Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians 4

Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians 4

These so-called superstitions, however, it is interesting to note, die hard.

In fact they do not die at all, but insinuate themselves as a discordant note in

our matter-of-fact existences. McCall's Magazine published some time ago an

article by Edgar Wallace entitled The Curse of Amen- Ra, dealing with the phe-

nomena attendant upon the opening of the tomb of the Pharaoh Tut-

ankhamen. After vividly describing the curse of Amen-Ra the author sums up

the effect of this curse upon those who came in contact with the tomb or its

contents. His statements are in substance as follows: At the time the tomb

was opened the party present at the excavations included the Earl of Carnar-

von, Howard Carter and his secretary, Dick Bethell, M. Benedite the French

archeologist, and M. Pasanova. Of these, only one, Howard Carter, remains

alive. Colonel Aubrey Herbert, Carnarvon’s half brother, and Evelyn-White

who also entered the tomb were both dead within a year, one by suicide. Sir

Archibald Douglas Reed, the radiologist who took an X-ray of the mummy,

was also dead within twelve months; and Professor Laffleur of McGill uni-

versity, the first American scientist to examine the death chamber, did not

leave Luxor alive. Woolf Joel visited the tomb and was dead within a year. Jay

Gould was taken ill within the tomb and died. Attendants whose duty it was

to look after the exhibit from the tomb in the Cairo museum also sickened

and died. Seven French authors and journalists visited the tomb and six were

dead within two years. When they unveiled Tutankhamen they found a mark

upon his face, and by a strange coincidence (?) the mark left upon the face of

Lord Carnarvon, which presumably caused his death, was in exactly the same

spot and of similar appearance. Nor does this list include the numerous na-

tive workmen who perished from the curse. Only recently another name was

added to the long list associated with the tragedy. Arthur Weigall, after a long

and mysterious illness similar to that defined in the curse, is the most recent

victim. The eminent authority on antiquities, Dr. Mardus, said, “The Egyp-

tians for seven thousand years possessed the secret of surrounding their

mummies with some dynamic force of which we have only the faintest idea."

 

 

 

Over the entrance to the tomb of Tutankhamen was a magical tablet in-

scribed with strange hieroglyphics. Dr. Mardus named this tablet the "Stela

of Malediction,” for it pronounced a fearful curse upon any sacrilegious per-

sons who might violate the sanctuary of the deified dead. The words upon the

siela were as follows: Oh ye Beings from Above, Oh ye Beings from Below!

Phantoms riding the breasts of men, ye of the crossroads and the great high-

ways, wanderers beneath the shade of night! And ye from the Abysses of the

West, on the fringes of the Twilight, dwellers in the caverns of obscurity, who

rouse terrors and shuddering: and ye, walkers by night whom I will not name,

f riends of the Moon; and ye intangible inhabitants of the world of night, Oh

People, Oh Denizens of the Tombs, all of you approach and be my witnesses

and my respondents! Let the hand raised against my form be withered! Let

f hem be destroyed who attack my name, my foundation, my effigies, the im-

ages like unto me."

 

Can modern Egyptologists and scientists in all branches and departments

view lightly the culture of the Egyptians if their researches into the forces of

nature gave them such strange power and enabled them to master natural laws

°f which modern learning has no knowledge or conception?

 

Circumstances so extraordinary as the curse of King Tutankhamen simply

overtax the theory of mere coincidence. Nor is this an isolated case as those

will remember who read the accounts of the Cleopatra mummy curse many

years ago. It will also be noted that in this age of moral certitudes the story of

the Tutankhamen curse had no sooner been broadcast than several of our

large museums were deluged by gifts of Egyptian antiquities from private in-

dividuals who no longer desired to own them. These persons, most of them

well educated (as modern education goes), were not superstitious — they were

just careful.

 

The following article appeared in an English newspaper in 1923: "The

death of Lord Carnarvon has been followed by a panic among collectors

of Egyptian antiquities. All over the country people are sending their trea-

sures to the British Museum, anxious to get rid of them because of the super-

stition that Lord Carnarvon was killed by the ‘ka’ or double of the soul of

 

 

 

• IIS .

 

 

 

. 119 .

 

 

 

F REEMASONRY OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS

 

 

 

Tutankhamen. These fean, am, it is hand, necessary state, absolutely

groundless. 7

 

It is also hardly necessary to add that the journalist fails to give his authot-

■cy for the last sentence. The newspaper article continues:

 

An avalanche of parcels containing mummies’ shrivelled hands and feet

potcelam and wooden statuettes and other mlics font the ancient tombs de-

scended this week on the British Museum. Fear inspires these gift* brought

by every post. The behef that a dead king’s cuts, is potent for evtl after thou-

sands of years won thousands of adherents on the day when Lotd Carnarvon

became ,11. * < * Few of the parcels received a, the museum bear the seudet's

name. The ownem, in their eagerness to wash then hands of the accursed

things, have tried to keep their identity secret. * * -The British Museum is a

godsend to the supersnttous. It offers a means of shifting the liability to ex-

pert shoulders. The museum authorities are used to such liabilities, having

harbored the coffin lid of the powerful priestess of Amen-Ra for yearn, but

they are no, at all grateful for the present Hood of gifts. The museum weath-

emd a sun, la, storm some years ago when the stoty of the cume of the priest-

ess of Amen-Ra bee™, public. Sufficient scare gift, were irceived to fill a

large show case. A long chain of fatalities has been anributed to Ae curse of

the priestess. Men who have mad, fitn of the superstitious have died within

the year. Another story is Aa, a photographer took picmms of ,h, priestess

and placed Ae plates in his safe. When he wen, to look a, them some week,

later, the glass had become a thin brown powder.”

 

Let us consider Ae "rational” explanations, so-cidled, adduced by science

u, deposing of Ae superstition of Ae king's cutse. Dr. Ftederick H. Cowles.

ER.G.S famous British scientist, declared m an interview a few years ago

that Lonl Carnarvon and a number of workmen engaged in excavation me,

Aeir death, as Ae result of a poisonous and almost invisible dust placed Aere

putposdy by the wdy priests bring destruction upon Ae violators of Ae

dead. This poisonous dust,” says Dr. Cowles, “analysis of whiA has baffled

scientists, was scattered about Ae tomb. * * • Lord Carnarvon was no, Ae

only one to note its fetal property, as a number of workmen engaged Ae

 

 

 

• 120 .

 

 

 

EGYPTIAN MAGIC

 

 

 

excavation were likewise stricken. Most of these died a lingering death, but

others, greatly impaired in health, have recovered.” There is nothing in the

learned doctors explanation, however, to account for the fact that Howard

Carter did not chance to breathe any of the noxious vapors, although he was

more steadily engaged in the work of excavation than even Lord Carnarvon.

We also question how much science actually knows about this mysterious dust

which defies analysis, for if it cannot be analyzed how can it be either identi-

fied with certainty or proved poisonous. The term "poisonous dust" is evi-

dently the charitable term that covers a multitude of scientific shortcomings.

 

Though sorcery has been accorded no official recognition by modern sci-

ence, there is, nevertheless, a certain quasi-official acceptance of the reality of

occult phenomena throughout the civilized world. In a newspaper interview

Sir Arthur Conan-Doyle illustrates the wide-spread recognition of the idea

that the Egyptians knew how to surround their dead with mysterious guardian

agencies which throughout the centuries visited their vengeance upon grave-

robbers. scientific or otherwise. In discussing with the correspondent of the

Daily Express the death of a certain Mr. Fletcher who had felt the wrath of

Egypt s dead. Conan-Doyle declared that the tragedy was caused by Egyptian

elemcntals guarding a female mummy because another student of Egyp-

tology, a Mr. Robinson, had begun an investigation of the stories of the

mummy’s malevolence. “I warned Mr. Robmson,” he says, “against concern-

ing himself with the mummy at the British Museum, he persisted, and his

death followed.”

 

Are we to presume, however, that this single phase of ceremonial magic-

constituted the entire repertoire of the Egyptian thaumaturgists. If they

could manifest such surprising power, is it not probable that they possessed a

knowledge of other natural hidden forces— forces as yet unknown to the

modern world and possibly of inestimable value? We are assured in the "au-

thorized version" of Holy Writ that the magicians of Egypt changed their

staves or rods into serpents in the presence of Pharaoh. The modern scientist

does not live who can duplicate that phenomenon, yet if he happens to be a

good Christian he is in somewhat of a dilemma.

 

 

 

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FREEMASONRY OF THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS

 

 

 

Sir Gaston Maspero in his New Light on Ancient Egypt, dwells at some length

upon the subject of Egyptian miracles. His description of the talking and

moving statues is especially lucid. After explaining that the Egyptians never

undertook any important enterprise without consulting the gods, and receiv-

ing an answer therefrom, Maspero then explains how the answers were pro-

duced. He describes images made of wood "painted or gilded like the

ordinary statue, but made of jointed pieces which could be moved. The arm

could lift itself as high as the shoulder or elbow, so that the hand could place

itself on an object and hold it or let it go. The head moved on the neck, it

bent back and fell again into its place.” Maspero then explains that certain

priests set aside for this duty operated these manikins. He docs not believe

that these statues were pious frauds but that the consultants were fully aware

of the presence of the priests but considered them as sacred and ensouled

mediators whose motions of the statues were acceptable to divinity and under

its influence. Having thus explained all of the miracles to his satisfaction.

Sir Gaston leaves us a little unconvinced when he says of the statues which

he has so minutely described, "to my knowledge we do not possess any speci-

men of them.” May we consider his explanation therefore at least mildly

"conjectural?”

 

It is difficult to imagine that Plato or Pythagoras would be deeply im-

pressed by a divinity which squeaked at the joints and delivered revelations

with a hinged head. While it is possible that in the decadent period of Egyp-

tian metaphysics, subterfuges may have been used to stimulate the piety of

the devout, it is scarcely conceivable that an enlightened order of priestcraft,

profoundly versed in the seven liberal sciences, could have taken seriously so

childish a method of pronouncing oracles. Certainly they could never have

deceived the wise with such toys, and the wise were the ones who most ad-mired the wisdom of the Egyptians.