Sekhmet,
in ancient Egypt, was portrayed as a female figure with the
head of a lioness. In the mythology, it was Sekhmet who meted
out Divine vengeance when errant humanity neglected to worship
the gods and took matters into its own unknowing hands. Her
destructive rampages were designed to restore rightful order,
she was the goddess who heals... but by fire. Here in these
pages she is spoken for (in appropriately contemporary terminology)
by her amanuensis, John Anthony West, rogue Egyptologist, author
of Serpent in the Sky: the High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt and
other books and student of the 'symbolist' school of Egyptology
developed by the Alsatian mathematician and philosopher, R.A.
Schwaller de Lubicz, and developer of the controversial but
geologically supported theory that the Great Sphinx of Giza
was built, not by the dynastic Egyptians, but by an earlier
civilization flourishing in Egypt around 12,000 or more years
ago.
SEKHMET
ON CIVILIZATION:
Civilization
is like a park. It's not 'natural', it doesn't just happen in
the normal course of affairs. Nature, left to her own devices
will not produce a park; human beings, interested only in procreation,
food, shelter and the acquisition of lateral goods will not
produce a civilization. Both park and civilization are contingent
upon human will, intelligence, industry and intervention --
and the understanding that both natural world and human beings
possesses a hidden or occult potential. Both park and civilization
may be seen as exaltations of the natural order. Only human
beings can bring them forth into manifestation.
A
good park (the Japanese are perhaps the most accomplished masters
of the art) is not the "conquest" or even the taming of wild
nature, but an aesthetic enhancement of its manifold distinct
but hidden qualities. And a valid civilization is not the suppression,
repression or distortion of our human nature but rather its
transformation into something higher; something nature (that
is to say "the gods") have not freely bestowed upon us except
as potential. In the park of civilization, the mighty oaks and
maples represent the great religions; the shrubbery and flower
beds the complex of sophisticated amenities that distinguish
civilizations from so-called primitive societies. (These are
no less satisfactory or spiritually developed on their own terms
but they function in tune with nature and are uninterested in
or consciously opposed to making nature serve human values.
So for the sake of our extended metaphor these primitive or
traditional societies are not civilizations in the usual sense
of the word.)
Once
established, the park/civilization calls for endless cooperation
and intelligent attention if it is to flourish. When the parkkeepers,
(its priests, scientists, philosophers and artists) are drunk,
crazy, greedy and lazy the park quickly degenerates. Once the
process of degeneration sets in, there is no direction from
above. Without direction from above, the humble but necessary
carters and traders who bring in the manure, tools and supplies
quickly take advantage of the anarchy. Dissatisfied with their
lowly status, they euphemize themselves into "businessmen",
"industrialists", "entrepreneurs", "marketing managers", "advertising
executives" and "financiers" and preempt positions of power.
Their power is then maintained by a hierarchy of mercenaries,
henchmen and yes-men similarly euphemized into "politicians".
Chaos ensues. And in this particular instance that chaos is
called "Progress". A pseudo-science is then invented to justify
the production and distribution of ever-greater heaps of manure.
This pseudo-science is called "economics". It has no basis in
reality, yet it seems to --once the manure carters have taken
over the park. In the absence of a functioning, spiritually
based religion, "economics" is then glorified in turn into a
pseudo-religion: Theo-economics, which, supported by its accompanying
philosophy of Metafinance, becomes the catechism of the Church
of Progress. And so we find ourselves today. The oaks and maples
are blighted and rot from the core out; the shrubbery grows
rampant and out of control, the ponds are stagnant, weeds, brambles
and poison ivy take over all open spaces, and everything is
covered with manure. There is no room for bear or deer or wolves
to live, but bugs and vermin flourish. What had been an exaltation
of nature becomes nature degraded -- to many a state far less
satisfactory than nature left to her own devices which in turn
provokes a nostalgia for simpler times.
Left
to itself, sooner or later the park will revert back to nature
leaving little trace of its former state. But meanwhile, life
in the park --except for the bugs, the vermin and the manure
carters-- is hell. How then to reverse the process? Obviously
it can't be stopped. It has to run its course. Nothing can nourish
the oaks and maples back to health (in the park of Western Civilization
these trees were stunted, diseased and grotesquely deformed
to begin with and their conversion into useful firewood will
provoke little mourning). Pruning the shrubbery is next to useless.
There are only a couple of alternatives.
The
simplest of course is set the whole thing on fire, burn everything
to the ground, and start from scratch. Ancient legends and texts
around the world seem to indicate that this has happened in
the past. Sodom and Gomorrah may refer to such an event; Plato's
'Atlantis' to another version of the same; in the prophetic
Hermetic book of Aesclepius (ca. 2nd Century AD) Hermes Trismegistus
(Thrice Great Hermes) the Neoplatonic name for Djehuti, or Thoth,
the ancient Egyptian embodiment of Divine Wisdom, declares unequivocally
that this has been the repeated fate of parks when the parkkeepers
go berserk. And of course the potential for a conflagration
of this sort is ever-present today-- nuclear, environmental,
pestilential, or any combination thereof.
If
that is what is actually in store, the Armageddonites have the
only solution. Head for the hills, prepare bunkers stocked with
assault rifles and supplies of pork and beans and hope to ride
out the holocaust. But if that is not the preordained and ineluctable
denouement, perhaps the park can be revivified even as it goes
through its necessary process of dissolution: salvaging what
is still viable and salvageable, dismantling and recycling what
is not, disposing of what is noxious, toxic and inessential,
and reestablishing the correct chain of command as a prerequisite
to a new order. All of this takes time, vision, a common aim,
and a wide variety of complementary skills. Enlightened gardeners
must replant trees. (It is a curious fact that, just before
they die, trees often produce far more nuts and seeds than they
do in healthy maturity.) In this case, the trees will not be
genetic clones of the old (the park/civilization analogy is
not exact --analogies never are. But they will be viable mutations
based upon the same eternal principles -- what Schwaller de
Lubicz called the doctrine of the return to the "source"; what
Graham Hancock calls "the science of immortality". In ancient
Egypt the gardeners were the followers of Osiris, divine creator
of civilization, embodiment of the principle of regeneration
and renewal, the mortal "god" who dies but who carries the seed
of eternal life (Horus) within him. Landscape architects (sons
and daughters of Ptah, architect of heaven and earth) must redesign
the entire plan to conform to the radically changed conditions
of a new precessional age. The parkkeepers have to be sobered
up and brought back to sanity --or summarily fired and replaced.
The arrogant manure carters must be deprived of power and put
back in their rightful, honorable, but subordinate positions.
But before constructive gardening and landscaping activity can
take place on a grand scale, before the ponds can be purified
and restocked with fish, the ground first has to be thoroughly
cleared. The brambles have to be chopped down, the poison ivy
pulled out by the roots, the deadwood cleared away and the weeds
composted. In Egypt, this was the work of Sekhmet, the lioness,
female aspect of the fire principle, she who both destroys and
heals ... through fire and purgation. Appropriately equipped
with flame-thrower and chainsaw to cope with the stubborn contemporary
breed of weed, bramble and poison ivy, it is Sekhmet's twenty-first
century job to clear the way for the gardeners and architects;
to apply the wrecking ball to the Church of Progress.
Civilization
is not a birthright, it is a privilege. We can act upon it,
or ignore it -- the latter at our peril.
Hers
is the path of constructive destruction. In these occasional
essays I shall be reporting on Sekhmet's work-in-progress.
