From the coitus hidden in the knot of their interwoven bodies, Ether, Chaos, and Night were born. A shadowy vapor lay over the two winged snakes. Time-Without-Age hardened this gloomy fog into a shell that gradually took on an oblong shape. And, as it did so, a light spread from the shell, fluttering in the void like a white tunic or a shred of mist. Then, breaking away from Ananke, the snake wrapped himself around this luminous egg. Did he mean to crush it?

Finally the shape split open. Out poured a radiant light. Appearance itself appeared. You couldn't help but be invaded by light, but you couldn't make out the figure it came from. Only Night saw him: four eyes and four horns, golden wings, and heads of a ram, a bull, and a lion, and a snake spread across a young and human body, a phallus and a vagina, hooves. Having broken the shell, the father snake wound himself around his son's body. Above, the father's head looked down on his son; beneath, a boy's fine face looked into the light emanating from his own body. It was Phanes, the Protogonos, firstborn of the world of appearance, the "key to the mind."

Phanes' life was like no other life since. Alone in the light, "he grazed in his breast." He didn't need to look at anything but the light, because everything was in him. Copulating with himself, he impregnated his own sacred belly. He gave birth to another snake, Echidna, with splendid woman's face framed by a vast head of hair. From her sweet-smelling cheeks, from the incessant flashing of her eyes, she emanated violence. Speckled scales, like the waves of a swollen sea, stretched right up to her soft, white breasts. Then Phanes begot Night, who had already existed before him. But Phanes had to beget her just the same, because he was everything. He made night his concubine. He was a guest in her cave. Other children were born: Uranus and Ge. Little by little, with the light constantly pouring from the top of his head, Phanes made the places where the gods and men would live. Things were ushered into the world of appearance.

P. 200-201

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