Who’s Been Sleeping in My Subconscious?

Yes, I used to keep a dream journal. I was even given a beautifully bound “book” with empty pages, by an equally beautiful woman, so I could jot down my night time excursions when I awoke. What a nice gift, now that I think about it… That was when women actually paid attention to me – but that was a long time ago!

I was flattered, of course, because I had heard that many real artists, and some would-be ones, kept dream journals (to protect the innocent, I won’t rattle off any names at this point). I was eager to formalize my dream tracking because I believed dreams could be a useful aid to my creative efforts while I was awake. I no longer have this book – lost in the hassle of moving or constant travel. Nevertheless, I still remember a few of my youthful dreams thanks to that “dream book.”

Although I don’t continue with the practice, except to make it a point to remember my dreams (although, in the morning, they don’t even get short shrift once I do remember them), the simple effort of “remembering,” that is, going over one’s pictures of the night’s dreams before fully getting out of bed in the morning, is a wonderful mental exercise. It’s difficult at first, since most dreams are usually chaotic and appear to be utterly meaningless (when they’re not funny or obscene), but if one persists over a period of time, it gets a lot easier.  

I always felt there was something cool about what went on at night while I “wasn’t there.” In other words, when I was sleeping – oblivious to all that goes on in the darkness of the unconscious. Things forgotten have a way of percolating back up to our conscious level like an inverted aquifer (shy as that may be of a useful metaphor), and such memories are, like dream remembrances, well worth keeping tabs on. While I can’t vouch for this being the case, I’ve always had the sneaking sensation that dreams are woven into a tapestry that is worthwhile making some “sense” of. At least, to the point of asking why they appeared at a given point in my life.

Well, when I was younger, my enthusiasm to discover those hidden secrets of my subconscious soon waned. As the pages of my dream journal filled up with my passionate, but idiotic scribbles, it kept turning into a “diary” of dream events. I didn’t see the threat though them. I didn’t recognize how these dreams were really just feelings “in picture form,” and I couldn’t make heads or tails of it (of course, at that time, I was immersed in all the daft trends of materialistic psychology as purveyed by that cottage industry, and worse), so eventually, I slouched off and stopped.

But enough about me. I wanted to talk about dreaming and the phenomenon of sleep, because they are such a big part of our lives that we simply ignore. Think of it. Over a third of our lives is spent sleeping. We’ll get that time back after we’re no longer here, but it certainly does make me wonder what we actually “do” while we’re sleeping. And, dreams are the only “tangible” things that connects us, through a circuitous weave of tenuous memories and remembrances to our sleep time. Naturally, the most palpable thing we get in the physical plane from sleep is health!

Never before in the History of humanity have people slept so little, which explains why we’re the least healthy people of all time!

Do you think that the ancients, those living before the Iron Age were tired when they woke up in the morning? Do you imagine that the Black People suffered from CFS (Chronic Fatigue Syndrome)? Not likely! If they had, they’d be well on their way to an early grave… Life was not as forgiving as it is today with all our machinations and medicines. We ought to start thinking a little more along realistic lines before popping too many pills to regain wakefulness. Reducing stress and sleeping more would go a long way towards dealing with that modern syndrome, and with the lack of “animus” that fatigue entails.

That’s right, us moderns sleep little and do even less once we’re allegedly awake. I argue we never are truly awake during our daytime hours, if such hours are being kept in our life. A little sleep shortens your life by weakening your health (your inner forces, which include those underpinning your immune system). A lot of sleep restores your health and replenishes your inner forces. And herein lies the secret to sleep – it’s how we restore not only ourselves after each new day, but our whole universe.

I wish I could be more precise, but unfortunately, the nature of the beast is such that a great many false ideas have been wrapped up in what the sleep state is, and what dreams actually are – and, since we know squat about them and what causes them – they continue to be a mystery to us. In this day and in this dark age, it could hardly be otherwise…

Sleep and Wakefulness

The “eternal” cycle of day and night… the spinning of our planet around its axis… at one point facing the sun at another away from it, conditions our physical bodies to require sleep. Therefore, we truly have two types of consciousness – the daytime (waking) consciousness and the night time (sleeping) consciousness. We enjoy lots of differing degrees of consciousness within those two states, but generally, we’re not aware of them (e.g., “daydreaming” is a “sleeping” consciousness we experience when we tend to fall back into “sleep” because we’re either bored, distracted, or fatigued.

As a result, it seems that there is a “waking” consciousness – filled with all the sense impressions we receive in our day-to-day – and a “sleeping” consciousness, which is for us as unfathomable as a black hole. The two states of consciousness are tightly woven into us with the circuit of the sun and the rhythmic cycle of day and night (which in our subconscious is still a highly mysterious phenomenon). And because when we fall asleep we lose consciousness, intuitively we know that sleep is a lot closer to a state similar to death than our waking-state. We don’t remember anything while we’re asleep and what we believe we remember, namely dreams, are only the brief passing in and out of the sleep state. Sleep always seems to us, intuitively, like falling into a warm oblivion, and we forget everything… Then, rather jarringly, it’s that darn alarm clock again!

And just as there’s a waking-state and a sleeping-state, we have an intermittent “transition” state period in between them, when we come in and out of our bodies. These brief transitional states are when we actually dream. The very “dreaming” we do is that transition out of our material state and then back into it (this may occur several times during the night even when we’re not fully conscious of being in our bodies).

Dreaming, therefore, was always a sacred state for people in ancient times. They knew well what was really going on as they passed into their nightly slumber and out of it the following morning. They felt it and understood their own feelings about it. And, might I add, back 4,000 years ago, and farther still, we were conscious of where we were. Back then, we were compelled to fall asleep soon after the sun went down (not like today, when some of us night owls can be awake all night and sleep during the day!). It wasn’t a choice then – it was rather instinctive – we’d fall asleep after sundown whether we liked it or not!

That’s why communal celebrations often lasted over several nights. These were religious, or sacred, experiences for the Black People (and all ancient people, everywhere!) – a kind of “endurance” test. In the distant past, we knew “intuitively” or “instinctually” (however base you want to get) that staying up “past our bedtime” was stealing away something the neteru gave us – HEALTH and LONG LIFE – a chance to be with them, in their domain, while we slept. That was the sacrifice people made. They sacrificed their “health” to honor the neteru/gods – that’s how deep our commitment was to them.

Rituals and rites grew out of this wisdom to become part of the Mysteries – in more recent ages these “events” were the cherished Dionysian Bacchanals – which were usually centered around the new moon or the full moon. Staying awake while we should be in the “other realm,” namely, the spiritual realm, was done as a form of “penance,” if you will. We forewent one to three nights of being in communion with the neteru (the higher beings of the spirit, which in our Western tradition are known as angels and archangels, etc.) in order to honor them. But that was O.K., because we got to drink a lot of wine and party all night.

Sleeping induces a “slowing down” of basic bodily functions, like respiration, blood flow, and nervous activity, etc. (these physiological changes are the by-product of sleep or meditation, but are really a foreground or superficial “benefit” compared to what we gain from sleep in our will and emotional life). For once we fall asleep, and get past our physical “boundary” delimited by what we remember of dreams, we are in a milieu where there are no sense impressions, or sense-bound feelings, thoughts, or actions… Once we fall asleep, we’ve left our bodies behind.

Life Is A Dream, But Dreams Are Not Even Dreams

Let us imagine that dreams are what the popular culture assumes them to be – irrelevant flights of fancy. Thanks to Freud we have many misconceptions about dreams. The eminent psychiatrist should have paid heed to his one-time colleague and adversary, Jung, to get a better grasp of dreams for they are part of our “collective unconscious” (although Jung’s conception seems equally abstract if you don’t follow his idea through to its conclusion).

What Freud missed is that we dream in retrospect about the future.

Say what? Yes, we dream what we haven’t yet lived through, yet it’s there because “everyone” has had a similar dream to ours and we’ve all lived through the same experiences (in our sleep consciousness, which is where Reality starts). A dream is based on our physical form, our appearance, our material surroundings, and even our material circumstances. All of which are the stuff of nightmares if you think about it too much.

Ever dream of being rich? Probably not, unless you feel yourself rich, or are otherwise satisfied emotionally (even if your net worth ain’t worth much). We dream our circumstance… we dream our “reality” to a great extent. When you do dream of being rich, or a feeling akin to what you imagine being rich feels like, then you’re doing well (even if your bank account disagrees with that assessment!). Either way, it’s a fleeting feeling.

Why? Because invariably, during our waking state, being rich feels just like being poor – it feels like shit – it feels like raw Fear!

And here’s another thing that’s true of dreams… Remember, we all dream the same things, mostly the same feelings… You may imagine it otherwise, and that’s fun for you, but while we’re asleep, we’re all in the astral plane together. The astral realm is one “made up” of Feelings. There’s nothing there beyond Feelings (and that includes everything in the universe that can be felt, so don’t think you’re being short-changed). Mostly, feelings of… yep, you go it—Fear… in one form or another (one degree of intensity or a lesser one, but it all adds up to the same thing).

Dreams may trigger neurosis, as the Freud believed (actually, the neurosis triggers the dream), but whatever does take place, believe me, no one dreams a surreal dream, ala Salvador Dalí, or anything like that.

Our dreams may be “weird” because they don’t fit right in with our daytime waking “logic,” but they’re never far-off enough to be “surrealist.” That’s a Hollywood convention (where Dalí worked in the 1940s) and fun to banter about at a cocktail party (do people still have cocktail parties anymore?).

Yeah, I can hear the complaints from here… people have their opinions and their a priori judgments and they’re hell bent on them – nothing will loosen their death grip on these stupid ideas…

That’s not so! I dreamed of a cat playing the sousaphone, or was it really an elephant?

No, you didn’t – unless your cat or elephant actually plays the sousaphone in a marching band during your waking day – you “saw” no such thing! Don’t recommend teaching your elephant an instrument – they already have a pretty big horn to play with as is!

How do you know? Didn’t I just tell you that we’re all asleep in the same place (a.k.a. the astral plane)? And, depending on what part of the Earth you’re sleeping there are quite a few people there with you, at the same time? Then why didn’t we all dream of your cat, or that same musical elephant? The answer is: because you only sensed it…

What happened is that you felt your cat or your elephant playing the sousaphone in your dream, but it wasn’t rendered that way to your inner eye (i.e., yourself watching inside your widescreen, HD home theater and entertainment center inside your head/heart/limbs). Actually, this “inner eye” stuff is overblown, since you dream with your limbs, mostly your hands, and if you’re a footballer, with your feet too.

In your actual dream, your cat, your dog, your elephant (if you have a big enough backyard for it), your mother, your friend, etc. was just as he, she, it was in your waking state, but your feelings made that person, animal, or thing, whatever you’ve imagined… and usually, that’s not something “purple” or exotic in any way, shape, or form. Your Feeling does color your dream world, but it doesn’t color your “pictures” of it, except when you recount your dreams. We simply lack the “art” and the organs to picture our feelings (at least, as precisely as we believe we dream them – since we dream them as a kind of hyper-reality).

So, what does it mean if you dream of your elephant playing a sousaphone? If you had dreamed of your wife, husband, mother or father, that way, we can get really Freudian. What does it really mean? Ahh… well, it means something to YOU, and here we enter in the multi-million-dollar industry of dream “interpretation,” Tarot reading, and other forms of charlatanism. It doesn’t mean anything, except what it made you feel, and whatever you can make out of that, which normally isn’t much since we dream through our feeling life and we aren’t ever either aware or very much in tune with our core feelings.

In my mind, the more important question should be: What does my dream reveal of what my inner feeling life is on about? (Forget about what’s being “externalized,” we need to get into our own hearts first!). The best we can say is that it’s your subconscious speaking to you. It’s telling you what’s up, as far as your being and that of the astral realm – a shorthand to your well-being, if you like. The subconscious (what we don’t remember) has its “economy” also, it wants production and disdains waste. Everything you’ve seen, heard, or sensed during your waking day, even things you haven’t actually paid attention to, will be presented back to you, as if upon a mirrored reflection (it’s not the mirror or the reflection, but something else...).

Really? Why? Because your ka-double is very much like a mirror reflecting light. Those are the images populating your dreams – feeling images they are and that’s why they’re difficult to interpret. Dreams, like the economy, has its own lingo in the form of pictures (or symbols, if you prefer). Although, if you pay close attention while you dream, you’ll also hear sounds, words, music, and whatever else pulls at your feelings, or your “heart strings,” should you have any. Like I said, by being “constrained” to the astral plane, to the reality of feelings only, if you will, you’re not being short-changed as far as the widest possible spectrum of experiences is concerned… (in fact, you’re only constrained in the material plane, since there’s a far broader range of experiences possible in the astral!).

We Awake To The World We Made While We Slept

As we awaken, we “build up” the world again, based on what’s been reflected back to us. Usually, it’s what’s been reflected back to us as part of a memory (the ka-double is what retains our memories). Reflections of light, form, movement, and time, as we left our body (khat) when we went to sleep the night before. The dreaming we do is the “glue” (or Lego set) that allows us to “rebuild” the world we’re coming back to inside our bodies the next morning. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be able to “reconstruct” the world each morning as we return to it… we’d have a different world each day. A world of our own making.

A world our feelings generate based on what we experienced during the night… Alas, that’s not to be in our present incarnation, in this particular age, because we can’t “bridge” the ka and the khat the way we could in the past in order to bring back the Feeling and Willing (acting we’ve done) in the sleeping state into normal, daytime waking consciousness. Why? Because we’re not conscious of it (what we did, felt, thought in the astral region) and therefore, we miss the opportunity to remake not only ourselves, but our entire material surroundings.

Whatever Freud believed dreams were, our Western culture has adapted itself to his way of thinking of it. Like him, we’ve narrowed our own powers into a lifeless, materialistic “manifestation” of things. Any wonder that what is hidden from us tends to take on a superstitious, dark tint? We live in the most superstitious times in all of human History because we don’t “see” anything when we look at things, since we’re looking at them as something we’ve hidden in our subconscious (or the unconscious, depending on the psychologist de jour). In other words, a kind of memory we’ve buried (according to novelists and psychiatrists – is there a difference?) for some ungodly reason (usually murder, incest, sexual abuse, or something worse, right?).

As a result, these “horrible” memories are somehow “gone” from our daily waking consciousness. We don’t want to go into our “inner feelings” and look around in there for them. Yet, there they lurk beneath the surface, waiting for us to fall asleep in order to haunt us once more. All well and good, while we can keep such feelings of fear “suppressed” – or vainly try to… and yet, nothing is hidden forever… and therein, I fear, lies the rub.

Happy dreams!

For All The Gold of Nubia

For All The Gold of Nubia

What can possibly be said about gold that hasn’t been said already a million times, and with about as many adjectives tacked on? Lustrous, precious, aurulent, honeyed, glorious, blissful, ad nausea… Curious thing, isn’t? Why is gold so prized? Where does gold actually come from?

My suspicion has always been that the where made it priceless… I mean, where gold came from originally, made it so precious.

 The Black People said that gold was the “skin of the neteru” (the skin of the gods), and therefore a sacred material. It’s hard for us to imagine what the “sacred” meant to the Ancient Egyptians (or to any other peoples of antiquity). We’re a civilization notorious for holding nothing sacred – with perhaps the exception of money (in which we trust more than in God). Our kitschy materialism would offer up nothing that would be recognizable to the Black People as sacred. Our modern practice of religion would seem to them merely a decadent, mummified form, devoid of any recognizable spiritual element.

But that’s not nearly all… According to one early myth (maybe from the pre-dynastic period), gold appeared on Top of the Earth as the result of the Tears of Râ. The “tears” were of joy and the manifest love of the neter. A much later myth (from the Middle Kingdom and New) when these “tears fell to Earth…” Lady Aset (Isis) was stirred to compassion and decided to cure Lord Râ. It was a painful scorpion sting…

For the cure song to be effective, clever Aset required Lord Râ divulge his secret name… As a result of her healing, Lady Aset gained great power and was from then on the Mistress of Heka, or of “medicine” and “healing.” If you’re going to gain a secret name, might as well get it from the highest deity around – the living Sun Disk, the Hidden One.

Anyway, I digress… What do these myths have to tell us about the origin of gold or of the Tears of Râ? These myths seem to point to the Sun as the original source of gold. Of course, it wasn’t just the Black People who had figured this out – there’s hardly a civilization, culture, or religion known to us, which did not deem gold to be a gift from our guardian star!

Anything that’s travelled 150 million kilometres (93 million miles) to get here, has to be something special…

Gold in the Trinity of Metals

Sacred Tradition assigns cosmic origins to all the metals on earth – one metal to each of the “seven planets”; i.e., Sun=gold, Moon=silver, Mercury=mercury, Venus=copper, Mars=iron, Jupiter=tin, and Saturn=lead (by early Medieval times, these correspondences and affinities shifted; e.g., Jupiter=bronze, Mercury=iron, but we’re sticking with the old stuff). Earth, naturally, didn’t figure amongst them, since it was at the centre of the system, the focus of their cosmogony. There’s a lot to be said for the geocentric arrangement of the planets in relation to the metals, which our modern science denies (and only picks up on fortuitously in the “atomic weight” of these metals in the Periodic Table. This too is ancient knowledge… and perhaps gist for another mill, another time).

Having grown up a “scientist” – Science was my dogma and religion – it’s funny to note, and a trifle sad too, just how little authority modern/physical science has in the 21^st Century. Not even the powers-that-be, who most benefit from its distortions, pay it any heed (and the science behind Global Warming is not the only orphan in the bunch! Denial has many scions, doesn’t it?). In fact, one can safely say that the present “political” rules – this entire political generation (and class) – are the least educated in the sciences and have the least interest or belief in it (or for that matter of knowledge of any kind). In that regard they’re all rubes and it’s simply a question of the lesser of the least… How else can you starve entire populations of your own citizenry and sleep at night? Well, it’s easier when you happen to be ‘asleep’ all the time…

Getting back to our top three – the Trinity – which are the three “cosmic” metals – the most cherished and the most valuable according to tradition. These are gold, of course, silver, and copper. Taking into account the entire mineral kingdom, only these three metals aren’t originally of this planet (Earth, where we’re now standing). Again, this seeming coincidence is expressed today in our knowledge of their atomic weights, since these three form the “backbone” of the Periodic Table (another lucky strike!).

Copper you say? Yep, it’s special for many intrinsic reasons, which we won’t get into, except in relation to the “mother” planet that engendered the metal. Here, we’re concerned with gold… which is heady enough stuff for us mere mortals.

Just the facts, ma’am... Gold = Au-79 – Melting point = 2,850°C (5,162°F).

Why even mention melting point? It’s the only relevant fact that appears in science books or even in the entire Periodic Table. Why? There’s only one furnace big enough and potent enough to create gold, to make/forge gold, and that’s the Sun.

If Gold were composed of “atoms” it would have 79 “isotopes” floating around. If it were thus made – we’d be able to radioactively reproduce (“germinate” or “grow”) all 79 of them, like we do with all other metals. But with gold, we can artificially reproduce 28 of them only – beyond that, we’re out the “envelope” of Maya. The physical limits of earthly materiality are thus imposed upon us.

Why only 28 isotopes and not more? The number “28” is significant – and not just in Alchemical terms. We can’t reproduce the other 51 isotopes because we have neglected something both obvious and important. We have neglected the satellite closest to us – the “planet” Moon – which traverses through all its phases in 28 days, and more importantly, its orbit gets in the way between us and the Sun. It’s the “silver” of the Moon that also interferes, if you will.

Without the Moon (and its Wisdom) we can’t make or “grow” gold the way the Ancient Egyptians did. This is the “secret” of Alchemy (the “Philosopher’s Stone” as misinterpreted by us knuckleheads since the Fall of Rome, onto Medieval times, and even today).

Gold As Your Own 'Personal' Neter?

What did the Black People know? I presume quite a bit, since they had Wisdom. Wisdom comes from the Moon. That’s where Lord Djehuti (‘Thoth,’ to the Greeks, also called ‘Hermes’) resides with his consort, Lady Ma’at (Truth). Wisdom paired with Truth gives ankh. And, what is this Wisdom? It’s the inexhaustible source which shines on the Earth from 150 million kilometers away.

The Sun, our little star, is our own “personal neter.” Love (Sun) paired with Truth (Moon), gives us Wisdom. Lady Ma’at (Truth) is the necessary ingredient we must bring to the game of life to make ‘heka’ (magic) happen. Heka is sacred…

To know what Wisdom is one has to know what is sacred first. From the grasp of the sacred, all else follows. The Black People grasped the divine and developed a perennial sacred knowledge, and from their efforts a subtle and sophisticated Sacred Science grew up.

Many thousands of years later, folks like Plato and Pythagoras, amongst others, initiated in the Temple saw the Truth in Love. That’s where they got it in the first place. In their formative years, no self-respecting philosopher would have done without the pilgrimage to the Great River (most notably Alexandria, since thanks to Alexander the Great it was the only Hellenic tourist spot open then – the Club Med of the day). A few, like Plato and Pythagoras made it to Waset (Thebes) and got the real deal – they became initiates of the Sun Mysteries.

Like many other philosophers, prophets, shamans, and roustabouts, la crème of the great Academies had to get their Knowledge from somewhere. That’s where they got the “lo and behold” formula we all know today (Love + Truth = Wisdom – and its ‘opposite’ – Wisdom = Love of Truth).

From this wonderful union between Lord Djehuti (Wisdom) and Lady Ma’at (Truth) we get sacred knowledge on Top of the Earth. Lady Ma’at begat Lord Khonsu, the neter of the Moon, and the ‘holy’ Trinity was formed (Earth and Sun, and Moon). We get all knowledge, once could say, all our intellectual meanderings from the Moon. Who’s a lunatic? We all are… if we even bother to think.

Phooey, you say?

Fu and phooey all you want. But this tiny bit of sacred knowledge – the chemical marriage of Earth and Sun (to beget Moon) – allowed the Black People to make gold in 28 days. Nothing to sneeze at… since this was how our Alchemy started. And our perverted magic doesn’t hold a candle to it. We can’t even dream of anything like it. Our decadent magic (science) can’t actually produce gold at all, only the phony, plastic ‘chips’ of the global Casino… But that’s just fools’ gold!

By the end of the Black People’s “golden age” (1450 B.C.) they could make it in 14 days. Beat that at the roulette table…

Yet, this was something else... electrum (alloy of gold and silver, which sometime later was attributed to Jupiter – by who else? The Greeks and Romans, of course!). I have the sneaking suspicion that our Ancient Egyptian goldsmiths were also able to deal with platinum and the “platinum” group of metals as well. But don’t ask me how! The melting point of platinum is 1,760°C, or 3,200°F, so... you’d have to have a lot of Heka going for you (and a hell of a kiln!) to make that work.

The Nub of the Gold of Nubia

Be that as it may, the Black People called the unique metal “nub,” and we’ve inherited that word for the region where it was principally obtained – Nubia – the Land of Kush, the original “Golden Land.” If you interpret the archaeological evidence narrowly, I should have said “mined” because by the time of the Middle Kingdom, it was exploited already in a modern sense. But we shouldn’t extrapolate from such mining sites that this was in any way the criminal activity it is today in the hands of the Corporations we support daily with our offerings.

The interpretation that the mines being exploited in Nubia were a royal “monopoly” is already bordering on the absurd. Such monopolies didn’t exist until Greek and Roman times, when it was indeed an “imperial monopoly.” The most you can say is that it was a temple monopoly (like the Bank of England). Because all the gold ended up in the “house of the gods” as an offering.

An offering to whom? To the gods, who else?

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To be banal about it, we could see them as the “temple treasuries,” or the Fort Knox(es) of the Black Land. The temples contained the gold from Nubia, which fed the neteru, and consequently all of the Black People. Then, it was transformed by goldsmiths and artisans into exquisite jewellery. The workshops of the temple were numerous and brimmed with specialists, both craftsmen and craftswomen (the Temple of Amun (Karnak) had 80,000 Pure Ones and tens of thousands of them were artisans). At the onset of the Iron Age (ca. 500 B.C.), when the Sacred Science of Kemet reached its peak, it delivered the technique, technology, and talent of the temple in the service of metallurgy, and many other arts, and such marvels haven’t been seen since those days.

As with all transitional periods, the end of the Bronze Age brought with it the Iron Age and the ascendancy of the ram-headed God of War (Ares to the Greeks), and the great Blasphemy which continues to this day. After the Persians invaded the Two Lands (Cambyses II, 525 B.C.), the Tears of Râ disappeared. Not only was the gold taken, but miraculously, the neteru vanished from the Top of the Earth along with the plunder.

No Gold, No Gods!

The Black People were not only bereft of their gold, but of their neteru, who had walked among them – they were gone with the Gold of Nubia. Presumably, the neteru followed their ‘skin,’ but they were not loved as they had been loved in the Land of Love (some say the gods died love-sick because no one loved them any more).

The Blasphemy that set it off was the plundering of the temples for the first time. Gold had never before been stolen either. Who would do such a thing? Who would take the skin of the neteru for themselves? Not even a ravenous creature of the night would. What sacrilege would come next? 

Half a millennium before our era, the Age of War had begun with grand larceny. It was the first big heist -- the greatest gold reserves in the world at that time. I mean, a really big heist. Forget Ocean’s Eleven. That was easy in comparison, like all Hollywood stunts.

No one resisted the robbery. Who can resist utter stupidity? They just took the stuff and left. How daring. That’s “free enterprise” for you.

The pilfered gold was taken back to Sausa and points beyond in the great Persian Empire, or so one is to suppose. Little good did it do old Cambyses II. The neteru were still within their skin and were not all too happy to have to leave their “house,” with the good service and punctual meals and libations and all (I didn’t mention the entertainment, did I? They missed that a lot!).

 According to all accounts, Cambyses II may not have gotten all the gold back home. This may be legend before it’s myth, but Cambyses and his army disappeared in the desert – in the western desert (home was east, by the way). Some say Cambyses wanted to reach the gold of the sun before it set. Others, the more sanguine, believe the curse of the neteru got them caught in a sandstorm before they reached their next oasis. Either way, he died of lack of moisture… the way the neteru dole out Karma on the greediest among us – they harden their hearts until they’re all shrivelled and dried up.

Any wonder the Conquistadors would be lured tens of centuries later by the legends of rivers of gold in America? Don’t want to think poorly of the dead, but maybe this Cambyses was just a little too grabby? Chew before you swallow, you know what I mean? Maybe he was the precursor, the prototype, of our modern banker or hedge-fund manager…There’s always a pioneer out there.

What If the Neteru Only Left Us Their Gleaming Skin?

What the gods give, we have to give in return – that’s the deal, in case anyone has any doubts on the matter. Because of the sacred nature of the material extracted, gold mining was a restricted activity and limited in scope. Most likely, gold was found directly on the surface areas, near alluvial sands and gravel as well as more mountainous areas where deposits of “tell-tale” quartz rocks and ores indicated promising sites for exploitation.

But river beds – including the Nile’s – must have been the primordial location for accessible gold to be found. In other words, the Great River must have been the first place where gold was extracted, in sufficient quantities, to make another walk to fetch water worthwhile…

Because the neteru were generous with the Black People is not to say that they lacked the technical know-how, or the capacity, to deal with more advanced mining techniques (since some of their mines in the eastern desert were “vein” mines up to 300 meters deep). What I mean is that gold must have been so abundant that it was unnecessary to go to such great lengths to extract it until later times (after the Iron Age).

And if you’ve seen any of the elaborate gold jewellery produced by the Black People, maybe in a museum or exhibitions, the effort was worth it. The pieces that have survived stand as real artistic prodigies, unsurpassed even by modern techniques. Not only in gold production, but also in its artful application, the Black People were unmatched – the thickness of the gold leaf they used was 6 microns (0.006 mm) – achieved through gold “beating” by hand throughout the Two Lands. The technical confidence of these masters is something to marvel at…

One has to stand in awe of this wondrous, cosmic metal. Its existence is tied to a profound mystery, as sublime as any great truth, since it has to do with our own origin. It makes one wonder what would happen if all the gold in Fort Knox, and what has been stolen elsewhere, were to be returned to the temples (well, the Temple would have to be rebuilt first, but that’s a minor detail).

If the gold were returned, the gods would return, and things just wouldn’t be the same after that… 

Evolution Gave Me Indigestion!

What would you guess is the modern “ailment” most people complain about? I’ll give you a clue: it’s not foot sores or headaches – although it could and will soon be. Another clue – it has to do with your tummy (and that whole process). Indigestion generates an estimated $10 billion in sales of antacid tablets and liquids in the U.S. alone. Why so much indigestion?

It has to do with our being human. And that you can blame on Evolution. The purveyors of DNA as the answer to every riddle concerning humanity and its development, seem to think it had something to do with the genetics of the agricultural revolution (a subject we’ll look into closely in the near future). Everything from the tougher fibrous by-products of agriculture to the state of modern affairs are probably to blame.

According to the DNA wonks, Evolution is giving us indigestion, and worse, I might add – irritated bowel syndrome. The culprit? Agriculture! Imagine that! Who would have thunk it? The sowing of seeds was going to deal with our digestive system, force us to “mutate” in order to digest roughage – we’d eat grains whole from then on in.  

It’s all pretty straight forward. Biologists and even evolutionary biologist believe that we are what we eat.

We Eat What We Are

I’m not so sure… Personally, I think that’s not quite true. We eat what we are, would be more like it.

I should mention a priori that I’m not concerned in this discussion with our modern penchant for eating too much, or of gluttony, per se. I’m not referring to plain old gormandizing or even the very modern resurgence in obesity among our population. Although it’s true that historically, especially in ancient times, obesity was a rarity (it was a sign of status which only the king and the highest of nobles could aspire to with pride). Obesity, and its causes, are very recent phenomenon (in historical terms).

No, I’m thinking more along evolutionary terms. We do not take digestion very seriously, despite the fact that all we human actually do is digest our environment. Albeit slowly… It’s taken us millions of years to eat our way to who we are (not the other way around as most folks believe).

We eat what we are in the same way that we evolve into what we are. In other words, you can’t have a simple molecule (or anything else for that matter) that “evolves” into something complex. For that to take place in nature, one would have to “add” something – scientist add a “mutation” to explain how the simple “flips” into being something more complex.

But that’s essentially cheating. A “mutation” is nothing but a contrivance – a “magic trick” to explain something that can’t possibly happen. Nothing evolves from the simple (or a simple state) to a complex state or form. If it were so, mutations would be the rule, rather than the exception. But it’s not the first time that Science, and we humans, have built entire fantasy worlds based on the exception to the rule… Digestion is the rule, mutations are the exception (if indeed they ever happen at all – I don’t believe in accidents and coincidences like our modern scientists do). Like Einstein said: “God doesn’t play dice.” Poker yes, dice no (13^th and 14^th Commandments, which never made it onto the stone tablets Moses brought down the mountain).

Now back to our food… and our lousy eating habits.

Digestion is like Gravity

Digestion, in a crude as well as a refined way, is what biological organism do (esp. the “higher” mammals on the food chain) – everything else – reproduction, etc. is secondary. It’s how the environment is dealt with at the most intimate and basic level. If you can’t eat it (your environment) and process it – you’re by definition in an “unfriendly” environment not conducive to the propagation of life (if not downright lethal!).

That’s just the way it is. Digestion is like Gravity on the earth. It’s a kind of “gravity” in action within an organism. It “absorbs” and “tears down” the stuff that is your medium and in which you live. If you look at it practically, all functions of a living organism are ancillary to digestion. Inhalation, exhalation, secretion, excretion, and whatever else is done – processing heat, gases, liquids, mass, etc., even at the molecular level – are all digestion in one way or another.

Just as Gravity is the source of entropy and decay in our planet (and most likely in other similar orbiting spheres out there in space), probably the “game changer” in other, as yet unknown and profound ways, digestion makes up the same type of imperative in living organisms. And, the more sophisticated the organism, the more digestion plays a role – until you get to the top of the food chain and find that without digestion, thinking is impossible…

As my plumber used to say: Sh*t happens! Well, my mechanic used to say the same thing whenever I brought my car in.

You can’t say this in polite company, but fortunately, I don’t keep such company any more…

In whichever direction Evolution may tend (up or down, sideways, or obliquely), in the material plane, in the physically real, the evolutionary stream obviously pulls “down”. To quote my plumber again: “Sh*t flows downhill!” We must contend with the force of gravity not only when we walk, but when we eat. That’s why we are de-evolving, but you wouldn’t know it from what you hear from scientific circles these days.

Digestion is as inescapable as Gravity, and no complex organism can deal with its environment as a whole or as a microcosm without it. Digestion is gravity as far as biological entities are concerned…

Evolution is Digestion

That Charles Darwin, probably a sufferer of indigestion himself, didn’t take digestion into account – by far the strongest, most imperative factor in “natural selection” – has more to do with where he came from (Victorian England), than anything else. We shouldn’t be dissuaded from taking digestion seriously simply because it has to do, invariably, with “potty” issues (or “waste”). We ought to see digestion for what it really is – the linchpin of Evolution itself!

But what is natural selection really? As any three-year old will tell you: If you don’t eat your veggies, you die! That’s the first rung of the ladder – all else follows from that. You certainly can’t become anyone else’s food if you don’t eat something first… If you choose the wrong food, you die too (as we’re learning to our chagrin), but that’s another problem.

And, rightly so, especially when it comes to the more “advanced” animals. Can’t live in an environment that can’t be dealt with; i.e., digested. If only the waste we create today were the result of digestion (of the organic sort), we wouldn’t be in such dire straits, dealing with the destruction of the planet (not that we’re dealing with it, we’re just busy denying it!).

Whatever your religious persuasion may be, we may be able to agree on the following: There appears to be with us on this planet, what we’ve called three, separate “kingdoms” (besides the Kingdom of God, naturally). Let us review what these are – the mineral kingdom, the plant kingdom, and the animal kingdom (to which we may or may not actually belong).

Therefore, looking at it grosso modo, our role in Evolution has been pretty mundane. Our contribution to Evolution has been of a purely culinary nature. It worked something like this:

1.      First Phase – Plant Kingdom: Millions upon millions of years ago, we overcame our fellow plants once we developed a body harder than theirs (we were fish or amphibians). This we achieved by eating said plants. We were quite good at eating up all the plants because they were easy picking for us – they’re so slow, they barely move. That helped a lot.

2.      Second Phase – Animal Kingdom: Millions of years passed again. It was now time to deal with and surpass our fellow animals. Everything was different right off the bat. We had to stand up to eat, otherwise, no long digestion between meals (and no chitchats by the fire). The fare was different too – tougher, and practically uneatable unless cooked (there go the trees!). But worst of all, the food moved! We had to chase the damn things to eat them! Now that was a trick we had a hard time with, but we used to have more time in our hands back then.

3.      Third Phase – Mineral Kingdom: Time passed again and then things got really tough for us – really hard. The Stone Age happened. Things were harder, but a little more familiar. We’ve eaten the plants, eaten the animals, and now we’re chewing off the rocks. But to deal with the hardest of the substances, we had to “overcome” the Plant and Animal Kingdoms first. Through them we extended our digestion so we can “digest” all that’s mineral on this planet (especially carbon!).

4.      Fourth Phase – Human (?) Kingdom: Time will do its thing, as it invariably does, and we’ll be confronted with ourselves and a changed world. This is the time when restaurants won’t improve and neither will the cuisine (I’d stay away from the “soylent green” on the menu). Some call this phase the “war of all against all,” and with the bad culinary etiquette we’re bound to be inheriting, I’d be up in arms too!

Evolution is just the process of eating (digestion) – don’t let a molecular biologist, or an evolutionary biologist tell you otherwise. We’re the ultimate eating “machine,” and far more voracious than locusts, believe me!

The Source of Indigestion

Our proclivity today is to overeat. This is in keeping with our Evolutionary mandate, so to speak. We have a lot to chew on and the sooner we get through the task, the better. Every “overcoming” on the evolutionary “ladder” leaves its negative residual (or waste, as in excretion), which must be dealt with in a post-facto kind of way (in the following evolutionary phase).

In the first phase of our evolutionary process, the “residual” was the plant in us, which went to feed the animals we would later consume. In this early stage, we were pretty much like today – gluttons. We consumed everything whole (except for the cellulose in the trees, they were made of sterner stuff). We burned the trees to make up for it when we finally got around to dealing with the last phase, the Mineral Kingdom (although in this case, the last will be the first, but that’s a subject for another day). And this is how Evolution is tied-up together.

We had to master the Plant Kingdom before we could do the same with the Animal Kingdom in us. That taken care of, we used the power of the plant and the animal in order to “overcome” the Mineral Kingdom (although we’re not quite through yet!). Today, we’re cheating a little because we’re using machines to digest stuff, and then belch it all out into the air and water.

But that’s not what our ancestors did. Like ants are doing today (they also want to get on the train), our ancestors digested the entire upper crust of our planet.

We’ve “destroyed” the Earth before and we’ll do it again. Four times already, according to the ancient tradition – three more to go. When it comes to death and destruction in all its modes, we’re the “king on the mountain” on this planet. We chew down people, animals, stones, and after digesting it all, we excrete hubris and death on all living things. Our very breath is toxic (carbon dioxide). We can’t even breathe without killing.

It so happens that it was the “second phase,” our surpassing the Animal Kingdom, which was our greatest evolutionary leap. Why? Because to “overcome” the Animal Kingdom, we had to stand up 90° to the horizon. Think of it, we were the animals that roamed the earth and to “go beyond” the “animal” we had to turn the horizon on its end… That way, we could catch them easier (we’re slower than they are, and some claim we’re stupider too!).

Yep, it’s hard to imagine. Nothing stands up, except us chickens! But what other reason did we have to stand up straight? And why are we the only “animal” that does so (no, the giraffe isn’t standing up straight – its spine is still nearly level to the horizon, like all the higher animals and reptiles). Chimpanzees and primates (even the “Lucy” variety) don’t stand. They’re hips don’t allow it. Moreover, they were the failed versions we discarded on the way to standing up… Experiment and then modify, until you get it right – that’s the motto!

Well, we had to stand up in order to digest better… The longer we digest the better we live, and digestion is also tied to our longevity. Why doesn’t that surprise me? There’s more to this than meets the eye. Things to ruminate on as we tackle the agricultural revolution in Ancient Egypt. But that’ll have to be next time… Bon apetite! But keep the Alka-Seltzer handy…

Yet Another Ghost Story

It’s that frightening time of year again... No, not tax time! Although that’d be close. 

It’s Halloween, and that brings us face to face with our not-so-hidden fears. Whether your beliefs tilt towards the traditional and the Pagan or the “Christian” variety, it makes little difference. Irrespective of your superstitious tendencies, you’re also coming up on the “Day of the Dead” (the first of November for those prone to the latter). For Hallows’ Eve always precedes that ominous day – the ultimate “day after.” Where will you spend those twenty-four hours?

One thing about our decadent Western Civilization, we certainly don’t want to deal with the dead and the issues they leave behind. The consequences of History, you might say (especially our own “personal history”). We have our friends’ ‘tweets’ to look at instead, which are more “pressing”…

And here’s a fact that ought to raise some hairs and pimple your skin. We modern Westerners are the most ignorant and superstitious people that have ever walked the surface of this planet (and I include the Neanderthals in that grouping). In humanity’s entire history (not to mention evolution!) no one has ever had so many fears and foibles to deal with on a day to day basis.

Our superstitions have their origins, of course. They come from our past. Therefore, we attribute OUR superstitions to those that went before and blame them for our “unfounded” fears. Well, you know what happens when you blame ghosts for your own shortcomings. Yep, they come back and bite you in the ‘you know where’…

And to make matters worse, we have no “coping mechanism” to deal with ghosts. Sadly, no Ghostbusters’ hot line to call. That’s because no human culture before ours paid so little heed to the dead as we do. We simply have no respect for them.

The Day of the Dead

Why should we? We had no respect for the dead while they were alive, why waste our time now? Isn’t that like closing the barn after the cows have gone? Our shallow values and our bromidic culture have no place for them or for our ancestors either. Unlike our ancestors, whose lives were guided by their progenitors across countless generations, we’re more than glad that they’re not around to tell us what to do!

I still don’t know why people hang their skeletons in the closet, instead of burying them in the backyard, under the tulips or guardiolas, like respectable people do. Closets, especially built-in ones, are so small these days, and skeletons take up a lot of otherwise useful space in there, that you’d think people would be more practical about these matters. And under the guardiolas is apropos, I might add, since these beautiful flowers are native to Mexico, where they do celebrate the “day of the dead” (el día de los muertos/difuntos). We gringos don’t know what we’re missing.

We keep piling things on… Evermore, like the Raven said. More bad Karma on top of bad, especially vis-à-vis the dearly departed. In light of the fact that every lie is a murder – another skeleton in the proverbial closet – we ought to be a little less disdainful. All the big and little lies we’ve told, the frauds we’ve perpetrated, that’s something else we carry around, dangling from our necks, adding to our unease. Another shibboleth that betrays our fears and gives us away.

But that’s not good news for us, if you think about it, because the deeds of the past don’t go away. Unless, of course, we do something about them… like “burning off” the Karma we’ve heaped up during our short existence – especially the bad variety – by doing some “good” somewhere. Take that as a “moral lesson,” if you will.

Yeah, I know, you scoff…  Because you tell yourself that these fears and superstitions are “existential.” We have turned these fears into novels and horror movies, but that little sleight-of-hand on our part – this childish attempt to fool ourselves – doesn’t mean they aren’t there. We can, of course, disown them more readily when they’re “collective” and in the cultural milieu, and that’s how we keep our petite superstitions from overwhelming us during our waking day. But there they are, nonetheless, in their manifold appearances (manifesting themselves in everything from headaches to clinical depression) and they’re not going away.

You’re probably saying: Why bother? I’m having too good of a time lying, ripping people off, and kill anything that moves (I have to eat, don’t I?). I’ll take care of the bad stuff once I’m on the “other side.” In the meantime, I’m going to enjoy my one and only time in the spotlight.

You have no idea what a spotlight that is…

It’s no skin off of my nose if you do or don’t, but it’ll be skin off of YOURs. Despite your brave face (from here, it looks like a noseless one to me), everyone pays the piper. The ghosts and denizens that “live” there, in the “hereafter,” the ones who’ve suffered your “fun and games,” are waiting patiently for you to arrive in all your splendour.

Consider that a heads up…

What Are Ghosts?

Ghost, ghouls, and goblins, demons and hellions, eidolons and other incorporeal beings are always there, on the other side of that invisible veil that separates the living from the dead. And what are ghosts if not some glimmer or trace of what’s left of the dead?

If you were living 5,000 years ago (or earlier), you’d know exactly what a ghost was. Ancient Egyptians knew them to be the memory of the dead, namely, what was left of their ka-doubles (the “etheric remnant” of light which ignited the living person’s experiences while alive, including their memories). That’s why it was important to the Black People to keep their identity after death – to remember what they had NOT done (the negative confession they were to give while their hearts lay on the Scales of Ma’at (Truth) in the Land of Amentet, in the Dwat.

Their thoughts, feelings, and deeds, were remembered through their “secret name,” the name that would identify them to the denizens of the “netherworld” as a “resurrected Osiris,” blameless of all wrongdoing. They didn’t have to recant their misdeeds because they enumerated the 42 things they did not do (btw, these 42 items were eventually dwindled down by those who followed to the Ten Commandments – a kind of memory mnemonic for those lost in the Netherworld). Without your secret name you’d be lost in the darkness of ignorance, completely unconscious, from the instant you entered that lightless world without the aid of your sense perceptions. How could you have any sensorial perceptions once you left your physical body (the khat) behind?

But that’s not scary enough, is it?

Technically speaking, ghosts don’t actually last as long as we imagine. In ancient times they were gone in a matter of days, so people had little trouble from ghost and other eidolons. If someone died back then, and you hadn’t lied to them, cheated them, or worse, they’d be gone in a few days and no one would be the wiser for it. In fact, if you prayed to them when they died, and gave them bread (they were called “offering loaves”) they would stay away from you until you yourself died, and then they’d be nice enough to accompany you and guide you to the Guardian of the Threshold (that would be Lord Anpu (Anubis) or Lord Wepwawet, the Opener of the Ways).

But that was then, and this is now – thousands of years later. Things have changed quite a bit since then (more than a few “reversals of values” later, you might say). And, when you think about how many people you’ve lied to in the course of one day (which is tantamount to a violent murder to any ghost in the world of the spirits), and then multiply that by all the days you’ve been around people on this planet, your list of ghost could be quite long. And, God forbid if you’ve done worse than lie, like actually murder someone… Well, now that’s a little scarier…

The key to understanding ghosts, even in our day, is if we understand them as a “memory.” That’s why they “come back,” because they forgot something, someone, a thought, a feeling, an unseen object (to the ghosts themselves, naturally). And, it’s that memory which brings them back to haunt the place where they died. But ghosts, like people, are very mobile these days. Did I mention that they’re also prone to haunt the person that lied to them?

Yes Virginia, they also come back because they remembered something… that “little white lie” you told them, which in the “other world” is a gigantic axe cleaving their forehead!

It’s all very mysterious to us in this present age of materialism, because we believe that there’s nothing that exists which can’t be seen or touched (by our sense organs). And conversely, nothing exists if it can’t be seen or touched. So logically, ghosts don’t exists. Have you touched any ghosts lately?

You probably have…

They’re In The Attic

You may not have seen them, but you have certainly heard them… they’re usually in the attic, where you keep the objects of your own memory. That’s why they’re up there, scrounging around, like rats, which is what you think you really hear when they scamper over the ceiling joists. They’re ghosts, not rats, trust me.

And when you get the nerve to go up there with a torch and point its narrow beam of light around in the dark, and you actually see rats, be assured that the pesky rodents are being “guided” by that very same ghost you lied to. The ghost just happens to be looking for something… and yes, they’re up there every night. Of all the nights of the year tonight and tomorrow night should be the hairiest in that regard.

That’s because the dead come to us every night and feed on our dreams… that’s where we keep count of the many and varied lies we’ve told. But, it’s best not to think about that… especially, this time of year.

What Do THEY Want?

Ghosts want what everyone wants. In two words – “pay back.” Just like the living, the dead thirst for Justice. Herein lies another lesson we ought to take from antiquity.

The Black People were, above all practical people, and therefore, “harmonious” people. They knew how to deal with this “balance” between the Dwat and the Top of the Earth (i.e., the dead and the living), and they did so by first “keeping the peace” in the Land of the Living (in their own Black Land and between all the living Black People). Over time, the problem was doing the same with their neighbours (the so-called Nine Bows), the Red People, the White People, and the Green People. But that’s another story – what Hagel called the “aim of history” – the story behind “history” itself (if you believe in such things).

That’s why one of the most highly regarded, and venerated, neteru in the Land of Love was Lady Ma’at (she’s the goddess of Truth and Collective Justice). Why “collective justice”? Because Justice, like Truth, is never a matter that concerns a single individual or a small group of individuals (that’s one of the fundamental errors we make as a result of our short-sightedness, our vacant values, and our superficial, modern thinking). Despite what “Relativism” or “Positivism” tell us, the ancients knew there was but one Truth. There can never be one “truth” for one person and another “truth” for another. Likewise, there can’t be “justice” if it’s only for one individual. If one individual (or small group, like a class in our society) enjoys “justice,” then no one else enjoys it and there’s effectively no justice at all. In other words, Justice concerns every individual, it has to inform the totality of humankind. It can’t be an “individual” matter. (Only in our decadent society can such an aberration be conceived, which explains why we enjoy neither justice nor peace.)

Every soul that dies today screams out for Justice. One can be poetic about it and say they clamour for Peace (since one can’t happen without the other). They want “peace on earth” above all things because they keep suffering what we suffer while we’re doing what we’re doing. And, what are we doing? We’re killing one another in hordes. We think the lies we tell are just “words” blown in the wind and will disappear the second we utter them… We’ve always been good at lying to ourselves first (it’s that little rehearsing we do before we lie to the next guy).

The dead are like the lies we speak, they never go away. Those who have gone before us are waiting there on the other side of that gossamer veil. The souls of the dead keep coming back and they want justice. We ignore them at our peril – especially in this day and age! This has to do with the “economy of the universe,” something that we don’t quite have a grip on. Somehow we still believe we can get more than we put it.

This “economy” between the living and the dead, was always known in antiquity, because the only way the dead could “rest in peace” was if there was some kind of peace among the living. But, as I said earlier, today we don’t give a gnat’s ass what the dead want. How can we? We don’t even care about the living! As a matter of fact, we’re dispatching the living to the “other side” at such a dizzying rate that the noise level over there in the Netherworld is getting rather loud. (If you really want to know the true cause of “Global Warming,” my friend, start looking into that!)

Don’t forget, all ghosts want but one thing – Justice!

Now you can be very afraid…

Funny, that’s what the living want too. I don’t know what the disagreement is all about. Do you?