Land of the Fallen Star Gods: The Celestial Origins of Ancient Egypt

LAND OF THE

FALLEN

STAR GODS

That an advanced lost civilization is part of our human heritage should now be self-evident to all those capable of rational thought. John Gordon’s book takes the currently neglected ‘long’ view of the lost civilization hypothesis (derived mainly from theosophy and Hindu/Vedic accounts) and defends it with solid scholarship, reasoned argument, and a deep understanding of esoteric philosophy. At once gutsy and erudite, this is a really interesting book.

JOHN ANTHONY WEST, AUTHOR OF SERPENT IN THE SKY AND THE TRAVELER’S KEY TO ANCIENT EGYPT

"Painstakingly researched and eloquently written, J. S. Gordon’s Land of the Fallen Star Gods paints a broad, detailed picture of what must be an ancient language of science embedded in an ancient civilization’s expression. The Egyptian’s use of symbol and metaphor in art, architecture, and civil planning was no mere function of primitive religiosity. Rather, it was the philosophical foundation of civilization expressing deep insights into human existence and the significance of the human experience. Land of the Fallen Star Gods is not only fascinating but also an important work of scholarship. It should be required reading for anyone interested in civilization’s origins and the birth of the Western religious and esoteric traditions."

EDWARD F. MALKOWSKI, AUTHOR OF BEFORE THE PHARAOHS, THE SPIRITUAL TECHNOLOGY OF ANCIENT EGYPT, AND ANCIENT EGYPT 39,000 BC

Brilliant, erudite, and controversial, John Gordon has used Madame Blavatsky’s insights to throw a new light on the problems of ancient Egyptian civilization.

COLIN WILSON, AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING THE OUTSIDER, THE OCCULT: A HISTORY, AND ATLANTIS AND THE KINGDOM OF THE NEANDERTHALS

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

For some of the research carried out preparatory to writing this book (this being its third edition), I am indebted to the library of the School of Oriental and African Studies and the Theosophical Society, both in London. I am similarly indebted to the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology of Harvard University for their courtesy in permitting me to use photographic reproductions of ethnic types as shown in Figure 3.1. Others formally approached for similar permissions for use have regrettably failed to reply, possibly because of being unable to identify records now nearly half a century old. It is hoped that any missing acknowledgments may be incorporated into subsequent editions.

I am particularly grateful to Fred Hapgood, son of Professor Charles Hapgood and trustee of his works, for permitting me to use his father’s cartographically modernized version of the Piri Re’is map, shown in figure 2.1. If anybody has provided future generations with a scientific challenge as regards ancient climatic and geographical change in the Atlantic, Charles Hapgood must surely stand among the forerunners. Still in relation to geographical issues, Marie Tharp has kindly permitted me to use two of her wonderful reproduction drawings of the topography of the Atlantic and northwest Indian Ocean seabeds. For a really graphic indication of the effects of cataclysmic movement in the earth’s crust, these are hard to equal, and I am very pleased to be able to use them. The Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute were also most helpful in providing me with backup information and references related to the Strataform Initiative (on undersea slope failure), which is being sponsored by the U.S. Office of Naval Research, Washington, D.C.

Bruce Cathie was good enough to write to me all the way from New Zealand, once I had managed to track him down. His article on the levitation of stone will be of considerable interest to many in several fields of research. Unfortunately, I was unable to obtain any photographs of the rock levitation in Shivapur, which is also mentioned in appendix Q. Perhaps a later edition will enable me to do so.

I feel that I should, in passing, voice a considerable vote of thanks to Sir Wallis Budge, who—although himself deceased for more than half a century—has himself provided me in absentia with a vast range of Egyptological hors d’oeuvres from which to select useful references in substantiation of my various suggestions concerning ancient Egyptian mysticism, occultism, and architecture. Without his voluminous works before me for easy reference, my task would have been considerably longer and far more laborious.

In a more contemporary context, I cannot conclude without adding a particular mention here of Robert Bauval, who became a friend and compatriot subsequent to the publication of the first edition of this book, although not originally consulted concerning any specific material in it. Robert has by his own efforts succeeded in opening up a completely new field of archaeoastronomical research through his work at Giza. His pioneering efforts will, I am sure, be gratefully remembered by many generations yet to come (including the many future generations of Egyptologists!). He, Graham Hancock, and John West—another compatriot in this field who has since become a friend—have surely done us all a great service by so effectively reawakening worldwide public interest and debate on the underlying background to ancient Egyptian culture, notwithstanding the resistance they have met from academic orthodoxy.

CONTENTS

Cover Image

Title Page

Epigraph

Acknowledgments

INTRODUCTION: A Fresh Approach

Understanding Ancient Worldviews

The Methodology of Modern Archaeology

Man’s Divine Origins

The Search for Scientific Truth

The Frequent uncertainty of Scientific and Scholarly opinion

The Involvement of New Age Thought and Research

The Structure of This book

PART ONE

ORIGINS

Chapter One: Cosmic Seasons and Astronomical Cycles

Planet Earth as a Living Organism with Its Own Cycles

The Movements of Our Solar System within the Galaxy

The Existence of Celestial Seasons

Cyclical Global Warming

Sunspots and Cosmic Electricity

Curious Egyptian Views Concerning the Sun

Differing views Concerning the earth’s Structure

The biggest Cataclysms Require Energy beyond Earth’s Normal Capacity

Alternating Cataclysms of Fire and Water

How Could Ancient Mankind Possess Such Knowledge?

Ancient Egyptian Views as to an Intelligent Order in the Universe

The Starry Heavens as Homes of the Gods

Man as a God in the Making

Chapter Two: Geological, Geographical, and Climatological Issues

Cartographic Evidence of the Ancient World

Ill-Founded Arguments against a Mid-Atlantic Continent

The Piri Re’is Map’s Coastal Outlines

The Geography of the Western Mediterranean and Atlas Area

Reassessing the Nature of Cataclysms

The Advent of Human Civilization

The Cataclysm Affecting Poseidonis

Ice Ages and Pluvial Periods

Africa Affected by Millennia of Heavy Rainfall

The First Appearance of Egyptian Culture

Archaeological Evidence

The Geology of Egypt

The Era of the First Colonizers of Egypt

Chapter Three: The Disappearing Atlantes

Chronology of the Prehistoric Period

Traditions of Giant Human Races in Prehistory

Evidence for Transatlantic Communication in Prehistory

The Possibility of Asia Having Been Colonized by Atlantean Amerindians

Origins of Indo-Aryan Humanity

Atlantean Migrations and Continental Submersion

Ethnological Relationships between Egypt and India

Aryavarta and the Cushitic Empire

Was There a Worldwide Prehistoric Culture?

Transatlantic and Transcontinental Similarities in Ancient Names

Ancient Colonization of Egypt from East and West

The Defeat of the Atlanteans by the Ancient Greeks

Chapter Four: The Appearance of Culture and Civilization

Chronology of the Divine Rulers of Egypt

Traditions and Evidence of Divine Rulers in Ancient Egypt

An Ancient Concept of Human Spiritual Evolution

Invocation and Evocation of the Divine Presence

Appearance of the Gods Coincident with Astronomical Cycles

Ancient Origin of the Mystery Schools

The Seven Races of the Present Greater Cycle

The Gods Hand Over Responsibility to Caretakers

Chronological Synchronicities of History with Zodiacal Ages

The Origins of Modern Egyptology

Plant Culture Proves the Existence of Prehistoric Civilization

Inconsistent Scientific Views Concerning Human Intelligence

Further Evidence in the Field of linguistics

The Speed of Change in Spoken Language

PART TWO

TRADITIONS

Chapter Five: Egyptian Magic and the Law of Hierarchy

Gods, Daemons, and Souls

The Gods as Expressions of Perfection in Nature

The Distinction between Daemons and Souls

Linguistic Confusion among Scholars and Theologians

Egyptian Origins of Hebrew and Christian Theology

The Underlying Rationale of Egyptian Magic

Man, the True Hero, as a Spiritual Conqueror

Religio-Artistic Stylization of the Gods

Understanding the Hierarchy of the Egyptian Gods

The Basis of Sympathetic Magic

Unconscious Magical Effects

Magical Artifacts in Theurgical Work

The Rationale of Psycho-spiritual Magnetism

Human Motivations and the Angelic Hierarchies

Egyptian Cultural Degeneracy

Chapter Six: Two Egyptian Mystery Traditions Reconsidered

Osiris as a Multiple Metaphor

Interpretation of the Allegory

Further Aspects of the Allegory

The Metaphorical Figure of Anubis

Egyptian Views Concerning the Dead Human Being

The Weighing of the Heart Ceremony

Esoteric Interpretation of the Heart Metaphor

The Significance of Osiris Being Shown as Still Dead

Chapter Seven: Gods of the Abyss and Underworld

The Gods and Their Associations with Particular Temples

The Egyptian Origin of the Greek Theogony and Pantheon

Creation Myths Always Involve Battles with Serpents

Origin of the Concept of the Fall from Grace

Cosmic Archetypes and Their Imperfect Reflections

The Creation and Organic Evolution of Our Solar System

The Origin of Light in the Solar System

Khnemu and Osiris

Terrestrial Representations

The Esoteric Significance of the Nile

The Importance of Particular Temples and Their Geographical Siting

Significant Questions to be Answered

Chapter Eight: The Ancient Esoteric Division of Egypt and the Significance of Its Main Temples

How the God Ra Manifested Himself in the World

The Sequence of Temples along the Nile

New Age Synchronicities

Important Facts Related to Specific Temples

The Association of the Cataract with the Cosmic Birth Process

The East and West Banks of the Nile at Thebes

The Sequence of the Initiation Process in the Mysteries

The Cosmic Question Mark over Abu Simbel

The Nile Temples North of Thebes

The Temple Ritual at Dendera

Astrological Issues

Why the Creator Serpent-God Has to Die

Close Correspondences between the Egyptian and Indian Concepts

PART THREE

KNOWLEDGE

Chapter Nine: Completing the Jigsaw Puzzle of Astronomical Metaphors and Allegories

The Consequences of Ignoring Ancient Philosophy

A Brief Recapitulation

The Nilotic Centers in the Body of the Triple Osiris

The Return of the Prodigal Son

Absurdity of Regarding the Pyramids as Tombs

The Associated Symbolism of the Sphinx

Evolutionary Progression through the Underworld by Association

Significance in the Shape of the Nile

Involvement of Other Circumpolar Stars in the Drama

The Mill of the Gods

The Hidden Cosmic Bull Becomes Manifest

The Symbolism of Cosmic Fertility and Re-creation

Two Significant Geographical Axes

The Astronomical Movements of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor

The Celestial Revolutions of Osiris

The Cosmic Opening of the Mouth Ceremony

The Real Significance of the Great Return

How Do the Gods Supposedly Reappear on Earth?

The Aurora’s Traditional Function

Parallel Traditions in Other Religions

The Union of Philosophy, Science, and Religion in One Concept

Chapter Ten: Sacred Geometry and the Living Architecture of Egypt

God as Number and Geometer

The Egyptian Approach to Defining Time and Space

The Quadrature as Form Leading to Sensory Function

Transcending the Octave of Phenomenal Existence

Psycho-Sensitive Architecture

The Energetic Distribution of Load and Force

The use of Sound to Create a Specific Atmosphere

Angelic Involvement in the Ritual

The Pregnant Emptiness of Egyptian Temples

The Internal Layout of the Temple

Coherence of a Civilization Must Be Based Upon a Central Ideal

The Sacred Masonic Geometry of the Great Pyramid

Chapter Eleven: The Esoteric Significance of the Sphinx and Pyramids

Initiation and the Mystery Schools

Historical Celestial Orientations

Representative Orientations Relative to Giza

The Aim of the Initiatory Process

The Combined Abstract Symbolism of the Giza Pyramids

Menkaure Represents the Purely Human Entity

The Second Pyramid

The Ritual Geometry of the Giza Complex

The Significant Individuality of the Great Pyramid

The Main Passageways in the Great Pyramid

The Initiations of the Great Pyramid

The First Great Test of Courage

The Way of the Higher Death

Return to the Outer World

Parallels with the Christian Mystery Tradition

The Celestial Dimension

Chapter Twelve: The Internal Geometry of the Great Pyramid

For What Were the Various Shafts Intended?

The Great Axis of the Ecliptic

Symbolism of Polar Reversal

A Wealth of Further Hidden Significances

A Combination of Uses for the Pyramid

Delineation of the Lower Cycle

An Alternative Route

Geographical Associations

Can Further Verification Be Provided?

Chapter Thirteen: Reflections

Appendix A: The Relationship between the Sothic Year and the Annus Magnus

Appendix B: From Plato’s Timaeus

Appendix C: On Geology

The Geological Chronology

Regarding the Concept of Plate Tectonics

On Paleomagnetism

On Radiocarbon Dating

Appendix D: From Schwaller de Lubicz’s Sacred Science

Appendix E: From S. A. Mackey’s The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients (1824)

Appendix F: Philological Issues

The Bantu-speaking Peoples of Africa

The Hamitic-speaking Peoples of Northwest Africa

The Berbero-Guanche Language

The Basque Language

Appendix G: The Egyptian Version of the Inner Constitution of Man

Appendix H: Concerning the Duat

Appendix I: Concerning the God-Name Seker

Appendix J: Concerning Sebek, Set, and Horus

Appendix K: The Circumpolar Stars and the Mill of the Gods

Appendix L: Concerning Ursa Major

Appendix M: The Astroterrestrial Axes among Egypt, Greece, and the Levant

Appendix N: Correlations between the Egyptian and Greek Mystery Schools

Appendix O: On the Significance of Double Statuary in Egypt

Appendix P: The Meaning of Ether/Aether according to the Principles of Hermetic Science

Appendix Q: On the Levitation of Stone by the Use of Sound

Glossary

Endnotes

Bibliography

Index

Also by J. S. Gordon

About the Author

About Inner Traditions • Bear & Company

Copyright & Permissions

The temples as seen from the Nile in this early 20th century photograph, with the desert sands still encroaching.

Artist’s rendering of the original façade of the King’s temple.

Plans of the two temples.

FIGURE 0.1. THE DOUBLE TEMPLE OF RA AND HATHOR AT ABU SIMBEL

INTRODUCTION

A FRESH APPROACH

The original writing of this book first came about as a result of a discussion at a dinner party, just before the turn of the millennium. Over the hors d’oeuvres I had complained with some vexation about the fact that few if any of those writing about ancient Egypt actually paid any real attention to understanding, or even mentioning in due context, the true nature of its sacred Mystery tradition. The academic community pay the subject mere lip service, regarding it as a mere cultural hodgepodge accrued over the millennia. Most of the New Age fraternity, however, wax mystically lyrical about it without even beginning to understand the basic and essentially practical principles around which these same Mysteries functioned. The other guests at the dinner party laughed, but one of them then suggested with a twinkle in her eye that, instead of complaining about others not having done it, I should perhaps write the book myself, thereby ensuring that such a work would be more generally available. This suggestion was met with such unanimity from the others present that I could hardly decline and thus the work started the following morning, long before dawn had broken. Little was I to realize then, however, the full extent of what I had embarked upon. That is because, not altogether surprisingly, the one book has proved altogether inadequate to deal with the subject in adequate breadth and detail. Consequently, a followup providing that even greater breadth and depth has already been written and will be published by Inner Traditions in 2014. It is called Esoteric Egypt.

In the meantime, however, it is hoped that this book about ancient Egypt’s fallen star gods (the akhu) will set the scene with a number of foundational suggestions which have either not been touched on before at all by others or have otherwise not been considered in anything like adequate detail from an esoteric viewpoint. Not least of these include the highly important association of Egyptian sacred culture (as also the ancient Indian culture) with the astronomical cycle known to us as the precession of the equinoxes (although originally known in ancient times as The Great Year of the Pleiades). Associated with this is the strangely archaeoastronomical shape of the river Nile itself and the rationale of why its most important temples are located very precisely where they are. It otherwise focuses on explanation of the sacred metaphor and allegory to be found in temple carvings and paintings, plus the sacred geometry of the Giza pyramids, thereby showing precisely why the Great Pyramid never actually possessed a capstone. When such foundational issues are better understood, the whole rationale of ancient Egyptian sacred culture should become much more self-evident.

The subject of ancient Egypt, its chronology and civilizations, has perhaps excited more speculation than any other culture in any other part of the world. To some extent that must be due to the sense of mystery and magic that has always surrounded that uniquely formed country, even in the rational minds of the Greek tourists and historians of some 2,500 years ago. In those days, as much as in our own, Egypt’s ancient associations with the legendary Atlantis were already widely known and discussed. To some extent also, Egypt’s striking atmosphere must be due to the fact that the joint endeavors of the sinuously tropical river Nile and the country’s otherwise desert landscape and climate provide all its temples with a visual contrast that no other land in recorded history appears ever quite to have matched. Allied to the richly colored and massive, symmetrical grandeur of its architecture and colossi, the overall effect upon the personal psyche inevitably has to be one of pure awe.

As far as other issues are concerned, the fact that contemporary archaeological science sets out to limit Egypt’s many civilizations and cultures to the last 5,000 to 7,000 years, despite the many and highly curious inconsistencies that such a willfully myopic hypothesis throws up, adds but a further spice of mystery on which the imagination can run riot. There is nothing that human beings love more than a mystery to be solved or, at the very least, picked at. Consequently, because Egypt’s lost background and its empty temples present such an enigmatic façade—like the wreck of the Marie Celeste—the appetite of a fascinated human curiosity is merely sharpened.

So many books have been written and documentary films produced on the subject of Egypt’s ancient past that one is forced to wonder sometimes whether anything new and original could, by now, possibly be put forward. Yet there are so many large and unsatisfactory gaps in the historical record, and mainstream Egyptology seems to be so keen to concentrate on mere cataloging of minutiae at the expense of all sorts of wider possibilities, that intelligently speculative amateurs with an indefatigable sense of wider horizons to be discovered are drawn to the subject like bees to nectar-laden flowers.

R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz, in the 1940s and 1950s, initiated the modern trend of intelligent disbelief in the literalistic interpretations of the Egyptological Establishment. He conclusively demonstrated that the ancient Egyptians not only understood astronomical science so well that they recognized the 25,920-year period of the precession of the equinoxes but that they also founded every aspect of their civilization upon a star-oriented, religio-mystical culture derived from such knowledge. Robert Temple’s The Sirius Mystery, published in 1976, added fuel to his fire by showing that the Dogon people of Mali in West Africa indisputably knew that Sirius—a central focus of Egyptian religious myth—was a binary star and that they had derived such knowledge from the Egyptians in ancient times. Hard on the heels of the Dogon revelation came the work of buccaneering scholar and self-taught Egyptologist John Anthony West. His 1979 book, Serpent in the Sky, followed in de Lubicz’s tracks by expanding upon his ideas and subsequently confirming (through the use of hard geological proof ) that the height of Egyptian culture and civilization must have long preceded the eleventh millennium B.C.

More recent books such as Robert Bauval and Adrian Gilbert’s The Orion Mystery and Graham Hancock’s Fingerprints of the Gods, which are based on careful research with a wider perspective than orthodox Egyptology will allow itself, have undoubtedly been very helpful in widening the scope of potential inquiry. They have done so by seeking to demonstrate that ancient Egyptian civilization goes back at least 15,000 years—perhaps even 40,000 years—and may have some sort of divinely inspired origin.¹ Unfortunately, however, through sometimes missing the central point of the esoteric traditions that they themselves mention, the authors of even these well-researched books have occasionally managed to confuse some of the mystical allegories found in the hieroglyphic texts and elsewhere in the folklore that they describe. Consequently, their historical chronologies (particularly relating to the period prior to 10,000 B.C.) sometimes appear to lack confidence and thereby allow occasional areas of confusion to persist.

Bauval has clearly confirmed that Egyptian astronomical knowledge was sufficiently sophisticated by at least the eleventh millennium B.C. to conceive of the Pyramids at Giza being built as an exact replication of the three stars of Orion’s belt.² Hancock has taken matters a stage further by forcefully reminding us that the ancients associated world cataclysms with astronomical cycles. In addition, he has very originally pointed out the probable association of ice ages with the precession of the equinoxes.³ Unfortunately, however, inadequate distinction has been drawn in his book between purely allegorical cataclysms (associated with the cosmic creation myth) and scientifically recorded upheavals in Nature. His approach has nevertheless managed in the main to distance itself from the kind of arbitrary disasters suggested in modern catastrophe theories, such as that proposed by Immanuel Velikhovsky,⁴ which, although often highly original in their misguided attempts to give validity to the Old Testament as a supposed history, are extremely misleading.

Understanding Ancient Worldviews

This minor criticism of the pioneering work of Bauval, Gilbert, and Hancock is not meant unkindly. Nor does it seek to deny the concept of periodically recurring cataclysms that succeed not only in destroying human and animal life in the mass but also in greatly changing the geographical appearance of the lands on which they existed. It is, nevertheless, intended to highlight the fact that much greater attention needs to be paid to the background philosophies and beliefs of ancient peoples, rather than to the (often degenerate) form and appearance of their cultural rites.

The latter, on their own, without some guidance as to an original esoteric key, actually tell us very little about their essential raison d’être. That, in particular, is something that this book intends to highlight in some detail. It proposes to do so by showing how and where overliteral interpretations can lead to completely false trails of thought; also how in other cases, where literal descriptions are intended, they are treated as impossible by modern thought, due to a willfully ignorant, knee-jerk disbelief in the feasibility of their rationales.

Several problems arise out of paying insufficient attention to the detailed esotericism behind ancient metaphors and supposedly historical allegories⁵—especially those concerning the origins and subsequent geographical and evolutionary mutations of our world. One is that allegorical deluges and cataclysms very easily become thoroughly mixed up and confused with real ones resulting from the natural cycles of our planetary and solar systems. Where that occurs, any associated hope of establishing an accurate chronology of human existence and civilization on this planet is also doomed to failure.

A further effect is to leave in midair the theory of a possibly far more ancient Homo sapiens than is currently thought possible, because of being denied an adequately solid foundation on which its case might be reasonably argued. Much of the blame for this situation lies historically with allowing the Old Testament to be regarded (up until the 20th century, at least, and even by some today) as a merely slightly faulty record of actual events. The idea that biblical recorders and later interpreters may just have got their chronological sequences wrong, although the stories themselves are true, is but the latest in a line of apologia theologica trying to provide additional shoring to several desiccated and by now rather creaky religious belief systems. Supported as these are on one side by blind faith in an increasingly myopic and superficial theology (hence the growth of fundamentalism) and on the other by a taste for the materialistic rationales of modern science, inward collapse upon their own foundations can hardly be long delayed, for reasons that will become obvious later in the book.

The modern archaeological background to ancient Egypt, on the other hand, is only some two hundred years old, although the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries certainly saw some European travelers bringing back stories that initiated foundational research into the classical literature of not only Rome and Greece, but also the Middle and Far East. It was this that provided the footings of Victorian and Edwardian antiquarianism and amateur archaeology, the predecessor of our modern, technologically oriented science. But to understand why the latter has taken root in its present myopically entrenched attitudes, we need to examine, in general terms at least, the historical development of modern archaeological practice itself. That should provide us with the necessary perspective to underwrite some of our more obvious later criticisms of its limitations and failings in arriving at a correct interpretation of available evidence.

The Methodology of Modern Archaeology

First of all, it would perhaps be fair to suggest that modern archaeology has two quite distinct strands. The first, based upon history and classicism, is empirical and expansive in nature; the other, based upon scientific interpretation and technological measurement, is centripetal and reductive. The first is often untidily catholic in its approach, while the second tends very quickly to throw out that which cannot be made to fit a tidily operating paradigm based upon other scientific theories that it assumes to be correct.

The expansive, empirical approach constantly seeks to open up the field to new material and fresher ideas with an ever-broadening perspective. The reductive, technological method seeks to subject the ideas and evidence to critical examination, analytical segregation, and physical organization. When these two approaches work together in complementary fashion, common sense and insight reign hand in hand. However, when the technological approach dominates—as it tends to do today—the inevitable result is an introspectively incontinent fascination with finding out more and more about less and less.

Left to itself, the orthodox archaeological method (at least as currently practiced) quickly becomes both sterile and actively hostile toward any suggested change. For that reason, it is absolutely vital that intelligent amateurs such as West, Hancock, and Bauval, skilled in their own professional fields, continue to blast their way indefatigably into the sanctum sanctorum of Egyptological expertise. Nor should they allow themselves to worry overmuch about criticisms as to the unashamedly skeptical modern knight Sir Apis crashing around among the ancient ceramics. If even the Kingdom of Heaven may be taken by storm by the seeker after hallowed Truth, the stronghold of Egyptological and archaeological orthodoxy must surely prove rather more vulnerable to straight and independent scrutiny. There has been no truly forward thinking in the field of Egyptology during the last (twentieth) century. So the wind of change is long overdue.

Current inertia on the part of the orthodox regime in broadening its scope is due, partially at least, to the fact that it is restricted by current theories and chronology in the field of paleontology. That is, in turn, constrained by general anthropological theory based upon Darwinian concepts of natural selection and the evolution of species—neither of which has yet been categorically and indisputably proved, at least in relation to man. The whole is a house of cards with many large and unexplained holes in it, some of which we intend to examine.

Man’s Divine Origins

The Ancients started off with the basic philosophy that man was essentially the projection or emanation of an ethereal, divine parentage and had on no account been evolved from the animal state in the somewhat louche manner proposed by Darwinian theory. In response to this, our modern savants have decided that ancient humanity can only have derived such unscientific ideas from wishful thinking arising out of ignorant worship of the Sun, Moon, and stars, thereby proving man’s evolution from a savage state in line with their existing prejudices.⁶ This attitude has not changed much in the last three hundred years, although it may have softened within the last thirty years to allow the Ancients their use of such religious techniques as an expedient method of maintaining social, cultural, economic, and political dominance over an ignorant peasantry. Such is the modern jargon. Is it then so strange that the two approaches are mutually incompatible?

Our modern genius for scientific research also suffers extensively from its own tendencies toward dead letter interpretations of ancient glyphs and symbols, apparently unable to perceive the fact that allegory and metaphor were the main methods used in both the thinking process and its outward expression in ancient days. The fundamental effect of the latter was that one form of linguistic expression could be interpreted in a variety of ways, according to the context, in a manner that could be commonly understood by peoples of varying tongues and intelligence. Such is the case today, for example, with the ideograms of the Chinese, which can be understood by the Japanese even though their languages are different.

Consequently, whereas alphabetical and grammatical/syntactical presentation are regarded as fundamental to our modern way of thinking and to expressing ourselves with unambiguous clarity, why should we fondly imagine that this form of sophistication is the single most important criterion in determining the question of cultural superiority—and thus of relative intelligence? Surely it was as true then as it is now that the essence of an idea (that is, its spirit) is more important than the letter. Anyway, one of the other areas we shall touch upon involves linguistic distortions often concealing the same ideas and even names in cultures thousands of miles and even oceans apart.

FIGURE 0.2. THE ANTIKYTHERA

(now kept in the National Museum in Athens)

As to the often voiced suggestion that it would not be possible today to run and coordinate a scientifically organized culture based upon glyphs and ideograms, our modern traffic signs and computer programs immediately give it the lie. But, counter our modern technocrats, the Ancients did not have either computers or even a very sophisticated technology, as we can prove by archaeological data spanning the last ten thousand years at least.⁷ Here, however, we run into one of the most basic of all our misconceptions—of mistaking modern intellectual sophistication (whether scientific or not) for proof of intelligence. The two are by no means always related. This chapter is not intended as a philosophical dissertation on the issue, but the point is nevertheless fundamental to understanding the culture of the Ancients.

Briefly, therefore, we might suggest that, while real intelligence has to do with conscious perception of things as they are (or were originally intended), intellectually based knowledge has to do solely with organization and presentation of what appears to be available, or potentially available, in the way of information purely to explain or support current scientific/academic theories. That is why our contemporary science is based upon the latter, although still (sometimes) relying upon a mixture of common sense and intuitive perception to provide originality and a sense of direction.

The Search for Scientific Truth

Orthodox science works, so it has been said, because approximations are allowed. But real intelligence has no truck with approximations. It concerns itself only with Truth. Whereas contemporary science (and scholarship) says that its whole existence is based upon the search for Truth, it would be more realistic to suggest that it is perpetually straining to increase the universal viability of its own favorite theories. That is why science is forever throwing away its theories to make way for supposedly better ones, this being—self-confessedly—the approved scientific method.

One also sometimes gains the impression from the touchiness of many archaeologists and anthropologists that they must themselves be aware of the all too evident inconsistencies of their fragile structure of theories. Perhaps that is why they dare not look at the alternatives too closely—is it for fear that they will highlight their own inadequacy? Thus, so it seems, they perforce keep their eyes ever closer to the ground (psychologically as well as literally) and the gently brushed bones and artifacts, hoping against hope that it will fall to someone else from another discipline (or perhaps better still, a complete amateur) to fatally undermine any shaky theories, the ruins of which they can then professionally demolish with absolute equanimity.

Egyptologists can hardly move their historical chronology at all in its present box. That is because the currently accepted wisdom is that nothing in the way of urban civilization could possibly have existed during the Ice Age that finally (so we are told) ended some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago.⁸ From such an assumption (and a few assorted graves) evolved their idea that the human type of that prehistoric era could only have been hunter-gatherers and that the fabrication of metal tools could also only have commenced some 9,000 years ago (5,000 to 6,000 years ago in Europe) because the current paleontological record (painfully sketchy though it is) appears to suggest this.⁹ No heed seems to have been paid to the fact, however, that alongside our own technologically driven modern civilization, we still have literally tens of millions of people scattered around the world, eking out the most meager rural and even urban existences, many only marginally above the level of the equivalent Stone Age culture. Nor has much been made of the fact that as civilizations and cultures decline and fall, so the technological knowledge associated with them always seems to wither and die temporarily, only to surface again later. Some of the Anglo-Saxon settlements in England within two hundred years of the final fall of Rome are a certain testament to this fact. In addition, metal tools rust and eventually crumble to dust wherever there is dampness of any sort, so their life span is also highly limited.

Quite apart from all this, few archaeologists have cared to query too loudly the curious but self-evident fact that ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures and civilizations—according to the current wisdom—seem suddenly to have appeared, some 5,000 to 6,000 years ago, fully fledged and possessing highly sophisticated social, scientific, and technological knowledge (plus a complex linguistic system) with no prior cultural learning curve or support from any then current technological equipment or instrumentation. How could this possibly occur—except as a legacy?

The Frequent uncertainty of Scientific and Scholarly opinion

If we look back over the period of the Victorian era, we shall find certain scientific preconceptions that have taken root in the Occidental mind and hardly been questioned at all since, despite their clearly defective nature. The assumption or interpretation of ancient texts with their mystical allegory and metaphor as the mere workings of a colorful, superstitious, and otherwise still semibarbaric mind is arrogance of the worst sort at the very root of much of our modern scholarship. How, in the face of such arrogance, could we reasonably expect any true degree of accuracy in interpreting essential meanings? As we intend to demonstrate in this book, many of the treasured interpretations of scholars are themselves partially or completely defective for this very reason.

Just as an example, the very latest Paleolithic finds in Africa and Spain have already set the cat among the academic and scientific pigeons. Fifteen to twenty years ago, paleontologists were fairly certain that Homo erectus—the supposedly immediate human predecessor of Homo sapiens—first appeared in Africa around 1.5 million years ago. So it was said, Europe itself remained unoccupied until about 500,000 years ago, while Homo sapiens sapiens was deemed to have first appeared there only about 35,000 years ago.¹⁰ A mere fifteen years later, the thinking is almost unrecognizably different, for Homo sapiens sapiens is now believed to have appeared at least 120,000 years ago, while southern England and Spain are known to have been occupied by human beings 1.5 to 1.8 million years ago.¹¹

In addition to this, it is now admitted that the human brain has remained roughly the same size for at least 1.7 million years. And when we look closely, we otherwise find that different paleontologists have different sets of criteria as to what supposedly confirms a skeleton as being that of Homo sapiens in the first place.¹² So, if the most up-to-date scientific information is so clearly based on shifting sands, do we not have every right to wonder if what ancient historians tell us might, after all, have some foundation in fact?

In his book Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization (itself a weighty tome of pure scholarship in two large volumes), Martin Bernal, professor of government at Cornell University, criticizes the tenacity of an academic convention in the face of massive contrary evidence from outside scholars using independent sources, who have no particular interest in causing trouble and often a strong reluctance to upset the status quo. The extraordinary slowness to accept the new evidence demonstrates the way in which scholars tend to rally to the structures they have been taught and upon which they have spun their hypotheses; they demand absolute proof from challengers without pausing to reconsider the bases of their own beliefs.¹³

The Involvement of New Age Thought and Research

As we shall see in later chapters, what Bernal describes is very much a current problem in the field of Egyptology, as outsiders like John Anthony West have found out. But if modern scientists and scholars do not clearly understand something, they should unashamedly admit the fact together with the shortcomings and limitations of their current stock of knowledge, rather than fudging the issue with technical and technological hocus-pocus while gratuitously deriding the considered thoughts of others outside or on the fringes of their own discipline. As things are, their peremptory and often unconsidered ululations about supposedly unsubstantiated New Age theories—many of which are themselves founded upon serious and careful research into ancient traditions and philosophies—often leave the informed public increasingly skeptical as to their own general reliability. If a fair point is raised by someone from another discipline or field of research, can these scholars not be big enough to admit the fact graciously rather than commit the age-old arrogance of the academic in attempting to subvert its recognition by ridicule? Scientists and academics are often the least objective of people if someone else conceives or opens up a better and more informative perspective on their subject than they themselves have been able to.

Having raised these criticisms of the often blinkered and pedestrian approach to modern archaeology caused by both prejudice and overreliance on technology to lead interpretation, rather than as a corroborative backup to common sense and intuitive intelligence, there is no avoiding the necessity for accurate data and clearly argued foundations to suggested alternatives. Keeping that principle firmly in mind, the approach in this book has been to increase the usual number of perspectives adopted in interpreting data associated with ancient Egypt. It remains a fond (if as yet faint) hope that this—in conjunction with what West, Bauval, and Hancock have already done—might perhaps, given time, encourage an eventually corresponding broadening of attitudes by professional archaeologists themselves, as well as attracting interest on the part of others.

This book itself involves an attempt to look afresh at certain of the fundamental and thus highly significant issues that are known or believed to have been associated with both Atlantis and ancient Egyptian culture and civilization, some of them being entirely outside the normally recognized sphere of archaeology. Some of the ideas put forward will undoubtedly prove familiar, even though perhaps occasionally unorthodox in their angle of presentation and interpretation; others may throw a completely different light on existing (even unorthodox) perspectives. In some cases, what might appear to be wholly and radically new suggestions are presented. However, none is really new; each is merely borrowed from a dusty and unconsidered cupboard of esoteric lore with which the reader may be unfamiliar.

The intention here is not merely to argue a set of alternative theories, but rather to point out the reasons behind inconsistencies and misrepresentations in existing concepts in a manner making for more rational sense. Whether this aim actually succeeds will of