Tuesday, November 30, 2010

pyramids notes

How The Pyramids Were Built: The Diamond Matrix and the Number 7

How The Pyramids Were Built: The Diamond Matrix and the Number 7One of the first questions that is asked when the topic of pyramids arises is “How did the ancient Egyptians build the pyramids?” We’ve explored a few of these theories in the six-part series here at Talking Pyramids – from the traditional theories to the more innovative ideas such as Jean-Pierre Houdin’s Internal Ramp thory.

Just when you thought you’d heard them all, up pops another new theory explaining how the pyramids were built. This new theory was developed by Ole Jørgen Bryn, Associate professor from the Faculty of Architecture and fine Arts at the Norwegian University of Sciense and Technology (NTNU) and was published earlier this year in a scientific article in the Nordic Journal of Architectural Research.

In the paper Bryn explains how the construction of most of the Egyptian pyramids could have been carried out using a simple grid and the number seven.

Here’s an exert from the NTNU’s website:

What Bryn discovered was quite simple. He believes that the Egyptians invented the modern building grid, by separating the structure’s measuring system from the physical building itself, thus introducing tolerance, as it is called in today’s engineering and architectural professions…

…Bryn has studied the plans from the thirty oldest Egyptian pyramids, and discovered a precision system that made it possible for the Egyptians to reach the pyramid’s last and highest point, the apex point, with an impressive degree of accuracy. By exploring and making a plan of the pyramid it is possible to prepare modern project documentation of not just one, but all pyramids from any given period.

As long as the architect knows the main dimensions of a pyramid, he can project the building as he would have done it with a modern building, but with building methods and measurements known from the ancient Egypt, Bryn says.

In a scientific article published in May 2010 (Retracing Khufu’s Great Pyramid in the Nordic Journal of Architectural Research, vol 22, no. 1/2, 2010) Bryn discusses aspects that can explain the construction of a multitude of the Egyptian pyramids by taking the building grid, and not the physical building itself, as the starting point for the analysis.

Could Ole Jørgen Bryn be right?

Download his paper to read more about the theory: Retracing Khufu’s Great Pyramid. The “diamond matrix” and the number 7 (right-click and ‘save as’).

Tags: Khufu

Saturday, November 20, 2010

Unique Crown suggests Arsinoë II ruled as King of Lower Egypt

A unique queen’s crown with ancient symbols combined with a new method of studying status in Egyptian reliefs forms the basis for a re-interpretation of historical developments in Egypt in the period following the death of Alexander the Great.

In the thesis 'The Crown of Arsinoë II', Maria Nilsson shows that Cleopatra VII was not the only Ptolemaic female pharaoh – Queen Arsinoë II came first, 200 years earlier. Nilsson argues that Arsinoë (316-270 BC) should be included in the official pharaonic king list as Ptolemy II's co-regent; her royal authority should be considered equivalent to Hatshepsut, Tawosret and Amenirdis II, as one of the most important royal women in Egyptian history.

Researchers largely agree on Queen Arsinoë II’s importance from the day that she was deified. The queen was put on a level with the ancient goddesses Isis and Hathor, and was still respected and honoured 200 years after her death when her better-known descendant Cleopatra wore the same crown. But the reasons behind Arsinoë’s huge influence have been explained in many different ways.

Maria Nilsson, from the University of Gotenburg in Sweden, has studied her historical importance by interpreting the Macedonian queen's personal crown and its ancient symbols. The crown, which has never been found but is depicted on statues and Egyptian reliefs, was created with the help of the Egyptian priesthood to symbolise the qualities of the queen. In her thesis 'The crown of Arsinoë II. The creation and development of an imagery of authority' (available online here), Nilsson questions the traditional royal line which excludes female regents, and defies some researchers’ attempts to minimise Arsinoë’s importance while she was still alive.

“My conclusion instead is that Arsinoë was a female pharaoh and high priestess who was equal to and ruled jointly with her brother and husband, and that she was deified during her actual lifetime,” says Nilsson. “It was this combination of religion and politics that was behind her long-lived influence.”

As early as Predynastic times, ancient Egyptian rulers depicted themselves, in line with their gods, wearing different crowns. Six main forms are documented from at least the early dynastic period, and still regularly depicted – although elaborated upon – in the Ptolemaic and Roman periods; the khepresh (or blue crown), the white crown, the red crown, the double crown, the double feather plume and the atef (or ostrich feather) crown. So far archaeologists have not found any physical royal crowns, and Egyptologists have to make do with studying depictions of the various crowns on tomb paintings and reliefs.

The crown became an ideal tool for communicating individuality and status when all the other elements were fundamentally locked in artistic tradition and strictly regulated

Until the Ptolemaic period, the double crown was the most important and powerful royal crown, rarely receiving any pictorial additions. However, Arsinoë II's crown was based on the composition of different pictorial elements; the red crown, ram horns, the double feather plume and the cow horns with solar disc. By wearing a traditional crown, the Ptolemaic queen would have associated herself with the previous pharaonic ruling couples, as well as the divine world of Egypt, but the new composition of elements can be seen as an expression of a more individualistic symbolic approach.

“The crown became an ideal tool for communicating individuality and status when all the other elements were fundamentally locked in artistic tradition and strictly regulated,” writes Nilsson.

Ann Wuyts

According to Nilsson, the crown was created for the living queen, and reflects the main three aspects of Arsinoë's positions – her royal position as King of Lower Egypt, high priestess and God's wife of Amun, and her status of goddess, both during and after her lifetime as thea Philadelphos – can be clearly identified in the crown's iconography. It indicates that she was proclaimed female pharaoh during her lifetime, and that she was regarded the female founder of the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

Arsinoë's crown can be found in at least 27 variations, and was later worn by Ptolemaic queens Cleopatra III and VII. However, it was not only Cleopatra who wanted to re-use Arsinoë’s important and symbolic crown. Male descendants – all named Ptolemy – used her crown as a template when creating a new crown which they gave to the goddess Hathor to honour the domestic priesthood and so win its support when Egypt was gripped by civil war.

“Evidently, this crown was accepted throughout the ages as an individual attribute of Hathor of Dendera, while the crown of Arsinoë, in its original form, disappeared with Cleopatra VII,” writes Nilsson. “The most important conclusion that comes out of this study of the later Hathoric crown is that the Ptolemies found an Egyptian divine couple that could complement their claimed Greek divine ancestry, that Hathor of Dendera and Horus of Edfu signified and personified the male and female side of the Ptolemaic dynasty at the time of the crowns' introduction.”

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Nilsson's thesis is structured around the crown and includes its wider context in the reliefs (with a most fascinating chapter about size and position, relative scaling and the 'crown line' (p 343-392), demonstrating that Arsinoë 's crown placed the queen as the most important figure in a majority of scenes) and paves the way for future studies of Egyptian crowns as symbols of power and status – for instance the difference between crowns worn by Egyptian woman in their roles as queens and those worn by priestesses.

“The creation of Queen Arsinoë’s crown was just the beginning,” she says.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Notes on Magick in Egypt

Magic in Ancient Egypt
Geraldine Pinch
Papyrus Jumilhac
The Coffin Texts,
Book of Overthrowing Apep.
Book of Breakthing
Book of the Heavenly Cow
Papyrus Jumilhac
Turin Magickal Papyrus
The Book of Two Ways
The Brooklyn Magical Papyrus
The Contending of Horus and Setti
The Books of the End of the Year
The Book of the Last Day of the Year
Papyrus Westcar
Papyrus Lee
Papyrus Rolliri
Papyrus Vandief)
Papyrus Westcar
Bremner-Rhind Papyrus
ChesterBeatty
Papyrus Ebers
The Book of Two Ways







Heka could be identified with the creator himself, particularly when
the latter appeared in child form to symbolize the emergence of new life.
Heka is also described as the ba (the soul or manifestation) of the sun
god. He was the energy which made creation possible and every act of
magic was a continuation of the creative process.


Some Egyptian deities were merely personifications of abstract concepts
or natural phenomena and were never the focus of cult worship or
private devotion. No major temples were built for Heka, but he did have
a priesthood and shrines were dedicated to him in Lower (northern)
Egypt. There was also a goddess called Weret Hekau 'Great of Magic'.
Originally this was just an epithet, applied to a number of goddesses. As
a goddess in her own right, Weret Hekau was usually shown in cobra
form. She was one of the goddesses who acted as a foster-mother to the
divine kings of ancient Egypt and she was the power immanent in the
royal crowns. The snake-shaped wands used by magicians probably
represent her (fig. 3).
All deities and lesser supernatural beings, including the forces of
chaos, had their own heka. It was considered as much a part of them

The evil manifestations of
Seth are shown on a tiny scale compared with the commanding figures
of the god Horus and his mother Isis (fig. 6). From the artistic point of
view, the effect is ridiculous, but good had to be shown as triumphant.
Evil had to be shown as bound to fail. Reducing the power of the enemy
by reducing his scale was a magical technique as well as an artistic
convention.

'One is able to work magic
for a person by means of their name'. Blustering Seth calls himself by
grand names belonging to other deities. He claims to be 'Yesterday and
Tomorrow' and 'Pot of milk that flows from the breast of Bastet'. Horus
dismisses these and other names. Eventually, Seth admits that his name

is 'the evil day on which nothing can be conceived or born'. This name
expresses Seth's true nature, so Horus can then work his magic.
The spell requires the human patient to be identified with Seth, in
spite of this god's bad reputation. Seth was a force of chaos, but it was
not until a late stage in Egyptian culture that he was seen as totally evil. In
the Underworld Books, Seth defends Ra against Apep. One badly
preserved myth tells how the strength and cunning of Seth were needed
to save the goddess Astarte from a sea god who was demanding her as
tribute.

One of the basic principles of Egyptian
magic was that like should be fought with like.

R.o. FAULKNER The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts Oxford, 1969.
R.O. FAULKNER The Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts 3 vols. Warminster,
1973 /1977/1978.
R.O. FAULKNER & C.ANDREWS The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead London,
1985.
M. LICHTHEIM Ancient Egyptian Literature Vols. I—II, Berkeley, 1973/1976.
H. TE VELDE Seth, God of Confusion Leiden, 1977

(The Contending! of Horus and Setti), Osiris threatens to send demon messengers from the Duat into the
realm of the gods if his son Horus is not made king of Egypt. This seems
to reflect an ancient view of Osiris as the grim ruler of a demon host
which posed a threat to the living.

The Book of the Heavenly Cow refers to chaos snakes living in the earth as
a danger to gods and humanity.

In magical papyri dating to Roman times, Anubis acts as the main enforcer of curses

These wands
are flat, curved objects usually made of hippopotamus ivory. They are
decorated with some of the earliest representations of a whole range of
supernatural beings and divine manifestations (figs 19, 20, 38, 70).
These objects are sometimes called magic knives, but they are nothing
like the knives held by protective deities. The shape may be derived from
a type of throwstick used against birds. Flocks of wild birds were a
symbol of the forces of chaos in Egyptian art, so the throwsticks used to
kill or stun them, or the clap-nets used to catch them, could symbolize
the victory of order over chaos. In private magic they were emblems of
the control a magician hoped to exercise over demons.

They describe how the donor has been 'made to see darkness by day' after offending a deity

demons with foreign
names are quite common in Egyptian magical texts. They are usually
hostile beings who have no useful function and must be driven away.
Nubian, Libyan and Syrian magicians are mentioned in spells, but
foreign demons nearly all have names derived from the Semitic
languages spoken in Syria-Palestine. A class of samana demons was
blamed for various types of sickness, particularly fevers and infectious
diseases. Knowledge of foreign myth and magic may have come to
Egypt with immigrants and captives from Syria-Palestine.

the word akh had become a
general term for demon. Earlier, it referred mainly to dead people who
had acquired the status of a transfigured spirit through the use of
funerary magic


The intervention of the dead in the affairs of the living was not always
benevolent. Letters to the dead sometimes accuse akhu of causing
sickness, legal problems, and other disasters. Emotional as well as
physical problems might be blamed on supernatural beings. One text
implies that akhu might be the cause of discord in the home by
possessing people and making them bad-tempered and quarrelsome.1

Another Egyptian word for the dead, mut, nearly always seems
to refer to jealous and dangerous ghosts. Many magical spells promise
protection against any male or female dead person who might try to
inflict harm. The female dead seem to have been particularly feared.

there was nothing heretical about believing in demons and
hostile manifestations of deities.

J. BORGHOUTS 'The Evil Eye of Apopis.'Journal of Egyptian Anhaeo/ogy 59,
1973.

A story in Papyrus Jumilhac (c. 300 BC) explains the custom by relating
how Seth once turned himself into a panther after attacking the body of
Osiris.3 Anubis captured and branded the panther, creating the leopard's
spots. The jackal god decreed that leopard skins should be worn by
priests in memory of his victory over Seth.

A few personal letters from the late second millennium BC
preserve references to women who were called rekhet— 'knowing one'.5
These wise women were consulted as seers who could get in touch with
the dead. A magical text of the late first millennium BC features a wise
woman who is able to diagnose what is wrong with a sick child (see
Chapter Ten). The idea seems to be that the woman can sense which evil
spirit or deity is responsible. These wise women may have taken on the
role of 'seer' after their childbearing years were over.

A.M. GARDINER 'Professional Magicians in Ancient Egypt.' Proceedings of the
Society for Biblical Archaeology 39, 1917.
P. GHALIOUNGI The Physicians of Pharaonic Egypt Cairo/Mainz 1983.
M. LICHTHEIM Ancient Egyptian Literature Vol. in Berkeley, 1980.
S. SAUNRRON 'Le monde du magicien egyptien.' in Le monde du sorcier Sources
Orientales 7, Paris 1966.
S. SAUNERON (trans.A.Morrissett) The Priests of Ancient Egypt New York,
1960.

In another part of the rite, the names and forms were copied onto
papyrus before being sealed in a box and buried. This method of control
seems to be a forerunner of the Islamic tradition of sealing a djinn in a
Bottle

The modern superstition
that you can harm or even kill someone by writing their name on a slip of
paper and shutting it in a drawer is in the same tradition.

Wax figures were made of Apep and of the enemies of Egypt who
were held to be his associates. The humans figurines had their hands tied
behind their backs with red or black thread. The wax models were spat
on, trampled, stabbed with an iron weapon and burned. A similar fate is
shown for models of Seth and his followers in another magical papyrus
in the British Museum (fig. 30). Any remains were pounded in pots of
urine, which was both polluting and destructively acidic.


spell to counter the
poisonous efflux of a demon or ghost also uses a whole range of magical

It evokes the protection of Mafdet, a ferocious feline goddess,
and alludes to a myth in which Horus evaded the sexual advances
of Seth. The names of the supernatural enemy and his parents are to be
uttered, if known, in order to bring them under control. The rubric is
obscure, but it seems that the spell is to be said over a phallus-shaped
loaf inscribed with the names of the enemy. This loaf is to be wrapped in
fatty meat and given to a cat. As the cat devours the loaf so, on the
supernatural plane, the goddess Mafdet will destroy the enemy.


The rubric describes how the magician is to put a particular sort of
black Nile fish into the rose-scented oil. The fish is to be hung up for
some days and then placed in a glass vessel with some kind of plant that
was linked with Isis. The pounded flesh is mixed with the oil and an
incantation is to be said seven times over the mixture at dawn for seven
days running. The magician was to anoint his head with the oil when he
wanted to sleep with the woman he desired.
The remains of the fish were to be embalmed with myrrh and natron
and buried in the magician's house, or in any secret place. Burial of
magical objects or ingredients was a common method of perpetuating
the power of a spell in a particular place. An alternative was to bury the
magical objects or ingredients among tombs, or near a sacred place, so
that the heka of the supernatural beings who dwelled there could
continue to reinforce the spell.

divination through dreams or
manifestations of deities — the elaborate preparations seem designed to
put the magician's assistant into a trance.
In one such spell in the London-Leiden Papyrus, the magician is to take a
bronze bowl engraved with a figure of Anubis, fill it with water and cover
the water with a film of oil. The child medium is to be made to lie on four
bricks with a cloth over his head. The magician lights a lamp on one side
of the child and a censer on the other. He is then to burn exotic incense
and chant an invocation to Anubis over and over again. It is hardly
FURTHER READING
R.O. FAULKNER 'The Bremner-Rhind Papyrus i-iv.' Journal of 'Egyptian
Archaeology 22—24, 1936—38.
F. LEXA Magie dans I'Egjipte antique Vol. i, Paris 1925.
M.J. RAVEN 'Wax in Egyptian Magic and Symbolism.' Oudheidkundige
Mededelingen het Rijksmuseum van Oudheden te I^eiden 64, 1983.
R.K. RITNP;R The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice Chicago, 1993.
89

Among the most sinister objects from the ancient world are
figurines in human shape which were used to cast a spell on the
people they depicted. Such objects only survive when they were
buried as part of the rite, usually in the vicinity of tombs. The British
Museum has a small figurine made in dark wax which dates to the period
when Egypt was under Roman rule (figs 46,47). It has strands of human
hair pushed into its navel and a scrap of papyrus inserted in its back. The
hair would transfer the essence of the person it belonged to into the
figurine. Rites performed over the figurine would then affect the owner
of the hair. In the Graeco-Egyptian papyri, some curse spells recommend
mixing the hair of the intended victim with the hair of a dead
person. The scrap of papyrus which contained the written component of
the spell is now unreadable, so the exact purpose of this wax figurine
remains unknown.
A more gruesome figurine, now in the Louvre Museum, Paris, is in the
form of a woman with her arms tied behind her back (fig. 48). Nails have
been driven deep into the clay body of the woman. Drawing on parallels
from European witchcraft or Caribbean voodoo, the obvious assumption
is that this figurine was intended to kill the woman depicted or to
cause her severe pain. However, written sources prove that figurines
were used in variety of ways in Egyptian magic. Objects found with the
Paris figurine make it clear that infliction of physical harm was not the
intention.1


The Paris figurine was buried inside a clay pot together with a lead
lamella inscribed with a love charm in Greek. The charm invokes Thoth,
Anubis, Antinoos (a lover of the Emperor Hadrian who was deified after
drowning in the Nile) and the spirits of the dead. Several spells in the
Graeco-Egyptian papyri for gaining the love of a man or woman
describe just this type of procedure. A magical papyrus in the Louvre
directs the magician or would-be lover to make a figurine in the form of a
kneeling woman with her hands tied behind her back. The names of
powerful demons are to be written on the woman's limbs. Possibly the
Paris figurine conceals a scrap of papyrus with such names written on it.
The lover then pierces the body with thirteen needles or nails, saying
each time 'I pierce the stomach or throat [etc.] of X, that she may think
of no-one but me'.

An invocation to deities, demons and spirits was to be written on a
lead tablet and tied to the figurine with a knotted cord, or buried close to
the figurine in a graveyard. If possible, these objects were to be buried in
the grave of someone who had died young or through violence. Such
spirits were more likely to linger on earth and show malice against the
living, so they could be manipulated by the magician. The only pains to
be inflicted by the needles were the pains of love. The magician intended
to make his victim wild with desire.

Nectanebo is said to have repelled invasions by making wax
models of his own ships and men and those of the invaders. After
placing them all in a bowl of water, Nectanebo would wave his ebony
rod and invoke gods and demons to animate the wax models and sink
the enemy ships. This caused the real enemy fleet to founder, until the
day when the gods decreed that his reign should come to an end and
Nectanebo was forced to flee to Macedonia

In
The Book of Overthrowing Apep, wax models are made of current enemies of
the state, as well as of the eternal forces of chaos. These enemies were
identified by the use of their names and then destroyed in a variety of
ways. Similar rituals are known from other sites, such as the temple of
the goddess Mut at Heliopolis and the temple of Osiris at Abydos
(fig. 30). Magic of this kind can be traced back at least as far as the late
third millennium BC.
A spell in The Coffin Texts refers to the breaking of pots and figurines.
Archaeologists have found the remains of such rites at the royal cemeteries
of Giza, Saqqara and Lisht, and at several Egyptian forts in Nubia.
Broken pots and clay or stone figurines are inscribed in the hieratic script
with lists of the enemies of Egypt. The body of the figurine may be
flattened into a tablet shape to give more space for the text. On the back,
the arms, or the arms and the legs, are bound together. In the more
detailed examples, the heads display foreign features and hairstyles.

The Execration Texts provide valuable information on the foreign
enemies of Egypt, but the lists soon became fixed. Names were
repeated, sometimes in garbled versions, long after an enemy had ceased
to be a physical danger. The spirits of defeated enemies or executed
traitors were probably regarded as a continuing supernatural threat,
which needed to be met with magic. Some of the Execration Texts end
with a section mentioning every evil word, thought, plot or dream. The
wording is similar to that of contemporary spells on papyrus which
promise to protect against the malice of demons and ghosts. The
Egyptians named in the Execration Texts are referred to as mut, the same
word used of the troublesome dead in protective spells for private
persons.
The red pots on which execration texts were written were ritually
broken as part of the cursing ceremony in order to smash the enemy's
Power

There were various magical techniques for disabling the enemies
represented by such figurines. Some crude mud execration figures from
a cemetery at Lisht were found in a model sarcophagus (outer coffin).
The Cairo Museum has several boxes containing clay 'captive figurines'.
The Book of Overthrowing Apep also mentions burying figurines, or figures
drawn on papyrus, in boxes. This was presumably done within the
temple precincts where the gods could guard the boxes. The most
graphic ritual was the burning of wax figurines in special furnaces.
Traces of melted wax were found beside the skull of the sacrificed
Nubian at Mirgissa, and some magical papyri show the burning of
enemies in furnaces or cauldrons (fig. 30).

The principle of transference is sometimes mentioned in the rubrics
to spells. A spell to relieve stomach-ache in a papyrus of the late second
millennium BC: is to be said over a 'woman's statue of clay'. The rubric
goes on to explain that the affliction would then be sent down into the
'Isis statue'.


but the standard practice
was probably to absorb the statue's magic by touching it, or by drinking
water poured over it. One of the inscriptions describes the king as the
lion who chases away all (hostile) gods and spirits. The whole monument
seems to be emphasizing that it is the king who is providing this magical
service for his workforce and protecting the cities of Egypt from
incursions by desert creatures.

Temple statues of priests and officials also provided a public service.
To set up a statue of yourself in an Egyptian temple was a privilege
confined to temple personnel or granted to important officials as a mark
of royal favour. Such statues were thought to provide an alternative body
for the person's ka. The ka became a resident of the temple and could
share in the offerings made there to the gods. Temple statues of the early
part of the second millennium BC often have inscriptions which address
the staff of the temple, promising good fortune for them and their
descendants if they will make offerings to the statue-owner. Similar
inscriptions are found on the outer areas of tombs and are based on the
belief that the dead could act on behalf of the living, particularly in
celestial courts of justice

Texts of this era begin to describe the use of specific amulets. Some of
the passages in The Coffin Texts which mention amulets seem to be
adapted from everyday magic. A papyrus now in Berlin describes how to
make an amulet (wedja) for a baby. The spell is to be said over gold and
garnet beads and a seal with the image of a hand and a crocodile.4 Such
seals do survive. The hand and the crocodile will slay, or drive off, any
hostile spirits who approach the baby. The seal and the beads are to be
strung on linen thread and hung at the baby's throat. Many of the strings
of beads and seals found in children's graves had probably been used in a
spell of this sort, but with tragic lack of success.

Some amuletic jewellery of this era shows the same range of creatures
and symbols as the apotropaic wands. A gold and silver ornament,
perhaps designed to be placed around a child's neck, is decorated with
baboons, hares, hawks, snakes, a turtle, two finger amulets, the symbol
of the goddess Bat, wedjat eyes and ankh and djed signs (fig. 57). Its
purpose was probably to place the wearer within a protective circle.

The child is promised long life, good health and ample
possessions. Such things might be requested of a god in any religious
text, but the amuletic decrees also portray the dark and dangerous
aspects of the Egyptian pantheon. They promise to protect the child
against harmful manifestations of deities such as Isis and Thoth, as well
as against demons, foreign sorcerers and the Evil Eye. Particularly
dreaded were Sekhmet and her son Nefertem. The amuletic decrees
claimed to be able help their owners to cheat fate. Any divine messengers
coming to kill or injure the owner of the amulet would be
persuaded or tricked into attacking a substitute.

Some present-day Indian temples contain stelae to
cure snakebite, just as Horus cippi were set up in Egyptian temples

One spell in Papyrus
Leiden 1348 offers protection from head to foot. Each part of the body is
assigned a deity who will be its protection (so). The deities chosen may
evoke particular mythical events or images, transforming the patient's
body into a kind of cosmic map.
The patient's right eye is identified with the solar eye of Ra-Atum and
his left eye with the lunar eye of Horus (see Chapter Two). His back is
Geb and his belly is Nut (see fig. 9). His penis is the baboon god Baba, his
thighs are Isis and Nephthys, and his feet are those of Shu. The text ends
by promising that there isn't a single part of the body which has not been
sealed by a deity. The rubric reveals that all this protection was against
sickness inflicted by hostile ghosts, particularly female ones.

To drive a person mad, it was only necessary to tie a hair
from the victim to a hair from a corpse and fasten them both to the body
of a hawk. A noble spirit might be summoned by invocations from the
necropolis to haunt the dreams of an enemy of the magician. Letters
were written to the dead in order to compel, rather than request, them to
carry out the magician's will

In one example, a curse against a man or woman is written on papyrus
and bound with an iron ring. The papyrus is to be buried when the moon
is waning, in the grave of someone who has died an untimely or violent
death. This gives the victim into the power of the dead person, so that
the latter will enforce the curse. The openly expressed malevolence of
these spells seems unEgyptian, but similar desires may lie behind some
of the earlier letters to the dead. These do not specify exactly how the
akhu are to deal with the writer's enemies.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Dream 11-5-2010

I was taking classes. It was one of those closed communities - in a bubble so to speak. My freind (I dont know who they are)- were exchanging books on witchcraft. Even the cool lauri cabbot book was featured - its orrange. When classes were over, we left to go hang out at a coffee shop, but I had forgotten someting. I really didnt intend to go hang out as I had something else to do, but I had forgotten something. So I went back to look for it in my desk. At the last moment I decided to take my laptop as well.

In my class was a guy - small of stature. And he had been picked on by the other guys. Ususally he had just been ignored by everyone, he was the smartes kid in the class. I rememmber he had dark hair and his uniform was black. I cant remember what the girls wore. I had already changed. He stumbled back in class and kinda fell down beside me. He didnt say anything but I remembered he had such a sad looking expression, it almost made me cry. I had always liked him, but he wasnt known for talking to other people, so we had never talked before. I wrapped my arms around him for a few moments, neither of us saying anything.

I eventually got up to leave, but first had a look around the class. I then went home and went home to start my project. My studdy was very well lit. I remember I recieved a call. In the dream I was doing readings like I normally do in rl. But I hadnt logged in which I thought was odd. I stumbled over my greeting, the caller hung up.

There was something I didnt feel right about so I went back to the class room, stopping first at a book store to pick something up. When I finnally reached the class room some of my freinds came in = muttering about how something was odd about me when we left, but they decided it was fine now. but === there was somethign weird going on .

They were all going somewhere to hide because it seems like mr smart kid was capturing people's consciousness and puting them in andriods. And the andriods were wandering about capturing other people. There was a door in the back of the room that lead to a kind of fall outshelter with one of those humongous computers that tied into the security sys of the entire commune/dome. So we decided to go there.

At one point I saw a tripple headed one and one of my friends was telling me who it was before opening fire and destroying it. Then we reached the shelter and locked ourselves in and I was about to hook up my laptop.

I remember thinking about going to talk to him because for some reason I was convinced he wouldnt make me into an android.

I woke up.

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Egyptian Oracle Houses

Geb - He is the first house, the cause and basis of current situation or the premise upon which the situation is based. In an analysis of any situation or project, it is essential to understand its beginnings. If a situation based on a lie or faulty premise, it can not succeed or prosper until the truth is revealed or the calculations corrected. Regardless of strong and positive signs in other houses, no lasting good can come when aspects of the first house are weak or harmful. If the tile shows a strong and beneficial influence, the foundation is firm, the situation or project may well be worth pursuing, or the relationship worth salvaging. If all other character tiles show neg influences, you might consider waiting until a later time when the indications are more favorable.

Nut - What sustains or nurtures you or the issue. Any situation must have appropriate nurturing to grow to a fruitful outcome. If the nurturing is inadequate or its source blocked, the result will not be what it could have been the proper support been there in the beginning. The tile will show the degree and quality of energy that feeds the issue or relationship, or what is holding the current situation in place. They can also show what is interfering with that nurturing, or what effects that nurturing has on you and the present situation.

Wsr -
Early vegetation ntr. Cycle. Rebirth. He taught agriculture and domestication of animals. He represents you or the question. Shows your current state of mind or state of being, or the nature of the issue under consideration.

Set - aridity and storms - fixation - This position shows what is in the way. They show the guise in which opposition is cloaked so that it might, bring disaster. By considering the nature of it, you can nullify it or avoid the worst part. for further details check the house or heru.

Auset - Mastery - All feelings of the issue also suggestions on how to manipulate the situation - the quality, nature and depths of feelings, they reveal hidden motivations and driving forces of the participants.

Nebt-Het - the things that are dark coming into light. Dreams, things that have not yet come into being or are not yet apparent. What you dont know or see is most often what causes you the greatest difficulty. The resources that you dont recognize that make you miss the opportunities to make your project or relationship prosper. Reveals what is working against you, your own subconscious or issues and calculations you have misjudged or failed to recognize. Reveals hidden sources of strength and assistance that need to be recognized and encouraged.

Heru - home and environment, not only relatives and blood kin but also close friends that are part of your spiritual or emotional family. This is your personal nitch in the world. Shows you the greatest source of strength or your most fatal personal weakness. Counterbalance the forces of set.

Sekhmet - The Powerful. active, fiery principle of the sun and the defender of universal order. divine fire animating creation. mistress of demons who caused and could cure illnesses. Patron of physicians. The powers and forces available to you, your personal powers and inner fire, your force of will. The tiles that fall in this house indicate whether you have sufficient skill and resources to deal with the issue at hand on your own or whether you should seek outside help. The state of your personal health and how it affects and is affects by the subject of the reading.

Anpu - a result of the union with you and your hidden self. As a guide he can be regarded as thus through all life passages. Like a road map, the house of Anpu gives guidance by supplying the insight or information you may need to apply to the issue under consideration. The character tiles in this house often bring all the others into focus and resolve what seems to be confusing elements by revealing their true connection. They may show an aspect of the issue you have not previously examined or give you an idea of where to look to find what you need. They can indicate whether you should trust guidance offered to you from an outside source or heed the voice of your own better judgment and instinct ts. IF the character Ma'at and Uadj are in this house they are good indicators that you should trust your inner feelings and be guided by your intuition. If pyramid or scarab it indicates that the issue at hand is of major significance in your fate or destiny.

Het-Heru - The great mother of the world. Fertility as she constantly brings forth new life. holds ruler ship over cyclical natural changes that are necessary elements of growth. creativity for artists and artisans, and success for enterprises and commercial ventures. Omens for growth and development of the issue under consideration. Indicates the degree to which an issue or relationship will flourish given the current circumstances. Show what is needed and what is hampering the desired development. If subject is a person or relationship. this house can tell you about love and partnerships; what their quality is, how you affect or are affected by them.

Djehuti - the heart, mind and reason of Ra. He spoke the words of Ra's will in order for it to be carried out. Created mdu ntr. All sciences. How to make the best of the situation at hand. The advise not only represents wisdom and understanding but also their application. Tiles in this house show what wisdom can be gained from the experience, or they may advise a course of action.

Ma'at - principle of law, ethical judgment and social order/ harmonious balance of the universe as a whole. Justice. Genuine. Reality in its purest sense stripped of all delusions and facades. Balance, harmony, grace, and order. This is the determination or outcome of the issue in question. This outcome is the synthesis of all influences and powers revealed in the previous houses. In general readings intended to determine the influences prevailing in your life, tiles in this house show the direction your life is going and the probable best one that can come of the forces currently in motion. They also reveal the worst that can come of all the influences because this house also contains what is most feared.

Egyptian Oracle Numbers

One
absolute unity, essence of life, and pure potential as expressed by the qualities of that element. One is conscious existence that has not yet acted or manifested

Two
duality and polarization that produces dynamic tension. The static principle of the potential of completely equal, balanced forces.

Three
the principle of dynamic attraction btwn polarities. three is the passion of the dualities that results in their annihilation, as in the meeting of matter and antimatter. It is the act of reconciliation that results in pure creation.

Four
pure, manifested potential of creativity. a double duality and the four essential elements that are further acted upon to produce realization

Five
union of dynamic tension with active fire. The desire for continuance, instinct for survival, the spirit's search for the infinite. This dynamic results in ever-expanding activity and creativity.

Six
manifestation in the physical world, power of achievement and fulfillment in which survival and continuance are assured and manifested in a kaleidoscopic variety of resulting forms. The Cube representing volume and perfectly balanced solid physical space in which all sides and angles are equal. Equilibrium and stability of physically manifested space.

Seven
signifies the summation and unification of the first six numbers. Seven contains them all, just as pure white light contains all six colors of the spectrum. By manifesting the other numbers simultaneously, seven achieves a distinct identity that brings their diverse natures into resolution is known as the sevenfold unity or harmony. Seven is the ultimate union of spirit with matter and, as the sum of one and six, represents true growth and evolution, enabling true realization.

Egyptian Oracles Elements

Air - Hapi- circulation- move necessary elements to permeate and fill an area so that all parts of an organism or issue can share their qualities. This defines its basic nature and the way in which it will behave or grow. Essential elements or qualities before an action is taken place or form is achieved. Air represents the most basic qualities of thought, consciousness and beginnings. Motion.

Fire - Quebsenuf - the fiery activity and primal motion. Energy, vigor and passion. When the qualities of fire are applied to the conscious identity of air, new combinations and partnerships are possible, engendering strength and protection. When sudden action or danger is precipitated by the acceleration of energies, its forces are transmuted by the strength of fire to allow healing. the information gained from the is transmutational process is assimilated to become wisdom, allowing you to achieve triumph through the results of action.

Water - Imset - the sorting function, the ability to separate a thing or issue into its basic elements. The tiles illustrate watery motion and coalescence. The motion of water moves and lifts all elements then heavier parts sink to the bottom, while lighter ones are carried by the force of the current. Water represents the qualities of nourishment, intuition, and the subconscious transformed by the atma.

Earth - Transmutation - Rebirth - the ability to change raw material into usable form. transfiguration, transmutation and condensation as truth, harmony and reality being revealed.

Divination Studdy 1

Egytian Oracle


Single Omen
(specific question)
potential

Three For Tomorrow

Sa (body) Adaptability
Triumph and Mastery - the strongest benevolent influence
You are in the most advantageous influence

Seshen (Inspiration)
the energies of chaos and negative influence are not focused and diffused. There will be more like a disruption of alliance than a huge disaster.

Ankh (life)
Uadejet - health and influence - protection

Houses One and Two - What has initially caused or generated the current issue and what nurture or holds it in place.

-- House Reading--

Basis

Geb - He is the first house, the cause and basis of current situation or the premise upon which the situation is based. In an analysis of any situation or project, it is essential to understand its beginnings. If a situation based on a lie or faulty premise, it can not succeed or prosper until the truth is revealed or the calculations corrected. Regardless of strong and positive signs in other houses, no lasting good can come when aspects of the first house are weak or harmful. If the tile shows a strong and beneficial influence, the foundation is firm, the situation or project may well be worth pursuing, or the relationship worth salvaging. If all other character tiles show neg influences, you might consider waiting until a later time when the indications are more favorable.
a. Foundation
Water - the sorting function, the ability to separate a thing or issue into its basic elements. The tiles illustrate watery motion and coalescence. The motion of water moves and lifts all elements then heavier parts sink to the bottom, while lighter ones are carried by the force of the current. Water represents the qualities of nourishment, intuition, and the subconscious transformed by the atma.
17 - aat - initiation
3 - the principle of dynamic attraction btwn polarities. three is the passion of the dualities that results in their annihilation, as in the meeting of matter and antimatter. It is the act of reconciliation that results in pure creation.

Tile- R -

Delay. A waste of time. A depressing errand. This initiation will be a distressful struggle. Change comes from force of necessity not inner growth.




Nut
What sustains or nurtures you or the issue. Any situation must have appropriate nurturing to grow to a fruitful outcome. If the nurturing is inadequate or its source blocked, the result will not be what it could have been the proper support been there in the beginning. The tile will show the degree and quality of energy that feeds the issue or relationship, or what is holding the current situation in place. They can also show what is interfering with that nurturing, or what effects that nurturing has on you and the present situation.



b. Nurturing -
Fire - Quebsenuf - the fiery activity and primal motion. Energy, vigor and passion. When the qualities of fire are applied to the conscious identity of air, new combinations and partnerships are possible, engendering strength and protection. When sudden action or danger is precipitated by the acceleration of energies, its forces are transmuted by the strength of fire to allow healing. the information gained from the is transmutational process is assimilated to become wisdom, allowing you to achieve triumph through the results of action.

10 Maau - Lion/Guardian
3 - the principle of dynamic attraction btwn polarities. three is the passion of the dualities that results in their annihilation, as in the meeting of matter and antimatter. It is the act of reconciliation that results in pure creation.

Tile - R -
When Reversed, the forces of the house are weak and vulnerable. You must draw strength from other houses to shore up this weakened aria. The aspect of the issue at hand represented by this house is the area where other negative or harmful energies will enter the situation. This is the place where you are most vulnerable

Elements of The Question
They illustrate you or the issue. The are the current core elements of the matter

Subject of the Divination
Wsr
Early vegetation ntr. Cycle. Rebirth. He taught agriculture and domestication of animals. He represents you or the question. Shows your current state of mind or state of being, or the nature of the issue under consideration.

Fire - Quebsenuf - the fiery activity and primal motion. Energy, vigor and passion. When the qualities of fire are applied to the conscious identity of air, new combinations and partnerships are possible, engendering strength and protection. When sudden action or danger is precipitated by the acceleration of energies, its forces are transmuted by the strength of fire to allow healing. the information gained from the is transmutational process is assimilated to become wisdom, allowing you to achieve triumph through the results of action

12 - Uadjet - eyes of heru/ healing
5- union of dynamic tension with active fire. The desire for continuance, instinct for survival, the spirit's search for the infinite. This dynamic results in ever-expanding activity and creativity.

Tile - R -
ill health and weakened defenses due to an imbalance in your lifestyle either on a physical, emotional, or spiritual basis. You have put too much emphasis in only one area of your life and have left the others unattended. the diminishing of a project or relationship. A warning in the house it occupies, you should examine your efforts immediately so that balance and strength can be restored.


Opposition
Set - aridity and storms - fixation - This position shows what is in the way. They show the guise in which opposition is cloaked so that it might, bring disaster. By considering the nature of it, you can nullify it or avoid the worst part. for further details check the house or heru.

Water - the sorting function, the ability to separate a thing or issue into its basic elements. The tiles illustrate watery motion and coalescence. The motion of water moves and lifts all elements then heavier parts sink to the bottom, while lighter ones are carried by the force of the current. Water represents the qualities of nourishment, intuition, and the subconscious transformed by the atma.
16-Sma-balance/weight/unification
2 - duality and polarization that produces dynamic tension. The static principle of the potential of completely equal, balanced forces.

Tile - R-
the scales are weighted and out of balance. Reevaluate your priorities and attitudes so that a more effective course of action can be taken.


Emotions - Mastery - All feelings of the issue also suggestions on how to manipulate the situation - the quality, nature and depths of feelings, they reveal hidden motivations and driving forces of the participants.

Earth - Transmutation - Rebirth - the ability to change raw material into usable form. transfiguration, transmutation and condensation as truth, harmony and reality being revealed.

27 - Khepri - rebirth transformation
6 - manifestation in the physical world, power of achievement and fulfillment in which survival and continuance are assured and manifested in a kaleidoscopic variety of resulting forms. The Cube representing volume and perfectly balanced solid physical space in which all sides and angles are equal. Equilibrium and stability of physically manifested space.

Tile
Renewing growth in the hosue in which it falls. Issues and forces that have been dormant are awakening in new forms. This is a good omen for stalled projects and undeveloped relationships. Kehpri may also indicate a transforming rebirth for you, especially when found in either the house of wr or ma'at. blocked energies are freed to flow and blocked paths are freed for travel. This may be in a worldly, mental or spiritual sense.


Hidden Forces
Nebt-Het - the things that are dark coming into light. Dreams, things that have not yet come into being or are not yet apparent. What you dont know or see is most often what causes you the greatest difficulty. The resources that you dont recognize that make you miss the opportunities to make your project or relationship prosper. Reveals what is working against you, your own subconscious or issues and calculations you have misjudged or failed to recognize. Reveals hidden sources of strength and assistance that need to be recognized and encouraged.


Earth - Transmutation - Rebirth - the ability to change raw material into usable form. transfiguration, transmutation and condensation as truth, harmony and reality being revealed.

28 - truth, harmony, justice
7- signifies the summation and unification of the first six numbers. Seven contains them all, just as pure white light contains all six colors of the spectrum. By manifesting the other numbers simultaneously, seven achieves a distinct identity that brings their diverse natures into resolution is known as the sevenfold unity or harmony. Seven is the ultimate union of spirit with matter and, as the sum of one and six, represents true growth and evolution, enabling true realization.

Tile - R -
Order is scattered if not overturned. When order doesnt turn to chaos, it solidifies and becomes a narrow prison. Legal judgments go against you. Steps should be taken immediately to restore the balance, or ruin will result. The strings of the harp are out of tune, and the song does not agree or harmonize with the listeners.

Effects - how the issue will be affected or how it will affect you

Home and Environment
Heru - home and environment, not only relatives and blood kin but also close friends that are part of your spiritual or emotional family. This is your personal nitch in the world. Shows you the greatest source of strength or your most fatal personal weakness. Counterbalance the forces of set.

Air - Hapi- circulation- move necessary elements to permeate and fill an area so that all parts of an organism or issue can share their qualities. This defines its basic nature and the way in which it will behave or grow. Essential elements or qualities before an action is taken place or form is achieved. Air represents the most basic qualities of thought, consciousness and beginnings. Motion.

6- Nefer-beuty/maturity
6 - manifestation in the physical world, power of achievement and fulfillment in which survival and continuance are assured and manifested in a kaleidoscopic variety of resulting forms. The Cube representing volume and perfectly balanced solid physical space in which all sides and angles are equal. Equilibrium and stability of physically manifested space.

Tile - R -
things may seem fine on the surface but that beauty only goes skin deep. you should look deeper into the issue; plans or persons may not be what they seem to be. Your plans have been hastily conceived and carelessly executed. you may be indulging in trivialities and neglecting more important , deeper issues or aspects of the situation.

Querrents Personal Powers
Sekhmet - The Powerful. active, fiery principle of the sun and the defender of universal order. divine fire animating creation. mistress of demons who caused and could cure illnesses. Patron of physicians. The powers and forces available to you, your personal powers and inner fire, your force of will. The tiles that fall in this house indicate whether you have sufficient skill and resources to deal with the issue at hand on your own or whether you should seek outside help. The state of your personal health and how it affects and is affects by the subject of the reading.

Earth - Transmutation - Rebirth - the ability to change raw material into usable form. transfiguration, transmutation and condensation as truth, harmony and reality being revealed.

24-Sa- Papyrus-shelter-adaptability
3 - the principle of dynamic attraction btwn polarities. three is the passion of the dualities that results in their annihilation, as in the meeting of matter and antimatter. It is the act of reconciliation that results in pure creation.

Tile
the enviornment has provided all the materials necessary for your productive survival. However, it requires action to put thse resources to use. Examine the house occupide by sa to discover what these resources are and the best way to use them. you must remain both adaptable and aware of changing conditions. All elements necessary for a successful outcome are present, and you have all the skills to make the best use of what the environment provides.

Guidance
Anpu - a result of the union with you and your hidden self. As a guide he can be regarded as thus through all life passages. Like a road map, the house of Anpu gives guidance by supplying the insight or information you may need to apply to the issue under consideration. The character tiles in this house often bring all the others into focus and resolve what seems to be confusing elements by revealing their true connection. They may show an aspect of the issue you have not previously examined or give you an idea of where to look to find what you need. They can indicate whether you should trust guidance offered to you from an outside source or heed the voice of your own better judgment and instinct ts. IF the character Ma'at and Uadj are in this house they are good indicators that you should trust your inner feelings and be guided by your intuition. If pyramid or scarab it indicates that the issue at hand is of major significance in your fate or destiny.

Earth - Transmutation - Rebirth - the ability to change raw material into usable form. transfiguration, transmutation and condensation as truth, harmony and reality being revealed.

23 Menyet- counter poise/ joy/pleasure
2 - duality and polarization that produces dynamic tension. The static principle of the potential of completely equal, balanced forces.

Tile - R -
loss, sorrow, poverty and illness. Infects the houses around it. Abundance becomes a glut, pleasures and luxuries become a burden. Redirect your energies toward a more productive goal.

Love and Pleasure
Het-Heru
The great mother of the world. Fertility as she constantly brings forth new life. holds ruler ship over cyclical natural changes that are necessary elements of growth. creativity for artists and artisans, and success for enterprises and commercial ventures. Omens for growth and development of the issue under consideration. Indicates the degree to which an issue or relationship will flourish given the current circumstances. Show what is needed and what is hampering the desired development. If subject is a person or relationship. this house can tell you about love and partnerships; what their quality is, how you affect or are affected by them.

Earth - Transmutation - Rebirth - the ability to change raw material into usable form. transfiguration, transmutation and condensation as truth, harmony and reality being revealed.

3 -Nef- air/movement/communication
3 - the principle of dynamic attraction btwn polarities. three is the passion of the dualities that results in their annihilation, as in the meeting of matter and antimatter. It is the act of reconciliation that results in pure creation.

Tile - R -
motion is impeded. Travel is delayed. Communications are garbled and missed. Logic and reason are muddied, leading to the blind alleys. Characters in the other houses should be consulted to discover the cause and or remiedy for the impediment. If non seem apparent, you should examin your own goals and motivation to see if the resistance is self-generated.

Probable Outcome

Wisdom and Advise
Djehuti - the heart, mind and reason of Ra. He spoke the words of Ra's will in order for it to be carried out. Created mdu ntr. All sciences. How to make the best of the situation at hand. The advise not only represents wisdom and understanding but also their application. Tiles in this house show what wisdom can be gained from the experience, or they may advise a course of action.


Water - Imset - the sorting function, the ability to separate a thing or issue into its basic elements. The tiles illustrate watery motion and coalescence. The motion of water moves and lifts all elements then heavier parts sink to the bottom, while lighter ones are carried by the force of the current. Water represents the qualities of nourishment, intuition, and the subconscious transformed by the atma.

18 - Sobek - destruction and negativity
4 - pure, manifested potential of creativity. a double duality and the four essential elements that are further acted upon to produce realization

Tile - R -
negativity is diffused and less focused. A general disruption rather than a specific disaster. The position its in should be carefully considered to discern any mediating forces that may be available.

Determination and Synthesis
Ma'at - principle of law, ethical judgment and social order/ harmonious balance of the universe as a whole. Justice. Genuine. Reality in its purest sense stripped of all delusions and facades. Balance, harmony, grace, and order. This is the determination or outcome of the issue in question. This outcome is the synthesis of all influences and powers revealed in the previous houses. In general readings intended to determine the influences prevailing in your life, tiles in this house show the direction your life is going and the probable best one that can come of the forces currently in motion. They also reveal the worst that can come of all the influences because this house also contains what is most feared.


Water - Imset - the sorting function, the ability to separate a thing or issue into its basic elements. The tiles illustrate watery motion and coalescence. The motion of water moves and lifts all elements then heavier parts sink to the bottom, while lighter ones are carried by the force of the current. Water represents the qualities of nourishment, intuition, and the subconscious transformed by the atma.

20 - Ab/heart/conscious
6 - manifestation in the physical world, power of achievement and fulfillment in which survival and continuance are assured and manifested in a kaleidoscopic variety of resulting forms. The Cube representing volume and perfectly balanced solid physical space in which all sides and angles are equal. Equilibrium and stability of physically manifested space.

Tile - R -
when it is reversed, ab indicates that you have been def to your true feeling s and the voice of your conscience. you have denied your inner knoledge of what is right and healthy. YOu are not learning the lessons fo that house occupied by the ab can teach you. If you do not heed your inner voices, nothing of value can result.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

for Ignorance

reading a book literally and not understanding
46:16
it is better off burning it and drinking it....
46:23
it gives protection against evil if done so

Friday, October 29, 2010

Unedited Saga Of Setesh

He awoke, in dull grey, and in pain. Pain was not something he was used to, he atempted to sit up, and then discovered his ankles and wrists were encased in shackles,connected by a single leignth of chain. He couldn't move no matter that he'd wanted to. His limbs were beyond stiff and aching painfully.

His eyes adjusted to the dimn light, the floor on which he seemed to have been tossed (his side, including his head hurt more than the rest of him) was a myrad of collors of tiles, small tiles. The walls were the plain matalic of a storage room . He could be anywhere. He was not one of inactivity, it had never sat well with him, and it seemed it was something in which his father approved:

Peple who like to be lazy are prevedted from doing so by thier own minds. Despite themselves, thier brains keep on working, thier minds generate a lot of false thinking. When you false think, you get caught in the six paths, turning around with out cease. Originally your you wanted to be lazy, but indoing so, you end up taxing your brain even more. You waste no small amount of energy in haing random thoughts and you end up even more tired and more lazy. You get lethargic and feel that everything is meaningless. In this way it is good, the inordinatly lazy don't go aroudn steeling things.and you will accidentally keep the precepts of civilized society.


He closed his eyes, his fear and disorientation choking him, but he remained quiet. His father told him that some day, this may happen. His father had many enamies, he would have to be strong and crafty if he was to survive, let alone escape what ever this was.

He vaguely recalled the breathing excersises his father taught him in order to calm himself down and then, for lack of anything better to do, he stared at the floor in an attempt to discern a patteren. He didnt think there was one, but then again he never studdied art too closely.

His consciousness fled a couple of times. He was not sure how long he had been there, nor any clue as to how he came to be there, he fount the colored tiles to be odly comforting. He distracted himself by counting how many small tiles made up each primary color.

At leangth the door slid open. Four boys, only a few years his senior entered. Each wore the emblem of a House he didn't recognise. He could not have struggled as much as he'd wanted to, as he was incapeable of moving.

One released the long that ran allong his back that his shackles were attatched to, the other looped leads of new chaines through each shackle. One boy per each chain. They then picked him up, cayring him off. They had taken his clothes, who ever they were and had not bothered to replace them.

His throte was too dry and his tongue to swollen to speak, as questions teamed through his mind. It was obvious his Fathers enamies had cought up with them, but why, he wondered .... why was he chained as if he had done wrong? Where was his mother?

His father had made sure he was well educated in the Universal Laws that govorned each planet. To be certain each planet had their own by laws, but no one wanted to face the Golactic Police by ingnoring the Universal Laws, and one of the Universal Laws stated that the Family was not to be punnished for the crim of the one.

He was not sure what it was his father actually did. To be sure he was gone more often than not on his crusade of cleansing the universe of evil, but he'd never quite figured out what that meant. He'd always been under the impression that his father was a man of a Holy Order of some sort.

He and his mother had lead an idylic exsistance on Ookapi, a planet his father had populated with the ....faithful? the Pure? He wondered if he would ever see the system of Kepesh again, and what of the people of the system... where were they? What of the rest of the Ookapi?


He and his mother had lead an idylilc exsistance on the planet of Kepesh where his father had transplanted the survivors of thier race, the ookapi. He had realised when he was six, that he was blessed by the Great God with quick intelligance, he didnt think his father would have visited him at all if he had not been. He had been quick to learn the most common forms of communication and languages of the systems that were a part of Golactic Cenrtal and the histories of each that formed the cohesive whole. He knew also, that he had other siblings, but he had been sperated from then as soon as he'd shown an aptitude for learning.

As if his father didn't want him to be contaminated with normal children as he'd overheard one of the pleathera of servants say.

His four guards had taken him to a healing room, and tossed him on the table as they would a sack of potatoes. Perhaps these people were renagades ... those who hid from the Laws of Golactic Cenrtal?

His head bounced as he impaced the large table they threw him onto, causing him to see stars and believe that perhaps his skull had shattered into thousands of pieces. For a moment he was blinded by the pain of not just his head, but his body.

>Did not one give this child water?<
No response, the were speaking an obscure dialect of the House of the Landed.
>This is descraceful, what did this child do?<
Again, no response from his guards.
Then he felt the vibration of the hum, as augmented by the healing crystals.
>I wonder why he didnt heal himself, or shift, ?< another asked
>Yes all the Ookapi can, but perhaps he is not full Ookapi, his mother was from a House you know<
Everything had snapped back to clearity, and all pain was gone thanks to the healers. He reasised that the guards had not once relinquished the chaines attatched to the shackles. He took a closer look at the shackles.

He recognised them, his father had shown these to him, they would change if he shifted. He decided he would not attempt shifting untill he figured out where he was, planet side of on bord a ship and only if he was sure he could get away. And where was his mother, and for that matter, his father?

The guards jerked him to his feet, and lead him out of the medical center. They atempted to make the pace uncomfortabley fast, and he obliged them by stumbling, however his father had seen to this contingancy and had taught him how to move with ease not to mention how to break away from such things.

It had not been to long ago when Ookapi had been slaves in the Out Planets, those who were not part of Golactic Cenrral. It had been his father who had freed his people, and his father who had colonised Kepesh. Golactic Central had never allowed them admitance, but his father had made sure that the Ookapi had followed Universal Law.

The four would occasionally atempt to jerk him around, he allowed them to. His father told him that it was alsways best to allow people to underestimate you untill you are sure of your position of dominance. He was certain he could get out of his bindings, and probably away from this place if it was planet side, however if he was on a ship, one of the floating houses (if he was not planet side it had to be a Floating House) would prove a bit more difficult, however, only a bit.

At leangth they entered a throne room, to where there was an grossely obesce woman languishing on her gilded chair. One couldnt see much of the guilding as her large perportions draped over it in all maner of unsavory directions. He recognised her easaly, Reret of the Het-Khat Trading Family.

The four braught him to stand in such a close proximity to the gelatonous woman that he could smell and fell her breath. The pulse in her neck quickened. She ran her hand over his skin, in a way no other had, and a way he was taught not to tolerate, he jerked back from her, instinctively, not removing his defyant eyes from her descusting leer. The leer deepened, he saw it comming and held himself in position as she hit him with suprising force with the pain rod.



After he woke some time later, how long he was not sure, he reasoned that it shouldnt have been suprising, after all it was a pain rod. He was back in the storage room equipt witht he shackles and chain that bound his arms and legs behind his back.

"why do people kill eachother?" Sethesh
his father remained imoble for a time, Sethesh of course immitated him.
"You are young, so I must choose my words carefully. There are many excuses as to why people will and feel they must kill, however, it can be sumned up as contention. You die and I live. This contention rattles about the mind untill it looses its connection with everyone and everything.

"why do people steel?"

"Greed. It infects the brain, the false thinking can start with, if only I had this thing, I will be happy. Happyness and contentment does not come from things. You could say greed, or desire.


"why are some people alloted many wives whial our people only choose one? And even so, why do people sneak behind their one's back and go to another, is that also greed and desire?"

"It is so, and these people seek other people and things in order to attain that ellusive completelness/satisfaction. In reality Betrayal and gratification of sexual desires leads to, at the least hurt feelings, but to violence and a certain amount of disease, not to mention unwanted children who do to receave the benifits of proper parenting."

"Isnt that selfishness too?"

"Selfishness ties into many things including fase speach."

"Lying?"

"Or yelling, or abusive words. Selfish minds are crazy. They are afraid of loosing what ever might come their way, so they cheet and lie, dominate and subjigate. They think that if they do these things, they will remove the contention of others."

"what about the drunkards?"

"There are more kinds of intoxicants other than drink, and falling under that influance begins a pleathera of of one or more of the above. being selfish and seeking self benifit may apear harmless at first but when you step back to view the situations that arise you see a much more insane picture. Because their selfishness is so extreme, they lose thier sense of right and wrong, or even pretend that there are no such things as they would get in the way of their pursuit of self indulgence. One adicted to the fasle high that intoxicants bring, they mentally die, though not at all painful, it seems like ultimate bliss even imortal. When they are in this state, they loose sence of propriety and do what ever they want. Thier lust arises, and so the take even more intoxicants, which not only dammage the mind but the body as well.

There are many arguements for the ingestion of such things, people hide behind health reasons, but it makes them blind to all but thier selfishness and self gratification.

To live in maat, to live in the universal order, to be at peace one should keep these things in mind No Contention, No greed, no self seeking, no selfishness, no self benifiting."

"How can anyone do all that?" he asked astounded.
"I don't see you haveing problems with it."
"Im not a grown up yet."




His shoulders were out of joint. He closed his eyes, breathing and shifted slightly.He was taught to ignore pain when all else was avoidable, but there was no point in wallowing in it.

He knew to be careful about what part of himself he shifted as changing anything that may loosen the special shackles would set off the shackles which would do anything from insiting massive pain to mearly changing color. He concentrated on his shoulders, ligaments and such, just so that he would be in less pain, but not enough that it would be noticable by even the medics.

So it appeared as if these people though that the Ookapi shifting did not breed true from one race to another. That was definately to his advantage. Since he was being held by the Het-Khat Nut family, he must be abord a Floating House, as they were one of the most prominant and wealthy of the Traders. Not all Trading groups were allowed the title of House as if they ruled a planet.

He closed his eyes, then placed himself in a waking state of catatonia. He then searched his memory to see if he could determine how he'd come to be here. The only thing he remembered was the odd cloud. They'd probably poisoned the atmosphere. Everyone would have been affected at the same time. That means there had to have been an agent who'd smuggled himself planet side..

The four guards came again at leangth, making sure to take him to side trip to the medicks who healed his 'torn' ligaments and rehydrated him and replenished his body with the nutients it needed. It wasnt the same as eating and he was ravinously hungrey, but he wouldnt suffer from malnutricion.



Agin they placed him in front of the laschevious minded obesce woman. Again he steped away and again she'd infliced dammage with the pain rod. He actually prefered it to her attentions.

If you have thoughts that you are someone special and extrodinary you are just giving rise to arogance. By doing that you leave yourself open ofr a deviant demon to enter your heart. Once that happns you will give rise to deviant knowledge and views to an impure and insane kindo f wisdom. You will become a glib talker to the point that even if you know you are wrong you will still distort the situation so taht you come out on top. YOu will be able to rationalise everything.

“But, Father, why do bad things have to happen, why do bad people succeed ? If there was truly maat in the universe, how can this be?”

If there is no evil, then the good can't be revealed.
If there are no unfilial children then the filial
ones wont be made apparetn
If there is no treachery, then loyalty wont come
forth
If there is no failure, the success wont follow.

>How long is this going to go on?< f
>She knockes him into a catatonic state each time<
>not to mention breaking ribs and arms and such<
>you'd think he would just let her get on with it, she will have her way eventually, when her patience gives in<
>and then she will make Us drug him<
>doesn't she usually tie them down first?<

He was beginning to loose track of how many times hed had to repeat the first sceen of his meeting with Reret. He didnt particularly feel like giving into her, why hadnt she just tied him down? More than likely she enjoyed hurting him, or perhaps she viewed him as a particular challenge, she was planning on breaking him. He could allow her to think she had, he supposed. He wondered what other methods of torture she would plan to use, she could more than likely do what every her mind came up with as she obviously had the best healers.

The guards did not take him to meet Reret, insted they took him to a room that looked very much like a clerk's office. Behind a wooden desk, was a slim man with small, black beady eyes. To make matters worse, he squinted as well. His countanance was a much lesser version of Reret, however he was still rather roundish.

The four gards having to show Sethesh the people burner of the nearest plantet of a gate, one who is 'rebelling' against he house of Reret. She takes Sethesh with her to view the slaughter, not to mention the smell. For some reason the following is going to rattle around in his head:

1 Too much happiness leads to greaf, mood swings. It also makes the heart weak.

2 Rage, if anger is to great, it causes dammage to the entire system, especially your liver.

3 Greaf dammages the lungs

4 Fear damages the gall bladder

5 Love, damages the spirit and causes psychosis and all maner of mental problems

6 Loathing, psychological aberations, it will make you crazy

7 Desire hurts the spleen.

1 too much walking dammages your sinues, tendons and muscles

2 standing injurs the bones

3 Non meditative sitting injurs the blood flow

4 oversleeping injurs your pulse

5 listaning damages the vitality of the spirit

6 looking, reading inujurs the spirit

7 talking to much damages the lungs, as it decreases your intake of positive energy

8 over eating damages the heart

9 over thinking damages the spleen

10 promiscuity damages the life force


It is this time where he begins his atempt to mesh with metal, he becomes the imortal fox

The guards sat him down in the chair in front of the desk. The Man gave him water.
"Thank you Daumutef, Quebsenuf, Imseti and Haapi."
As the roundish man said the names, each gave him a small bow.
"You four may stand outside the door." He grinned and gave them a wink whial holding the small pain box in his hand. The door closed, but the mirth did not leave the man's face.
"Setesh, I believe your name is?"
He saw no reason to deny what the man already knew, so he nodded once.
"Where is my mother?" he asked.
"You are in no position to ask questions." The man said, his face flushing.
"I already asked. Why should you not answer my questions if you expect me to answer yours?" Setesh asked, deliberately antagonising the man.
He was rewarded by a jolt of electric current. Unfotunately he couldnt shift enough to not be affected by it. The man then hit him.
"YOUR..." he took a breath "father, the destroyer of planets .....has been caught and exicuted. He disposed of the Sopdet system."
Destroyer of planets? So that was what his father had meant by cleansing the universe of evil. Sopdet had been the Main Central City of the Golactic Alliance.

The man peered at him.
"where is my mother?" he asked again, his father had always warned him that he may fall to his enemies, so he was raised to expect it, he did not expect that the list of father's enemies would be quite so extensive.

The next jolt was harsher than the last.

"hm, so a half breed can't shift like the father."
He felt no need to correct that statement. He was to bussy panting and trying to catch his breath. His reasoning mindn however, did not stop, perhaps his fathers crimes, so hanouse, the Gollactic Alliance would definately overllod its law ...
"I'm not responsible for the crimes of my father. Where is my mother."
This shock knocked him out, he recovered ghasping.
"The Ookami has been exterminated." The man smiled pleasantly and offered him some water.
Setesh kept his face expressionless, but did not take the glass.
"You are under observation to see if you hold any of those peskey trates, if not, then you will be sent to a habitable, planet, well outsed the known galaxi, you will of course travel in coldsleep. A few survivors of the blah systems will be accompanying you."
"and if I do?" he asked
"You will be sent to the mines of dipthia."
He refused to flinch. What more could one say, it was a mining planet and a hot one...
"My mother?" he asked
The man smiled, "why she is the one who gave you and your father to us. She is packing up to leave for the Renxi quadrent, where the new administration will be housed."
Pain and darkness engulfed him.

This time, they left him in a dark room, when the door opened light spilled on his face before the room was lit. And there she was, snearing at him, his mother. She said nothing to him, except to look at him with desgust. He could think of nothing to say. She left and he was again in darknes.

>oh it's him again ?<
>every day it seems<
>did you hear? Reret's youngest son is being sent to the mines.<
>yes the Family of Geb is sending two girls, I believe that the Family of Geb will be transporting the children<
>yes all those who don't aquies to Reret, if they dont die, they go to the mines<

His consciousness was not imparet when they walked him back to his holding room. However, they did not string him back allong the single back chain. They placed a nerve coller on him. Quebsenuf then attatched a chain to it whial Ha'api and Doumutef stepped out.
>age ?< Imesti asked him,in an incredably obsucre dialect, only used with in the house of Duat. he was rather surprised, he didnt think he could talk. The chaines attatched to his wrists were dragging on the floor, so Setesh sighend the word for 12.
>why do you not just let her have her way?< Qebsenuf asked
He couldnt think how to answer, except to snear at the mear thought.
>she would give you a nice room, and feed you. She wouldn't hurt you and you would only wear a thin nerve coller and a gold chain. She takes good care of her pets.< Imseti
He continued to snear. >I'm not a pet. Especially not that kind< he signed
>you wouldnt have to go the the mining camp. Surely you know that if you continue to displease her, that is where you will go.< Imseti
>I'm not a pet< he sighned.
The door opened and he smelled soup. Ha'api with the soup and Daumutef with some bread. They said no more whail he ate, then Ha'api produced water for him to drink.
>you will continue to defy her?< Daumutef
>I'm not going to provider he w/sexual amusement, if that is what you are really asking. <
They nodded, then left him there.

She had rolled herself out to greet the Pilot who was a day early and who seemed to be taking his time disembarking the transport ship. The other three prisoners were alreaddy waiting. Setesh wondered vaguely what they had done, or were they like him... The pilot hadnt even shut downt he engines. He'd said he refused to do so untill he was equped with the proper crystals for the antimater drive.

Reret was furious, she wanted to gloat over the prisoners. She'd taken Setesh, to see if he would change his mind. He didnt think anyone was at the moment comfortable. Reret was so angrey the she sent all personell out, probably she had intentions toward the piolet. He could see, the tell tale signes of the metal webbing on the floor. He was mildly surpised that no one else could. His father had always told him that would be the normal state of things. Most of the humanoid inhabitants of the known Universe were not quite as metal oriented as Ookapi.

Setesh watched as the delivery of the drive crystals took place. The pilote infored Reret that he intened to make a quick install before comming out to greet her, it would take him ten more minuts. She was so angry she was shaking, Setsh wondered mildly is she would have a fit of appoplexi. He hoped not. At this point she dismissed everyone but him and his four guards.
"Time him. Nine minuts." Imseti did so
Setesh waited untill the soft sould of the alarm chimed when he shifted his skin to match the metal composition of his shackles, whial changing the composition of his nails to sharpened metal, he then tore out Rerets stomach, and intestines.
Since he had merged with the metals the chaines were now simalar to tentincles, he didnt care if the four hung on or not, but he rushed the ship, perposfully treadding over the metal netting but making sure he shifted his feet to match the atomic composition of said netting.

The four, still haning on to the 'chaines' were now harmlessly wrapped in the metal netting. Setesh dragged himself and his 'captors' into the shuttle and into the poilet bay of the transport vehicle.

He stopped short and with suprise as he recognised the pilot.
"HerUr!" he hadnt meant to say it or sound releaved, in that split second he knew that like his mother, HerUr could very well have helped in giving him to that odious woman.

HerUr smiled at his nephiew
"HOLD ON"
He instructed throught the loudspeaker. Since Reret sent everyone out of the hanger bay and closed the doors, turning off all monitoring systems, no one had yet to catch on what exactally was going on.

HerUr unceramoniously blasted his way out of the holding bay of the Floating House.

"I can't possibly greet you with any type of affection whial you are waving all those tenticles around." Herur smiled.

Setesh shifted and the four bodies hit the floor. The metal all now absorbed in his biosphere so to speak, he wouldnt be hungry for a whial.

"Why did you help me?" he asked, in his mind he was again watching his mother snear at him.

Heru'ur still smiled. "The bastard never told you did he?"
Setesh didn't move.
"I'm your brother." then he turned and pressed a button on the councol, his co piolets and navigators looking rather calm.
"Let me show you to your room."
"where are we going?" he asked, looking at the four guards. His 'brother' lugged them up to standing position, they looked rather dazed.
"Ah, well, I was able to convince golactic central to give me a pardon if I helped them with a bit of a problem." He was smilling as they walked down one of the corridors, there seemed to be quite a few people, as a matter of fact, the inside looked more like a military vehicle than a transport ship. The four guards followe them, though no one was forcing them to.
"what problem?" he asked
"He stopped as they reached a cross corador.. the windows showing the non speed at which they defyed space and time. He was still grinning.
"I hope you are up to the challenge. Besides, you can redeame yourself."
"I have done nothing wrong."
His brother's countanance fell. A spasm of pain crossed his face.
"I know. this should not have happened to you, or any of us. We are the only Ookami left now." His brother turned toward the glass, but Setesh could feel his brothers anguis as if it radiated off his skin, he could feel it because it matched his own.
He brother took a long shakey breath, he turned back, tears streaking down his face. "The Prime Denominators had dissappeared. Sources say they have gone to a restricted galaxy. No one knows why, if they are just finding a planet to breed on or some primeval life forms to loard over. That's our job, to find them and if they are making merry little slaves, to stop them, round them up and have them answer to Golactic Cenrtal."
"But why would G.C. care about what that ancient race does? Arenn't they older than G.C. itself? Why does the gov of G.C. presume to tell that ancient race what they can and cant do?" Imseti asked indigantly.

"Most of the known races spragn from the Primes." Daumutef snarled.
"Why should I help golactic central?" Setesh asked, suddenly he was so angry, every thing around him looked red. "why should you?" he didnt feel it was necessary to mention that it was G.C. who decided to wipe out thier entire race, but the two of them.

His brother leaned against a wall and ginned sadly. "It was a good story. It gets us out of the known Universe, into uncharted territory, and perhaps, we will find a planet for ourselves.
Setesh felt as if he'd been jabbed in the ass with a pin.
"You plan a settalment then?"
"Certainly. Most everyone abord wants this, away from G.C. and all it stands for. There are three factions. The Technocrats, the Naturalists and Priests. None of them want to interfear w/eachother's policies, they just want out of ...." His brother gazed out of the window
"of the tangled web." Ha'api said quietly.

"We may or may not find the Primes first, and we intend to stage a lovely 'battle' in which we will loose. I sevearly doupt the Primes will care if we land or not."

"And if you dont find them before you find a suitable planet?" Qebsenuf asked.

"I'm affraid this ship will fly into that particular planets sun either way." Heru'ur said absentmidedly. For a few moments they were all silent.
Then he snapped back to reality. "oh, yes, you are all free to roam around the ship as you like, but let me show you where you will be quartered untill"

"I thought we were going into cold sleep." Imseti

Heru'ur smiled. Each 'room' has six cold sleep pods. There will be a skelliton staff awake at all times, in shifts of a year. They and the lovely ultra new/modern computer will alert them eather to the Primes signature or to the info regarding a suitible planet.

Setesh looked at the four, who didnt at all seem to mind thier predicament. They looked back at him, then they all turned toward Heru'ur. It was time to go to sleep.


those who do not truely understand thier science are quite destructive with it, those who do not understand the commonalities will continue to devide with it.

Friday, October 22, 2010

AADING

I have no idea what book this is from

Meditation -
First, the four physical bodies (the bones, the flesh, the vessels, the nerves) ; it is a good practice to visualize these frequently in order to understand the part that each plays in the harmony of the whole. Second, the organic groups, which establish an interaction of influence between their constituent members. * These are o The Tree of Exchange, which, by inhalation and exhalation of what Hippocrates calls "the airs and waters," establishes a relation between the organic and animal life of the human egg and that of the Cosmic Egg o The seven essential functions, each ruling a group of four organs that have a relative of sympathy on account of their functional identity o The four regions, whose orientation affects the character of the organs they include. Finally, there are the four functional principles of these regions: o In the upper region, the lungs, which revitalize the blood and are the seat of the vital spirits and of the unconscious vital urge of the cells and the Automaton o In the lower region, the small intestine, which is the body's principal feeder, since it selects the nourishing ingredients from the food and renders them assimilable o In the left region, the stomach, which "opens the way" to the functions of digestion (whose final product will enrich the blood) and which for this reason is called in ancient Egypt "the mouth of the heart"
o In the right region, the liver, in which personal characteristics are recorded, the seat of the Personal vital urge, the organ which responds to the Permanent Witness. Daily mediation can be performed on any of these subjects, and the result will be a gradually increased mastery of the conscious "I" over the Automaton.

Most organic troubles are caused by emotion, apprehension, humiliation, and in general by thoughts and acts which offend the personal will and the impulses of passion. The reaction is aggravated by tightening of the nervous plexuses, but the organic starting point of these troubles is almost always in the functioning of the bile or of the brain. The bile may be disturbed by a vexatious thought or by an impulse of irritation arising in the liver (which is the seat of the personality), but the result either way is the same; the bile-brain circuit goes into action instantaneously, the bile irritating the bram and the brain exciting the bile, and the resulting two-way current sets off a chain reaction through the system : bile-brain -bile-stomach-spleen-bile, and so on. A few drops of bile in the stomach can

Our physical organs (and this cannot be too often repeated) are animal forces, which will quite naturally obey a man who is prepared to command them. They are there to serve him, not to enslave him. But the ego is so lazy that it makes him quite glad to abdicate this power in return for the secret satisfaction of pitying his own sufferings, or of attracting attention to his pathetic case. Most of our pathological conditions are aggravated by this unconfessed indulgence. The same applies to our personal dramas and daily worries; we should have the courage to admit that they feed largely on the pity of others, and on our own. In most cases, what would be left of them if we
passed them over in total silence? But the two Egos, the Personal and the Automatic
p-65

For example, the anger and aggressiveness of Mars can be transformed into courage and joy in "sacrifice." The sensuality of Venus can be used to direct sense impressions toward the cultivation of an impersonal artistic sense; the love of sensual pleasure will then gradually diminish as the wisdom of the vivifying fire burns brighter. The Mercurian's instability and restless activity, and his delight in cunning for its own sake, can be transformed into understanding of motives, or dexterity in learning the appropriate gestures of a craft. When his sense of responsibility is aroused, the pride and vanity of the Jupiter type will be changed into generosity. The selfish pessimism of the Saturnian can lead to silent meditation and the study of profounder causes, and so become a source of wisdom. Instead of apathy and nonchalance, the cold Lunar person can learn that deliberate passivity which, when combined with emotional neutrality, opens the door to intuition. The ambitious and dominating nature of the Solar man can be transformed into the expansiveness of impersonal Love, which only develops its power of attraction in order to better radiate selflessly
to others.

Like the crystal dissolved in a foreign or too, dilute solution, they are in danger of remaining after death in that state of latency which is known to the West as Limbo unable to make themselves real in either the one state or the other. It was to escape this danger that the ancient peoples used so often the indirect means of portrait statues of the deceased, pictures of him enjoying his favorite occupations, Tablets of Ancestors, and so forth; the purpose of these was to act as a terrestrial bait, by reason of the emotional attraction
which they can exercise so long as the Ego-Consciousness possesses an astral body. To understand what really happens in reincarnation one must first know the elements of the human constitution. That which reincarnates is that which cannot be destroyed by death; that is, the two aspects of consciousness, the Spiritual Witness and the Permanent Witness, also called the Divine Ka and the Intermediate Ka. If during its life on earth the Permanent Witness has integrated into itself the animal consciousness of its body (its animal Ka), it has thus created the medium in which its "glorious body" will be able by degrees to build itself up through communion with the Spiritual Witness, until, whether before or after death, both are united and so attain their final liberation. But until this final victory is achieved, there is always a danger that the Spiritual Witness will withdraw if during life on earth the Personality refuses to obey it. And whatever powers the Permanent Witness may have acquired, if death catches it in this state of dissociation from its higher self, it will only be able to follow in the other world the same selfish dispositions as it evinced on earth. It is always the unquenchable thirst of the Ego, wanting its own way, that prevents the possibility of union with the Divine Ka, the Spiritiual Witness to the Impersonal Self, whose power it perceives and envies. This is why the funerary pictures of ancient Egypt represent man as "in search of his Ka," without which he cannot attain his final immortality. This anxious search for the Divine Ka corresponds to the pains of damnation by which Christian theology expresses the sufferings of the damned as a consciousness of being deprived of God, who has become inaccessible to them. Both descriptions correspond to the same reality, except for the question of perpetuity; for the funerary scenes of Egypt represent the obstacles which prevent the discarnate person from being united with his Ka, but do not present them as an irremediable conditon of perpetual hell.

THE FOUR SONS OF HORUS We must now consider an important aspect of our bodily organs, which is revealed to us by the Egyptian sages. The Egyptians, before embalming a mummy, used to remove the four viscera, which are the incarnation of the animal Kas, of the principal organic functions. These they put into four vases, later called "canopic," the four lids having three animal heads and one human head. The human?headed vase was called Imset, and contained the liver. The baboon?headed vase was called Hapi, and contained the lungs. The jackal?headed vase was called Duamutef, and contained
the stomach, and occasionally also the large intestine. The hawk?headed vase was called Qebhsenuf, and contained the small intestine. These organs were called the Sons of Horus because their functions, when man becomes aware of them, contribute to the realization of the Horus in man, that is, of man's complete and immortal consciousness. They are therefore represented at the judgment of the deceased as elevated on a lotus; that is to say, sublimated or subtilized, having lost all their perishable elements and become pure consciousness. Each belongs to one of the four regions of the body, for which its function is characteristic. The canopic vases did not contain either the polar organs (brain and sex) or the kidneys, which in their energic aspect belong to the sexual system.
Duamutef (jackal, Stomach) The real meaning of this name is shown by the way it is written on the sarcophagus of Amenophis II, dowaomutof, in which the hieroglyph wa represents a knot coming untied. Mut (meaning both Mother and Vulture) symbolizes the function of decomposition which takes place in the stomach as in a womb and makes possible the generation of a new life. This is also the function of the jackal, which converts putrefying matter into vital nourishment. This is the first stage of any genesis, and the "Opener of the Ways" (the god Wep?wawet) is Anubis the jackal. The same inscription says that Duamutef "gives the king his heart." Now, the Egyptian name of the stomach is ra?ib, which means "gate of the heart." This mysterious title is explained by the important relation between the heart and the group stomach?spleen?pancreas, which is confirmed by Chinese medical lore. Imset (Man, Liver) The name Imset is related to the production by the liver of set, the separating fire of the god Set, the bile. The word for liver is miset or merset, usually written with the sign mr, which represents a canal or reservoir; and of course the liver is the reservoir of the "water of Set," the bile, which it canalizes into the gallbladder. Thence the bile runs into the small intestine, where it makes possible the separation of subtle and coarse, of pure and impure. The symbol of the human head shows the two aspects of the liver; in its psychic role it is the seat of the Personality, whose innate and inherited characteristics are engraved in it. Second, this indicates the mutual reaction of brain and liver whenever the Personality receives a shock. The Egyptians also said that "Imset leads his brethren," and that he "makes green" (rwd, meaning to grow, to vegetate). By its separative action the bile creates the chyle, which is the basic nourishment of vegetative life. Imset "leads his brethren," who are the other animal functions, because he is the seat of the personal impulses which can direct or thwart the animal instincts. Further, he is in constant touch with the cerebral will, which is continually colored by the individual character. The liver is the seat of the subconscious personality, the Automaton, but also of the Permanent Witness.
Hapi (Baboon, Lungs) This name means "circuit" or "Solstice." It refers to the arterial circuit heart?lungs?heart, by which
the blood recovers its vitalizing power. It is also the function which maintains a continual exchange, by inspiration and expiration, between the life of man and the life of the surrounding world. The baboon, which is so responsive to the influence of sun and moon, is a symbol of this circuit. But it also symbolizes the animal side of man, his animal life, with the unconscious impulses of the Automatic Self, whose seat is in fact in the lungs. This is the Chinese pro, which is located in the lungs.'
Qebhsenuf (Hawk, Small Intestine) This name means literally "He refreshes his brethren," and this organ produces the white lunar chyle, which refreshes the blood and purifies the bitter fires, whether consuming or separating, of the other organs. It provides nourishment which has been "individualized," that is, made directly assimilable by the organism. The white hawk of Horus, which is the symbol of the chyle, signifies its volatile quality, in the sense of subtlety and rising up continually toward the heart, from whence it is distributed through the body by the lymph, which it also nourishes. Qb means "folds"; gbh means "refreshment." "Qebhit " is the uraeus on the royal crown, whose head stands up out of many folds. The other name for the uraeus is arot, that which rises up. Qebhut is the daughter of Anubis (the jackal of the stomach), and of course the chyle is the daughter of the chyme produced by the stomach. This chyle "feeds the flesh and bones," as the Egyptians say, whereas the function of Duamutef, both as jackal and vulture, was to devour them.

When considering the relationship of psychic and spiritual states to organic functions, it is important to bear in mind also the general conditions on levels more subtle than the physical. The breath of life (in Egyptian, the universal Ba) is breathed in by the lungs and individualized by the blood into an animal vital force (in Egyptian, the animal Ba); this is the inferior or "sensitive" soul, the Hebrew nefesh. It corresponds to the Chinese pro which is the unconscious vital energy of the cells, the organs, and the sex, * * and resides in the lungs. The astral or "etheric" body, corresponding to the popular notion of a ghost (linga?sharira among the Hindus, and in Egyptian the Shadow, Khaibit), has its seat in the spleen. It is related to the Akasha, the world or state which holds the records of all the pictures or imaginings in our universe, and this justifies the idea of the spleen as seat of the imagination. The individual vital force, which engraves in the liver the characteristics of the personality and the paternal heredity, is the intermediate or "personal" Ka of the Egyptians. The Chinese call it "roun" and situate it in the liver, and define its manifestations as "personal vital energy, personal vital needs and tendencies, conscious sexual needs." In actual fact this consciousness belongs to the Automatic Self, the mortal ego, and in relation to the Ego?Consciousness it is a form of subconsciousness, so long as the latter, which also reacts in the liver, is not awakened.
*See chapter 4, Soul and Consciousness. For the Psychospiritual States in Different Traditions, see also Isha Schwaller de Lubicz, Her?Bak: Egyptian Initiate. New York: 1978, Inner Traditions.
**G. Souli de Morand, Acupuncture chinoire (Paris: Mercure de France, 1939).
The mental state (Sanskrit manas) has two aspects. The brain is the organ of the one, and in its different localizations is connected with all the operations of the lower mind. The other belongs to man's immortal consciousness and his spiritual intelligence, and has no physical organ, but uses relay stations suitable to its different modes of expression. The intuitive state (which in Hinduism begins with buddhi) has its physical relay stations in the pineal gland and in the region of the heart; it is related to the Chinese chen, translated as "consciousness" or "the spiritual spark which relates man to the universe." This state is located by the Chinese and Egyptians in the heart. The words "soul" and "spirit," as used in Christian countries, are so vague that we must now request the reader to permit the adoption of two terms from ancient Egypt, Ba and Ka?first, because the metaphysical meaning of these words is strictly defined, and second because the philosophical notions connected with them will make it possible to explain their different aspects better than in any other way. The following description is quoted from the Commentaries on Her?Bak. There is good reason to emphasize the Egyptian form of this teaching, because the ancient texts, hieroglyphs, and pictures remaining unaltered are the witnesses of an immutable tradition.

1. Ba is the cosmic soul, the Spirit of Fire, which gives life to the world in all its parts. Originally there is Ba, and at the end there is Ba, and between the beginning and end Ba is in everything, being the breath which creates life. Hence the spirit of Ba is in all the constituents of the world and in its final perfection. 2. Ba is the Natural Soul stabilized in the bodily form, and its character is Osirian; that is, it is
subject to cyclic renewal. This aspect is symbolized by the ram with horizontal horns. 3. Ba is also represented by a bird with a human head, and this is the symbol of the human soul, which comes and goes between heaven and earth, wandering near its body until the purification of its Ka?djet, or glorious indestructible body, which it can then take on. The three aspects of Ka may be understood as follows Originally, Ka is the Formal Element which gives form to Substance and thus creates Matter. It is the spiritual principle of fixity, which will become the basis of all manifestation, and through the ages of Becoming will undergo innumerable modifications from the basest of forms to the perfection of the indestructible body.


First, the original Ka, creator of all the others; then the Kas of Nature, mineral, vegetable, and animal; then the individualized Ka of man, which includes his inherited character and his own signature, and so determines his destiny. In the human realm the Ka was also regarded by the Egyptians under three aspects: on the universal level, as the origin of man; in the King, as microcosm, type and symbol of the perfected man; and in the ordinary man, not yet perfected. We can now speak of the human Ba as of an individual soul, which, thanks to its Ka, becomes an Entity. Ba, a pure and formless spirit, must always have a support in order to manifest, and this support is the selective affinity of the thing it has to animate; and the affinity is determined and characterized by the Ka. It is the characteristics of the Ka which make the choice of circumstances for incarnation, as also of nourishment and surrounding atmosphere; for its affinity is only with things of its own specific nature, and this applies also after the death of the body, both as regards the vital elements of the tomb offerings and the surroundings. The Ka, which is the stable element in a man, is distinguished from the Kas of other men by the specific qualities of its own selective affinity. The universal Ba is in constant contact with the man whom it animates, and with his Ka; but the Ka, by assimilating it, generates a new being, which is
the individualized soul, which remains divine, incorruptible, and therefore immortal, and yet is governed by the affinity which it now has for the characteristics of its Ka. This is what we call the higher Ka.