Egyptian Magic and The Seven Octaves of Vibration
Molly Hankins October 9, 2025
The ancient Egyptian deity known as Ptah embodies the concept of a primary creator as the source of all there is. When Hungarian author, mystic and yoga teacher Elisabeth Haich began remembering her past lives in Egypt as an initiate and priestess, she attributed her devotion directly to Ptah, who came to her in the Earthly form of Ptahhotep. In her 1994 book Initiation, Haich describes one of these past lives growing up as a daughter of the Pharaoh Atothis, and niece of a high priest in the mystery school of Ra, Ptahhotep. She sought initiation as a young girl, but her uncle Ptahhotep insisted she was not ready. After she asked him to be initiated for a third time, Ptahhotep had to give her permission because, according to rules governing initiates, asking three times for initiation is a sign that it’s a requirement for her soul. Knowing she lacked sufficient life experience in that incarnation to safely begin the process, Ptahhotep began teaching her the universal truths which she describes throughout Initiation.
The basis of these universal truths is the divine law of nature. Ptahhotep explains this using what he calls the seven octaves of vibration, through which life expresses itself in the material world. Like most spiritual belief systems, the ancient Egyptians believed the world of form was a small piece of the far greater expression of the spiritual world. “The fact that the creative force manifests itself on each and every level of innumerable possibilities means there are countless different wavelengths, wave forms and frequencies,” Haich tells us, recounting the words of Ptahhotep. “And as long as we are in the body, with its limited perceptive ability, we can perceive only a certain number of these wave forms because our organs of sense are limited. Whether some form of vibration appears to us as ‘immaterial energy’ or as solid ‘matter’ depends upon our own idea and the impression of something which is basically nothing but movement, vibration or frequency.”
According to Haich, Ptahhotep claimed that shorter energy wave forms correspond with matter, while longer wave forms with ideas and the divine creative force. This is paradoxical because in the physical world of form, shorter wave lengths correspond with a higher rate of vibration, which is traditionally associated with divinity rather than physical matter. However, only when we really consider this paradox do we begin to close in on universal truth beyond the material world of duality we currently live in. If we imagine the occult axiom of, “As above so below and as below so above,” as being akin to a mirror, the reversal of how shorter and longer wavelengths express themselves in the material vs. the spiritual world begins to make more sense. The source of these vibrations, known as God or The Creator, are radiated into our world by our sun, and Ra is the sacred sun god of Egypt. Explaining these seven octaves of vibration, Ptahhotep shared how all divine energy radiates in all directions from a center, such as the sun, to take form in different wavelengths.
“In the material world, we are living amidst the vibrations that emanate from the spiritual into the physical, and developing our consciousness so as to be able to cause effect is at the heart of magical practice.”
The chemical composition of matter determines the vibrations it can hold. In communicating this information, Ptahhotep was preparing Haich’s past life body to be able to hold the vibration of initiation. Receiving and integrating this knowledge begins the alchemical process of preparing any initiate for the “higher octaves of consciousness” that allow us to begin practicing magic, defined as being able to cause change according to will. Magic is far more efficient and effective when practitioners can hold and transmit a wider range of vibrational states. Everything radiates the vibration it embodies from its center, and that vibration corresponds to its state of consciousness. The first four octaves of vibration correspond with matter, vegetation, animal and human life, while the last three, accessible to humans who take responsibility for their vibrational state, correspond with personal intuition, embodiment of wisdom and universal love, and finally reunion with the mind of God. All seven of these states are available to us while we’re in our human form, according to Ptahhotep.
“Matter, the very lowest degree of consciousness, manifests itself only through contraction, cooling off and hardening. The plant manifests itself on two levels, the material level and the level of force - vegetative force - that gives life to it,” he explained. “The animal manifests three forces, the material, the vegetative and the animal. It has a body, it seeks out its food, eats and digests and is conscious on the animal level: it has emotions, instincts, urges, feelings, sympathy, antipathy and desires. The animal is conscious in the third developmental stage, only one degree lower than man. The average man stands one octave of vibration higher, he is conscious on the mental level. He has intellect and the ability to think. But at the same time he manifests the three other levels,” writes Haich quoting Ptahhotep.
At the fifth octave of consciousness development, man makes a great leap as he enters the plane of causality. In the material world, we are living amidst the vibrations that emanate from the spiritual into the physical, and developing our consciousness so as to be able to cause effect is at the heart of magical practice. The sixth octave is where God’s divine love radiates from, and as we begin to access it, we begin to integrate the wisdom of universal love and bring it into our daily lives. The seventh octave is described as the completely conscious God-man who becomes a center radiating purely divine, creative energy. Ptahhotep says, “All other forms of revelation manifest only in transformed vibrations, only part of God. A God-man is a person who manifests God - his own divine self - completely and perfectly through a perfect consciousness; one who experiences and radiates the divine creative forces in their primordial, untransformed vibrations and frequencies.”
Only those who evolve their consciousness to the level of the seventh octave can make conscious use of these primordial, divine waves of energy. Developing our physical bodies and consciousness to be able to hold these higher octaves makes up much of any occult initiate’s work. Ptahhotep reminds us that while the bodies of different beings in the world of form may look the same, they differ chemically based on the level of consciousness development of the soul embodied within that form. When undertaking any occult work, particularly without the direction of a teacher or established magical order, it’s essential to remember that it takes time and diligence to evolve our consciousness to be able to hold the energies of higher octaves of being. Divine frequencies can shock and even harm our physical, mental and emotional bodies, so a slow and steady approach is always recommended.
Molly Hankins is an Initiate + Reality Hacker serving the Ministry of Quantum Existentialism and Builders of the Adytum.
