The Beginnings of Egypt
The idea that the ‘wicked’ Egyptians used Hebrew slaves to build the pyramids is nonsense. There were no Hebrews in existence at that early time.
Sometime before 3100 BC a single kingdom was established with the unification of the two lands of Upper and Lower Egypt.
Each city retained its original gods. People believed that in a time before memory gods had lived in the same way that men do, with fears, hopes, weaknesses and ultimately death. Gods were not immortal let alone omnipotent; they aged and died with cemeteries set aside for them. The people who controlled the Nile region over five and a half thousand years ago were foreigners who possessed knowledge or technology which was so advanced compared to the indigenous population that they seemed to be capable of magic. In ancient times magic and religion were inseparable and any powerful person could easily be deemed to be a god.
The Egyptians believed that matter had always existed; to them it was illogical to think of a god making something out of absolutely nothing. Their view was that the world began when order came out of chaos, and ever since there has been a battle between the forces of organization and disorder. This creation of order was brought about by a god who had always been – he was not only there before men, the sky and the Earth, he was in existence before the time of the gods.
This chaotic state was called Nun, a dark, sunless watery abyss with a creative force within it that commanded order to begin. This latent power which was within the substance of the chaos did not know it existed; it was a probability, a potential that was intertwined within the randomness of disorder.
This description of creation perfectly describes the view held by modern science, particularly ‘chaos theory' which has shown intricate designs which evolve and mathematically repeat within completely unstructured events. Central to the theology was ‘a first moment’ when a small island or hill arose out of the watery chaos, fertile and ready to support life. In Heliopolis and Hermopolis the spirit that had sparked life bringing order was the sun god Re (also known as Ra). In Memphis he was identified as Ptar, the earth god. He arrived at self-consciousness at the moment that he caused the first island to emerge. Re/Ptar became the source of the material benefits, the aspiration for the arts, the source of essential skills and, importantly, the mystery of building.
Each king was ‘the son of god’ who at the point of death became at one with his father, to be god in a cosmic Heaven. The story of the god Osiris tells how this cycle of gods and their sons began:
The sky goddess Nut had five children, the eldest of whom was Osiris, who was himself both a man and a god. As became the norm in ancient Egypt, his sister became his consort; her name was Isis. Helped by his right-hand god, Thoth, he ruled the country wisely. His brother Set was jealous of Osiris’s success and murdered him, severing his body into pieces which he cast into various parts of the Nile. As Osiris had produced no heir, the wickedness of Set would reward him with the right to rule. Isis did not give in; she had the pieces of Osiris located so she could reassemble and breathe a last brief moment of life into her brother. She lowered herself onto the divine phallus and the seed of Osiris entered her. With Isis now bearing his child, Osiris merged with the stars where he ruled the kingdom of the dead.
Isis gave birth to a son called Horus who challenged his father’s murderer to a duel. Horus cut off Set’s testicles but lost an eye. Horus was deemed to be the victor and he became the first king.
From that time on the king was the god Horus and at his death he became Osiris and his son the new Horus.
The Stability of the Two Lands
Far more ancient than the pyramid was the pillar.
Each of the two lands had its principal pillar to connect the king and his priests with the gods. When Upper and Lower Egypt became two kingdoms in one, both pillars were retained.
In the ancient city of Annu (later called On in the Bible and Heliopolis by the Greeks) there was a great sacred pillar named Annu. This was the great pillar of Lower Egypt. It’s counterpart in Upper Egypt was in Nekheb. Thebes, known then as ‘Waset’, had the title ‘Iwnu Shema’, which meant ‘the Southern Pillar’.
The two pillars were considered united by the heavenly crossbeam of the sky god Nut, the three parts forming an architectural doorway. With one pillar in the south and the other in the north, the opening naturally faced east to greet the rising sun. Egyptian hieroglyph for the Two Lands, called ‘taui’, as two eastward-facing pillars with dots to indicate the direction of the rising sun.
Facing this spiritual doorway from the east, the right-hand pillar was the one in Lower Egypt, corresponding with the Masonic right-hand pillar Jachin, which represents ‘to establish’. Lower Egypt was the place where the world first came into existence, therefore ‘Jachin’ represents the establishment of the world.
For the Egyptians the left-hand pillar marked the connection with Heaven for Upper Egypt ;and in Masonic ritual it is identified as Boaz, said to mean ‘strength or in it is strength’.
Freemasonry states that the unification of the two pillars represents ‘stability’.
An ideal that was absolutely central to their civilization was a concept called Ma’at.
’…justice was so fundamental that it was part of the natural order of things. Ma’at signified something more comprehensive than fairness. Originally the word was a physical term; it meant level, ordered, and symmetrical like the foundation plan of a temple. Later it came to mean righteousness, truth, and justice.(1)
Freemasonry considers itself to be a peculiar system of morality based on brotherly love, relief and truth. The newly made mason is told that all squares and levels are sure and certain signs by which to know a mason.
Freemasonry is not a religion in the same way that Ma’at is not some theological structure or legend. Both are pragmatic realizations that the continuance of civilization and social progress rests upon the individual. Both use the design and building of a temple as an example. It is rare to find a moral code in any society that exists outside of a religious system and it is fair to say that Ma’at and Masonry, stone for stone, level for level, are a match that could teach the modern world a great deal.
Few freemasons have a clue of the social splendor with which they are associated. In our modern Western world, decent human values such as pity and charity have become confused with religion, often being described as ‘Christian values’, which is a great shame. The most horrible, inhuman acts of history have been carried out in the name of Christianity.
Socialists and Communists might consider themselves as non-theological seekers of human goodness and equality. They are wrong. Like a religion their creed demands adherence to a pre-ordained methodology for their ‘goodness’ to work; Ma’at was pure goodness, freely given. If modern engineers marvel at the hard-to-emulate skills of the pyramid builders, then what can our social scientists make of a concept like this?
Egyptian hieroglyphics could not be understood until the Rosetta Stone – which translated some hieroglyphics into Greek – was deciphered, a hundred years after the Grand Lodge of England was established. There was no way Freemasonry knew about Ma’at in order to model itself upon it.
There was also a murder and resurrection story linked with the name of Osiris, but it was not connected to the architect of King Solomon’s Temple.
The Egyptians, through the idea Ma’at, built a new order fit for man and the gods. The temperament of the Egyptian people has been shaped by this spirit of tolerance and friendship. Ma’at became a basis for the legal system and soon came to stand for all ‘rightness’, from the equilibrium of the universe and all heavenly bodies to honesty and fair dealing in daily life. In ancient Egyptian society, thought and nature were understood as two sides of the same reality: whatever was regular or harmonious in either was considered to be a manifestation of Ma’at.(2)
All that is ‘regular’ and ‘harmonious’ is central to all Freemasonry and the right to investigate the hidden mysteries of nature and science is bestowed upon the Fellowcraft, or Second-Degree Freemason.
Only through the preservation of the divine line of kings could the civilization of Egypt survive. This presentation of Ma’at and the royal line being inseparable was clearly an excellent mechanism to avoid rebellion and maintain the monarchy.
Eventually Ma’at was perceived as a goddess. She was the daughter of the sun god Re and sailed across the sky with him in a boat, and she is often depicted as standing at the bow ensuring that a true and perfect course is maintained. Ma’at is shown with an ostrich feather in her headdress and an ‘ankh’ hanging from each arm. The ankh was, and is, their symbol of life. It form is a crucifix with the top section split down the middle and opened up, to form the shape of an eye or boat in a vertical position.
Ma’at’s brother was the moon god Thoth who is often shown at the bow of Re’s boat alongside Ma’at. Thoth was an important figure in certain early Masonic legends. Thoth taught the Egyptians the art of building and religion and what is true.
The Making of a King
The oral traditions of Freemasonry date some 4,000 years ago.
When the ruler of the two lands died he became Osiris and his son immediately became Horus and the new king. When the king had no son, the ‘royal Lodge’ members made the decisions, and once the initiation of the new ‘master’ was complete, the Horus was beyond competition for all time.
Tuthmosis II had an only son by a concubine called Isis. As a young boy he was being prepared for the priesthood and attended the great temple that the master builder Ineni had erected for his grandfather. One day he was present when his father was offering a sacrifice to Amen and the god was brought into the Hall of Cedar Columns, carried within a boat shrine. The god was carried shoulder-high round a circuit of the hall. The boy prostrated himself on the floor with his eyes closed, but as the shrine reached him, the god forced the procession to stop by increasing his weight so the bearers had to lower the god to the floor. The boy found he had been raised to his feet and at that moment he knew that he had been chosen as the Horus to be, even while his father was still alive.
Yahweh was carried in the Ark (his boat shrine) by the Israelites.
The coronation ceremony of the new Horus (the incoming king) was also the funeral ceremony for the new Osiris (the outgoing king). These events were conducted in secret and were restricted to the inner sanctum of very senior officials.
The king-making ritual is known to have been performed in the pyramid of Unas. As in a Masonic Temple, the ceiling of the main chamber represents the sky with stars in place. Celebrated on the last night of the waning moon, beginning at sunset and continuing all night until sunrise, (3) the purpose being a resurrection ritual which identified the dead king with Osiris. (4) Resurrection ceremonies were not reserved for the death of the king, indeed they appear to have been quite frequent events conducted in the mortuary temple. (5)
At the coronation/funeral ritual, the old king was resurrected as the new one, and p5roved himself a suitable candidate by travelling around the perimeter of the entire country. (6) In a Masonic ceremony the new member is conducted around the Temple.
After passing all points of the compass he is presented in the south, west and, finally, the east. The first is the junior warden, said to represent the moon (Thoth was god of the moon), the next is the senior warden, representing the sun (Re was god of the sun) and finally the Worshipful Master. Like the Egyptians, Freemasons conduct their ceremonies at night.
An inscription on a false door, now in the Cairo Museum, was written by someone honored to be admitted to the inner group of King Teti. It reads:
’I found a way in every secret matter of the court, I was honored in his majesty’s presence.
The expression ‘I found the way’ – the Essenes and Jerusalem Church used the same term for following their Law.
The Egyptologist H.W. Fairman observed:
’It is quite evident that at some point in the making of a king, in his selection or his crowning, something happened that ensured his legitimacy, that automatically disarmed opposition and claimed and obtained loyalty, and that simultaneously made him a god and linked him directly with Egypt’s past. (7)
The coronation took place in two stages. The first stage included anointing and an investiture with a ceremonial collar and apron as well as a presentation of an ankh (symbol of life) and four posies. In the second stage royal insignia were presented and the main ritual began. A crucial part of this was the reaffirmation of the union of the Two Lands and the investiture of the new king by presenting tow distinctly different crowns and regalia. (8)
The central and crucial process of king-making involved the candidate travelling to the stars, being spiritually crowned by the dead king – the new Osiris. The old king and the new king journeyed to the constellation of Orion together, one to remain in his celestial home and one to return to rule the land of men.
The new king underwent ‘death’ by means of a potion. This drug was a hallucinogenic that slowly induced a catatonic state, leaving the new king as inert as any corpse. The return was carefully calculated so the new king returned to consciousness precisely as the morning star rose above the horizon. From that moment on no mortal would ever think about usurping his power.
Provingthe Unprovable
The Silent Evidence
The age in which pyramids were built was very short. St Paul’s Cathedral is not the tomb of Sir Christopher Wren, despite the fact that he is buried within it.
‘The Pyramid Texts’, found inside the five pyramids of Saqqara near Cairo, that of King Unas, are around 4,300 years old. The ritual described is considered to be as much as 5,300 years old. (9)
The burial chamber represents the underworld, the antechamber of the horizon or upperworld, and the ceiling the night sky. The coffin containing the body of the dead king was brought into the burial chamber where the ritual was performed. The body was placed into the sarcophagus and the members of the elite passed into the antechamber, breaking two red vases as they went. During the ceremony the Ba (the soul) of the dead king left the body and crossed the underworld (the burial chamber) and then, acquiring tangible form in the statue of himself, proceeded to cross the night sky and reached the horizon where it rejoined the Lord of All. The process was then repeated in abbreviated form for the candidate king.
The Pyramid Text of Unas contains another ritual running alongside the main ritual. (10)
The ritual is more ancient than the oldest Egyptian history.
A prayer from a Sixth Dynasty (2345-2181 BC) pyramid:
’Ho N, thy Ba stands among the gods, among the spirits; fear of thee is in their hearts. Ho N, this N. stands on thy throne at the head of the living; terror of thee is in their hearts. Thy name that is on earth lives, thy name that is on earth endures; thou wilt not perish, thou wilt not be destroyed for ever and ever.’
Consider now a silent prayer for the candidate king:
’we the frail creatures of thy providence, humbly implore thee to pour down upon this convocation, assembled in thy Holy Name, the continued dew of thy blessing. More especially we beseech thee to impart Thy grace to this thy servant who seeks to partake with us, the secrets of the stars. Endue him with such fortitude that, in the hour of trial he fail not but passing safely under thy protection, through the dark valley of the shadow of death he may finally rise from the tomb of transgression to shine as the Stars, for ever and ever.’
This is the prayer offered up in the Masonic Third Degree ceremony with the name ‘God’ changed to ‘Re’ and ‘secrets of a Master Mason’ to ‘secrets of the stars’. Otherwise, it is unchanged.
Narcotic drugs have been used in religious ceremonies in almost every ancient human culture. The early Egyptians possessed very sophisticated knowledge concerning their use. Why do we think that they would not have used them?
The funerary bridge, a link between the Earth and Heaven which human being use to communicate with the gods, is a common symbol of ancient religious practices. At some point in the distant past such bridges had been in common use, but following the decline of man it has become more difficult to use such bridges. People can only cross the bridge in spirit either as a dead soul or in a state of ecstasy. Such a crossing would be fraught with difficulty; not all souls would succeed, as demons and monsters could beset those who were not properly prepared. Only the ‘good’ and the skilled adepts who already knew the road from a ritual death and resurrection could cross the bridge easily.(12)
The passage of the new king was conducted in silence so as not to alert demons. The new king could then follow the dead king across the heavens, learning the way so that he could in turn lead the next king at his own death.
A passage from the Pyramid Texts:
’The reed-floats of the sky are set in place for me, that I may cross by means of them to Re at the horizon. …I will stand among them for they moon is my brother, the Morning Star is my offspring…’(14)
The Egyptians adopted much of their theology and technology from the secrets of the city builders of Sumer and the Sumerians were extremely well versed in the use of drugs for religious purposes.
The Morning Star Shines Again
The theology of Egypt was a development of Sumerian beliefs. Future Hebrew (and therefore Christian) beliefs were the development of Egyptian theology. The morning star, the symbol of rebirth in the Essene Community/Jerusalem Church and Freemasonry.
The Egyptian hieroglyphic for the morning star has the literal meaning ‘divine knowledge’.
Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert put forward a well argued and researched case that shows how the Giza pyramids are arranged in a deliberate imitation of the stars of Orion’s Belt. (15) Rituals were conducted in the stepped ziggurats of ancient Mesopotamia involving the ‘Morning Star, seen as the great cosmic goddess Ishtar’.
In Egypt the new king, the Horus, is the morning star, arising (like the raised Freemason) from a temporary and figurative death. The morning star was Venus.
The peculiar fate of Osiris – his brutal murder and dismemberment by his brother Set, followed by his resurrection and exaltation to the stars – is a very early example of the vindication and reward of innocent suffering. Osiris’s fate gave hope to the lower orders of society and gave a meaning and purpose to suffering. (16)
Change ‘the fate’ to ‘his crucifixion’ and this description could be about Jesus the Christ.
CONCLUSION
The first Egyptian builders had originated in Sumer. Sumerian immigrants brought technology and theology to Egypt. The two kingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt had been twinned as two halves of a new single state – unification of two kingdoms with one divine ruler.
Each king was considered to be ‘the son of God’.
Freemasonry could not have copied from Egyptian ;history because the concept of Ma’at, long lost to the world, remained so until the decoding of the Rosetta Stone – a hundred years after the foundation of the Grand Lodge of England.
Ma’at, at first a great truth and later a goddess, was sister to Thoth, the god of the moon and another figure of great significance in Masonic myth.
The most exciting link with the Masonic Third Degree came from references in the Pyramid Text to the king representing the morning star. The Egyptian hieroglyphic for the morning or divine star was the same five-pointed star used to represent the five points of fellowship of the Masonic Third Degree.
(1) P.H. Newby: Warrior Pharaohs
(2) Norman Cohen: Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come
(3) J. Spiegel: Das Auferstehungsritual der Unaspyamide
(4) J. Spiegel: Das Auferstehungsritual der Unaspyamide
(5) S.H. Hooke: The Kingship Rituals of Egypt
(6) S.H. Hooke: The Kingship Rituals of Egypt
(7) H.W. Fairman: The Kingship Rituals of Egypt
(8) H.W. Fairman: The Kingship Rituals of Egypt
(9) J. Spiegel: Das Auferstehungrsritual der Unaspyamide
(10) J. Spiegel: Das Auferstehungrsitual der Unaspyamide
(12) Mircea Eliade:Shamanism: Archaic Techniques of Ecstasy
(14) Pyramid Texts 1000-1
(15) Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert: The Orion Mystery
(16) N. Cohen: Cosmos, Chaos and the World to Come
