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An early curiosity of mine in this driving compulsion to question everything and then dig for the answers concerned the act of circumcision, specifically the cutting off of the foreskin of the male. It was a ritual act associated with the Jews and Abraham's covenant with the god YHVH in the book of Genesis chapter 17, however being interested in ancient Egyptian history and worship I knew this act predates the Torah and can be found in reliefs dating back to what we call Old Kingdom Egypt which would be the third millennia BC. 

The circumcision scene at Saqqarah, Sixth dynasty tomb of Ankhmahor Sesi

In the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead there is a passage from spell 17 that concerns the cutting of the phallus by Re, who is the power inherent in the sun. From this act it is said the gods that are in his presence were formed. Presumably this means the Ennead of Heliopolis which contains the powers inherent in the material world. Here is the passage, it is a gloss (explanation) concerning a statement of Re:

O you who are in my presence, give me your hands, for indeed I am he who grew up among you.
What does it mean? It means the blood which fell from the phallus of Re when he took to cutting himself. Then there came into being the gods who are in the presence of Re, who are Authority and Intelligence, while I followed after my father Atum daily.
The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, R.O. Faulkner, page 45

A satisfactory conclusion as to its symbolism was elusive. I discovered strangely enough that it had a connection to the crocodile. In the Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt there was this entry on circumcision:

circumcision - The surgical removal of part of the male prepuce, practised by the Egyptians as part of their methods of hygiene and called sebi, male circumcision was not performed at birth but during adolescence.
Encyclopedia of Ancient Egypt, Margaret R. Bunson, page 83

The reference to the act being called sebi is the important word here. The crocodile deity of ancient Egypt is called Sebek with the temple of Kom Ombo being a major part of the worship of Sebek. 

Temple of Kom Ombo, Upper Egypt

At the site there is still present a well where live crocodiles were originally kept as this picture I took in May 2009 demonstrates. 

Crocodile enclosure at temple of Kom Ombo

In the Faiyum oasis, 130 km southwest of Cairo, one of the towns, Shedyet, of ancient Egypt known for the worship of Sebek was called by the Greeks 'Crocodilopolis'. The city worshipped a sacred crocodile named by the Greeks Petsuchos. So armed with the knowledge that the Greeks referred to this beastly reptile as a crocodile we can start to break down the name and see if there is a connection of some sort to circumcision. From the Online Etymological Dictionary here is the entry on the word:

crocodile
    1563, restored spelling of Middle English cocodrille (c.1300), from Medieval Latin cocodrillus, from Latin crocodilus, from Greek krokodilos, word applied by Herodotus to the crocodile of the Nile, apparently due to its basking habits, from kroke "pebbles" + drilos "worm." 
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=crocodile&allowed_in_frame=0

As well, the internet site reference.com shares a similar meaning:

Crocodiilos/crocodeilos itself is described in reference sources as a corruption of crocè ("pebbly"), and driilos/dreilos supposedly meaning "worm" although attested only as "(man with circumcised) penis".
[Middle English cocodril, from Old French, from Latin cocodrillus, variant of crocodlus, from Greek krokodlos : krok, pebble + drlos, circumcised man, worm.]
http://www.reference.com/browse/crocodile

These websites are virtual gold mines of information. From this we learn that the croco part means pebble and dile is from drilos which can refer to a worm or a circumcised man. So that is useful information on the origin of the word crocodile but how this reptile ties in with the ritual act is still unclear.

A  search for connections of circumcision and the crocodile does reveal some interesting results. First is an aboriginal ceremony in Australia which is a coming of age ritual.

Women have erected an enclosure from material, where the two young boys who are being initiated in a "Djapi" ceremony will be circumcised. They dance around it before retreating. After the boys' circumcision a small group of men performs a dance depicting Baru the crocodile at its nest: a display of ferocity.
http://ozoutback.com.au/Australia/vidinitte/slides/1997080405.html

Djapi circumcision ceremony

From this ceremony I'll note that it is part of a ritual where the boy becomes a man. A major part of a male's ascent into adulthood is the separation from the nurturing mother and in this case the women construct the enclosure where the act will take place. Next is a story relating the circumcision ceremony of the West African Dogon tribe.

Dogon boys are circumcised in age groups of three years, counting for example all boys between 9 and 12 years old. This marks the end of their youth, and they are now initiated. The blacksmith performs the circumcision. Afterwards, they stay for a few days in a hut separated from the rest of the village people, until the wound has healed. The circumcision is a reason for celebration and the initiated boys go around and receive presents. They make music on a special instrument that is made of a rod of wood and calabashes that makes the sound of a rattle. The village of Songho has a circumcision cave ornamented with red and white rock paintings of animals and plants. Nearby is a cave where music instruments are stored. The newly circumcised men must walk around naked for a moon after the procedure so that their achievement in age can be admired by the citizens of the tribe. This practice has been passed down for generations and is always followed, even during winter.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dogon_people

Once again it seems to be a coming of age ceremony for boys. Of note is the circumcision cave as in ancient cultures the cave was the ritual home of the mother goddess. The instrument that makes the sound of a rattle is a device used in ceremonies to call upon the feminine divine such as the sistrum used to call upon Hathor in ancient Egypt. Next up is this strange story from South Africa.

Maimed boys rescued after botched circumcisions
Two boys have been rescued from a Transkei initiation school after a so-called traditional surgeon cut off the ends of their penises, the Eastern Cape health department said on Friday.
(Spokesperson Sizwe) Kupelo also said a man nicknamed "the Crocodile" was arrested in Mdantsane on Thursday. He was allegedly part of a group of surgeons who circumcised at least 96 youths. 
http://mg.co.za/article/2007-06-22-maimed-boys-rescued-after-botched-circumcisions

So the ritual is still practiced and connected to the crocodile in Africa today. One more story, this one from Papua, New Guinea.

Crocodile Scars
In Papua New Guinea, a group of initiates is about to enter the final stage of a long and arduous ritual. There is no set age for the rite ... but no one can have full status as a man until he's been scarred with the mark of the crocodile.
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/newguinea-crocscars-pp

Ritual crocodile scars 

Once again we have a coming of age ritual connected with crocodiles. At this point we have established some kind of connection and a base idea of circumcision as an initiatory ceremony practiced on pubescent boys entering into manhood. However it still is unclear how this possibly ties in with the Old Testament act that is a covenant between YHVH and the Israelites. Before exploring that connection it is time to get a better understanding of this Sebek character of the ancient Egyptian pantheon of gods.

In Greek Sebek was known as Suchos and alternatively the name has been transliterated as Sobek, Sobk, Sebek-Re, Sobki, and Soknopais.

Sebek at temple of Kom Ombo

Sebek is the son of Neith, Neith being the goddess of wisdom and warfare often shown wearing the red crown of lower Egypt.

Ancient egyptian representations of the goddess Neith

She can be shown nursing a baby crocodile and as such one of her epithets is 'the nurse of crocodiles'. Neith's counterpart in the Greek pantheon is Athena, the goddess of wisdom and just warfare. The red crown is a designation that her power resides in the material plane and from this we can extrapolate the same for Sebek. Sebek symbolized the might and power of the Pharaoh and was associated with the power of the sun; this power being Re in ancient Egypt. As noted earlier Sebek is known as Sebek-Re, telling us that his power is a result of being a chthonic aspect of Re.

Sebek with sun disk on column at temple of Kom Ombo

The temple of Kom Ombo is divided into two distinct areas. The south half is consecrated to Sebek and the northern half to Horus. You find this division of south and north a great deal with Set and Horus throughout pre-dynastic and dynastic Egypt. The temple seems to represent the Ptolemaic Pharaoh worshipping both of the powers of the life force and the soul, what the ancient Egyptians would call Ka and Ba respectively.

Pharaoh offers to Horus at temple of Kom Ombo

Pharaoh offers to Sebek at temple of Kom Ombo

The ancient Egyptians being the pre-eminent natural philosophers would have taken note of the crocodile's behaviour and how it mimicked the daily journey of the sun. It spends the day on land and at evening time just like the sun it enters into the waters. As well the sun is the harbinger of cycles of time: days, months and years here for us on earth and curiously the crocodile is very much in tune with these cycles. Egyptologist Dr. Ramses Seleem explains this in his book The Illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead:

The female crocodile carries its eggs for sixty days and broods on them for sixty days.  It has sixty vertebrae and sixty teeth, and lives for sixty years.  Number sixty is the basic unit in astronomy and the measurement of time, since the minute is sixty seconds and the hour is sixty minutes.  The crocodile, therefore, reflects the principle of time, and in the Egyptian word Sebek, meaning crocodile, the syllable, Seb, means time.
The crocodile also expresses our understanding of earthy time as action through duality.  It possesses strong eyesight, which expresses the power of initiate, and it sees only forward and sideways, not backward, emphasizing the idea of time, since it is only possible for time to travel forward.
The Illustrated Egyptian Book of the Dead, Dr. Ramses Seleem, pages 37-38

So I present this information because it is important to get the idea that the crocodile is masculine energy in the material plane very much connected with cycles of time and subsequent journeys through time. In addition the crocodile's aggressive and animalistic behaviour is much like that of the hippopotamus. The ancient Egyptian antagonist of the soul was the beastly Set who could manifest as the male hippopotamus and like Sebek was a favourite of Re. In the ancient Egyptian tale 'The Contendings of Horus and Set', Re continually takes Set's side and wishes for him to assume the united kingship of Egypt. The common epithets of Sebek that reinforce this connection to Set are:

"he who loves robbery," "he who eats while he also mates," and "pointed of teeth."
“Sobek, Lord of the Land of the Lake.” In Divine Creatures : Animal Mummies in Ancient Egypt, edited by Salima Ikram, 199-206. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2005, Edda Bresciani, page 199

Additional information of his nature comes from the Pyramid Texts of Unis of Old Kingdom Egypt, specifically spell 317 which is describing the Pharaoh Unis becoming Sebek:

Unis is Sobek, green of plumage, with alert face and raised fore, the splashing one who came from the thigh and tail of the great goddess in the sunlight…Unis has appeared as Sobek, Neith’s son. Unis will eat with his mouth, Unis will urinate and Unis will copulate with his penis. Unis is lord of semen, who takes women from their husbands to the place Unis likes according to his heart’s fancy.
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2005, James P. Allen, page 60

The fascination with the male sexual organ, the power inherent in it, and the misogynistic overtones of ownership over all women that he takes as he pleases puts Unis as Sebek in good company with Set. The description of his birth being from his mother's thigh and tail mimics Set's violent birth from the thigh of the celestial goddess Nut. In essence this pair of Set and Sebek are representing the unbridled power of the ancient Egyptian concept of the Ka here on earth in the material plane. As I have mentioned before it is Re who is the progenitor of these powers and thus the association of these two deities to Re - Sebek being associated with the movements of Re and Set being favoured by Re.

So that is probably enough background and I will shift now into the act of circumcision and how it is described in the Old Testament and then my interpretation of its figurative meaning which is something I only recently figured out. In the book of Genesis chapter 17 is the first mention of the act of circumcision and it is used to establish a covenant between Abraham and the Lord. YHVH will multiply Abraham's seed, give him land, and make nations and kings out of his descendants. In exchange, Abraham's people that descend from the the son to be born to him and Sarah, Isaac, shall enter into an everlasting covenant with YHVH to be his chosen people. As a token (sign, oath) of this covenant all males need to be circumcised. Here are verses 11 through 14 of chapter 17, King James Version:

11 And ye shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin; and it shall be a token of the covenant betwixt me and you.
12 And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised among you, every man child in your generations, he that is born in the house, or bought with money of any stranger, which is not of thy seed.
13 He that is born in thy house, and he that is bought with thy money, must needs be circumcised: and my covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant.
14 And the uncircumcised man child whose flesh of his foreskin is not circumcised, that soul shall be cut off from his people; he hath broken my covenant.

With newborns this ritual act is to be performed on the eighth day. Any of the tribe that is not circumcised will be ostracized. This act is stressed as a deal breaker if not performed so it is not to be taken lightly.

The next memorable incident of circumcision occurs in Genesis 34. This is the story of Jacob's daughter Dinah being raped by Shechem, the princely son of Hamor the Hivite. To make amends Shechem offers to marry Dinah and the sons of Jacob deceitfully accept the offer on the condition all the men of Hivite are circumcised. While they are in pain and recovering, two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, descend upon the town and slay all the male inhabitants.

Following this horrific story there is then the bizarre events of Exodus 4:24-26 when YHVH attempts to kill Moses and he is saved by his wife Zipporah, who performs an act of circumcision on her son. These are the verses:

24 And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the Lord met him, and sought to kill him.
25 Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.
26 So he let him go: then she said, A bloody husband thou art, because of the circumcision. 

After this strange incident is the Lord coming to Moses and Aaron in Exodus 12 to detail to them the proper celebration of the passover. Included in this instruction is the command that no uncircumcised male shall partake of the passover. In verse 15 much like Abraham was warned that those who are not circumcised will be cut off from his people it is stated here:

Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread; even the first day ye shall put away leaven out of your houses: for whosoever eateth leavened bread from the first day until the seventh day, that soul shall be cut off from Israel.

The penalty for eating leavened bread during this seven day festival to the Lord is identical to the penalty for not being circumcised. This is suggesting that these two acts are all part of the same ritual YHVH wants them to perform in exchange for his abundance, the lands of Canaan, and being favoured as his chosen people. We are not told why or what YHVH is getting out of the deal though.

So with this information we should then quickly look at the other festivals to the Lord mentioned in Exodus 23. In this chapter the tribe of Israel is reminded of the commandment to keep the cycle of the seven day sabbath; here again another connection to a cycle of seven. In addition the feast of unleavened bread is a seven day festival that prohibits the use of yeast, an agent that makes bread rise, that is preceded by the killing of a lamb at the passover celebration. There are also the feast of harvest and the feast of the ingathering called Sukkot. The feast of harvest is an offering of first fruits of the harvest that is traditionally the seven main agricultural products of the land of Israel as noted in Deuteronomy 8:8. Sukkot, also called the feast of Tabernacles is a seven day festival at the close of the harvest year. On the eighth day, called Shemini Atzere, is the day of judgment for all. At any time the blood of the sacrifice to YHVH is not to be offered with leavened bread. Keep in mind the seven that is central to all these festivals and the meaning of swearing an oath which is properly described as 'to seven oneself'. 

And finally there is the crossing of the Jordan river upon their entry into the promised land in Joshua 5. In the previous chapter the Lord had dried up the Jordan and a representative from each of the twelve tribes of Israel hauled a large stone out of the river unto the shore of Gilgal as a memorial to future generations that YHVH dried up the river to allow the Israelites to cross. Following this act Joshua orders all the men to be circumcised. The mount at Gilgal where they were circumcised was named Gibeath-Haaraloth, hill of the foreskins. It is explained that all the Israelites that originally left Egypt were circumcised but after they wandered in the wilderness for forty years none of the new generation of Israelites were circumcised so Joshua was ordered to perform the deed. In the desert the original group that left Egypt did not reach the promise land because they did not obey the Lord, so in a way this is establishing a new covenant with these people by using circumcision as the token of the covenant once again. Looking at the esoteric meaning of the stones you could reasonably make a case that water smooths out rough stones and will also smooth out the rough scales of the crocodile. Water as the mother is responsible for taming the beast so here the symbolism behind pulling stones out of the river and then circumcising all the males of Israel, i.e. removing the influence of the mother. Conversely if you look at the Israelite escape from the pursuing Egyptians when they crossed the Red Sea the effect of drowning the beastly Egyptians in the waters is in essence pacifying them; the waters having that effect on the beast.

Okay so to interpret all this it is important to take a few things into account. In social groups where ritual circumcision is still practiced it is a coming of age ritual as boys enter into manhood and leave the protection of the mother figure. They figuratively leave the mother and become like the crocodile - aggressive and concerned with eating, mating, and dominating. It is an embrace of the base instincts of the fully realized male. The ritual use of it by YHVH in the Old Testament is not related to the coming of age idea but is related to the separation of the soul from the protection of the mother and into the different world of the adult male where at first it would be dazed and confused. For newborns, they are to stay within the protection of the mother for seven days and on the eighth that protection is shed. In the Old Testament festivals, rituals, swearing oaths, establishing covenants, and material creation happen in these cycles of seven. To swear an oath is to 'seven oneself' and it is serious business. So to begin the newborn soul is stripped of its mother's protection as soon as possible. Then every year it renews the spell by which the lamb is killed and then no leavened bread is eaten for seven days. The lamb is a symbol of the soul and it is a command in Exodus 12:10 by YHVH to be burnt completely by the next morning. 

And ye shall let nothing of it remain until the morning; and that which remaineth of it until the morning ye shall burn with fire.

Following the ritual killing of the soul only unleavened bread can be eaten for a cycle of seven days; the reason being that yeast is an agent that makes the soul rise, something that YHVH is discouraging. It is stressed that if you don't get circumcised or if you eat leavened bread during this festival then you will be cut off from the covenant. These are the two big requirements to stay as one of YHVH's chosen. Not being circumcised or eating leavened bread will break the spell. So at this point I'm sure you are saying what the hell am I talking about? Well if you start at the beginning of the Old Testament and study it line for line there are a few ideas that start to emerge. I started to do this about a year and a half ago and here is where you can read the fruits of my obsession. What becomes apparent is that figuratively the Israelites are representing the journeying soul and enter into a contract with YHVH to help them. YHVH is the Lord of the first born and the great figures of the Old Testament are surely not the first born. It wasn't until the circumcision covenant with Abraham that YHVH gained a hold over the souls of man. The first born and property of YHVH are Adam, Cain, Ishmael, Esau and so on. These men are described as red, ruddy, profane men of the earth who are cast out - Cain and Ishmael, or greatly feared as was Esau when he vowed to slay Jacob. In Exodus 4:22 YHVH instructs Moses to tell Pharaoh that Israel are now his first born. 

And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh, Thus saith the LORD, Israel is my son, even my firstborn:

This goes back to Genesis 27 when Jacob tricked Isaac into giving him the blessing of the first born that was to go to Esau. Later on in Genesis 48 Jacob then confers this blessing upon Joseph's second born son Ephraim. Joseph pointed out to Jacob that he was doing it wrong and he should bestow this blessing upon Manasseh the first born however Jacob insists on doing it this way. All this is the transference of the ownership of the blessing from the profane first born to the spiritual second born. The first born represents the life force, called nephesh in Hebrew that carries the soul through its incarnation after first figuratively killing it. The soul or second born in the Old Testament is called the ruach and it is telling that this word is feminine and the nephesh in masculine. In ancient Egypt these forces were called Ka and Ba. Ka is the life force represented by a bull and is the providence of animated cycles of time provided by Re and can be destructive though necessary. The Ba is the soul represented by Osiris and his resurrection enabled by the Goddesses Isis and Nephthys. I have written about this at length in this blog post 'iconoclastic cain and abel'. 

The covenant between Abraham and YHVH was established in Genesis 15 and the token of the covenant in Genesis 17 is the act of circumcision. In order to be a follower of YHVH you must be circumcised. Then in Genesis 34 the two sons of Jacob, Simeon and Levi, use circumcision as a way to disable the Hivites so they could slay all the men in the town. They would no longer be under any protection of the mother and would be easy prey. In Exodus 15 it is explained not fulfilling the circumcision requirement carries the same punishment as eating leavened bread during the feast of unleavened bread. Let's tie this all together by examining the circumcision performed in Exodus 4 by Zipporah. When we get to Exodus 22 and read verses 29 and 30 we can then finally understand what the seven and the ritual of circumcision consecrate:

29 Thou shalt not delay to offer the first of thy ripe fruits, and of thy liquors: the firstborn of thy sons shalt thou give unto me.

As the Lord of the life force, the first born and material body that carries the soul, YHVH requires a sacrifice of the first born to him. As a reminder of these obligations the Israelites are also required to present to YHVH the first of their harvest of produce and juices. It is a requirement of their covenant with this deity that they present to him their first born sons without exception. They can redeem the first born son with a lamb or two doves - both symbols of the soul. The first born ass can be redeemed with a lamb as well as explained in Exodus 13:13. 

And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break his neck: and all the firstborn of man among thy children shalt thou redeem.

This is because the dun red donkey symbolizes the beastly first born and YHVH values it equally as a lamb that represents a soul. Here is Exodus 22:30 which parallels the act of circumcision:

30 Likewise shalt thou do with thine oxen, and with thy sheep: seven days it shall be with his dam; on the eighth day thou shalt give it me.

The first born male stays with its mother for seven days and on the eighth it is sacrificed to the Lord. It parallels the circumcision of the soul where on the eighth day it cuts itself off from its bonds and is free. From this act I would deduce the act of circumcision is the cutting off of the sheath that is protecting the member, the sheath being the mother. Once exposed, the member as the soul, is subject to the forces that are in opposition to it and has to make a decision to fight or acquiesce. It can turn to YHVH for help or regenerate its own protection. The symbolism of the phallus to the soul is apt for this misogynistic culture and deity. In Exodus 23:19 YHVH then instructs the Israelites to never seethe a newborn sacrifice in its mother's milk. This ties in with the same idea.

The first of the firstfruits of thy land thou shalt bring into the house of the LORD thy God. Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother's milk.

The prohibition against boiling a goat in its mother's milk is related to mother's milk being a form of nourishment for the soul. The goat, a suitable substitution for a passover lamb, would have the soul resident in it and the idea is to separate it from the mother, not re-immerse it into her protection. The act of circumcision is a figurative cutting away of the protective mother. In this case using mother's milk will counteract the circumcision and afford protection once again to the young soul.

I'd also like to examine here the incident where Jacob wrestles with someone all night in Genesis 32 and specifically in verse 25 when the translation records 'he touched the hollow of his thigh.' As I have written before, the man Jacob wrestles with is the constellation of the bull Taurus which is an aspect of firstborn Esau who is from ultimately the progenitor of the firstborn - YHVH. Using the above speculation of the phallus as the soul and retranslating that section properly as 'he struck the shaft of his phallus' we can gather that it was Jacob's figurative soul that was under attack. Looking at the event in Exodus 4 where YHVH inexplicably tries to kill Moses we can make some more sense out of that scene now. In verse 24 YHVH seeks out the journeying Moses and seeks to kill him. 

And it came to pass by the way in the inn, that the LORD met him, and sought to kill him.

This comes out of nowhere and seems quite bizarre. The following verse 25 then has Moses' wife Zipporah taking a stone and performing a circumcision. Here is the verse in full:

Then Zipporah took a sharp stone, and cut off the foreskin of her son, and cast it at his feet, and said, Surely a bloody husband art thou to me.

Zipporah is a representation of the mother of the soul so at this point when she performs the circumcision she is releasing the soul from her care. The son she is referring to is Moses but not in a literal sense. She performs the deed and then casts the foreskin at Moses' feet and calls him a bloody husband. Bloody in this case means shedding of blood that causes death and husband is from the Hebrew chathan which is a figurative meaning for a circumcised child. YHVH was angry at Moses because he was in essence putting other gods (goddesses) before him and still under their protection. The act of circumcision releases him from the mother, leaves him vulnerable and then he contracts with YHVH to be his god. From that point on Zipporah mostly disappears from the story as Moses had returned her to his father in law Jethro, in other words divorced her. It was the act of circumcision she performed on him that was in essence the divorce.

The meaning and purpose of the act of circumcision is to allow the killing of the soul by the life force by prematurely removing the protection of the mother. The ritual slaying of the passover lamb and its accompanied seven day unleavened bread festival is a diabolical spell designed to cyclically renew the spell and prevent the resurrection of the soul. The crocodile is a life force that is the result of the soul, that comes from the goddess of wisdom, being circumcised therefore in essence an aborted soul. Pregnant women in ancient Egypt were scared of the power of Set to commit acts that would cause abortion and invoked powers and amulets to protect them from Set:

Plutarch's statement (Plutarch, De Iside et Osiride c. 19.) that Seth was deserted by his concubine Thoeris is significant here, for Thoeris, the pregnant hippopotamus, is the protectress of women in pregnancy. One of the names of Bes, who has feminine traits as well as masculine ones, is Hit. Abortions were put into his care and even buried in wooden Bes figures. One of the meanings of the verb h3i is "to commit abortion." A relation between this verb and one of the names of Seth, h3y or hy, cannot be determined with certainty. In a Turin pap. Seth says:
"I am a Man of a million cubits, whose name is Evil Day. As for the day of giving birth or conceiving, there is no giving birth and trees bear no fruit".
Seth, God of Confusion, H Te Velde, pages 28-29

It is apt that a reptile is born into water and then eventually makes its way onto land. The behaviour of the crocodile has been assimilated into the ritual act of circumcision. The result is an aggressive, domineering, hyper-sexual alpha male.

Reflecting on this analysis it seems you could tie this into a section of the ancient Egyptian story 'The Contendings of Horus and Set'. At one point in the continual fighting Set and Horus submerge into the water as hippopotamuses in a contest to see who could stay underwater the longest. Isis, Horus' mother, panics and tries to help. After Isis harpoons both contestants for the white crown of the kingdom of Egypt, Horus flies into a rage and cuts off Isis' head in a fit of rage that seemingly comes out of nowhere. He ascends the mountain with the gods in pursuit wanting to punish him. Set finds him first resting under a tree and proceeds to blind him by gouging out both of Horus' eyes and buries them in the mountain. The two eyes fittingly grow in lotuses, in essence the re-birth of the soul. It is then the goddess Hathor that comes to find Horus and restores his sight which leads to Horus' triumph. It seems to me that the cutting off of Isis' head is in essence the act of circumcision that leaves Horus vulnerable to the onslaught of the beastly Set. By reconnecting with the goddess Hathor, Horus is then saved. Gives me pause to think.

the archaic revival of the Goddess

The way I'd explain the normative state of mind is this: there are filters that control the amount of influence the divine feminine and masculine gendered energies have over you. Depending on your own gender, the traits of one will be dominant over the other and in turn manifest these traits over the course of your life. For the majority of us as long as there is a speed limit on these energies they are to a certain extent controllable. Outside influences on us such as stress will loosen the reins and heighten the effects of these energies. As well intoxicants such as alcohol also will open up the filter. Drinking the hallucinogenic tea ayahuasca in the rain forest under the supervision of an accomplished conductor of these energies allows you to experience them very raw.

Ayahuasca vine in Amazon rain forest

There is little filtering of these direct energies while under the influence of this shamanic brew in combination with the setting in the wilderness.

Ceremonial maloca in the wilderness

The feminine energy is a love like no other ever experienced. The masculine energy is a crazy, demented source of confusion and selfishness masked as realism. It is my understanding this is the prevalent power in the material world.

The feminine energy I experienced exudes love. It is the unconditional love called agape by the Greeks. Her love is both nurturing and forgiving. There is a strong sense of family attached to this energy and she has an expressed longing for union with us. This energy also contains within it the seductive and intoxicating forms of love and unfathomable beauty.  Exquisite fragrance is an essential trait of this feminine energy. This energy is captivated by the finer things and beauty in creation. However a profound sadness and a feeling that her children are destroying the planet is conveyed as well. Overall this a very positive and uplifting energy.

Botticelli's painting of The Birth of Venus

The masculine energy I experienced was first off dark and controlling. This powerful energy has a desire to be domineering over all it meets. This energy is goal oriented and maintains extreme selfishness to fulfill these desires. Within this frothing at the mouth and expressed misogyny it is concerned with acquiring and maintaining power and seeks all avenues of wealth creation. It has a grandiose desire to dominate all of creation. This energy is uncaring and those that wish to show compassion should do so at their own expense. Curiously this energy is very aware of the feminine energy and tries to control her with offerings of wealth and in turn then hiding the feminine away. For all its negative traits this is the energy that moves creation forwards. It is dynamic and relentless. However it is a monster and a beast.

The uncontrolled masculine energy of the ancient Egyptian Set

Why then do our Abrahamic faiths of Middle Eastern origin that have become mainstream western religions exclude the feminine energy from worship and its expressed godhead? Why are women oppressed in the Middle East? If anything, I want to feel love and nurturing from the divine. These sham spiritual outfits control your experience, are big on laws and commandments, and they sure do like acquiring wealth. The true seeker will come into contact with the divine feminine and masculine energies and will see the exclusion of one of them by the domineering aspect of the other as unnatural to the core. Monotheism seems to be a construct of this domineering masculine energy designed to exclude the feminine from our worship. The feminine energy is an eternal energy that will never be permanently held down by these misogynistic outfits. In the Catholic tradition to try and control this longing for the feminine they allow "veneration" of Mary but draw the line on outright worship.

Mary - Queen of heaven and earth

In sum the masculine energy is the force that powers the material world. It is an uncontrollable dance powering creation. It is the power of the angry, charging, and untamed bull.

Shiva doing his dance on the bull Nandi

It is a beast that stops at nothing in order to achieve its need for greed and the goal of universal domination. It is a remorseless power and the destroyer of souls. In contrast the feminine energy is loving. She is the gentle cow that is a food source for all.

Ancient Egyptian Hathor as cow goddess

She is the nymph that matures into the seductress. She rages like the lioness and yet she nurtures the young and vulnerable. Somehow I think these two opposite energies need to be balanced but by nature the masculine energy resists this synthesis. A new age is upon us and it is the age of the archaic revival of the Goddess; it is realistically our only hope of salvation as a species.

i am the music

moon shining wisdom

hex and hag

In conjunction with my previous blog post: mirror, mirror, on the wall that describes the relationship of the Goddess to the visionary experience I felt it necessary to comment on the role of the malevolent hag or witch that is also prevalent in mythological lore concerning witchcraft. To get started let's do some research on some concepts connected with witchcraft. Putting a magic spell on someone is the idea of a hex. The Online Etymological Dictionary gives the origin of hex as the following:

hex (v.) 

1830, American English, from Pennsylvania German hexe "to practice witchcraft," from German hexen "to hex," related to Hexe "witch," from Middle High German hecse, hexse, from Old High German hagazussa (see hag). Noun meaning "magic spell" is first recorded 1909; earlier it meant "a witch" (1856).

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hex&allowed_in_frame=0

Dictionary.com gives these definitions:

hex1 [heks] 

verb (used with object)

1.

to bewitch; practice witchcraft on: He was accused of hexing his neighbors' cows because they suddenly stopped giving milk.

noun

2.

spell; charm: With all this rain, somebody must have put a hex on our picnic.

3.

a witch.

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

One thing that stands out for me is the pronunciation of hex as heks. In ancient Egyptian the idea of magic was attributed to a male deity named Heka. 

Heka

Magic was understood to be a force that was not necessarily evil; it could be used for both good and bad purposes. As opposed to a glitzy conjuring, the idea of magic was something more commonplace in the world of the ancient Egyptians. It was a force that gave life to objects and connected to the ancient Egyptian idea of the life force called Ka. Through the use of ritual, the ancient Egyptians hoped to enact the transference of this power onto objects or to animate a mummified body for instance in the ceremony of the opening of the mouth and eyes.

Opening of the Mouth and Eyes

A witch is commonly known as a hag and the mental image we get from the word hag is an ugly old woman.

hag (n.) 

early 13c., "ugly old woman," probably a shortening of Old English hægtesse "witch, fury" (on assumption that -tesse was a suffix), from Proto-Germanic *hagatusjon-, of unknown origin. Similar shortening produced Dutch heks, German Hexe "witch" from cognate Middle Dutch haghetisse, Old High German hagzusa. 

First element is probably cognate with Old English haga "enclosure, portion of woodland marked off for cutting" (see hedge). Old Norse had tunriða and Old High German zunritha, both literally "hedge-rider," used of witches and ghosts. Second element may be connected with Norwegian tysja "fairy; crippled woman," Gaulish dusius "demon," Lithuanian dvasia "spirit," from PIE *dhewes- "to fly about, smoke, be scattered, vanish." 

One of the magic words for which there is no male form, suggesting its original meaning was close to "diviner, soothsayer," which were always female in northern European paganism, and hægtesse seem at one time to have meant "woman of prophetic and oracular powers" (Ælfric uses it to render the Greek "pythoness," the voice of the Delphic oracle), a figure greatly feared and respected. Later, the word was used of village wise women. 

Haga is also the haw- in hawthorn, which is an important tree in northern European pagan religion. There may be several layers of folk etymology here. Confusion or blending with heathenish is suggested by Middle English hæhtis, hægtis "hag, witch, fury, etc.," and haetnesse "goddess," used of Minerva and Diana. 

If the hægtesse was once a powerful supernatural woman (in Norse it is an alternative word for Norn, any of the three weird sisters, the equivalent of the Fates), it might originally have carried the hawthorn sense. Later, when the pagan magic was reduced to local scatterings, it might have had the sense of "hedge-rider," or "she who straddles the hedge," because the hedge was the boundary between the "civilized" world of the village and the wild world beyond. The hægtesse would have a foot in each reality. Even later, when it meant the local healer and root collector, living in the open and moving from village to village, it may have had the mildly pejorative sense of hedge- in Middle English (hedge-priest, etc.), suggesting an itinerant sleeping under bushes, perhaps. The same word could have contained all three senses before being reduced to its modern one.

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=hag&allowed_in_frame=0

The hag comes from hex and always referred to the feminine in northern European paganism. There is the idea in this word of a hedge which designates a dividing line between two worlds. This fits with the idea of a goddess being at the transition points that intersect the world of the material from the world of the spiritual. In ancient Egypt the goddess Hathor would be present at all events of birth and death. She would have a foot in both worlds of spirit and matter and from this we get the idea of birth and death as forever intertwined. A birth of a baby into the material world involves the death of a soul inside the new beginning. The awakening and re-birth of the soul within the body involves a death to worldly pursuits. The final death of the body allows the soul to be freed to re-enter the home from which it came. These magical events are attended by these emanations of the feminine divine who sit at the crossing points between these worlds.

This idea of the feminine being present at the soul's apparent death and deliverance into the material world gave rise to myths that depicted her as an evil temptress aligned with the devil, the devil being the Lord of the material world. In Greek mythology the legend of the Gorgon Medusa is such a tale. 

Medusa

She was at first a beautiful maiden that seduced the soul into the material world (the stone) but as you got closer she became hideous and turned you to stone. Her hair being venomous snakes screams out to me her connection with the feminine divine you would encounter in an altered state. We find these ideas in the definitions provided here:

World English Dictionary

hag 1  (hæɡ)
— n
1.	an unpleasant or ugly old woman
2.	a witch
3.	short for hagfish
4.	obsolete  a female demon
[Old English hægtesse witch; related to Old High German hagazussa, Middle Dutch haghetisse]

Encyclopedia

hag

in European folklore, an ugly and malicious old woman who practices witchcraft, with or without supernatural powers; hags are often said to be aligned with the devil or the dead. Sometimes appearing in the form of a beautiful woman, a succubus is a hag believed to engage in sexual intercourse with sleeping men, causing severe nightmares and leaving the victim exhausted. Although viewed in most lore as the antithesis of fertility, the hag is believed by some scholars to be a remnant of primitive nature goddesses.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hag?s=t

I believe the same ideas of the hag, witchcraft, the devil, and death are at work in the old fairy tale of Hansel and Gretel. In this story the witch lures the two children into her house after the hungry pair first find her house made of gingerbread and cakes in the forest. The witch locks up Hansel and enslaves Gretel with the intent to eventually cook and eat them. The children are representative of the paired soul that is incarnating. They left home due to the wickedness of their stepmother. The myth making here demonstrating it is the intention of the feminine to force the soul to incarnate. The pair only incarnate because they are lured into the material world. The oven that the witch will cook them in is representing the fires of this material hell. The witch is an emanation of the Goddess, a side of her that is terrifying because she births the soul into the material world. This world is unkind and threatens the soul with death. The Goddess in mythology has a terrifying side, whether that is for example Kali in Hindu mythology, Medusa in the Greek stories, or Sekhemet the raging lioness destroyer in ancient Egyptian lore.

Sekhemet

Gretel manages instead to shove the witch into the oven and burn her. The underlying idea here is the soul is freed from its enslavement in matter. The two find a vase full of treasure and precious stones belonging to the witch and then a swan ferries them back home across the waters. The treasure is the material wealth of the Goddess; the swan is associated with the idea of a hermaphrodite; and the waters are material incarnation that must be crossed to make it home. 

Venus sitting on a swan and accompanied by a hermaphrodite

http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47e4-603f-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

The hermaphrodite is an interesting concept in mythology not understood. It is the pairing of Aphrodite and Hermes which in ancient Egypt are Hathor and Thoth. 

 Hathor at Kom Ombo

Thoth imparting magical formulae at Abydos

Here we have the goddess of love combined with the god of wisdom to make the hermaphrodite. The deeper meaning is one of the paired soul of masculine and feminine halves. When they unite, they sail over the waters of material incarnation and head back home to their spiritual abode. It was encoded in this story as Gretel and Hansel. We can find this motif in many other places and here are a couple that come immediately to my mind:

in a book called "The Yellow Cross", which is a story of the Cathars of southern France last stand against the Catholic inquisition who persecuted them for their perceived heretical beliefs, the author writes about this belief of theirs:

According to script Catharism the foetus was a creation of the devil which awaited its redeeming soul. Moreover, some Cathar versions of the Fall averred that the devil seduced the souls away from their heavenly home by introducing it a beautiful woman whom all the souls desired to possess.

The Yellow Cross, Rene Weis, pages xxiii to xxiv.

I believe this idea of theirs comes from the beginning of Genesis 6 which tells the story of the sons of God lusting after the daughters of men.

Genesis 6

King James Version (KJV)

1 And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them,

2 That the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.

3 And the Lord said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

4 There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became mighty men which were of old, men of renown.

5 And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.

I have written a blog post called let the sleeping giant lie that goes further into this curious passage in the beginning of Genesis. Further to this idea we find in Hinduism a goddess called Kali, who as an emanation of Durga who comes from the Great Goddess Devi, is the personification of horror and death. Much like the Egyptian Sekhemet, Durga is a terrifying goddess who subdues demons and has an association to felines as she rides a tiger, eliciting comparison to the great goddesses of the levant who are shown subduing large cats.

Levantine forms of the goddess Hathor: Qadesh, Ishtar, and Asherah

Kali's flesh is black, she has menacing fangs, and wears a necklace of skulls. Kali appears in the material realm full of power to destroy and a laugh that mocks all who try to escape. Her arms represent the cardinal directions in combination with the cycles of time and there is no running from her power over life and death. But once you accept your fate in the material world then Kali gives bliss in the form of offering a bowl of plenty.

Kali

The idea of the hag in the mythological past is varied and had evolved into something that was negative and to be feared. For sure, this idea of leading your soul into material incarnation is something to be feared but the ancients looked upon it as a necessary journey in order to procure eternal life. The idea of Kali offering a bowl of plenty to the enlightened traveller or Sekhemet being pacified by turning the Nile into intoxicating beer after first being sent to destroy mankind, suggests that the power of the feminine divine to cause misery and destroy becomes part of the necessary elixir that transforms the soul into something greater.