Embodying Osiris: The Secrets of Alchemical Transformation
256
Embodying Osiris: The Secrets of Alchemical Transformation
256Paperback
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Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780835608800 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Quest Books |
| Publication date: | 11/01/2010 |
| Pages: | 256 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Embodying Osiris
The Secrets of Alchemical Transformation
By Thom F. Cavalli
Theosophical Publishing House
Copyright © 2010 Thom F. CavalliAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8356-0880-0
CHAPTER 1
IN THE LAND OF HIS BIRTH
In reality a darkness altogether different from natural night broods over the land. It is the psychic primal night which is the same today as it has been for countless millions of years. The longing for light is the longing for consciousness.
—C. G. Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Only in relatively recent times has the West embraced the Eastern traditions and recognized their immense contributions to world consciousness. The West has yet to discover wisdom that stems from other, equally old civilizations. The question of which society represents the earliest civilization remains unanswered, in part because archeologists continue to dig up remnants of ancient towns and settlements. What is apparent is that human consciousness awoke from its two hundred thousand–year slumber, and great civilizations sprang up in Mesopotamia, the Indus Valley, Anatolia, China, and Central America at about the time that Egypt blossomed as a dominant culture around 3000 BC. Each made significant, unique contributions to the development of consciousness. While archeologists continue to dig, depth psychologists are also unearthing ancient wisdom from their study of these early societies.
In this book we will turn to the myth of Osiris to acquire remarkable insights from the people of ancient Egypt. While it is certainly true that every new excavated mummy has a story to tell, every fresh rereading of this amazing myth reveals deeper and more profound mysteries. Clearly, Egypt stood at the threshold of collective consciousness, when the world first opened its eyes and discovered order in the infinitude of stars and endless miles of sand. The Egyptians saw the beauty of their earth, the auspicious arrangement of stars and planets as well as the sacred place held by humans in the universe.
The period in question dates back to 2300 BC. Popular interest in this time period is severely limited to a shallow fascination with mummies and pyramids. Museums still draw record crowds whenever mummies are on exhibit, and people travel to Egypt to stand in awe before the pyramids, not really knowing much about the pharaohs who built them or the gods that occupy them. To fully embody our understanding of ancient Egypt requires that we not simply retell the old myths; especially with Osiris, whose spirit pervaded the dynastic kingdom from beginning to end, we need to describe his story within its geographical, historical, mythological, and philosophical settings.
The preponderance of evidence points to Africa as the land where human life began and one of the most enduring civilizations took root in a formidable environment. Exactly how this genesis from tribal kingdoms to pharaonic dynasties occurred is not known, but of all the African nations, Egypt managed to remain intact for three thousand years before being overtaken by foreign powers. Imagine for a moment the date of origin of any country existing today: project that date forward three thousand years and you get some sense of the weight of Egypt's history. Both time and space make Egypt unique. Even today Egypt is somewhat of a geographical anomaly. Located on the African subcontinent and juxtaposed to the Middle East, it borrows a great deal from both regions while maintaining its own unique identity; culturally, it is neither African nor Middle Eastern. At the same time, it formed a natural land bridge between these diverse regions. While many factors account for Egypt's incredible legacy, it was the land itself that allowed Egypt to rule the Middle East for a remarkably long time. In all, thirty-one consecutive dynasties under Egyptian rule weathered ecological challenges, civil strife, and countless attacks from their infamous nine enemies. The land gave rise to Egypt's cosmology, governmental structure, religion, and public works.
Before Egypt had unified its "Two Lands," the northeast corner of Africa, including what is now Sudan, Somalia, and the Eritrean coast of Ethiopia, was believed to be the mystical land of Punt. It was also called God's Land because it provided much of the supplies used in Egyptian temples. Incense, fragrant woods, animal skins, and possibly even the pygmy god Bes were imported from Punt. The region was also known as the pleasure garden of Amun. Although we know of several major expeditions undertaken by pharaohs to this wondrous land, its exact location remains unknown.
Egypt's immediate neighbor to the south, Nubia, was also very important because of its vast supplies of hardwood and gold, resources scarce in Egypt. Nubia supplied the gold used for making fine jewelry, the pharaoh's regalia, and funerary objects. The Egyptians regarded gold as the skin of the sun. Relations between the two countries alternated between fighting as allies and fighting each other; in the end, Nubia ruled Egypt for a relatively short time. Ironically, the idea of a king as pharaoh likely emerged from the Nubian tribal kingdoms. And the seminal concept of Osiris may well have originated in Nubia's misty past.
Prior to unification, Egypt was divided into two lands: Upper Egypt in the south spilled over into Nubia, and Lower Egypt began at Aswan and extended northward to the Mediterranean (the Green Sea). The country was first unified around 3000 BC under the rule of Narmer; Egypt subsequently split apart and through ingenious politico- spiritual machinations was brought back together. However, war and political means were not sufficient to coalesce the country into a stable, unified nation. "New epics," writes Mojsov, "had to be invented to help transform the prehistoric tribal society into a single state. Tribal myths had to be transfigured into a Great State Myth."
These myths describe a divine king who eventually was seen as either the son of a god or god himself. The gender of kings was decidedly masculine, since the source of power appeared to flow from three principle masculine deities—Amun, Ra, Ptah. Even Hatshepsut, one of the mightiest women to rule Egypt, proclaimed herself king, not queen; like her male predecessors, she strapped on the false beard that signified royal authority, and at her death she had herself buried in the Valley of the Kings in Thebes. The first large-scale expedition to Punt is depicted on the walls of her mortuary temple in the west bank.
Originally, Egypt was called Kemet, meaning "the Black Land." The current name was not used until the Greek occupation thousands of years later. By then rituals had evolved into state-sanctioned myths, and eventually the outlines of Egyptian religion took on a fairly permanent form. Thinis was founded as the first capital, followed by Memphis, which is strategically located at the Nile's delta in the north. The patron god of Memphis was Ptah, the supreme maker of all things and protector of artisans and craftsmen—a true alchemical god. Here we see the importance placed on the concrete tasks of building, painting, and stonecutting. The Masons anchor their history in early guilds that eventually emerged from these ancient arts.
"The religious centers," explains Egyptologist John Anthony West, "at Heliopolis, Memphis, Thebes and Hermopolis did not represent separate and vying cults, or a political and social federation. Rather, each reveals one of the principle phases or aspects of genesis." Recalling the Symbolist theories of de Lubicz, West describes both Egypt and many of its temples as living entities. Thus, Heliopolis represents the "primordial creative act" that gave rise to the Ennead, or Neteru, which includes Osiris and the other gods so important to the Osiris myth. Memphis was dedicated to Ptah, "producer and animator of form." Thebes is especially important in de Lubicz's theory. He spent twelve years of intense study and data collection to prove that the Temple of Luxor (the modern-day name for Thebes) was "alive," complete with three axes that replicate the human form and a nervous system that runs throughout the entire structure. As humans are believed to draw together the above and the below, Thebes was thought to be the "reunion of that which had been separated." Finally, Hermopolis was the "creation of the manifested universe" through words, the province of magic, which was most powerfully ruled by the ibis-headed god Thoth.
Most of the early gods originated from direct observations of the surrounding ecology and only later acquired divine status. Initially, Osiris was an ordinary god of the dead, a nature spirit who had a special relationship to the Nile. The Egyptians lived close to the land and even closer to the river that made life possible. They weren't people who mastered the open seas; only on rare occasions did they sail into the Mediterranean or the Red Seas. The river Nile offered safety and abundance, and Osiris presided over its currents and the tides of life and death. Even today a large percentage of the population is crowded around its busy shores. Until the building of the Aswan High Dam some forty years ago, the Nile annually overflowed its banks with dependable efficacy, fertilizing the arid land and washing away harmful sediments. From the Nile issued the basic elements of civilization: farming, trade, religion, taxation, mathematics, language, building, and transportation. Herodotus, the fifth century–BC Greek historian, justifiably said, "Egypt was a gift of the Nile."
It is difficult to imagine how the Egyptians survived under such harsh desert conditions where temperatures rose to 120 degrees and the hot winds were like blast furnaces. Clearly, without the Nile River there simply wouldn't be an Egypt. This sacred river, the longest in the world, covers a distance of 4,148 miles. Having no tributaries, it gently winds its way northward from Lake Victoria (the White Nile) in Uganda and Lake Tana (The Blue Nile) in Ethiopia, continuing in a northerly direction to the Delta, where it branches out like a tree and eventually empties its waters into the Mediterranean Sea.
Along with rich farm fields skirting the Nile's banks, most of the great monuments, temples, sanctuaries, and pyramids are situated within close reach of its waters. To behold the Nile is something special. Especially in the south, one can easily fall into a reverie recalling times when garlanded boats bearing golden statues of Hathor and Horus sailed up and down the river to bring these deities of love and strength into an embrace. Another glance back reveals supply boats carrying red granite from Aswan to Cairo to build the pyramids of Giza and a flotilla of military boats transporting huge armies to foreign lands. Even today, it is a wonder to see people from the world over journeying from Aswan to Luxor, a river course that has been a tourist attraction for hundreds of years. Given the right frame of mind, visitors can hear the voices of the gods. They are everywhere.
Nearly everything in Egypt is named after a god. The god of the Nile was Hapy, but Osiris was its spirit. Osiris symbolized the ebb and flow on which life depended. The annual inundation vitalized the land and made agriculture possible. Osiris taught the people how to farm their land.
Agriculture transformed Egypt economically, militarily, and spiritually. Law, trade, and mathematics were necessary as the society became increasingly reliant on its ecology to produce food. Ample evidence supports the view that, before Egypt became an agrarian society, people there practiced cannibalism for a variety of reasons. Survival alone did not account for this practice; they believed that consuming human flesh was a magical means of acquiring the strengths of their victims. The ultimate prize for accumulating enough power was immortality. With agriculture, new sources of food became available, and excess resources allowed for the creation of a code of law, order, and a standing army.
However, more than the introduction of agriculture was necessary to stop uncivilized activity. In fact, it took a god to bring civility to the land. The cult of Osiris forbade the eating of human flesh or at least prohibited the consumption of fellow Egyptians; eating raw meat and cannibalizing foreigners continued for some time. Cannibalism eventually ceased and transformed into a metaphor used at great length in the Cannibal Hymn. In this text, the pharaoh Unas "eats the magic" and "gulps down the spirits."
The Nile's annual inundation made agriculture possible. The new year began when the Nile overflowed its banks in July, and the first season of the year was called Inundation. Emergence, the second season, followed when the crops were harvested, and finally, summer, "the Time When the Land Is Dry," arrived. Each of these three seasons had four thirty-day months. But because this 360-day calendar was not accurate, the Nile's inundation was increasingly late each year, a mistake that caused havoc for farmers. To correct the error, the pharaoh declared that five days would be added to the year, making for a 365-day year. To explain how the adjustment was made is simple enough, but since our purpose is to understand the Egyptian psyche, we will do better to recall the myth explaining how these five extra days were added to the calendar. In the next chapter, I tell how Thoth tricks Ra and exacts these extra days, during which time the gods of the Osiris myth come into existence.
As I mentioned earlier, Abydos is a very ancient city that unquestionably holds the most significant meaning for Osiris. His spirit is still very much alive at the Temple of Seti I in Abydos. At first sight, Osiris's temple is different. It doesn't have the usual imposing pylons (highwalled gates) that stand before most Egyptian temples. To get to Abydos one travels in a convoy for some six miles inland from the banks of the Nile. This desert city was the traditional cemetery of the old kings; the tomb of Narmer is among eleven royal tombs found there. Great feasts and ceremonies were held at Abydos for thousands of years. It was the cemetery for Thinis, capital of old Egypt. A funerary temple, begun by the pharaoh Seti I was built in Abydos—a great honor to a great warrior. The Temple of Seti I was built in front of statues—the "houses of the ka"—that originally served to keep the kings alive long after their physical death. Abydos was regarded as the transit point for the dead, where spirits returned for food, shelter, and contact with the living. It is also home to Rostau, the supposed entryway to the duat.
Once Osiris became a popular god, he replaced Ra, or perhaps merged with him, in the solar boat carrying the light of the sun (consciousness) through the duat. Over time Osiris's image changes from a cosmic deity who keeps chaos and the enemies of consciousness (Seth, Apopis) at bay to a god who is closer to the struggles and challenges faced by humans. In this latter role he is besieged by evil, teaches people how to farm, and holds court at the judgment of each person's soul. But what sets Osiris apart from every other Egyptian god is that he is the only god who suffers and dies. Here we must dispense with rationality, for reason alone dictates that a god is immortal. Again, we resort to mythic imagination to appreciate the meaning of Osiris's death. Surely we can sooner relate to a god who shares with us the most defining event of our life in the temporal world—death. But, more than dying, Osiris also resurrects, and in his resurrection we find hope that life does not end with the termination of physical existence. Thus, each person strove to "become Osiris," and in death the deceased married his or her name with that of the god.
Osiris represents a new order of gods, a consciousness just becoming self-aware and learning to manage the outer world. His interactions with humans are simple and somewhat childlike. It is easy at times to confuse him with nature, and, as we shall see, he comes from the Neteru, a term that may well have given rise to our word for nature. Only through his son Horus, who represents the next level of consciousness (ego), does Osiris understand the complexities of human motives. Osiris's innocence makes for a pliable image that pharaohs were certain to include in their pronouncements.
The first god worshiped in Egypt was the star Sirius (Sopdet), which for seventy days each year sank below the horizon. Its reappearance more or less coincided with the Inundation, marking the beginning of the new year, the time when the fields once again sprang to life. The second god that gained widespread attention was the cow, symbol of the Great Goddess. Her horns adorn the headdress of Hathor. Adoration of the Great Mother was a means used by various pharaohs to attain divine status. By associating himself with the goddess, a pharaoh assumed her royal position and her power. Through sympathetic magic, the pharaoh absorbed the energy of her ka, the life-giving energy of all things natural and supernatural. He then took the name Kamutef, Bull of the Mother, and through her power he came to represent life itself. At the same time, every pharaoh paid homage to Osiris, since he too held great power as a fertility god. The divine Apis bull is an image of Osiris's ka.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Embodying Osiris by Thom F. Cavalli. Copyright © 2010 Thom F. Cavalli. Excerpted by permission of Theosophical Publishing House.
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Table of Contents
Illustrations viii
Pronunciation Key for Major Egyptian Gods and Pharaohs ix
Foreword xi
Introduction: Equal to God 1
1 In the Land of His Birth 25
2 Alchemy, Magic, and Osiris 47
3 Disturbance in the Matrix 69
4 Dark Deeds 81
5 Party to a Murder 91
6 Rise Up! 105
7 Isis, Heka, and Alchemy 121
8 Solve et Coagula 133
9 Changing of the Gods 153
10 Courting Opposites 165
11 Ma'a-kheru 177
12 Embodying God 189
Acknowledgments 211
Appendix 1 Egyptian Gods that Appear in this Book 213
Appendix 2 Time Line and Brief Dynastic History 225
Appendix 3 Map of Ancient Egypt 228
Notes 229
Bibliography 253
Illustration Credits 261
Index 263
About the Author 277