Egyptian Adepts & Mystery Schools
(This is an excerpt from a University Of Metaphysical Sciences course at www.umsonline.org, please feel free to visit the school website)
Egypt,
for the most part, is where all magical traditions began. Most magical practices
have their roots in the traditions practiced in ancient Egypt. Even Christian
practices have roots in the magical practices in Egypt.
One way to attain transfiguration from humanity to divinity was through
the Otherworld. One could attain this by flying to the celestial abodes
as in the Pyramid texts, but mainly this was done by going through the Rastau,
the door to the Otherworld (Amentet, the hidden world of Amun). Rather than
ascension, the adept experiences a going deep within until arriving in the
astral visionary world that the gods also inhabit. The Egyptian Book Of
Coming Forth By Day, known erroneously as the Egyptian Book Of The Dead,
is filled with the visions and trials an Adept must endure when going trough
the Rastau to Osiris and Isis' heavenly palaces and pleasure fields. The
Pharaoh and Priests would visit these realms while dreaming in order to
seek guidance or instruction from the gods themselves. This form of transcendence
has much more to do with the psychology and predispositions of the adept,
as the Egyptians clearly show, in that there were different Books Of Coming
Forth By Day for different seekers depending on what their particular life
experience was.
This is a very spiritual means of attainment, comparable only to Revelations
and similar Apocryphal literature in Western religion and the Tibetan
Book Of The Dead in the Eastern traditions. Whereas it is difficult
to tell whether the Egyptian Stargates and Merkaba ships of Celestial Ascension
are spiritual or literal, it is obvious that attaining inner divinity through
the Rastau into the Otherworld is completely astral and spiritual. Here
the transformations and magic of dreams pervades the instructions given,
such as in this passage in which all types of the gods are mentioned in
their earth dwelling, star dwelling, and Otherworld dwelling aspects: "Homage
to you, lords of eternity, who hide your forms, the place you dwell isn't
known. Homage to you gods of the inundated lands and you gods in the Otherworld
(Amentet) and those gods among you who dwell in the heavens. Grant that
I can come before you, for I know you. I am pure, I am divine, I am mighty,
I have become powerful and glorious, bringing to you gods perfume and incense."
(Egyptian Book Of The Dead, E.A. Wallis Budge, 1967:168) Here we
can see clearly that the Egyptian spiritual realm is a realm of gods and
spiritual beings living in the heavens, on earth, and in the Otherworld
of the astral ba (soul).
The Egyptians saw these divine realms as inhabited by myriads of different
beings. There are star-people and sprits in the heavens. Celestial monsters
and angelic beings were said to guard the heavenly divisions of the zodiac
while terrible guardian demons ruled the trials and pylons the ba (soul)
had to encounter in the Otherworld. The terrible serpent monster Apophis
was a dragon that lived underground, only tamed and controlled by Set, which
was one of the few reasons Set was still considered a god after his defeat
by Horus. It seems that there were also saurian creatures similar to dinosaurs
and large mammals that are extinct nowadays. The type of creature that is
Set's head is unknown today. Archeologists speculate that it must be some
extinct lizard or mammal.
These views that saw the spiritual and actual as one and the same gave rise
to most other cosmologies and configurations of all later religions. For
example, the war in the heavens of Christianity and Islam were largely based
on the war between Set and Horus. Christian concepts of heaven and hell
come from Egyptian cosmology. A punishment thieves and traitors received
from Pharaoh "was to be put at a certain section of the Nile Delta
in which a swamp had formed. There were saurian creatures abiding in the
said swamp area, some of which being giant crocodiles (the earthly form
of the celestial crocodile-god Sobek) and Set monsters. The swamp stank
of sulfur and shimmered in the midday sun appearing to be aflame from far
off. From this appearance of a very real, literal and seemingly fiery place
full of demonic monsters are derived the genetic memories that became the
notion of hell in Christianity." (Mutabaruka, The Cutting Edge, a radio
show, www.mutabaruka.com) Any criminal who was placed in the swamp would
be killed very quickly by a crocodile, the Set monster, or any of many poisonous
serpents in the area. Not only that, but the existence of such a place with
its stink of sulfur and howls of wild life was enough to deter any Egyptian
youth from a life of crime.
The Egyptians merged all scientific knowledge, mystical speculation, and
spiritual realization into one, comprehensive cosmology. Most Egyptian mythological
lore is this type of metaphysical mix between the actual workings of the
cosmos on all levels and divinity as a casual agent. All these stories make
up the teaching corpus of the Mystery Schools of Egypt, the Schools of the
Left and Right Eyes of Ra. The Schools differed in that the right was concerned
with the Celestial Ascension while the left was concerned with the tantric
and magickal journey of transformations of the Otherworld. The Right was
responsible for transmission of texts and wisdom, the Left initiation, rituals
and Gnosis.
From these schools, teachers such as Orpheus and Pythagoras took their sciences
and metaphysics to the pagan Greeks. The mystery religions of most of the
world are partially or fully derived from the primary mystery school in
Egypt. Hermes-Thoth laments this to his student Asclepius at a time when
the Egyptian Mystery schools started sending teachers to the far ends of
the Earth, secretly influencing, and in some cases creating, all other world
religions. Hermes-Thoth says, "Did you not know, O Asclepius, that
Egypt is an image of Heaven, or, to speak more exactly, that in Egypt all
the operations of the powers which rule and work in Heaven have been transferred
to this Earth below? Nay, it should rather be said that the whole cosmos
dwells in this our land as in its sanctuary...this land, which once was
holy, a land which loved the gods and wherein alone, in reward for their
devotion, the gods deigned to sojourn upon Earth; a land which was the teacher
of mankind in holiness and piety...O Egypt, Egypt, of thy religion nothing
will remain but an empty tale which thine own children in times to come
will not believe; nothing will be left but graven words and only the stones
will tell of thy piety." (Complete Works Of Asclepius, Jordan, year
unknown:234) The literature of the Egyptians is vast and should be researched
thoroughly by anyone interested. However, a complete overview of the literature
of Egypt is beyond the scope of this essay. The reader will find many brief
references to these mythologies in the Lexicon of Egypt and Western Asia
below, and there are several titles on this topic in the recommended reading
and source material that is given.
The Adept in the Egyptian world-view was usually from the priest or priestess
class, but there are stories of adepts who would appear from the other classes.
The forms of the adept in Egypt were those of the Astrologer, the Physician,
the Magician who ruled the elements and forces, the Hierophant or High Priest
who communed with the gods and held sway over the forces of life and death.
Also included are the Scientist, the Architect, and the Sage-Prophet, wise
men and women who gave prophecy and advice to the king. The Egyptian corpus
is filled with literary examples of all of these events, places and concepts.
The Pharaoh was seen to be part god and part man until transformation or
death, when complete divinity is attained. Great Adepts such as Imhotep,
the architect of the first pyramids, attained status as a god such as a
Pharaoh would.
To be an Egyptian magician one needed a comprehensive knowledge of Astronomy,
healing arts, the powers of transformation, and the occult lore of the Pyramid
texts with one's own Book Of Coming Forth By Day. The Egyptian magician
was also a dream interpreter and master of the astral realm. The vision
of the Otherworld and the scientific wisdom of this world were melded into
one. The Egyptian magus was said to have power over the elements and creatures
of the earth and heaven. They were legendary at being able to transform
themselves, and objects, into other things. They alone held concourse with
the gods; there is an ancient saying that, “the adept alone comprehends
and flies off with the gods.” (Egyptian Book Of The Dead, E.A. Wallis
Budge, 1967:214) Magicians who demonstrated their powers were instantly
conferred a high status as holy people.
There are many hieroglyphs denoting sage, sacred person, and holy person.
The Egyptian adept was able to sport with the Star-gods, commune with them
through telepathy and congrex, and in effect raise human beings to that
of the gods. Shades of the Egyptian magical tradition pervades eastern Tantra,
Qabbalistic Judaism, Gnostic and orthodox Christianity, as well as Islamic
Sufism.