Synesius - A letter to Hypatia: On Dreams

In a letter to Hypatia of Alexandria, of whom he was a student, Synesius of Cyrene wrote that his essay, or as he called it "book" was:

"[...] set up as a thank-offering to the imaginative faculties. It contains an inquiry into the whole imaginative soul, and into some other points which have not yet been handled by any Greek philosopher. But why should one dilate on this? This work was completed, the whole of it, in a single night, or rather, at the end of a night, one which also brought the vision enjoining me to write it. There are two or three passages in the book in which it seemed to me that I was some other person, and that I was one listening to myself amongst others who were present.

Even now this work, as often as I go over it, produces a marvelous effect upon me, and a certain divine voice envelops me as in poetry. Whether this my experience is not unique, or may happen to another, on all this you will enlighten me, for after myself you will be the first of the Greeks to have access to the work."

An extract from On Dreams:

"[...] divinations are amongst the best vocations of man; and if all things are signs appearing through all things, inasmuch as they are brothers in a single living creature, the cosmos, so also they are written in characters of every kind, just as those in a book some are Phoenician, some Egyptian, and others Assyrian.[1]

The scholar reads these, and he is a scholar who learns by his natural bent. One reads some of them and another reads others, one reads more and another less. In the same way one reads them by syllables, another reads the complete phrase, another the whole story. In like manner do the learned see the future, some understanding stars, and of these, one the fixed stars, another those flames which shoot across the sky. Again, there are those who read it from the entrails, and from the cries of birds, and from their perches and flights. To others also what are termed omens are manifest, written indications these of things to be, and again voices and encounters otherwise intended, for all things have their significance for every one. [1285] In the same way, if birds had had wisdom, they would have compiled an art of divining the future from men, just as we have from them; for we are to them, just as they are to us, alike young and old, very old and very fortunate. It must needs be, I think, the parts of this great whole, since it all shares one feeling and one breath, belong to each other. They are, in fact, limbs of one entire body, and may not the spells of the magicians be even such as these? Obviously, for charms are cast from one part of it to another, as signals are given, and he is a sage who understands the relationship of the parts of the universe. One thing he attracts to himself through the agency of another thing, for he has present with him pledges of things which are for the most part far away, to wit, voices, substances, figures. And as when the bowel is in pain, another part suffers also with it, so a pain in the finger settles in the groin,[2] although there be many organs between these parts which feel nothing.

This is because they are both portions of one living organism, and there is that which binds them one to the other more than to other things. Even to some god, of those who dwell within the universe, a stone from hence and a herb is a befitting offering; for in sympathizing with these he is yielding to nature and is bewitched. Thus the harp-player who has sounded the highest note does not sound the sesquioctavus next, but rather strikes the epitrite and the nete, a heritage today from a more ancient state of harmony.

But there is in the cosmos, even as in human relationship, a certain discord also; for the universe is not one homogeneous thing but a unity formed of many. There are parts of it which agree and yet battle with other parts, and the struggle of these only contributes to a harmonious unity of the whole, just as the lyre is a system of responsive and harmonious notes.[3] The unity resulting from the opposites is the harmony of both the lyre and the cosmos. Archimedes the Sicilian asked for a point of support outside of the earth wherefrom he might prop himself against the whole earth, for he said that as long as he was himself upon the earth he had no power over it. But the man, howso great his knowledge of the nature of the universe may be, once placed outside of it, could no longer make any use of his wisdom. He uses the universe against itself; accordingly his touch with it once lost, he will watch it in vain, and the lifeless symbols only would then be recorded. And small wonder, for whatever of the divine elements is outside the cosmos can in no wise be moved by sorcery.

He sits apart and careth not. nor taketh any thought thereof.[4]

It is the nature of pure reason not to be deflected; it is only the emotional element which may be cajoled. Wherefore the multitude of things in the universe and their relationship furnish the bulk of the subject-matter in the initiations and prophecies. There is a multitude of the discordant elements, but a relationship is the unity of things existing. Now, as to initiations, let not our law-abiding discourse noise them abroad; there is no offense, however, in explaining divination."

Letters of Synesius of Cyrene to Hypatia of Alexandria http://www.livius.org/su-sz/synesius/synesius_letter_154.html

Full text of Synesius On Dreams http://www.livius.org/su-sz/synesius/synesius_dreams_02.html

The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Fairy Tales of Charles Perrault, Illustrated by Harry Clarke

The Moral

It scarce may be believed, 
This tale of Donkey-skin; 
But laughing children in the home;Y
ea, mothers, and grandmothers too, 
Are little moved by facts! 
By them 'twill be received.

 "Donkey-skin" illustration by Harry Clarke

 "It was with difficulty that he withdrew from this gloomy little alley, intent on discovering who the inmate of the tiny room might be. He was told that it was a scullion called Donkey-skin because of the skin which she always wore, and that she was so dirty and unpleasant that no one took any notice of her, or even spoke to her; she had just been taken out of pity to look after the geese."

 "CURIOSITY MADE HIM PUT HIS EYE TO THE KEYHOLE"

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29021/29021-h/29021-h.htm

Nehalennia - Protector Goddess of sea-farers

"Although Nehalennia (or Nehelennia) became known for her worship by the tribes in the Netherlands she was mainly worshipped by the Suebians in Germany, for this reason it can also be said with certainty that she was Germanic in origin and not Roman or Celtic like some scholars believe.
During the 17th and 19th century AD many altar stones dedicated to her were found by fishermen on the bottom of the sea near the peninsula of Walcheren in the Dutch province of Zeeland, on some of the stones she is asked to protect the ship of the creator of the stone, there are also depictions of her on some of the stones but mostly in a Romanized form which was probably copied from depictions of Isis, a fertility goddess who was worshipped by the Romans.
A remarkable detail is that on some of the stones the name of the creator is Roman or Celtic in origin, which implicates that the local Roman and Celtic occupiers took over some of the native deities and equaled them with their Roman counterparts.
There also seems to have been a temple dedicated to Nehalennia near Walcheren, which was destroyed in 694AD by Christian missionaries, near the coast to the west of the city of Domburg was a temple of Nehalennia too.
During the early Middle Ages there was a local custom in some parts of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Germany in which the people rode a ship on wheels through the country while dancing around it and celebrating, this custom was later forbidden under Christian pressure.
This procession sounds very similar to the Nerthus ritual that was described by Tacitus, also; in Germany the people worshipped a goddess who protected ships and sea trade, her symbol was a ship; the symbol of Nerthus was also a ship so it may be very well possible that Nehalennia and Nerthus were one and the same goddess
Before the merchants at Walcheren sailed out they visited Nehallenia's temple where they asked her to grant them a safe trip and a profitable trade, they also promised to erect an altar stone for her when they would return safely, some of this stones have been found and are displayed in museums, most of them bear the Latin inscription; "Votum solvit libens merito", which means something like; the promise fulfilled, with pleasure and reason".
The name "Nehalennia" is thought to have meant "Goddess of the new light" and she was almost certainly the protector of ships and sea trade."
from http://www.northvegr.org/leidstjarna/ostara2003/forgotten.php

"Nehalennia is known from more than 160 votive altars, which were almost all discovered in the Dutch province of Zeeland. (Two altars were discovered in Cologne, the capital of Germania Inferior.) All of them can be dated to the second and early third centuries CE. Most pieces show a young female figure, sitting on a throne in an apse between two columns, holding a basket of apples on her lap. Nearly always, there is a wolf dog at her side. In some cases, the fruit basket is replaced by something that looks like loaves of bread; in other cases, we can see the woman standing next to a ship or a prow.
Several inscriptions inform us that the votive altar was placed to show gratitude for a safe passage across the North Sea, and we may assume that other altars were dedicated for the same reason. (Of course, this does not mean that all pieces were erected after a safe passage.) An example of a typical inscription:

To the goddess Nehalennia,
on account of goods duly kept safe,
Marcus Secundinius Silvanus,
trader in pottery with Britain,
fulfilled his vow willingly and deservedly.

http://www.livius.org/ne-nn/nehalennia/nehalennia.html

from wiki
Nehalennia is attested on 28 inscriptions discovered in the Dutch town of Domburg on the Zeeland coast, when a storm eroded dunes in 1645, disclosing remains of a temple devoted to the previously unattested goddess Nehalennia.^[1] A similar number were discovered in 1971-72 in the town of Colijnsplaat, and two others have been found in the Cologne-Deutz area of what is now Cologne, Germany.^[2]
Nehalennia is almost always depicted with marine symbols and a large, benign-looking dog at her feet.^[3][4] Hilda Ellis Davidson describes the votive objects:

Nehalennia, a Germanic goddess worshipped at the point where travellers crossed the North Sea from the Netherlands, is shown on many carved stones holding loaves and apples like a Mother Goddess, sometimes with a prow of a ship beside her, but also frequently with an attendant dog which sits looking up at her (Plate 5). This dog is on thirteen of the twenty-one altars recorded by Ada Hondius-Crone (1955:103), who describes him as a kind of greyhound.^[5]

Davidson further links the motif of the ship associated with Nehalennia with the Germanic Vanir pair of Freyr and Freyja, as well as the Germanic goddess Nerthus and notes that Nehalennia features some of the same attributes as the Matres.^[6]
The loaves that Nehalennia is depicted with on her altars have been identified as duivekatar, "oblong sacrificial loaves in the shape of a shin bone". Davidson says that loaves of this type may take the place of an animal sacrifice or animal victim, such as the boar-shaped loaf baked at Yule in Sweden, and that in Värmland, Sweden "within living memory" grain from the last sheaf was customarily used to bake a loaf into the shape of a little girl that is subsequently shared by the whole household. Davidson provides further examples of elaborate loaves—Harvest Loaves—at times in the shape of sheaves and displayed in churches, bread employed for the fertility of fields in Anglo-Saxon England with parallels in Scandinavia, and examples from Ireland.^[7]
The Domburg inscriptions to Nehalennia inspired Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn to produce a hasty etymology linking the name Nehalennia to an ancient Scythian,^[8] with which he attempted, with the linguistic tools then available, to bridge the already-known connections between the European languages and modern Persian"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nehalennia

There are also comparisons to be made with Diana/Artemis, and holy women such as Walburga http://www.friggasweb.org/walburga.html
Walburga's Dog

Walburga's symbols, as shown in the oldest stonecarvings in her chapels, are a dog and a bundle of grain. There is nothing in the abbess Walburga's biographies to account for portraying her with a dog, but there is much to show that German goddesses were associated with the dog as their "Hilfstier" (helping animal). "Grey hounds accompany the three Norns. The fertility goddesses Frau Harke, Frau Gode, and Frau Frick (Frigga) have always a hound beside them, and...Frau Berchte in Steiermark is called the "poodle-mother" because of her dog" (Rochholz p. 20). The goddess Nehalennia is usually pictured with a dog on her altars and votive sites. Speaking Walburga's name is a charm to tame fierce or even mad dogs. In folklore, the dog has much to do with fertility, health and good luck. For example, Rochholz mentions superstitions about the need to feed a mysterious "Windhound," sometimes said to be left behind from the Wild Hunt, during springtide, to ensure good weather for the crops. The Windhound is connected to fertility, good luck and plenty in the house and the farm fields, and in some places is called the "Nourishment-Hound" (Nahrungshund) (p. 22). Rochholz details many other superstitions relating dogs with goddesses of fertility. The christian Mary and female saints are also frequently portrayed with dogs in German chapels, and there is a "Hundskapelle" (dog-chapel) in Innsbruck said to have originally been a Heathen temple. One must suppose that this attribute of a dog accompanying Heathen goddesses was carried over into the christian iconography of holy women, including particularly Walburga.

http://www.livius.org/ne-nn/nehalennia/nehalennia.html

Shell Grotto, Margate

How Shell Grotto was discovered is as much a mystery as why it was built. The "official" story tells us that in 1835 Mr James Newlove lowered his young son Joshua into a hole in the ground that had appeared during the digging of a duck pond. However, there have been other stories appearing over the years. What we do know is that it was officially opened to the public in 1838.

Its walls are decorated with symbols mosaiced in millions of shells; cockles, whelks, mussels and oysters creating a swirling profusion of patterns and symbols, often interpreted as trees of life, phalluses, gods and goddesses.

I first came across reference to Shell Grotto when I was researching the goddess Nehalennia, a goddess who was appealed to and honoured for safe passage over the sea. (I will write more on Nehalennia in a seperate post.) Shell Grotto does not have the great age of the ancient altars dedicated to Nehalennia or any of the pagan gods and goddesses; it may have been inspired by ancient temples, or maybe created by pagans of the time for their own use. But this is all speculation, and its builders remain a mystery.

Akhenaten’s Hymn to the Aten – Similarities in the attributes and praises with Biblical parallels and Psalm 104 - Jaq White

Similarities in the attributes and praises given to the Aten, in prose and written by Pharaoh Akhenaten in approx. 1300 bce. with Biblical parallels and Psalm 104
For Akhenaten, the sun and its powers represented more than simply heat and light. For example, he credits the sun with giving air to an unborn chick inside and egg, and with creating a version of the Nile river in the sky in order to provide rain. With regard to the chick in the shell, the sun even ‘allotted to him his set time before the shell shall be broken’, so its powers even governed time. Everything in creation was fashioned by this one creator according to Akhenaten ‘O sole God, beside whom is no other!’

Also, ‘You are the One God, shining forth from your possible incarnations as Aton, the Living Sun, You create the numberless things of this world from yourself, who are One alone.’ From this we see that Akhenaten thought ‘the god’ so powerful that it was free to choose whatever form it wished, and that the creator power was manifest in the cosmos in its chosen form as the sun. The sun was his Father, and as with all pharaohs, Akhenaten was also ‘Divine’. Amenhotep III was merely his earthly father.

Alexander adopted this fashion when he proclaimed he was the son of the Egyptian god Amun; Philip was his earthly father. Yet despite Akhenaten’s god being his loving father, in-keeping with the later monotheist gods, “The theistic God was also presumed to be the explanation for that which was beyond rational understanding, a being capable of miraculous power who therefore needed to be supplicated, praised, obeyed and pleased.” (Author BA Robinson ‘How the concepts of God have developed over the ages’) And for Akhenaten, as for others in later times, this god was inherent in the light.

Cosmology was a hot topic amongst early philosophers. ‘Aristotle, the major source for Thales’s philosophy and science, identified Thales as the first person to investigate the basic principles, the question of the originating substances of matter and, therefore, as the founder of the school of natural philosophy. Thales was interested in almost everything, investigating almost all areas of knowledge, philosophy, history, science, mathematics, engineering, geography, and politics. He proposed theories to explain many of the events of nature, the primary substance, the support of the earth, and the cause of change. Thales was much involved in the problems of astronomy and provided a number of explanations of cosmological events which traditionally involved supernatural entities. His questioning approach to the understanding of heavenly phenomena was the beginning of Greek astronomy. Thales’s hypotheses were new and bold, and in freeing phenomena from godly intervention, he paved the way towards scientific endeavour.’ (from the Internet encyclopaedia of philosophy)

http://www.iep.utm.edu/t/thales.htm

Yet at the same time, the early philosophers were also immensely influential in the development and advancement of spiritual theories.

Early commentaries on rival religious groups would be written by the favoured philosopher, carefully chosen to write for, or against the variety of beliefs on offer and circulating amongst the growing populations in major cities. Before the time of Akhenaten, the Ancient Egyptians (among other cultures) had believed that [the soul of] the deceased would travel to place of judgement, where it would have some form of a trial, with representatives among the entities present who would speak both for and against the deceased. We see places of torment for punishment of wrongdoing in the majority of belief systems of most cultures.

From Ancient Egypt we have forms of what is known as ‘The negative confession’ which has parallels with the Ten Commandments, and whereby the deceased proclaims a number of ‘declarations of innocence’ I have not caused pain, I have not caused tears. I have not killed, I have not ordered to kill, We see evidence of similar cosmological musings in the many texts discovered in recent history that date back to the last few centuries bce, one example being the texts known as the Pistis Sophia. At least half of the text describes the successive steps by which she ascends through all the Twelve Æons by the Saviour’s aid, and the confession she sings at each stage of her deliverance out of chaos. Early Christian writings, canonical and non-canonical, use cosmological allegory. We can see direct comparisons, similar to those used above by Akhenaten in the praise of his supposed creator. We see explorations of how man and cosmos are related, in complicated Egyptian texts and in later works like the Divine Poeimandres, The Apocryphon of John, and in the more familiar canonical works which attempt to describe what has become known as ‘the fall’ of man from the heavens. In the Apocryphon of John, this god is the monad. “The Monad is a monarchy with nothing above it. It is he who exists as God and Father of everything, the invisible One who is above everything, who exists as incorruption, which is in the pure light into which no eye can look

 http://www.gnosis.org/naghamm/apocjn.html

Because we can trace these explorations in monotheism, and the progression of ideas related to man’s place in the cosmos and to the fate of his immortal soul, I suggest that there can be no claim to ownership of any unique, correct ‘system’, and that what an individual accepts as true, or as having been inspired (according to those who were entrusted with advancing a particular philosophy) by ‘The Creator’ is entirely based on the amount/limit of this information they have been exposed to, and on their own intellectual interpretation of ‘experiences’ related to this stimulus.


The Question of Psalm 104 “During Akenaten’s reign, Egypt’s power significantly declined. When Akenaten died, his temples were destroyed. Among the few remains of his cult were hymns found written in the tombs of the proselytes at Amarna. The longest of these hymns to Aten is noted to be similar to the Psalm 104, written for the Bible hundreds of years later. There are a few possibilities for how this might have come about. It is fairly certain that, even previous to the time of Moses, fleeing slaves in groups of various sizes, had wondered into the Sinai Peninsula. As the emigrants walked, they sang to keep up their spirits. One of the songs they sang may have been Akenaten’s hymn to the Sun.

Oral tradition could have perpetuated the elements of his hymn for 600 years. For those who are unconvinced about the similarity of these two documents, Jacob’s descent into Egypt, described in the Bible, recalls the Hyksos dynasties, where the Iron age Canaanites conquered Egypt and ruled for several generations as Pharaohs. When the descendants of the original rulers regrouped and repelled the Hyksos, both the conquerors and the large Semitic population that had entered as migrant workers before and during the foreign dynasty were either driven out or placed in bondage. This was the beginning of the 400 years of slavery. Through those who were driven out, Hymns to the Sun were introduced into Canaan. Probably due to this, worship of the Sun is forbidden in the Bible.

Another possibility stems from the evidence of Persian names in residence at Amarna. These were literate people who may have transcribed Akenaten’s poems. This would have placed the essence of this poem in Babylon, a world center for literature, by 600BC when the Jews were in exile, and the early Hebrew bible was assembled. Dr. H. Brugsch collected quite a few epithets and quotes from Egyptian scripture around fifty years ago and published them in his work, ‘Religion and Mythology’.

Much of Psalm 104 is vaguely similar to Egyptian Hymns, such as the following hymn to Ra from the Papyrus of Hu-nefer: ( Copyright©Alden Bacuzmo) read more here http://www.seanet.com/~realistic/psalm104.html  

The Eight points of comparison: Psalm 104 and the Hymn to Aten The following text in [--] is from Psalm 104 while the remainder is quoted translation by J.H.Breasted, from Cambridge Ancient History, Vol. II, Chapters 5 & 6.. and “The Rock Tombs of Tell el Armarna”, Archeological Survey, Egyptian Exploration Society (6vol, 1903) N. de G. Davis. PSALM 104 [20. Thou makest darkness, and it is night, Wherein all the beasts of the forest creep forth. 21. The young Lions roar after their prey, And seek their food from God.] The tradition of Egyptian, Hindu, and Hebrew cultures starts the day at sunset. Today the day normally starts at sunrise.  

AKENATEN’S THE HYMN TO THE SUN

When thou settest in the western horizon of the sky, [1st comparison, verse 20] The earth is in darkness like the dead. They sleep in their chambers Their heads are wrapped up. Their nostrils are stopped And none see the other. While all their things are stolen Which are under their heads And they know it not Every Lion cometh forth from his den [2nd comparison, verse 21] All Serpents they sting Darkness The world is in silence. He that made them resteth in his horizon. [22. The Sun riseth, they get them away, and lay them down in their dens. 23. Man goeth forth unto his work And to his labor until the evening.] Bright is the earth when thou riseth in the horizon. [3rd , 22] When thou shinest as Aten by day Thou drivest away the darkness. When thou sendest forth thy rays The two lands (Egypt) are in daily festivity. Awake and standing upon their feet When thou has raised them up. Their limbs bathed they take their clothing Their arms uplifted in adoration to thy dawning Then in all the world they do their work.. [4th, 23] All cattle rest upon their pasturage The trees and the plants flourish [12. By them the birds of the heavens have their habitation. They sing among the branches.] The birds flutter in their marshes, [5th, 12] Their wings uplifted in adoration to thee. All sheep dance on their feet. All winged things fly, They live when thou hast shone upon them. [25. Yonder is the sea great and wide. Wherein are things creeping innumerable. Both small and great beasts. 26. There go the ships.] The barges sail upstream and downstream alike. [6th, 26] Every highway is open because thou dawnest. The fish in the river leap before thee. Thy rays are in the midst of the great green sea. Creator of the germ in woman Maker of the seed in man Giving life to the son in the body of his mother Soothing him that he may not weep. Nurse (even) in the womb. [29. Thou hidest thy face, they are troubled. Thou takest away their breath and they die. And return to their dust.] Giver of breath to animals, every one that he maketh When he cometh forth from the womb [7th, 29] On the day of their birth Thou openest his mouth in speech [27. These wait all for thee. That thou may give them food in due season.] Thou suppliest his necessities.[8th, 27] When the fledgling in the egg chirps in the shell Thou givest him breath there-in to preserve him alive. When thou hast brought him together to (the point of) bursting it in the egg To chirp with all his might, He goeth about on his two feet When he hath come forth therefrom. How manifold are thy works, They are hidden from before (us) O Sole God, whose powers no other possesseth. Thou didst create the earth according to thy heart While thou wast alone Man, all cattle, large and small All that are upon the earth That go about on their feet (All) That are on high That fly with their wings The foreign countries, Syria and Kush, The land of Egypt Thou settest every man into his place Thou suppliest their necessities Everyone has his possessions And his days are reckoned The tongues are divers in speech Their forms likewise and their skins are distinguished (For) thou makest different the strangers. And here is a comparison of the Hymn to the Aten with other Biblical and LDS parallels

http://james.jlcarroll.net/egypt/texts/aten_hymn.html

And the Hymn to the Aten in full:
Let your holy Light shine from the height of heaven, O living Aton, source of all life! From estern horizon risen and streaming, you have flooded the world with your beauty. You are majestic, awesome, bedazzling, exalted, overlord over all earth, yet your rays, they touch lightly, compass the lands to the limits of all your creation.
There in the Sun, you reach to the farthest of those you would gather in for your Son, whom you love;
Though you are far, your light is wide upon earth; and you shine in the faces of all who turn to follow your journeying.
When you sink to rest below western horizon earth lies in darkness like death,
Sleepers are still in bedchambers, heads veiled, eye cannot spy a companion;
All their goods could be stolen away, heads heavy there, and they never knowing!
Lions come out from the deeps of their caves, snakes bite and sting;
Darkness muffles, and earth is silent he who created all things lies low in his tomb.
Earth-dawning mounts the horizon, glows in the sun-disk as day:
You drive away darkness, offer your arrows of shining, and the Two Lands are lively with morningsong.
Sun’s children awaken and stand, for you, golden light, have upraised the sleepers;
Bathed are their bodies, who dress in clean linen, their arms held high to praise your Return.
Across the face of the earth they go to their crafts and profession he herds are at peace in their pastures, trees and the vegetation grow green;
Birds start from their nests, wings wide spread to worship your Person;
Small beasts frisk and gambol, and all who mount into flight or settle to rest live, once you have shone upon them;
Ships float downstream or sail for the south, each path lies open because of your rising; Fish in the River leap in your sight, and your rays strike deep in the Great Green It is you [who] create the new creature in Woman, shape the life-giving drops into Man,
Foster the son in the womb of his mother, soothe him, ending his tears;
Nurse through the long generations of women to those given Air, you ensure that your handiwork prosper.
When the new one descends from the womb to draw breath the day of his birth,
You open his mouth, you shape his nature, and you supply all his necessities.
Hark to the chick in the egg, he who speaks in the shell!
You give him air within to save and prosper him;
And you have allotted to him his set time before the shell shall be broken;
Then out from the egg he comes, from the egg to peep at his natal hour!
And up on his own two feet goes he when at last he struts forth therefrom. How various is the world you have created, each thing mysterious, sacred to sight, O sole God, beside whom is no other!
You fashioned earth to your heart’s desire, while you were still alone,
Filled it with man and the family of creatures, each kind on the ground, those who go upon feet, he on high soaring on wings,
The far lands of Khor and Kush, and the rich Black Land of Egypt.
And you place each one in his proper station, where you minister to his needs;
Each has his portions of food, and the years of life are reckoned him,
Tongues are divided by words, natures made diverse as well,
Even men’s skins are different that you might distinguish the nations.
You make Hapy, the Nile, stream through the underworld, and bring him, with whatever fullness you will,
To preserve and nourish the People in the same skilled way you fashion them.
You are Lord of each one, who wearies himself in their service,
Yet Lord of all earth, who shines for them all,
Sun-disk of day, holy Light!
All of the far foreign contries– you are the cause they live,
For you have put a Nile in the sky that he might descend upon them in rain–
He makes waves on the very mountains like waves on the Great Green Sea to water their fields and their villages.
How splendidly ordered are they, your purposes for this world, O Lord of Eternity,
Hapy in heaven!
Although you belong to the distant peoples, to the small, shy beasts who travel the deserts and uplands,
Yet Hapy, he comes from Below for the dear Land of Egypt as well.
And your Sunlight nurses each field and meadow:
when you shine, they live, they grow sturdy and prosper through you.
You set seasons to let the world flower and flourish– winter to rest and refresh it, the hot blast of summer to ripen;
And you have made heaven far off in order to shine down therefrom, in order to watch over all your creation.
You are the One God, shining forth from your possible incarnations as Aton, the Living Sun,
Revealed like a king in glory, risen in light, now distant, now bending nearby.
You create the numberless things of this world from yourself, who are One alone– cities, towns, fields, the roadway, the River;
And each eye looks back and beholds you to learn from the day’s light perfection. O God, you are in the Sun disk of Day,
Over-Seer of all creation –your legacy passed on to all who shall every be;
For you fashioned their sight, who perceive your universe, that they praise with one voice all your labors.
And you are in my heart; there is no other who truly knows you but for your son, Akhenaten.
May you make him wise with your inmost counsels, wise with your power, that earth may aspire to your godhead, its creatures fine as the day you made them.
Once you rose into shining, they lived; when you sink to rest, they shall die.
For it is you who are Time itself, the span of the world; life is by means of you.
Eyes are filled with beauty until you go to your rest;
All work is laid aside as you sink down the western horizon.
Then, Shine reborn!
Rise splendidly! my Lord, let life thrive for the King
Who has kept peace with your every footstep since you first measured ground for the world.
Lift up the creatures of earth for your Son who came forth from your Body of Fire! Pharaoh Akhenaten 1300 BCE

Hermes and the Heap of Stones

In his book ‘The Old Straight Track’ , which is one of the first studies into what are now more often referred to as Ley Lines, Alfred Watkins has a chapter dedicated to Hermes and Hermits. Watkins writes of how the straight tracks (or leys) were used by man since the earliest times as a means of crossing the country, with strategic markers placed as a guide, these being ‘sighted’ by specialists (hermits) who have been commemorated in folklore as being able “see” through hills or to tunnel through the earth. He quotes another writer, Sir John Lubbock, as remarking on all of the different activities associated with Hermes, but who reached the conclusion that they all follow from the custom of marking boundries by upright stones. Watkins believes the word ‘trackways’ should be substituted for ‘boundries’. Lockyer, among others has spoken of the Egyptian god Thoth becoming Hermes in Greece and Mercury among the Romans. Stone heaps with pillars were sacred to Hermes. These could be found at crossroads, or paths that traders or merchants would use, and he became associated with the Roman god Mercurius as a patron to tradesfolk in this manner. He was also seen as a shepherd with a crook, eventually becoming the messenger of the gods with his staff or caduceus. Watkins quotes from a book named ‘History of Hampshire’ in which the author, Shore, has collected records of hermits and hermitages, and says that ideas concerning hermits are very different from the truth. The hermit did live a solitary life, but it was not just for the sake of seclusion; rather, they received means of support for the role they played in guiding travellers on their way. There were 8 in Hampshire, all of whom were employed in this way – guiding travellers across dangerous waterways or through Ancient Forests. Similar hermits are recorded in Cornwall, and those recorded all have archaeological evidence to support that they lived on ley ‘sighting’ points. These sighting points on leys are often marked with an upright stone or mound. The majority of mounds are sited on the highest point the eye can see, and in-between, the paths regularly go out of sight, though another mound will mark the direction needed to be followed. If this was not the case, then I'm wondering if there would always have been a hermitage, with the guide taking travellers, traders etc. to the next point where a mound could be viewed? Did such 'hermits' exist in other countries, performing the same duty - might the priests of Thoth have been employed in this capacity? Would hermits (in Britain for instance) also have been seen as performing a 'priestly' duty when guiding travellers? And would the travellers have known they were following the earth's own 'map', and considered the paths sacred in some way, or have just known it was the simplest way to get from A to B without getting lost? Would these same people then have trusted the hermit to be able to guide them in the Otherworld - would all hermits have also been Shamans? Paul Devereux has suggested that the straight lines/leys were used by shamans to guide the spirits of the deceased from one sacred place to another, using the paths and mounds as landmarks. There is an alchemical illustration 'Snakes Among The Hills' included in one of the most famous of all Alchemical books entitled, The Book of Abraham the Jew – who is purported to have been met by - and who influenced - the legendary alchemist, Nicolas Flamel, in the 14th century as he made a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella. It shows the Earth’s landscape littered with shimmering snakes or serpents in between mounds. It seems that the artist was trying to convey that the Earth’s landscape is littered with “snakes” and “serpents” - which we might now interpret to be twisting, spiralling and snaking lines of positive and negative energy . http://www.levity.com/alchemy/flamimag.html Mercurius meets with Saturn Planetary dragons on a hill The workers in the garden The massacre of the innocents The winged caduceus of Mercurius The crucified snake Snakes among the hills Watkins compares Thoth and the Celtic God Tout (Romanised as Toutates) as guides over pathways. Caesar wrote of the Gods of the Druids that ‘Mercury, whom they regard as the guide of their journeys and marches, also had influence over mercantile transactions and was their chief divinity.’ The God’s name was inscribed on a Romano-British altar. He draws attention to the fact that many mounds are called Tot, Toot, Tout, Tute and Twt. This is pronounced Toot (places like Tottenham and Tooting in London get their names from this root). Watkins speaks of how easily it would be to associate these stones with spirits; I would imagine the next step, would be towards actually associating them with ‘personalities’ – maybe as the origin of deities. The most interesting thing for me is that a collection of real people - who were 'sighting' the land, and invaluable to travellers, may have eventually evolved into deities - spiritual guides as well as practical guides.