Tau (as Egyptian)

The Tau in its Egyptian context is the potent sign of life and the portal to the Duat. While the Greek letter Tau is a cross, the Egyptian Tau is the Ankh (☥), the crux ansata—the cross with a loop at the top. Its name in Egyptian is ˁnḫ, a word that means “life,” “living,” and “mirror.” The loop is the solar circuit (the womb of Nuit), the vertical bar is the spine of Osiris, and the horizontal bar represents the horizon. Together, they form the key that opens the gates of death.

Position on the Tree of Life

Tau corresponds to the 32nd Path (the final letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Tau itself) which runs from Malkuth (the Kingdom) to Yesod (the Foundation). In Egyptian terms, this path is the Gateway of the West—the passage of the dead Sun through the tomb into the underworld. The Tau is therefore the seal of the completed work: the synthesis of matter and spirit, the fixed cross of the elements held by the Phoenix. It is the last letter, the end, which returns to the beginning.

Astrological and planetary correspondence

In the system of Liber 777, the Egyptian Tau is placed under Saturn (Shabbathai) and the element of Earth. The ankh’s loop suggests Saturn’s rings and the circular time that contains all cycles. As the Egyptian symbol of life, it paradoxically governs the realm of the dead: the Saturnine silence of the tomb where the soul waits for rebirth. The Tau also carries the influence of Hades (the Greek equivalent of the Egyptian West), marking the threshold that all souls must cross.

Historical context

The ankh appears in Egyptian art from the First Dynasty (c. 3100 BCE) onward. It is held by every major god and goddess: Isis offers it to the nostrils of the dead to give them the breath of life; Ra carries it as the sign of his eternal renewal; Anubis bears it as he leads the soul to the Hall of Ma’at. The tau-shaped knot of the ankh is often painted on the soles of sandals so that the wearer “treads on life” with every step.

In the Book of the Dead (the Coming Forth by Day), the deceased proclaims: “I am the living ankh that shines in the underworld.” The hieroglyph is also used as a determinative for words like “mirror” (ˁnḫ)—the soul sees its true form there. By the Ptolemaic period, the ankh was syncretized with the Greek cross; Hermeticists later identified it with the Lingam and the Crux Ansata of the Chaldean Oracles.

Crowley, drawing on the 19th-century Egyptologists (Budge, Erman), places the Egyptian Tau on Path 32 because its shape encodes the 32nd path of initiation: the crossing of the abyss between life and death. The Egyptian Tau is thus the Key of the Two Horizons—the sunrise of the West, the dawn that follows the night of the tomb.

In Liber 777

In the table, this cell gives the Egyptian Tau as the equivalent of the Hebrew letter Tau (Path 32), the Saturnine-Earth realm of the final sphere. It stands in the column of the “English of Col. II,” directly under the row for Path 32. The object is the Ankh, the Crux Ansata, the sign of eternal life that seals the 32nd Path of the Great Work.