Egg, Orphean

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Egg, Orphean

The cosmic doctrine of the legendary Greek hero Orpheus, who claimed that "God, the uncreated and incomprehensible Being, created all things; the ether proceeded from him; from this the unshapely chaos and the dark night arose, which at first covered all things. The unshapen mass was formed into the shape of an egg, from which all things have proceeded."

According to this belief, the whole universe has the form of an egg, and everything in it strives to attain the same form. The Orphean concept of a universal soul permeating all nature has something in common with the doctrines of animal magnetism and other pantheistic beliefs.