music, the cosmic cycles must be repeated to renew the world, echoing the same principles infinitely, over and over again.

As the Cosmic Mind ripples ontologically, echoing between Determination and Action but always in total control, so too does our Soul ripple, echoing between restraint and release but always emotional, as a plucked lyre string ripples, reverberating from side to side but always on the same note.

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Works Cited

Bernabé, Alberto. Poetae Epici Graeci: Testimonia et Fragmenta. Pars 2, Orphicorum et Orphicis Similium Testimonia et Fragmenta. Fasciculus 1. K.G. Saur, 2004.

Brennan, Chris. Hellenistic Astrology: The Study of Fate and Fortune. Amor Fati Publications, 2020.

Chrysanthou, Anthi. Defining Orphism: The Beliefs, the Teletae and the Writings. De Gruyter, 2020.

Homer. Iliad. Translated A. T. Murray. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1924.), Perseus Digital Library. http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0134:book=15:card=186. Accessed 17 Sep 2025.

Kouremenos, Theokritos, et al. The Derveni Papyrus. Leo S. Olschki Editore, 2006.

Lucian. “On Astrology.” Lucian in Eight Volumes, Vol. V;  with an English Translation by A.M. Harmon. Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1962.

Plato. “Gorgias.” Plato in Twelve Volumes, Vol. 3 translated by W.R.M. Lamb. (Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann Ltd. 1967.), Perseus Digital Library. https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.01.0178:text=Gorg.:section=493a. Accessed 17 Sep 2025.

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Footnotes