The Power of the Past: Ancient Egypt, Alchemy and the God of Regeneration

Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D. April 1, 2012

The mummys curse can be traced back to ancient Egypt where spells for defiling the dead were etched into temple walls. Warnings included death by crocodiles, lions and worse, retaliation by the gods. In a 9 - 10th century tomb there is an ominous inscription that reads, "As for all men who shall enter this my tomb... impure... there will be judgment... an end shall be made for him... I shall seize his neck like a bird... I shall cast the fear of myself into him."1 Despite the admonition against plundering well-stocked tombs and even selling mummies, the history of grave robbing is as old as the earliest funerary traditions.

The resting places were ironically kept quite busy not only with the constant threat of grave robbers and later archeologists, but the dead themselves had many obstacles to overcome before reaching the eternal Field of Reeds. Admission to this paradise wasnt easy. In one scenario the dead person was escorted into the Judgment Hall of Osiris. Forty-three assessors put his or her soul through an arduous test. In the negative confession (The Forty-Declarations of Purity) the deceased had to deny such things as theft, murder, and dishonoring the gods. If one passed the test they were led to the great scale where their soul was weighed against the feather of Maat, goddess of Truth and Justice. Failing to measure up, the deceased was thrown into the Lake of Fire or eaten by the terrifying Ammit, the soul eater. In either case, all memory

of the deceased vanished, the person simply never existed. Annihilation was a fate worse than death or any punishment.

Immortality for the Egyptians meant being remembered, venerated and having your tomb protected from intruders. One cannot however be re-membered until they have first been dismembered. In the earliest times this was how it happened: bones of the deceased were broken as they lay in their grave. This would prevent them from wandering about and disturbing the living. Mythically, the model for this funerary procedure derived from Osiris, god of the dead, who was killed and dismembered by his brother Seth. Through the intercession of his wife Isis, Osiris was physically reconstituted and reanimated long enough to bear the child Horus. The other central character in this timeless myth is Anubis, Osiris first son by Nephythys (Seths wife).

Some interpretations suggest that Anubis, the jackal-headed god, accompanied Isis in her search for Osiris. His keen sense of smell helped sniff out the fourteen pieces of his fathers body. Once returned to Egypt, the body parts were magically reassembled by Isis and following the divine birth of Horus, Anubis prepared his fathers corpse for the afterlife. Anubis is the god of embalming and Osiris, the first mummy. Thereafter, the mummy was viewed as a vehicle for spiritually transporting the dead to the next world.

Interference with this journey spelled out death to all who would disturb the natural order. The curse however didnt stop grave robbers anymore than it would curtail the efforts of archeologists who came much later. In fact, archeologists well knew that the best way to find a mummy cache was to follow the path left by grave robbers. One of the most celebrated and chilling tales of the mummys curse occurred when Howard Carter opened the tomb of King Tutankhamen in 1922. A good deal of hype began when Lord Carnarvon, who funded the excavation, died of an infected mosquito bite just four months after the tomb was opened. The incident caught the publics imagination and rumors spread quickly. Scientists were testing molds on the walls of the tomb to explain a number of mysterious deaths of those present at the site. Despite the rumors, only eight of the fifty-eight people involved in the dig died within twelve years. Perhaps more revealing was how some of these fifty-eight people met their end: three by suicide, three shot to death, one murdered, three poisoned and the rest by serious illness. Howard Carter died of a lymphoma sixteen years after emptying Tutankhamens tomb of it golden treasures and presenting the kings mummy for the entire world to see.

And what was the effect of having a mummy king appear in modern society? The popular imagination caught fire! Tutankhamen and

the mummys curse took center stage in major museums, movies and the media. Egyptology was born. The remains of the boy king had resurrected interest in the ancient world King Tut as he came to be known had landed in our midst! And, he wasnt alone.

Presently, there are seventeen countries that possess at least one mummy with some like the British Museum having as many as seventyeight. Egypts Cairo Museum has the largest collection of royal mummies but lacks an accurate count. The countries in question are diverse throughout the world and include Australia, the Netherlands and Yugoslavia. There are eighty-two museums within these seventeen major countries that have mummies in their collections.2

Its as if this phenomenon raised the dead from their musty tombs and found them taking residence in major institutions throughout the world. It is impossible to account for the impact this mummy phenomenon has had on the thousands of visitors who line up for exhibits each year. This resurrection into modern society has hade farreaching effects. While giving a tour of a mummy exhibit at the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana California I listened to the hushed comments of the group. Young and old talked about their surprise to find how well these mummies were preserved; comparisons were made to modern, sterile methods of dealing with the dead. I can only imagine where their

curiosity and wonder might lead. Just as Sputnik spawn NASA, space exploration and future astronauts, it is likely that the raising of the dead has opened new chapters in archeology, mythology, and ancient history.

The antiquity of mummies enlarges our scope of time, casting us much farther back in time than the major religions, Greek mythology and philosophy the typical boundary markers of modern memory. I dare say that a great many museum patrons have changed their view of ancient civilization and possibly revised their view of death; this is the transformative power of a mummy and all that accompanies this living relic.

Mummies come with enormous baggage. Their tomb is typically equipped with everything from food to clothes, servants3 and even a boat to sail down the blood red underground Nile River. Museums today match this abundance in the ever-popular museum gift shop that is stock piled with every imaginable Egyptian artifact. In toto, some part of ancient Egypt has found its way into millions of homes throughout the world and into the modern psyche.

Although mummies are ubiquitous4 throughout many world cultures, those from ancient Egypt have stolen the limelight. Popularity aside, whats clear is that the ancient past has reintroduced itself in this

peculiar way: mummies have sparked new life in how we think about death, the preservation of life, and life beyond the physical body. While death sends shivers up our spine, it was an integral part of life in ancient Egypt. If the old pharaohs were attempting to transcend time, then what better strategy than to have themselves (their mummies) resurface in the hallowed halls of museums? Not unlike churches, museums are numinous, timeless places where people speak in hushed voices and everything is taken seriously. Those old kings must have known what they were doing! Could they have ever foreseen that the future was their afterlife?

While King Tut captured the popular imagination, it was his fatherin-law, the radical pharaoh Akhenaton, who occupied the attention of scholars. Although Akhenaton reigned for only seventeen years, his impact had a lasting impression that is felt even today. Scholarly books and journals are filled with many papers crediting this pharaoh for having introduced monotheism. Akhenaton believed that Aten, the life giving illumination of the visible sun, was the one and only true god. In his Hymn to the Aten, Akhenaton celebrates the power of this supreme deity. In this beautiful poem, he passionately describes the beauty of Aten and offers gratitude for providing all humans, not just Egyptian, with everything needed to support life. He writes,

How manifold it is, what thou hast made! They are hidden from the face (of man). O sole god, like whom there is no other! Thou didst create the world according to thy desire, Whilst thou wert alone: All men, cattle, and wild beasts, Whatever is on earth, going upon (its) feet, And what is on high, flying with its wings. The countries of Syria and Nubia, the land of Egypt, Thou settest every man in his place, Thou suppliest their necessities5

Despite his love of Aten, or precisely because of it, Akhenaton degraded hundreds of other gods that had for thousands of years constituted the pluralistic pantheon of ancient Egypt. These gods werent just abstractions, but in a very real sense, formed part of daily life. Each nome (settlement) typically had its loci deus to whom people prayed for cures, retribution, a good crop, etc. The pharaoh traditionally served as the intermediary between gods and humans. But now, with Akhenaton riding down the central avenue of his beloved city Amarna bedecked in golden armor at dawn each morning, the old gods were cast aside; even Ra, the creator god, was subordinated to the Aten.

Perhaps one of the unintended consequences of this new arrangement was the displacement of the pharaohs traditional role. In effect, Akhenaton was the Aten. Worshipping him was the equivalent of

direct veneration of the Aten. This may have been an early form of Gnosticism that was celebrated in plan view on temple walls. As never before and in plain view the familiar scenes of pharaohs and gods were gone and in their place was the living sun whose rays reached like hands touching the earth. Absent were war scenes of pharaohs vanquishing the enemy and instead, Akhenaton was shown, along with his wife and children, as the new visage of the holy family. Heaven it seemed was brought done to earth!

Old traditions die hard, if they die at all. With Akhenaton there began a gradual shift from the old world of gods who provided for men and women to a new ethos in which people began to discover their own godlike powers. This realization matured into full flower with the coming of Christ. It was as though the sun set in mans soul. The kingdom of God is within, 6 declares Jesus. Clearly, Akhenatons vision was not completely destroyed following his death. Although every trace of him, his beautiful wife and family was erased, dismembered and forgotten, some hidden spark was left to molder.

The sun would not play so prominent a role in the world of science and religion until nearly three thousand years later. While Akhenaton placed the visible sun at the apex of Egypts pantheon, it would be the 17th century Italian astronomer Galileo Galilei, father of observational

astronomy, who scientifically fixed it at the center of our solar system. Directing the newly invented telescope to the night sky, Galileo stunned the world with his own declaration: the earth revolved around the sun.

The discovery put Galileo at odds with Christian doctrine that held the earth to be the center of the universe. In effect, the finding demoted Gods creation to a distant sun, the very one that had been worshiped by pagans and heretics like Akhenaton. Galileo defended his work in a book entitled Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems. Pope Urban VII considered the book blasphemous and had Galileo tried before the Inquisition. He was found vehemently suspect of heresy and given a life sentence that placed him under house arrest for the remainder of his life. The world wasnt any more prepared to accept Galileo than Akhenaton but as we know, Galileos work eventually gave birth to modern science.

Akhenaton and Galileo were men of great vision who defied tradition and would not bow to the pressures of religious dictates. They simply took the raw evidence that was there for all to see and from that data drew some startling conclusions. They played a crucial role in the transition of mythology to empirical science. Well before Akhenaton, the sun was worshipped in three manifestations of Ra - Khepri at sunrise, Ra the mid-day sun and Osiris at sunset. Sunrise was the most sacred time

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of day, a moment signifying Ras triumph over the demons of the Underworld, those like Apopis who would annihilate the sun. Ra triumphed in returning the sun (the light of consciousness) back to the world each day. This heroic position was later passed to Osiris and eventually to any man worthy enough to take the helm of the solar boat. We can discern a movement here from the celestial to the human realm, an arc that brings humankind from the dawn of consciousness to life on earth.

Advance forward some five thousand years and we have a technology that physically extends the reach of Akhenatons vision. With improvements made to the newly invented telescope (1608), Galileo was for the first time able to detail the phases of Venus, describe the satellites circling Jupiter and prove the existence of sunspots. In the intervening years between these two great men, the arc from episteme to techne, knowledge of principles to the application of knowledge is clear ideals have become practical reality.

This development marks a decisive shift in the role consciousness plays in human affairs. Our minds, said the Jungian analyst James Hillman, had to keep pace with what our hands construct.7 The electric light bulb, nuclear explosions and today, the promise of solar energy are all physical expressions of the Aten. These are the necessities that

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would be realized some thirty-five hundred years after Akhenatons Hymn.

The world today is starved for energy and the contest between sun light and dark crude are more apparent than ever before. In mythic terms the struggle is between solar and lunar consciousness. Black gold, oil, and coal have been the principle subterranean sources of energy for hundreds of years. There is of course a limited supply of fossil fuels and even with conservation, the daunting realization of its finitude has the world literally up in arms. With exponential population growth, countries are looking upwards to the sun that perpetual nuclear reactor in the sky- for an endless supply of energy. Hope hangs desperately on innovative ways to harness its energy and possibly replace our reliance on oil and coal as the primary fuel for the planet.

Again we see how an ancient image, this time the Aten, appears in the modern world in a new guise. Just as a mummy exhibition has us reexamining our notions of death, so too is the sun having a powerful impact on the global debate on energy policy. Ancient images carry important mythological, historical and religious elements that can be critical to major issues facing us today. Without recognizing the depth of meaning each offers, death and energy lost their historicity and consequently, they degrade into an enemy that must be defeated at all

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cost. The results are grim. Vegetative states and environmental disasters are collateral damage in this war. Death is no longer a god that can inform the living. The words of Plato, urging people to practice dying, are long forgotten. The meticulous care and reverence given a corpse by our ancestors are lost; like many other things, the disposition of a body has become big business and the blessed dead a commodity used for harvested organs, specimens for medical students and anatomical curiosities in private exhibitions.

Forgetting brings great consequences. We have forgotten Einsteins law of conservation: energy is never lost, but only transformed. Weve forgotten that energy is not restricted to material forms but as great sages throughout the ages have described in profound detail, energy is also of the spiritual kind. Beginning with Freud at the turn of the 19th century, libido was described as psychic energy capable of causing significant unconscious behavior change; a transformation from psychic to somatic/behavioral energy. A list of various types of energy could easily fill a book, but it would probably be divided into two categories physical and nonphysical energy without any satisfying integration of the two.

Each camp proffers eloquent ways to transform energy within its group, but the ultimate transformation will come when the split between

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mind and matter is fused. While Akhenatons Aten describes a spiritual energy that has physical benefits, solar energy derives from a physical source lacking any particular spiritual significance. No one has put the two together. Many who tried were persecuted, ignored or assigned to infamy. Jesus words, My kingdom is not of this world,8 were lost to those who lacked the consciousness to distinguish different orders of energy much less integrate or transcend apparent opposites. Similar confusion was evident in the earliest attempts by alchemists who were scoffed at and like the ancient Egyptians, their wisdom neglected and turned to dust. Perhaps it is time to sort through these ashes and see if long forgotten formulae can shed light on ways to unify what may only appear to be different types of energy.

That life is a process of falling apart and reforming into something more whole and noble is an age-old theme beautifully told in the myth of Osiris. As mentioned, Osiris was murdered and dismembered by his brother Seth. Isis, Osiris wife, rejoined her husbands body parts and animated him just long enough for them to conceive a son. The alchemists seized on this story and reduced it to a simple formula that became central to their opus. Solve et Coagula (separate and unite) is the chief means by which a lowly substance could be transformed into something precious, perfect and whole. This was the long sought after Philosophers Stone. The making of the lapis requires the full

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participation of the adept as well as attention paid to material operations. For example, separation, dissolution, and dissection involved mental processes as much as the physical act of dividing the prima materia; hand and mind working in unison.

Much of life can be understood as a process of transformation that involves these two operations: disintegration and reconstitution. Osiris represents this process and much more. As the story continues, Osiris transcends earthly existence and becomes the god of the Underworld. Traditionally, he reigns over the Judgment that decides who will be cast into oblivion and who is sufficiently worthy to enter the eternal afterlife. In time Osiris evolves into a complex being, more an archetype than a god.9 In ancient Egypt he was Osiris and now we find him secularized as the Green Man and in other literary characters we find shades of him in Peter Pan and Robin Hood. More than simple ornamentation, the Green Man possesses the powers of fertility, inspiration and regeneration. He provides the mythology needed to spiritualize the Green Revolution, green energy and the green economy.

It is no accident that Osiris was traditionally depicted having green skin and shown at times as a corn mummy. Accordingly the alchemists hailed the blessed green as a force that brought the prima materia to life. In his 16th century masterwork, Amphitheater of Eternal Wisdom10,

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alchemist Heinrich Khunrath exclaims:

O blessed Viridity, whereby all things germinate! Learn, O Theosopher, to contemplate the Viridity which is Ruad Elohim [God, Hebrew]; thou, O Cabbalist, the green line which is the whirling Universe; and Nature thou, O Magus; and thou O Physicochemist, the Green Lionthe Quintessence!11

As the Green Man, the archetypal Osiris is in our soil, resident within oil, gas and gold, as well as being presence in our body, mind and soul. He has outgrown his antique epithet as god of the dead and is better understood as a god of regeneration, one who oversees the subterranean world of plant, animal, mineral and the unconscious domain of the human unconscious.

Osiris is a lunar deity and so he moves through the night kingdom with hidden purpose. We recall that he eventually took the helm from Ra, guiding the solar boat through the underworld and delivering anew the sun of consciousness to our horizon each morning. Understood today as a god of regeneration, he adds the spiritual element that is missing in the biogenetic, reproductive and environmental sciences. Just as he brought spiritual oversight to the Judgment of the Dead, Osiris is ever ready to preside over the halls of science. From the start he has always been a civilizing force, freeing humans from dependence on nature and

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God. As we face great global challenges, we would do well to re-member all that he represents.

I am not suggesting we don Egyptian garb and incant spells from the Book of the Dead. That is no more natural to us than doing yoga! A course in mythology taught to students of science would however go a long way toward bringing Osiris - the archetype, not the god- to our awareness. Without some recognition of a spiritual presence, science runs the risk of calcifying into a sterile experiment that has already produced monsters.12 In fact, this term derives from monstrum, a word used by alchemists to describe what happens when their recipe, Solve et Coagula, goes awry.

Where alchemists were said to produce artificial life forms ( golems and homunculi), todays bioengineers, leaving behind the spiritual element of the alchemical opus, have synthetically joined disparate species, cloned animals and even instilled traits not native to various fish and lower vertebrates. Genetically altered pigs have been modified to produce human hormones, rats made to grow bone cartilage for future use in humans and weaponized dolphins and flying insects (bug bots) are only a few examples of the new menagerie of medical magic.

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In this light Jungian analyst James Hillman asks an important question:

Technology is wisely bemoaned as the logical and terrible consequence of empirical science. Robot, Golem, Frankensteins monster is this technology or a view of it?13

He responds with,

Technology is cursed by our mechanical idea of it. It is the great repressed, the unconscious, the realm of the dead, forced to carry the egocentric unimaginative demands we put on it: labor-saving, cost-efficiency, productivity, uniformity, speed. It may not break down and be thrown away.14

In other words, it isnt the method that is to blame but the mind that excludes soul from participating in our view of technology. This view is like the dried out bones of perfection, rigid and despite best intentions, destined to crack.

Once more we see how an ancient image can bring new meaning to critically important issues in our time. It adds a critical dimension that adds depth and perspective to an otherwise shallow worldview. Lacking a depth of perspective, the West craves novelty, sensationalism, and invention. It has an uncanny ability to make a commodity of almost

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anything. Even a myth can be reduced to a sound bite; gods made into movie caricatures, comic book heroes, the endless parade of political actors.

There is of course a place for commodities in trade and commerce, but there is a limit. That boundary is crossed when the link (or symbol) between old and new is lost. When a physician for example no longer knows the meaning of the symbol the caduceus that represents his or her profession, medicine is on the fast tract to becoming a commodity. Patients are then little more than objects on an assembly line, parts replaced, bodies discarded.15 If nothing else ancient images carry soul with all her power to enliven, deepen and transform a world that is keen on dismemberment and terrifyingly ignorant of meaningful integration.

What then can we make of the ancient images Ive recalled from ancient Egypt, ones that might have been so easily forgotten? Would the world be any different if not a single mummy had ever been found; if Akhenatons legacy was wiped clean and we lived in a geocentric universe? Would the world be any different if Herodotus and Plutarch had not retrieved bits and fragments from the Egyptian Pyramid Texts to form the myth of Osiris? Despite the fact that these things did happen makes little difference to those whove forgotten or dismiss ancient

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history. However, that these events did occur points to a force in history that imposes itself on the present. To follow its trajectory in any linear way robs it of its power to transform. Rather, we do well to adopt the current understanding of time that holds that it is not linear and best perceived in relativistic terms.16

Mummies come with a history without which they are little more than curiosities. They may be far removed from their secret hiding places but their mythology is well known. Ancient Egyptians believed that there were coexisting realities, such that the underworld and after life were situated alongside everyday reality. Is this belief much different than contemporary theories of parallel realities, a multiverse, string theory, etc. These exotic ideas are difficult to conceive and they lack the gravitas of either myth or mummy. The mummys arrival in the light of day offers concrete evidence that the past and present do not follow a straight line, but instead coexist simultaneously.

We might then imagine that solar energy represents the transformation of the Aten, and Osiris, the god who causes dark things to reveal themselves. Here again, I am not suggesting we go primitive or return to a world of magic, animism or fall victim to religiosity. Quite to the contrary, it is the most highly civilized homo sapien who recognizes the sacred affinities that exist among all things and sees

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their meaning in a new context. This is our genius: to go beyond simple change and allow the past not only to inform us but in fact, be transformed by it.

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Notes

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1 . Wikipedia, Curse of the Pharaohs, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curse_of_the_pharaohs, (March 14, 2012). 2. These institutions are listed in Christine El Mahdy, Mummies, Myth and Magic in Ancient Egypt (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1989), 177 180. 3. The sanctuary of a royal mummy often contains the remains of a spouse, pets, and other funerary equipment. Wrapped into the mummy bandages were ushabti, small symbolic figurines. These were the answers or servants who were called upon for labor when the deceased was required to work on a certain day. They resemble the alchemists homunculi. 4. Mummification was practiced in South America, Chile and other parts of the globe. The oldest mummy found is a child who died about 5050 BCE in the Camarones Valley, Chile. 5. Akhenaton, Great Hymn to the Aten, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Hymn_to_the_Aten#cite_note-0, (March 28, 2012). 6. Luke 17:21, NIV. 7. James Hillman, Alchemical Psychology (New York: Spring Publications 2010), 312. 8. John 18:36 NIV. 9. The difference between god and archetype is not always distinct, especially where the archetype of the Self seems to merge with the concept of an eternal being. In Answer to Job, Jung writes, Strictly speaking, the God-image does not coincide with the unconscious as such, but with a special content of it, namely, the archetype of the self. It is this archetype from which we can no longer distinguish the God-image empirically. (C. G. Jung, Psychological Types, trans. R. F. C. Hull [Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1971], par. 757). To simplify matters I hold to the definition of God as a religious concept having psychological effects while an archetype is a psychological concept with religious implications. 10. Heinrich Khunrath, Amphitheatre of Eternal Wisdom, (New York: Dover Publications 2009). 11. Emile Grillot de Givry, trans J. Courtenay Locke, Witchcraft, Magic & Alchemy (New York: Dover Publications 2009), 368. 12. I refer to such synthetically produced creatures as ligers (lion and tiger), zorses (zebra and horse) and beefao (cow and buffalo) that are not monsters so much because things when wrong in the laboratory, but rather because there is no attention paid to the sentient life of these animals. Ethical treatment pertains strictly to their physical care and disregards the larger scheme of life, nature and anima mundi. This is the overriding problem with empirical science: it isolates the part for the whole. There is however a growing recognition of the role played by systems; that the part cannot be understood without unveiling the system governing its behavior. Ultimately, this trend may bring us closer to a unified understanding of psyche and soma. 13. Hillman, Alchemical Psychology, 311. 14. Ibid. 15. Following the example set by one of my beloved analysts, I had my dentist hand me my extracted wisdom tooth. I then offered it as a sacrifice to Osiris for revealing some of his secrets to me in the writing of my book, Embodying Osiris, the Secrets

of Alchemical Transformation (Wheaton, Ill: Quest Books, 2010). 16. With the advent of Einsteins theory of relativity, the traditional concept that time is linear has become an arbitrary way of describing temporal experience. No longer does the old notion of an arrow of time, where there is a linear path leading from past, present and future, apply. Instead, time is more determined by an observers viewpoint than being unquestionably absolute.

Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D. is a practicing Jungian psychologist and author of Embodying Osiris (Quest 2010) and Alchemical Psychology (Putnam 2002). For more information visit his websites, CavalliBooks.com and AlchemicalPsychology.com or email illavac@hotmail.com.

Copyright, all rights reserved by Thom F. Cavalli, Ph.D. October 3, 2012. For permission to copy or duplicate any or all parts of this document contact Dr. Cavalli at illavac@hotmail.com