BIO

Richard Kopatschek is a California writer born in Buenos Aires, Argentina. While working as a carpenter in San Francisco, he studied Philosophy and earned a J.D. in Law. He speaks several languages and travelled widely, living in India, the Middle East, Europe, Latin America, and New Zealand. For more than a decade he was a sports journalist and stringer for Associated Press, covering the Olympics from Montreal to Sarajevo and World Cups from Buenos Aires to Mexico City. Returning to Silicon Valley in the mid ‘80s, he devoted his energies to growing innovative software start-ups in foreign markets until the “dot.com” bust. Fearing the end of history was neigh, he returned to his first love -- writing about ancient history -- especially Egyptology. He now lives in Barcelona, Spain, with his two kids, where he writes about the Land of Love in “The Horizon Keeper” series and other mysterious tales from our forgotten past.

Learn more by reading the Author Interview below:

Q & A with Richard Kopatschek

Author of “The Horizon Keeper” -- Part I

Q -- How did you become interested in Ancient Egypt and especially Egyptology?

A -- That’s the funny thing... When I was a kid, I have to confess, Ancient Egypt didn’t hold much attraction for me. It’s something that grew from within me over a long period of time, inexplicably. The life of the “Black People” (as they called themselves) seemed somehow alien and very far away. Their whole aesthetic was inaccessible and remote, yet strangely appealing. Since then everything Egyptian has continued to hold a certain fascination with me, as I believe it does for everyone living in our present time.

Although I felt something both “odd” and familiar about it when I was young, especially when I looked at hieroglyphs in books, I didn’t give it much conscious thought. When it came to “history” -- at least how it was purveyed on TV and in popular books -- I preferred cowboys, adventures in the high seas (pirates), even Roman gladiators seemed like more fun than the stiff ancient Egyptians with their self-satisfied smiles. They had the smiles of all-knowing parents... like blissful Buddhas who knew better. Blissfulness, I thought, where’s the fun in that? Give me blood and carnage any day!

Moreover, Hollywood (esp. the Cecil B. DeMille variety) made the Egyptians out as the real bad guys (worse than the Nazis!). Did you ever see “The Ten Commandments”? The Ancient Egyptians were an evil, wicked race, using slaves to build their pyramids and their temples to their false gods. But you see that’s what didn’t jive with me. After you whipped the slaves to death, who was going to carry those big blocks of stone up that hill? Not the guy flaying the whip, right? Like a lot of the fables of History, it didn’t make actual sense.

Then, as time passed and I considered that the Black People always had that sublime smile on their faces... a different answer began to stir within me. Clearly, that smile wasn’t the smug, mocking smile of a slave owner. Slave owners don’t smile much either (they’re too embittered to actually enjoy the fruits of their oppression). More importantly, the Black People smiled even INSIDE their TOMBS! Who would do that? Who would be happy to be dead? Especially after they supposedly had enslaved millions? Folks who smiled like those paintings smile, like those granite statues smile... hmm... they had something else going on. They weren’t like the Romans, who NEVER smiled (ever see a Roman statue smiling?). The Nazis never smiled either -- smiling was Verboten! 

Those smiles got me thinking... Like I said, those enigmatic smiles. Buddha smiles all around. Buddha smiled that way because he had found something out -- Nirvana! He knew something. Like the Mona Lisa, she also had a secret. And then, I began to get it into my head that the Egyptians must have had a secret too. Otherwise they wouldn’t be smiling. You don’t smile like that because you just ate a big piece of chocolate cake... or because you won the Lotto. No sir, there they were in museums, in sarcophaguses, in books -- all of them, without exception -- smiling at us. Why were they laughing at us through all of History? When we’re supposed to be so much better than they are? That’s what got me started walking... long walks in the woods, by the seashore, in the middle of my bustling town, and the rest is, as they say, “history.”

Q -- When did you become interested in the ‘Book of the Dead’?

A -- If memory serves, I was at university, pretending to study Philosophy. It was a short time after I read “The Tibetan Book of the Dead.” Good grief, I thought, these folks went there and back! No spaceships, no transporter rooms, no Stargates, nothing... That same semester, I found out about the Ancient Egyptian version -- way older (in archeological terms). I read the Sir E. A. Wallis Budge translation first (it’s still in print!).

Although I actually admire the man -- the curator of “Antiquities” at the British Museum from 1883 on (i.e., all the things they could steal that weren’t nailed down properly) -- it was dreadful. Between the horribly obtuse Victorian writing of his time and the lack of understanding of what the Egyptians were on about, it was a total muddle (did I mention it was dreadful?). It was dreadful. I didn’t get it. What were all those animal heads doing on top of human bodies? Little did I know it was just their ‘Cosmic Memory,’ so to speak... how they saw themselves when THEY were the Neteru (the Gods).

Regarding the Egyptians, the Victorians couldn’t take them at all seriously. They believed civilization was impossible without trousers. The Egyptians wore skirts, for crissakes! They simply couldn’t overcome their cultural prejudices, even Budge himself, in the end, couldn’t. If only the Egyptians hadn’t worn skirts we’d be a lot wiser today. A lapse in fashion sense got them short-shrift as “savages,” as too “womanly.” (In a way, how right they were, since all Wisdom is female -- isn’t that why the Greeks called Her “Sophia” instead of Sophus or Sophio?)

Now, a good 4000 years later -- that’s how long it took me to figure it out -- the “Book of the Dead” makes a great deal more sense (it’s actually called “The Book of Coming Forth By Day”). One simply has to accept that the Egyptians weren’t pulling any punches -- they were telling us what they saw and how it was... And, that’s what I’ve tried to portray (however deficiently) in the adventures of Neruamun in “The Horizon Keeper.”

Q -- How did you come up with the name for the book?

A -- What’s the furthest thing you can see? Where’s the farthest you can go? Where’s the limit beyond which you are no longer who you believe you are? Those questions got me walking (a.k.a. thinking).

No matter where you go, my friend, you’re only approaching “the horizon.” The Horizon was what also encircled the enchanted world of the Black People, since they lived in the Land of Love (that was another name they had for Kemet, the Black Land!). What they called the Horizon of the Akhet was what for them ‘encircled’ the Three Worlds (Heaven, Earth, and the Dwat).

Since it is only a very recent, a very modern superstition that the soul does not exist and therefore cannot transmigrate (i.e., reincarnate) from one life to the next, it occurred to me that the Black People, being the practical folks that they were, used the Horizon literally (not just as a metaphor). The Horizon was what separated Life and Death for them. In many of their myths, the Horizon is ‘reinforced’ by the symbol of the Serpent (Kauket, Apet and by many other names). The Horizon is the Serpent which “keeps us” within our mortal bounds (our ‘mortal coils,’ if you will). The Serpent was Chaos and what the Black People desired, as we all still do to this day, is Love = (Wisdom + Light = Justice). So the Horizon is this ‘sacred boundary’ between Life and Death, between Light and Dark, and the frontier between consciousness and sub-consciousness. The Greeks, being natural mimics, stole a great deal of this symbolism and imagery for themselves and incorporated it into their Mysteries and into their Tragedies (they were wonderful thieves of time).

Q -- What is a Horizon Keeper?

A -- A Horizon Keeper is best understood as a kind of Bodhisattva (for those of you up on Buddhist tradition). Someone who in a previous life has attained to higher consciousness (Nirvana, or whatever) was obligated, by that gift, to give something in return. As a result, the Bodhisattva pledged to reincarnate and return to live again to help those left behind, until all souls reach the blessed state. Of course, I’m writing an adventure novel and not a ‘self-help’ or philosophical book, so I didn’t want the dreary facts of life to get in the way of a rollicking good time. You know what I mean, sacrifice, devotion, surrender, and all that stuff Bodhisattvas have to do are boring, regardless of how “good” they may be for the rest of us.

I conceived of the Horizon Keepers as Hekai magicians of a special degree who must come back and reincarnate in order to protect the Prophets (the “Messengers of the Radiant One,” in the book) who teach humanity how to behave (they’re the ones who give us our Religions, our “values” and so forth -- you know, the folks that are always congenial and say “thank you” -- those are them!).

Neruamun is one of the Horizon Keepers because he “guards” the Horizon through which the Messenger Comes Forth By Day (is born). But, of course, through that same Horizon also evil is born... and... Spoiler alert! Through that same Secret Horizon also the Shadow-Dweller is born -- the Accursed One who comes to kill our Prophets. Therein lies the rub, I’m afraid. 

Q -- Why magic? Why so much magic in your stories?

A -- Well, we’re talking about a fundamental thing, without which there would be no “spark” of life for our ancestors, perhaps no “life” at all. Magic was like air, like the atmosphere. Magic was not a dirty word 5000 years ago -- it was “the” Word (as in ‘The Word Become Flesh’). The Black People called it “Heka.” For them it was all-encompassing. It was their reflection of the wonder at the miracle of existence (of their souls’ Coming Forth By Day), of the awesomeness of the “natural world” (Heaven, Earth, and the Dwat), of the power and glory of the intake of a single breath (‘Atma,’ Amun, and much, much more). Magic was not simply “a practice” as we envision it today, instead it was a way of life -- it was their Sacred Science (i.e., it was both their culture and their “high technology” rolled up into one).

Magic was there to serve our ancestors because it was a response to the offerings our ancestors made to the Neteru (the Gods). Our ancestors believed in it, perhaps even into the 15th Century of our present era -- we certainly have a lot of scorched witches who could vouch for that! This is the world we’ve lost -- Dante’s world, Milton’s world -- for those of us of European extraction. That’s why today we’re “strangers” in our own land...

But that was not the experience the Ancient Egyptians had, or of any of our remote ancestors. But since then, our so-called Judeo-Christian upbringing (which, of course, has nothing whatever to do with Christ or with the Kabala) has rent the world of any kind of possible magic. Add to that our cheerless, narrow, frivolous, and reckless “scientific” outlook and “magic” has been reduced to mere trickery and buffoonery, like the device you’re reading these words on... We’ve exchanged that for real Magic? What a fraud, right? Personally, I feel short-changed (but that’s just me).

Q -- Do you believe in magic?

A -- Believe? With all due respect to John Sebastian, I’m not much of a “believer.” I'm more of a "regarder" and "observer," if you will. Belief is a kind of dogmatism, a means of self-hypnosis. I’d rather be awake (or all asleep). Being a product of my time, I stick to Jung’s approach -- either you know or you don’t. If you have “seen” it for yourself, then belief is insufficient -- you know! If “magic” has happened to you, if you have experienced it in your life -- if only for an instant, like a flash of memory, like déjà-vu -- you’ll know. Like the water in that proverbial glass, magic is always there, it’s either half-empty or half-full. In spite of our modern folly, Magic is still here. The trick is to recognize it.

Q -- How do you find the material to write about?

A -- I find it by scrounging around in the darker places of my consciousness (or mind). I close my eyes. I don’t use a flashlight. You could say I’m an “archeologist of the imagination.” I certainly don’t think you have to actually get on your knees under the hot desert sun and sift through tons of dirt to get at the “truth” (however romantic that idea may seem to folks who have never used a pick or shovel in their lives). I mean, it’s all well and good if Indiana Jones/Harrison Ford does it for 15 seconds in a movie set... But seriously folks, what can dirt actually tell you? I do a lot more ‘digging’ by walking in the woods each day and letting the old noggin do the hard work (instead of the coolies). Unfortunately, my methodology is a little sloppy and my memory is not what it used to be... In this lifetime, I haven’t even been to Egypt (it wasn’t for lack of trying though). So to answer the question... the material is already IN THERE. It’s a memory; it came with the packaging, with the DNA, in a manner of speaking.

Q -- What type of books do you read?

A -- Appallingly boring books, mostly. Did I mention dreadful? As in dreadfully dull and boring, and appalling -- it’s called “research.” Otherwise, it’d be called “light and fun” reading, which I wish I could indulge in instead... like some of the good stuff on Smashwords and Goodreads. Thanks to my present niche that’s all I can do. I read “non-fiction” books about Ancient History, Egyptology, Archeology, Linguistics, etc. It sounds more exciting than it really is. I’ve read shelves full of them! Before I sat down to write the first word of Chapter One of the first book in “The Horizon Keeper” series, I had already read 52 non-fiction Egyptology books penned by the masters (i.e., Assmann, Battista Caviglia, Breasted, Budge, Champollion, Erman, Gardiner, Goyon, Hornung, Lepsius, Lichtheim, Maspero, Naguid, Finders Petrie, Posener, Redford, Sauneron, Schwaller de Lubicz, Wilkinson (both of them), and others). Most of these folks wrote in long-winded, cluttered sentences -- especially the Germans! Yes, long, tedious paragraphs, sometimes a page or two long, just like this one. Hopefully, that’ll change in future. But the time I do have I have to dedicate to doing research. The rest of the time I have to sit down and write something -- like another gripping adventure in the Land of Love!