Apech

parmesan mayo is dripped onto little gem lettuce, eat it now.

Hi ToL, Thanks for these links. All I can say is that the Tree of Life was not used explicitly in Ancient Egypt. Now you take a view on this, that it was somehow a secret teaching and that the Jews learned it from them - but I think this is unlikely (but possible). The other way of looking at it is that the Tree of Life is a kind of universal key which can be applied to the Egyptian Religion as much as any other system. In which case, with care you can see the work that the writer quoted in your links is valid. I haven't read his books so I don't know but the Tree of Life diagram does have some oddities - like calling a Jackal headed deity Sebek when usually this would be Anubis - but there may be a reason for this. All I can say is that individuals receive inspiration and express it in their own way. It is up to everyone else to make there minds up if the work they present is useful or not. I would say though, that while there is a lot to learned by looking at correspondencies between different systems, there is also a danger of getting very confused. Each system is self consistent - but there is no natural consistency between systems. The Egyptians definitely believed in rebirth - but had no teaching on reincarnation as such. By rebirth they referred to the continual renewal of the sun and stars (and by extension of souls) through the cycling of the universe. Kings also had something called the Sed festival in which they ritually died and were reborn (this occurred after about 30 years of reign). There was also a title of some gods 'Repeater of births' . It would seem logical that they believed in reincarnation but they never actually said anything like - you come back again. Pythagoras lived around 500 BC which is pretty late in Egypt's history. Its possible that he learned about reincarnation in Egypt but that it was not necessarily an Egyptian idea because Egypt became a kind of melting pot of ideas in the late period.

Let harmony be Whatever the notes dictate the best melody.

times without bidding I'll raise you by a thousand with these five aces.

Hi, The Kabbalah is Jewish mysticism and there is no such thing as an Egyptian version of it, although as the Jews were in Egypt for a considerable period of time there is no doubt that they absorbed some ideas. The Pyramid Texts date to about 2365 BC and were old when first written down. So the Egyptian Religion is far older than Judaism. However I imagine that it could be a meaningful exercise to for instance place some of the Egyptian gods on the Tree of Life - but care needs to be taken because this could be very confusing.

hippopotamus. although hippos are quite nice in dark chocolate.

recharge ecstatic my batteries were all dead but now the light's on.

"Apepch7, I've noticed that it's pretty challenging to put together even a newbie level understanding of Egyptian religion. If you ever feel inclined to write up an Egyptian Religions for Dummies article, Egyptian q&a thread, or a recommended reading list that'd be great! Your pal, Yoda PS, my question du jour: is Set a good guy or a bad guy? I read the wiki on him and it sounded like he's a good guy. Am reading Search for Omm Sety (which I realize might not be the best place to get info laugh.gif ) but there the vibe was that Set was demonic. Of course, all these good guys can have a wrathful side and maybe that was the glimpse received in that book. Thanks for any thoughts! PPS, While I consider Jesus to be a major avatar, I've always wondered at how strange of a religion Christianity has seemed to me and wondered where on earth did the whole storyline come from... it doesn't seem to 100% fit the Hebrew tradition. Now it feels like it is a reenactment of the Egyptian religion within a Roman/Hebrew framework. I'd love to hear your take on it." --------------------------------------------------- Writing an article on Egypt would be a major piece of work (even if it was for dummies ). I've studied Egypt for about 30 years and feel like I'm scratching the surface. Its such a deep and profound system - but sadly one which died out with the beginning of the Christian era (or rather with the beginning of Christianity as the state religion under the Roman Empire). If you want to know about it then you have to choose between either mainstream Egyptology books - which have the advantage of being rigorous in an academic sense (but are still subject to the writers prejudice e.g. Sethe and Assmann deny any mysticism in Egypt despite Egypt being recognised in classical times as the most religious culture on earth.) or more interpreted books by people who are interested in mysticism and have written up their own ideas - some of which are a bit fanciful and are not backed up by much evidence. So if you want a really good book on authentic Egyptian Mysticism - there isn't one. If I start my own practice thread I can post some ideas for discussion if anyone is interested. Set - aha! a very interesting god! To understand Set (probably originally called something like Sutekh) you have to look back at the origin of Egypt as a single country at the very beginning of its history. Orginally there were two kingdoms of Upper Egypt (in the South) and Lower Egypt (in the North). The first dynastic king united these two different regions into one country which throughout its history was still known as 'the two lands' for this reason. The totemic male deities of these two lands were Horus (North/Lower Egypt) and Set (South/Upper Egypt). In the early dynasties these two gods were seen as equal and opposite. Some kings were named after Set and some after Horus and some both. (Even in the New Kingdom Set could be also used for a kings name e.g. Set I etc.) So Set as originally understood is not evil or bad. However he was a force which provided opposition to Horus. In late Egypt this changed slightly and Set did indeed become more associated with 'bad' things like deserts and storms. But even so, the best way to understand this is to think of two forces. One, Horus tends to create structures in order to impose order on its environment (to rule), while the other tends to break down structures in order to liberate energy. Held in dynamic tension these two provide the driving force behind the cycle of existence. The goddesses associated with them also signify the vehicles for this cyclical movement. Isis moves upward into light and Nephthys moves downward into darkness (I can give quotes from the Pyramid Texts to back this up). This is much misunderstood as Nephthys is sometimes thought of as bad and Isis good, but actually both life an death are two sides of one cycle, both are needed. The way to think of this is that there is a cycle in which one moves between luminosity (light/life) and darkness (voidity). The darkness as voidity is the source of regeneration and 'powers up' the cycle while the light (the sun) brings into existence the rich variety of created form. Where Set becomes a problem is when imbalance means that Set is unrestrained. This is the source of the myth where Set (thought of as the brother of the king Osiris) kills his brother to try to take the throne. Order is restored when Horus the son of Osiris eventually after an 80 year battle overcomes Set. Set is not destroyed but is given an appropriate role. Set also had a role in the sun's daily cycle. Because of his great strength and power he was the only god able to overcome the serpent Apep which opposed the sun god's journey through the sky. Thus enforcing the idea of Set as a destructive but necessary force. So short answer is Set is not bad - he is vital. Jesus - beware the internet stuff about Horus being Jesus - this is all rubbish. However it is said that as a child Jesus spent some time in Egypt . Egypt also influenced Judaism - for instance the beginning of Genisis is almost pure Egyptian thought with God moving over the face of the deep and so on. There is a resurrection theme in the Osiris/Horus myth but it is not quite like Jesus. There is no doubt that Egypt influenced Gnosticism for instance so I think that anything that might be called Christian Mysticism would have influences from Egypt. One other idea that I have read about is that Mahayana Buddhism may have spread down the Silk Route into the middle east at the time that Jesus lived and taught and that some of his ideas (e.g. sermon on the mount) are almost identical to this form of Buddhism. Cheers for now.

Added a bit about the akh in the articles section.

Here is my take on the akh, the sun rise and time (amongst other things). Hope you find it interesting. If anything isn't clear then let me know. The Akh The Ancient Egyptian texts and books were called 'se-akhu' which means akhifiers, or akh-makers. The purpose of the various Chapters, Utterances and Spells was to allow the person to transform into an akh. The word 'akh' comes from a root which means 'to be effective'. That is to have power and ability. So the akh state means that you have the ability to travel through and act in all the realms of this world and the next. The word is also related to the 'akhet' which is usually translated as 'horizon'. The idea of the horizon was different to ours, it was not an artificial line in distance but was rather a kind of intermediate zone or land between the day and night. It was thought of as a light filled space into which the sun returned at night and from which it emerged in the morning. It was the place in which the sun-god died each night and then at sunrise took on its new form or body so that it could emerge into the day. Its body is the visible sun disk or aten (not to be confused with the Aten god of Akhenaton). The akh was also identified with certain stars, principally those in the North sky which have the special quality of never rising or setting but rotate around the fixed astronomical North point. This means they have transcended the cycle of birth an death to which all other beings are subject. So to become an akh means that you have extended your functionality to all possible forms of existence and through this you do not need anymore to go through the cycles of dissolution and rebirth that otherwise would be necessary. To understand what this is all about we have to get some idea about the meaning of the sun cycling and therefore what role the akhet and the akh had in this. The Egyptians had two concepts of time, or actually two concepts of eternity. One called "neheh" means the eternal cycles of existence which are seen as recapitulations of the 'first time', i.e. the mythic original creation of the world. Because of "neheh" time, each sunrise was viewed as being the original creation. The other view of time was called "djet" time and is usually translated as everlastingness. This is about the linear time stretching back through history and forward into the future. The Pyramids and other stone structures were an attempt to establish an eternal existence within "djet" time. At a key stage in the after-life the ba of the deceased left the tomb to view the sunrise. This was significant for two reasons. One is that this showed that the soul had survived the first night and the other is that because the sunrise recapitulated the creation, the vision of the sunrise was actually a vision of reality. Imagine you are witness to the first moment of creation, the beginning. The pre-beginning is called the 'Nun' and is an infinite watery expanse, which is characterised (in as much as it can have a character) by these four aspects, it is watery (or fluid), it is infinite, there is no visible light and everything is hidden. This Nun contains the seeds of all possible beings and states of being but they are inert and without life. Within this vastness is a power. This power is also infinite and extends everywhere and is complete to itself. This continuum of power is called Atum. This power has the potential to create but because everything in the Nun is hidden there is no direction, no orientation, no up, down, left or right and so the power cannot act. In order to act the Atum condenses some of its body in order to make a 'place to stand' - this is the first place of orientation - and thus the first mound or hill comes into being. Although this hill has substance it is surrounded and permeated by the waters of the Nun, it is like a muddy hill half in existence and half out. But it is enough for Atum to begin to generate a world from his own body. As Atum does this he reflects on his own being, which is complete and whole and all powerful and as he expresses this unity a bright sun rises over the first hill. This sun disk is the first visible thing and is an expression of the unity of the Atum and all beings. As this happens, something else happens, time comes into existence. Atum is also Khepera whose name means 'evolver' and is the one who unlocks time. Why does time come into existence? Because now the sun has risen there is a 'before' and an 'after'. Now the sun has risen there is this reflection, "how did this come into being?" And to us as witness we can ask, "where did that come from?" This is our first step into duality and so there are two answers to this question. Immediately and at once, both the moment of the sun rise and the history that lead to 'this' sun rise come into being. And we realise that this sunrise is a recapitulation of all sunrises, a recapitulation of the very first sun rise. This is the meaning of eternity in a moment. The Egyptians say that the creator said "I am yesterday and I know tomorrow." They explain this by saying yesterday is Osiris and tomorrow is Ra. This means that if you stand in the moment of witnessing the sunrise you can look forward or you can look back. If you look back you know that that you are Osiris, which means you are that generative force passed down through generations from the very first life to now. Osiris is also the collection of 'memories' of all previous existence and his body forms the limits of a special region called the Dwat. And being this makes it possible that the sunrise is recognised. And (this is the hard part) that that whole history springs into being instantly like the sun. 'I know tomorrow' means that in that sun is all the energy of being and all the consequences of that energy. This means that once the sun has risen then the 'day' is ordained by that sun. So you are standing as witness to that sunrise which recapitulates the first act of creation and every sunrise. It is a vision of the unity of being reflecting Atum as Atum-Ra i.e. consciousness unified and self luminous. It unlocks time because it precipitates its own history and its own future. Because there is time, then there is energy and the consequence of energy. There is a kind of timeline of that energy. This means that the consequences of that sunrise will work themselves out in a finite way and that the time taken to do so will comprise the day. At the end of the day the sun will return where it came from, into the West and into darkness. This West will form an entry into the Dwat (Underworld) where the sun will shed the accumulations of the day. Within this world it will encounter the generative force of Osiris and the two souls, that of the sun and of Osiris will embrace. The two souls will unite. This will give the sun new energy to take on a new form in the Eastern horizon (akhet) and then rise. For the sun to travel from the East to the West it must pass across the surface of the waters of Nun. This surface is the sky, the goddess Nut. The hill which was formed to allow creation becomes the earth. And so we have a world which has three parts. The sky, the earth and the Dwat. A person then, in order to exist within this world has three parts. A body, like the earth. A ba which is his sky being, essentially divine like the sun god and his ka which relates to the Dwat. A person also can follow the sun path, through the Dwat and be reborn like the sun is each morning. To do this he re-enacts the embrace of Osiris and Ra each night. This is the union of the ka with the ba. The site of this event is the body, or more correctly the magically reconstructed body which is the mummy, called 'sah'. The product of this union is the akh, which is self-luminous and indestructible. So we have ka, ba, body and akh. Now the body has several terms used about it. One is 'khat' - which means corpse. Another is 'af' which means flesh. And most importantly the dignified dead, who has gone through all the rites is the 'sah' or mummy. Also we have the name, or 'ren' in Egyptian. Magically a name was significant because to know the true name of something was to have power over it. There is a famous story of how Isis became called Urt-Hekau "Great magician" by tricking the Ra into revealing his secret name. This was because this name was not the accidental label that we usually use, but the actual signature energy vibration of the being. Because of this the name is linked closely to the 'ka'. The shade or "Shewt" (sometimes called khaibit - but this is wrong) is linked to the ba. It is the form that the being takes on when entering the underworld and looks like a silhouette. It emerges with the ba to greet the rising sun. It is the reflex of the ba, which is a light being. In order for balance to be retained both light and dark have to be present, just as everything in sunlight has a shadow. I have already explained about the heart as the 'mind' or centre of the being. So this gives us - body, heart, ka, ba, ren, shewt, and akh. Stepping outside the field of Egyptology as such I would like to make the following comment. These aspects to your being, your ka and your ba can yield great treasures. For instance the ka can allow you to access all the wisdom of the ancestral record if you know how to do this. The ba can reveal uncharted vistas of consciousness and the free interplay of energy. But they both hold dangers. For a person who wants to work with these ideas the key is poise and balance. By that I mean that we have to centre ourselves in our hearts and let the forces that influence us come to a state of balance or peace. Having established this peace it is possible to explore and take our consciousness into the realms that usually lie hidden to us, with the ultimate goal of unifying all the parts of our being into the indestructible light body of the akh.

Steam, Thanks for that interesting stuff on Gurdieff. To answer your questions as best I can: 1) Magic(k) in Egypt was central. It was at heart a magical religion. Magic was called Heka (pron. Hey-ka) and was personified as a god with the same name who was among the 'crew' of the sun's boat. In Egypt magic was seen as both an ability i.e. to know the right words and how to say them and also a kind of energy which could be 'eaten' ... the king in the Pyramid Texts talks about magic being in his belly. Isis (sometimes Hathor) was called 'Urt-hekau' which means Great Magician and was shown as a winged cobra. In the underworld the god of magic was accompanied by two others called Perception and Command. It was all about seeing what to do and how to do it. This is where knowing names comes in, because the use of magic was seen as the ability to utter the right spell. In the Book of the Dead the deceased is hailed as magician when he summons the ferryman to cross the sky to the East. (By the way Heka is thought to be the origin of the goddess Hecate - the witch goddess.) 2) Astrology ... well not really. There was astrology in Egypt but it was a late emergent. The famous temple ceiling from Dendera had a Zodiac but it was essentially a Mesopotamian import. However stars, the sun, the planet and some constellations were important to the Egyptians. 3) The South Sky star and constellation of Sirius and Orion were very important to the Egyptians. Sirius called Sopdu (the sharp/bright one) was seen as Isis, while Orion known as Sahu was seen as Osiris. The Southern direction to the Egyptians was the direction of the source of the Nile and thus the origin of fertility (because of the Nile flood). The presence of the brightest stars of the sky in this direction reinforced this sense of life force and growth.

Hi Rain, Hi Rain, Yes, Akhenaton is an interesting and controversial figure in Egyptian history. There has been a lot of focus on him because he was so different to the the other kings and introduced a 'new' religion - which was a form of mono-theism based on the Aton - or the visible sun. Traditional Egyptian religion is based on the resolution of dualities, light and dark and so on and has many gods (like Hinduism), whereas Akhenaton rather like Judaism, Christianity and Islam allows only one god as creator and so on. He changed the national religion from Amen-ism to Aten-ism and there is evidence that this was a traumatic time (as you can imagine). The common folk however continued to worship their own family and local gods so the new religion did not really bite into the culture. After Akhenaton died they returned quickly to their traditional religion. He came close to the end of the 18th Dynasty (or possibly right at the end) - his father had monotheistic leanings also. After him was our friend Tutankhamen (notice the return of Amen in the name) - then someone called Ay ... and then the beginning of the 19th Dynasty with Rameses (who was actually a general in the army). There are a lot of theories about his state of health, physical and mental. His main contribution (apart from being the earliest monotheist (possibly)) was what is called Amarnan art. Amarna was his capital city and he introduced a new more realistic artistic style which is very popular. Yoda, The Pyramids were quite definitely (IMO) not just for burials - but neither were other Bronze Age 'burial' places, henges, barrows and stone circles etc. I don't know about sound waves. To be honest everyone concentrates on the Great Pyramid and ignores that it was part of a development of Pyramid building of different styles and layouts. But I wouldn't discount anything. Apepch7

Pyramids are recreations of the first hill which was the site of the creation. They also link the earth to the sky - hence the ladder of Horus and Set and so on. I've already talked about Anubis - can't remember where but on here somewhere. Ra is the creative energy - or to be exact 'self differentiating energy' and its eye is the sun. The word for eye 'iret' is from the verb 'ir' which means to 'see' as well as 'make or do'. So the eye was a an active force not just a passive observer - hence the nature of the eye goddesses.

Anal thirst ??? (somehow I'm hoping this is wrong )

Hi Rain, I don't think you were interrupting ! yes touregypt is a fairly straight down the middle Egyptology site. I read Velikovsky years ago. Apepch7 Yep - straightforward and functional to them - but inscrutable to us (at first)!

One of our fellow TBs has sent me the Sah breath Kunlun practice and I will try it. All that I write is just what I have got from either Egyptology, the texts or my own understanding - I don't disregard anything as I know that lots of people are inspired by Egypt as its part of our heritage and basically I am 100% in favour of people finding out for them selves and finding their own way which has validity for them.

wholeness matters now that the pieces left behind just don't fit at all.

Down and out, These poor sods, Follow a road, That cannot be spoken of.

Yep, I can do something on the akh. If you read about this stuff you will get quite a long list including 'ren' - name, 'sah' the mummy, 'af' the body, 'kha' - body, 'shewt' - shade as well as ka, ba and akh. I can cover these I guess. Cheers.

Thanks for the link Scotty: IMPLOSION UTTERANCE 1 1a. djed medu in nut akhet uret za pu semesu teti up chet Breathed is the Word sah bound-for the Blue-Void (mother), Nirvanic and Gigantic, so that such a son will be an elder, Teti, who opens the body, 1b. merii pu hetep en her ef so that such a beloved one will be one in-charge-of whom, (the Blue-Void mother) has been pleased. This is the translation on the website you linked to. I am not here to dictate to people what they take from Egypt or not but beware heavily interpretative translations. The website gives 'djed medu' as 'Breathed is the Word sah' - while actually djed means 'spoken' and medu means 'word'. So all this is saying is that the following text is meant to be spoken out loud. The website gives 'in nut akhet uret' as 'bound-for the Blue-Void (mother).' What I would give is 'by Nut the great effective one'. I don't have too much problem with Blue-Void (mother) - as the Goddess Nut represents the expanse of voidity - but as the Egyptians just wrote 'Nut' why not leave the name as it is? You will notice that there is no mention of 'sah' at all in the original so I have no idea why the website translator has introduced this - but I assume that they have a theory about the meaning of 'sah' which they think should go in here. BUT I would argue that if the Egyptians didn't find this appropriate why should we? Translation of any language, let alone an ancient one is fraught with difficulty but I favour the dry academic versions which at least leave the reader with more scope about making up their own mind as to what it means. These are two more standard translations of the same text: Recitation by Nut; the greatly beneficent: The King (Teti) is my eldest son who split open my womb; he is my beloved, with whom I am well pleased. (Faulkner) Recitation by Nut, the elder effective one. Teti is my son, whom I caused to be born and who parted my belly; he is the one I have desired and with whom I have become content. (Allen) The text comes from the sarcophagus of king Teti (6th Dynasty). The sarcophagus was a model of a cosmos and its lid represented the sky. Nut is the sky goddess and the king is 'reborn' within her womb. Obviously there's a lot more to be said about this!

Hmmm perhaps you could give me your source for this. I don't know of 'mfkzt' but 'mfk3t' is turquoise. The pointy thing in the picture is a stylised bread mould (I know it does look like bread). It shows the king presenting it to Amen Ra , behind whom is a goddess probably Hathor given the context. What this is is really a typical picture writing - the Egyptians would use glyphs in pictures to reinforce the writing - so an outstretched arm with the pointy loaf thing can be read as "to give" or "gives". The text (the bit I can see properly) just says something like the king gives life and good things to Amen. What is this 'heightened fire-stone' supposed to be?

The sphinx is a symbol of completeness and the god Atum. Specifically the lion body and human head are to do with the body-oriented power centres and the perception based head centres linked into a unified being. SAH breath - could you be more specific? Existing mystery schools - not that I know of - but definite links to western alchemy and hermeticism.

Steam, I've tried to answer some of your questions. Hope this is helpful. My first question: is it possible to establish an equivalence between ka, ba and akh and so called etheric body, astral body and spiritual or light body? earthly soul or the ghost that remain on earth after death and heavenly soul or the spirit that goes into the light and ascends in the heavens? Yes I think so, since we are dealing with 'real' things with some cultural overlay. The emphasis and imagery may change but ultimately a person is a person then and now. The issue is that some of these ideas have had to go underground because of church doctrine which steers people away from knowledge based work towards 'simple' faith and thus simply just talking about a soul, for historical reasons. Ka could be the animal soul or 'po' that according to taoism remain on earth after death as a ghost if the transformation from 'po' to 'hun' is incomplete? Gurdjieff sais that the ghost is not immortal, it will wanders on earth several years, decades or even centuries and it will haunt places and peoples but ultimately it will die, it will dissolve into the earth since the matter by which is formed belong to the earth. The heavenly soul which is made of heaven material it will return to where it belongs, which in my understanding corresponds to 'hun'... Could be - don't know about the 'po'. In eastern Christianity there is a tradition that you have to put a glass of water and food for the soul of the deceased because it is said that the soul still drink and eat and wanders near by the coffin until it is buried and then wanders near by grave for 40 days. From my (very limited) experience of Eastern Orthodox Christianity I would say that it has preserved some of the old ways. However the mummification process took 70 days and this was linked to the period in which certain stars were invisible in the sky. When invisible the stars were thought to be going through the same regeneration process as a person would undergo in the after life. This is actually the 'Judgment day' that is not as many believe in the last days of the humanity but this happens in the moment of death when according to tradition the soul ascends or descends by the purity of the heart. There is also a tradition that says that light angels and dark demons fight for the soul in case that the soul has a neutral buoyancy, still attached by deeds to the material world that does not allow the soul to ascend but also have good heart that does not allow the soul to sink into darkness. I wonder if this myth can be found in Egyptian or Sumerian/Babylonian myths... In the Egyptian Judgement Scene the heart (which stands for the mind/consciousness of the person - the ka in the body) is weighed against the feather of Maat. Maat is truth or order. But the feather is also the symbol of Shu the air god whose name means something like 'light filled emptiness'. So the heart has to be as light as a feather to pass the judgement by Osiris. There is also a tradition that says that after death the soul has to pass nine gates or heavenly customs, and at each gate there is a demon that claim something from the soul, and the protector angels negotiate for you to pass through the gate, evidently if the heart is pure the soul pass with no problems, it's like having a passport with visa on it. Is there something similar in Egyptian mythology? There are gates in the Underworld - usually 12 because they mark the twelve hours of the night. Each gate is protected by a demon and to pass it the deceased needs to know the name of the demon. Knowing the name and how to speak it is the essence of magical power in the next world. Originally in the Old Kingdom all this was very much a matter of 'knowing' but later the emphasis changed towards moral character for successful negotiation of these obstacles. But the Egyptian Religion never dispensed completely with the magical solution in favour of the moral. So if you had a lot of impurities through your actions on earth you could purge them magically - but obviously it was better not to have them in the first place!