AN ALCHEMICAL CYCLE

A Yearly cycle of seasons or the ALCHEMICAL CYCLE for the Southern Hemisphere: The Pagan/Celtic New Year began at the Northern Autumnal Equinox before being changed to the Spring Equinox of the natural seasonal rhythm by some religions.  As the cycle originated in the Northern Hemisphere, the corresponding Southern months are given in brackets, but of course they correspond to the opposite seasons.

FOUR QUARTER FESTIVALS OF THE ELEMENTS

FIRST QUARTER – Libran Equinox

October/Libra [April/Aries] - the turn of the wheel, the tilt of the balance, the beginning of retreat in autumn.

November/Scorpio [May/Taurus] - bitter sweet waters corrupt and decay as winter takes hold.

December/Sagittarius [June/Gemini] - the essences are released into the substratum and dissipated as winter moves on.

SECOND QUARTER – Capricorn Solstice

January/Capricorn [July/Cancer] – life force is reabsorbed into Prime Materia and the Raven flies in the heart of winter, to be reborn.

February/Aquarius [August/Leo] - the solvent waters of life re-arouse the quintescent energies with the move towards spring allowing irrigation and internal breathing.

March/Pisces [September/Virgo] - release of the virgin milk that rekindles activity at the end of winter - swelling and nourishment - external breathing begins.

THIRD QUARTER – Aries Equinox

April/Aries [October/Libra] - bursting forth once more from the dark womb, spring comes and life runs up, the sap and the dew, the release of the breath of life.

May/Taurus [November/Scorpio] – life propels forward the shoots, a burst of blossom and colour at the exaltation of Luna - richness andwarmth returns.

June/Gemini [December/Sagittarius] - early summer activates the work of feeding, training, rapid growth and assimilation of the cosmic and earth elements.

FOURTH QUARTER – Cancer Equinox

July/Cancer [January/Capricorn] - summer reaches her peak or zenith and fullness is flowered through internal fire, which is acid.

August/Leo [February/Aquarius] - full power obtained through the addition of sweet external fire; full colour denotes health giving properties and the soul is separated from the ashes, full throbbing heart.

September/Virgo [March/Pisces] - what has been manufactured must be gathered in, preparation for storage and decay, fruit the product of the blossom, the virgin birth of the Christos in preparation, a cycle of the ‘Work’ reaches full perfection.

FALLOUT SHOUTOUT RECOVERY

 

EARTH             FIRE                 AIR      and      WATER

The world is out of balance

 

Too much FIRE

Too much WATER

And not enough AIR

 

Mother Earth is suffering

And all those who sail in and upon her breast.

Do we think too much of ourselves, our personal comfort, our wants, and not enough of the whole? Is there too much dark magic and not enough of the angels of LIGHT?

Where is the balance and HARMONY, where is the heeded warning of the previous times? [see blogs December 2018 & December 2020] 

 

Thoughts must be guarded, for this is the seed sown without our knowledge. May the children of the world save us.

 

To paraphrase ‘Faust’ Part II, Act V, Scene V

 

“Could we but banish magic and unlearn

its incantations, could we but stand alone

before thee – then, O Nature,

it were worthwhile to be a human”

 

[From Alice Raphael, ‘Goethe and the Philosopher’s Stone 1965]

Sea Priest:        Our shattered city dips in last salute

With shadow fingers stretched to tip sea craft

And yields her people with a broken hand

Upon the sea and we are torn apart.

 

In silence now the journey takes effect 

On memory and with this phase begun

All come with urgency and looking back

See recreated City of the Sun.

 

Law Keeper:      Give us some strength with words

For as we leave our ways

Close up to stem a life

That cannot be retained.

 

Give us some truth to hold

Through distance as we ride

The strange dark worlds to come

Where tenure is denied.

 

Crystal’s Eye:   Take images of past and make your gift

A knowledge that out-rules, out-stretches span

And leads you all beyond this cyclic rift

To make of future mastery in man.

 

Against adversity have strength to hold

Such truth as you have known and let it be

Your world of new beginnings to unfold

Another universe when you can see.

 

Navigator:        We travel out in distance unprepared

Where images unborn have truth concealed

And we endure with hope, for being spared

                      That vision, all our destiny is sealed.

 

[From Su Leyborne, ‘The Crystal’s Eye’, 1985-7]

AAL’S LABYRINTH HISTORY An Alternative Viewpoint…..contd. #45.

                                    THIRTEENTH CENTURY BCE (1299-1200)

Dionysius, Greek God of Wine [1966 Time Life]

1300 BCE         By this century, the hero Dionysius has reached divine status for the Greeks. 

Dionysian Maenad [1966 Time Life]

c1290 BCE      In Egypt, pharaoh RAMESSES II (1304-1237) and joint wives Nefertari and Isnofret are ruling the country. Ramesses II is the 13^th son of Sethos I, and thus known as the Ombite, for he is a follower of the ancient god Seth.  Ramesses worships 57 ancestors as indicated on the king list of the ‘Table of Sakkara’.  ‘Rameses the Great’ as this pharaoh is known, is a Master of one of the principal esoteric lodges of the day. 

Rameses II and his Queen Nefertari

 

                       Ramesses II engaged in major rebuilding at Ihnasya el-Medina, ancient Henen-nesut, (Greek Herakleopolis named after the hero Herakles). Such rebuilding included that at the temple of the ram headed god Harsaphes, anciently known as Herischef, ‘He who is on his Lake’. The earliest monuments of this area date from the 12^th Dynasty. indicating its long-term importance to the Egyptian religious cults. Rameses II built two other temples at Abu Simbel, the Great Temple to Ptah, and the smaller temple to the goddess Hathor and to his wife Nefertari. 

 

                       This great pharaoh was active in regaining many territories and power for Egypt and in this effort there is much communication with Asyrian and Hittite Empires. 

 

                       The annals of Rameses II specify that at this time a Semitic people were settled in the land of Goshen after leaving Canaan during a famine. The Bible says that this event occurred three centuries earlier; perhaps there were two famines, an earlier one as experienced by Joseph (1840 BCE) and now a second in the Ramesses period.

Engraving by Filippo Pistrucci [1816] 

[Jan Assmann 'Moses the Egyptian']

 

                       Around this time is an alternate date for Moses [previously logged at 1362 BCE]. Moses is said to be the cousin of Menephtah, a son of the Pharaoh Ramesses. As an Egyptian, Moses is known as Osarsiph [according to the writings of Greek historian Manetho]. Moses was brought up and educated in the Egyptian temples in dedication to Isis and Osiris to whom he will become a priest. Manetho himself is an Egyptian priest and will record a different story of Moses to that of the Hebrew version recorded in Exodus ii. Manetho says that Moses in being an Egyptian priest establishes the fact that there is a secret filiation between the Mosaic religion and Egyptian initiation.  Manetho/Africanus gives a time for Moses leaving Egypt as in the reign of Amos.  He subsequently left Egypt as a High Priest of On and took with him the sacred books of Thoth, in order to establish a new regime in a new country. But first he took refuge at the Midian temple of Sinai after ‘killing’ an Egyptian, and placed himself under the resident priest Jethro an Ethiopian. Moses’ five books called the ‘Pentateuch’ has a different interpretation when placed against the background of his training in the solar temple of Memphis. When he left Egypt, Moses took the Egyptian sacred literature with him, in an ark, replica of the Egyptian model and which is to be kept in the Temple Holy of Holies. 

 

 

 

AAL’S LABYRINTH HISTORY An Alternative Viewpoint…..contd. #44.

1361               TUTANKHATEN -r.c.1361-1352 (New Kingdom) is son and successor of the heretical king Akhenaton. He changed his name to Tutankhamun (Tutankhamen) to bring him in line with a return of Egypt to the religion of Amon. Childless, Tutankhamen was succeeded to the throne by three military men, in order they were Ay, Horemheb and Rameses I, none of whom had royal blood. 

                        Around this time there is evidence of astrology in practice in eastern Turkey.

4 faces of King Tut [Time Life Books 1987]

1338               This is the time of an estimated total eclipse over Akhetaten, city of Akhenaten, in ancient Egypt Dynasty XVIII.  In astrological terms this coincides with the turmoil of a reconstruction of the societies of Egypt and the Hebrews.

1320               RAMESSES I [r.c.1320-1318 BCE] Vizier of Horemheb, takes the throne of Egypt as founder of Dynasty XIX. Ramesses I had a very short reign of only two years but managed to decorate at Karnak and construct at Abydos, the latter building being completed by his son Sethos I. Ramesses tomb holds decorations from the ‘Book of Gates’. 

 

                       Around 1315 BCE, the writing of the ‘Old Testament’ follows on the ‘Exodus’ of the Hebrew people from Egypt and the conversion of the Israelites to One God, which may echo the one source god of Akhenaton. The Hebrews then become known in Palestine as the Jews. 

 

1309               SETHOS I /SETEKHY I (1309-1291 or 1291-1278 BCE) also called Seti I, Sethos I, is son of Ramesses I. He builds a temple at Abydos over more ancient remains. In a hallway of this temple is located the ‘Gallery of the Lists’ decorated with a relief carving called the ‘Table of Abydos’ which depicts a modified king list, leaving out some names, most notably the name of Hatshepsut. The list contains the names of 76 kings, claimed by Sethos to be his ancestors. In the temple, there is a daily performance of the ‘Ritual of the ‘Royal Ancestors’.  It is noted that the physical characteristic of Setekhy I, Rameses II and Mer-en-Ptah of the 19^th Dynasty, indicate a different race to those of previous dynasties. (80) On the vaulted ceilings of the 10 chambers in the Temple of Sethos I, are recorded the zodiac signs. 

 

                       Among his many achievements, Sethos I will take possession of Palestine, engage in battle with the Hittites and established a water-station (well) on the route from the Nile Valley to the gold mines in the eastern desert. Seti also restored ruined sanctuaries, including the above mentioned Temple of Abydos, which has the unique feature of seven chapels. Each chapel is dedicated to one god, vis:- the King or Pharaoh, Ptah, Harakhit, Amon (central chapel on the axis of the temple) Osiris, Isis, Horus.  The axis of this Seti temple is in line with the underground Osireion, tomb and place for the celebration of the mysteries of Osiris, that lies behind the temple, and is also rebuilt by Sethos. (80)

 

                       Pharaoh Setekhy/Seti, whose Ka-name is ‘Repeater of births’, is buried in the Thebes Valley of Tombs. His tomb is cut 300 feet into the rock with walls and ceilings decorated with sculpture and painting depicting the ‘Journey of the Sun through the Realms of Night’. Seti’s revival of the worship of the god of darkness Setekh, as evidenced by the incorporation of the name Setekhy, meaning ‘He of Setekh’, that is, of the god Setekh/Sutekh, (80) Greek Seth, English Set. In a side room of his Seti’s tomb is the wall carving of the Divine Cow near which is inscribed the famous legend of the ‘destruction of men’ when they revolted against their Creator. 

 

Gods Set and Horus pouring out life over Seti I [Budge, Gods]

                       SETEKH god of Egypt is also known as Set, Seth, Sethy, Setesh, Setech, which may mean ‘to intoxicate’, referring to the concept of divine intoxication. This god is also known as Nubti an early dynasty sky god symbolised by an unidentified long snout animal with square ears, and the ‘Was Scepter’. Setekh is an important Egyptian god, the earliest example being that decorating the mace-head of the early Scorpion-King [3400 BCE]. Setekh had the same epithet as applied to Re, ‘Majesty’, until about 22^nd Dynasty when he became the symbol of evil. Brother and helper of Osiris, Seteckh/Set shared rule of Egypt with the falcon god Horus the Elder.?) The chief seat of Setekh’s worship is the city of Nubt; he is known to the Greeks as Typhon or Bebon. The root of Bebon is Beb meaning ‘eddy’, either of water or air, thus connecting the god to the whirling pillars of desert sand. Over the course of Egypt’s long history, the god went from being a power of nature, Darkness, to a personification of moral and physical evil.  (80. 302)

 

c1300             MIRIAM Hebrew/Israelite prophetess and older sister of Moses and Aaron, plays a significant role in the liberation of the Hebrew people from Egypt. Miriam challenged Moses spiritual authority and was punished by Yahweh according to existing writings.  

                       At this time, an Egyptian Papyrus records a calendar of lucky and unlucky days. With it are tables of the risings of stars with corresponding gods for each hour, day and month. There is emphasis given to the numbers 7 and 12.  At this time the Vernal Equinox occurs against the background of the constellation of Perseus.

 

                       ORPHEUS of Thrace and of royal parentage, is the son of a priestess of Apollo and destined to unite the warring solar and lunar cults after returning from a sojourn to Egypt to study the mysteries. Orpheus blended the religion of the Greek Zeus with that of Dionysus who was believed to have originated in Egypt. The aim was to replace the primitive cult of the Bacchantes who had combined the cult of threefold Hekate with the old cult of Bacchus. 

                       The sanctuaries of Apollo kept the Orphic tradition whose festival was celebrated at the Vernal Equinox when the god returned in a chariot drawn by swans marking his re-birth.

 

When the Cosmic Harp rings out the rhythms of the Universe.

                   In Mesopotamia of the Upper Euphrates, Mitannian (1300 BCE+) sources list Varuna, Mitra, Indra and the twin god Nasatyas of ancient Iranian (Persian) religion. They come from the same common Aryan heritage as the Indian mythology. Out of the Indo-Iranian cults of fire worship, symbolised by the goddess of light Mitra, will come the Mithraic worship. Mithraism is to become a widespread mystery cult in the east. The goddess Mithra will be resurrected in Zoroastrianism (c580 BCE) as the ‘Eye of Mazda’. Mithraism will penetrate the old mystery religions during the Hellenistic period of Greek civilization of the future and which will follow on from the time of Alexander the Great (c300 BCE). This mystery religion will again surface fully in the west in 1^st century CE during Roman times. Mithraism had 7 grades of initiation, leading to immortality. As part of its ritual, the rite of slaying the bull was seen as a re-enactment of Mithra killing the cosmic bull of creation. 

 

 

The purifying force of Fire & Light

 

AAL’S LABYRINTH HISTORY An Alternative Viewpoint…..contd. 43.

c1362 BCE      MOSES/THOTH III - a Hebrew/Israelite, raised by an Egyptian Pharaoh’s daughter who is possibly Hatshepsut [1479 BCE] although others say by the sister of Rameses II. Moses is educated as an Egyptian priest at the temple of RA in ON [Gk Heliopolis]. On the Sinai- peninsula where he lived for forty years as a shepherd, Moses had a vision of a burning bush from which issued the voice of God (YHWH) telling him to take the children of Israel/Jacob (the 12 tribes of Israel) from Egypt into the land of Canaan. 

                    Moses as an Egyptian prince may alternatively have been a pupil of Akhenaten founder of monotheism and when Akhenaton ceased to rule, Moses preserved his teachings and took them out of Egypt for safe keeping. The hypothesis is that the Exodus from Egypt took place at the time of a great natural catastrophe, which is recorded in the Hebrew writings of ‘Exodus’, and in the Egyptian writings of ‘The Lamentations of Ipuwer’. (262)

 

                  Moses lead the Hebrews out of Egypt and back to Palestine and there establishing a community based on the knowledge of the past ancient civilizations. It is destined to become the oldest living religion in the Western World, known as Judaism, eventually to be called the Jewish Religion, which also served as a matrix for the future religions of Christianity and Islam. Thus, are all the three great religions founded on ancient Egyptian and Sumerian beliefs.

                                        ‘Moses and the Burning Bush’ by Austrian painter and 

                                                    engraver Ernst Fuchs 1950

 

                        On Mount Sinai or Horeb, Moses received ‘The Law’ from God, consisting of the ‘Ten Commandments’ or the ‘Decalogue’, inscribed on stone. The Decalogue was later housed in a chest nominated the ‘Ark’. Such an ‘Ark’ could be a reflection of the ark or barge of the Egyptians and which was used to carry the sun god through the Duat; a barque kept in the Egyptian Holy of Holies. 

 

                        The longer ‘Law or the Torah’ of ‘five books’ (also called the Pentateuch) is also traditionally attributed to Moses (114] and constitutes part of the Hebrew Bible called by the Christians the ‘Old Testament’.  These books are the basic source of Jewish belief stating the revelation of God and his law as given to humanity.  The oral Torah was eventually written down as the Mishnah and Talmud.  In the coming Middle Ages, systematic coding of the Talmudic Laws will be compiled. (102)

 

                        Legend says that Moses received his wisdom, as encoded in the later Medieval Kabala, at the same time he received ‘The Law’ on Mount Sinai. (22) Thus, Moses is known as the traditional founder of the future Kabala, a Medieval metaphysical doctrine, the knowledge of which he learnt from the Egyptians. As Abraham was the father of the Hebrews and came from Ur of Sumer, it is likely that this wisdom knowledge was actually a blend of the more ancient Sumerian and Egyptian wisdom knowledge. 

Tarot Card 22: Tau the Fool

The last book of the Christian Bible called the ‘Book of Revelation’, has 22 chapters which is the same number as that of the Hebrew letters of the alphabet and of the major arcana of the Tarot cards, both symbols used for the guidance of Initiates into the mysteries of life. The number 22 is significant in symbolizing the potential totality of Being, the whole world and all knowledge of God.

                        When Moses descended from Mount Sinai he was described as ‘two horned’ like a Ram, probably signifying him as a prophet of the coming Aries Age, which will reign under the sign of the celestial Ram. Unfortunately, Moses’ flock were still worshipping the golden calf (bull of Baal) symbol of the previous 2000 year Taurian Age, thus setting the scene for some conflict. 

 

                        Baalim or ‘Lords’ of the Semitic people are:- Baal, consort of mother Astarte; Sin moon god of Sinai; Molech or Melek sun god of Tyre; Horus the Egyptian Golden Calf whose image was made by the priest Aaron, brother of Moses; Nehushtan the fiery flying serpent of lightning, made by Moses rod; Chemosh, the Babylonian sun god Shamash, incarnate in Samson (Arabian Shams-On, Egyptian Ra-Harakhti, the sun- another reference to ON - Egypt); and Melchizedek the god of Salem; (13)

 

                        The Goddess Asherah is worshiped in Israel from the days of the first settlement in Canaan, the Hebrews having taken over the cult of this great mother goddess from the Canaanites and turned her into the consort of Yaweh. (258) Asherah may be the forerunner of the Shekinah in the future renewed system of the Kabalah.

 

 

            

AAL’S LABYRINTH HISTORY An Alternative Viewpoint…..contd. 42

FOURTENTH CENTURY BCE (1399-1300)

 

14^th C              During the 14^th and 13^th centuries BCE, there is trade contact between Mesopotamia and the Mycenaean cultures of Greece who have begun settlements in Syria; between Babylon and Egypt – in fact the ancient world seems to be very active and integrated.

 

1390           AMENHOTEP III Pharaoh of the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt is the son of Thuthmosis IV. Under his reign the Egyptian court reaches a high in its prestige. His second wife Queen Tiy [Tyre or Tiye) will succeed him to the throne. She is a worshipper of the old god of On (Heliopolis) that is the sun god Aten, an ancient symbol of the god Ra. Amenhotep III is believed to be the father of Akhenaton, the heretic king who is to fully establish worship of the Aten. Tiye his mother, is the daughter of the Hebrew Vizier Joseph/Yuya. So here we have a blending of Egyptians and Semites creating a new race. Objects belonging to this king and queen have been found in the Fayum area of Egypt and possibly a palace also found there, therefore linking Akhenaton, through his parents with the Fayum and all its mysteries.

The Aton and Maat.

                       QUEEN TIY daughter of Yuaa/Yuya of On, a Priest of Min in ancient Egypt, worshipped the sun disk as Aton (also known as Ra or Ra-Horakhti, god of the two horizons). Tyi married Amenhotep III of Thebes, who worshiped the sun god Amon.

                       Here we have a combination of the single sun god Amon and the dual sun god Ra-Horakhti/Aten. Tiy’s forefathers were Atlanteans, which could mean that the Atlanteans were of the Semitic race.  Her father was Yuya alias Joseph from Canaan. According to the author L. Gardiner, when Tiye became pregnant an edict was passed that if a boy it should not live so that the Israelites would not gain the throne of Egypt. After the boy was born he, (Aminadab, b.c1394) was floated downstream to the house of Levi, Tiye’s father’s half-brother, for safe-keeping. Aminadab was educated in the Egyptian eastern delta county by the priests of Ra, and moved to Thebes as a teenager. Aminadab is the Hebrew form of Amenhotep and the child is destined to become Amenhotep IV and then Akhenaten (Moses) the servant of Aten. This move will bring radical reform to Egyptian culture and religion.

                       Seals commemorating the marriage of Amenhotep III and Queen Tiy were placed quite far away in the foundations of foreign public buildings, such as the temple at Beth Shemesh in Palestine and at a site in Mycenae.

1379             AMENHOTEP IV/AKHENATON is the unacknowledged son of Queen Tiy and Pharaoh Amenhotep III. In order to secure his claim to the throne, as Amenhotep IV, he is married to his half-sister Nefertiti who is the daughter of Amenotep III and Sitamun.

                       Akhenaton was crowned at Hermonthis (Southern Heliopolis not at Thebes as was usual) where a brother of Queen Tiy was High-Priest of the Sun. The inscription of Akhenaton’s investiture reads:- 

 

“Mighty Bull, Lofty of Plumes, Favourite of the Two Goddesses........High-priest of Ra-Horakhti of the Two Horizons......Shu-which-is-in-the-Disk........Beloved of Amon-Ra.” 

Young Akhenaton in Blue Crown [Aldred]

                      Hermes Trimegistus is said to have attended the installation of Akhenaton as Grand Master of the Order of the Rose Cross later to become the brotherhood of the Rosicrucians. 

As an adult, Akhenaton attempts to change the current dominating Theban Egyptian religion back to that of the old sun god Aten or Aton. Aton symbolizes the sun’s disc at On; ON being in turn the symbol of Light, Truth and Joy. This old religion was that of Queen Tiy, reputed mother of Akhenaten. To this end, Akhenaton established his capital in a new city at Amarna, mid-way along the Nile and which he called Akhetaten. The city boundaries were marked with 14 pylons. 14 is the half sum a lunar cycle and close to half a Saturn cycle.

                       During his reign, Akhenaten built a temple to the Aton in Palestine, possibly at Jerusalem itself, and another far up in the Sudan and which may very well be the prototype of Solomon’s Temple. 

                       Having aroused strong opposition due to closing the old temples and fore bidding worship of the traditional gods, Akhenaten was forced to abdicate to his cousin Smenkhkare. Akhenaten,, taking with him a brass serpent scepter, fled from Egypt with some of the descendants of Jacob and sought safety in the Sinai. His supporters called him Mose, Meses or Mosis, meaning heir/born of Truth = Tuth-mosis) and Ra-moses, fashioned by Ra. 

Pharaoh Akhenaten, mother-father of creation

                       ADAPA is the Priest King of Eridu, Sumer, around the time of Akhenaton. At Tell el-Amarna are tablets containing in Sumerian the legend of Adapa who was created by Ea as the ‘model of man’, hence this ‘myth’ will become associated with the Hebrew ‘first man’ named Adam.

                       Babylon Boundary pillars (kudurru) are decorated with the symbols of a Triad of gods, Sin, Shamash and Ishtar, represented by crescents and discs and containing a star of four or six points. These gods are the planets that we know as Moon, Sun and Venus.