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:
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!
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