Saturday 26 March 2022

Ancient Egypt

Like many people I have long been fascinated by ancient Egypt and its otherworldliness. Despite its strangeness it seems to capture something profound and mysterious about humanity in a way that is not seen anywhere else. There really is something magical about Egypt. I have visited the country twice and each time coincided with a dramatic change in my life.

The first time I went there was in 1978. This was shortly after I had become interested in spirituality and a few months before I went to live with Michael Lord. So, an ideal time really as I was ready to absorb the deeper message of Egypt. My eyes had begun to be opened to the inner truths of life and Egypt was the perfect place to take that further since the whole ancient Egyptian civilisation was based on the understanding that this world was a reflection of a higher reality. Ancient Egypt was dedicated to manifesting that reality by living life on earth according to the pattern of heaven. Literally so in some instances as many of the Egyptian gods were star gods. For example, Isis was linked to Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, and her consort Osiris was connected to the constellation Orion.

The 3 stars of Orion's belt (upper centre) point down to Sirius


I first arrived in Egypt at the port of Alexandria, coming on a boat from Piraeus in Greece. Alexandria was and is an East meets West type of city, combining elements of Greece and Egypt and making of them something that might justly be regarded as the intellectual seed of the modern world. I mean that in a positive sense. The destruction of its ancient library is widely regarded as one of the great cultural tragedies of the world in which a vast amount of pagan wisdom was lost but Alexandria was also a major centre of early Christianity. Its patriarchate was supposedly founded by St Mark around 40 AD and later on many of the Church Fathers such as Clement, Origen and Athanasius lived and taught there. At the same time, Alexandria was home to Neoplatonic philosophers of the order of Plotinus and Hypatia. Oddly enough, not long before I visited the city I had read Charles Kingsley's novel about this famous female philosopher who was murdered by a Christian mob and whose virtues might even have been incorporated into the myths about St Catherine. All of which is to say that in the early centuries of the first millennium Alexandria was a city that was home to the best and brightest of both Christians and pagans. If any one place was the birthplace of the modern world it was perhaps Alexandria but it also contained within itself the wisdom of the past.

From Alexandria I took a train to Cairo where I spent the next couple of weeks. I couldn't go further south because at that time such trains as there were, which was not many, were all booked up for the next month which seems strange now but it was a simpler time with fewer tourist facilities. As it turned out, that was a fortuitous circumstance because it gave me more time to explore Cairo itself and the Giza plateau.

I wasn't too thrilled with Cairo at first. It seemed chaotic, dirty and smelly not to mention very hot. But I soon got over that and began to appreciate what you might call the authenticity of the place though this was helped by the fact that there still existed at that time those old colonial style clubs from the 1930s where you could have an ice cold beer under a fan and all was gleaming brass and shiny brown leather with immaculately dressed waiters in white uniforms topped off by a bright red fez. But my hotel was not like that. Basic sums it up but it was certainly cheap and served a nice guava jelly at breakfast.

On several occasions I went off to see the pyramids. If I had been able to go down (or is it up in Egyptian terms?) to Luxor I probably would have gone only once but being restricted to Cairo meant I could take more time in exploring the whole area in and around Giza including the little village, as it was then, that had grown up in the vicinity. I spent some time walking around all three pyramids and the Sphinx and also investigated some of the smaller structures that are there. I even went a little way out into the desert, this being the first time I had ever seen a real desert. Its great emptiness and expanse makes it an apt symbol for the boundless infinity of universal spirit and a fit object for the contemplation of eternal things. 

In complete contrast to the the desert was the interior of the Great Pyramid. These represent two spiritual extremes, eye-achingly bright light and deep darkness, wide open space and the drawing in of everything to a still centre in which all power seems to be concentrated. This is the King's Chamber located in the heart of the Great Pyramid. To reach it you must go through an outside entrance located about 20 feet above ground, not the original entrance but one cut later, and then descend by a narrow passageway a short distance before reascending by another passageway which, like the first, is only about 3 feet high so you have to bend your head, symbolically significant, no doubt. You then reach the impressive Grand Gallery which at 28 feet high and around 150 feet long conveys a strong sense of ceremony and grandeur as though it leads to somewhere of importance.

Which, of course, it does. At the top of the gallery there is a short tunnel that leads through a small antechamber into the King's Chamber. Before going to Egypt I had read A Search in Secret Egypt by Paul Brunton which was first published in 1935 in which he describes a night spent alone in the King's Chamber and the strange experience that befell him there. Now, I don't necessarily believe everything Brunton says. He was a journalist and had a journalist's imagination, but he was also a good writer and introduced many people in the West to Indian philosophy. His two travel/spiritual books about India and Egypt are still very much worth reading, and he had many insights into all aspects of the mystical and esoteric. I owe him a spiritual debt which I am happy to acknowledge. Whether he really did have the experience he describes in which during his night alone in the King's Chamber he was initiated into the mysteries of the after death state by the psychic forms of ancient Egyptian High Priests I can't say. But it's not impossible. The King's Chamber is a deeply mysterious place and it may well have served as a sanctuary for the initiation of qualified candidates into the Mysteries. Egyptologists maintain it was merely a tomb for the pharaoh Khufu but it is remarkably plain with undecorated walls and an austerity that is not what you would expect for a pharaoh. I didn't spend a night there but I was alone in the chamber for 10 minutes or so and there certainly was, as Brunton says, "a powerful atmosphere".

The King's Chamber with sarcophagus


My copy from 1977

An Egyptian pound note from 1978 I found inside the book which I must have kept as a bookmark

On another occasion I climbed to the top of the third and smallest pyramid which is the one thought to have served as the tomb of the pharaoh Menkaure from the 4th Dynasty, around 2,600 BC. It is only around 200 feet high now as compared with the Great Pyramid which was originally around 480 feet high though is a bit smaller today. It was still a scramble to get up though and I needed a local guide to show the way or, at least, that's what he told me. Today I disapprove of myself for doing this as it obviously damages the pyramids to have tourists clambering all over them which is why it is not allowed, but still the view from the top across the great desert under the burning Egyptian sun was quite stunning. 

I like to imagine that there are three pyramids because of the triplicities to be found throughout nature, not least in the spirit, soul and body constitution of the human being. In this parallel Menkaure's pyramid would probably refer to the body as it is the last built and the least important. But it is still part of the whole and not to be discounted by any means.

The pyramids and the Sphinx belong to a world which is not ours in any sense at all. But they impress us as representing something profound and true. They speak to us from across the millennia, calling us back to something important we have forgotten. How many millennia? Official Egyptology puts it at around four and a half but then the water erosion on the Sphinx implies that at least to be much older, maybe even dating back to the end of the last Ice Age which was around 9,700 BC. Curiously, Paul Brunton writing in 1935 also thought the Sphinx was much older than established academic sources allow. He says that to "the Fourth Dynasty Pharaohs the Sphinx was already unutterably aged", and that those regarded as building it merely restored it. He relates a vision he had while contemplating the Sphinx at night "of men with long and hard faces and reddish brown skin" carving out the monument and then how after centuries had gone by and the men had long departed a huge wall of water swept over it. The Deluge! 

                                 The Sphinx with the Menkaure Pyramid in the background


Does the Sphinx date back to before the Flood? The water erosion evidence does appear to support that. All I can say is that when I first visited it in 1978 it did not seem at all far-fetched that it was many thousands of years older than recorded history, even ancient history. There is something about it that belongs to an epoch when the gods were still present on Earth which means a time when spirit and matter had not separated and the radiance of eternity still illumined the world.

10 comments:

Bruce Charlton said...

@William - Fine essay. I share your feelings about a special fascinating quality to Ancient Egypt - which seems to me like one of the most appealing of all civilizations. But I did not really 'get' this appeal until relatively few years ago, when I began to understand something of their religion and how it was experienced.

(This applies to most societies of the past. Religion was such an important aspect of life then that we cannot get near to what life was like in the past unless we can imagine viewing it *through* the lens of religion; which for modern people is difficult/ sometimes impossible.)

BTW - My understanding is that the nature of "The Library of Alexandria" is not really understood, and has a considerable 'mythic' overlay: https://www.thecollector.com/library-of-alexandria/.

It seems most often referenced nowadays as a stick with which to beat Christians - on the almost certainly false assumption that it was Christians who deliberately destroyed it (whatever 'it' was!).

Howard Ramsey Sutherland said...

Both William and Bruce know them well, I'm sure, but two books recently opened new vistas about Egypt, even though I've been fascinated by Ancient Egypt since childhood, read widely about it, and spent a month in Egypt in my 20s poking around. Both are by Jeremy Naydler: Temple of the Cosmos, and Shamanic Wisdom of the Pyramid Texts.
The first is an overview of Egyptian beliefs and religious practices; illuminating about how life and the world were for pharaonic Egyptians.
The second focuses on specific writings, the Pyramid Texts in the Fifth Dynasty pyramid of Unas (or Wenis) of the 24th century B.C. Those may be as close as we'll ever find to a window into the minds of Old Kingdom Egyptians.
I've been around ancient and mediaeval monuments and ruins of all sorts, but there is something qualitatively distinctive about Egyptian ones, beyond their great age and size. I think it is the sense that there is no separation between sacred and secular; indeed that the distinction has no meaning in Ancient Egypt. As for age, I remember seeing the Pyramids of Giza for the first time; it occurred to me that they were almost as old to Herodotus as Herodotus is to me. Sobering.
As for the Sphinx, it is very mysterious indeed. As is Chephren's valley temple.
It is a strain for moderns to try to perceive the world as ancient Egyptians did, but worth the effort. Although we can never quite know if we've succeeded...

William Wildblood said...

I've heard many people say about ancient Egypt that, yes, no doubt it was fine for the nobles but what about the peasants? This is a typical modern misunderstanding. The point is that the quality of the civilisation affected everyone and made everyone feel they were part of a whole in which all parts worked together for everyone. It was as Howard says a civilisation and culture that were qualitatively distinctive. That quality in which there truly was no separation between sacred and secular put its mark on every member of the society.

I like the idea of poking around Egypt!

High Atlantean said...

"of men with long and hard faces and reddish brown skin". These are Atlanteans when times were getting worse for Atlantis.

Atlantis was the creator of Egypt. Ancient Egypt was created from the Atlantean diaspora as they landed in places like Malta after the First Flood.

William Wildblood said...

That's what I believe too, High Atlantean.

Howard Ramsey Sutherland said...

Poking around Egypt was memorable indeed. Extraordinary Red Sea diving in the Sinai as well as lots of antiquities, from Cairo to Abu Simbel and back. Someday I want to go back, with my wife this time; was single when I first visited. I'd like to spend time at Sakkara, and more time at Giza. Missed Abydos and Alexandria the first time, so new things to see there.
Speaking of the Red Sea, just read a review in The Spectator of a new book that may also shed light on the thinking and attitudes of ancient Egyptians:
The Red Sea Scrolls: How Ancient Papyri Reveal the Secrets of the Pyramids, by Pierre Tallet and Mark Lehner.
The Red Sea Scrolls presents a recently discovered cache of ca. 2600 B.C. papyri, records of a "naval gang" from the time of the Great Pyramid's construction (according to the received Egyptological chronology), found near the Gulf of Suez. The book looks fascinating - but it's 30 quid. So I may not be buying it right away.
Don't know much about Pierre Tallet, but Mark Lehner is an eminent Egyptologist, perhaps the preeminent living expert on the Giza Plateau, with its three great pyramids and the Great Sphinx. Lehner rejects the theory advanced by John Anthony West and Robert Schoch that the Sphinx in particular is far older than the Fourth Dynasty, based on evidence of rainfall erosion on the Sphinx. I found their presentation of that theory compelling, even if it didn't entirely convince me. Nevertheless, one shouldn't discount Lehner on that basis.
Will be interesting to see if things emerge in these recently found papyri that substantially change our view of Egypt. Whilst Egypt may have Atlantean antecedents, or something similar, Egypt is the first civilisation we really know of, and is a stupendous tri-millennial achievement on its own. We still have much to learn from Egypt.

lea said...

Gnostics of varying plumage refer to the library of Alexandria in a physical as well as metaphorical sense. I tend to agree with the assessment that it can be seen as a global symbol of central storage of knowledge, and its destruction as well. Possibly the earliest historical source of such a phenomenon taking place, that we have records of, and any degree of certainty about. As far as the accusation of whomever might have destroyed it; i think definite proof that far back is impossible since any party opposed to specific knowledge could have been involved. Power games are far older then this even, public access to certain things is always an issue for the ones assuming to be in control. That's why the internet is devolving as we speak. The wild west web times ended somewhere between 2004 and 2007, by design. The data collection and control aspect was always intended, the free flow of information presumed to be self-managing due to conditioning of society, but that did not quite pan out, and had to be reigned in.

As an invitation to further speculation, i am convinced that the pyramids were not built by slaves using ropes and wooden slopes, but completely different techniques were used. No proof though, as it tends to be historically impossible with such things.

William Wildblood said...

I agree with you about the building of the pyramids. Some kind of anti-gravity method, long since lost, seems a possible way of moving the large blocks of stone, here and elsewhere around the world.

Kirstie said...

Erich von Daniken

Kirstie said...

I would have not met this man if had not been for my brother. So, I have enough trust to believe in my brother, and his beliefs and motivations. Because, even if I would not choose to invest in such personalities, that my brother does, then, I would have no understanding.