The Magic Powers of Ancient Egypt:

Georges Henein, Andr Breton and

Horus Schenouda
Marc Kober
If we consider Andr Bretons long--lasting interest
in the renewing powers
of the human mind, as released by magic and in
particular by magic art,
Georges Henein, who introduced surrealism to
Egypt, represents the ideal
mediator with the Orient, and with ancient Egypt in
particular. Several other
Egyptian authors and artists could be said to share
this mediating role, such
as Ramss Younane, but also Angelo de Riz, whom
Henein rated highly
in his 1937 Bilan du mouvement surraliste
(Appraisal of the surrealist
movement): Les rcits de rves tiennent une
place considrable dans le
pome et surtout dans la peinture surralistes.
Parmi les tableaux exposs ici
mme par Angelo de Riz, plusieurs ne sont que des
instantans de rves []
De nombreuses toiles de Salvador Dal ou dYves
Tanguy paraissent autant
de rves pris sur le fait (Henein OEuvres 371).
(Dream narratives are very
important in surrealist poetry and especially

painting. Among the pictures

shown here by Angelo de Riz, several are just
sketches from dreams [...].
Many paintings by Dal or Yves Tanguy appear as
so many dreams caught
on the spot.) It is easy to associate Parisian
surrealism with that of Cairo,
in its most open, cosmopolitan dimension. Indeed,
Cairo is often called le
Petit Paris. Among the writers, one should also
mention first Edmond Jabs,
Marie Cavadia and the now famous Joyce Mansour,
who published her first
poems while she was still living in Cairo with the
help of Georges Henein,
Grald Messadi, and Andr Pieyre de
Mandiargues, who visited Egypt in
the 1950s. Despite these examples, the connection
between the Parisian and
Egyptian surrealist worlds was not very strong, and
it depended on a few
artists or writers, like Georges Henein and Ramss
Younane, or Fouad Kamel
(Fall 101105). The modern painting movement
born in Egypt, however,
is surrealist in its most accomplished part and has
strong affinities with
European surrealism, as reflected in the Egyptian
sensitivity to daily magic,
such as that found in the works of Abdel Hadi Al

Gazzar.
However, despite these evident relations, a
question arises as to what
exactly Bretons attitude toward Egypt was. When
Henein presented the
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
2
first reports of surrealism in a 1937 radio lecture,
he pointed out a basic
relation between Egypt and surrealism as lying in
the interest in the
occult, saying that les surralistes ne ddaignent
pas non plus ltude
des superstitions orientales, de loccultisme et
affectionnent la plupart des
troubles mentaux (OEuvres 372) (the surrealists
have no objection to the
study of Oriental superstitions or of the Occult and
they find most mental
disorders quite appealing). According to Patrick
Lepetit, surrealism
played magic against religion, and consequently
occultism against religion:
Contre le religieux, en consquence, les
surralistes ont privilgi une autre
forme de pense magique, source de ce que
Sarane Alexandrian nomme,
aprs Cornlius Agrippa, la philosophie occulte
(17). (Consequently, the
surrealists privileged against religion another form

of magical thought, the

source of what Sarane Alexandrian calls, according
to Cornelius Agrippa,
occult philosophy.) Given that Egypt is said to be
the cradle of occultism,
an analysis of the relations between surrealism and
ancient Egypt can be
clearly established through the surrealists interest
in the occult, and an
Egyptian writer as enthusiastic about surrealism as
Georges Henein could
be the perfect interlocutor. Moreover, because of
his Coptic origins, Henein
could be seen as a spiritual descendant of the
Pharaohs who thus felt a great
connection with Egyptian traditional thought. A
question arises, however,
as to whether Heneins interest in ancient Egypt
was genuinely compatible
with his commitment to surrealism. The answer
undoubtedly derives from
Heneins idea of poetry (and the plastic arts) from
1940 on, which was very
close to that of the surrealists. He considered
modern poetry as an efficient
means of transforming ones knowledge of the self
and the world. According
to this viewpoint, modern poetry takes up the torch
of ancient magic, with
the hermeneutic Word considered the most

important thing: La posie

moderne ne pratique pas linconscient pour
linconscient. Elle est une
vritable marche vers la connaissance de soi, la
connaissance de tout ce qui
en nous diffre de lide que nous nous croyions
fonds entretenir de nous-mmes [] (OEuvres 421). (Modern poetry does
not use the unconscious for
its own sake. It is a real advance toward self--knowledge and the knowledge
of everything within us that differs from the self--image we once felt was
justified.) Such knowledge, described as a
mysterious way into the inner
being, and following in Novalis tracks, retrieves
the power of words and
a quest for unity, as it is inscribed in various texts
of the 1940s signed by
Henein. Rimbaud was also an important reference
for Henein, as he was
for Breton and Aragon, who appreciated Andr
Rolland de Renvilles 1929
publication Rimbaud le voyant as a reading of
Rimbauds intuitive affinities
with Oriental traditional thought (see Roberts).
Renville points out the
traces of the inner experience, in Batailles
terms, of modern poetry.
In this article, we will focus on the meeting point

between the Egyptian

writer, Henein, and the surrealist idea of the
affective power of the Word and
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
3
of poetry. Georges Henein understands the Word
in terms of the relation
between poetry and a quest for a renewed and
unmediated communication
with Nature that was established by Romantic
thought. But, if Henein
quotes Novalis and Rimbaud in his article
Condition de la posie II in Don
Quichotte n15, published in Cairo in March 1940,
he ends this article with
the imperative: trouver une langue (find a
language). He also uses the term
message, instead of word, maybe because
these terms are Biblical. And, in
the first part of this text, he gives a more
anthropological definition of poetry:
Tout fait lorigine, la posie sous forme de
formules, je dirais presque de
recettes, magiques, rythmiques, incantatoires,
sinscrit en marge et parfois
au coeur mme de lactivit sociale (OEuvres
418). (At the very beginning,
poetry, as formula, I would even say as magic,
rhythmic, incantatory recipes,
was inscribed in the margins, and sometimes at

the centre of social activity.)

His conception of poetry is therefore quite
particular, and is aligned with
the ideas of Jules Monnerot (who is quoted in the
same article) as defined in
his La Posie moderne et le sacr (1945). Henein
prefers the term langage for
poetry as a ritual, when the word (verbe) is
transcended:
La posie se confond presque compltement avec
le rite. Elle est
la partie verbale du rite, elle est un rite parl ------ de mme que
la musique est un rite sonoris. Cette naissance
dun langage
spcial qui se diffrencie du langage usuel de la
tribu ou de la cit
sexplique aisment. Elle sexplique par la qualit
de lauditeur ou du
destinataire. Les dieux, les forces de la nature, les
mystres auxquels
on sadresse de la sorte, ont droit un langage
part, singulirement
persuasif, un langage qui transcende le verbe
quotidien dgrad par
les services grossiers de tout ordre qui lui sont
demands. (OEuvres
419)
Poetry is almost entirely indistinguishable from
ritual. It is the

verbal part of the ritual, a spoken ritual just as

music is a sound
ritual. The birth of a special language different from
the tribes
or the citys usual language is easy to explain. It
can be explained
according to the nature of the listener, or the
destinatee. The gods,
the forces of nature, the mysteries thus addressed,
are entitled to a
separate, oddly persuasive language, a language
which transcends
the daily word, degraded by the vulgarity of every
order it is given.
The initial contacts between Breton and Henein
were based on the terms
used by Breton in his first letter to the Egyptian
writer, alluding to the sacred
bird, the god Horus. We will first discuss the terms
of this letter and associate
them with the gods of ancient Egypt, especially the
bird gods, as defined
by Egyptologists, as well as writers such as
Heneins contemporary Horus
Schenouda, whom we will discuss later as offering
another link between
native Egyptian lyricism and surrealism. At a first
general level, it is easy to
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
4

see how the multitude of major and minor gods of

ancient Egypt, as described
for example by the Egyptologist Jean--Pierre
Cortegianni, might appeal to a
surrealist mind, because it reflects an inexhaustible
imagination. Moreover,
the Egyptian pantheon is characterised by
permanent creation. Indeed, the
power of metamorphosis and that of the
imagination are two of surrealisms
cardinal values, as Breton writes in the Manifesto
of Surrealism: La seule
imagination me rend compte de ce qui peut tre
(Imagination alone offers
me some intimation of what can be), adding:
Pour lesprit, la possibilit
derrer nest--elle pas plutt la contingence du
bien ? (OEuvres Compltes (OC)
I: 312). (For the mind, is the possibility of erring
not rather the contingency of
good? (Manifestoes 5)). Furthermore, the
Metamorphose (Metamorphosis)
article in the Dictionnaire abrg du surralisme
provides two quotations, one
by Franz Kafka, the other from an unidentified
Egyptian text: Jarrive en
pervier et je sors en Phnix (OC II: 859). (I arrive
as a sparrow hawk and
leave as a phoenix.) Breton also writes: La faune
et la flore du surralisme

sont inavouables (OC I: 340). (The flora and

fauna of Surrealism are
inadmissible (Manifestoes 40)). And yet it was a
non--Egyptian creature that
Breton was thinking of when he responded to
Henein, who had come to offer
the surrealist leader the support of the Egyptian
avant--garde: Le dmon de
la perversit, tel quil daigne mapparatre, ma
bien lair davoir une aile ici,
lautre en gypte. (The demon of perversity, such
as he deigns to appear to
me, seems to have one wing here and the other in
Egypt), to which Henein
replied, tellingly: Oui, mais une aile qui bat bien
faiblement (Kober, Le
dmon de la perversit 377). (Yes, but that wing
is flapping very weakly.)
This demon of perversity in point belongs neither
to the surrealist nor to
the Egyptian bestiary, but it establishes a totemic
link between two men who
had not yet met. Here, the word aile (wing) plays
a pivotal role.
The importance attributed to winged creatures by
Breton can be easily
spotted from a distance. The imagination is often
seen as taking off like a
bird, or in danger of having its wings clipped.
Could surrealism be again at

its zenith? A decade earlier, in Introduction to the

Discourse on the Paucity
of Reality, Breton had seemed to believe the
Orient could come to the rescue
against the oppression of Latin civilization.
Alleviation turns into removal
when light crosses crystal: [] Orient, bel oiseau
de proie et dinnocence,
je timplore du fond du royaume des ombres !
Inspire--moi, que je sois
celui qui na plus dombre (OC II: 280). ...Orient,
beautiful bird of prey
and innocence, I implore you from the depths of
the kingdom of shadows!
Inspire me, so that I may be he in whom there are
no more shadows (What
is Surrealism? 2: 28)). This quotation from Point du
jour (1934) refers back
to two elements: a bird and the light (or its
opposite, the shadow), both of
which are connected with Egyptian mythology,
notably to Horus, who is the
son of the Sun and the god with a hawks head.
The Living Horus was the first
name to appear among the titles of the ancient
sovereigns, the Pharaohs, and
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
5
the shadow of a bird silhouetted against the
daylight, with the solar disc as

his emblem, represents the god of the sky. It is a

fascinating creature, one of
the most powerful, and the bird of prey alluded to
by Breton as the Orient
can clearly be interpreted as Horus.
A contemporary of Georges Henein, Horus
Schenouda, also alluded
to the ancient significance of the hawk: Le faucon
Horus a toujours les
ailes dployes dans les effigies, les bas--reliefs et
les figures magnifiques
qui ornent les temples, les difices des Pharaons
quon admire toujours
(Untitled manuscript 2). (Horus the hawk always
spreads his wings in
effigies, bas--reliefs and the splendid figures
adorning the temples, these
Pharaoh edifices that we still admire)
Figure 1: Editions Horus Logo (Le Caire). Dir. Horus
Schenouda.
This logo was drawn by Fouad Kamel. Marc Kober
collection,
Marc Kober and Marylne Farley.
Horus is another name for the Rising Sun, and the
following comment
by the same author emphasizes the importance
Breton attributed to birds,
especially from the perspective of idealism. Aside
from that point, Horus
Schenouda is an Egyptian writer important in this

context because he was a

Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
6
close contemporary of writers and artists involved
with Egyptian surrealism.
At the same time, he was deeply interested in the
pharaonic past and the
religious beliefs of old Egypt: En gypte, il y a
toujours des oiseaux, bien
quils ne soient pas tous rares. Les milans
descendent du ciel et corchent
la lumire en emportant dans leurs serres des ibis
tourdis, dj morts.
Lpervier, plus vorace que le faucon, les bouscule
et leur arrache les pauvres
ibis tous blancs (Otage de Pharaon 36). (In Egypt
there are always birds, and
not all of them are rare birds. Kites descend from
the sky and skim the light,
as they carry off stunned, already dead ibises in
their talons. The sparrow
hawk, more voracious than the hawk, bumps into
them and snatches away
those poor snow--white ibises.) The Egyptians
believed that the hawk who
soared up into the heavens and disappeared out of
human sight was off to
join his father, the Sun.
After this analysis of the polymorphous imagination
and flight as general

points of intersection, we will now move to a more

particular point about the
word and magic art and question the relation
between poetry and the occult.
Among many references to Egypt in Bretons
works, we will measure the
importance of Egyptian art in his essay about
magic art, written in the mid
1950s, and then the way in which Henein
integrates traditional magic into
his own poetics. LArt magique puts into question
the effectiveness of magic
in our daily lives, independently of ancient rites,
but above all it proposes
a hypothetical art which would use (consciously or
not) various magic
means in order to master natures forces or to
restore the lost unity between
man and the world. Like Novalis, Andr Breton calls
up some aspects of
the mind that elude the clear light of discursive
thought. This is a common
point between Breton and Henein, with the
Egyptian writer also evoking
magic, mainly that of ancient Egypt. In fact, two
main points show their
deep affinities: the field of magic in action and the
field of the magic of the
affective Word. According to Andr Breton, une
conscience lyrique fonde

sur la reconnaissance des pouvoirs du Verbe (a

lyrical consciousness based
on the recognition of the powers of the Word)
contradicts connaissance
discursive (discursive knowledge) (OC IV: 62).
The Word must be taken
in the sense of that coined by Eliphas Lvi, the
word in action.
The term Word, then, is the precise meeting point
between the poet,
the artist and the magician, which had become
part of Bretons vocabulary
after his reading Eliphas Lvi and after having been
initiated by Auguste
Viattes Victor Hugo et les Illumins de son temps.
As Etienne--Alain Hubert
explains, Le Verbe est la parole en action (OC IV:
1229). (The Verb is the
word in action.) Andr Bretons examples are
European, even though he
recognizes [] lide dune hiroglyptique
gnralise (OC IV: 68) (the
idea of generalized hieroglyphics) within
surrealist poetic images and, for
example, in the Jeu de lUn dans lAutre (Game
of One into Another). To
Bretons mind it is something much more complex
than the expression of a
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
7

simple symbolism, or the obscure nature of its

message. In his meditations on
magic art, Andr Breton quotes the Egyptian
example gleaned from a book
by Franois Lexa, La Magie dans lEgypte antique
(The Magic of Ancient Egypt,
Geuthner, 1925), and he develops the idea of a
blend of religion and high
magic, which makes it difficult to distinguish one
from another. Apart from
Valentin dAlexandrie and the Marcosians, Breton
uses examples foreign to
Egypt, which is not the case with the Enqute
(investigation), where he
lists the answers to a questionnaire including an
Egyptian drawing (Le livre
(OC IV:110). The presence of the drawing indicates
the very origin of the
question that was asked by the author.
Bretons passionate interest in Oceanic art is well--known, and he
considered Egyptian art to be less important.
Although this hierarchy
reappears in the synthetic table of LArt magique,
Egypt is nevertheless
present with four illustrations referring to it
particularily in the section
entitled LEveil de lintellection: exploration du
monde intrieur (gypte)

(Exploring the Inner World). Concerning Egyptian

art, Breton refers to
un retournement de lhomme vers lui--mme
(OC IV: 200) (man turning
back towards himself). This importance given to
Egypt as an inner world
is closely linked to the case of Georges Henein,
author of a poem titled De
lIrralisme (On Unrealism): [] le seul monde
vritable cest celui que
nous cr
moi, lextrme--moi (OEuvres 4041). ([...] the
only real world is the one
we carry within ourselves [] an artifice if it is
compared with the real, the
truth according to the ego, or according to the
ultra--ego.) This introverted
narrative order would fit in perfectly with the birth
of a magic art and with
the creative power of the Word, as Breton states:
Chaque dieu crateur (et
il y en a au moins autant que de grands centres
sacerdotaux) cre le monde
par la vertu de sa voix (OC IV: 201). (Each
creator among the gods (and
there are at least as many as there are large
sacerdotal centers) creates
the World by virtue of his voice.) Egyptian
realism naturally attracted
Bretons attention as an antidote for Greek and

Roman realism. However,

according to Breton, Egypts own form of realism
seems somewhat inferior
to the sublimation that characterizes the narratives
in the Mesopotamian
Delta.
In short, the Voice of the Pharaohs, equal to that
of the gods, fascinates
Breton because it comes close to the esoteric
concept of the Word that
characterizes French romanticism. In the case of
Georges Henein, the
problem is how to conciliate the value of ancient
Egyptian beliefs with those
of surrealism. When Henein writes to the founder of
surrealism, his point
of view is quite French, Parisian even, because
Paris was then considered as
the capital of the mind. In Georges Heneins view,
as defined in his essay
Fonction subversive de la posie (The
Subversive Function of Poetry),
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
8
surrealism had a universal and immediate value,
and it was a subversive
movement for the mind precisely because of the
importance given to poetry:
Elle est connaissance toujours plus accrue de soi,
dcouverte ininterrompue

de nouvelles rgions de lhomme, renouvellement

ncessaire des assises de la
vie (OEuvres 404). (It is an ever--increasing
knowledge of the self, a ceaseless
discovery of new regions of the human geography,
a necessary renewal of
lifes foundation.) In 1939, magic is not a priority
for Henein, but poetry
is. He would express himself a good decade later
specifically about putting
ones hopes in the magic of ancient Egypt.
Before broaching these considerations about
ancient magic in Egypt, we
will first refer to various short stories or poetical
prose pieces by Henein
that apparently keep at a distance the main
ambitions of surrealism and the
magic practice of ancient Egypt. Nevertheless, the
way these texts can be
understood remains equivocal: there is no doubt
about their double meaning.
They could even be read as magical texts,
narratives working like talismans,
designed to exclude the ignorant. They also hint at
the misunderstanding of
those whose rational scepticism makes them lose
track of lifes mysteries.
Heneins short--story Les Bonnes Adresses (The
Right Addresses) puts
forward the initiatory dimension and the pretence

of retrieving certain
lost traditional powers, through intrigues and
characters. The question is
inscribed in the title: Who is the best person you
can rely on? or How to
knock on the right door? In other words Who
should be trusted in, and
considered as a guide? Who is a wizard and who is
not a real magus?
The texts we will analyse here have been read as a
kind of parable
of encounters with surrealism. In some of Heneins
works, in which a
master takes responsibility for a novice, an
invisible world seems to draw
closer to the reader and to the character, but the
experience often proves
disappointing. And the imposture of (false) magic
appears in an obvious way.
Having unwittingly come into contact with a group
known as Hypothses
(Hypotheses), the narrator of Les Bonnes
Adresses meets Herminia. She
gives him the initiation kiss, but he appreciates
that kiss more for its erotic
than for its esoteric value. Herminia entrusts him to
an instructor, a chemist
by profession. The instructor disappears, with the
excuse of his departure to
the Grande Fort (Great Forest). In other words,

he transgresses la limite
de tout enseignement (OEuvres 220) (the limits
of any form of teaching).
The magic seems to be powerless. The instructor
pretends to prepare some
poudre de brouillard (fog powder), and the
alchemical quest is presented
here as a joke. But at the same time, fog is a trick
in order to escape from
finite things, linked to the excess of precision
required by modern life. The
instructor is unable to help the narrator find a way
to alter his destiny. The
best he can hope for is to find consolation in an
ordinary love--affair. Profane
love becomes a substitute for a quest for the
Absolute. In other words, for
the uniniated, an insincere performance of magic
rituals underlines their
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
9
inoperative or doubtful nature. In this tale, the
reference to Gurdjieff is
significant. When Les Bonnes Adresses was first
published in 1956,
however, Georges Henein was already far removed
from surrealism, notably
because the group, founded by medical students
like Breton and Aragon and
keen on hypotheses and experiments, was

undertaking activities such as the

Comme exhibition and the journal Non which
Henein found unconvincing.
According to Sarane Alexandrian, the story may
describe the end of an
initiation, concluding with a test and the risk of a
significant break (choc
en retour) with the instructor. Alexandrian was
close to Andr Breton in
1947, and was a member of the surrealist bureau
Cause. If one agrees with
Alexandrian that surrealism was a secret
organisation, or organisation
initiatique (Georges Henein 57), then the figure of
the narrator would
represent Georges Henein (or Alexandrian himself),
now among the initiates
of surrealism, after their break with Breton. One
can also associate Breton
with the instructor (Moniteur in the text), who
disappears having been
fully initiated, abandoning a group of followers. A
great gap exists between
the one who is not initiated (the narrator) and the
great initiator (Moniteur).
As for Herminia, she is a partly initiated character,
located in an intermediate
zone. Arguably, then, the Hypotheses group is
another name for the surrealist
group considered as a secret society. Its methods

and their results, though

not visible, are not insignificant. They can be seen
only from the inside, if a
disciple has decided to master the most secret
rules of existence within the
group.
Shortly after the publication of Les Bonnes
Addresses, Georges Henein
organized a number of art exhibitions in Egypt. The
first exhibition, held in
Cairo on 20 January 1959, displayed abstract works
by Ramss Younane, a
prominent Egyptian artist and close friend of
Georges Henein, Fouad Kamel,
Roland Vogel, Khadiga Riaz, Hassan Hassan and
other artists. The second
exhibition was held in April 1959 with organic and
soft forms designed again
by Younane, and many other artists, like Vasco
Barbitch, Khadiga Riaz, and
the figurative painter Hamed Nada. Among other
texts in the catalog for
the exhibition, Henein wrote in Sur un Thme de
Ramss Younane: Ceux
qui sont dehors savent maintenant que la
connaissance est ferme (Vers
lInconnu 3) (Those who are outside know now
that knowledge is closed).
And Roland Vogel wrote in a text Lettre de
Bangkok: Notre seul geste

encore possible serait la dfinition de linavouable

qui se situe entre le langage
et le silence (Encore lInconnu 7) (Our only
possible gesture would be to
specify what is too shameful to mention that is
located between language
and silence). The titles of these exhibitions, Vers
lInconnu (Toward the
Unknown) in January 1959, and Encore lInconnu
(Still the Unknown), in April
of the same year, are significant, and refer perhaps
to esoteric worlds. To
present the exhibition Vers lInconnu, Henein wrote
a text with the significant
title LUltra--Lieu (The Ultra--Location). These
titles refer to the realm of the
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
10
invisible and to the idea of a Suprieur Inconnu
(Superior Unknown). This
last expression should be read in the sense of
Louis--Claude de Saint--Martin,
the father of the martiniste movement, who
called himself the philosophe
inconnu (unknown philosopher). According to
Alexandrian, this important
author in the history of the occult could be
considered as the French Novalis
(Alexandrian Histoire 298).
Various titles chosen by Georges Henein have a

magic and surrealist tone,

such as Le Signe le plus obscur (The Most
Obscure Sign), Le Pacte noir
(The Black Pact), Le Seuil interdit (The
Forbidden Threshold) or Le
Message opaque (The Opaque Message). Let us,
then, examine a second
story, Le Supplice dune existence meilleure
(OEuvres 272) (The Torments
of a Better Life), wherein Henein introduces us to
a parody of an initiate. This
character spends his whole lifetime on an after
death project whose results
are denounced as futile. His search for a better
life (la recherche dune
vie meilleure) is also a protest movement in which
one can recognize magic
in action, but also a misguided version of the
rebellions of Arthur Rimbaud
and of the surrealists. Finally, the only tangible
result of this project is the
model for a villa, a dream house, not very
different from a middle class,
materialistic American (and now universal) dream.
The narrators nervous
collapse is triggered by certain gestures made by
the villas architect. This
character insists on presenting his masterpiece as
though he were a vulgar
travelling salesman, and he lights up the model

from the inside with a

flashlight. Generally speaking, his attitude is a
parody of the true search
for superhuman powers, [] cette lampe de
poche qui prtend clairer
du dedans les structures de lavenir (274). ([...]
the flashlight which was
supposed to light up the structures of the future
from the inside.) The italics
are Heineins, stressing the cruel irony of the
situation. The highest peak of
surrealist ambition is being mocked by the
Egyptian author, not without a
touch of bitterness.
From another point of view, the architects clumsy
gestures have perhaps
an allegorical meaning. The architect slips away
after having announced
his new and ultimate project: an exquise
maquette funraire (274) (an
exquisite funeral model). The encounter with the
architect could be read
as an encounter with the narrators K , a copy of
oneself who will continue
to live in the Beyond in place of the deceased,
according to ancient Egyptian
beliefs. This character could also be read as a
harbinger of death, bringing
to mind preparations for the final journey. It is well
known that the very

precise way ancient Egyptians used to plan Death

and the Beyond was
geared toward a continuation of life in a different
form, though with all
the necessary material comfort. While still alive, a
person had to undertake
extensive preparations in order to ease his collapse
into death, which was
nothing but an empty world or a void.
From this esoteric point of view, the intricate
preparations for a successful
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
11
material existence in this life and in death were
never negligible. According
to Henry Corbin, humor is the safeguard of the
mystic, because it enables
protection from a subjective danger, the
development of a superiority
complex, as well as protection from an objective
danger, that of revealing
the secret and losing ones spiritual guide (180).
The story can therefore be
understood as a modern transposition of old ritual
requirements in the face
of death. It reveals Georges Heneins anxiety and
his deep interest in the
psychic structure of his pharaonic ancestors.
Our author energetically defends the right of
human beings to knowledge,

and wholeheartedly subscribes to surrealisms

peculiar hermeneutic
ambition, as it blends with poetic activity. The
ultimate goal would be, as
it is defined by Breton in LArt magique, la
libration sans condition de
lesprit (OC IV: 289) (the unconditional liberation
of the mind). In that
case, how can the magic powers of Ancient Egypt
be of any use to man in the
present and the future?
Georges Henein gives us several answers in the
article Considrations
sur la magie dune Egypte lautre (Observations
on magic from one Egypt
to another), published in December 1950 in the
weekly Egyptian review
La Femme nouvelle. At that time, Henein had
officially broken all relations
with Breton, though with dignity and respect for
the main values supported
by surrealism. This article shows an awakening
curiosity turned toward a
specific aspect of Heneins native land. The
question of the relations between
art and magic was linked to a concept of time
perceived as degradation.
In his essay, LArt magique, Breton had also
pointed out those stages, but
with surrealist art as the only and ultimate

conciliation. Henein also feels

a nostalgia for a past reconciled with the present
time, but without being
convinced by the rebirth of magic as expressed
through surrealist art, which
would end the modern split between two parallel
practices. In his 1950 essay,
Henein considers magic as one of the greatest
opportunities for the empirical
mind, but he sees it as a lost opportunity. In
Heneins view, magicians cater
to a need for the mysterious, especially in order
to endow religions with
an intriguing dimension, when in fact concrete
remedies and means, in a
recherche de lutilit immediate (OEuvres 525)
(search for immediate
utility), are needed first and foremost. Worse still,
magic has been used
to exert temporal power. The ancient sovereigns
enveloped themselves in
a form of mystery that enhanced their prestige in
the eyes of the ordinary
people. Nevertheless, the reality of magic power
was untouched. What
Henein calls Domaines reservs (secret
subjects) remained intact (525).
The magician stands between the priest and the
scientist in a precarious
and much envied position, one which, nonetheless,

has been criticized at all

moments of serious tension, including the 1950s.
Far from being driven to despair by the national
and political role played
by magic in Egypt, because it re--enforced the
great unifying myths centered
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
12
which ontological knowledge, which was peculiar
to the initial superman,
had become degraded into empirical knowledge
on the basis of which
the figures of the Prince and the Magician had been
defined. Ancient Egypt
proves to have been especially rich in magic
resources: amulets, wax
figurines, collective exorcism sequences, known as
Zr (526). And yet, in spite
of the Egyptian peoples remarkable sensitivity to
magic, Henein presents
a disillusioned assessment of the present situation:
Ainsi donc, aprs avoir
travers les phases successives de linitiation et du
formalisme, la magie en
gypte ne peut plus se rclamer, pour le prsent,
que dune superstition
populaire sans porte veritable (52930). (So
therefore, after having passed
through successive initiation and formal stages,

magic in Egypt can now only

claim to have its roots in popular superstition,
which has no real influence.)
It is rather from an artistic and verbal point of view
that an equivalence
can be found between Henein and Breton when it
comes to magic. As a
matter of fact, Egyptian civilization attributed great
importance to the Word.
Henein cites Alexandre Morets Mystres gyptiens.
According to this writer,
the Egyptians believed that a holy man, full of
sanctity, was M--hrou; an
expression which signified that he reaches the
voice (527). Magic formulae
in particular work like weapons, and are a
consequence of that superior
status. Mastering the creative word endows one
with unlimited power.
Magic books, which used to be kept in temples,
provide evidence of the
ancient faith. The ancient Egyptians believed in the
verbe rendu agissant
(528) (activated word).
Henein then begins to dream about the poetic
intensity of the extant
magic corpus: Il sagit l vritablement de textes
chargs et si nous y voyons
surtout de la posie, cest quil ne nous appartient
pas den librer la charge

(528). (Those are truly loaded texts and if all we

see in them is poetry, then
it is not up to us to liberate their load.) In any
case, nostalgia for a powerful
Word, or for a poetry able to change the world,
finds an echo in the demiurgic
sense of surrealist art, as it is defined in LArt
magique.
For Henein, literature, especially poetry, has a very
important striking
force. It is part of an esprit frappeur (striking
spirit) (see Henein,
LEsprit frappeur). To quote an example, the
mendiante hautaine et dure
(OEuvres 262) (tough and haughty
beggarwoman) in Between the Devil
and the Deep Blue Sea, one of Heneins stories,
seems truly endowed
with powers akin to the Domaines reservs, but
those powers are at the
same time poetic and magic. To quote the author,
her gaze is sufficient to
shatter any human beings substance.
Furthermore, that uncommon glance
reminds us of the Evil Eye in Mediterranean
countries. That glance detains
an enunciative power, combining truth and
poetry. The narrator gives
various examples of her formulations, and they are
poetically beautiful and

at the same time loaded with magic power

(OEuvres 263).
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
13
In that case, the confusing concept of the child--woman (la femme--enfant,
as it is described in Arcane 17) with supernatural
powers, and that of mad
love (LAmour fou) come close to the Egyptian
sensitivity to magic, and to
the specific role attributed to beggars in the daily
life of cities such as Cairo.
Answering a questionnaire circulated by Jean--Jacques Luthi, Georges
Henein explained his writing method in 1960: Je
travaille par limination.
Javance en supprimant. Il me semble que, parfois,
cette faon de procder
me permet de donner force de vie des images de
pointe, des situations
qui dfont les bandelettes de ltre (Kober, Entre
Nil 314). (I proceed by
elimination. I erase things, as I progress. It
sometimes seems to me that
working this way enables me to strengthen and
enliven key images and
situations that strip the human being of its
bandages.) The terms he uses
here are steeped in Egyptian magic and they
represent him as an author

whose poetical langage works exactly like the texts

of ancient magic. Words
are lifeless and must be given a life force. The
mummys bandages have
preserved the flesh and body of the dead. Anything
can be revived thanks
to an effective language. Heneins poetic language
strips the mummy bare.
If we leave aside the history of modern art in
Egypt, which is very rich from
a magical and a surrealist point of view, several
other writers tend to express
a similar convergence between Egypt and
surrealism. Art was honoured by
Henein from the very inauguration of his
movement Art et Libert (Art and
Freedom), in 1938, in answer to the condemnation
of degenerate art by the
Nazis in Germany. Art et Libert was a group
composed of many artists as well
as writers of various origins all living in Egypt.
Other writers exist outside
of this group, however, who also offer creative links
between surrealism and
Egyptian tradition. One example is Horus
Schenouda, in whose work the
magical and poetical uses of the Word are closely
linked.
Schenouda (19172010) was a multi--facetted
writer whose works

are marked by the sign of the god Horus in a

reformulation of a Coptic,
Christian, Oriental and Mediterranean influence in
the light of French
literature. He inherited from his Roman Catholic
Egyptian family a feverish
Christian sensitivity, blended with an uninterrupted
pharaonic rverie. To all
that he added a Greco--Latin and French
sensuality, discovered while reading
Pierre Lous, his elected author and the subject of
the thesis he defended at
the Sorbonne shortly after World War II. Horus
Schenouda attached great
significance to the powerful sovereigns of ancient
Egypt, a viewpoint that
was passed on to him by his grandfather and his
father.
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
14
Figure 2: Horus Schenouda, Phantasmes (Horus
Editions, Le Caire,1942).
Front cover. Original drawing from Fouad Kamel.
Marc Kober collection,
Marc Kober and Marylne Farley.
Some of his collections of poems, such as Le
Cantique de la terre (Hymn to
the Earth) and Vitraux du Ciel et de lEnfer
(Stained--glass Windows of Heaven
and Hell), are in a Christian vein, whereas Le

Pharaon sans tombeau (The

Tombless Pharaoh) or Otage de Pharaon (A
Pharaohs Hostage) call upon the
prestige of ancient rites. Among Schenoudas
literary works, which remain to
be discovered by literary critics, the volume
entitled Phantasmes, published
in Cairo in 1942, seems to be nurtured particularly
on surrealist aesthetics.
The author was then barely twenty--five years old.
Schenoudas poems describe a world of dizzy
sensations resulting
from the use of drugs, a world that could still be
seen at the end of World
War II in the semi--clandestine opium dens of
Cairo. This theme, perhaps
inspired by Baudelaires or Thomas de Quinceys
works, unfolds in images,
following la magie sombre du vertige
(Phantasmes 3) (the obscure magic
of intoxication). Among other vivid poems, the
author decribes a surprising
animal sabbath, similar to the saints visions in the
Egyptian desert. Human
beings copulate with animals, while remorse,
shame and awareness of evil fall
like a burden on a conscience tormented by drugs.
In the first part, entitled
Opium, and the second, Tombeaux (Tombs),
the imagination at work is

not so much that of Bosch or Goya, as that of

ancient Egypts monomania:
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
15
mummies, dynasties, sarcophagi, temples, obelisks
and sand everywhere.
All these elements refer back to a profaned ancient
order, but also to recent
Egyptomania. The section entitled Gouffres
(Abysses), introduces a seductive
and sexuality in the poem is somewhat daring for
Egypt at that period.
This blasphemous and scandalous dimension and
its oneiric display must
have attracted Henein, who was naturally reading
with interest what young
Egyptian authors were writing in French at that
time.
Georges Henein was three years older, much more
aware of contemporary
artistic activity, and was already an internationally
recognised writer. The
two men knew one another through their families
and their fathers. They
were both from a very wealthy Coptic background,
but their relations would
prove to remain limited, especially on the literary
or artistic level. Heneins
verdict concerning Schenoudas first personal work

was crucial: it was very

encouraging, like a hand reaching out and inviting
him to join his group of
friends. Horus Schenouda could have joined that
small group of surrealist
and non--surrealist artists. And yet, the trajectory
described in Schenoudas
book, in the last two sections, Athisme
(Atheism) and Psaumes
(Psalms), is that of Christian redemption from
carnal sin. The insolvable
problem of eternal nothingness echoes with
curious Psalms, in which the
sensual woman, a worthy replica of Aphrodite, calls
for purification in
the last part of the volume. Divine and maternal
love merge in an almost
angelical finale, contrasting sharply with the crude
and obscene violence of
the first poems. The Egyptian context and the
moral atmosphere in the 1940s
oppressed Horus Schenouda, torn between a free
affirmation of his desire
and a behavior still dictated by his social milieu, his
pharaonic origins and
his Christian religion.
Georges Henein had already been claiming his
freedom as an artist in the
fields of pornography and scatology, although he
made little use of them

in his works. According to Henein, absolute

freedom, considered as a basic
principle, and an uncompromised amorality were
necessary for a writer.
Henein wrote clearly about this in a 1935 text,
Scatologie, pornographie,
literature, that he would never disavow (OEuvres
322). As a consequence,
Heneins critical appreciation of Schenoudas first
book of poems was
expected. In 1942, Schenoudas Editions Horus
published a short pamphlet,
citing responses from the press to his work. In the
newspaper La Patrie,
one critic, Jose Mauer--Sekaly, stated of
Phantasmes: cest une oeuvre
dchirante, hurlante, effrayante, hallucinante de
vie. (Untitled pamphlet
3) (It is a harrowing, howling work, terrifyingly,
hallucinatingly alive.)
She praised lenchevtrement des images
dmoniaques (an entanglement
of diabolical images). For his part, Henein,
touched by the freedom of
Schenoudas tone, was eager to include
Phantasmes... in the corpus of
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
16
surrealism, of which he was the principal
representative in Egypt. More

precisely, he presented surrealism as the only key

with which readers could
penetrate such poems. In other words, without any
surrealist background in
Egypt, Schenoudas book could not have been
published, and it could not
be read if surrealism was not first understood by
readers. Schenouda cited a
comment by Henein published in the Cairo weekly
magazine, Images: Une
oeuvre spciale contre laquelle buteront comme
devant une porte ferme tous
ceux auxquels le surralisme na pas encore livr la
cl de ses mystres
(Untitled pamphlet 2). (A special work, over which
those who have not been
given the key to surrealisms mysteries will
stumble, as over the threshold
of a locked door.)
Horus Schenouda, who, at the age of ninety,
claimed not to know
surrealisms canonical texts like LAmour fou or
Nadja, nor any of Andr
Bretons works or ideas, represents an astonishing
literary virginity, a case
of natural, native surrealism, insofar as it has its
roots in a family cultural
background (a Coptic pharaonic nostalgia, Oriental
Christianity and an
attraction to paganism). His fascination with the

world of dreams, eroticism

and psychedelic vertigo, enabled him to shift the
limits of ordinary realism.
Nevertheless, in several poetical works, Schenouda
seems closer to Pierre-Jean Jouves world than to Bretons. The native
religiosity of the one comes
up against the others anticlericalism and rejection
of all religions. Maybe the
originality of Schenoudas case as a surrealist in
spite of himself stems from
the alliance between religion and an unconscious
form of psychoanalysis.
It must be made clear that, for social and political
reasons, any kind of
rapprochement, let alone a true friendship between
Schenouda and Henein
was a sheer impossibility, because the first
respected his milieus conservative
position, while the second supported Bakunin or
Trotskys ideology, after
having praised Lenin. In the case of Schenouda, so
strongly attracted by
ancient Egypt, writing poems could be considered
as a magical operation
in which the authors life is at stake. And Henein,
when he read Schenouda,
considered surrealism as a key for opening poems
filled with ancient magic.
Thus, Henein saw in Schenouda a concrete

manifestation of the link Breton

had made between surrealism and ancient
Egyptian magic.
Horus Schenouda cannot be exactly compared to
Georges Henein,
because his belief in magical powers as well as his
use of poetical words
is different. Maybe the way Georges Henein kept a
distance from militant
surrealist action in 1948 should be interpreted as a
new experience in his
life: the rediscovery of Domaines reservs
(Secret subjects) and magic
powers of ancient Egypt.
Translated from the French by Georgiana Colvile.
Dada/Surrealism No.19 (2013)
17
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Copyright 2013 Marc Kober