dark secrets

Hail Min

who fecundates his Mother,

How secret is that

which you have done to her

In the darkness,

O Divine One, Sole One…

Hathor Rising, The Power of the Goddess in Ancient Egypt, Alison Roberts, page 84.

Who is this lady that is impregnated by her son? This idea is awfully strange in our modern day culture as it references ideas of incest and Sigmund Freud oedipal fantasies. At first glance, it seems that libido was a driving force in this ancient Egyptian idea. This idea was known as Kamutef, bull of his mother, and it is the idea that in the cyclical legitimacy of kingship, the Pharaoh must continually impregnate the Great Goddess in order to engender the next incarnation of the Pharaoh. Ramesses II makes the claim that he has had many kas (life forces/incarnations) and king lists were celebrated on temple walls as a way to ensure their legitimacy.

Pharaoh Seti I with son Ramesses II at the Abydos King List

There are two Great Goddesses of ancient Egypt who got involved with Kamutef. They would be Aset, the Greek Isis, and Hwt-Her which in Greek is Hathor.

The sacred animals of Min were a falcon and a white bull, and one of Min's most important titles was Ka-mut-ef (the Bull of his Mother). Min was said to secretly unite with his mother under cover of darkness to beget himself.

Egyptian Mythology, Geraldine Pinch, page 165

The sacred animals of Min are presenting a clue as to his role as the bull of the heavens. Min is the virile aspect of the constellation of Orion. His right arm is raised in the classic striking pose of Orion warriors and his erect phallus a symbol of the three stars in the belt of Orion. This association with the constellation of Orion led at times to Min's association with Osiris as the consort of Isis and also his association with Horus, who as I have detailed in this blog post, can also be an aspect of the Orion constellation.

He is also found in the Coffin Texts where the deceased associates himself with the 'woman-hunting' Min in order to possess the god's sexual powers. During the Middle Kingdom Min became associated with the god Horus and Min-Hor and as a result he was sometimes described as the son of Isis, though the association also led to Min being worshipped as the consort of Isis and father of Horus.

The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt, Richard H. Wilkinson, page 115.

Min on stela with Goddess and child

Amun-Re, an aspect of the great hidden light of the sun from the New Kingdom onwards, was in ithyphallic form known as Min-Amun or Amun-Kamutef.

Ithyphallic Amun-Kamutef at Luxor Temple

The unusual epithet 'Bull-of-his-Mother' (Kamutef), already associated with the ithyphallic Amun by the Middle Kingdom, also needs to be considered here, since it both encapsulates the generative fertile power of the bull god and provides a veiled hint of his incestuous relationship with the mother goddess, who, at Thebes, more often than not was Isis. Much more explicit is an epithet of Min-Amun naming him as 'the fecundator of his mother'. For contained in the strange name Kamutef is the paradoxical truth that the god is both Father and Son, the agent of his own rebirth, brought about by the fertilization of his own mother.  And she is the matrix, the vessel of renewal, supporting and containing his fecund seed, though she herself is not to be understood as the active power engendering life. This lies in the male seed of the bull god, which she contains in her womb, seed which not only preserves the ever-recurring cycles of nature but also safeguards the generations of Egyptian Kings.

Hathor Rising, The Power of the Goddess in Ancient Egypt, Alison Roberts, page 82.

In this role, the fecundating light of Min-Amun comes to the metaphorical womb inside us - Isis, that houses Osiris as the Ba soul and will give birth to Horus. The hidden light of the sun combining with the great celestial light allows Osiris to wake up and impregnate Isis. Now is probably as good a time as ever to riff on the intricacies of the light of the sun in ancient Egyptian thought:

You see, the light of the sun is the ultimate provider. He gives life to all when he rises in the eastern horizon at daybreak. He is majestic in his glory and this newborn child who is birthed anew every morning by the goddess is a sight to behold a million times over. This child is the golden calf; the calf denoting the relationship to the ka. He is the beneficent giver and sustainer of material life. In this respect it is ka power that is on an unmatched scale. In previous blogs, I have connected the power of Set to the ka; this ka power being relegated to the beastly animal life force that makes up our material self. Our ba soul is felled by this power at first but at some point in our lives it is realized that this power is necessary to give you healing wisdom in order to birth your greater self. However, the ka power contained in the light of the sun is a different sort of power; it is a power that sustains all life on earth. With this realization the next step in thought is if the light of the sun is a majestic ka force then it must have a twin, another aspect which would be a beneficent majestic ba force. In New Kingdom ancient Egypt, we see the rise of this all powerful state god named Amun who when combined with Re is given the designation Amun-Re. At some point in ancient Egyptian history culminating in the New Kingdom, there seems to be a progression of religious thought which allowed them to make this leap in faith. The simple meaning of Amun means "hidden" so in this respect the Egyptians were recognizing another aspect of the light of the sun. Amun-Re could be represented as a man with two feathers in his crown or as a ram. When the Egyptians represented gods and goddesses as being manifest in human form they were expressing the belief that these gods are active in not only our material plane of existence but also having influence over us directly here on earth. In this respect, you witness Horus as a baby being represented as human and the celestial elder Horus as a hawk because he has taken to the skies and is not operating exclusively in the earthly realm. Amun-Re's iconography as a ram is telling us that he is a ba force and this ba force is a twin to the ka force I have previously attributed to Re as the manifest light of the sun. However, this ba force is hidden much like Osiris is hidden to the ancient Egyptians. The great world ba soul comes to our world to enliven our individual souls. That is the great power of Amun-Re and why he rose to prominence in the New Kingdom and became the king of the gods in a very short period of time. He was the great liberating figure for all, a personal god who promised all encompassing salvation. I promise you that you will not read about this interpretation anywhere else than this blog space.

So, why then did the Egyptians have to combine this Amun with Min? Well, because in essence a ba can't enliven another ba. There has to be some kind of ka, a virile bull represented as Min, to give the life necessary for Osiris to wake up and do his thing. Min, the seed bull god known for his virility, presided over the Pharaoh's Heb Sed festival of renewal where the king had to demonstrate his vitality and virility to prove he was capable of impregnating the mother goddess Hathor and in essence continuing the cyclical legitimacy of kingship over the two lands, Upper and Lower Egypt, which contained within them the idea that a Pharaoh will rule over both the heavenly (spiritual) realm and the earthly (material) realm.

Much later in his life Amunhotep (III) celebrated a jubilee marking the thirtieth year of his reign.  It also seems to have been the occasion for his official, public declaration of his transformation into a deity, the sun disk itself.  He is shown in the sun bark with Hathor, and his artists rendered him far more youthfully during his last eight years, as if to stress that the king had been reborn.

This event had its origins in prehistory, and originally marked the ritualistic or symbolic death and resurrection of the ruler.  There are only fragments of inscriptional material that illustrate this event before Amunhotep's reign, but even those from the Old Kingdom share significant features of Hathoric ceremonies.  After the fall of the Old Kingdom these were taken over and imitated in the tomb scenes of private persons, who hoped thereby to be reborn after death, just like the kings.  Apparently Hathor's presence and her magical power were necessary to ensure this rejuvenation.  Lioness-masked priestesses using the curved ivory wands that were ritual objects of Hathor are depicted in Middle Kingdom private tombs and in the representations of these significant and memorable royal event in the tomb of Kheruef, a courtier of Amunhotep's queen, Tiy.  He had been present at the royal jubilee and recorded in his tomb the prescence of the goddess Hathor, about whom it was sung: "Make jubilation for The Gold and good pleasure for the Lady of the Two Lands that she may cause Nebmaatre (Amunhotep), who is given life, to be enduring…Adoration of The Gold when she shines forth in the sky…[T]here is no god who does what you dislike when you appear in glory…[I}f [you] desire that he (Amunhotep) live, cause him to live during millions of years unceasingly."

Amunhotep III also seems to have claimed divinity for his wife, Queen Tiy.  Artists altered existing statues of the queen to give her the blue hair and diadem of Hathor; others portrayed her from the start as this goddess, suggesting she was the earthly manifestation of Hathor.

The Great Goddesses of Egypt, Barbara S. Lesko, pages 118-119.

The ritual meaning of the dances, however, is very much in the spirit of New Kingdom Egypt, as can be gleaned from the songs inscribed above the young performers, who are accompanied by women musicians, playing flutes or clapping their hands in rhythm.  Over the dancers and musicians in the lower register is a powerful invocation to the starry snake goddess of the night, Hathor 'Gold', whom they call on to rise and be propitiated through the dances they perform in her honour.

But they dance not only for this beneficent queen of the night, shining in her fiery brilliance, but also for Amenhotep (III) who has great need of her power.  In their chant to the goddess they implore her to take him to the east of the sky, to the place where at dawn, 'the doors of the sky open and a god goes forth pure'.  And this is what they sing:

Make jubilation for Gold

and sweet pleasure for

The Lady of the Two Lands,

that she may cause

Nebmaatre [Amenhotep], given life,

to be enduring…

Hathor Rising, The Power of the Goddess in Ancient Egypt, Alison Roberts, pages 26-27.

It is in this aspect that the Pharaoh, the living Horus, becomes Min-Horus. He fecundates the mother goddess Hathor, who originally brought his material essence, ka, into the material world, and who is now his consort.  

The king of Egypt was identified with the god Horus, as texts in Hatshepsut's temple recall when Hathor says, "I have wandered through the northern marshes, when I stopped at Khebt, protecting my Horus… I am thy mother who formed thy limbs and created thy perfection."  The vignette illustrating Spell 186 in the New Kingdom's Book of the Dead also shows the Hathoric cow emerging from a mountainside and parting clumps of papyrus plants.

The Great Goddesses of Egypt, Barbara S. Lesko, page 109.

He will impregnate Hathor in this aspect to complete his becoming when she births his spiritual ka in the morning dawn, which the ancient Egyptians called akhet, and the child born is the great leaping golden calf Ihy. 

yep, that Golden Calf

Ihy being nursed by Hathor in the birth house at Denderah

In a sun-hymn dating to Haremheb's reign, Hathor is specifically named as the mother in the eastern horizon bearing the young Re within her. He is 'vital and young in the sun-disk within your mother Hathor' (Book of Day in the tomb of Ramesses VI at Thebes)

My Heart My Mother, Death and Rebirth in Ancient Egypt, Alison Roberts, page 182.

As I have previously mentioned in this blog space, please note the above passage is also describing the essence of Re is encapsulated within the sun-disk and that Re is not the sun-disk. Digging deeper into this declaration, it becomes clear that Hathor is the dawn, the akhet. This passage below is also a confirmation of the understanding that the Pharaoh must become the bull of his mother Hathor if he wishes to continue in the Pharaonic cycle of rebirth.

But as musician, seated though he is, King Amenhotep (III) is continuing a long tradition of royal music-making at Thebes.  In inscriptions on a stela which Herbert Winlock found among the rubble at Deir el-Bahri, the Middle Kingdom ruler, King Antef, describes how he too, some 700 years before Amenhotep, was a night-time music-maker for Hathor, accompanying Re on his journey through the Netherworld:

My body speaks, my lips repeat

pure Ihy-music for Hathor.

Music, millions

and hundreds and thousands of it,

Because you love music,

a million of music for your ka,

In all your places.

Through such music-making, both Antef and Amenhotep become open to renewal through the shining, beautiful goddess.

Hathor Rising, The Power of the Goddess in Ancient Egypt, Alison Roberts, page 29.

So, Amun-Re has to impregnate the mother Isis who will birth the baby Horus who becomes Pharaoh and eventually in a divine cycle becomes Re again as he is reborn in the akhet as Ihy and Ihy becomes Re. On the other hand, the mature Horus has to impregnate his consort Hathor to allow for the birth of this bull calf Ihy. Hathor is the great mother goddess of the Ennead of which Horus is the ultimate expression, hence the meaning of Hathor's name - the house of Horus. This is the reason behind the ancient Egyptian concept of these gods being kamutef, bull of his mother.

iconoclastic cain and abel

We have all heard of the biblical story of Cain and Abel and how Cain was the first person to ever commit murder. I'd guess fewer of us have ever read it; or should I say few of us have ever critically read the verses. In the Bible, the narrative encompasses the 4th chapter of Genesis and of that chapter, only the first 17 verses directly pertain to Cain and Abel. Here they are from the King James Version:

1 And Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.

2 And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.

3 And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.

4 And Abel, he also brought of the firstlings of his flock and of the fat thereof. And the LORD had respect unto Abel and to his offering:

5 But unto Cain and to his offering he had not respect. And Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell.

6 And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?

7 If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

8 And Cain talked with Abel his brother: and it came to pass, when they were in the field, that Cain rose up against Abel his brother, and slew him.

9 And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my brother's keeper?

10 And he said, What hast thou done? the voice of thy brother's blood crieth unto me from the ground.

11 And now art thou cursed from the earth, which hath opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand;

12 When thou tillest the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her strength; a fugitive and a vagabond shalt thou be in the earth.

13 And Cain said unto the LORD, My punishment is greater than I can bear.

14 Behold, thou hast driven me out this day from the face of the earth; and from thy face shall I be hid; and I shall be a fugitive and a vagabond in the earth; and it shall come to pass, that every one that findeth me shall slay me.

15 And the LORD said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the LORD set a mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.

16 And Cain went out from the presence of the LORD, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden.

17 And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived, and bare Enoch: and he builded a city, and called the name of the city, after the name of his son, Enoch.

The story as told is quite sparse and hints at a bigger story which has been edited and condensed. Perhaps Cain and Abel was such a well known tale that it was not necessary to further elaborate on the tale. Cain grew up to work the land and Abel was a shepherd tending to his flock of rams, ewes, and lambs. When it came time to make an offering to the Lord, apparently Yahweh was not pleased with the quality of Cain's produce, preferring the taste of Abel's finest mutton. I believe the message here is it is not the offering that really counts but the quality of the person making the offering. Cain is a man of the earth like Adam and thus he is cursed to laboriously till the ground, while Abel seems to be of a different ilk. Jealous of his brother, Cain waited until they were alone in a field and then committed mankind's first murder. Upon finding out about the homicide, the Lord banished Cain and cursed him to forever wander the earth - a fugitive and a vagabond. Cain protested complaining that "every one that findeth me shall slay me." Yahweh subsequently puts a mark on Cain to ensure him he would not to be slain. Later in the chapter, we learn that Eve gives birth to a third child Seth:

25 And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.

Seth is the direct result of the death of Abel. It's funny that in the beginning of creation Adam and Eve gave one of their children an Egyptian name.

Let's try and get some background on these two. Cain is the english name for the Hebrew Qayin and Abel for Havel, minus the vowels as there are only consonants in the original Hebrew. As well, the letter "H" in Hebrew can also indicate a vowel (This is called mater lectionis for those interested). In the New Testament 1 John 3, we read that Cain was wicked and evil and his brother righteous:

12 Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.

Wicked in this sense comes from the greek word ponéros which can mean evil, wicked, bad, malicious and slothful. In the Testament of Abraham (a pseudepigraphic text of the Old Testament), we read this from A:13:

XIII. And Abraham said, My lord chief-captain, who is this most wondrous judge? and who are the angels that write down? and who is the angel like the sun, holding the balance? and who is the fiery angel holding the fire? The chief-captain said, "Seest thou, most holy Abraham, the terrible man sitting upon the throne? This is the son of the first created Adam, who is called Abel, whom the wicked Cain killed, and he sits thus to judge all creation, and examines righteous men and sinners. For God has said, I shall not judge you, but every man born of man shall be judged. Therefore he has given to him judgment, to judge the world until his great and glorious coming, and then, O righteous Abraham, is the perfect judgment and recompense, eternal and unchangeable, which no one can alter. For every man has come from the first-created, and therefore they are first judged here by his son, and at the second coming they shall be judged by the twelve tribes of Israel, that I too may see how they are judged.

and from B:11

XI. And Abraham said to Michael, Lord, who is this judge, and who is the other, who convicts the sins? And Michael said to Abraham, Seest thou the judge? This is Abel, who first testified, and God brought him hither to judge, and he that bears witness here is the teacher of heaven and earth, and the scribe of righteousness, Enoch, for the Lord sent them hither to write down the sins and righteousnesses of each one. Abraham said, And how can Enoch bear the weight of the souls, not having seen death? or how can he give sentence to all the souls? Michael said, If he gives sentence concerning the souls, it is not permitted; but Enoch himself does not give sentence, but it is the Lord who does so, and he has no more to do than only to write. For Enoch prayed to the Lord saying, I desire not, Lord, to give sentence on the souls, lest I be grievous to anyone; and the Lord said to Enoch, I shall command thee to write down the sins of the soul that makes atonement and it shall enter every breath and every creature. But the third time they shall be judged by the Lord God of all, and then, indeed, the end of that judgment is near, and the sentence terrible, and there is none to deliver. And now by three tribunals the judgment of the world and the recompense is made, and for this reason a matter is not finally confirmed by one or two witnesses, but by three witnesses shall everything be established. The two angels on the right hand and on the left, these are they that write down the sins and the righteousness, the one on the right hand writes down the righteousness, and the one on the left the sins. The angel like the sun, holding the balance in his hand, is the archangel, Dokiel the just weigher, and he weighs the righteousnesses and sins with the righteousness of God. The fiery and pitiless angel, holding the fire in his hand, is the archangel Puruel, who has power over fire, and tries the works of men through fire, and if the fire consume the work of any man, the angel of judgment immediately seizes him, and carries him away to the place of sinners, a most bitter place of punishment. But if the fire approves the work of anyone, and does not seize upon it, that man is justified, and the angel of righteousness takes him and carries him up to be saved in the lot of the just. And thus, most righteous Abraham, all things in all men are tried by fire and the balance."

A pseudepigraphic text is non-canonical Jewish religious literature written in the timeframe between 200 BCE to 200 AD. The author of the work would attach a revered or apostolic name to his work to give it "street cred." The works themselves are based on Jewish legends and tales common to the era they were written.

A midrash (rabbinical study) from Judaism's classical period called the Genesis Rabba, claims that Cain and Abel had twin sisters and the pseudepigraphic Christian text called the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan makes the same claim:

74:6 Then Adam rejoiced at Eve's deliverance, and also over the children she had borne him. And Adam ministered to Eve in the cave, until the end of eight days; when they named the son Cain, and the daughter Luluwa.

75:11 When the children were weaned, Eve again conceived, and when her pregnancy came to term, she gave birth to another son and daughter. They named the son Abel and the daughter Aklia.

In the next chapter. a motive for the killing is alluded to:

76:10 But as to the hard-hearted Cain, Satan came to him by night, showed himself and said to him, "Since Adam and Eve love your brother Abel so much more than they love you, they wish to join him in marriage to your beautiful sister because they love him. However, they wish to join you in marriage to his ugly sister, because they hate you.
76:11 Now before they do that, I am telling you that you should kill your brother. That way your sister will be left for you, and his sister will be cast away."

Cain had designs on his beautiful sister who had already been promised to Abel. The killing of his brother allowed him to take his wife and discard the sister of Abel.

Okay, so there's some background on those two and now on to the reason behind writing this blog entry. I'm going to give you some background on a couple characters from ancient Egyptian myths - Set and Osiris.

Set and Osiris were part of the great ennead of Heliopolis in ancient Egypt. The monad Atum was at the head of the construct and from the singularity emerged two children called Shu and Tefnut. From these two were born Geb and Nut. Geb is the earth and Nut is the sky. Shu eternally separates these two, allowing creation to take place in the natural world. Nut gives birth to Osiris, Isis, Set, and Nephthys. I'll concentrate on these latter four of the ennead for now. Osiris I have mentioned many times previous in this blog space so I'll just recap the story. Osiris is murdered by his brother Set, dismembered, and then reconstituted by his sister-wife Isis. Later, Osiris becomes judge of the dead souls in the great hall of the two truths. Set is the outcast brother, lord of chaos and confusion, and great of strength. Set is depicted as a fantastical animal creature.

His wife is Nephthys, Nebet-Het in the ancient Egyptian script. She is the twin sister of Isis and her name means "Mistress of the House."

Quite the coincidences here in the stories of Cain and Abel and Set and Osiris. Set and Osiris married the twins sisters Isis and Nephthys, while Cain and Abel are purported to have married twin sisters as well. Set murdered Osiris and Cain murdered Abel. The murder of Osiris put into motion events which led to the birth of his son Horus. The murder of Abel resulted in the birth of the lineage of Seth. Set was cast out to the fringe of the ancient Egyptian world and became lord of the desert and lord of the foreigners. Cain was also asked to leave polite society and wander the foreign lands far from the east of Eden. In the text of the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, Cain had the hots for for the beautiful sister-wife of Abel while Set lusts after the beautiful Isis. In the book Seth, God of Confusion we read that:

He (Set) experiences heterosexual desire towards the goddess Isis. His feelings are not returned. He is so badly deceived by Isis, that he complains in tears to Re. (Author cites Beatty papyrus 1, 6, 2 sqq. for this claim)
Seth, God of Confusion, by H. Te Velde, page 55.

Then we have these curious coincidences from the Testament of Abraham:

who is this most wondrous judge? and who are the angels that write down? and who is the angel like the sun, holding the balance? and who is the fiery angel holding the fire? The chief-captain said, "Seest thou, most holy Abraham, the terrible man sitting upon the throne? This is the son of the first created Adam, who is called Abel, whom the wicked Cain killed, and he sits thus to judge all creation, and examines righteous men and sinners.

And Michael said to Abraham, Seest thou the judge? This is Abel, who first testified, and God brought him hither to judge, and he that bears witness here is the teacher of heaven and earth, and the scribe of righteousness, Enoch, for the Lord sent them hither to write down the sins and righteousnesses of each one.

The angel like the sun, holding the balance in his hand, is the archangel, Dokiel the just weigher, and he weighs the righteousnesses and sins with the righteousness of God.

The fiery and pitiless angel, holding the fire in his hand, is the archangel Puruel, who has power over fire, and tries the works of men through fire, and if the fire consume the work of any man, the angel of judgment immediately seizes him, and carries him away to the place of sinners, a most bitter place of punishment.

In the these passages from the Testament of Abraham, I've bolded some sections as sort of a match game; see if you can find them in the judgment scene picture from the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead:

In the above picture, we see the heart being weighed in the balance by the jackal headed god Anubis. We see the divine scribe Thoth as an ibis bird, recording the goodness and betrayals of the heart. We see the terrible goddess Ammit - the lion, hippopotamus, and crocodile composite ready to seize and devour the heart of the failed aspirant. Further along in the scene, we see the successful candidate being led to the divine judge Osiris, who is sitting on his throne surrounded by his twin sisters Isis and Nephthys. It's tempting to stop here because the parallels are uncanny but I'd like to investigate further by examining the names and occupations given to these Old Testament characters.

Abel comes from the Hebrew Havel with recent scholarship on the etymology of the name linking it to a reconstructed Arabic cognate word ibil which is a term used to describe a herdsman. There is a faint connection to the ancient Egyptian word for the heart, the ab and el is of course another name for the Lord and used commonly used in the endings of Hebrew names along with yah. In addition, Osiris' heart is awakened when your good deeds rouse him from the sleep of death:

I am Thoth, Lord of Justice, who vindicates him whose voice is hushed; protector of the poor man who has suffered loss of his property; who dispels darkness and clears away the storm. I have (given) breath to Wennefer, even the fair breeze of the north wind, as when he came forth from his mother's womb. I have caused him to enter into the secret cavern in order to revive the heart of the Inert One, Wennefer the son of Nut, the vindicated Horus.

From Spell 183 of The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, R.O. Faulkner, page 184.

Wennefer in this passage is an epithet of Osiris. Furthermore, Abel's occupation is given to us as being a shepherd and from this we have the unmistakable connection to the ram. Osiris is the ba soul who comes to incarnate into matter; the ba being the onomatopoeia sound that comes from a ram's bleat. As well, throughout the historical monuments in Egypt, Osiris is found wearing the Atef or Hemhemet crown, which is the ram's horn crown.

Now, Cain is a man of the earth and he works the fields. Qayin is the Hebrew version of the name and broken down into two parts we get ca-in. As I've detailed before, Set is the personification of the ka, which is the ancient Egyptian term for the life force that allows all life on earth to flourish. This life force is great of strength and its desires must be tamed or it will lead you towards a life of fulfilling only your carnal desires and animal instincts. The ka destroys the ba when the ba first incarnates into matter but it also subsequently carries the inert ba. The two are inseparable. The symbol for the ka is the Bull and in this highlighted image from the Papyrus Jumilhac, you see the bull carrying Osiris:

Once revived, the ba can be re-membered and engender new life; in the mythos the new life is called Horus. Highlighted below is a dismembered ram deity:

Continuing along this papyrus from right to left, Horus then battles his uncle Set, until finally subduing him:

 

Horus does not kill or destroy the ka beast; instead lives amicably with Set. Set's strength is now used in a subservient way as a force for goodness, and Horus is crowned king of Upper and Lower Egypt; or more to the point, the king of the spiritual and the material worlds. Remember in Genesis 4:15 the Lord had placed a mark on Cain to ensure he would not be slain. The name Cain is a name for the ka spirit, the "Ca" for ka and the "in" for an, which is an ancient word for spirit.

The Aryan root "an" also signifies "wind" and "spirit", and survives in words like "animal", "animate".
Egyptian Myth and Legend, Donald Mackenzie, page 194 (part of the footnotes).

At this point in the study, there are a few ways to interpret the significant similarities in this story. One can choose to ignore them and go on believing it's just a coincidence. You could concede the resemblance is due in part to the story being one of antiquity and the Hebrew story happened to borrow elements from this well known myth as it would not be out of the question since the Hebrews did sojourn in Egypt for a period of 400 years or four generations (the Bible gives conflicting data on this point). Or you could be thinking that many of the stories in the Old Testament, especially in the first five books, are rehashed versions of the great myths of the greatest civilization of antiquity; a civilization who left its myths carved in stone for all the world to see. One other thing I'd like to point out are the hidden, faint echoes and inversions of stories throughout the Old Testament which point back to the myths of ancient Egypt. The names of Cain and Abel hint at this connection as well as the choice of the Egyptian name Seth for the child born due to the death of Abel. In the ancient Egyptian fable, Osiris must die in order for Horus to be born. Set (or Seth) is Horus' nemesis however in the Bible, Seth is the result of Abel's death at the hands of Cain.

It's been claimed Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible and Saint Paul wrote this reminder in Acts 7 (King James Version):

22 And Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.

I'm pretty sure the wisdom being referred to here is not a manual on how to build a pyramid. In any event, my next blog post will show the parallels between an iconic ancient Egyptian symbol and Cain.

severing my member

Here's a topic I keep forgetting to write about - remembering. With childlike curiosity I have asked myself: what is a member and related to that why do we need to re-member things?

Let's start with the word member. According to the dictionary a member can be an individual person, animal, plant, etc., that is part of a group. As well a member can be a part or organ of the body. Likewise anatomically a membrane is tissue that connects the members within the body. Remember means to to become aware again of something you had previously forgotten. In medical terms the act of remembering would return something to an original shape after it had been altered or deformed.

As I have detailed in previous blog entries, the ancient Egyptian myth of Osiris and Isis is about Osiris getting hacked up into pieces (dismembered) and then Isis figuratively and literally remembering him. A central motif of this myth involves Osiris' phallus and the magic Isis uses to to make Osiris' phallus erect again so that he can procreate. This photo I took in Abydos describes exactly this; the kite bird hovering over Osiris is Isis.

The symbolic act of mummification is the reconstitution of previous form and from this remembering Isis is impregnated by Osiris' 'member' and gives birth to the baby Horus.

Linked to Osiris is an ancient Egyptian falcon god Sokar who is depicted as mummified.

Sokar was worshipped as the patron god of the necropolis being known as "he who is on his sand." This is referring to the waters, that contain the potentiality of new life, receding and allowing this life to get a foothold on land which allows for (re)birth. He is sometimes shown on his sacred barque sailing through the necropolis and the necropolis of Sakkara was so named after this aspect of Osiris. Sokar is usually paired with Osiris in tombs, which symbolizes Osiris becoming reconstituted, the ba being re-awakened from its sleep of death, resurrected and remembered.

The hieroglyphics directly above Osiris' erect phallus in this photo read skr-asar (Sokar-Osiris) who is on his sacred barque. The hieroglyph here transliterated as an 's' from the name skr can also be transliterated as a 'z'.

'Member' is of course in today's world slang for the phallus which makes the connection to Osiris even more interesting and I'm always amazed at how the ancient Egyptian gods have managed to remain embedded in our modern world. I figured I could dig even deeper into these mysteries and establish more connections to this theme of remembering. I'm fully aware my views are in the minority but that doesn't mean I'm going to stop sharing them :)

Anyway with my upbringing in the western tradition I'm of course familiar with biblical stories and names. Zachariah kept popping into my head because of the Zachar part and I bet myself it would have something to do with remembering. I checked first with the Online Etymological Dictionary:

Zachariah
masculine proper name, Late Latin Zacharias, from Greek Zakharias, from Hebrew Zekharyahu, literally "the Lord has remembered," from zakhar "he remembered."

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=zachariah&searchmode=none

Bingo! That was pretty easy to establish the connection between remembering, Sokar and Zachariah. It gets better though because we know Osiris became a martyr at the hands of Set and I got this from dictionary.com:

Zach·a·ri·ah   
[zak-uh-rahy-uh]
–noun
a man referred to as a martyr by Jesus. Matt. 23:35; Luke 11:51.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/zachariah

This name sure has generated some strange coincidences as even Jesus is chiming in about this guy being a martyr. Let's check out those biblical passages:

Matthew 23:35 from the King James Bible

That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple and the altar.

Luke 11:51 from the King James Bible

From the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, which perished between the altar and the temple: verily I say unto you, It shall be required of this generation.

In these two passages Jesus is referring to both the martyrdoms of Zacharias as well as Abel. That these two are connected in these two separate passages is surely not a coincidence. I have been planning to write about the biblical story of Cain and Abel and this tie in will make it all the more worthwhile.

the ancient egyptian story of Anpu and Bata

A story exists in papyrus dating back to the 19th dynasty of ancient Egypt, which was probably existent long before, about two brothers known as Anpu and Bata. It is a story of the betrayal of Bata by the wife of Anpu and subsequently Bata's misfortune that eventually leads to Bata becoming Pharaoh and ruling as the living Horus for thirty years. I'm interested in the name Bata, as I believe it fits into what I have tried to articulate in my blog entry "where do babies come from." Reading through the story, it is apparent Bata is the combination of the ba and ta as I have detailed in the aforementioned blog entry. It is the great ancient motif of the soul as the ancient Egyptian "ba" enjoining with matter which is "ta." The parallels in the story of Bata to Osiris are plentiful. Osiris' myth is the ancient Egyptians' story of the ba soul and its incarnation into matter. Bata's incarnation into a sacred bull with specific markings, representing the life force as "ka", is comparable to the Apis bull of Osiris. Bata's dismembering of his phallus, which is subsequently devoured by a fish, is well known in the story of Osiris. Anpu's wife's attempt to seduce Bata is a common motif concerning the virility of the ba and especially the role of Osiris who brings the abundance of life into the world. The wife of Anpu in this story is representing matter, the great harlot, and her desire to mate with the higher power Bata, who represents the immortal soul. After the incident with Anpu's wife, Bata flees to the valley of the acacia where he bides his time hunting wild beasts in the desert. Recalling Osiris and his connection to the constellation Orion in the zodiac, I'm reminded of the greatness of the hunter Orion and the many wild animals he hunts in the metaphorical wilderness of the sky. Eventually in the the story, the acacia tree in which Bata has incarnated is chopped down causing Bata to enter into the sleep of death. In the story of Osiris and Isis, we have the fragmented soul of Osiris becoming encapsulated in a tamarisk tree that is cut down and made into the great pillar of the King and Queen of Byblos. This also parallels the imagery of Osiris manifesting within the djed pillar and the importance of the raising of the djed pillar as biological life is constantly renewed.

As well, Bata incarnates into the sacred persea tree whose red heart shaped fruit is a great symbol for the heart that must be transformed in order to awaken Osiris from the sleep of death and engender a new life.

http://carrington-arts.com/AEnew.html

Eventually, the persea tree is cut down; however, a chip of wood from the trunk flies into the royal wife's mouth and once again Bata incarnates through the pregnancy, this time as the heir to the throne of man. These repetitions reveal Bata is constantly becoming entombed within matter, much like Osiris, and left for dead. Through successive incarnations, Bata finally succeeds in becoming reborn as the heir to the throne and eventually he becomes Pharaoh of Egypt, ruling as the living Horus. This is the greatest parallel to the story of Osiris and the rebirth into Horus which I have detailed in previous entries of this blog space. In addition, I want to point out the successive incarnations of Bata into different life forces which were known in ancient Egypt as the "ka". Bata incarnated as the flower of the acacia, the bull, the fruit of the persea tree, and finally as the crown prince. Though Bata appears in multiple and differing manifestations, it is important to realize he is always the same essence of Bata within these differing forms. This reincarnational model illustrates the oneness of our individual ba signature, our immortal soul, and how it will repeatedly incarnate into matter, experience the joys, tribulations, and cleansing of material existence, until finally the soul becomes born again as Horus the enlightened one ruling mightily over his lower self. The quest is complete and no longer will the ba have to reincarnate!

where do babies come from?

At some point in our young lives we ask this question, and then later in life we attempt to answer this question posed by our children. I always preferred the image of the stork delivering a baby to a household wrapped in fabric to tell the story.

http://www.superstock.com/stock-photos-images/1079-117

A quick check on the internet reveals that this legend may have originated in either ancient Greece or northern Germany, many centuries ago. The stork, being a migratory bird, was seen returning to its nesting site in the early spring from the warm climes of Africa as everything was undergoing a re-birth; hence, the reason why some believe this to be the origin of the myth. Plausible enough; however, it's a designation that could be applied to a bevy of migratory birds, not just the stork. For instance, there's a pond just up the street from me that is home to the same extended family of Canada Geese which return every spring. They return as mates and soon are constructing a nest in anticipation of the babies that will soon follow.

Being of the curious sort I decided to chase this down the ole rabbit hole.

I always like to start in ancient Egypt and seeing that the stork is indigenous to the African continent, I was confident the world's greatest natural philosophers could help me out with this question. The hieroglyph for the ancient Egyptian concept of our immortal soul, the ba, is the saddle-billed stork.

Time for a quick lesson on the ba: The ancient Egyptians thought of the human being as having nine constituent parts, eight of them being immortal and the ninth, the body, which could decay after death. The ba is our hidden and immortal light which comes to incarnate in our material bodies. In the daily cycle of the sun, the ancient Egyptians would describe the sun coming to the earth as Atum-Re and depict the light as a ram or an old man. The earth-bound light can also be thought of as Amun-Re, the hidden light of the sun. Much like Atum-Re, there are many examples of Amun-Re being depicted as a man or a ram. Why a ram you may ask? That might get a little off topic here and would need to be tackled at another time; however, it's useful to point out the ram's bleat is the sound "ba". In the mythos, the light, once encapsulated within the human being which is the house of conception known as Isis, would be wrapped in linen and depicted as the mummified form of Osiris. The ancient Egyptians were also fascinated by the magic of words and you can often find correlating ideas in the reverse spelling of their words. As an aside, I'm forever telling my daughter that words are magic, that's why we spell them! The reverse of ba would be ab, which is the heart. To the ancient Egyptians the heart was the repository of your deeds as well as wisdom. The heart acted as your conscience and the vehicle to enact your transfiguration. The weighing of the heart scene in the Pert Em Heru tells us your heart must be as light as a feather (non-attachment) if you wish to join the glorified souls in the afterlife. If not, then your heart would be gobbled up by Ammit the devourer.

 

Due to our Judeo-Christian upbringing, we would think of this most unfortunate result as being sent to eternal damnation and Egyptologists will describe the outcome as such. It's not an apt description of what is being depicted here; however, if you never change then I guess there is some truth to that. I should also touch on the concept of the ka. The ka is your manifestation, the life-creating force, on this plane of existence. The ancient Egyptians described not only humans, but animals, plants, water and minerals as having a ka and the hieroglyph for ka is a bull - a bull being a great symbol for the dynamism of material existence. You will have many kas before your journey is over, but only one ba. Your ba makes each ka and is the vessel that carries your multitude of kas. The ancient Egyptians symbolized this with the ram god Khnum, who was known to fashion humans on his potter's wheel.

After your ba has made a new ka, this material life force is now able to house its ba. To incarnate into matter once again is a perilous journey for the ba, and is mythologized in the story of Osiris being hacked to pieces and scattered throughout Egypt by his nemesis Set. Isis, after much weeping, then embarks on a quest to retrieve the remains of Osiris and puts him back together in order to engender a new life, the offspring known as Horus. In this reconstituted form, Osiris' mummy is depicted wrapped in a fine single strip of white linen. Also of note is the child known as Khonsu who is closely associated with Horus. Khonsu, as a child of Amun and Mut, represented the child waiting to be born inside of us - in this case the mother's womb known as Mut. In this aspect, Khonsu would be depicted as a mummiform child, wrapped in linen, awaiting birth to take his rightful place on the throne of man as Horus. Khonsu, in the pyramid texts, is referred to as the one who lives on hearts. This is generally thought of as a bloodthirsty aspect of Khonsu; however, it is really telling us that it is the heart that will ultimately feed and quicken the birth of the enlightened soul in us.

Alright, so, I'm thinking that the word baby might have some connection to the ba of ancient Egypt due to the hieroglyphic for ba which is the stork and the way the baby is delivered by the stork wrapped in linen. However the word baby does not have a clear history or meaning that correlates in this regard. Our old friend, the Online Etymological Dictionary tells us to look up the word "babe" instead and reveals this of the word:

babe

late 14c., short for baban (early 13c.), which probably is imitative of baby talk (cf. babble), however in many languages the cognate word means "old woman" (cf. Rus. babushka "grandmother," from baba "peasant woman").

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=babe

Slightly amusing is that the word "babe" can be traced in many languages as the word for an old woman or a peasant woman while nowadays we call an attractive women a babe! There is also the word "body" which has intrigued me for awhile. The Online Etymological Dictionary reveals this of the word:

body

Old English bodig "trunk, chest" (of a man or animal); related to Old High German botah, of unknown origin.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=body&searchmode=none

This is interesting because our body is a container for the immortal soul called the ba. The old word botah has an ending "tah" that is a common ending when describing something that has material form such as a place or land. In ancient Egypt, land was feminine and given the half-circle hieroglyphic which is phonetically rendered as "ta". Also, well known is the transpositional nature of the letters d and t throughout the history of languages, which accounts for botah becoming body. I'm willing to connect the ba with the ta being our body, though I'm sure it could be considered a stretch. Given the evidence I've presented above, I think it's plausible. As well, the connection of baby to a peasant woman can't be ignored since it is the woman as Isis within us, who is the womb of the ba which has incarnated into matter. Everyone's ba is associated with this woman waiting to be born.

Another tantalizing thing to consider is the connection of the word babe to an old woman. I bet you don't have to get too far into the Old Testament and the story of Abraham's wife Sarah before you start asking yourself some serious questions about where the myths come from. Sarah was 90 years old when she first conceived.

easter, eggs, rabbits and you

Springtime is certainly glorious with life re-appearing from what seemed dead in the winter. The sun grows stronger and the concentration of light increases with each passing day. Heralding in this change is Easter, my favourite of our modern religious festive celebrations. A quick perusal of the late March and early April calendar this year is of no use. I can't find Easter. What's up with that?

April 24 is the anointed date this year for Easter. Easter is determined by a few factors; the first one being the vernal equinox, which is the solar demarcation of spring here in the northern hemisphere. The second factor is the moon, specifically when it is full for the first time after the vernal equinox. The third and final determining factor is Sunday. Easter is always celebrated on a Sunday in the Christian Church so if the moon is full on a Tuesday you still have to wait until Sunday to pay homage to the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This year the first full moon is actually on a Sunday, that date being April 17. However, Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday after the full moon so we have to wait as long as possible this year which is why the calendar shows April 24 as the day in 2011 that we celebrate Easter.

Well that's all good and everything and I'm sure there's a Catholic explanation for the above determination. Yet I have lots of question to ask about this. I'm going to list them off now:

Where does the name Easter come from? I can't find it in the bible and I can't find any commandment from Jesus or Yahweh to celebrate this day.
What's with connecting Easter and Jesus to solar phenomenon?
What's with connecting Easter and Jesus to lunar phenomenon?
Why is the Christian Church big on Sunday and not the Old Testament traditional day set aside for worship, which is the Friday sunset to Saturday sunset Sabbath?
What's up with the rabbit in the mythic pagan lore that we can't seem to separate from the Christian resurrection story? Last I checked a rabbit doesn't lay eggs.

Why does this rabbit wander around giving out eggs? That makes little sense. Where does this come from?

Some of those questions are quite difficult and to answer them would fill up a few chapters of a book so I'm going to just answer a few of those questions.

Easter is a name that just about everyone can agree comes from pagan lore. The Online Etymology Dictionary gives the history of the word Easter as such:

Easter
O.E. Easterdæg, from Eastre (Northumbrian Eostre), from P.Gmc. *Austron, a goddess of fertility and spring, probably originally of sunrise whose feast was celebrated at the spring equinox, from *austra-, from PIE *aus- "to shine" (especially of the dawn). Bede says Anglo-Saxon Christians adopted her name and many of the celebratory practices for their Mass of Christ's resurrection. Ultimately related to east. Almost all neighboring languages use a variant of Latin Pasche to name this holiday. Easter egg attested by 1825, earlier pace egg (1610s). Easter bunny attested by 1909. 
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?search=easter&searchmode=none

So, that confirms the pagan origins of the name but I think we can go even further than that. I was given some really good advice about four years ago - that advice being all roads lead to Egypt. However, it is true that historically all roads have been said to lead to Rome. If you take the path to Rome you do so at your own peril! Anyway, this goddess I can link with ancient Egypt. Most of the cursory knowledge that we have of ancient Egypt and what is taught to us in school comes by way of the Greeks. Therefore, we tend to be given the hellenized names of the gods and goddess of Egypt. Because the hieroglyphics have been deciphered, we can and should use the proper Egyptian names and not the Greek translations with their inherent corruption when the sound could not be properly transposed. This goddess is Isis, her Egyptian name being Aset. In the Egyptian tale of Isis and Osiris, Isis eventually revives Osiris so that Osiris can impregnate her and from this union is born the child Horus. Osiris' proper Egyptian name is Asar and Horus was known as Heru. Digging deeper into this myth, the story tells us about a child who is waiting to be born within all of us. Osiris is the spark of light, the spirit, who is inserted into the metaphorical womb within all of us known as Isis as this passage from the temple walls explains.

From Karnak there is an inscription calling Osiris 'he who resides in the house of conception' alluding to the impregnation of Isis and the consequent birth of Horus.
The Routledge Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, by George Hart, pg. 120

Osiris becomes inert, mummified, due to the journey into the womb of matter. The myth fingers the murderer as his brother Set, the personification of the animal/beast life force within us, who tricks Osiris into going to sleep in a coffin and leaves him for dead. Isis labours to revive Osiris, all the while having to avoid her brother Set, who aims to make sure Osiris stays dead. Ultimately, Set represents our carnal desires which when we follow them never allows the development of our higher self; however, the ancient Egyptians also knew the importance of satisfying these desires of the Ka and did not leave that to chance. In this great myth, Isis perseveres and resurrects Osiris so that our greater spiritual self, Horus, is born from the union of spirit and matter. This new life is then tended to by the great mother Isis until it is strong enough to take on Set. Set is going to keep leading us into temptation regardless of our spiritual attainment which will once again bury the light within. In the ancient Egyptian myth of the "Contendings of Horus and Set" he is determined to murder Horus and reclaim the kingship for himself.

The ultimate message from the story is that the spirit that comes to earth must die and be resurrected in order for the greater spirit to be engendered in us. God is within us and must be awakened. I'm reminded of Saint Paul's teachings in the New Testament such as in 1 Corinthians 3:16 (King James Version):

"Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?"

and in Ephesians 5:14:

"Wherefore he saith, Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light."

It seems quite clear to me that Easter comes from the story of Isis and Osiris. The designation Easter is pretty close to Aset with the er part meaning light or rays of light, specifically coming from the ancient Egyptian image of eternal light known as Re or Ra.

Not convinced yet? I went to Egypt a few years ago a took a lot of pictures. Here's one I took in the temple of Seti I in Abydos:

Aset is on the left and in the upper left you will see Aset spelled out in hieroglyphics. Reading from right to left the AS in denoted by the chair or throne. T is represented by the top half of the half circle and symbolizes land or matter. So, you have Aset as the queen of matter. The E in Aset is something we moderns have placed in the name to help with pronunciation as vowels were not used in ancient languages. The sound was implied by the use of the glyph. We can only take educated guesses at to what the sound was but in many cases it can be discerned from the Greek or Coptic use of the name. Below the half circle glyph is an egg. The egg was usually included when writing out Aset's name on the monuments. To me, the egg symbolizes the potentiality that resides within Aset, which is Heru. It is analogous that within each of us is the seed or egg that will become the enlightened soul. You need to rouse Asar from his sleep of death in order to enact the process. Looking at this photo again, the pillar they are raising is called the Djed pillar and is a symbol of Asar. They are raising the pillar so Aset can be impregnated by Asar's seed, allowing the egg to quicken.

So, we now have Easter and eggs connected with Isis but what about that cute little bunny rabbit? Rabbits have long been known for their prolific ability to procreate but have also been observed burrowing into the ground and then springing forth from the ground like they have been resurrected. This is much like a seed buried in the earth or matter would do in springtime. Well, it just so happens that an epithet of Osiris was "Unnefer". Unnefer means to manifest, open, or appear in beauty. In this guise Osiris was portrayed with the head of a hare.

So, when you wake up on Easter remember Osiris is giving everyone of us an egg he has quickened through his union with Isis. That egg is your ticket to immortality. Don't drop it.