The Ten Keys

http://maat.sofiatopia.org/ten_keys.htm

Ancient Egyptian Roots

of the Principia Hermetica

Aegyptus imago sit caeli

by Wim van den Dungen

"Do You not know, Asclepius,

that Egypt is an image of

heaven, or, to speak more

exactly, in Egypt all the

operations of the powers which

rule and work in heaven have

been transferred to Earth below

?"

Asclepius III, 24b.

I, King Pepi, am THOTH, the mightiest of the gods ...

Pyramid Texts, § 1237.

I, said he, am POIMANDRES, the Mind of the Sovereignty.

Corpus Hermeticum (CH), Libel lus I (Poimandres), Book 1.2

"Do You not know that You have become a God,

and son of the One, even as I have ?"

CH, Libel lus XIII, 14.

Abstract

Introduction

1 The mental origin of the world and of man.

2 Corresponding harmonics.

3 Dynamics of alternation.

4 Bi-polarity and complementarity.

5 Cyclic repolarisation.

6 Cause and effect.

7 Gender.

8 The astrology of the Ogdoad.

9 The magic of the Ennead.

10 The alchemy of the Decad.

Epilogue : the Ancient Egyptian Mystery Tradition ?

Bibliography

"Content is Atum, father of the gods.

Content are Shu and Tefnut.

Content are Geb and Nut.

Content are Osiris and [Isis].

Content are Seth and Neith.

Content are all the gods who are in the sky.

Content are all the gods who are on Earth, who are in the flat -lands.

Content are all the southern and northern gods.

Content are all the western and eastern gods.

Content are all the gods of the nomes.

Content are all the gods of the towns.

With this great and might word, which issued from the mouth of THOTH for

Osiris, the Treasurer of L ife, Seal-bearer of the gods, Anubis, who claims hearts,

claims Osiris King Pepi ...

Hear O THOTH, in whom is the peace of the gods ...

Pyramid Texts, §§ 1521 - 1524 & 1465

THOTH

god of scribes, science, magic, time,

medicine, reckoning, cults, wisdom,

the peace of the gods and companion

of MAAT

drawing by Stéphane Rossini (1992)

THOTH

The meaning of Thoth's name

("DHwtii" or "Djehuti") is lost. He

is represented by the hieroglyph

of the Ibis on a standard (Ibis

religiosa). In Babylon, he was

called "Tichut". Some proposed

"he of Djehout" (an unknown

city), but Hopfner (1914) believes

"DHw" was the oldest name of the

Ibis ("hbj"). Thoth would then

mean "he who has the nature of

the Ibis". As early as the Pyramid

Texts (ca. 2400 BCE), Pharaoh is

said to be carried over the

celestial river on the wings of

Thoth, considered to be the

mightiest of the gods.

From the early 3th century BCE,

the epithet "Thoth great, great,

great"("DHwtii aA, aA, aA") is

found at Esna in Upper Egypt,

whereas the expression "Thoth the

great, the great, the

great" ("DHwtii pA aA, pA aA, pA

aA") is part of Demotic texts

outside Memphis, dating from the

early 2nd century BCE (cf. the

Greek "Hermes Trismegistos").

Other writings suggest a link

between Hermetism and the

cosmology of Hermopolis (and its

Ogdoad).

Another, less common, pictogram for Thoth was the squatting baboon, who

greeted the dawning Sun with cries of jubilation.

Abstract

The religion of Ancient Egypt has been reconstructed by the Greeks (in the

Hermetica), by the Abrahamic tradition (in their Scriptures) and by the Western

Mystery Tradition (Hermeticism). But these reconstructions are flawed. The

Hermetic teachings incorporate an un-Egyptian view on the mysteries (stressing

the mind at the expense of the body). The protagonists of the revealed religions

(Judaism, Christianity & Islam), as well as the initiators of Hermeticism, were

unable to read the hieroglyphs, and if they did, only allegorical, explaining the

obscure with more obscurity. Only the last two hundred years has a reliable

historical reconstruction become available, offering a basic historical framework.

Not the Qabalah (Jewish or Christian), but the Ancient Egyptian Mystery Tradition

(or Kemetism) is the backbone of the Western Tradition. Instead of Hermeticism,

a return to Hermetism is invisaged. To approach Kemetism today, ten Hermetic

principles are isolated. Each is associated with a fundamental teaching found in

Egyptian texts. This exercise is possible because the Hermetica are rooted in the

native Egyptian religion, albeit Hellenized. The authors were Egyptians still able

to read the "words of the gods". In this way, the Western Tradition may finally

stretch its roots in perennial soil, first in Alexandrian thought and from there in

the native Egyptian tradition, its natural ally.

Introduction

historical Hermetism : religio mentis

The influence of Ancient Egypt on Greek philosophy as well as the history of the

rise ofHermetism have been discussed elsewhere. These studies showed the

presence of three fundamental phases :

1. native Hermopolitan theology : as early as the Old Kingdom (ca. 2670 -

2198 BCE), the perennial worship of the native Egyptian Thoth, "the

mightiest of the gods", was centered in Hermopolis ("Hermoupolis Magna").

Although the contents of this theology is only know from Ptolemaic sources,

"Khnum Khemenu", "the Eight town" (also called "Per -Djehuty", the "house

of Thoth") existed in the Vth Dynasty (ca. 2487 - 2348 BCE) and was

associated with the Ogdoad or company of eight precreational gods (frog

heads) & goddesses (serpent-headed). A few of them were mentioned in

the Pyramid Texts, but the complete list is first mentioned in the Middle

Kingdom (ca. 1938 - 1759 BCE). These deities emerged from Nun (the

primordial, undifferentiated ocean) and constituted the soul of Thoth. They

may also be understood as further characterizations of this dark, unlimited

pre-creational realm : Amun and Amaunet (hiddenness), Heh and Heket or

Huh and Hauhet (eternity), Kek and Keket or Kuk and Kauket (darkness),

Nun and Nunet or Nun and Naunet (primordial chaos). Hermopolitan

theology will provide the framework for Ptolemaic Hermetism. Other textual

traces of this worship are found in the Coffin Texts, the Book of the

Dead and the Books of the Netherworld, whereas in the Late Period (ca. 664

- 30 BCE), its theology was written down on the walls o f more than one

Ptolemaic temple (ca. 332 - 30 BCE). Because Thoth was Lord of Time, he

was associated with astrology, in particular when the astral science of

Chaldea entered Egypt (at the end of the Third Intermediate Period, ca.

1075 - 664 BCE) ;

2. historical Hermetism : or the identification of Thoth, "Thrice Greatest", with

Hermes Trismegistus, who, in his philosophical teachings, is Greek and

human (although Egyptian elements persist), but who assumed, in the

technical Hermetica, the cosmicity of the native Egyptian Thoth. The

technical Hermetica are attested under the Ptolemies, and the existence, in

the first century BCE, of an Alexandrian multi -cultural Hermetic Lodge is

likely. The philosophical sources are the 17 treatises of the Corpus

Hermeticum, the LatinAsclepius, the Armenian Hermetic Definitions and the

Coptic Hermetica found at Nag Hammadi, in particular The Eighth and the

Ninth Sphere (Codex VI.6), which all date from the first centuries CE. It is

possible to see Hermetism as a "gnosticism" ( for "gnosis", i.e. direct

spiritual insight, is all-important). But Hermetic gnosticism is particular to

imperial Alexandrian culture, for the notion of an evil demiurge (as in

Christian Gnosticism) is not present. Constituted by Egyptian, Greek and

Jewish elements, Hermetism will influence Judaism (the Merkabah mystics of

the Jewish gnostics of Alexandria), Christianity (Clement of Alexandria, the

Greek Fathers, the "Orientale Lumen") and the Islam (the Hermetic star

worshippers of Harran and Sufism) ;

3. l iterary Hermeticism : Renaissance Hermeticism produced a fictional

Trismegistus as the Godhead of its esoteric concept of the world as an

organic whole, with an intimate sympathy between its material (natural) and

spiritual (supernatural) components. This view was consistent with

the humanistic phase of modernism, which was followed by a mechanization

of the world and the "enlightenment" of the 18th century. These new forces

ousted all formative & final causes from their physical inquiries, and

reduced the four Aristotelian categories of determination (material,

efficient, formal and final cause) to material & efficient causes only .

Astrology, magic and alchemy were deemed scientifically backward &

religiously suspect. "Actio-in-distans" was deemed impossible, and Paganism

was Satanical. In 1666, Colbert evicts astrology from the Academy of

Sciences (the court-astrologer Morin de Vi llefranche, 1583 - 1656, was

concealed behind a curtain in the royal apartment at the time when the

future Grand Monarque was born). In the nineteenth century, under the

influence of the morbid but exotical fancies of the

Romantics,Hermeticism became part of Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry,

Theosophy and generalized egyptomania (cf. Golden Dawn, Thelemism,

Pyramidology, etc.). Today it returns as the ideological core of the

expanding New Age religion.

Before the first, steady interactions between Greek & Egyptian culture emerged

(ca. 670 BCE), the "Hermetic" particularities of Late New

Kingdom henotheist theology were inscribed on theShabaka Stone and elucidated

in its Memphite theology. This XXVth Dynasty (ca. 716 - 702 BCE) stone copy of

an important Ramesside papyrus scroll, contained thoughts which look

remarkably like those developed in the contexts of the Platonic, Philonic and

Christian "logos". More than a century ago, Breasted wrote regarding the

Memphite theology :

"The above conception of the world forms quite a sufficient basis for suggesting

that the later notions of nous and logos, hitherto supposed to have been

introduced into Egypt from abroad at a much later date, were present at this

early period. Thus the Greek tradition of the origin of their philosophy in Egypt

undoubtedly contains more of the truth than has in recent years been conceded.

(...) The habit, later so prevalent among the Greeks, of interpreting

philosophically the function and relations of the Egyptian gods (...) had already

begun in Egypt before the earl iest Greek philosophers were born ..." - Breasted,

1901, p.54.

Indeed, the Greek words "nous" ("mind, thinking, perceiving") and "noés"

("perceive, observe, recognize, understand"), could be derived from the Egyptian

"nu" ("nw"), "to see, look, perceive, observe" :

"Nu", "nw" with D6,

the determinative for

action with eyes.

Keep guard over,

watch, look, tend,

guide, care for,

shepherd.

Incidentally, the

adze was used in the

"Opening of the

Mouth".

On the one hand, according to Stricker (1949), the Corpus Hermeticum is a

codification of the Egyptian religion. Ptolemy I Soter (304 - 282 BCE) and his son

Ptolemy II Philadelphus (282 - 246 BCE) promised to publish the secret literature

of the three groups of citizens of Egypt : native Egyptians, Greeks and Jews. For

him, Hermetism is the Greek version of a redaction of Egyptian literature. Its

form is Greek, but its contents is Egyptian (the Septuagint being the equivalent

Jewish redaction). On the other hand, father Festugière (1945) claims

the CHcontains extremely little Egyptian elements, except for the context, the

ideas expressed being those of popular Greek thought, a mixture of Platonism,

Aristotelism and Stoicism ... Both positions are avoided. Most agree

the CH contains no Christian elements (the opposite is true - cf. the influence of

Philonic thought in particular and Alexandrian philosophy in general on the

apostle Paul - Quispel, 1992).

Let us conjecture the emergence, under the first three Ptolemies, of a Greek

elitist version of the Egyptian religion, a Graeco-Egyptian religion, and this

among the upper native classes (of priest, scribes, administrators & high-skilled

workmen). This Graeco-Egyptian religion would be based in Alexandria and

Memphis, and (at first) entail a strong emphasis on the native component. It

emerged in the priestly scribal class and had its focus on Thoth, who created the

world by means of his Divine words, in accord with the verbal tradition founding

Egypt. For the Greeks, Thoth was "Hermes, Trismegistos", indicative of both his

antiquity and greatness. Because of the important influence of the native

intellectual milieu on the genesis of this Alexandro-Egyptian cultural

form, "Graeco-Egyptian religion turns out to be based on a profound imbalance,

in favour of the autochthonous, between its two constituent elements." (Fowden,

1986, p.19). Zandee (1992, p.161) mentions a Hermetical text going back to the

third century BCE and for Petrie (1908) at least some passages of the Corpus

Hermeticum had to refer to the Persian period ... This feature proves to be

essential in a possible thematical reconstruction.

But, the Hellenization entailed by using the Greek language and participating in

the syncretic Alexandrian intellectual climate (the Mouseion and Serapeion),

should not be underestimated, and makes Stricker's proposals too unlikely. These

native Egyptians must have been proud of their Hermopolitan &

Memphite theologies (both verbal & scribal), but eventually accepted to

incorporate uncompromisingly un-Egyptian elements in their Hermetism (like the

popular Greek denial of the physical body, evasive mysteries and an elusive,

vague description of the afterlife). The importance of the Netherworld is no

longer felt.

Many other Greek themes are to be found in the Corpus Hermeticum, showing

Festugière was not completely wrong. In a study of Zandee published in 1992,

the Egyptian influence was confirmed, although besides the negative view on the

body, he also identified the depreciation of the world, the celestial voyage of the

soul (or mystical initiation - cf. Mahé, 1992) and reincarnation as Hermetic

teachings not to be found in Ancient Egypt. To this list could be added the

Hermetic variant of the Greek mysteries and magical techniques aimed to compel

the will of the gods (impossible in Ancient Egypt). Indeed, the difference

between Egyptian initiation and Greek mysteries is pertinent (the attitude of the

worshipper as well as the responsiveness of the deities differ).

We may argue that the technical Hermetica are rooted in perennial Egyptian

traditions likemagic ("heka") and the "books of Thoth". It is probable that, at

least insofar as medicine & magic were concerned, this indeed was the case ? The

philosophical Hermetica also share certain features with the Egyptian wisdom-

discourses or instruction genre.

Hermetism is not a "Sammelbecken" (heterogeneous doctrines), nor a single

synthesis, but an autonomous mode of discourse, a "way of Hermes"

(Iamblichus), more theological than philosophical (like Plotinus, who -compared

to Plato- was more religious than political) and foremost (in number) "technical"

: astrology, magic & alchemy. This Graeco-Egyptian religion was influenced by

three major players : the Greeks, the native Egyptians and the Jews. It could

define its own path precisely because of its roots in the Ancient Egyptian Mystery

Tradition, to which most of its members adhered. In its mature stage, Hermetism

manifested the religion of the mind ("religio mentis") of Mediterranean Antiquity.

This Late Hellenistic Hermetism would survive and eventually fire the European

Renaissance and humanism. But the "ad fontes" principle of the latter only

returned to Late Hellenism. Antiquity would remain unavailable for several

centuries. Not unlike Spinoza's "amor intellectualis Dei", philosophical Hermetism

gave body to an intellectual love for the One, albeit in modo antiquo, and never

without magic & alchemy. In the 17th century, this technical side was left behind

by the European academia, whereas the philosophical Hermetica became part of

Hermeticism and its various branches.

The "gnosis" of Hermetism (the secret it shared through initi ation) was an

ecstasy born out of cognitive activities, involving trance, contemplation, ritual,

music and astrology. In Hermetism, astrology served as the bridge between the

purely technical Hermetica -magic, medicine- and the theological & philosophical

Hermetica. Astrology was concerned with the timing of events, both festive,

initiatory or individual.

"It is certain that the Hermetics had no cult, with priests, sacrifices, processions

and the like. But the texts suggest the existence of (small) Hermeti c

'communities', conventicles, groups or lodges, in which individual experiences

and insights were collectively celebrated with rituals, hymns and prayers." -

Quispel, 1992/1994, p.15.

The Corpus Hermeticum and the Graeco-Egyptian religion of which it was the

chief extant codification, was a spiritual way in its own right. Alexandrian

Hermetism was a mixture of Greek thought with genuine Egyptian religious

traditions. Scholars have pointed to the reverence for the creative word,

the magical power of divine statues, the wisdom literature, the bi-sexual nature

of god, the one and the many, the Sun as creator, the cosmos as anordered

whole and also noted Jewish components and imagery. In this paper, other

important Egyptian themes will be put forward.

► the core teachings of Hermetism

Hermetic ontology distinguished between three spheres of being : God, the world

(of the Deities, minerals, plants & animals) and man. These were sympathetically

interlinked (X.22-23), allowing us to glimpse His genius in these beauties (V.1 -

8), God is also conceived as the creator of All rather than Himself the All (i.e.

pan-en-theism instead of pantheism), and immanentism is not exclusive.

Hermetism tried to rise from "episteme" towards "gnosis", i.e. from

knowledge about God to knowledge of Him ("cognoscere Deum / cognitia Dei").

God is best known and worshipped in the absolute purity of silence (as the

Pythagoreans had claimed, and the Ancient Egyptians had stressed for millennia -

cf. Hymns to Amun). Like Late Ramesside Amun-theology, Hermetism

was henotheist, but in a rational mode of cognition : the One God was deemed

essentially hidden (cf. the Nun) but manifest in "millions of appearances" and

Deities (cf. Atum-Re and the Ennead).

Hermes tells Tat (XIII), that "the tent" or "tabernacle" of the Earthly body was

formed by the circle of the Zodiac (XIII.12 & Ascl.35) and dominated by fate,

who's decrees, according to the astrologers, were unbreakable. The seven planets

represented the "perfect movements" of the Deities, the unalterable "will of the

Gods" as expressed in predictable astral phenomena. Magicians tried to compel

this will, while Hermetism did not try to resist fate, but irrever siblymoved beyond

it. The existence of the Deities was acknowledged (they belonged to the order of

creation and were the object of sacrifices and processions and the celestial

Powers ruling the astrological septet). Indeed, the Deities, Hermes and God were

situated in the eighth, ninth and tenth sphere (Ogdoad, Ennead and Decad). The

"eighth" involved purification, Self -knowledge and the direct "gnostic" experience

of the "Nous" as "logos", whereas in the "ninth" man was deified by assuming

God's attributes, as did the Godman Hermes, in particular His Universal Mind, the

Divine Nous, Intellect or "soul of God" (XII.9). The "tenth" or Decad was God

Himself for Himself.

In Ancient Egypt, man and the pantheon had never been directly in touch. Firstly,

because the spirit of the deities remained for ever in the sky (the light of the

stars), and secondly because gods only converse with gods. The only exception

was Pharaoh, the mediator between mankind and the deities, for he himself was

the son of the creator god Re and daily returned, by voice-offerings of truth &

justice, the order of being back to its origin, hereby sustaining creation and

sealing the unity of the "Two Lands", namely Egypt as "image of the world".

In Hermetism, man, the most glorious of God's c reations, was animated by a

Divine spark and was therefore -in the depth of his being- truly Divine (I.2, I.30

& XIII.14). In man, the divide between God and the world was bridged, and so to

awaken him to his own Inner Being, was the goal of Hermetic initi ation & ritual.

Every man and woman is a Deity.

"Hermes : Do You not know that You have become of God, and son of the One,

even as I have ?"

CH, Libel lus XIII, 14.

Ignorance crippled man (VII), and this is overcome by helping him to understand

his true, Divine nature, bringing him to know God and discovering his own

Divinity (X.9). The crucial choice is therefore a choice between the "material"

world (ruled by the seven Powers of fate) and the "spiritual" Perfect Man,

between the corporeal/visible and the incorporeal/invisible. The attainment of

Self-knowledge (exposure to the true Self) is described in terms of "rebirth"

("palingenesia" - XIII), viewed as a bursting into a new plane of existence,

namely the "Ogdoadic nature", previously unsuspected and po tential.

"I rejoice, my son, that You are like to bring forth fruit. Out of the Truth will

spring up in You the immortal brood of virtue, for by the working of mind, You

have come to know yourself and your Father."

CH, Libel lus XIII, 22a.

Palingenesia l iberates the soul and is a reversal of physical birth (which

imprisoned the soul in the body). This spiritual birth leads (thanks to the

presence of a spiritual master and an initiatory father/son-relationship) to the

soul's perfection through the knowledge of God, a "baptism in intellect" (IV.3-4).

In the process of purification and Self -knowledge, traditional rituals may have

been used, but the higher mysteries (the Hermetic initiation proper) involved a

"mental" or "spiritual" sacrifice (I.31), the offer ing of hymns of praise and

thanksgiving. The ritual and the noetic were thus fully integrated.

Indeed, the "Nous", the Divine intellect or "soul of God", binds together the

hierarchy of God, the world (of the Deities, minerals, plants & animals) and man.

In particular, "Nous" is the way of the human soul to free itself from the snares

of the flesh and be illuminated by the "light" of the "gnosis", for indeed, God is

experienced as light. A "good Nous" will be able to repel the assaults of the

world. The spiritual master becomes a personification of this Divine intellect. The

master becomes one with the Divine Nous ("I am Mind") in the initiation of his

disciple. In Hermetism, this "Nous" is personified by Hermes Trismegistus, the

Universal Mind of the "highest Power" (situated on the Enneadic plane).

► the Hermetic Divine triad

In Ancient Egyptian theology, divine triads were used to express the divine

family-unit, usually composed out of Pharaoh (the son) and a divine couple

(father & mother), legitimizing his rule as divine king. Pharaoh Akhenaten had

introduced a monotheistic triad (exclusive and against all other deities) : Aten,

Akhenaten and Nefertiti. In Heliopolis, the original triad was Atum, Shu and

Tefnut, in Memphis, Ptah, Sekhmet and Nefertem emerged, whereas Thebes

worshipped Amun, Mut and Khonsu. The trinity naturally developed into three or

one Ennead.

In Hermetic triad reads as :

1. God, the Unbegotten One, the essence of being, the Father of All - the

"Decad" ;

2. Nous, the First Intellect, the Self-Begotten One, the Mind or Light of God -

the "Ennead" ;

3. Logos, the "son" from "Nous", the Begotten One above the Seven Archons -

the "Ogdoad".

The One Entity or God (the "Tenth") is known to Its creation as the One Mind or

Hermes which contains the "noetic" root of every individual existing thing (cf.

Plato, Spinoza). This Divine Mind (the attributes or names of the nameless God)

allows all things to be sympathetic transformations (adaptations, modi) of God.

LOGOS

Hermetism

The "logos" is a "holy word", coming forth from the

Light of the Divine Nous, the Ninth Sphere of Being,

situated between the Decad of God Himself and the

Ogdoad of the blessed souls, fixed stars and the

Deities.

(1) Decad : God Himself ;

(2) Ennead : Divine Nous, Light, Godman Hermes

Autogenes ;

(3) Ogdoad : Logos or "son of God" ;

(4) Hebdomad : the Seven Governors of the world.

Hermetism is initiatory because it wants to elevate the soul to the level of

its true Divine nature. Palingenesia is an ascension while alive. Rebirth implies

more than just a confrontation with the Gods (as in Ancient Egypt), but a true

interaction between Perfect Man and -thanks to the Presence of Mind- God. This

interaction leads to a total emergence of the Divine spark in man and hence to

his Deification (finally being completely his own Divine Self and thus himself "a

God", a being permanently realizing the Enneadic nature (XIII.3,10 & 14). This

highest state may be attained in the afterlife, although the Ogdoadic nature may

be realized while alive on Earth.

"Man is a Divine being, not to be compared with the other Earthly beings, but

with those who are called Gods, up in the heavens. Rather, if one must dare to

speak the truth, man truly is established above even these Gods, or at least fully

their equal. After all, none of the celestial Gods will leave the heavenly frontiers

and descend to Earth ; yet man ascends even into heavens, and measured them,

and knows their heights and depths, and everything else about them he learns

with exactitude, and, supreme marvel, he even has no need to leave the Earth to

establish himself upon high, so far does his power extend ! We must thus dare to

say : Earthly man is a mortal God, the celestial God is an immortal Man. And so

it is through these two, the world and man, that all things exist ; but they were

all created by the One."

CH, Libel lus X, 24-25.

The Hermetic triad can be traced back to Egyptian sources thus :

1. the one god alone, pre-existing before creation as the primordial ocean of

Nun ;

2. the self-creative creator (in the form of Atum-Re), emerging out of the Nun

(hatching out of his egg) as the origin of everything and the "father of the

gods ;

3. the unique "son of god" or Pharaoh, who mediates between the realm of the

deities (sky) and the realm of humans (Earth).

In this scheme, 10 ontological layers, strata or realms are posited : One

supernatural Divine triad ("agennetos, autogennetos, gennetos") and Seven

natural "powers of fate" or "archons". Hermetism is a gnosticism because it

claims knowledge of God is possible. To know God one has to merge with

Universal Mind, conveying a "special" light, causing a private and inner

illumination or "gnosis". The purified soul is absorbed into God and realizes its

own Divinity. Hermetism is a "way of immortality" (X.7). But as an Alexandro-

Egyptian gnosticism, Hermetism did not introduce "evil" in the archons : God our

Father is Good and His creation (including His Deities) is beautiful, the crucial

moral choice is up to the individual.

"For from thee, the unbegotten one, the begotten one came into being. The birth

of the self-begotten one is through thee, giving birth to all begotten things that

exists." - Robinson, 1984, p.294.

The Hermetic Divine triad is modalistic and subordinates the hierarchy of being.

God (10 : the Decad) is the first and ultimate level of existence, the One existing

for Unity Alone (the Absolute in its Absoluteness). God (the incomprehensible,

unrevealable and unknowable Father) is unborn, the "Logos autogenes" and the

"son of Nous" born. What this is can not be said (cf. apophasis : absolute silence,

no tales). Hermes (9 : the Ennead) is Self -begotten (not created or generated by

God) and is the "soul" of God, the mode of God's holding together His creation by

Universal Mind (Nous) and Word (logos). The Begotten One (8 : the Ogdoad),

again a level lower, has no power of Self -generation, and is part of the process of

time and space (this "son" is the "world" or "logos" given by Hermes as master,

teacher and father). This level of the Perfect(ed) Human beings is higher than

the Deities (or at least equal to them).

The Seven Archons, ruling fate and subordinated to supernatural command, are

beautiful and good (demons may exists , but there is no evil God). That evil exists

at all is due to man's nature and his slavish prostrations before his physical

passions & vices. Clouding his true nature, these evils cause ignorance and make

man subject to the fatal blows of the blind planetary forces, measured by

astrologers and manipulated by magicians. On their own, both astrologers and

magi fail to reach the Hermetic goal of life : "gnosis" or an inner awakening in

the light coming forth from God's Mind, i.e. an entrance in the supernatur al

strata of being (the Ogdoad, which borders the natural world, and the Ennead).

"{O my Father}, yesterday You promised me that You would bring my mind into

the eighth and afterwards You would bring me into the ninth. You said that this is

the order of the tradition." - Robinson, 1984, p.292.

Resisting fate binds one to fate. Only the Divine light of "gnosis" allows the soul

to move beyond nature and abide in the supernatural. Here, fate has no hold, for

the Gods never leave their heaven, and, as Paracelsus would claim centuries

earlier : the wise command the stars !

► l iterary Hermeticism and the Western Tradition : a few highlights

The earliest links made between Egyptian wisdom and Christianity appear in the

writings of Clement of Alexandria (150 - 215), Origen of Alexandria (185 - 254)

and Augustine of Hippo (354 - 430).

"As early as Origen's Contra Celsus (I, 28), we encounter the claim that it was in

Egypt, and specifically as an adult laborer, that Jesus had learned all the magical

arts with which he worked miracles and on which he based his divinity. The

tradition also occurred in early rabbinic literature, but it was of course

suppressed in official Christianity." - Hornung, 2001, pp.76-77.

Indeed, Morton (1978) writes :

"The rabbinic report that in Egypt Jesus was tattooed with magic spells does not

appear in polemic material, but is cited as a known fact in discussion of a legal

question by a rabbi who was probably born about the time of the crucifixion. The

antiquity of the source, type of citation, connection with the report that he was

in Egypt, and agreement with Egyptian magical practices are considerable

arguments in its favor." - Morton, 1978, pp.150-151.

The link between Egyptian wisdom, under the guise of Hermetism, Christianity

and Islam is also pertinent and often forgotten.

"The mystical powers of Hermes exerted themselves far beyond the Pagan world

of Late Antiquity, transmuting medieval Christian and Islamic understanding of

the relationship between rational knowledge and revelation." - Green, 1992, p.85.

This explains why, when Arab translations overflowed Europe, Hermetic concepts

came along.

"The Sabaeans in Harran, who were without a sacred scripture under Islam, in

order to count as a 'people of the Book', elevated the Corpus Hermeticum into

such a holy book in the ninth century, thereby contributing to the continued

existence of Hermetic texts among the Arab writers." - Hornung, 2001, pp.53.

The first elements of literary Hermeticism were probably introduced in Western

Europe by the Knight Templars (an order initiated in 1118). This powerful

organization would pass on "the light of the Orient" to Rosicrucianism and

Freemasonry. Both drew on the translations of theCorpus Hermeticum, available

as early as 1471, but also on alchemy, centuries older.

"The first Latin texts on alchemy were translated from Arabic in the 12th century,

and included the Septem tractatus Hermetis Sapientia Triplicis and the Liber de

Compositione Alchemiae of Morienus. A leitmotif that occurs with respect of the

Arabic and Latin alchemical texts is the discovery in an underground chamber or

crypt of a stela made of marble, ebony or emerald, with mysterious writing or

symbols on it." - Burnett, Ch (Ucko & Champion, 2003, p.94).

► the Order of the Temple

Jerusalem fell to the curved swords of Islam in 638 AD. In 1095, Pope Urban II

decided to incite the sovereigns of the West to recapture the city. He wanted to

bring together the Eastern (Orthodox) and Western (Roman) strains of

Christianity, a scandalous divide caused by a fundamental dogmatic difference

about the nature of the Holy Spirit (who, in the Eastern Church, does not proceed

from the Son as in the Filioquist West). In 1099, the year Godefroy de Bouillon of

Flanders conquered the city, the Pope died. It would be recaptured in 1244.

According to Templar tradition, the Order of the Knights Templar was founded by

Huges de Payns, a 48 year old nobleman, and eight other Knights. They took

their vows on the 12th of June 1118 at the Castle of Arginy in the County of

Rhône. The nine Knights were devoted to Christ and pledged to ensure the safety

of the pilgrims to Jerusalem and the protection of the Holy Sepulchre. The Grand

Master was very successful and obtained gifts of land and property to start the

order.

By 1129, the Templar Order was established in Europe. The battle standard of

the Order, the Gonfalon Beauceant or Beauseant was a red eight -pointed cross,

the "Croix patteé gueules", on a background of white and black squares. Their

motto was : Non nobis Domine, non nobis, sed Nomini Tua da gloriam . The seal

of the Order was the design of two horsemen on the same horse, indicating the

vow of poverty, the fraternity as well as the dual role of monk and warrior.

When Pope Honorius died in 1130, Bernard of St. Clairvaux supported the man

who became Innocent II, to the great advantage of the Order, for eventually his

Templars were subject to no authority save the Pope's. Their Order became a

state within states and enjoyed cons iderable freedom, endowed with incredible

wealth. The purity of these ideals were compromised by the politics of the Near

East. Although the inner order retained the ideal, the outer structures failed.

This inner order had access to "heretical" knowledge. Hermetical doctrines taught

them the universe was conditioned by the laws of sound, color, number, weight

and measure. Impregnated with the "Orientale Lumen", studying the "sciences of

the Moors", Jewish Qabalah & Muslim Sufism and helped by Arab transla tions,

they were able to read unknown Greek & Latin authors and drink from the grand

reservoir of Mediterranean and Hellenistic spirituality. Eventually, new

technologies were learned. These were introduced in the West, fertilized Christian

culture, transformed the architecture of churches & cathedrals and enlightened

the intelligentsia of their time. Hence, the Templar Order helped prepare the

European Renaissance ...

In 1312, during a Council held in Vienne, Pope Clement V, backed by the King of

France (who had been refused by the Order) abolished the Order of the Knights

Templar. After this, the Order lost central command, and various groups were

created, like the Order of Montesa in Spain (1317), the Order of Christ in

Portugal (1319) and the Elder Brothers of the Rose Cross in France (returning

from Scotland). These "Frères Aînés de la Rose-Croix" (1317) drew up a new

Templar Rule adopted by a college of 33 men, renewed and maintained by co -

option.

Templars made links with troubadours, alchemists, qaba lists and Muslims, in

particular certain Muslim brotherhoods (the flowering of Sufism, the mysticism of

Islam, was conterminous with the rise of the Knights Templar). It was one of the

tasks of St. Bernard and his Templars, to bring Judaism, Christianity and Islam

together, and in this intention they saw the work of the Paraclete. They also

worked to allow the latter to manifest in this world again and strove for the

"Return of the Christ in Solar Glory". This was accepted by both Judaism (the

coming of the Messiah), Christianity (the "Parousia") and Islam (prophet Jesus,

the "Word" of Allah, returning to judge the world). Templars are called to

sacrifice the selfish aspect of their natures, so the sp irit of Christ may manifest

in them in victu.

► the Zohar

Before the entry of the Hermetica on the European scene, Jewish

gnosticism made its move. In the Sepher Zohar (Book of Splendor), the "classic"

of Jewish mysticism, a commentary on the Torah is presented. Written in

Aramaic, it was purported to be the teachings of the 2nd century Palestinian

Rabbi Shimon ben Yohai. During the time of Roman persecution, so its legend

relates, Rabbi Shimon hid in a cave for 13 years, studying the Torah with his son.

During this time, he is said to have been inspi red by God to write the Zohar ...

Around the same time, the Corpus Hermeticum was codified.

In the 13th century, a Spanish Jew by the name of Moshe de Leon (according to

Graetz "a base and despicable swindler") claimed to have discovered the text,

and it was subsequently published and distributed throughout the Jewish world.

This strategy of finding so-called "lost texts" would become a standard approach

(only in the previous century would it make real science, cf. the Qumran scrolls

and the Nag Hammadi library). The influence of the Zohar was considerable, also

on members of the Western Tradition. Eventually, its basic scheme, the "Tree of

Life", would be viewed as the backbone of Western spirituality ...

"... the level of abstraction reached by cabalisti c thought was foreign to the

Egyptian mindset. Nevertheless, in later esoterica, we constantly find a link

between Egyptosophy and cabala, and the connection between Moses and

Egyptian wisdom to be found in many Christian writers is also relevant to our

theme." - Hornung, 2001, p.80.

Unfortunately for the literalists, historian Gershom Scholem made clear de Leon

himself was the most likely author of the Zohar. He had forged its ancient

origins. Among other things, but most importantly, Scholem noticed frequent

errors in Aramaic grammar and its highly suspicious traces of Spanish words and

sentence patterns ! There is no real mention of this book in any Jewish literature

until the 13th century. Moreover, recent studies showed how early qabalah

(cf. Sepher Bahir, Sepher Yetzirah) was influenced by the Greeks, in particular

the mathematical mysticism of Pythagoras (the Sephiroth and the G reek Decad,

numerology and Merkabah mysticism - Barry, 1999). It even contains elements of

Egyptian thought, introducing precreation and describing it in identical negative

terms as had the Egyptians (cf.Nun and "Ain Soph Aur").

"... it is sufficient to note that Hebrew Qabalist doctrines reached their pinnacle

of importance in Judaism in Europe during the Middle Ages. Consequently they

also had a huge influence on Western magical tradition, which drew heavily on

Jewish esoteric lore, and as a source for the inner gnosis of orthodox Christian

thought." - Barry, 1999, p.185.

In the best case scenario, Jewish mysticism cannot claim roots earlier than the

Second Temple and in general the impact of Hellenism (Hermetism and Philonic

thought) on Judaism has been largely underestimated by orthodox Jews.

Rabbinical Judaism as a whole may well be the product of a Hellenistic

interpretation of the available scriptural sources (by themselves posing

considerable historical problems regarding authenticity).

"Of the large number of Hebrew sacred writings, the canon of books that were

eventually selected for the Hebrew Bible, or 'Old Testament', as the Christians

later called it, was only established after the fall of Jerusalem to the Romans in

70 CE, by surviving rabbis at Jamnia who were anxious to preserve their religion

from the catastrophe of the failed Jewish revolt."

Barry, 1999, p.175.

► the first translation of the Corpus Hermeticum

"The thirteenth century saw a renaissance of pyramids and sphinxes. (...) the

first western representation of the pyramids appeared in San Marco in Venice,

but they were believed to be the granaries of Joseph, and thus not part of an

esoteric tradition." - Hornung, 2001, p.83.

In Florence, a new Platonic Academy had been founded in 1459. It tried to

resume the traditions of the Athenian Academy closed by emperor Justinian in

529. Around 1460 CE, Brother Leonardo of Pisto ia brought a Greek manuscript

from Macedonia to Florence. Cosimo de' Medici was fascinated and asked his

Plato expert Marsilio Ficino (1433 - 1499) to stop translating Plato in order to

look into these texts. In 1463, even before finishing his Latin versio n of the

works of Plato, he translated them, which took him only a few months. For

Fincino, the CH contained a philosophy older than Plato's.

This Latin version of the Corpus Hermeticum was extremely influential, especially

its first treatise, the Poimandres, circulating in many copies before it was

published in Treviso in 1471 together with the other books as Liber de potestate

et sapientia Dei (On the Power and Wisdom of God). Fincino also translated

the On the Mysteries of the Egyptians by Iamblichus, and the latter's Opera

omnia, published in Basel in 1561. The original Greek version of the CHwas

published in Paris in 1554.

Hermes Trismegistus

Giovanni di Stefano, 1488, Dom Siena

When the Renaissance finally flowered over Europe, Hermes Trismegistos was

already the patron saint of occult knowledge, a mythical figure crowning literary

Hermeticism.

"In 1612, G. Crosmann put the likenesses of the ten most famous naturalists,

physicians, and alchemists in the bay window of the town pharmacy in the old

Hanseatic city of Lemgo. Here, we find Dioscorides, Aristotle, Galen, and

Hippocrates ; the sixth is the turbaned Hermes Trismegistos, and the tenth is

Paraclesus - a beautiful example of how Hermes continued to be treated as a

historical personage." - Hornung, 2001, p.91.

► Freemasonry

In the records of the city of London, the term "freemason" appears as early as

1375. In those days, this referred to working masons permitted to freely travel

the country at a time when the feudal system shackled most peasants closely to

the land. They gathered in groups to work on large projects, moving from one

finished castle or cathedral to the planning and building of the next. For mutual

protection, education, and training, they bound themselves together into a local

lodge - the building, put up at a construction site, where workmen could eat and

rest. Eventually, a lodge came to signify a group of masons based in a particular

locality. The premier Grand Lodge was formed in England in 1717, the official

date of theorganization of the various lodges and the start of Freemasonry

proper.

Although the style of Masonic ritual suggest Egyptian, Greek, Roman, Templar,

Rosicrucian and qabalistic origins, nothing less is true. A historical link cannot be

established and given the fact that in those days no Mason was able to read

Egyptian, no direct connection with Egyptian spirituality was available.

Unmistakably, the Founding Fathers of Masonry incorporated Egyptian symbols in

their various rituals and grades, as every one dollar bill makes clear. These

archaisms prove the need of Freemasonry to root its teachings and practices in a

nonexistent, fictional historical past in order to give itself, its rituals and

precepts an air of antiquity. This is especially the case in the Romantic era, when

exotic tastes became fashionable. With Freemasonry, egyptomania no longer

served isolated individuals & groups, but fed the ruling classes, who were

desperately trying to cope with the antagonisms and lack of humanity of

emergent capitalism and the religious wars raging in Europe since the days of

Luther (1483 - 1546). Freemasonry and its founding myth was deemed the

alternative of the educated. The God of revelation was also the "Great Architect",

and in every lodge a Bible or a Koran was present. This to show the "God of the

philosophers" was not a priori in conflict with the God of revelation. But the

Roman Church was antagonistic, as could be expected.

As a system of personal growth within a closed community of kindred spirits,

Freemasonry survived to this day, divided between those who accept God and

those who do not, between those who see symbols as instruments of growth and

those who use them as gates to occult regions of the universe, etc. However, its

basic humanistic outlook is warranted by the existence of atheist Masons,

recruiting among politicians, academics, journalists, lawyers, judges, well -to-do

artists and the captains of industry. Masonry has become (or has always been ?)

conservative and opaque. Its non-transparant and non-democratic (military)

features may run against non-strategic, open communication, which is the

foundation of social-economical justice and equality. Sociologically, Freemasonry

is more of an interest group than a spiritual organization, although some lay

claim to precisely the opposite. As none of the original Egyptian teachings were

available to its Founding Fathers, Masonry, in order to accommodate the new

times ahead, is bound to be reformed.

► the Rosicrucian Order

As a system of belief, Rosicrucianism came to the notice of the general public in

the 17th century. In the two Rosicrucian Manifestoes, a mysterious personage

called "Christian Rosenkreutz" is mentioned. But according to legend, the

symbolism of the Rose and the Cross was first displayed in 11th century Spain.

During a fierce battle against the Moors, an Aragonese Knight named Arista saw a

cross of light in the sky with a rose on each of its arms. A monastery to

commemorate his victory was erected and time later an Order of Chivalry with

the emblem of these Roses and the Cross founding the monastery. The Rose and

the Cross appeared in the banner of Raymond VI, Count of Toulouse when he

tried to defend the Cathars against the armies of Pope Innocent III. It was in the

form of a cross, described as "de gueules à la croix et pommettée d'or" ("gueule"

means "red", derived from the Arabic "gul", which means "rose"). The emblem of

the Cross with the red Rose in the middle square became the emblem of the

Rosicrucian movement and its many orders, lodges and societies.

In the Fama Fraternitatis (or Laudable Fraternity of the Rosy Cross), Christian

Rosenkreutz is said to have journeyed to Damascus, Damcar, Egypt and Fez. He

met those in possession of "secret teachings". He synthesized the best of these

teachings and went to Spain. Finally, he returned to Germany and chose three

men with whom he founded an order, meant to instruct its members in the

knowledge he had obtained in the Middle East. So the typical founding myth

goes. After the publication of the Manifestos, the Rosicrucians influenced the

culture of Western Europe.

Rosicrucianism developed along two lines, on the one hand, the scientists,

intellectuals and reformers in the socia l, political and philosophical fields (like

Descartes and Boyle) and, on the other hand, those (like Fludd, Dee, Comenius

and Ashmole) concerned with occultism and mysticism (cf. the distinction

between philosophical and technical Hermetica). In France, Rosicrucianism had a

revival climaxing in the early 19th and the first years of the 20th century.

Especially Martinez de Pasqually (1727 - 1774), Louis-Claude de Saint Martin

(1743 - 1803) and Papus (1865 - 1918) are noted.

► the Golden Dawn

In 1865, and Englishman named Robert Wentforth Little founded an esoteric

society, the Rosicrucian Society in Anglia. Membership was limited to Master

Masons. When Little died in 1878, three men took over, a retired medical doctor,

William Woodman (1828 - 1891), a coroner, Wynn Westcott (1848 - 1925) and

Samuel Liddell "MacGregor" Mathers (1854 - 1918), who, as a young man, spent

much of his time in the British Museum, working through piles of dusty

manuscripts. He translated three Medieval magical texts : The Greater Key of

King Solomon, The Kaballah Unveiled and The Book of the Sacred Magic of

Abramelin the Mage.

In 1887, so the story goes, Westcott received from Reverend Woodward, an

elderly parson and author on Freemasonry, a set of c ipher manuscripts. He asked

the clairvoyant and inspired Mathers to assist him (one legend says both men

forged the document, in another Westcott found it on a bookstall in Farringdon

Street, and in yet another the document was inherited).

Both men found the code of the cipher was contained in a work of Trithemius, the

influentialSteganographia extolled by John Dee (1527 - 1608), the Elizabethan

scholar and astrologer of Queen Elisabeth I. It concerned "angel-magic" and Dee

had secured a copy of it in Antwerp. They uncovered skeletons of rituals and

Mathers expanded them. Together they started the Golden Dawn (GD), a secret

Victorian society aiming to harbor true Rosicrucianism and allow its members to

accomplish the Great Work. A complete system of ritual magic based on the

history of Western occultism was practiced. In contrast with the Masonic policy of

the Rosicrucian Society, the order admitted women members as equals. Its

members were recruited from every circle of life.

In these rituals, Egyptian, Jewish, Greek & Christian elements were combined.

However, the combination of these various traditions led to depletion. A spiritual

tradition is as strong as it is pure, i.e. devoid of notions, ideas , concepts,

symbols, beliefs, rituals etc. foreign to it. Although syncretism may be

intellectually satisfying, it hinders spiritual emancipation. This is certainly true if

the elements combined are very different, as is the case here. Because Mathers

was unable to read Egyptian texts, he could not make the crucial distinction

between the Egyptian approach and the Hellenistic view (incorporated in Judaism,

Christianity, Islam, Hermetism and Hermeticism). Neither could he isolate the

native Egyptian elements present in historical Hermetism. By nevertheless

incorporating Egyptian deities (in particular the Osiris -cycle), the GD walked the

path of egyptomania.

► Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley (1875 - 1947) entered the GD in 1898, introduced to the order

by George Cecil Jones (1873 - 1953). The influence of this "Hermetic Order"

shaped his life. He continued to ferment the teachings of the GD until he died. I n

fact, he considered himself and his Thelemic Order of the Silver Star to be its

lawful heir.

The problems between Crowley and the Adepts of the order started in December

1899 (the first time he met Mathers), i.e. by the time he had taken his Portal

grade, the preliminary to the crucial Adept Minor degree. When, in September

1900, he applied to be advanced to the level of Adepthood, the College of Adepts

refused.

They disliked Crowley, his attitudes and way of life. Some of them probably did

not believe an adept should drink, have fun, fornicate and raising hell with

enthusiasm. His scandalous reputation won the disapproval of his seniors, who

were in their right to refuse him. So, in the same month, Crowley went to Paris,

and was initiated in the Ahathoor Temple by Mathers himself ! Between Paris and

London a deep schism had been in the making and now tensions truly exploded.

When the London adepts heard Mathers had initiated him, the breach was

complete. When applying for the lectures he was now entitl ed, he was again

refused and physically thrown out. To Florence Farr, Yeats and many others,

Crowley was an outcast, an opportunist who had endangered the link with

Mathers. He promptly notified Mathers and the latter arranged a meeting with the

"rebels" in London. Crowley acted as Mathers' plenipotentiary, and to protect

himself, dressed up in the garb of Highland chieftain, concealing his face with a

heavy black mask. Clearly Mathers had been a poor judge of characters, raising

lunatic power freaks to Adepthood ...

The GD did not recover from the insanity and within a few years became a

dispersed organization, with several Temples conducted by different groupings of

men, each appointing their own Chiefs. Waite kept the Isis -Urania Temple, but in

1914 he closed it down.

Next, Crowley invented his own egyptomanic movement. In Cairo in 1904, the

"minister" of Re dictated a new revelation to him, the "Book of the Law" !

Crowley became the "prophet" of the New Age of Horus ! The two major Egyptian

deities he incorporated were the sky-goddess Nut and Horus of Edfu ("Hadit").

Had he known the cults of Ancient Egypt well enough, he would have realized

they had no revelation or dogma, and certainly no "holy" books (for hieroglyphic

writing itself was sacred). Was Crowley's "law" a concoction of his own power

driven subconscious mind ? In 1909, he called in the "demon of demons" and

turned Satanic. The psychosis had become irreversible ...

Do these highlights show the scope of the phantasies, fictions and lies

incorporated into the Western Tradition since the start of the Renaissance ?

Indeed, to identify the backbone of this Tradition with the Qabalah was the

outstanding mistake prompted by the fraud of Moses de Leon. This has

perturbated thousands of excellent minds, causing them to constantly replay

their own illusions, and loose, un l ike Rabbi Akiba, after entering the "garden of

delights", their sight, reason or faith in God.

"The impeding turn of the millennium nourishes hopes of a new spiritual light for

humankind in the aspirations of many. Egypt will surely play a role in such

developments in both its forms : pharaonic Egypt and the esoteric -Hermetic

Egypt. There has been increasing talk of the relevance of the Hermetic

Weltanschauung as a point of view that can contribute to making sense of our

modern world by seeking a direct connection with the original wisdom of the

oldest cultures and with the core idea of all esoteric thought, according to which

the ancient wisdom continues to be valid even in a world that has been

transformed." - Hornung, 2001, pp.200-201.

► Kemetism

Can we today turn the page ? Can a spiritual movement emerge which focuses on

a thematical reconstruction of Ancient Egypt ian spirituality, and this based on the

evidence of contemporary science regarding Ancient Egyptian religious practice in

general and its basic ritual matrix in particular ? Several individuals work along

those lines, coupling study with ritual practice (Hope, 1986, Schueler,

1989, Clark, 2003, Draco, 2003).

In such a "Kemetic" reconstruction, no Jewish, Greek, Hermetic, Christian or

Hermeticist elements should persist. Is this really possible, and if so, is such

spirituality indeed the truebackbone of our Western Tradition ? The advantage

being the isolation of a tradition untouched by what today may be called "foreign

elements".

Such an exercise is not easy (not to speak of the contextual limitations of any

author). For Hermetism did retain parts of the Egyptian Mystery Tradition, and in

a lesser degree, the same goes for Hermeticism, and yes, even for the revealed

religions, Christianity first. The thematical reconstruction sought is approached in

two steps :

1. the influence of Egyptian spirituality on Alexandrian Hermetism ;

2. the form of the basic matrix of native Egyptian religion.

In this paper, the first step is dealt with. The second will only be touched in the

Epilogue. In the following ten paragraphs, we study ten basic notions of

Hermetism (in other forms present in the mix of Hermeticism and in the

"mystical" traditions of the religions). We try to find their Ancient Egyptian

equivalent "in embryo" :

mentalism : the gods, the world and humanity are the outcome of Divine

thought ;

correspondence : the same characteristics apply to each unity or plane of

the world ;

change : nothing remains the same, everything vibrates, nothing is at rest ;

polarity : everything has two poles, there are two sides to everything ;

rhythm : all things have their t ides, rise and fall, advance and retreat, act

and react ;

cause & effect : everything happens according to law, there is no

coincidence ;

gender : male and female are in every body and mind, but not in the soul ;

timing : everything happens when the time is ripe, things start at the right

time ;

intent : nature works according to a purposeful plan, pure will masters the

stars ;

transformation : everything can be transformed into something else,

opposites meet.

In earlier studies, the special cognitive features of Ancient

Egyptian thought, language &literature have been explained. Grosso modo, these

imply the difference between rational thought, initiated by the Greeks, and ante-

rationality. The latter is the mode of thought of pre-Greek Antiquity and of

societies untouched by the linearizing streak of the Hellenes. Before the advent

of rationality, three modes of thought prevailed, as Piaget, genetical

epistemology andneurophilosophy made clear. These are mythical, pre-rational

and proto-rational thought, in which the Ancient Egyptians excelled. Clearly

Hermetism was codified using Greek conceptual rationality (giving birth to the

influential systems of Plato and Aristotle). Hence, if we try to correlate these

concepts with their native Egyptian equivalent, this cognitive difference has to be

taken into account, and the multiplicity of approaches characterizing Egyptian

thought has to be made an integral part of the equation. So because of this

crucial difference, in all my translations of Egyptian texts and commentary, terms

related to the Divine are not capitalized (i .e. god, gods, goddess, goddesses,

divine, and pantheon), while in Hermetism and all rational discourses they are.

This in accord with the contextualizing feature of anterationality, while rationality

always puts context between brackets, and by doing so a rticulates an abstract,

theoretical concept of the Divine.

Thoth as the scribe of truth

Papyrus of Taukherit - XXIth Dynasty - ca. 1075 - 945 BCE.

1 The mental origin of the world and of man : Ptah.

Shabaka Stone : LINE 48 : "the gods who manifest in Ptah"

beginning of the Memphis theology - ca. 710 BCE.

Pyramid Texts, § 1100.

"Indeed, the lips of Pharaoh Merenre are as the Two Enneads. This Pharaoh is the

Great Speech."

Pyramid Texts, § 1100.

"The tongue of this Pharaoh Pepi is the pilot in charge of the Bark of

Righteousness & Truth."

Pyramid Texts, § 1306.

Line 53

"There comes into

being in the mind ;

there comes into being

by the tongue. (It is)

as the image of Atum

!

Ptah is the very great,

who gives life to all

the gods and their

kas. It all in this mind

and by this tongue.

Horus (as mind) came

into being in him

(Ptah) ; Thoth (as

tongue) came into

being in him as Ptah.

Life power came into

being in the mind and

by the tongue and in

all limbs, in

accordance with the

teaching that it (the

mind) is in all bodies

and it (the tongue) is

in every mouth of all

gods, all men, all

flocks, all creeping

things and whatever

lives ; thinking

whatever the mind (of

Ptah as Horus) wishes

and commanding

whatever the tongue

(of Ptah as Thoth)

wishes !"

Memphis Theology, l ines

53 - 54

"God is not devoid of sense and thought, as in time to come some men w ill think

he is ; those who speak thus of God blaspheme through excess of reverence."

CH, Libel lus IX, 9.

"Mind, my son Tat, is of the very substance of God, if indeed there is a substance

of God ; and of what nature that substance is, God alone precisely knows. Mind

then is not severed from the substantiality of God, but is, so to speak, spread

everywhere from that source, as the light of the Sun is spread far and wide."

CH, Libel lus XII, 1.

"... Mind, the Father of all, he who is Life and Light, gave bi rth to Man, a Being

like to Himself. In men, this mind is {the cause of Divinity}. Hence, some men

are Divine, and the humanity of such men is near to Deity ..."

CH, Libel lus I, 12.

"God is not Mind then, but the cause to which Mind owes its being."

CH, Libel lus II, 13.

"But if You have the power to see with the eyes of the Mind, then, my son, He

will manifest himself to You. For the Lord manifests Himself ungrudgingly through

all of the universe, and You can behold God's image with your eyes, and lay hol d

on it with your hands."

CH, Libel lus V, 2.

"... it is as thoughts which God thinks, that all things are contained in Him."

CH, Libel lus XI, 20.

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Shabaka Stone, ca. 710 BCE, Corpus

Hermeticum, ca. 100 BCE - 270 CE.

► The universe is a mental creation of The All.

In Heliopolis, the supreme creator-god is conceived as a differentiating totality

("tm" or Atum) emerging out of an infinite sea of possibilities ("Nun"), in

Alexandria, it is a Unity producing a Decad.

By thought & speech, Ptah conceives the world "in the image" of Atum. The

Egyptian distinction between the precreational totality (Nun > Atum) and the

"heart and tongue" (Ptah) of the divine, returns in Hermetism as the unknowable

Decad of God and the Enneadic Light of the Divine Nous. In Hermetism, this

Divine Nous is autogenous, while in Egyptian thought, Atum is.

MENTALISM

Egyptian

thought

(1) Nun : everlasting, undifferentiated ocean

of inertia ;

(2) Atum : autogenous origin of the totality

of order ;

(3) Pantheon : active forces fashioning

creation ;

(4) Horus-Pharaoh : the divine on Earth.

Hermetism

(1) Decad : God Himself ;

(2) Ennead : autogenous, creative Divine

Nous ;

(3) Ogdoad : Divine Logos fashioning

creation ;

(4) Hebdomad : forces ruling the world.

Both Memphis and Alexandria underline the importance of the spoken and written

word. Already in the Old Kingdom, Pharaoh was the Great Speech and

his magic powerful, and dreaded, even by the deities. But in Late Ramesside

Memphite theology, Ptah was the true primordial "god of gods", supercedi ng

Atum, in who's "image" (of totality) the universe was created (as demiurge), and

establishing the supremacy of the divine word and speech.Memphite theology is

explicit : every thing was made by Ptah 's mind and spoken words.

Likewise, in Hermetism, the Divine Logos is the "son of God" coming forth from

the Light of the Divine Nous, the teacher who, not unlike the one evoked in

the Maxims of Good Discourse, gives his pupil access to the Divine Nous, a direct

experience (gnosis) of the Godman Hermes. The idealist notion of the universe as

a mental creation of The All, making all mind, being typical for Hermetism. The

fact this teacher is "Ogdoadic" and not "Hebdomadic" (as was Pharaoh), may

refer to the Greek escape from fate and the physical world (whereas the

Egyptians saw the divine at work in all planes of creation).

The magical power of words is acknowledged by both traditions. Magic involves

the power of efficiency (effectiveness) and the ability to counter every possible

inertia and opposition, executing intent to its full capacity.

Especially Pharaoh is the "Great Magician", who is able, like the gods, to create

by means of speech. He alone was the "son of Re", divine and able to encounter

the deities face to face. His voice-offerings to Maat ensured the continuity of

creation. By speaking the right words, the whole of creation could be

rejuvenated. Likewise (but on another ontological leve l), the "son of God", the

Ogdoadic teacher, brings the pupil directly in contact with the Enneadic Light of

Nous.

Also soteriologically, speech was all -important. In Egyptian funerary literature,

judgment depended upon the lightness of the heart ("ib"), and those who had

abused their tongues made their hearts heavier than the feather of truth. They

would see their names ("rn") annihilated, their essence obliterated.

The parallels drawn do not allow for an identification of both traditions, as major

category-shifts occur. Indeed, together with the rejection of the physical bodyn

(cf. infra), mentalism is an outstanding feature of the Hermetica.

Nevertheless, in the overall semantic pattern major points overlap. The

mentalism of Hermetism was not implanted on the native Egyptian intellectuals

part of the Hermetic lodge "from above", but could make use of the available,

longstanding verbal tradition of Egypt, linearize and "perfect" it in Greek style ...

2 Corresponding harmonics : Maat.

Pharaoh Seti I offering Maat

after Abydos temple - XIXth Dynasty - ca. 1290 - 1279 BCE.

"May You shine as Re, repress wrongdoing, cause Maat to stand behind Re, shine

every day for him who is in the horizon of the sky."

Pyramid Texts, § 1582.

"Collect what belongs to truth, for truth is what the King says."

Pyramid Texts, § 2290.

"Thus said Atum : Tefnut is my living daughter, and she is with her brother Shu.

'Living One' is his name, 'Truth' is her name. I live with my two children, I live

with my two twins, being in their midst, one near my back and the other near my

belly. 'Life' lies down with 'Truth', my daughter, one within me and the other

behind me. I stand up between them, their arms being about me."

Coffin Texts, spel l 80, 32.

"... your food is Maat, your drink is Maat, your bread is Maat, your bear is Maat.

The oil of your head is Maat, the clothing of your body is Maat, You inhale

incense in the form of Maat, the breathe of your nostrils is Maat."

Ritual of the Dai ly Cult , Moret, 1902, p.141.

"O Re, generator of Maat, it is to him that we offer her. Place Maat in my mind,

so that I may make her rise to your Ka, for I know You live by her and that it is

You who has created her body."

Tomb of Neferhotep, Davies, plate 37.

"... all things are one, and the One is all things, seeing that all things were in the

Creator before he created them all. And rightly has it been said of Him that He is

all things, for all things are parts of Him."

Asclepius I, 2a.

"Thus mortal things are joined to things immortal, and things perceptible by

sense are linked to things beyond the reach of sense ; but the supreme control is

subject to the will of the Master who is high above all. And this being so, all

things are linked together, and connected one with another in a chain extending

from the lowest to the highest ; so that we see that they are not many, or

rather, that all are one."

Asclepius III, 19c.

"Do You not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven, or, to speak

more exactly, in Egypt all the operations of the powers which rule and work in

heaven have been transferred to Earth below ?"

Asclepius III, 24b.

"There are these three then : God, Cosmos and Man. The Cosmos is contained in

God, and man is contained in the Cosmos. The Cosmos is the son of God, man is

son of the Cosmos, and grandson, so to speak, of God."

CH, Libel lus X, 14b.

"There is communion between soul and soul. The souls of the Gods are in

communion with those of men, and the souls of men with those of the creatures

without reason. The higher have the lower in their charge ; Gods take care of

men, and men take care of creatures without reason. And God takes care of all ;

for He is higher than all. The Cosmos then is subject to God ; man is subject to

the Cosmos ; the creatures without reason are subject to man ; and God is above

all, and watches over all. The Divine forces are, so to speak, radiations emitted

by God ; the forces that work birth and growth are radiations emitted by the

Cosmos ; the arts and crafts are radiations emitted by man."

CH, Libel lus X, 22b.

"That which is Below corresponds to that which is Above, and that which is Above

corresponds to that which is Below, to accomplish the miracles of the One

Entity."

Tabula Smaragdina, 2.

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Coffin Texts, ca. 1938 - 1759

BCE, Ritual of the Daily Cult , the temple Seti I at Abydos (ca. 1290 - 1279 BCE) &

Berlin Papyrus of the cult Amun and Mut at Karnak, East Thebes, first part of the XXIIth

Dynasty (ca. 945 - 800 BCE), Tomb of the Official Neferhotep (Theban N°50), ca. 1319

- 1307 BCE, Asclepius, ca. 270 CE, Corpus Hermeticum, ca. 100 BCE - 270 CE, Tabula

Smaragdina, ca. 100 CE, Papyrus of Ani, ca. 1250 BCE.

The universe is not a collection of disjecta membra, but an organic whole held

together by the law of life (Shu) and truth (Tefnut/Maat), serving the order of

light (Atum). This cosmicity of creation is represented by Maat, the "daughter of

Re", a deity simultaneous with the universe, and a personification of the law of

dynamic equilibrium between all units of creation. The purpose of creation being

the dynamics of moving equilibriums within the margins of a recurrent cycle,

perpetuated for ever (cf. eternity-within-everlastingness, the "neheh" time of

Atum in the "djed" time of Nun).

In Heliopolitan thought, the Ennead "in the sky" cares for the "10th" or Horus "on

Earth", the latter being the overseeing quality of the "great house" or Pharaoh,

the divine "nesu" or king, the unity of the Two Lands. By offering Maat to his

father Re, the king guarantees the blessings of the gods and the survival of the

created order, always on the verge of collapsing back into the chaos of Nun. In

himself, the divine kings assembles the whole of nature, and keeps the balance

within the margins of truth & justice.

"Said he (Anubis) that is in the tomb :

'Pay attention to the decision of truth

and the plummet of the balance, according to its stance !'"

Papyrus of Ani, Plate 3 - early XIXth Dynasty - ca. 1250 BCE - Brit ish Museum

In Hermetism, the harmony, agreement or correspondence between all planes of

manifestation are acknowledged. As everything in the universe emanates from

the same source, the same laws apply to each unity or combination of units. In

this approach, planes, or groups of degrees of manifestation are distinguished,

and these can be traced back to Ancient Egyptian conceptions.

CORRESPONDENCE

Egyptian

thought

(1) the precreational plane : Nun ;

(2) the spiritual plane : Atum ;

(3) the mental plane : the Pantheon ;

(4) the physical plane : Pharaoh.

Hermetism

(1) the precreational plane : the Decad

;

(2) the noetic plane : the Ennead ;

(3) the logoic plane : the Ogdoad ;

(4) the physical plane : the Hebdomad.

In Heliopolitan thought, all things emerge with Atum out of Nun, and so creation

is divine. In the Platonic conception, before God created, ordered (geometrized)

the world, the elements preexisted in a state of chaos and formlessness. The

world of ideas are the eternal forms of the Good. In Egyptian thought, the

Ennead of Atum (the series of 8 deities headed by the autogenitor), are "divine

generations" who shape the conditions (space & moist), the structure (sky and

Earth) and the drama of the universe (the Osiris -cycle). In physical reality,

Horus-Pharaoh unites every part of creation, for he is both "of the sky" and alive

"on Earth", both a god and a human being. This dual nature allows him to

mediate between higher and lower and to inspire the deities to take care of

Egypt, for he alone is able to "offer Maat" and satisfy Atum-Re, the supreme

creator-god.

3 Dynamics of alternation : Re.

Pectoral of Tutankhamun's Throne Name

"Lord of the Transformations of Re"

XVIIIth Dynasty - ca. 1333 - 1323 BCE.

"I am Khepera in the morning, Re at the time of his stand still (culmination), and

Atum in the evening."

The Legend of Re and Isis.

"Pharaoh Wenis' lifetime is eternal repetition. His limit is eternal duration."

Pyramid Texts, § 412, Cannibal Hymn.

"When You ascend from the horizon, my scepter will be in my hand as one who

rows your bark, O Re."

Pyramid Texts, § 368.

"When he is sluggish, noses clog,

everyone is poor.

As the sacred loaves are pared,

a million perish among men.

When he plunders, the whole land rages,

great and small roar.

People change according to his coming,

when Khnum has fashioned him.

When he floods, Earth rejoices,

every belly jubilates,

every jawbone takes on laughter,

every tooth is bared."

Hymn to Hapy, XII,1.

"The movement of the Cosmos itself consists of a twofold working ; life is infused

into the Cosmos from without by eternity ; and the Cosmos infuses life into all

things that are within it, distributing all things according to fixed and determined

relations of number and time, by the operation of the Sun and the movements of

the stars. (...) The process of time is regulated by a fixed order ; and time in its

ordered course renews all things in the Cosmos by alternation. All things bei ng

subject to this process, there is nothing that stands fast, nothing fixed, nothing

free from change, among the things which come into being, neither among those

in heaven nor among those on Earth. God alone stands unmoved ..."

Asclepius III, 30.

"The Cosmos also is ever-existent, but it exists in process of becoming. It is ever

becoming, in that the qualities and magnitudes of things are ever coming into

being. It is therefore in motion, for all becoming is material movement. That

which is incorporeal and motionless works the material movement ..."

CH, Libel lus X, 10b.

"Everything that exists (materially), is subject to change ..."

Stobaeus, Excerpt XI, aphorism 9.

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Legend of Re and Isis, ca. 1200 BCE

(XIXth Dynasty),Hymn to Hapy, ca. 1938 - 1759 BCE (XIIth Dynasty or Middle

Kingdom), Asclepius, ca. 270 CE, Corpus Hermeticum, ca. 100 BCE - 270 CE, Strobaei

Hermetica, ca. 500 CE.

In both traditions, the Sun was all -important. The Egyptians identified the d isk of

the Sun (theAten) with the visible aspect of the creator-god Atum-Re. The

Hermetics saw the Sun as the creator of all good things and the ruler of all

ordered movement (cf. the cycles of the planets). These and other diurnal and

annual cycles, underline the constant change and the restless condition of

creation. The movement of the Sun is an example of change itself, for Re is

constantly (re)transformed. He is a beautiful youth at dawn and an old man at

dusk. He is rejuvenated during the 6th Hour of the Night (cf. the Amduat). The

view of Egypt as a symbol of endurance is true, but only if by it is meant,

adaptation to continuous, eternal cyclic process. In spiritual terms, this implies a

return to the first time ("zep tepi") when Atum creates all things for ever and

ever (namely an entry into his eternity-in-everlastingness).

Light is a powerful metaphor. The vibration of the radiation emitted by the Sun is

not constant, neither is the light of the scintillating stars. Dawn and dusk unveil

the splendors of vibrating colors. Various levels of vibration are observed and by

way of this image, upper and lower, the sky and the Earth, macrocosmos and

microcosmos may be seen as a differentiated organic whole, with various strata

of vibrations interacting with each other and forming layers of co -relative rates.

The planes of reality are planes of vibration, so many differentiations between

spirit (sky) and Earth. Only Pharaoh lives his life on all planes : he is a physical

incarnation of Horus and the "son of Re" and so divine. In the Hermetica, only

Hermes, the Divine Nous has proximity to the Decad, the essence of God, unity.

The power of the Sun and the other stars is the origin of the life of the universe.

This is the movement of the Cosmos "from within". Nun and Atum are the

movement "from without", the possibility of rejuvenation of all things, Re

included (cf. the Amduat).

The Nile with its annual inundation was another crucial (Sothic) process. Every

year Egypt herself was transformed. Large stretches of water would cover the

land and it would seem as if the primordial waters had come back. In most major

temples, the Nile would enter the hypostyle hall with its high pillars (with

founding myths inscribed on its high walls) and so recreate the mythic scene of

the first time. The sanctuary with its "sanctum sanctorum", built on a height,

would remain dry and symbolize the effect of the presence of the soul of the

deity, making the risen land ("ta-tenen") escape the waters. Too much water

would devastate the area and cause famine (too little had the same effect). The

margins of the balance (of Maat) had to be respected, or the whole of Egypt was

in serious trouble. When these waters withdrew, fertile black silt was left behind

(cf. "kmt", or "black" land). Every year in mid July this Sothic cycle star ted again

with the Heliacal rising of the star Sirius, linking stellar and Solar phenomena

with this life-bearing agricultural, and festive event, the "good Nile" given by the

gods to Pharaoh because of the latter's offerings, in particular Maat, i.e. trut h &

justice, to his father Re, and by doing so linking up all phenomena of nature.

CHANGE

Egyptian

thought

Stability is continuous change, the

endless repetition of the cycle of

Atum-Re, his continuous, ongoing

creation on the first occurrence ("zep

tepi"), the beginning of time hidden

in the everlastingness of the vast &

inert waters of Nun. Also : the

endless diurnal and nocturnal cycle

of Re.

Hermetism

All things being subject to change,

there is nothing that stands fast,

nothing fixed, nothing free from

change, among the things which

come into being, neither among

those in heaven nor among those on

Earth. God alone stands unmoved.

Those who see Ancient Egypt as an outstanding example of stability, endurance

and everlastingness have to realize the "Djed Pillar Festival" was a cultic

celebration of the symbol and power of stability repeated every year. Indeed, it

was held annually in Egypt and was a time of spiritual rejuvenation for

everybody. The priests raised the "djed pillar" on the first day of "shemu" (the

season of harvest on the Nile). The people then paid homage to the symbol and

conducted mock battles between good and evil. Oxen were driven around the

walls of the capital, honoring the founding of the original capital, Memphis, the

"white walls". With the harvest, the physical proof of Egypt's endurance had been

given ...

4 Bi-polarity & complementarity : Horus versus Seth.

Horus and Seth pectoral

Dashur - XIIth Dynasty - ca. 1938 - 1759 BCE.

"To say : Hail to You, Ladder of the god ! Hail to You, Ladder of Seth ! Stand up,

Ladder of the god ! Stand up, Ladder of Seth ! Stand up, Ladder of Horus, which

was made for Osiris (so) that he might ascend on it to the sky and escort Re !"

Pyramid Texts, § 971.

"I, Pharaoh Wenis, ascend on this ladder which my father Re made for me. Horus

and Seth take hold of my hands and take me to the Netherworld."

Pyramid Texts, § 390.

"O Pharaoh Teti, Horus has come that he may seek You, he has caused Thoth to

turn back the followers of Seth for You, and he has brought them to You

altogether. He has driven back the heart of Seth for You, for You are greater than

he. You have gone forth in front of him, your nature is superior to his ..."

Pyramid Texts, §§ 575 - 576.

"O Osiris King Teti, mount up to Horus, betake yourself to him, do not be far

from him. Horus has come that he may recognize You. He has smitten Seth for

You bound, and You are his fate. Horus has driven him off for You, for You are

greater than he ..."

Pyramid Texts, §§ 586 - 587.

"Isis has reassembled You (Osiris the King), the heart of Horus is glad about You

in this your name of 'Foremost of the Westerners', and it is Horus who will make

good what Seth has done to You."

Pyramid Texts, § 592.

"To say : Awake for Horus ! Arise against Seth !"

Pyramid Texts, § 793.

"Geb commanded that the Ennead gather to him. He judged between Horus and

Seth ; he ended their quarrel. He installed Seth as King of Upper Egypt in the

land of Upper Egypt, at the place where he was born, in Su (near Herakleopolis).

And Geb made Horus King of Lower Egypt in the land of Lower Egypt, at the place

where his father was drowned, which is the "Division-of-the-Two-Lands" (near

Memphis). Thus Horus stood over one region, and Seth stood over one region.

They made peace over the Two Lands at Ayan (opposite Cairo). That was the

division of the Two Lands.

Shabaka Stone, l ines 7 - 9.

"Then Horus stood over the land. He is the uniter of this land, proclaimed in the

great name : Tenen, South-of-his-Wall, Lord of Eternity. Then sprouted the two

Great in Magic upon his head. He is Horus who arose as King of Upper and Lower

Egypt, who united the Two Lands in the Nome of the (White) Wall, the place in

which the Two Lands were united. Reed (heraldic plant for Upper Egypt) and

papyrus (heraldic plant for Lower Egypt) were placed on the double door of the

House of Ptah. That means : Horus and Seth, pacified and united. They

fraternized so as to cease quarreling wherever they may be, being united in the

House of Ptah, the 'Balance of the Two Lands' in which Upper and Lower Egypt

had been weighed."

Shabaka Stone, l ines 13c - 16c.

"... and the Sun is the begetter of all good, the rule r of all ordered movement,

and governor of the seven worlds. Look at the Moon, who outstrips all the other

planets in her course, the instrument by which birth and growth are wrought, the

worker of change in matter here below. (...) Note how the Moon, as she goes her

round, divides the immortals from the mortals."

CH, Libel lus XI, 7.

"All bodies then of which the coming-into-being is followed by destruction must

necessarily be accompanied by two movements, namely, the movement worked

by the soul, by which bodies are moved in space, and the movement worked by

nature, by which bodies are made to grow and to waste away, and are resolved

into their elements when they have been destroyed. Thus I define the movement

of perishable bodies."

Stobaeus, Excerpt IVA, 3.

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Shabaka Stone, ca. 710 BCE, Corpus

Hermeticum, ca. 100 BCE - 270 CE, Strobaei Hermetica, ca. 500 CE.

All manifested things have two sides, with manifold degrees between two

extremes. Growth and corruption, good and evil, light and darkness, Sun and

Moon are fundament for the order of creation. This principle dominates all

possible areas of Egyptian thought. Politically (Upper versus Lower Egypt),

physically (desert versus fertile land), economically (a "good" versus a sluggish

or plundering Nile), ethically ("isefet" versus "maat"), metaphysically (deities in

the sky versus Pharaoh on Earth), theologically (Horus versus Seth) and funerary

("feather of Maat" versus "heart", heavenly versus terrestrial Nile ), duality and

its transcendence play an essential role.

Even before creation, at the first occurrence, when Atum self -creates, his unity is

only fugal, for as soon as the creator-god hatches out of his egg, he splits in two

deities : Shu and Tefnut. Also in Memphis duality was revered ; Ptah created all

by simultaneously thinking (heart, mind) and speaking (tongue, speech), and not

(as the Greeks would have it) by thinking first and then acting (contemplation

before action).

Of all dualities, the polarity between Horus and Seth was the most thematized,

for it involved the founding of the Pharaonic State itself. Pharaoh as the "Lord of

the Two Lands" kept Egypt together and physically represented its unity. In his

royal titulary, his most important throne name was always preceded by "King of

the Dual Kingdom". Probably this duality also represented the political realities of

the Predynastic Period, with two major chieftains confronting each other (the

"followers of Seth" in the South and the "followers of Horus" in the North).

This polarity was not static. Between Horus and Seth various stages may be

discerned. The original, unending conflict (with various evils done to both) is

stopped by giving each its domain, but with no avail. The battle recommences

until the goddess Geb or Neith decides in favour of Horus and Seth is punished

(he has to carry Osiris and every night he reverses what Apophis, the gigantic

snake of chaos, tries to do to Re, namely to stop his course by drinking up the

Nile).

In fact, in the Pyramid Texts, we find traces of the cult of Seth, deemed to

assist, together with Horus, Pharaoh in the afterlife. Pharaoh himself is the unity

of both, as well as the "power of powers" (cf. Cannibal Hymn) transcending both.

In the Late Period, Horus and Seth form one deity, further proof of both the bi -

polarity as the step beyond it.

POLARITY & COMPLEMENTARITY

Egyptian

thought

Pharaoh, as "Lord of the Two Lands"

guarantees the unity necessary to

mediate the dual nature of all things,

symbolized by Horus and Seth,

manifestations of the two sides of

the same (Horus-Seth).

Hermetism

All poles are complementarities as

Sun and Moon, manifestations of the

same principle - differences consist

of varying degrees between two

poles.

The presence of Seth is another element pointing to the complemental polarity in

a creation envisioned as an ordered, organic whole. Atum-Re and his Ennead is

completed by the "good" Horus, the king of Egypt and "son" of his murdered

father (the "good" Osiris, "Ausir" or "many eyed", who is "wennofer", "eternally

good"). Indeed, the cause of "isefet" (evil) is found within the Ennead ! Evil is

deified and opposed to the good. Seth is the cause of disruption and chaos. All

possible turbulence and havoc are attributed to him and his followers. Seth is not

absence of being or goodness, but the positive presence of active evil, natural

(storms) and moral (murder, sodomy). He has a cult, priests and followers,

among which Pharaohs. Rejecting or negating the powers and strength of evil (cf.

the "privatio boni" of Plotinus) does not stop it. Only by giving evil its name and

place can it be made useful to the purposes of creation and order (like Seth

carrying Osiris or protecting Re against Apophis, his own demonical servant, in

the 7th Hour of the Duat). While Seth is perverse and enjoys wickedness,

Apophis is the ultimate evil step : utter annihilation. With this concept, Egyptian

thought reached the "bottom of the pit" and found its ultimate negative symbol

for the anti-life scheme present in creation. Apophis was never worshipped, had

no sacred cult area, but was ritually execrated or killed for thousands of years.

Here the rejection is absolute. The "enemies of Re" were imagined walking on

their heads, burning in pits or eating faeces and drinking urine. Apt metaphors

for a complete reversal of the conditions of the scheme of life.

5 Cyclic repolarisation : Osiris.

Osiris anointed & rejuvenated by Pharaoh Seti I

Abydos temple - XIXth Dynasty - ca. 1290 - 1279 BCE.

"Ascend and descend.

Descend with Nephthys, sink into darkness with the Night -bark.

Ascend and descend.

Ascend with Isis, rise with the Day-bark."

Pyramid Texts, § 210.

"Pharaoh's lifetime is eternal repetition. His limit is eternal duration."

Pyramid Texts, § 412, Cannibal Hymn."

"To say : O my father Pharaoh Merenre, I have come and I bring You green eye-

paint. I bring to You the green eye-paint which Horus gave to Osiris. I give You

to my father Pharaoh Merenre, just as Horus gave You to his father Osiris. Horus

has fil led his Empty Eye with his Full Eye."

Pyramid Texts, §§ 1681 - 1682.

"Raise yourself, O my father Osiris King Merenre, for You are alive."

Pyramid Texts, § 1700.

"To say : Osiris awakes, the languid god wakes up, the god stands up, the god

has power in his body."

Pyramid Texts, § 2092.

"O Osiris, the inundation comes, the flood hastens, Geb engenders. I have

mourned You at the tomb, I have smitten him who harmed You with scourges.

May You come to life, may You raise yourself because of your strength."

Pyramid Texts, §§ 2111 - 2112.

"Evil is fled, crime is gone.

The land has peace under its Lord.

Maat is established for her Lord.

One turns the back on falsehood.

May You be content, Wennofer !

The son of Isis has received the crown.

His father's rank was assigned to him.

In the Hall of Geb Re spoke, Thoth wrote,

the council assented, your father Geb decreed for You,

one did according to his word."

Great Hymn to Osiris.

"Coming into being is the beginning of destruction, and destruction is the

beginning of coming into being."

Stobaeus, Excerpt XI, aphorism 35.

"Such is the new birth of the Cosmos, it is a making again of all things good, a

holy and awe-striking restoration of all nature, and it is wrought in the process of

time by the eternal will of God."

Asclepius III, 26a.

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Great Hymn to Osiris, ca. 1539 - 1292

BCE, Stela of Amenmose (XVIIIth Dynasty), Asclepius, ca. 270 CE, Strobaei Hermetica,

ca. 500 CE.

By themselves, the cycle of Re and the Sothic rhythm are outstanding examples

of ebb and flow, the pendulum-swing manifest in all things. This inner mechanism

of nature was identified with Osiris, and the various phases of his life parallel

what happens in the natural world, in particular in the agricultural life associated

with the inundation of the Nile. The myth of Osiris summarizes the fundamental

rhythms lived by man, nature and the deities.

Essential in this mythology was the restoration of Osiris by his son Horus. The

latter had his Left Eye damaged in the battle with Seth, but it was healed by

Thoth. He then brings his Restored Eye, the Wedjat, or Eye of Wellness, to his

weary father, who, already in the Netherworld, resurrects there to become king

again (but of the underworld). This act of giving the Eye of Horus, encompasses

all material offerings, of which it is the sublime example. Together with "voice -

offerings", the Eye of Horus was the most powerful way to establish contact with

the gods.

Osiris is the good King of Egypt : Osiris lives on Earth and establishes all

good things, he brings civilization to Egypt and is loved by all, except Seth

and his followers ;

Osiris assassinated, dismembered and scattered : Osiris is killed by his

brother Seth and his body scattered all over Egypt ;

Osiris reassembled and reanimated by Isis : his wife and sister Isis

recollects his body (except his penis) and revivifies it ;

Osiris inseminates Isis who gives birth to Horus : before Osiris goes to the

Duat, Isis, the Great Sorceress, is able to take his seed and give birth to

Horus ;

Osiris avenged by his son : although in his youth Horus was sodomized by

his evil uncle, he grows up with the help of Isis and prepares to avenge his

father by fighting Seth ;

Osiris resurrected by Horus : his Left Eye restored by Thoth, Horus is

declared King of Egypt and descends into the Netherworld to bring his Eye

of Wellness to his father, so as to resurrect him and restore all his powers ;

Osiris "King of the Netherworld" : Osiris reassembled, reanimated and

finally resurrected by Horus is enthroned in the Netherworld as its king. In

this capacity, he judges the dead and nobody is able to move further

without being judged by him. He is the guarantee, on yonder side of

existence, of rejuvenation and an eternal life featuring the best of this life .

Although destruction and death are part of the natural order, and thus

inescapable, a deeper logic may be found, for all destruction is the beginning of

renewal, the coming into being of something totally new. In this sense, death is a

way to become more and more spiritual and an entry into a new state of

existence, as Osiris shows. However, this is not automatic, for without the help

of the living (Horus), the dead are weary and unhappy. Life and death are

intimately linked and the needs of the dead are satisfied by the restoration

brought about by the lovingkindness of the living, who take the trouble to

"descend" and meet the dead on their own plane, offering them the life -bearing

power of the "Eye of Horus", the ultimate tool of restoration and renewal . A

direct relationship between father and son, between the power to create and its

offspring underlines Egyptian theology since Ptahhotep. The deceased Pharaoh is

not dead but alive. When reaching the sky of Re, he makes sure his son is

blessed by a "good Nile", and so may become a powerful king in his own right.

The best outcome is given when the son excels his father, as the Maxims of Good

Discourse underline.

RHYTHM

Egyptian

thought

Birth, growth, decay, death and

rebirth are the fundamental phases

of the natural process of light and

life. Death is part of the equation

and the precondition of rebirth.

Hermetism

Everything has tides, rise and fall

and manifest a pendulum-swing.

The Osiris-cycle shows how death and judgment are linked. Nobody enters the

Osirian heaven, if what has been said, thought, intended and willed during life is

heavier than the feather of truth. In the Hall of Maat, the great balance records

the differences between truth and falsehood, between a justified life and one of

evil. All 42 nomes have sent their assessors. There is no place where evil is done

unnoticed, for the eyes of the gods see it all. If and only i f the feather of Maat is

heavier, and truth prevailed, will the deceased become fully operational and

effective in the afterlife. If after having done mistakes, nothing is rectified and

Pharaoh has not been served well, then the heart betrays the soul and the name

of the deceased is lost and the parts of man disconnected and scattered. We

know the evil we do and we pay if truth has not been restored. Nature offers

rejuvenation and eternal life, but it also harbors damnation, extended tortures

and utter annihilation.

Although the CH speaks of a "world beyond the grave" (Libellus XI, 20), the

Greek preconceptions of death are clearly present. An extensive study of this

world is absent. The Greeks prefer not to speak of the afterlife, although mention

is made of the fact dissolution of the body is not death. Dissolution does not lead

to destruction, but to renewal. If the level of the Ogdoad may be reached during

life on Earth, the Ennead is reserved for the afterlife. Also in Egypt the "akh" -

state was reached in the afterlife. However, how this life has to be envisioned is

not mentioned by the Greeks, neither is Osiris, judgment or the elaborated vision

of the afterlife offered by Archaic Greek theology (in Late Hellenism a moral

perspective was added).

6 Cause and effect : Horus & Pharaoh.

Statue of Nectanebo II and Horus

XXXth Dynasty - 360 - 343 BCE

"To say : I am Horus, O Osiris King Neferkare, I will not let You suffer. Go forth,

wake up for me and guard yourself !"

Pyramid Texts, § 1753.

"O Osiris King Neferkare, Horus has put his Eye on your brow in its name of

Great-of-Magic."

Pyramid Texts, § 1795.

"To say : This is this Eye of Horus which he gave to Osiris ; give it to him that he

may provide his face with it."

Pyramid Texts, § 1643.

"For at the time when each one of us is born and made alive, the daemons who

are at that moment on duty as ministers of birth take charge of us, -that is, the

daemons who are subject to some one planet. For the planets replace one

another from moment to moment ; they do not go on working without change,

but succeed one another in rotation."

CH, Libel lus XVI, 15.

"The Cosmos moves within the very life of eternity, and is contained in that very

eternity whence all life issues. And for this reason it is impossible that it should

at any time come to a stand, or be destroyed, since it is walled in and bound

together, so to speak, by eternal life."

Asclepius III, 29c.

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Asclepius, ca. 270 CE, Corpus

Hermeticum, ca. 100 BCE - 270 CE.

In Greek philosophy, theoretical issues were common. The abstract, linearizing

mind always categorizes. In terms of physical reality, Aristotle introduced four

categories of determination or "causes", to wit : material, formal, efficient and

final cause. For Hermetism, the causes determining our lives are astrological.

Planets have natures and these cause propensities in humans. These lead homo

communis astray. Only if the rational part of a man's soul is il lumined by gnosis

will the effect of daemons be annihilated. This is rare, for most are led and

driven by daemons, setting their hearts and passions on their satisfaction and

accommodation. The daemons thus govern our life on Earth using our bodies as

instruments. This government is called "destiny". "Gnosis" liberates us from

these causes, but is difficult to acquire. In terms of salvic efficiency, Antiquity

has no mass psychology, although the Egyptian, Greek and Roman populace is

entertained by regular festivities. Paulinian Christianity will be the first universal

religion, addressing humanity as a whole. Its success is largely due to its

simplicity and the collective anxiety-relief it gave en masse, and this irrespective

of social class. Indeed, baptism and faith in the Cross of Christ is called for, and

not expensive, cryptic and elaborated rituals.

In Ancient Egypt, the deities were in charge of reality. The most evident "cause"

of life being a "good Nile". The blessings procured by the "god of the city" were

the result of cultic offerings by the diving king (and his representatives, who

assumed his divinity). Because Pharaoh offered Maat to Re, health, life &

prosperity would endure. Hence, Pharaoh, the sole god and witness on Earth, is

the first cause of happiness. In periods when the Two Lands are divided, a return

to chaos is imminent, for the gods turn away from Egypt.

Cause and effect are approached in the image of the Eye of Horus. Although

brought back to life by Isis & Thoth, he is weary and inert. His cries are heard by

his son, king Horus, who descends in the Netherworld. Because he brings his Eye

of Wellness (the Wedjat restored by Thoth), his father is rejuvenated and

enthroned as king of the Duat. In the Late Period, when Pharaoh became more of

an institution than the direct guarantee of the proper order of things, the will of

the gods and in particular that of the "king of the gods", Amun, became all -

powerful. No longer was Pharaoh on Earth, but in the sky. Amun Pharaoh i s the

cause of it all. He decides and manifests his decisions by oracular means.

CAUSE AND EFFECT

Egyptian

thought

Horus-Pharaoh is the terrestrial

cause of life, prosperity & health. He

guarantees a "good Nile" and is the

representative of Re and the deities

on Earth. In the Later Period, fate

and destiny cause events and both

rest in the hands of the deities, in

particular their king Amun. It is the

Eye of Horus which causes Osiris to

complete his restoration and become

king of the dead.

Hermetism

Everything on Earth is caused by the

movements of the planets. Our

destiny is fixed and only gnosis, the

Light of God, sets us free.

Determinism is inevitable as long as

our bodies are the instruments of

the planets, as in most human

beings.

Add to this the influence of Chaldaean astrology, and we come full circle : the

Deities decide and delegate their power to the planets, each being in charge of a

portion of fate and destiny. Both rule life, and nobody knows what the Deities will

decide next. Not oracles, but the astral logic of planetary constellations decides

how the commoners live and die. Most humans are not liberated, but chained to

their constellations. The better predictions are, the less free man is. Those who

have gnosis are no longer subject to their fate, but decide for themselves.

7 Gender : Osiris, Isis & Nephthys.

Papyrus of Ani - Plate 4

The Osiris Scribe Ani, Osiris, Isis & Nephthys

XIXth Dynasty, ca. 1250 BCE.

"Geb has brought your two sisters to your side for You, namely Isis and Nephthys

..."

Pyramid Texts, § 577.

"Your two sisters Isis and Nephthys come to You that they may make You hale

..."

Pyramid Texts, § 628.

"Bring me the milk of Isis, the flood of Nephthys, the overspill of the lake, the

surge of the sea, life, prosperity, health, happiness, bread, beer, clothing, and

food, that I, Pharaoh Teti, may live thereby."

Pyramid Texts, § 707.

"To say : Raise yourself, O King ! You have your water, You have your

inundation, You have your milk which is from the breasts of mother I sis."

Pyramid Texts, § 734.

"Isis speaks to You, Nephthys calls to You, the spirits come to You bowing and

they kiss the Earth at your feet because of the dread of You, O King, in the towns

of Sia."

Pyramid Texts, § 755.

"Isis conceives me, Nephthys begets me, and I sit on the Great Throne which the

gods have made."

Pyramid Texts, § 1154.

"'Endure !' says Isis.

'In peace !' says Nephthys, when they see their brother."

Pyramid Texts, § 1292.

"To say : I, Pharaoh Wenis, have inundated the land which came forth from the

lake, I have torn out the papyrus-plant, I have satisfied the Two Lands, I have

united the Two Lands, I have joined my mother the Great Wild Cow."

Pyramid Texts, § 388.

"Adoration of the King of Upper and Lower Egypt,

who lives by Maat, the Lord of the Two Lands,

Nefer-kheperu-Re, Sole-one-of-Re,

the Son of Re who lives by Maat, Lord of Crowns,

Akhenaten, great in his lifetime

and of the beloved great Queen,

Lady of the Two Lands : Nefer-nefru-Aten Nefertiti,

who lives in health and youth forever !"

Great Hymn to the Aten, introduction.

"O You, who make semen grow in women,

who creates people from sperm,

who feeds the son in his mother's womb,

who soothes him to still his tears.

You nurse in the womb !

Giver of breath to nourish all creatures.

When the child emerges from the womb

to breathe on the day of his birth,

You open wide his mouth to supply his needs."

Great Hymn to the Aten, 33-39.

"O beauteous one, O cow, O great one,

O great magician, O splendid lady, O gold of gods !

The King reveres You, Pharaoh, give that he live !

O queen of gods, he reveres You, give that he live ! (...)

Behold what is in his inmost,

though his mouth speaks not.

His heart is straight, his inmost open,

no darkness is in his breast !

He reveres You, O queen of gods !

Give that he live !"

Hymns to Hathor, III.

"He, fil led with all the fecundity of both sexes in one, and ever teeming with his

own goodness, unceasingly brings into all that he has willed to generate, and all

that he wills is good. From his Divine being has sprung the goodness of all things

in this world below, and hence it is that all things are productive, and that their

procreative power is adequate to ensure that all shall hereafter be as it is now,

and as it has been in the past."

Asclepius III, 20b.

"... the type persists unchanged, but generates at successive instants copies of

itself as numerous and different as are the moments in the revolutions of the

sphere of heaven. For the sphere of heaven changes as it revolves, but the type

neither changes nor revolves. Thus the generic forms persist unchanged, but the

individuals, for all their sameness of generic form, yet differ one from another."

Asclepius III, 35.

"The Earth is ever passing through many changes of form. It generates produce,

it nourishes the product it has generated, it yields all manner of crops, w ith

manifold differences of quality and quantity, and above all, it puts forth many

sorts of trees, differing in the scent of their flowers and the taste of their fruits."

Asclepius III, 36.

"The body is a mixture of the elements, that is, of earth, water , air and fire. And

so, since the body of the female has in its composition an excess of the fluid

element and the cold element, and a deficiency of the dry element and the cold

element, the result is that the soul which is enclosed in a bodily frame of th is

nature is melting and voluptuous, just as in males one finds the reverse ..."

Stobaeus, Excerpt XXIV, 8 - 9.

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Great Hymn to the Aten, ca. 1353 -

1336 BCE, Hymns to Hathor, Graeco-Roman Period, Dendera, 54 BCE, Asclepius, ca.

270 CE, Strobaei Hermetica, ca. 500 CE.

If we compare the situation of women in Ancient Egypt with that of the

surrounding cultures, we are struck by the fundamental, relative equality

between men and women. Because of this, it has been argued Egypt was in fact a

matriarchy, which is not the case. Sources show monogamy was the rule, with

exceptions caused by the high level of child mortality and usually limited to the

royals (as were marriages between sister and brother).

Although Pharaoh was a male, women assured dynastic change. This may well go

back to Predynastic times, when the "great goddess" (Hathor) ruled supreme in

the affairs of fertility, growth & family. The rise of divine kingship implied the

assimilation by Pharaoh of the power of the great fertility goddess, a fact found

in the myths associated with the "Two Ladies", a title found in the royal titulary

and referring to the two goddesses on the brow of the "nemes" worn by the king,

adorned by a vulture (Nekhbet) and a cobra (Wadjet), associated with Upper and

Lower Egypt respectively. These protective deities, Wadjet in particular, were

connected with Atum, who's enraged eye was transformed into this fire-spitting

royal cobra. PharaohAkhenaten went a step further, and allowed his wife to

become the third person in his monotheist Atenite trinity : Aten, Akhenaten &

Nefertiti.

GENDER

Egyptian

thought

Except for the bisexual Atum, all

gods have their consort. Male and

female are the two sides of the

balance. Every day the male Pharaoh

offers Maat, truth and justice, the

daughter of Re and consort of Thoth.

Because of this, creation endures.

Hermetism

Male and female are a mixture of the

elements out of which all physical

phenomena are composed. Air and

Fire are masculine, Water and Earth

feminine.

Among the deities, goddesses enjoyed an identical status. Not only do all go ds

have consorts, except Atum, an autogenous bisexual, who masturbates to create

the world, but the protective role of the goddesses springs to the fore in the

Osiris-cycle. In the Duat, Osiris is assisted by Isis and Nephthys, but before his

enthronement, Osiris would never have been resurrected by Horus without Isis

(his wife & sister). Next to her all -important role, Hathor also remained a major

goddess from the Predynastic Period until the end of the Pharaonic Period, and

many others may be identified (Nut, Maat, Mut, Neith, Sekhmet, Satet, Sechat,

to name the most popular). Pharaoh, a mighty bull, assimilates the female

powers and by doing so excels in masculinity : he is Horus and the only son of Re

alive on Earth.

Although the majority of Egyptian art and texts are foremost male-dominated

activities and male images and concerns are far more prominent, women are

more represented in the documentation in later times than they are in the Old

Kingdom. Their sacerdotal role was enduring and powerful, and of an exceptional

status in the whole of Antiquity.

8 The astrology of the Ogdoad : Thoth.

Circular Zodiac of Dendera with ecl ipses, constel lations, decans & planets

roof Hathor Temple - Ptolemaic Period- September 25, 52 BCE

colored drawing by unknown artist

"Do not set your heart on wealth !

There is no ignoring Shay and Renenet !"

Instruction of Amenemapt , chapter 7, 1-2.

"For Pharaoh is the great power that overpowers the powers.

Pharaoh is a sacred image, the most sacred image

of the sacred images of the Great One.

Whom he finds in his way, him he devours bit by bit.

Pharaoh's place is at the head of all the noble ones who are in the horizon.

For Pharaoh is a god, older than the oldest.

Thousands revolve around him, hundreds offer to him.

There is given to him a warrant as a great power by Orion, the father of the

gods."

Pyramid Texts, § 406 - 407.

Cei l ing with 36 decans - tomb of Pharaoh Seti I

XIXth Dynasty - Luxor - Val ley of the Kings

"This Earthly tent, my son, out of which we have passed forth, has been put

together by the working of the Zodiac, which produces manifold forms of one and

the same thing to lead men astray ; and as the Signs of which the Zodiac

consists are twelve in number, the forms produced by it, my son, fall into twelve

divisions."

CH, Libel lus XIII, 12.

"And the first Mind, that Mind which is Life and Light, being bisexual, gave birth

to another Mind, a Maker of Things. And this second Mind made out of fire and air

seven Administrators, who encompass with their orbits the world perceived by

sense, and their administration is called Destiny."

CH, Libel lus I, 9.

"The seven spheres, as they are called, have as their Ruler the Deity called

Fortune or Destiny, who changes all things according to the law of natural

growth, working with a fixity which is immutable, and which yet is varied by

everlasting movement."

CH, Asclepius, III, 19b.

"... the Sun receives from God, through the intelligible Cosmos, the influx of

good (that is, of life-giving energy), with which he is supplied."

CH, Libel lus XVI, 17.

"If You wish to see Him, think on the Sun, think on the course of the Moon, think

on the order of the stars. Who is it that maintains that order ?"

CH, Libel lus V, 3.

"... You see, my son, through how many bodily things in succession we have to

make our way, and through how many troops of daemons and courses of stars,

that we may press on to the one and only God."

CH, Libel lus IV, 8b.

"And thereupon, having been stripped of all that was wrought upon him by the

structure of the heavens, he ascends to the substance of the eighth sphere,

being now possessed of his own proper power, and he sings, together with those

who dwell there, hymning the Father, and they that are there rejoice with him at

his coming. (...) they (the men ascending to this sphere) give themselves up to

the Powers, and becoming Powers themselves, they enter into God. This is the

Good. This is consummation for those who have got gnosis."

CH, Libel lus I, 26a.

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Instruction of Amenemapt, ca. 1292 -

1075 BCE,Corpus Hermeticum, ca. 100 BCE - 270 CE.

In the aftermath of Alexander's conquest, Greeks had settled in Persia and their

migration to Egypt brought Chaldaean stellar science (astronomy plus astrology)

to Alexandria (and from there to Rome). In Egypt, oracular practices were

already very common. Since the end of the New Kingdom (ca. 1075 BCE), these

ways had gained importance, in particular the oracular rule of Amun and his

priests. Add astrology, and the will of the gods can be inferred by predicting and

understanding celestial events. This astral religion had two sides : a technical

one involving measurement (astronomy) and an "oracular", "prophetic" one

dealing with inter-subjective meaning attributed to all kinds of astral cycles

(astrology).

The notion astronomical phenomena are relevant symbols was not new to the

Egyptians. The linking of the Nile flood with the rising of Sirius, the Sothic year,

the Lunar tides, the Heliacal decans, the hours, the calendars and the integral

relationship in Late Egyptian religion between the stars and the gods mentioned

by Plutarch (On Isis and Osiris), manifest the stellar practices of the priesthood.

Already in the Old Kingdom, stellar phenomena were an integral part of the

funerary ideology of Pharaoh (cf. the orientation and shafts of the Great Pyramid

and other monuments). Decans adorn IXth & Xth Dynasty (cf. 2160 - 1980 BCE)

sarcophagi, which shows the Antiquity of this astronomical division based on

myth, ritual and religion. With the decline of the institution of divine kingship in

the Late Ramesside Period, the rule of the deities became supreme, both in the

sky as on Earth. Amun was "king of the gods", but also Pharaoh. He ruled Egypt

by means of oracles ...

The projection of meaning on the movements of the seven planets (or deities :

Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn), allowing for predictions in

individual royal affairs (like birth & death), was foreign to Egyptian astrology. In

his Commentary on the Timaeus (Diehl - 3.151), Proclus (412 - 485 CE) wrote

that Theophrastus (ca. 372 - 280 BCE) had said his Chaldaean contemporaries

had a theory predicting every event in the life and death of an individual human

being, rather than just general, collective effects, such as good or bad weather.

In ca. 280 BCE, Berossus, priest of Marduk, presented to king Antiochus I

hisBabylonaika, or treatise on Chaldaean astral doctrine. The earliest individual

horoscope dates from 410 BCE, whereas a cuneiform tablet dated 523 BCE

indicates the ability to calculate monthly ephemerides for the Sun and Moon, the

conjunctions of the planets and of the planets with each other, as well as

eclipses. The Babylonian idea making individuals subject to stellar conditions

(genethialogical astrology) was un-Egyptian, although the power of fate was

acknowledged.

Egyptian priests studied Chaldaean astrology and under the Ptolemies the

discipline flourished. Astrology was attributed to Hermes and identified with the

planet Mercury. It became an integral part of Hermetism, and acted as the

cement between popular magic and the learned Hermetica, between "practice"

and "knowledge" and involved proper timing. In the Ptolemaic empire, astrology

became prominent and fused with the existing fatalistic tendencies to become a

stellar fatalism. This same happened on a larger scale, for Late Hellenism was a

period of great insecurity and doubt. That the misfortunes of fate could be

predicted was too good to be true. All depends on the will of the Gods, but can

their will be read in the sky ? Moreover, the planets were conceived as the

physical manifestations of the Pantheon ruling the affairs of Earth. Not only

prediction, but praise & prayer could be offered to change the course of events

(magic). These beliefs, belonging to the technical Hermetica, made astrology so

popular in the Hellenistic age, prone to feelings of alienation and the pressing

impact of the Deities fate and fortune ... the Egyptian deities Shay and Renenet.

Traditional astrology got recorded by Claude Ptolemy (born towards the end of

the first century CE) in his Tetrabiblos & the Centiloquim. In Demotic papyri of

the Roman period, we find versions of texts going back to the mid -second

century BCE. They concern kings of Egypt and wars with Syria and Parthia. The

earliest papyrus horoscope concerns a b irth in 10 BCE, while the first horoscope

preserved in a literary texts deals with a birth in 72 BCE. The most interesting

Ptolemaic monumental piece called the "Zodiac of Dendera", recording the event

of Ptolemy XII Neos Dionysos Auletes founding a new Hathor temple at Dendera

(the 16th of July 54 BCE). In fact, it is the world's first monumental founding

horoscope or "election horoscope", erected for the 25th of September 52 BCE (at

the time of a unique Lunar eclipse). A plaster copy of it can be seen in the

Hathor Temple, the original having been removed by Sebastien Saulnier in 1820

to the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, and now in the Museum of the Louvre (D38).

The Hellenistic astrologers saw themselves as men of religion, priests of an astral

faith, using a sacred cult to rise above the seven planets (Hebdomad) ruling fate

and -reassured of the Divine nature of our mind- to resist and curtail the power

of these "archons" of the created world. The traditional Greek "evasion" from the

cave was "mechanized" in a series of astral initiations (Moon, Mars, Mercury,

Jupiter, Venus, Saturn and Sun) associated with the voces magicae and the

harmony of the spheres. The need to "escape" this world is clearly an un -

Egyptian element in the Hermetic equation (cf. Discourse of a Man with his Ba).

In Egypt, Shay was the personification of destiny and god of life -span, fate &

fortune, who, in the Ptolemaic Period, was identified with "Agatho Daimon", the

Hellenistic fortune-telling serpent Deity. In the Old Kingdom, "Renenutet"

("rnnwtt") was a goddess of the harvest and a divine nurse ("rnnt"), but also a

guardian of the king identified with the royal uraeus and Pharaoh's "robe". In the

New Kingdom Litany of Re, this goddess appears in the underworld as the "Lady

of Justification", and in the Late Period, she decides many of the events in an

individual's life.

In native Egyptian religion, the "Ogdoad" is a company of eighth precreational

deities, at the head of which stands Thoth. These fashion the primordial egg out

of which creation hatches by the word of Thoth.

In Hermetism, the "Hebdomad", the fate-driven part of nature, is below the

"Ogdoad", just as "7" is smaller than "8". Indeed, there are no inner semantics

between the Egyptian and the Hermetic use of the words "ogdoad" and "ennead".

For Hermes, the Ogdoad is the realm of il lumination, associated with the fixed

stars, the Deities and the blessed souls (the gnostics). It can be reached while in

the physical body. This sphere is the presence of Hermes as human teacher or

"logos", the "holy word" coming forth from the Light of the Divine Nous. Because

of this, the Ogdoad and the Ennead are intimately connected. For the Word

brings the Light and this Light is Hermes as the Mind of God. And he who sees

the Mind of God becomes the Mind of God, but not in this life ...

In Egypt, the deities and the fixed stars were the "akhu" or "spirits" of Atum-Re,

the supreme creator-god. Pharaoh ascended to this sky through the Nor thern

shaft or through the entrance to his tomb. This light of these circumpolar stars

was deemed to be the house of these spirits. In the Old Kingdom, this type of

transformation was Pharaoh's afterlife privilege and involved his sublime

attainment of the "power of powers", being more powerful than the gods.

9 The order of the Ennead : Atum.

Atum at the moment of autocreation

"To say : Atum is he who (once) came into being, who masturbated in Heliopolis.

He took his phallus in his grasp that he might create orgasm by means of it, and

so were born the twins Shu and Tefnut."

Pyramid Texts, § 1248.

"There is nothing more Divine than mind, nothing more potent in its operation,

nothing more apt to unite men to Gods, and Gods to men."

CH, Libel lus X, 23.

"If then You do not make yourself equal to God, You cannot apprehend God ; for

like is known by like. Leap clear of all that is corporeal, and make yourself grow

to a like expanse with that greatness which is beyond all measure ; rise above all

time, and become eternal ; then You will apprehend God."

CH, Libel lus XI, 20b.

"... some men are Divine, and the humanity of such men is near to Deity, for the

Agathos Daimon said : 'Gods are immortal men, and men are mortal God'."

CH, Libel lus XII, 1.

"I am not now the man I was. I have been born again in Mind, and the bodily

shape which was mine before has been put away from me. I am no longer an

object colored and tangible, a thing of spatial dimensions. I am now alien to all

this, and to all that You perceive when You gaze with bodily eyesight. To such

eyes as yours, my son, I am not now visible. - Tat. Father, You have driven me

to raving madness ..."

CH, Libel lus XIII, 4.

"Father, now that I see in mind, I see myself to be the All. I am in heaven and in

Earth, in water and in air, I am in beasts and plants, I am a babe in the womb,

and one that is not yet conceived, and one that has been born. I am present

everywhere ... - Hermes. Now, my son, You know what the Rebirth is."

CH, Libel lus XIII, 13.

"The physical body, which is an object of sense, differs widely from that other

body, which is of the nature of true Being. The one is disso luble, the other is

indissoluble. The one is mortal, the other is immortal."

CH, Libel lus XIII, 14.

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Asclepius, ca. 270 CE.

The Heliopolitan Ennead is an order of creation in three generations of deities

presided by Atum (the Egyptian creator-god). The Ennead of Hermetism is the

Light of Nous, the order of God's Mind. Both Atum and Hermes are autogenous.

The structure of the Ennead of Atum is the structure of creation, for the deities

are natural differentials. The Mind of God is an architecture of perfect ideas

(Plato). These are crude parallels. In salvic terms, the differences between Greek

and Egyptian ways are considerable.

In the salvic scheme of Hermetism, the stern Greek component is outstanding :

one has to rise above Hebdomadic nature to find Ogdoadic peace and Enneadic

Deification, master the body to escape fate, but die to be Deified. These

differences also undermine any attempt to identify Greek mysteries (and

initiation) with their Egyptian counterparts. Spiritually, Greek philosophy and

religion is escapists and neglectful of the (idealized) body, and the Greek

mysteries constantly reject the physical body to give weight to the mind and the

spirit. The body is deemed corrupt and passionate, the mind serene and

contemplative. The body is the "prison" of the soul, the "tent" or "tabernacle".

The material world of becoming is a fleeting shadow, a pale reflection of the

world of ideas (Plato). Only contemplative life fulfil ls human existence (Aristot le).

The body is the prison or tomb of the soul, the cosmos its cave or cavern

(Plotinus).

In Egypt, an Oriental mindset prevailed : the ritualized body (or mummy) is a

gateway for the deceased to remain in contact with the living. Although the

spirits ("akhu") remain "in the sky", their mediating factors (double & soul) may

dwell on Earth and animate our lives here. Our ancestors move to and fro, for

they have a ritual reference (the mummy) and a "false door". A whole spiritual

economy was set in place to ritualize and standardize these constant interactions

between the "dead" and the living. Egyptians wrote letters to the dead and got

dreams from them. The dead were as alive as the living, although their ways

were subtle, invisible and magical. In this context, the initiate did not die to be

reborn, but he gazed upon Osiris to be rejuvenated as he had been. The dead

were not lost spectres or fleeting images in the Hades with a few elect in the

Empyreum. Every deceased who could pay for the rituals was an "Osiris NN" who

could hope for final justification and spiritualization.

Already by the end of the Dark Age, the Greek cultural form had persistent

"Aryan", Indo-European characteristics of its own. These help explain the stern

and gloomy interpretation of death in Greek civilization.

l inearization : Mycenæan megaron, geometrical designs, mathematical form

and peripteros ;

anthropocentrism : warrior leaders, individual aristocrats, poets, sophoi and

teachers ;

fixed vowels : the categories of the real sound are written down &

transmitted ;

dialogal mentality : the Archaic Greeks enjoyed talking, writing & discussing

(with strong arguments) ;

undogmatic religion : the Archaic Greeks had no sacred books and hence no

dogmatic orthodoxy ;

cultural affirmation : the Archaic Greeks were a young people who needed to

affirm their identity, they were spontaneous & cheerful ;

cultural approbation & improvement : the Archaic Greeks accepted to be

taught and were eager to learn, driven by a Divine discontent.

According to Homeric belief, when somebody died, his or her vital breath or

"psyche" left the body to enter the Hades. This dark and gloomy place was ruled

by the king of the dead, the Roman Pluto. Once it had fled the body, the psyche

merely existed as a phantom image, at time perceptible but always untouchable.

The wall separating the living from the dead was deemed impenetrable. Crossing

the river of death (Styxs) caused one to forget everything. A concept of

punishments for the wicked and rewards for the virtuous did not, at first, play a

dominant role. This typical Indo-European sense of separation, rupture, cleavage,

schism etc. between life and death will remain a dominant feature and return in

literature, philosophy, drama and science. It was absent in Egyptian religion

(although skeptic voices also left their traces). Egypt rooted its spirituality in

recurrent cycles, not in ongoing linear growth.

On the one hand, Egyptian religion was not individualistic, but the major concern

of the Pharaonic State. On the other hand, wisdom discourses and induction

rituals are intimate and personal. Hermetism combines the two : the temple

becomes the lodge and its "workings" (knowledge and practice) involve highly

individual initiations (comparable in Egypt with the conjectured "seeing of Osiris"

- cf. Osireon). But these Hermetic initiations are un-Egyptian, and stress the

individual escape from the Hebdomad to reach the Ogdoad. Greek unworldliness

and demonisation of matter mixed with Christianity, influenced the Jewish

Qabalah and reemerged in Hermeticism. With modern science, the naturalistic

mindset returned and the superstitions and myths of "past ages" were boldly left

behind to raise to power the myth of no myth.

10 The alchemy of the Decad : Amun.

Amun protecting Tutankhamun

1336 - 1327 BCE

"O You, the great god, whose name is unknown."

Pyramid Texts, § 276.

"Opened are the double doors of the horizon, drawn back are its bolts."

Pyramid Texts, § 194.

"Secret of manifestations and sparkling of shape.

Marvellous God, rich in forms.

All gods boast of Him,

to magnify themselves in His beauty,

to the extent of His Divinity."

Hymns to Amun, 200

"He is this Ptah who proclaims by the great name : Tenen. He who united this

land of the South as King of Upper Egypt and this land of the Delta as King of

Lower Egypt. He indeed begat Atum who gave birth to the Ennead."

Shabaka Stone, l ines 3 - 6.

"One is Amun,

who keeps himself concealed from them,

who hides himself from the gods,

no one knowing his nature.

He is more remote than the sky,

He is deeper than the netherworld.

None of the gods knows his true form.

His image is not unfolded in the papyrus rolls.

Nothing certain is testified about him.

He is too secretive

for his Majesty to be revealed.

He is too great to be enquired after,

too powerful to be known."

Hymns to Amun, 200.

"Such is He who is too great to be named God. He is hidden, yet most manifest.

He is apprehensible by thought alone, yet we can see Him with our eyes. He is

bodiless, and yet has many bodies, or rather, is embodied in all bodies. There is

nothing that He is not, for all things that exist are even He. For this reason all

names are names of Him, because all things come from Him, their one Father,

and for this reason He has no name, because He is the Father of all."

CH, Libel lus V, 10a.

"... the Decad, my son, is the number by which soul is generated. Life and light

united are a Unit ; and the number One is the source of the Decad. It is

reasonable then that the Unity contains in itse lf the Decad."

CH, Libel lus XIII, 12.

"God is everlasting, God is eternal. That he should come into being, or should

ever have come into being, is impossible. He is, he was, he will be for ever. Such

is God's being : He is wholly self-generated."

Asclepius II, 14.

"And I see the eighth and the souls that are in it and the angels singing a hymn

to the ninth and its powers. And I see Him who has power of them all, creating

those (that are) in the spirit. It is advantageous from (now on) that we keep

silence in a reverent posture. Do not speak about the vision from now on. It is

proper to (sing a hymn) to the Father until the day to quit (the) body."

The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth , 59 - 60 (Robinson).

Sources : Pyramid Texts, ca. 2348 to 2205 BCE, Shabaka Stone, ca. 710 BCE, Hymns to

Amun, ca.1213 BCE, Asclepius, ca. 270 CE, The Discourse of the Eighth and Ninth, ca.

second century CE.

Both native Egyptian religion and Hermetism embrace henotheism (One in all

Divine Beings & all Divine Beings as One). The former in an ante -rational way,

the latter with full support of Greek conceptual rationality (in both its idealistic

and realistic variants).

The essence of God is hidden and nameless. The existence of God is visible

everywhere, although only known by thought. Everything is a manifestation of

the Divine Mind. The Decad cannot be experienced. Even the Ennead is best for

after this life. The Ogdoad is a secretgnosis available to initiates of Hermes only.

All other humans are driven by astral determinism. This highly elitist way reflects

the exclusivist tendencies of Greek initiation, imagining a symbolical death before

rebirth, a rejection of the gross, evil body before the illumination by the Light of

the Nous. In general, the soteriology of Antiquity is elitist, exclusivist, naturalist

(no order of grace) and an upper classes phenomenon. In the afterlife, slaves

surely perished and the poor benefitted from the goodness of Amun.

Officially, only Pharaoh was able to offer to the deities, for gods only

communicate with other gods, and the divine king was the son of Re and an

incarnation of Horus. When entering the "naos" or "holy of holies" ("kAs") and

performing adjacent rituals, the "hem netjer" or "servant of the god", who was

not a god but who represented the king (in a large temple this would be the high

priest), assumed the form or image ("iri") of the divine king (and his titulary

deities). The king is the "10th" added to the Ennead of Atum, for as Horus, he is

the justified successor of his father. In Pharaoh, the "mystery" of divine

incarnation abided, for he was the only deity incarnated in a human body. In this

way, he prefigured Hermes and Christ.

Amun, the "king of the gods" is "one, hidden and millions". In the Old Kingdom,

the great unknown god is invoked. Behind all deities, a hidden, primordial and

ultimate nameless great deity is imagined. At first, this supreme deity is situated

before all possible nature, for preexistent. He belongs to the precreational realm.

In the New Kingdom, Amun is also present in every possible manifestation, he is

before nature and in every nature.

Epilogue

Ancient Egyptian Mysteries ?

"ankh" the Egyptian sign for l i fe

possessed by every deity

Egyptian religion is a celebration of life. This love of life is so pronounced, that

even death is but another way of living. Indeed, the origin of life is deemed

precreational, for with Atum r ising out of Nun, the "first occurrence" ("zep tepi")

begins, which is the start of space, life (Shu), truth, order (Tefnut) and light

(Re). Religion, ritual, induction and initiation always involve a retu rn to this

primordial time of maximum efficient power, in essence limitless, eternal and

everlasting. This golden time of the gods, the true fount of life, is present in our

world as "the horizon" ("Axt" or "akhet") or the junction of Earth and sky.

Moreover, the horizon is where the spirit-state is attained, an interstitial area

where the "mystery" of transformation occurs, allowing the divine king (in this

life and in the next) to rise to the Imperishable Stars of the Northern sky, and

the ordinary deceased to attain the spirit-state.

"May You (Atum-Re and Pharaoh) rise from the Akhet,

from the place through which You become Akh."

Pyramid Texts, § 152.

There is no irreversible separation or wall between the dead and the living. If the

living take care for the tombs of the dead, the latter will be able to return to the

physical plane to interact with those living there. The living do not communicate

with the essence of the deceased, for the spirits (the "akhu") exist in the bliss of

their celestial, starry light. They are free and effective and so able to interact

with Earth by means of the "ba" and the "ka", their operational aspects. Spirit -

life being the highest form of life, the attainment of this "akh-state" was the

crucial postmortem event (the form allowing the deceased to live effectively in

the afterlife). At first only Pharaoh could attain it, but eventually every justified

deceased had a soul and so could hope to become a noble dead , although the

unjustified would never enter the Field of Reeds and other heavenly abodes. They

would be annihilated (not reincarnated).

On Earth, only Pharaoh was a living spirit, a mortal god. When his body died, the

divine spirit would rise up, move through the underworld and ascend to heaven.

Arrived there, he would make sure the new Horus-Pharaoh would be given a

"good Nile", underlining his justification. The tomb had a two-way function : via

the North (or the West), the deceased king would ascend and his "ba" and "ka"

would descend. Likewise, the temple was gateway to and fro heaven. Egypt as

the "image of the sky" is literal : each of the hundreds of temples was a

stargate.

Recently, Naydler (2005), by suspending the funerary interpretation, made clear

that thePyramid Texts in general and the Unas texts in particular, reveal an

experiential dimension, and so also represent this-life initiatic experiences

consciously sought by the divine king (cf.Egyptian initiation). These may be

classified in two categories : Osirian rejuvenation (cf. the texts of the burial -

chamber), already at work in the Sed festival, and Heliopolitan ascension (cf. the

texts in the antechamber). To this may be added, that in the New Kingdom, both

Lunar and Solar spiritual economies were refined ; the way of Osiris in the

Osireon and the Netherworld Books (cf. Amduat), and the way of Re in the New

Solar Theology of both Atenismand Amenism. Both the Amduat (cf. the 6th Hour)

and the Pyramid Texts testify that the core of the Osirian Ceremony involved

rejuvenation (found in the pit of darkness).

The Egyptian "mysteries" are the inner secrets of this religion, divided in

mortuary temples, henceforward called temples for the royal cult, and cult

temples, or the "horizon" of a divine being (the expression "double doors of the

horizon" refers to the two doors of the shrine of the cult statue, kept hidden in

the sanctum sanctorum). The former were intended to rejuvenate the living

Horus-king (by identifying with Osiris) and, after death, to sustain the link with

the deified deceased, the latter involved the service of a divine being at work in

"its domain". Examples are the elaborated Morning Rituals, taking place at dawn

in the sanctuary of every temple, in and around the "naos", and the famous

"Opening of the Mouth". Although most of the fine details of these rituals are

lost, the records do keep some of the highlights "frozen" in stone or on papyrus

and thanks to the Egyptian love of words, a large number of spells and texts

inform us about what was said and done (cf. Pyramid Texts, Coffin Texts, Book of

the Dead, Amduat, Book of Gates). In tune with Egyptian visual thought, these

icons provide further information and suggest many parallels, embedded in the

hieroglyphic script (as the following determinatives make clear). The historical

reconstruction hence offers a basic ritual matrix.

Ritual Postures Semantics

A7 - "wrd" - tire, exhaustion

non-activity, inertia, funerary

rituals and lamentations

A16 - "ksi" - bow down

honoring the deities and the divine

king and rites of submission and

respect

A59 - "sHr" - drive away, execrate

ritual banishments, execrations

A6 - "wab" - pure, clean

preparing for ritual, purifications

A4 - "dwA" - supplicate, adore

paying homage (praise) and acts

of supplication

A8 - "hnw" - jubilation

commemoration of the victory of

Horus over Seth, the Henu Rite

A26 - "nis" - summon, call, invoke

formal invocation of the deities

and the noble dead

A32 - "xbi" - dance, jubilate

expressions of joy and happiness

in the presence of the divine

A30 - "dwA" - praise, supplicate,

adore

reciting hymns and giving praise

to the deities and Pharaoh

A28 - "Hai" - high, joy, rejoice,

laud

highest expression of celebration

and spiritual joy

Let us summarize the historical and methodological situation of the Egyptian

tradition. Historically, distinguish between four theo-ontological models of the

Divine :

1. Semitic model : God is One and Alone. He, the sole, singular God, is an

unknown and unknowable Divine Person, Who Wills good and evil alike

(cf. Judaism & Islam) ;

2. Greek model : God is a Principle of principles, the best of the best (Plato),

the unmoved mover (Aristotle), the One even ecstasy does not reveal,

impersonal and in no way evil or tainted by absence or privation of being

(Plotinus), the First Intellect (Ibn Sina), a "God of the philosophers"

(Whitehead). This abstract God figures in intellectual theologies, humanism

& atheism. In the latter, by the "alpha privativum" of the Divine, as in a-

theism, an absolute term is produced, but this time by negation instead of

by affirmation. God is reduced to an abstract & absolute "no -absolute". But

for the Greek populace, the deities are anthropomorphic and display a

variety of human passions and interests ;

3. Christian model : God is One essence in Three Persons : God the Father

revealed by God's incarnated Son, Jesus Christ, because, in and with God

the Deifying Holy Spirit (either only from the Father, as in the Orthodox

East, or from both Father and Son, as in the West). A God of Love, never

impersonal, always without evil (pure of heart) and sole cause of goodness

(Christianity) ;

4. Oriental model : God, The All, is One sheer Being present in every part of

creation in terms of a manifold of impersonal & personal Divine Self -

manifestations (theophanies or modes of the One), as we see in Ancient

Egypt, Alexandrian Hermetism, Hinduism(Vedanta), Jainism, Buddhism,

Taoism and Hermeticism.

Egyptian religion belongs to the Oriental group of religions. The Divine is not

unknowable and not exclusively personal. God is hidden and unveiled, one and

many. More than just an abstract principle, God may become a Person, but no

theophany is ruled out, and so God may also manifest as a real (like Anubis) or

fabulous animal (like Seth), an artifact (like the crowns), a concept (like Maat,

Sia, Hu etc) or a deified human (like Imhotep). Many Deities are at work as parts

of nature, and each is a Perfect Manifestation, Appearance, Aspect or Attribute of

the same God, who is The All but also hidden in all, as Graeco -Egyptian

Hermetism affirms.

Most Greeks worshipped anthropomorphic deities, and more than one Greek

intellectual (living outside Egypt and misunderstanding the deeper purpose of the

association) ridiculed Egypt's animal-faced deities. Greek Gods were like

immortal humans, the Egyptian deities represented archetypal natural

differentials. Egyptian Orientalism and the Greek mentality had overlapping

verbal & linguistic interests (cf. the study of literature in Alexandria), but

different iconic sensitivities and logical tastes. The Greeks idealized the body and

rejected death, the Egyptians understood the body as an expression of the spirit

and embraced death as a portal to more life. Pre-Socratic Greece also sought the

root and the law of the universe (cf. Thales, Anaximander, Pythagoras) and had

found its first answers in Lower Egypt (Neukratis and Memphis).

Regarding method this. Before contemporary Egyptology could do its work and

articulate a historical reconstruction based on the available evidence and its

scientific interpretations, Ancient Egypt was the object of three major flawed

reconstructions :

the Hellenistic reconstruction : Ancient Egyptian religion, after

having influenced the Greeks, was eventually Hellenized. The cults of Osiris

and Isis, as well as Hermetism, evidence the survival of Hellenized forms of

the native Egyptian ways. But the Greeks intermixed their somber, linear

and isolationist views of the hereafter with the extended Egyptian funerary

rituals. The ecstatic "catharsis", "away from the body" mystique of their

mysteries was escapist and directly influenced Judaism (Qabalah),

Christianity (unworldliness) and Islam (the best is given after death). The

role of Anubis as "guide of the dead" and initiator and Osiris as "king of the

dead" was reinterpreted in terms of the Greek religious attitude. The

Egyptian mysteries were seen as leading to another, better plane of

existence, away from the limitations and boundaries of the material plane.

The Greeks longed for a contemplative life, devoid of material duties and

suffering. Theory was more appreciated than practice. Hence, material life

on Earth, which fed the passions, had to be bridled and finally transcended.

In this perspective, death heralded the final disconnection with the body, a

state the Egyptians tried to avoid at all costs. Their religious attitude

was un-Greek and in no way theoretical or abstract. In Egyptian religion,

material life was spiritualized to make it eternal. Death was rebir th in the

afterlife. And "voluntary death" was a spiritual dismemberment to a

spiritualization of consciousness here and now. In the Graeco-Roman mind,

nobody returned to Earth, the escape was final. Death brought rupture and

disconnection, no return. When, for literary reasons or to close a play with a

"Deus ex machina", a spectre of the dead or a Deity appeared, then surely

only vaguely and mostly to announce something bad or worse. This stern

and lifeless vision of death (which befell all except the Deit ies) is already at

work in Homer, who's poetry suggests Mycenæan roots (cf. the Mycenæan

Age, ca. 1600 - 1100 BCE). The "morbid", funerary interpretation of the

Egyptian tradition is therefore largely Hellenocentric. It denies Ancient

Egyptian religion its mystics and ecstatics.

the Scriptural reconstruction : the so-called "religions of the book"

(Judaism, Christianity& Islam), introduced their own narrow angle : Egypt

as the home of taskmasters, idols & polytheists. In their "revealed"

scriptures, these religions condemned Egyptian religion, although none of

their protagonists were able to read Egyptian (Moses is not of history but of

memory) and misunderstood when they tried. When Egypt turned Christian,

the old religious structures were destroyed and most Egyptian deities

transformed into demons (cf. "Amun" in Medieval Goetia and Solomon ic

magic). The cult of Isis became the worship of Mary, and the resurrection of

Osiris was transformed into the spirituality of the cosmic Christ, represented

on Earth by the Pope (the Christian Pharaoh and Emperor). The old

trinitarian concepts of Deity developed in Egypt, became the "Holy Trinity"

... It is remarkable to see how the canonized versions of these so -called

"revealed" scriptures were written decades after their founders had died

(Moses, Jesus and Mohammed wrote nothing). Moreover, although these

traditions rejected the Egyptian view of the world, they nevertheless

continued to cherish Egypt as the home of perennial wisdom, science, magic

and mysteries, albeit allegorical and Pagan. These revelations were also

Hellenized (Judaism with the Septuagint, Christianity because of the Greek

authors of the gospel of Christ, who himself spoke Aramaic, and Islam with

the impact of the Greek "falsafa" on theology and jurisprudence, as well as

Hermes of Harran on Sufism).

the Renaissancist reconstruction : when the Renaissance started in Italy,

and the work of the Arab translators began to influence intellectual life in

Europe, the allegorical interpretation of hieroglyphs (initiated by the

Egyptian priests of the Late Hellenistic Period), brought on stage a fictional

approach of the Egyptian heritage. This would continue to operate despite

Champollion cracking the code (in 1824) and demonstrating how the

hieroglyphic signs were not allegorical but primarily phonetical. Between the

XIIIth century (the end of the influential Templar movement with its

"magical" tenets, the invention of the new Jewish Qabalah by Moses ben de

Leon - cf. the Sepher Zohar and the influential Solomonic magic) and the

XVIIth century (the start of Hermeticism, Freemasonry and the Rosicrucian

movements) the allegorical interpretation of Ancient Egypt initiated

egyptomania, a fictional approach of things Egyptian, devoid of any

appreciation of the basic ritual matrix (cf. the historica l reconstruction). For

example,Seleem (2004, p.10) gives 50.509 BCE for the so-called emigration

of the "priesthood of Atlantis" to Egypt !

Although all contemporary thematical reconstructions of the Egyptian mysteries,

based on modern Egyptology, make use of rational thought, we have to avoid

introducing Hellenistic bias, in particular with regard to the neglect of the body

and the physical plane of existence. In tune with nature, the Egypti ans are

interested in recurrent cycles, not in linear expansion. To witness the ongoing

rejuvenation of creation being the heart of Pharaoh and his intent. To know

nature is to understand the intricate delicacy of its movements and to organize

life in tune with it. No radical change is envisioned, for natural process has its

own natural timing. Catastrophe and inventive changes are periods of stress and

disruption. The Egyptians must have hated these loud Greeks with their reckless,

inquisitive and ever-expanding spirits and at time violent and perverse morals.

(a very old Egyptian priest exclaims :)

"Solon ! Solon ! You Greeks are always children !

An old Greek does not exist !"

Plato, Timaeus, 22, my ital ics.

The revealed religions added a vile theological component to the Greek neglect of

death (and the idealization of the physical form of the body) : sin. To reach God,

the body and its appetites had to be mortified, for they were deemed the source

of sin and stood between man and his salvation. Not only i s the body a prison, it

is also a wild beast and the natural ally of Shaitan, Satan or Iblis (the Seth of

Egypt ?). Clearly, those who adhere to such exoteric ideas cannot comprehend

Egyptian spirituality and its enjoyment of all parts of the body, now and in the

afterlife. They are unable to address darkness and evil with serene minds and

remain unfit to wander in the abysses of nature. The Oriental view on evil may be

in tune with the Semitic mind (for both understand evil as God's will), but both

differ on how to deal with it. The revealed religions exclude Satan from man's

salvation, while in Egypt, Seth was subject to worship.

Because contemporary Egyptology provides a historical reconstruction based on

the evidence, it is not called to speculate. This is not its task, for it works with

and for a scientific knowledge base of the available evidence, an intersubjective

consensus based on the facts. We may ask it to organize its objects of study in

function of the main themes covered by the Ancient Egyptians themselves, and in

this religion plays a prominent role. Maybe such a systematic and generalizing

approach is still lacking. Insofar a series of hangovers are eliminated

(antiquarian mentality, geosentimentalism, Europacentrism, Hellenocentrism,

Afrocentrism, etc.), Egyptology is the best ally of the philosopher of religion as

well as the esotericist and the Kemetist.

Let us first consider the case of the philosopher. Mysticology, the study of the

knowledge-manipulation of mystics (cf. my Kennis en Minne-Mystiek, 1994),

describes the process underpinning spiritual growth, as three-tiered

: purification, totalization, actionalization and recognized that these stages gave

rise to alternative canonized superstructures by the many religions of humanity,

while the experiential register is fundamental.

These phases are first put into evidenced by the cave-art of the Upper Paleolithic

and its religious implications.

These three stages are :

1. "the entry" : the tunnel : the process of differentiation from light to

darkness ;

2. "the sanctum" : the cathedral : the secluded place of the mystery of

the hidden light ;

3. "the exit" : the return : the process of integration from darkness to light.

Before reaching the gigantic underground rock cathedral within the holy mound,

the Cro-Magnon, or Homo sapiens sapiens (from 100.000 till ca. 10.000

BCE), crawls a considerable distance through a twisting, narrrowing, pitch black

tunnel underneath tones of solid rock. The heart of the mountain is one or

several caves lit with fires, with a variety of known, unknown and phantastic

animals painted on high walls and maybe animated by the resounding echoes of

the fierce rhythms of beated stalactites ... Are strange men running around in

unseen outfits, shouting, dancing or otherwise occupied ? The Dancing

Sorcerer of Trois Frères perhaps, directing, in this grand natural galleries within

the sacred mound, the secret dance of the powers that be , i.e. the supernatural

spirits of the ancestors and the deities. Why do these Palaeolithic ritualists seek

the same darkness of deep, dreamless sleep and death as the stage for their

activities ?

The underlying purpose of this drama of darkness is religious and magical. The

former reconnects the archaic, mythical layer of consciousness, predominant in

Upper Palaeolithic and Neolithic humanity, with the primordial, archetypal powers

or differentials of nature, the types representing the "nature" of the natural

order. The latter protects against the dark, dangerous side of the natural order,

and aims at its successful manipulation by means of this "nature of natures" .

Prehistoric consciousness projects this outwards, and perceives it as the living,

animated existence of ceaseless repetitions and cons tant types. The latter are

only "typical coordinations" within its psychomorphy perceptions of the natural

environment, particularly the "psychophysics" of water (food) and light

(darkness). Over time, mythical notions of these psychomorph experiences take

form. These eventually become natural "stereotypes", the gods and goddesses of

archaic polytheism. These deities represent the unchanging in the constantly

changing, the stability of change in the life of wanderers and farmers alike.

Light and darkness are the physical underpinning of the cave mysteries. The cave

is a protected mediating area were the human and the archetypes of nature

touch. Its heart is an uterus, a place of new birth. The tunnel is a crawl or

passage-way between stages & stations of li fe and the otherworld (the beforelife

and the afterlife), the path of the seed to the ovary. In the natural darkness of

the sanctum, events such as the death of a hunter could be relived and the

causes combatted in a symbolical, allegorical way. Initiations could happen. The

womb was the temple of the great goddess, she who enfolds nature as a whole.

The Cro-Magnon were the first to use grand rock cathedrals and their difficult

entrances to invoke the experience of symbolical death and the

subsequent initiation into a new, more powerful, rejuvenated state of

consciousness, enabling one to move to a higher, stronger mode of being and

awareness of being. Perhaps a better hunter, healer and leader of others. These

superior hominids were able to artistically symbolize their religious and magical

experiences, and thus shape spiritual traditions and eventually develop notions

like heaven, hell, god and goddess, as well as shamanism (the conscious control

of trance) and later priesthood (the specialization of magico-religious activities in

more centralized village societies). Their common experiences shaped the earliest

myths.

The Pyramid Texts as well as the Amduat confirm this architecture. After

purifications and offerings to the deities, the king (or the "ba of Re") is identified

with Osiris to rejuvenate and to be reborn as "the living Horus" (the risen Sun).

Performed during earthly life, this ceremony in itself duplicates the three steps :

taking on the Osiris form, totalizing the Osiris form, return from the Osiris form

to the Horus form. These totalizations makes him stand beyond the fundamental

difference providing the energy to the process in the Duat, namely Horus versus

Seth, righteousness versus wickedness, conscious good versus conscious evil.

Lastly, Osiris the king ascends to the heaven of Re and is assimilated by Re. This

last phase was the sole concern of Akhenaten, who was the unique son of Re

without reference to Osiris or Amun (the "hidden" deit ies).

To operationalize and perform the rituals without initiating a new Egyptian

religion is the task of the philosopher of religion interested in the living spiritual

realities rather than their exoteric cast. In the case of a dead religion, an

exceptional condition can be tested : are the ruins of a powerful religion effective

enough to allow it to work its magic ? This approach is more in tune with

participant observation than any phenomenological reduction (of the natural

world) could be. But if an esoteric "lodge" beguiles the philosopher, to him a

"church" is anathema.

And Hermeticism ? Can egyptomania contribute ? Maybe to warn future Kemetists

of the dangers of fusing traditions as well as the futility of comparing systems in

the actual practice of religion (in ritual, magic & prayer) ? Even in the Golden

Dawn and its heir, Egyptian elements were combined with Babylonian, Jewish,

Greek, Christian and Hermeticist sources.

The ultimate spiritual system is no Qabalah of Qabalah, as abstraction and

rationality summon, but the articulation of a clean, pure and efficient celebration

of the fundamental mystery of religion. In Egypt, this mystery of life involves

constant rejuvenation and the spiritualization of all things material (and vice

versa). This rejuvenation is brought by an inundation guaranteed by Horus -

Pharaoh, the eternal witness. The "black land", the residue left after the waters

receded, is the fertile ground feeding the new cycle. Because of their syncretism,

Hermeticists have depleted the original thought form and were blind for the

ecology and economy of the Kemetic intention. Because of the meddle,

egyptomania is to be avoided.

What is the form of the basic ritual matrix provided by the historical

reconstruction ? The various ritual activities have been discussed elsewhere. Let

us summarize the overall intentions of Kemetism. Ritual is not there to escape

life on Earth or to compel the Deities (the Greek flaw at work in Hermetism).

Ritual is not a reenactment of a covenant and man is not called to rectify

("tikun") the flaws of nature (as in Judaism). Nor is there a special "order of

grace" installed by the Cross of Christ and addressed by ritual (as in

Christianity). The creator-god is not evil (as in Gnosticism).

This brings to the fore the fundamental trait of the Oriental concept of the

Divine. The Deities, the dramatis personae of nature, are a series of "powers" or

natural differentials with fixed laws in their retinue. They are born, culminate,

withdraw, die and are reborn every day together with Re (cf. Amduat). They are

the recurrent cycles of nature given form in symbolical, analogical and visual

ways. Rituals are then a series of "natural operations" with automatic results " de

opere operato". Once these natural powers are understood and available, an

efficient and irreversible (magical) outcome ensues which no for ce stops. The

"will of the gods" is therefore the sum total of natural processes and their

inevitable results. No supernatural "order of grace" is posited, for the deities

themselves participate in the eternal cycle of Atum-Re (who destroys creation to

start it all over again ad infinitum). There is no apocalypse, for the ultimate state

is eternal recurrence. Identical ideas are found in Buddhism and Taoism. By

contrast, the Graeco-Abrahamic tradition has elaborated on a monolithic,

ontological & moral concept of God. In such a moralizing system, what is more

subtle is also better (cf. evil as "privatio boni"). The violent final outcome being

the "New Jerusalem", a new, ideal world order ...

"Kemetism" (from "kmt", the native name of Egypt) refers to revivals of the

Ancient Egyptian religion developing in Europe and the United States from the

1970s. These approaches often involve a historical "reconstruction" of Ancient

Egypt, fil l ing in the obvious "gaps" with material which ante -dates the tradition,

like Hermetism and/or Hermeticism. New grammatical insights & better

translations point the way to different reconstructions, and the process is

ongoing and per definition incomplete.

Clearly contemporary Kemetism cannot just reproduce the Ancient Egyptian

tradition. Firstly, because only a basic outline of it is left, and secondly because

Kemetism embraces rational thought. Lastly, Pharaoh is reinterpreted as

representing the individual, witnessing "Higher Self", and so accommodates a

personal approach of the mysteries (no longer the privilege of a small number of

priest).

Kemetic spirituality attunes with and benefits from natural cycles. Three

fundamental movements are thus integrated : the daily movement of the Earth

(Horus-Pharaoh) around its axis (causing diurnal and nocturnal hemispheres as

well as the rising of 36 decans, stars and planets), the monthly movement of the

Moon (Osiris) around the Earth and the yearly movement of the Earth around the

Sun (Atum-Re). In fact, all Kemetic rituals follow these rhythms, which provide

the form or syntax of the rituals (as well as their timing). The Lunar rites give

rise to what could be called the "Ceremony o f Becoming Osiris", whereas the

Solar ceremony is one of Ascension to Re.

Qua content, the fundamental operation consists in returning to the "first

occurrence", the golden age of the Deities, and harvest the energy -surplus

available there. Only in this t ime of no time will common offerings and voice-

offerings, as Maat herself, be truly effective. This pleases the Deities enough for

them to dispatch their souls and vital power. Every time this happens, nature is

rejuvenated by the additional energy entering creation (and the body) from the

surrounding lifeless eternal waters (Nun) and their autogenous potential (Atum).

One is thus more and more perfected (made more and more efficient) and this

natural process continues, here and in the hereafter, until one becomes a God,

i.e. one of the Powers of nature.

"Do not reveal the rituals You see in all mystery in the temples."

Horus Temple - Edfu - Chassinat, 1928, p.361.

At the ultimate point where Deities produce Deities, the Kemetic intention has

been fulfilled and only silence prevails.

initiated : 12 III 2005 - last update : 02 XII 2010 -

version n°2

© Wim van den Dungen

Antwerp, 2005 - 2015.