Egyptian Pursuit of Happiness

8/6/2019 Egyptian Pursuit of Happiness

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The following is excerpted from Embodying Osiris, the Secrets of Alchemical

Transformation, available from Quest Books.

Is the Middle East ready for the hard work involved in establishing a form of democracy

befitting their needs and desires? How will Europe and the United States -- despite its

rhetoric -- accommodate wholesale democratic change in the Middle East? These are afew critical questions facing this region as the old guard falls and the promise of new

governmental structures are in the offing. Events are moving quickly, perhaps faster than

these significant developments require. Revising constitutions, forming transitional

governments, establishing democratic institutions in lands that are, for better or worse,

not used to the workings that insure lasting individual freedom requires more than a

revolution. Instead, there needs to be a gradual evolution in the consciousness of people;

old habits are hard to change.

Egypt is a country founded on countless coups, foreign occupation and annexation. It is a

country with a rich cultural tradition that young Egyptians would do well to study and

learn from the remnants of their great history. Let us not forget that Egypt was the cradle

of civilization, a society that maintained continuous government for some three thousand

years. In ancient times, the pharaoh served not only as an autocrat, in charge of virtually

every aspect of society, but he also mediated between the gods and his people. In many

cases, the pharaoh was a god. We witnessed this same sentiment in Mubarak's final

speech in which he counseled his children to go home to their mothers. The reaction led

to his resignation, a prescription that accords with an old expression, "the king must die

in order for the son to be born."

History tells us that the radical pharaoh Akhenaton sought to change some 1300 years of

tradition by suddenly redefining the king's role. He simultaneously elevated the value of

the individual and the family while essentially demoting all their gods, save one. Aten,

the sun god, was installed as the one and only god above all others. This radical changehinted at the beginning of monotheism in a land that had practiced polytheism for

thousands of years. This was not just a conceptual shift, but one that basically dismissed

familiar gods and long held religious customs. It's easy enough to decree a change, but

to win the hearts and minds of people requires a time of adjustment and voluntary

accommodation.

Even while granting greater personal freedoms, ones never before enjoyed by common

Egyptians, Akhenaten's reign was met with ambivalence, suspicion and ultimately,

sabotage. It was as if god had released the people from bondage, but rather than

jubilation, people were disoriented; they missed their traditions, their old way of life, the

old gods. Not having taken the time to slowly introduce a revised mythology that allowed

people to gradually accept this new concept of individual freedom, Akhenaten'sexperiment failed miserably. His reign lasted only seventeen years and was quickly

dismantled following his death. Still, the seeds of individual freedom had been lodged in

the collective psyche and after many thousands of years they are beginning to bloom.

What follows is an excerpt from my latest book, Embodying Osiris, that describes the

psychology of revolution/evolution that took place some 4000 years ago. Myth and

history offer lessons to those in Tahrir Square. Penning longed-for freedoms on a piece

of cardboard amidst the surrounding revolt certainly inspires and ignites the passions of
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a suppressed people. But it is much more difficult to integrate these reforms and create

institutions that will maintain them. For all those well intended people in that tent each

has his or her own agenda -- a diversity that must ultimately reckon with the paradox of

the One and the Many. A new narrative is required, one that speaks to the people in their

own diverse language; a language that has a common voice. While the victory of

revolution is awe-inspiring, it creates an inflation that blinds its freedom fighters to thepotential consequences of rapid change.

Egypt, being a model for the Middle East, needs wise leaders who understand the

dynamics of cultural transition. These are special people who know the old myths. They

know why, for instance, Seth -- that fiery militant god whose claim to Osiris' throne was

rejected -- was never killed. In the matrix of good governance both Seth and the civil

minded Horus are needed. Each has his place at the table; strength and deliberation

must be balanced. Otherwise, for all the excitement that the overthrow of the old guard

(god) has brought, chaos rather than democracy may follow. The Middle East is at a

tipping point where patience, good leadership and insight into lessons learned from myth

and history can tilt the scales in a favorable direction.

The new mythology that sprang up with Akhenaten's reign maintained that both living

and dead simply sank into sleep each night and awakened to the rays of the morning sun.

In future, it was to be Aten, and sometimes Akhenaten, to whom the living and dead

would turn in prayer and adulation, since the king and his god had become their eternal

caretaker. This revolutionary change had a disquieting effect on the people, and, for the

most part, Akhenaten's effort essentially failed. His failure was due in large part to the

fact that his mythology was incomplete.

As we now know, individuation is a process founded upon integrating light and shadow,

Self and ego, Osiris and Seth. "The concept of an all-encompassing God must necessarily

include his opposite," writes Jung, "the principle of the coincidence of opposites musttherefore be completed by that of absolute opposition in order to attain full paradoxicality

and hence psychological validity." In this case, Self, in the form of Aten, was given sole

authority. Had Akhenaten figured the dark gods, like Osiris, more prominently into his

mythology it may have gained greater acceptance. Although Akhenaten's reign lasted

only seventeen years and old traditions were quickly restored following his death, it had,

I believe, a lasting effect on the Egyptian psyche.

In Aldred's view, Akhenaten's "creed reveals an attempt to rationalize beliefs that had

developed accretions from prehistoric times. It sought to establish the relationship of the

dead with the living, and mankind and all the natural world with a unique, invisible and

self-created god." Rationalized beliefs were a modern concept that not only contradicted

the common belief in many gods, but now also called for individuals to think forthemselves. Gone was the underworld where the weight of one's soul determined a

person's fate. With Akhenaten we have the first stirrings of conscience and with it the

need for redemption. This complexity came by proclamation, not through the gradual

introduction of a new mythological narrative. Aten was singled out as the ultimate

celestial authority, and all other gods were reduced in importance. Akhenaten took a bold

step that theologians before him had avoided: he declared the existence of one true God.


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The Egyptians, says Siegfried Morenz, "avoided liquidating individual gods but did not

remain content with building up a hierarchical pantheon; they boldly went on to advance

the theory that behind the plurality of gods there was a basic unity." Akhenaten named

this unity Aten.

People were simply not prepared to make the leap, although surely some blindly accepted

Akhenaten, while others tolerated him and still others feigned allegiance for monetarygain. Soon after the king's death came a flurry of rededications aimed at reviving the old

order. But a process had begun that could not be changed. Today, we would refer to it as

the individuation process, which holds that in every man, woman, and child is an

instinctive urge toward the growth of individuality. No longer was assurance of physical

survival and evolution enough, for henceforth an unconscious process of involution had

seeded itself in the human psyche. A new dimension of personal, psychological depth

was added to the ancient eschatology of the Old Kingdom. With Akhenaten, no longer

was the world a mass of selfobjects, but instead the possibility of an individual psyche

emerged, one that was private and separate from the collective, consisting of a conscious

and unconscious domain.

. . .

I further contend that a critical evolution in cognitive development, a gradual shift from

concrete to abstract thought, explains the emergence of an individual psyche. In

alchemical language, abstract cognition is the separatio that allowed Akhenaten to isolate

the one god from the many. This kind of sophisticated symbolic thinking was far more

than the average Egyptian was used to. While the populous feared that many thousands of

other gods would perish, the truth is that this radical change represented an introjection of

the gods into the unconscious. In fact, they did not die; instead, a long process began in

which external gods transformed into interior archetypes. In a sense, the old gods, like

Osiris, had resurrected.

Many thousands of years would pass before the Osiris myth evolved to the point thatpeople came to understand the gods of the Ennead as psychological entities rather than

immortal deities. This shift in consciousness began, I believe, with the fall of Akhenaten.

Thereafter, the Book of the Dead was no longer a guidebook meant strictly to serve the

deceased, but slowly became an instruction manual for the living. To be sure, the myth of

Osiris was never a static document, but rather changed according to political necessity

and, over the course of many thousands of years, responded to the psychological

exigencies of the collective unconscious. In the earliest times, Osiris was a common god,

as were all the gods of the Ennead. He was the god of the dead; Horus the Elder, the

herald of creation; Seth, god of storms and thunder; and Isis, an aspect of the Great

Mother. But, since individuation involves movement from simplicity to forms of ever-

greater complexity, these gods could no longer maintain their singular place in theEgyptian pantheon. The simple merging of gods was not sufficient symbolically to

convey the complexity emerging in the development of consciousness. For now, a shift

was occurring that required a calculus of change separating the individual from the body

politic. This shift involved a gradual redefinition of the person from one viewed as a

function of something other than him- or herself to someone having all the vicissitudes of

an inner world.


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...

We are beholding mysteries that Egyptian priests worshipped and alchemists intuited. We

are embodying the kind of divine consciousness that was formally possessed exclusively

by pharaohs. The difference is that divine consciousness today is not mediated by heka

[magic]; rather, it is accomplished through a combination of empathic engagement with

the gods (archetypes) and advanced psychological processes. A whole new philosophy ofembodiment has spawned areas of research that are shaping today's world.

Much of these contemporary advances stem from the history and mythology studied in

this book. A wise old saying makes this point: "Yesterday's magic is tomorrow's science."

And, in fact, magic played a crucial role in the radical transition from an unconscious

collective to the gradual awakening of individual consciousness. Early Egyptians must

have marveled at the transformations appearing in plain view when wheat and barley

were changed into bread and the juice of the vine into a spiritual elixir. This magic

depended less on a god's favor than on the knowledge one possessed in the kitchen.

Channeling the Nile's floodwaters, irrigating the soil, stockpiling seed, and strategic

harvesting, all seemingly simple tasks, were actions that replaced magical commands

with a practical means of marshalling nature's power.

Osiris and Isis taught people how to use the Nile to cultivate their fields. This knowledge

marked a significant advancement in the development of consciousness. For with the

means of producing one's own food, the gods weren't something out there that came of

their own will and in their own time to provide for the people. What had been a divine

power was now, to some extent, in the hands of farmers, bakers, and cooks. With self-

sufficiency, people were less dependent on the state; filled storehouses established a

healthy market for trade and commerce. At the same time, one's spiritual destiny was no

longer a function of the pharaoh, but rather every person had direct access to God (Aten)

-- a major change in how his or her fate in the afterlife would be determined.

As a result, the great gods became increasingly more abstract and their role in thisalchemical process more important. Osiris had been a god of the dead, but he now

represents the god of change and becoming -- an alchemical god much in the likeness of

Mercurius. Seth was no longer just the god of thunder and storms; he now becomes the

nightly slayer of Apopis, the serpentine enemy of consciousness. Isis emerges not only as

wife and sister, but also as mother and even as a creator goddess who re-members and

animates her dead husband. Horus the Elder appears to merge with the younger Horus,

together establishing a vital new order on earth. Horus comes to represent the new man

who rules with an earthly authority founded upon his father's sovereignty in the

underworld. It is possible that the idea of the new man, the second Adam, derives from

Horus, for in him we find the seminal traits elaborated much later by other groups: the

Cabbalists with their concept of Adam Kadmon, the Gnostics with their doctrine of theAnthropos, and the alchemists with theirfilius philosophorum, the first "man of light" --

Mercurius. More generally, what I am describing is the formation of a psychological

world where gods become archetypes and the dark underworld, the earliest beginning of a

personal unconscious.

Had Jung pursued his research in this area further, he would not only have found

evidence to support his theory of individuation, but would certainly have discovered the


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earliest structuring of the human psyche. With his genius, he certainly might have

provided encyclopedic evidence that Ra is the personification of the Self. No doubt he

would have gone further and found Horus to be the prototype for the ego archetype and

Seth, the shadow archetype. Osiris would prove to be theprima materia that transforms

from a passive, undifferentiated state to a perfected image of the philosopher's stone.

While Jung relied principally on medieval alchemy, I believe he might more profitablyhave turned to ancient Egypt where the Royal Art was born and cultivated.

Consciousness is a continuous process of unfolding, punctuated by dislocations and

reunions; the Osiris myth marks many of the key points in this evolution. Indeed, it is apriceless alchemical myth of existence given to us by nature and sculpted by humankind.

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Egyptian Pursuit of Happiness