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A new arrival, and a review!
Review:
The book starts with an interesting premise: disregard everything we know about Egypt, as it has been derived from modern and recent Egyptological study. Instead, consider Egypt as it was perceived in the past: to the Greeks, via Herodotus, the Romans, via their love of pyramids and obelisks (especially the Pyramid of Cestius), the Arabs, through the secret lore of "alchemy" as dictated by Hermes Trismegistus, through to the more recent Romantics, Theosophists, Victorian Spiritualists (such as Madame Blavatsky and "Isis Unveiled").
At the core of this "secret lore" is the concept of the Hermetic: from Hermes Trismegistus we get this term. It might be more commonly used to denote something that is air-tight ("hermetically sealed"), but its original uses as an adjective suggest esoterica, the occult, and alchemy. A conflation of the Egyptian Thoth and the Greek Hermes, this "historical figure" was both a god and the "founder" of hermetism. For some, he was revered as the teacher of Jesus, the one who provided him with the capacity to perform miracles.
From a fundamentalist view-point, this very concept seems extremely strange. Biblically, Jesus derived power from God. Why, then, would he require tutelage from a strange figure? Indeed, one that would not really come of age until several centuries after the apparent death of Christ. The motivation behind all of these, and later claims, with different prophets and religious figures, seems to be the intent to justify the study of alchemy, magic and the occult within a Christian sense.
Erik Hornung's book is vast for being such a slender tome — a little over 200 pages. It covers thousands of years of history and esoterica, hardly ever judging (apart from pointing out the inconsistencies within Afrocentrism, and occasionally lambasting the vast quantity of Budge reprints), but always providing a fascinating insight.
The connections drawn between the so called "esoteric" Egypt and the history of Western esoterica are occasionally hazy, but this is simply a side-effect of the hazy nature of esoterica, rather than symptomatic of doubt in regards to these connections. It is a short book, and while it provides an interesting bibliography, it's not possible to spend more than a few sentences on some sections.
This, I found slightly disappointing. Some of the most interesting comments are relegated to, at best, a paragraph of explanation. The barest details are not expounded upon with specific citations in the bibliography, but to a wide group of texts in a variety of languages. Unfortunately, the cited works are equally shared between English, French, and German. It seems to be one of the main curses of Egyptology: the need to speak three major languages, plus read Egyptian, dashes of Greek and Latin.
Hornung's prose, however, is engaging. One Amazon.com reviewer considered the work difficult to follow. I had no such trouble, managing to finish it through about four one-hour sessions. I'm having more difficulty finishing Vivian's Western Desert than this, as, while it has very light prose, it is extremely dense. However, I've a history with this genre, though from a fictional stand-point: Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco, is very similar in its treatise sections on esoterica, though certainly its intent and execution are vastly different.
There are a number of interesting quotes and comments I feel I could use. I will eventually get around to typing them up, rereading the sections that I found interesting, as well as using them as a jumping-point to discover more fun and interesting facts!
For instance, I'd love to find a copy of Helen Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled, discussed several times in this work, and also in Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. After all, as is often quoted by theosophists, occultists and by Blavatsky herself, Isis is:
My new arrival is Vintage Egypt: Cruising the Nile in the Golden Age of Travel, by Alain Blottiere. For being a paperback "coffee table"-esque book, it is extremely dense with photographs that, on first skim, are utterly gorgeous and totally inspiring.
Review:
The book starts with an interesting premise: disregard everything we know about Egypt, as it has been derived from modern and recent Egyptological study. Instead, consider Egypt as it was perceived in the past: to the Greeks, via Herodotus, the Romans, via their love of pyramids and obelisks (especially the Pyramid of Cestius), the Arabs, through the secret lore of "alchemy" as dictated by Hermes Trismegistus, through to the more recent Romantics, Theosophists, Victorian Spiritualists (such as Madame Blavatsky and "Isis Unveiled").
At the core of this "secret lore" is the concept of the Hermetic: from Hermes Trismegistus we get this term. It might be more commonly used to denote something that is air-tight ("hermetically sealed"), but its original uses as an adjective suggest esoterica, the occult, and alchemy. A conflation of the Egyptian Thoth and the Greek Hermes, this "historical figure" was both a god and the "founder" of hermetism. For some, he was revered as the teacher of Jesus, the one who provided him with the capacity to perform miracles.From a fundamentalist view-point, this very concept seems extremely strange. Biblically, Jesus derived power from God. Why, then, would he require tutelage from a strange figure? Indeed, one that would not really come of age until several centuries after the apparent death of Christ. The motivation behind all of these, and later claims, with different prophets and religious figures, seems to be the intent to justify the study of alchemy, magic and the occult within a Christian sense.
Erik Hornung's book is vast for being such a slender tome — a little over 200 pages. It covers thousands of years of history and esoterica, hardly ever judging (apart from pointing out the inconsistencies within Afrocentrism, and occasionally lambasting the vast quantity of Budge reprints), but always providing a fascinating insight.
The connections drawn between the so called "esoteric" Egypt and the history of Western esoterica are occasionally hazy, but this is simply a side-effect of the hazy nature of esoterica, rather than symptomatic of doubt in regards to these connections. It is a short book, and while it provides an interesting bibliography, it's not possible to spend more than a few sentences on some sections.
This, I found slightly disappointing. Some of the most interesting comments are relegated to, at best, a paragraph of explanation. The barest details are not expounded upon with specific citations in the bibliography, but to a wide group of texts in a variety of languages. Unfortunately, the cited works are equally shared between English, French, and German. It seems to be one of the main curses of Egyptology: the need to speak three major languages, plus read Egyptian, dashes of Greek and Latin.
Hornung's prose, however, is engaging. One Amazon.com reviewer considered the work difficult to follow. I had no such trouble, managing to finish it through about four one-hour sessions. I'm having more difficulty finishing Vivian's Western Desert than this, as, while it has very light prose, it is extremely dense. However, I've a history with this genre, though from a fictional stand-point: Foucault's Pendulum, by Umberto Eco, is very similar in its treatise sections on esoterica, though certainly its intent and execution are vastly different.
There are a number of interesting quotes and comments I feel I could use. I will eventually get around to typing them up, rereading the sections that I found interesting, as well as using them as a jumping-point to discover more fun and interesting facts!
For instance, I'd love to find a copy of Helen Blavatsky's Isis Unveiled, discussed several times in this work, and also in Eco's Foucault's Pendulum. After all, as is often quoted by theosophists, occultists and by Blavatsky herself, Isis is:
"I am that which is. I am all that is, that was, and will be. No mortal man has lifted my veil."
My new arrival is Vintage Egypt: Cruising the Nile in the Golden Age of Travel, by Alain Blottiere. For being a paperback "coffee table"-esque book, it is extremely dense with photographs that, on first skim, are utterly gorgeous and totally inspiring.
