Egyptian Tree of Life Part 1

So, this is my version.  I did take the position of the Duat from the other tree, otherwise I came up with everything myself.  I'm still working on attributions and stuff, so this is far from complete.  I started with Heliopolitan theology and added in both Hermopolitan and Memphite theology.  With Hermopolitan theology, Nun (the primordial waters) contains the Ogdoad (eight gods who represent the forces present in Nun), the totality of which is represented by Thoth.  These are equivalent to Ain, Ain Soph, and Ain Soph Aur on a standard tree.  With Memphite theology, the mound that arises out of Nun, ta-tanen or benben (that second Nun is a mistake, I'll fix that) is associated with Ptah.  The rising of the mound takes the place of the contraction or Tzimtzum.  On that mound is Atum, who creates Shu and Tefnut, who give birth to Geb and Nut, who give birth to the next four.  That's the classic Heliopolitan Ennead.  The birth of Horus turns the Ennead into a decad.

The paths between the spheres (I'll use spheres instead of sephiroth) is what's known in kabbalah as the lighting flash.  It shows the order of emanation from the first sphere to the last.  It's the path of the flow of divine energy.  In Egyptian thought, this is Heka or magic (personified as a god).  In inscriptions, Heka boasts of existing before all the gods and of having created them.  Heka could be seen as the logos,  the divine expression by which Atum created and continues to create everything.  It is the energy which binds the world together.  Shu can also be seen as the logos, and these two are interchangeable.  In some pictures, Heka replaces Shu in his typical position of separating Geb and Nut.

Alright, it's late and I'm tired.  More later.

Better Late Than Never

I meant to keep up with this blog better than I have, but o well.

Lately, I've been reading a lot about ancient Egypt.  I've been trying to link its mythology to Kabbalah, especially the tree of life.  What I've been doing now completely supersedes the correspondences I posted before after reading part of The Zohar.  I'll post more about this later, but I need to make a chart.  Now I've got to figure out how to do that.  Here's an image from someone who's thinking along the same lines as I am (though I was able to create the same basic image and correspondences on my own just working with Heliopolitan theology).

http://www.aiwaz.net/tree-of-life-egyptian-attribution/a41

Allons-y, Hamlet!

First off, if you haven't seen the David Tennant version of Hamlet, you should watch it. It's available on DvD and iTunes and whatever. Tennant brings a great manic quality to Hamlet which fans of Dr. Who will be familiar with (he was the tenth Doctor). It's the first version of Hamlet I've seen where all the funny parts are actually funny! (All of Shakepeare's tragedy's have quite a lot of humor in them.)
Watching this led me to think about the structure of Hamlet. Whether you know it or not, the basic plot of Hamlet is ancient. It goes back to at least ancient Egypt and the story of Osiris. Osiris is killed by his brother Set, who is overthrown in turn by his nephew Horus (Osiris' son).
Hamlet follows this basic plot with variations. One of the biggest variations is that Hamlet dies in the end. If Hamlet is the Horus figure, killing his uncle (another variation) and avenging his father, he should become king and re-establish his father's kingdom. But he doesn't. After killing his uncle Claudius, Hamlet in turn dies. Order is re-established by a secondary figure called Fortinbras. Why does this happen and does it make sense?
Yes, it makes perfect sense. First, this is a tragedy, which means that the main character has to die. But above and beyond that, Shakespeare has created a situation where Hamlet cannot fulfill his role as a Horus figure and needs another Horus figure, Fortinbras, to do so.
Fortinbras is a Horus figure too? Yes, and here's why. The world of Hamlet is essentially two worlds. There's the smaller world of Denmark, the Danish court, and the larger world of Scandinavia. Characters in the play fulfill different, or fail to fulfill any, roll within these two worlds. For instance, within the larger world of Scandinavia, Fortinbras is Horus and Hamlet (through association with his family) is Set. In the smaller world of the Danish court, however, Hamlet is Horus and Fortinbras has essentially no role (until he enters at the end of the play).
To explain this, we need to look at the two worlds separately. First, the smaller world of the Danish court. In this world, Hamlet Sr. (Hamlet's father is also named Hamlet) is the rightful king. He's the Osiris figure. He's murdered by his brother Claudius, who then seizes the crown and becomes king. Claudius is the Set figure, the usurper. Hamlet Jr. becomes of aware of this and eventually kills Claudius, making him the Horus figure, the avenger. Another way of thinking of these character types is Rightful Ruler or King, Usurper, and Avenger.
In the world of Scandinavia, things are different. Originally, Fortinbras Sr. was the ruler of Norway and Denmark (like Hamlet, Fortinbras' father was also named Fortinbras). In this world, Fortinbras Sr. is the rightful king. He loses the throne of Denmark to Hamlet Sr., who kills him in battle. Hamlet Sr. then is the Set figure of this world, the usurper (as is his entire family, which is why Hamlet also fulfills the role of Set in this world). Fortinbras Jr. is then the Horus figure who should avenge his father, but he can't.
In the play, Fortinbras Jr. wants to invade Denmark and reclaim his father's kingdom, but he's forbidden from doing so by the King of Norway.  So Fortinbras, the man of action, can't act and can't fulfill his role as Horus. Instead, his double in the smaller would, Hamlet, is forced to act. Hamlet, though, is the man of inaction. He is both Set and Horus at the same time. He both benefits from his father's usurpation and suffers from his uncle's usurpation. In the end, he chooses to become Horus the Avenger.
But even with the death of his uncle Claudius, a basic wrong still exists. Hamlet still is a Set figure in the larger world. Fortinbras still needs to reclaim his father's kingdom. So Hamlet has to die. Before he does, he passes the kingship to his double Fortinbras, who enters after Hamlet dies. Fortinbras then can fulfill his role as Horus by re-establishing his father's kingdom.
At the end of Hamlet, all wrongs are righted, all roles fulfilled. The two worlds are brought in to harmony. Shakespeare, not that this needs confirmation from me, is a complete genius. Now go watch the play.

I'd like to draw attention to my friend Mike's website: www.michaelpoore.net

Mike has a book coming out next year, a real book (called Up Jumps the Devil) by a real publisher (Ecco/HaperCollins). He's also posting a great blog which is definitely worth reading.

Go there, now!

Hiatus Over

I'm just posting to let all my loyal readers (all one of them, assuming he still reads this) that I'm still alive and will start updating this blog again.  It's been a hard winter in more ways than one.  Now that it's lightened up (both literary and metaphorically), I can blog again.  

A Great Story

At some time in school, you probably read the story of Cadmos (Cadmus).  You probably read the part where he killed a dragon and sowed it's teeth in the ground like seeds, and from those teeth sprang up men in full armor.  I remember reading it in school.

Lately, I read it again in a book called the Dionysiaca by Nonnos.  It's the last great epic poem of the ancient world, and it recounts the story of Dionysus.  Anyway, I had spent the day jumping around in the first two volumes of Mircea Eliade's History of Religious Ideas.  With ancient mythology running through my head, I pulled down the Dionysiaca which had been taking up room on my bookshelf for years.  

 It starts with Zeus' abduction of the maiden Europa.  Europa's father sends his sons to look for her.  They never find her.  Cadmos, one of the sons, is told by the oracle of Delphi to stop looking and found a city instead.  He's given a cow and told that, wherever the cow falls, that's where he should found his city.  So, Cadmos keep the cow walking until it falls in Egypt, and there he founds the Egyptian Thebes.

Before he can do that, though, he has to kill the dragon that inhabits the land, which he does.  Then he takes its teeth and sows them in the ground.  Up spring men in full armor from the teeth.  Cadmos throws a rock among them, and they slaughter each other.  A specific detail from the Dionysiaca is that the land is drenched in "rivers of blood."  Five of the men survive and become followers of Cadmos.  Cadmos then maps out the plan of the city using a plow.  Another specific detail is that the city had seven gates for the seven planets, making it an image of the universe, a microcosm.

This is the story you read in school.  At the time, you probably thought it was a weird fantasy story.  I gaurantee that your teacher didn't really know what to make of it either.  But for all of you who ever wondered what it meant, here's what it means:

The story's about the creation of the world.  It has a lot of parallels in ancient mythology: Egyptian, Babylonian,  Canaanite, Indian, and even the Old Testament.  I'll describe two, the Babylonian and the Canaanite, since they have the strongest parallels.

The Babylonian story of creation contained in the Enuma Elish is the most similar to the Cadmos story.  In it, the young god Marduk claims kingship of the gods.  The mother of the gods, Tiamat, has different ideas and gives rulership to Kingu.  Needless to say, there's a battle.  Tiamat, in the form of a dragon, attacks Marduk.  Marduk kills here and defeats Kingu and his followers.  He carves up Tiamat's body and uses its parts to create the world.  Next, he slays Kingu and uses his blood to create human beings.  Finally, Marduk builds his palace (which is probably the god's principal temple).  In other words, Marduk slays a dragon and uses parts of it in a creative act, creates people, has a blood sacrifice, and founds a palace/temple (temple's in the ancient were built to mirror the universe, making them microcosms, just like Cadmos' city).

All the main plot elements in the Cadmos story are present in the Marduk story with variations.  Marduk is a god who creates the universe using the dragon, while humanity is created through the blood sacrifice of her son.  In the Cadmos story, the parts of the dragon create human beings who then kill each other  in a blood sacrifice.  Both then create a microcosm in the form of a palace/temple/city.  The actual form of the microcosm doesn't matter just so long as it's an image of the universe in miniature.

The other myth is the Canaanite myth of Baal (Ba'al).  Baal, like Marduk, is a younger god who claims kingship of the gods.  He deposes the high god El, the father of the gods.  El names his son Yam as king (just like Tiamat named Kingu).  Yam, in the form of a dragon, attacks Baal.  Baal defeats him and is acknowledged king of the gods.  There is a victory celebration afterward at his palace/temple.  Baal's wife, Anat, locks the doors of the palace and slaughters the guards and guests so that the blood rises "to her knees."  

Again, we have some of the same plot elements from the Cadmos story with variations.  Baal kills a dragon, although he doesn't create anyting from its parts.  El has already created the universe and people so it isn't necessary.  Baal has a palace which is probably his primary temple and therefore a microcosm.  And Baal's wife Anat inaugurates the blood sacrifice by killing the guests at the party.  

Here are the basic elements of all these stories laid out:

The Claiming of Kingship--Both Marduk and Baal claim kingship, which leads to the attack by the dragon.  Cadmos, by founding a city, will also become its first king, so he too is claiming kingship.

The Fight with the Dragon--All three heroes fight a dragon.  The dragon represents the primal forces of the universe, of chaos.  Any act of creation must draw on those forces, which are chaotic  and therefore dangerous, and give them a useful form

The Creation of Human Beings--Both Marduk and Cadmos create people using either the dragon or the child of the dragon.  The child of the dragon represents the same thing as the dragon--the forces of chaos.  The Baal myth is lacking this since El already created humanity.

The Blood Sacrifice--Mircea Eliade links this to agricultural mythology were blood, which carries the life of the person, is given to the soil to ensure the success of the coming harvest.  All three stories have some type of blood sacrifice.  In the Cadmos story, the sacrifice is linked directly to the land since the land the city will be built on is drenched in blood.

The Microcosm--Cadmos lays out the plan of the city so it mirrors the universe.  Marduk's palace/temple would be built according to a universal plan, as would Baal's.  This was fairly common in the ancient world.  Cities and temples were the microcosm, the universe in miniature.  This ensured that the order that existed in the heavens was implemented on earth.  "As above, so below" as the Hermetic axiom goes.  All these stories are about the creation of order out of chaos.  The creation of the microcosm is very important since it links the order of the universe with the order of human society.

I just read a great book called Haunt Me Still by Jennifer Lee Carrell.  It's the sequel to her previous book, Interred With Their Bones, and probably the second book in a Shakespeare trilogy.  This book is much better than the first, and I recommend skipping the first and reading this.  It's all about paganism and Macbeth--what more do you want, really?  And even though it's a work of fiction, there's much that should be taken seriously.  She presents the origins of Macbeth's plot in terms of not only history but of mythology.  Shakespeare borrowed quite a lot of his plot's from ancient mythology: both Hamlet and Richard II, for instance, are variations on the story of Osiris from Egyptian mythology, one of the oldest stories in existence.  The Lion King, Dune, and, oddly enough, Iron Man 1 are also based on that story.

She also presents a theory about the act without a name that the witches are performing.  She links this with the idea of going into the underworld (or death) while still alive and returning transformed, which is the hero myth (see the Pietroasa bowl).  This seems to have been the point of the Hellenistic mystery religions, Egyptian New Kingdom mysticism (Amduat), and quite a lot of modern mysticism as well (read the Dalai Lama's description of an esoteric practice in his intro to the Tibetan Book of the Dead).