Found 232 posts tagged ‘egyptian’ |
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I Found a Penny Today, So Here's a Thought –
October 23, 2021 |
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Hindpsych: Erstwhile Conjectures by the Sometime Augur of Yore –
August 27, 2021 |
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Two Otherworldly Books: Polar Opposites?
The two most famous mystical manuals for guidance through the Otherworld are, in staggering ways, diametric opposites. The Tibetan Book of the Dead was preserved by the living, its chapters kept intact over millennia by monks in monasteries. Contrariwise, the Egyptian Book of the Dead was preserved by mummies, its chapters scattered piecemeal (even as Osiris was dismembered?) and sealed for millennia in coffins and tombs. The Tibetan was meant to be recited to a corpse by a living undertaker. The Egyptian was meant to be read only by the deceased individual, in the afterlife. In the Tibetan, the soul navigating the afterlife liminality is a human who encounters deities and torments, judgments, and pitfalls, the book serving as a guide map to another incarnation. In the Egyptian, the soul in the netherworld is itself a divinity (indistinguishable from all deities), the book constituting "identity papers" that exempt one from any torments, judgments, or pitfalls on the way not to another incarnation but rather eternal providence. The Tibetan is read in whole and then retained by the living. The Egyptian is unread in fragments (as chapter 64 notes, "This composition is a secret; not to be seen or looked at ... by any man, for it is forbidden to know it. Let it be hidden") and retained by the dead. The Tibetan would have the soul disattach from memories of illusory experiences. The Egyptian soul, as a deity having been disguised as a mortal, is prompted to say, "That which I went in order to ascertain I am come to tell. Come let me enter and report my mission" (chapter 86). The Tibetan calls the soul toward realms indescribable by known language, while the Egyptian promises a perpetuity of familiar worldly food, bodily pleasures, landscapes, climates, planting and reaping, labor and recreation.Clerical (pun intended) errors by Egyptian scribes corrupted the book to the extent that varied copies of the same chapter are wildly discordant. It would seem that over the millennia the copyists did not understand the original texts, the original meanings having been lost at a very early date. The Tibetan, while similarly reproduced, is significantly less adulterated. Because the Egyptian copies were never meant for living eyes, the scribes' attention to detail naturally faltered (in other words, the accuracy of their work went unchecked). It was the opposite situation for the Tibetan scribes. As the Egyptian is significantly bastardized, translators are so often left to conjecture, to either fill or not fill the empty pools of textual lacunae, to baffle over the legitimacy of enigmatic hapax legomena. Yet there's a strange poetry to that — a book of metaphysical mysteries, not meant for living eyes, gathering further unfathomableness over time. (Somewhat ironically, Egyptologists seek "accuracy" of non-literal, possibly deliberately nonsensical esoterica and paronomasia. As translator Peter Le Page Renouf notes, the various chapters of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and other texts prove that "with reference to the details, free scope was allowed to the imagination of the scribes or artists." Though Renouf fastidiously checked his own guesswork, he perhaps needn't have been overly cautious. The Egyptian Book of Dead would seem to be unstuck in time and even unstuck in phraseology, like a text in an hallucinatory dream that morphs as the visionary tries to read it.)In short, the Tibetan (guarded at extraordinarily high elevations) is addressed to human beings, while the Egyptian (preserved at very low elevations) is addressed to gods.P.S. Interestingly, the judgment scenes in both books are so alike in essentials as to suggest a common prehistoric origin. The Tibetan's King of the Dead as judge corresponds to the Egyptian Osiris. Both books have a symbolical weighing. On the scales before the King of the Dead, black pebbles are weighed against white (symbolizing evil and good deeds). Before Osiris, the heart and a feather are weighed (conduct/conscience against righteousness/truth). In both books, a simian-headed figure oversees the weighing (the ape-headed Thoth in the Egyptian, the monkey-headed Shinje in the Tibetan). In both books, a jury of deities looks on, some animal- and some human-headed. The record-board that Thot holds corresponds to the Mirror of Karma held by the King of the Dead. The deceased in both books pleads innocence.
See Books of the Dead, a distillation of twenty-four books of the dead from around the world and across the centuries. Each book’s most intriguing, poetic, and useful revelations are painstakingly gathered.
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Hindpsych: Erstwhile Conjectures by the Sometime Augur of Yore –
August 26, 2021 |
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An Ancient Egyptian "Blueprint" for Co-Creating a Better Tomorrow
For anyone who feels at rock bottom, this is an intuitive divination that requires no knowledge of Egyptian mythology or astrology. The image you'll work with is like a blueprint of a four-walled room, the walls of which have been flattened. Picture the central rectangle, holding four figures and framed with a double line, as the floor. Above it, below, left, and right are the room's four walls, as if they're lying on the ground. The blueprint comes from the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and it depicts a funeral chamber. Note the jackal-headed Anubis, protector of tombs, leaning over a mummy. The mummy is you in your current state, feeling bound and powerless, awaiting the dawn of a new life of plenitude. Under the bed (below Anubis and your mummy) is a bird with a human head, a symbol of your soul. You are actually represented three times in this blueprint (you'll see yourself honoring the rising and setting suns, in the top corners). Instructions: There are 16 letters on the blueprint. Next to each letter you will write a number. Begin by writing a 1 next to any letter your intuition guides you, or seemingly at random. There is no "wrong" way to do this. Follow your whim. Just as the letters are somewhat unpredictably placed, so should your numbers be at your discretion. Continue here and there around the blueprint until you've written all 16 numbers. Then, referring to the chart below, match the numbers to the letters, one pair at a time, to form messages. The numbers represent astrological particulars (the greater symbolic meaning of each planet and asteroid). Those meanings are offered in brackets. The letters identify each figure in the diagram and what it communicates (as per the Egyptian Book of the Dead). Each of those communications is like a fill-in-the blank. They each feature the word "this," and that's like the blank to be filled by the bracketed word in the numerical list. For example, letter A says that "Anubis prepares this good way for you." If A were paired with the number 12 ("Inspiration") then the message is that you're on the cusp of a sudden bright idea or brainstorm that will send you moving forward on a better path of life. "Anubis prepares inspiration as a good way for you." Some paired message will make perfect sense immediately, while others will encourage some contemplation and some "wait and see." This blueprint may be re-numbered at different times, for different circumstances. The grand, overarching message of these readings is that many forces are at play, some seen and some unseen, that collaborate on one's destiny. A new start may feature one of a great variety of characteristics. Being conscious of those characteristics will empower one to better take advantage of opportunities for shifting one's life path or otherwise co-collaborate on one's destiny. [Note that the walls of the blueprint feature 12 figures, recalling the 12 houses of the Zodiac; you may find other ways to work with this mystical diagram to inspire new insights.]
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1. Ceres Asteroid [Nurturance]
2. Pallas Asteroid [Wisdom]
3. Juno Asteroid [Commitment]
4. Vesta Asteroid [Spirituality]
5. Hygeia Asteroid [Wellness]
6. Chiron Asteroid [Wounded Healer]
7. Moon [Emotions]
8. Pluto [Power]
9. Mercury [Communication]
10. Mars [Passion]
11. Venus [Love/Money]
12. Neptune [Inspiration]
13. Uranus [Rebellion]
14. Saturn [Karma]
15. Jupiter [Luck]
16. Sun [Self]
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A. Anubis prepares this good way for you.
B. Goddess Isis protects and strengthens you with this.
C. Goddess Nephthys justifies you and keeps you from losing your head with this.
D. The statue of the northern wall binds you with this for protection.
E. The symbol of the western wall brings light to this.
F. The flame on the southern wall illuminates the heights of this.
G. Anubis in his divine hall watches over this and averts wrath.
H. Your living soul hails this arising on the eastern horizon.
I. Your living soul adores this setting in the land of the living, the western horizon.
J. The statue nurtures this (like a field is planted and watered).
K. The statue establishes a foundation for this (like sand conveyed from east to west).
L. Cardinal point genie Kebehsenuf puts the heart of this in its right place.
M. Cardinal point genie Hapi revives the "head" of this.
N. Cardinal point genie Taumautef rescues the originator of this from evil doers.
O. Cardinal point genie Emsta causes this to proper permanently.
P. Your living soul is vitalized by this.
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| * Historians must reconstruct the past out of hazy memory. "Once upon a time" requires "second sight." The "third eye" of intuition can break the "fourth wall" of conventional perspectives. Instead of "pleading the fifth," historians can take advantage of the "sixth sense" and be in "seventh heaven." All with the power of hindpsych, the "eighth wonder of the world." It has been said that those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. Therein lies the importance of Tarot readings for antiquity. When we confirm what has already occurred, we break the shackles of the past, freeing ourselves to chart new courses into the future. |
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Yearbook Weirdness –
December 20, 2020 |
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Restoring the Lost Sense –
October 25, 2020 |
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INCENSE.
Laborer: Well, I'll be blowed!
Isis (to Osiris): At last, a worshipper!"
By Otho Cushing, for Life (1903).
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| [Inexplicable images from generations ago invite us to restore the lost
sense of immediacy. We follow the founder of the Theater of
Spontaneity, Jacob Moreno, who proposed stringing together "now and then
flashes" to unfetter illusion and let imagination run free. The images
we have collected for this series came at a tremendous price, which we explained previously.] |
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Your Ship Will Come In –
September 7, 2020 |
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