In order to transcribe their thinking, the ancient Egyptians used images
whose concrete aspect evokes abstract ideas. In our languages, based as
they are on a conventional alphabet, words evoke the abstract idea of their
function by fixing concepts in a definitive manner; thus, to the contrary
of the Egyptian image, they invite a concrete understanding of the ideas
that are expressed.
Quality is abstraction. but everything is defined by the quality that stems
from quantitative comparisons.
Concept is fixation; life is mobility.
Only in parabolic form can the meaning of the imaged hieroglyphic writing
be transcribed into a language of Fixed ideas.
Each hieroglyph can have an arrested, conventional meaning for common usage,
but it includes (1) all the ideas that can be connected to it and (2) the
possibility of personal comprehension. This accounts for the cabalistic
character of the hieroglyphs and requires the determinative in the writing.
For the figures, a short explanatory text is called for as a guide to thought.
Images and figures are part of the writing.
The Hebrew Kabbalah--later to become the prototype of esoteric doctrines
subject to several interpretive translations--relied on the numerical value
and conventional symbol of the letters in order to decipher the secrets
of the Books of Moses.
By extension, the term "cabalistic writing" can be applied to
the earlier hieroglyphic systems. Hieroglyphic writing has the advantage
over the Hebrew of utilizing images that, without arbitrary deviations,
indicate the qualities and functions inherent in each sign.
Cabalistic writing maintains secrecy but offers a clue by accentuating the
principal idea, inexpressible by fixed concepts. It always employs a form
of transcription with several possible meanings, using an ordinary fact
as a hook to catch the thought: a geographic site, for instance,
a historical fact, a function, a gesture related to a profession, even a
well-known theological form or a myth. As esoteric meaning cannot be transcribed,
exoteric form must guide intuition.
Thus the same truths can be translated by a variety of cabalistic writings.
For example, the division of Unity, or dualization, is always and everywhere
found in the history of nature, which is the manifested world. The original
principle of this division becomes the subject of diversely expressed religious
teachings.
What the "fixed" words of Genesis cannot say, the Kabbalah will
later evoke; elsewhere, it will be placed in context by various myths.
As for the phonetic cabala, it always remains a play on words.
Wisdom is at the origin of' all these expressions. The hieroglyphic form
of thought transcription is a truer and more direct expression, however,
and it can be more easily protected from abuse.
The Pharaonic mind always chooses natural realities for its images and signs,
leaving open the possibility of combining them so as to make a complex rebus
out of a figuration. Each analyzed part has a natural and nonconventional
meaning.
Pharaonic symbolism is never conventional; it is natural, hence alive.
In order to understand the meanings of a hieroglyph, the qualities and functions
of the represented object must be sought out; if a sign is a composite,
the living meaning of its parts must enter into the synthesis.
This presumes an absolute exactitude in the figuration, and excludes any
possibility of malformation or negligence. It should also be observed that
symmetry is one of the modes of expression, but not to any aesthetic end.
Thus the hieroglyphs are really not metaphors. They express directly what
they want to say, but the meaning remains as profound, as complex as the
teaching of an object might be (chair, flower, vulture), if all the meanings
that can be attached to it were to be considered. But out of laziness or
routine, we skirt this analogic thought process and designate the object
by a word that expresses for us but a single congealed concept.
The Pharaonic mentality is based on the fact that every phenomenon is a
reactive effect.
The cause is absorbed by a resistance of identical nature and gives an
effect through the reaction of this resistance.
A cause never produces a direct effect since it remains an abstraction
as long as resistance is lacking. Incomprehension of this idea is the basis
of error in Western mentality.
Action against resistance is first of all a complementary situation, whereupon
reaction becomes the phenomenon (effect) of this cause. Any complementing
is negation, or death. Reaction is life. This is why the Pharaonic mentality
"crosses" all concepts. The first crossing is death: cause absorbed.
The second crossing, the vital phenomenon, is life. (Note the mummy's crossing
of hands and scepters.)
An example is the gesture of offering. "Who can give if not he who
possesses what the other lacks?" This is the Western thought process.
Pharaonic Egypt would say, "God has all," and the reactive effect
will be: he who offers symbolizes the living character of what the
receiver is. He does not give him anything. Thus the believer
offers his life to God: God is his life. The soldier offers his life to
his country. His country is his life. The offering is always made to the
more powerful: hence what he can give is all that can be evoked.
Bargaining is left to false charity.
What is born is destined to die. Thus only what results from death in a
reactive manner can live eternally. The soul, which makes for life, is transmitted
in nature to what is born, and animates it transitorily. The soul can be
liberated only when all mortal aspects have been destroyed.'
The Pharaonic mind believed only in the soul, the only immortal life, a
cause that cannot be resorbed by a resistance, and hence a cessation of
duality.
The rest, all of nature, is but symbol: the phases of the
fall
and of liberation.
Throughout nature, God reveals His qualities. These qualities are the natural
symbols; consequently, the living symbol of nature is divine. It will be
always and everywhere respected, even when it is destined never to be seen.
This is healthy magic, the magic of analogues.
For these reasons, Pharaonic Egypt never encumbered itself with aesthetic
considerations. Through its symbolism, it remained rooted in truth. In its
architecture, the aim (the destination) is first, and everything else "magically"
adapts to it, including Number and its Harmony.
Accordingly, truth will be beauty.
The inscription of Pharaonic ideas is not to be read logically as are our
writings. It wants to be interpreted.
Egyptology is to be exegesis, or else it misses its mark and remains insignificant.
To the Pharaonic mind, man is Anthropocosmos, a whole. Delphi took up the
formula. The Gospels say: "Ecce homo," see God manifested.
In order to interpret a scripture, the meaning of the characters must be
known. The West, led astray by Greek thinking, which is concerned with appearances
only, must once again learn the meaning of a "natural symbol,"
which is never deceptive.
Egyptology can be a profession for gravediggers and tomb vandals, or else
the most marvelous source of knowledge for the world to come.
This depends upon the courage of the young.