The
neterw are personifications of universal principles, functions
and processes. The Egyptians viewed the world as an entirely
conscious creation, an aspect of divine consciousness. In
this scheme, humanity was created, destined to play a specific
and crucial role, defined and described in symbolic language
in the funerary texts all concerned with death and resurrection.
The immensely complex interactions among the gods are expressed
in myth, wich is to be understood as the dramatization of
cosmic and natural laws.
The
Egyptians believed that man carried within himself the spark
or seed of divinity. Mankind was regarded as potentially divine,
and the king represented the realization of that potential.
John
Anthony West - The Traveler's Key to Ancient Egypt