The Ancient Tradition

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Music

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You’re listening to The Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production. Music provided by Joseph McDade. He is your host, Dr. Jack Logan.

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Welcome to the Ancient Tradition. I’m your host, Jack Logan. Glad to have you with me today. We have a great program. This episode is packed with stuff so much that you may even have to listen to it twice to catch it all. In this episode, we’re going to dive into some of the most profound theological tenets of the ancient tradition. And as you listen, I hope you’ll think not only about the incredibly interesting parallels we find between the religious traditions that we’re going to discuss.

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but I hope you’ll also think about and ponder the profound spiritual implications of what’s gonna be taught in this episode. If the ancient tradition was indeed revealed by God to human beings in the beginning, as the ancients claimed, then these are the spiritual truths that we should all be pondering. So let’s jump in where we left off in the previous episode. In that episode, we dove into the extremely ancient

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and really highly symbolic nature of the mysterious recipe used to produce the anointing oil. And we established that in the ancient world, the primary ingredient in the anointing oil was myrrh, the reddish brown resin that bleeds from the Kamaphora myrrh tree. And it means bitterness. It exudes this sweet, earthy aroma. Like we saw in episode number six, where the king’s scepter

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symbolically represented a branch of the tree of life. We saw in the previous episode, episode number seven, that the oil with which the king was anointed symbolically represented the gift given by the tree of life to the king. The gift that enabled the king to become a king. You know, interestingly, the symbolism expressed by Myrrh is reinforced and strengthened by the

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the anointing oil. If you go to Exodus chapter 30 verse 24 it tells us that the Israelites were to use olive oil and hin as the base of the anointing oil and that symbolism is pretty profound. In biblical times the people used a large stone mill to produce olive oil. They’d place the olives on a stone basin and then they’d roll this huge stone wheel over them which would crush the olives and produce oil.

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So here, like we saw with the myrrh oil, olive oil is the secretion of a tree. The oil is the tree’s gift. And then similar to the myrrh, which bleeds from the myrrh tree, olives, after having been crushed under a great weight, secretes oil. So the two chief ingredients in the special anointing oil are expressing the same theological idea, and they should conjure up in the minds of Christians.

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Luke chapter 22 verse 44, which speaks of Christ’s suffering. And it reads, quote, and being in agony, he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. And if you’re not quite convinced yet, we have a couple more clues. The word Gethsemane, the location where Christians believe Christ atoned for the sins of the world means the place where oils

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pressed or oil press and it’s widely believed that Christ atoned for the sins of the world in a sacred grove of olive trees and where there was a olive press and let’s not forget Enoch among others whom referred to the oil as dew. Let’s think about this for a minute. Luke chapter 22 verse 44 said quote his sweat was as it were great drops of blood

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falling down to the ground. And when I think of blood falling to the ground, the symbolism of dew becomes pretty clear. His blood, like dew, falls to the ground like droplets of water, which little by little refreshes and nourishes and revives the divine nature of human beings. So just like dew, little by little, refreshes and nourishes and revives the earth.

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And note the symbolism for the anointing oil is dew and not downpour. It seems that this dew symbolized by the anointing indicates a process of spiritual rebirth, one that occurs precept upon precept, little by little, until one acquires the divine nature. If you get a chance, Google a couple images of dew. You’ll notice a couple of things. First, you’ll notice that the leaves or blades of grass are covered in

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hundreds of tiny little droplets of water. And second, you’ll notice that the leaves or blades of grass glisten as a result of the dew. I love it. The symbolism here is amazing. Do you recall what Enoch said of the dew? He said in chapter 22 of the book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch, quote, the oil was bright as the rays of the sun, cool like dew and smelled like myrrh.

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I saw myself and I saw I was like one of his glorious ones, and there was no observable difference. See, light and glory was added to Enoch as a result of the anointing oil, the fragrant dew of paradise. With the dew on his person, Enoch glistened and smelled like myrrh. And this process by which the dew or anointing oil

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or makes one divine as the Assyrian king Ashur-Nasir-Paul II claimed, or makes one glorious as Enoch experienced, will become more clear towards the end of today’s episode. I want to take a moment here and talk about how many of the theological tenets that originated in the ancient tradition show up in pop culture and in other places in much more degenerated and deteriorated forms than we see in the British coronation ceremony.

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The British coronation ceremony is still really an excellent echo of the original, but it too is not immune to degradation. Over time, changes have been made to the British coronation ceremony, which have kind of chipped away and altered the form it took when Saint Dunstan pieced it together from a variety of sources. But it’s always been an imitation of the original. It’s never been the original.

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which is really clearly illustrated by the fact that the British coronation ceremony has never been performed in a temple. As much as the architects of Westminster Abbey tried to pattern the abbey after a garden temple. This process of degradation as Charles alters the vestments that he wears or he makes other changes

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those will continue to move the coronation ceremony kind of farther and farther away from the original that was performed in the Garden of Eden sanctuary. This process of deterioration isn’t surprising, you know, considering the ancient tradition was revealed to human beings thousands of years ago. So we’d expect to see remnants of the original in a somewhat deteriorated form all over the globe, which I argue that we do.

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Deterioration, however, isn’t necessarily just the process of time. Since we’re dealing with a religious tradition, deterioration and degradation of the original teachings of the ancient tradition is also, you know, probably the consequence of corruption, disobedience, apostasy, just like what we saw during the time of Noah. The inhabitants of the earth were so far removed from the things of God that they were wiped from the earth.

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And you know, we can only imagine how those people corrupted or degraded the sacred rituals and laws that God had established. And we don’t have time to get into it in this episode, but there’s some pretty intriguing accounts of all places in the Book of Enoch or One Enoch, which gives an account of how individuals during the time of Enoch intentionally corrupted the ancient tradition.

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In episode number six, the king and the tree of life, I gave you an example of the deteriorated form of the king’s scepter. In that episode, we established that the king’s scepter was meant to be understood as a symbolic representation of a branch or twig of the tree of life. And by holding the branch of the tree of life in his hand, the new king was conveying to the people over whom he governed that he had received the power and authority to rule over them from God, who in the Garden of Eden account.

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was symbolically represented by the Tree of Life. With a branch of the Tree of Life, the scepter in his hand, the Righteous King could use the power of God to work signs and miracles. And in that episode, I asserted that the original doctrine of the King’s scepter, a branch of the Tree of Life, has over time morphed into the wand that we see used by witches, warlocks, sorcerers, magicians,

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wizards like Merlin, as well as the staff or that walking stick that’s used by Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings, and the walking stick that’s used by Albus Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series. And according to Llewellyn’s 2007 magical almanac, it says, quote, “‘Wands are made from a fallen tree branch, and finding such a tree branch should be thought of as a gift from nature.'”

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Magic wands and wizards staffs help to concentrate and direct one’s own personal power. They are used to collect, store, direct, and finally release energy to and from a certain point. Ancient healers would often use a wand-like tool such as a twig or small branch to help them cast out evil spirits from the bodies of their patients. So you can see here how this is a clear

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We have the branch of a tree, the miraculous power of the branch of the tree, yet unlike the king’s scepter, which represents not the king’s personal power, but the power of God bestowed upon the king, the wizard’s wand represents the wizard’s own personal power. God is no longer part of the picture. Llewellyn’s 2007 magical almanac says this of the wood that’s used to make the wands or staffs.

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The wood from which a wander staff is made represents the power and energy associated with the type of tree from which they are created. And then the author goes on and gives all the special properties of different types of trees, the almond, ash, cedar, elder and oak trees. In every case, the true wand or the wand with true power was inextricably tied to the wood or the branch of a tree.

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Very few people recognize that the wands and staffs that are written into novels and wielded on the big screen are serious degenerations of the power of the tree of life. The Judeo-Christian Christ. Individuals who believe that wands and staffs have real power should probably do a little more research because what they’ll find out is that they are a degenerate form of the original. They are mythical theatrical props.

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completely devoid of any true power. They’re a poor, usurped imitation of the original. Not that they can’t be fun and entertaining, but if you believe they have true power, then you haven’t done your homework. All right, along these same lines, another example of the degeneration of a theological tenant taught by the ancient tradition is the formula used for the anointing oil.

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And while I tell you about this, see if you can’t think of a way in which the concept of the anointing oil has degenerated into something that we also see in novels and on the big screen. From my research into the earliest religious writings on record, like the ancient Egyptian pyramid texts and the cuneiform writings of Mesopotamia, the anointing oil is the first religious concoction that I’ve come across.

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And I mentioned in the previous episode, the exact recipe for the special anointing oil is never disclosed because it was considered to be sacred. Ingredients included in the oil are included here and there, but the exact recipe for the anointing oil is never disclosed. Ancient texts mentioned pine, cedar, myrrh in ancient Egypt. They mentioned cypress, cedar, juniper, and myrrh in Mesopotamia. Cinnamon, calamus, cassia, and myrrh among the Israelites.

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And I wonder, and I don’t have any specific evidence for this assertion, other than a number of intriguing and completely congruent parallels, if this special recipe, this special concoction, which according to Exodus chapter 30 verse 25, was to be a quote, compound after the art of the apothecary, was the original source for what would become the magical potion or the witch’s brew.

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It seems perfectly plausible that the notion that one could take various ingredients from plants and trees and perfumes, brew them together to obtain magical properties could be the degenerated outgrowth of the sacred blending of the beautiful, fragrant dew of paradise, the anointing oil. If you’re familiar with witches, if even just from the Halloween festivities, then you know that witches use the branch of a tree, their broomstick,

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their magical brew, which to me of course is very fascinating. According to a 15th century text written by a gentleman by the name of Jordanes de Bergamo, a theologian who wrote about the beliefs of early pagans, gives us this really interesting tidbit about witches and their brew. This is what he says, quote, the vulgar believe and the witches confess that on certain days or nights they anoint a staff

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ride on it to the appointed place or anoint themselves under the arms.” Okay, this is really intriguing because it tells us that witches took their special staff, which we refer to today as a broomstick. They anointed it with a specially blended concoction. The witches brew or ointment and then they anoint the broomstick and themselves. And this gives them the ability to ascend to the

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to fly up, which we characterize today as the witch flying on her broomstick to the top of a chimney. And don’t forget that the wicked witch is always portrayed as green. And keep all those things in mind because they’ll become even more relevant as we continue through today’s episode. But don’t forget what I’m arguing here, that the green witch along with her magically brewed ointment and her broomstick made from the branch of a tree are degraded.

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degenerate counterfeits of what was originally a profound, supernally sacred anointing ritual that God revealed to human beings in the Garden Sanctuary. So in this slide, those who believe that the magical properties of potions or witch’s brew are in the same category as those who believe in the power of wands. The witch’s brew is a very, very poor imitation of the original. The oil that…

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may or may not have had special properties, but it was most definitely meant to be understood symbolically. The ancients taught within the ancient tradition that the anointing oil, like Dew, had the ability to transform a human being, precept upon precept, into a glorious, joyful, useful being who became like the divine and obtained eternal life. And that’s powerful.

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So were you able to think of a way that this concept has degenerated into something that we also see in novels and on the big screen? Well, it’s a big one. You’d know it as the elixir of life or the fountain of youth or in alchemical terms, the philosopher’s stone. So this notion that there’s a special elixir, the notion that there’s a special elixir secreted away somewhere.

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which if someone drinks it grants one eternal life or eternal youth seems to be a pretty potent echo of the properties that are associated with the anointing oil, the oil secreted by the tree of life. If we look at the Vedic tradition, the fabled elixir of life was known as the soma. And this soma was believed to have really powerful transformative effects on whoever consumed it. The divine plant,

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a tree perhaps, used in the drink was believed to grow, you guessed it, in the mountains. And what have you learned about mountains? Temples believed to be found in the temple and they believed it could only be harvested by priests, which is very interesting. The effects of the summer described as both physical and spiritual. It gave the one who consumed it increased strength and heightened awareness.

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and a feeling of union with the divine. So it’s clear here that the asoma is an echo of the original anointing oil. If we look at the Rigveda, one of the four canonical Hindu texts, it says this, quote, “‘We have drunk the asoma, we have become immortal, we have gone to the light, we have found the gods.'” In ancient Chinese mythology, several emperors went to great lengths

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and find this fabled elixir. And during the Qin dynasty one of the myths tells us how the Chinese Emperor sent a Taoist alchemist along with a thousand men and women to the famous Penglai mountain. Yes we’re back to a mountain named the Penglai immortal to find the elixir. And according to this famous legend immortals were believed to live in a palace there on the mount called the

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And everything there was believed to be pure white. The palace was made of gold and silver. Jewels grew on the trees. And for our regular listeners, this should be starting to sound familiar. A mountain, a palace, jeweled trees, and immortality. Unfortunately, but no surprise, the Taoist alchemist, along with his thousand scouts, were unable to find the fabled elixir.

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So many ancient myths and so much popular literature like comic books and novels and movies are remnants of the ancient tradition. Some are much closer to the original than others. And as the occasions arise, I’ll continue to point these out. But I hope you’re beginning to see how the ancient tradition continues to powerfully ripple through the 21st century, which I think speaks to the power of the original tradition. So let’s jump back to the coronation.

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From the scepter in the myrrh oil, it seems pretty clear here that with a little study, Christians were to make the connection between Christ, the anointed one, and the tree, the tree of life, the suffering of the tree, the resin of myrrh, and the gift the suffering tree granted the king, and the possibility of taking on the divine nature and obtaining eternal life. And by now you’re probably picking up on a pattern.

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So everything in the coronation ceremony of kings is directly connected to the tree of life. And this is not just in the Judeo-Christian tradition because we can see this in Egypt, Mesopotamia and among the Maya. And if you could see the connection between kingship and the tree of life, then you’re starting to catch on that symbolism is the language of the ancient tradition. And you should also be seeing the theology of the ancient tradition beginning to take shape.

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kings in the ancient world were not secular kings. Kingship was not an isolated civil role. Kingship was intricately connected to and played a central role in the theology revealed to the first man Adam in the garden sanctuary. The sophisticated, rich, profound depth of this theology speaks to me of a divine origin. So let’s take a look at the sacred anointing right, the right itself.

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I learned a couple days ago that Charles, like his mother Queen Elizabeth, will not allow the anointing rite to be televised. I was really glad to hear this because had he allowed it to be televised, it would have served as yet another example of the degeneration of the original rite, which was originally performed outside of public view in the Holy of Holies. So on May 6th, the Archbishop of Canterbury

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He’ll dip two fingers into the specially formulated oil that the Dean of Westminster pours on a silver spoon and he’ll anoint Charles the Third in the form of a cross on his hands, head, and heart. And this is known as the act of consecration. This rite is incredibly ancient. It’s a rite that we can trace back to the dawn of time.

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So you guessed it, we’re gonna head right back to the sands of Egypt, to the pyramid of King Unus, the last king of the fifth dynasty, and take a look at a funerary rite that’s mentioned in the pyramid text, known as the opening of the mouth ritual. The ancient Egyptians believed that the mouth was the conduit for breath, and that it was necessary for the deceased person to have their mouth opened in order that they could receive breath. So take a moment here.

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taking a deep breath. Did you notice when you did this that you naturally opened your mouth to take in the air? Among the ancient Egyptians the act of opening the mouth was seen as a means of reviving the deceased king and restoring his senses so he had the ability to fully participate in the afterlife. So keep this in mind because it is the key to the anointing ritual.

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In the physical world, we know that without the breath of life, we die. No aspect of our physical body, our eyes, our ears, our nose, our limbs, or our heart, can function without breath. So among the ancient Egyptians, the entire purpose of the opening of the mouth ritual was to restore the breath, to restore the vital force necessary for life. And it’s easy to see the connection between breath and the life of the physical body.

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But keep in mind that the ancient Egyptians, as well as the Mesopotamians and Israelites, had a lot more in mind by way of this rite than just restoring and revitalizing the physical body. This rite, in large measure, is meant to be understood as restoring and revitalizing the king’s awk. The ancient Egyptians believed that in order for the king to live and mingle with the gods in the afterlife, he needed to be awkified. And to be awkified meant that

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an aspect of the king’s soul had to be transformed, a transformation that was identified with taking on light. The ancient Egyptian concept of the soul is quite complicated and I don’t have time to get into it all right now, but suffice it to say that occification was only available to those who lived a life according to the strictures of Maat, the ancient Egyptian concept of justice, truth, and righteousness.

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And by way of the occification, the king became an enlightened spirit. So let’s jump into the ritual. In ancient Egypt, a sem priest would use a special instrument known as the ADZE, ADIZ, to prop open the mouth. And after that, the priest would anoint several parts of the dead king’s body with oil. Alexander Moray, a French Egyptologist, says this of the ritual.

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quote, one was anointed on the mouth, eyes, ears, and different parts of the reconstituted body. Thus the mouth, eyes and ears can breathe, speak and eat, see and hear, the arms can act and the legs can walk. The anointing reconstituted the body and it prepared it for the afterlife in the realm of the gods. So in this light, the anointing was understood as a rebirth

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be that physical or spiritual. And if you ponder that in terms of the symbolic meaning of the anointing oil, the myrrh and pressed olives, then you have a whole lot to really ponder. This gets even more interesting when we read a pyramid text incised in the tomb of Petrus Cyrus, a high priest of Thoth who served during the fourth century BC. And it reads, quote, the perfume, the perfume opens thy mouth.

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It is the saliva of Horus, the perfume. Here, the anointing oil is compared to saliva or spit, and not just any saliva. The king is anointed with the saliva of Horus, the god Horus. All right, so are you starting to see some striking parallels here with the myrrh oil? I don’t wanna point them all out for you because I’m hoping you’ll start to cultivate the ability to see them on your own because they are remarkable.

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And why saliva? This, like everything we see in the ancient tradition is probably meant to be understood symbolically. See, saliva contains naturally healing properties. If we go to the National Institute of Health, it says this of saliva. Saliva creates a humid environment, thus improving the survival and functioning of inflammatory cells that are crucial for wound healing. And from this it’s clear,

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that we are to understand the God Horus’ saliva. The anointing oil is a healing balm. The oil of the God has the ability to heal, to restore not only the physical body, but also to heal, to restore, to revitalize, to aquify the spirit, to induce spiritual rebirth. To the point, as Enoch says in the Book of the Holy Secrets of Enoch, that there is no distinguishable difference between oneself.

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and the gods. We noted this in the previous episode when we saw that the oil had the ability to occupy an Egyptian king. In pyramid text 77 we read, and this is referring to the anointing oil, quote, you shall occupy him wearing you. And like I mentioned, to be occupied meant that the king’s essence had taken on a higher nature, a divine nature like the gods. To be occupied meant that one had become complete.

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And in today’s vernacular, we might just use the word perfect. We see mention of this in Pyramid Text 215, where the text compares individual parts of the dead king’s body to the parts of the bodies of those kings who have gone on to be occupied and have taken on a higher nature and have become full of light, bright like an imperishable star, which is the Egyptian synonym for deification. And it reads, quote,

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You are distinguished, they said, in your identity of a god. You become completed as every god, your head as Horus of the Duat, an imperishable star, your face as eyes forward, an imperishable star, your ears, a tomb’s twins, an imperishable star, your eyes, a tomb’s twins, an imperishable star, your nose as the jackal, an imperishable star, your teeth.

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Saptu, an imperishable star, your arms, hoppy and duatmeteth. Whenever you demand to go up to the sky, you go up. Your legs, Imseedi. Whenever you demand to go down to the under sky, you go down. Your limbs, atums, twins, an imperishable star. You do not perish. So from these passages you can see like the British anointing ritual.

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the Egyptian Sempriest anointed several parts of the dead king’s body and that that anointing was meant to bring about spiritual and physical rebirth, eternal life. As a result of that anointing, the dead king would go on to live in the afterlife as a glorious radiant being like that of an imperishable star. So to understand this right, we have to examine one of the most important myths in ancient

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battle between Set, who was the god of chaos, and Horus, the god of kingship, healing, protection, and heaven. As a quick aside, you should start keeping tabs of how many of the world’s myths are about kings and royalty, because this is not by chance. So according to this myth, we have a conflict between Set and Horus. And this is referenced in the pyramid text.

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over who should be the successor to the throne of Osiris. Note how this myth is a battle over kingship. Throughout the story, Set challenges Horus to a series of contests to see who should win the kingship. In each of these contests, Horus successfully beats Set. And after suffering so many losses, Set engages Horus in this fierce battle during which Set gouges out one of Horus’ eyes.

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And then in retaliation, Horus castrates set. This injured or lost eye of Horus is extremely important in the ancient Egyptian religion. It’s mentioned in about a quarter of the ancient Egyptian pyramid texts. And like so much of what we’ve seen in the ancient tradition so far, the eye of Horus is symbolic. And so we should understand it in that light. Although there’s a lot of things that we could really glean from the symbolism of the eye.

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There are some particularly interesting aspects of the Eye of Horus that directly relate to the anointing ritual. And that’s what we’re gonna focus on here. But know that like all symbols, this Eye of Horus is not limited to one interpretation. Symbols by nature are meant to lend themselves to multiple layers of meaning.

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So to explain how the eye is connected to the anointing ritual, I need you to envision the symbol of the eye of Horus as it’s depicted in the Egyptian hieroglyphs and it’s depicted as the left eye. The Egyptians divided the eye into six parts. You have the eyebrow, which is depicted as a curved line above the eye. Then you have the inner corner of the eye, which includes part of the eyelids. You have the outer corner of the eye, which includes the eyelids. You got a solid black pupil.

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Then you have this cheek mark, which was somewhat of a vertical line that extended below the pupil to the cheek. And this mark was found on Falcons. So this was a way to tie the eye directly to the Falcon God Horus. And then last, number six, you have a curling line that extended from the pupil to the outer cheek and then it was capped with a solid dot. In the myth, this eye is destroyed by Set, who is known as the God of Storms.

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or disorder and violence. Some of the texts refer to him as the quote evil one. In ancient Egyptian myths, he’s portrayed as the usurper, the one who wants to usurp the crown. In the well-known myth of King Osiris, a jealous Set murders Osiris and then tears his body into a bunch of pieces. After his victory, Set mounts the usurped throne.

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and he reigns as the new king of the Four Corners. But his reign is short-lived because Osiris’s wife, Queen Isis, gives birth to a royal son, Horus. Set must now contend with the legitimate heir to the throne. And this is what leads Set to challenge Horus to all of those contests, all the contests that Horus wins. So he’s furious at his loss, so Set gouges out the eye of Horus.

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And now, as I mentioned a couple of minutes ago, this myth could be interpreted primarily as a physical battle. Horace needs a physical repair to his eye. And don’t get me wrong, this is probably one of the intended meanings of the myth, the power of God to heal the physical body and to resurrect the dead to a perfect incorruptible body. There are plenty of those possibilities here. But don’t miss the greater symbolism of this myth as a spiritual battle.

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between Set and Horus. This is a battle between Horus, the rightful king who emulates Maat, justice, truth and righteousness, and Set, the one who is the antithesis of Maat, the one who personifies injustice, lies and unrighteousness. In order for Horus to reign as the rightful king of the four corners, first, his spiritual injuries.

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all of the injustice, untruth, and unrighteousness within him that was caused by this battle with Set must be abolished from him. Otherwise, he’s an unfit king, and his reign will only lead to desolation, and destruction, and suffering in his kingdom. So at this point, what does Horace do? With this injured eye, he’s unfit to reign. He’s a man marked by spiritual wounds.

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Today’s vernacular we might call those spiritual wounds sins. The ancient Egyptians didn’t use the word sin, but they did have what is referred to as the negative confession, which was essentially the same idea where they had to declare that they lived according to the laws of Maat, justice, truth, and righteousness. So back to my original question, how does Horus obtain healing

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until his eye is healed. Well, for this, Horus turns to Thoth. Do you remember who Thoth was? If you don’t, you might wanna go back and review and listen to episode number three, where we talked a bit about who he is and his association with the ancient tradition. And if you prefer to watch episode number three, rather than listen to it, you can do that too. Just search for the ancient tradition on YouTube and search for episode number three. The video has a lot of pictures and illustrations that…

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you might find helpful. Thoth is one of the most important and oldest Egyptian deities in the ancient Egyptian pantheon. In all of the texts, Thoth is closely associated with the creator god, Ray. He’s a friend and a scribe of Ray. And as such, Thoth writes the words of Ray into books and then he gives those books to the king and the king’s priest so that they know how to properly perform the rites within the Egyptian temple.

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Among many of the inscriptions we find, Thoth is referred to as, quote, the scribe of the divine book, the president of the house of the books, the lord of the sacred ceremonial. Patrick Bolan, who wrote one of the principal books on Thoth, says this, quote, Thoth’s epitaph, Lord of the Divine Words, implies his lordship over the formulae or ritual and cult.

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To Thoth was assigned the duty of superintending the celebration of ritual ceremonial. There is abundant evidence in the text that to Thoth was assigned the authorship of the forms of cult. From this we can deduce that the creator God Ray revealed to Thoth a temple tradition, which Thoth then wrote down in book form and gave to the ancient Egyptians. So as the messenger of Ray, Thoth was viewed as the

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principal author of the ancient Egyptian temple tradition and all of the rites that were performed there Including this right the opening of the mouth We learn in several ancient Egyptian texts that Thoth uses a special temple right which we deduce is the opening of the mouth ritual to heal Horus’s injured eye TCJ Bali in the Journal of Egyptian Archaeology quotes Alexander Murray a prominent Egyptologist

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who argued that the opening of the mouth represents the search for and recovery of the lost Horus eye. Here, Moray establishes a direct connection between the opening of the mouth ceremony and the recovery or restoration of the eye. Horus’s injured eye is healed by way of the opening of the mouth anointing performed by Thoth.

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So the connection here between the anointing and the healing of the eye is clear in the Egyptian record. And here’s a few examples. The Book of the Dead, chapter 17, which is dated to around 1550 BC, tells how Thoth healed the injured eye of Horus by spitting on it. It reads, and this comes from the Carol Andrews in Raymond Faulkner translation, quote.

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I restored the sacred eye after it had been injured on that day when the rivals fought. What does it mean? It means the day when Horus fought was set, when he inflicted injury on Horus’s face. It was Thoth who did this with his fingers. It was Thoth who lifted up the hair from it when he fetched it in a good condition without its having suffered any harm. Otherwise said, it means that his eye was sick when it wept a second time.

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and then Thoth spat on it. Spit, like the word do among the Israelites, is used interchangeably here for the anointing oil. Spit, or the saliva of Horus, as we mentioned earlier, was supposed to conjure up in the minds of ancient Egyptians the healing properties of the anointing oil. And we find this amazing pyramid text on the walls of King Pepe II’s pyramid.

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Pyramid Text 637 makes the connection between the injured eye, the anointing oil, the sweet scent of the oil, the healing properties of the oil, and the occification of the king really explicit. But it also mentions one more vitally important element of this process. After the king’s fully healed with the sweet scent of the anointing oil, he’s then told that he is qualified to wear…

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the crown of a king. He is now a true king. So listen closely, this is what it says. I have come to you too, that I might fill you with the oil that comes from Horus’s eye. I fill you with it so that it will tie together your bones, join together your limbs for you, and collect your flesh for you, and release your bad sweat. When you have received its scent,

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upon you, your scent will be sweet like the sun when it comes from the Ahch-Het, and the Ahch-Het gods are agreeable toward him. Ho, Pepe Neferkari, the scent of Horus’s eye is on you, and the gods who follow Osiris are agreeable toward you. Acquire their crown, equipped with the form of Osiris, and you will become thereby more Ahch than the Ox.

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by command of Horus himself, Lord of the elite.” Did you notice that the crown that Pepe is told to acquire isn’t just any crown? It’s not really even Pepe’s crown. The crown that the new occupied king is now worthy or fully qualified to wear is the crown in the form of Osiris. Now at this point I can say a lot about the parallels here between the crown of Osiris and the crown of the Christian Christ.

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but that would take us too far from the main objective of this episode. But we’ll come back to it in a couple of weeks when we cover the actual coronation or crowning of King Charles. There’s also a lot more to the Eye of Horus that I could ever cover in this episode and a lot of it’s pretty amazing stuff, especially the protective properties of the anointing, but we’ll save that for down the line too. There are however, a couple more aspects of the Eye of Horus that I want to mention. First, from the pyramid texts.

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coffin lids and a number of hieroglyphic inscriptions. We can see that the ancient Egyptians often lined the eye of Horus in green paint. Pyramid Text 79 says, Osiris Unus, Horus’s eye has been painted sound on your face, a bag of green paint, a bag of black eye paint.

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green eye. They used the color green because it symbolized the flowering of life, vegetation, fertility, and rebirth, all of which were the fruits of the anointing oil. So with a whole complete ochified king, the kingdom could now flourish. And to make this green paint, the ancients would grind malachite, which was a copper carbonate mineral.

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they grind it into a powder and they mix it with a binder like an egg. And I mentioned this because Thoth, the lord of the sacred ceremonial and he who makes full the eye, he’s often depicted with a satchel of malachite on his person. Pyramid text 591 says quote, Thoth has arrayed himself with his malachite sporen that strides over his land in reconciliation.

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If you don’t know what a sporn is, a sporn is kind of like the leather pouches that Scots wear with their kilts. The pouch of Malachite symbolizes that Thoth, in particular the temple tradition he authored, was to be understood as the source of the healing power, the anointing oil. There’s a lot here to think about, especially as you reflect on this symbolic nature of the anointing oil as we

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And the most mind blowing is that the ancient Egyptians associated six parts of the eye of Horus, the pupil, eyebrow, et cetera, to different sense organs. So the eyebrow represented thought or the ability to think. The inner corner of the eye represented the nose, the ability to smell. The outer corner of the eye represented the ear or the ability to hear. The pupil represented the eye or the ability to see.

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The cheek mark represented a finger or the ability to touch, and the curling line that extended from the pupil to the outer cheek represented the tongue or the ability to taste. And if you look at a drawing of the eye of Horace, each of these six parts looks like the sense organ they represent. The curling line looks like a tongue, and the inner corner of the eye looks like a nose. What’s mind blowing, however, is if you…

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superimpose an image of the eye of Horace upon the center of the brain. Each of the six parts of the eye corresponds, believe it or not, to the anatomic location of that particular human sensorium. And believe you me, I’m not making this up. This is according to a study published by a group of doctors, the primary author of who works at the Mayo Clinic. What this means is that when we superimpose the eye of Horace on the brain,

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the inner corner of the eye, the section of the eye that represents the nose, corresponds exactly with the part of the brain that controls smell. And this is mind-boggling. How do the Egyptians know which parts of the brain controlled which senses? The authors conclude the study by saying this, quote, although we recognize the liabilities of over interpreting a symbolic masterpiece like the eye of Horus,

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we propose that the anatomical metaphors in the Eye of Horus are not by coincidence and merit discussion. In the creation of the Eye of Horus, ancient Egyptians combined their artistic abilities and knowledge of anatomy with their deep belief in mythology. There is a clear influence of their interpretation of human senses on the size and shape of the eye. This is an amazing feat considering the unavailability

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of radiographic and computational technology in that era. You know, if you’re interested in taking a look at this article, and I highly recommend you do, you can find it on our companion website, thea Just look for the episode under evidence. I point out the connection between the Egyptians stylized version of the Eye of Horus and the sensory faculties of the human body to point out and emphasize that the Eye of Horus is meant to represent not

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just Horus’s injured eye. The eye represents all of the ways that set physically and spiritually injured the rightful king. So Horus’s eye, which was healed by Thoth through the opening of the mouth ceremony, where he anointed each of the king’s sensory organs, eyes, ears, nose, etc., was meant to symbolize the full physical and spiritual

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restoration of the king’s body and spirit. But how did the anointing oil do that? In the ancient record, it’s a bit difficult to discern. We know from the Egyptian record what the oil can do, we just don’t necessarily know how the oil accomplishes what it does, but we do have a few clues. So for this we’re going to turn to the Judeo-Christian record and the anointing of King David.

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1 Samuel chapter 16 verse 13 in the King James version of the Bible reads, quote, then Samuel took the horn of oil and anointed him in the midst of his brethren and the spirit of the Lord came upon David from that day forward. So from this passage it’s clear that the oil of gladness, the fragrant dew of paradise,

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for the transformative power of the Spirit of God. When one’s anointed, one is gifted a greater portion of the Spirit. And like tiny droplets of dew, it has this transformative effect on the one who wears it. Over time, they take on more and more and more of the divine nature. And there’s a lot to think about there.

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And now you know why the anointing ritual is preceded in the British coronation ceremony by the anthem, Come Holy Spirit. So did the ancient Egyptians believe in the Spirit of God in a manner that was kind of similar to the Israelites? Well, I don’t know. It’s kind of difficult to know, but there is some interesting interplay between the word breathe and the word spirit in both the English language and the Hebrew language. For example, if you recall,

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the opening of the mouth ceremony. This was all about opening the mouth so the dead king can breathe. In the English language we call breath or breathing respiration. The root word in respiration is spirit or to re-spirit the body. The ancient Egyptians re-spirited the body by the opening of the mouth. Spirit is also the root word of the English word inspiration.

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inspiration comes by drawing the spirit into one’s being, drawing the breath of God into one’s being. In Hebrew the word ruwa means breath, spirit, and wind. So they use the same word for both concepts, breath and spirit. When God breathes on something that thing becomes living like we see happen in Genesis chapter 2 verse 7 when God breathes into Adam’s nostrils and he becomes a living being.

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whether the Egyptians considered breath and the spirit to be similar concepts, I’m not sure, but we know that in ancient Egypt, the anointing during the opening of the mouth ceremony was meant to ochify the king. And the och was understood as a part or a component of the Egyptian concept of the soul. Amazingly, in both the ancient Egyptian record and the Judeo-Christian record, like in the Bible, one of the chief purposes of the anointing ritual

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expressed in a similar manner. The removal of spiritual blindness. In ancient Egypt, the eye of Horus was associated with the ability to see beyond the physical world. Pyramid text 748 reads, quote, Greetings green eye paint that endows Ha’s eye. Whenever I put you on my father’s eyes, he sees the gods.

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An inscription in the tomb of Tutankhamun says something similar. It says, quote, I open thy mouth that thou mightest speak with me, thine eyes that thou mightest behold Ray. Just as Thoth spit on Horus’s injured eye and was healed, we see a similar story about Jesus in the New Testament. You can read in John chapter nine, Jesus heals a man who was born blind. And how did he do this?

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If you read in verses five and six, it says, quote, while I am in the world, I am the light of the world. When Jesus had said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud and applied it to the man’s eyes. Then he told him, go wash in the pool of Siloam. So the man went and washed and came back seeing. Here we have many of the same elements we see in ancient Egypt.

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spit, as we mentioned earlier, is another symbol for the anointing oil. And this anointing makes it possible for the blind man to see. And if you miss the spiritual interpretation of the story, which is Christ healing spiritual blindness, Christ gives us a clue to this interpretation in the beginning verse when he says, quote, I am the light of the world. Recall how the anointing oil made one bright, full of life.

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The story here is much more than about the healing of a man’s physical blindness. You know, astute readers are supposed to see the parallel here to Christ’s ability through the sweet fragrance of his anointing myrrh oil, which we pointed out in the previous episode as a sublime symbol of Christ to heal spiritual blindness. The connection between the anointing oil, the tree of life, and light is brought beautifully together.

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in the seven branched lampstand of pure gold that was placed in King Solomon’s temple. And we know this is the menorah. The symbol clearly connects the fragrant anointing oil directly to the tree. And when the priests lit the oil, one can only imagine how the flames glistened and reflected off of the gilded branches of the lampstand and illuminated the room. Kind of makes you think of the burning bush.

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Chapter 11 in the Odes of Solomon verses 14 and 15 put it all together and it reads quote, my eyes were enlightened and my face received the dew and my breath was refreshed with the pleasant fragrance of the Lord. In both the Egyptian tradition and in the Judeo-Christian tradition the eye is used symbolically to represent spiritual

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knowledge, the ability to see beyond the physical world. Andre Orlov, a prominent Enochian scholar who I mentioned previously, refers to this as ocular epistemology, which is where the eye is used as a symbol to express one’s ability to see or to know, to obtain direct knowledge of the spiritual realm. We talked about the ability to know God quite a bit in episode number two.

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if you haven’t had a chance to listen to it, it’s worth a listen. In that episode, I argued that the epistemological philosophies of Locke and Hume and Kant need to be rejected because they teach that it’s impossible to obtain direct knowledge of God. But here you have the ancients not only telling us it is possible to obtain direct knowledge of God, they’re telling us exactly how to obtain that

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anointing with the oil of the tree, the fragrant dew of paradise. If you’re really listening to what the ancients are saying, it’s only through this process that one’s spiritual eyes can be fully opened. Dr. Orlov says it like this, quote, visual apprehension plays a pivotal role in the acquisition of heavenly knowledge.

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The tendency to describe the reception of divine knowledge as visual experience occurs in stories, where the Israelites’ ability to receive divine disclosures is rendered through the symbolism of open and closed eyes. To behold with open eyes is the apex of all divine knowledge, God’s theophany. This ability to visually apprehend divine, legal, and theophanic knowledge does not remain with Israel long,

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quickly lose their sight due to idolatry. Blindness is here equated with straying from the way which one has known. The impairment of divine perception is expressed through the metaphor of blindness. To be in darkness hints at a character’s lack of access to divine knowledge. And so in this light, the Eye of Horus is the quintessential ancient Egyptian symbol.

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precisely because it symbolizes, I mentioned earlier, the ability of one to quote, behold Ray. The anointing performed in the opening of the mouth ceremony is what bestowed upon the new king divine sight. I hope you’ve seen from this exercise in comparative religion, I hope you’re beginning to see and to recognize the astounding parallels between the ancient Egyptian tradition and the Judeo.

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Christian tradition. And these aren’t just surface trivial parallels. These are sophisticated doctrinal parallels. It’s astounding and it speaks to me of an ancient tradition. I don’t have time in this episode to go through the religious traditions where we find a similar anointing ritual, but I do want to leave you with a couple examples. In Mesopotamia in a hymn to Nana, who was the Sumerian moon god, we find a similar ritual.

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Though I have to say the whole hymn is just amazing and I wish I had time to go through it with you line by line, but I’ll save it for when we talk about the creation. I’ll start with line 41, which reads, quote, “‘For the temple, the oil is purified “‘and held in readiness, “‘and the arms, hands, and feet are touched. “‘The Ekkish Nugal on the sacred exalted throne, “‘perfected in the exalted great mes of the universe.'”

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When you have sprinkled the mountain oil on your holy body. Did you catch that mountain oil? Which is essentially saying temple oil on your holy body. Oh, Nana, when you have been placed on your exalted throne, girded with a fine linen garment, the exalted oil, the oil of regality, the oil of your great storehouse on the holy body and sides. Pretty great stuff there.

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This rite also seems to have been practiced among the early Christians. Searle of Jerusalem, he was a theologian and a bishop of Jerusalem in the early church, and lived around 313 to 386 AD, said this, But we too have been anointed with oil, While symbolically on our foreheads and senses, Our bodies are anointed with this oil that we see.

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souls are sanctified by the Holy and Life-giving Spirit. Interestingly, Cyril claims that this anointing rite came down through the Apostles, the original Apostles. I find this quite intriguing so we’ll definitely have to look into this in a future episode. All right, we also see a similar rite among the Hopi Indians of the American Southwest. The author of the Hopi Indians, Walter Hugh,

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He says, it is no small task to include all the fields and the blessings asked by the flute priests, since the circuit must exceed 20 miles each day. Shickia Boutoma, wearing an embroidered kilt around his loins, his long glossy hair hanging free stands before the flute priests, a brave sight to behold. They fasten a small pouch of sacred meal at his side and anoint him with honey.

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on the tip of the tongue, the forehead, breast, arms, and legs. Then he receives the prayer sticks and away he goes.” The use of honey here is quite intriguing because we find a similar use of honey in a text known as Joseph and Azaneth. And this refers to Joseph of Egypt and his wife, Azaneth. And I’m going to save that story for when we talk about the coronation of Camilla, but tuck the anointing oil as honey in the back of your mind because we will come back to it.

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Before I close out this episode, I want to make one last observation. In the previous episode, we pointed out that the Hebrew word messiah means the anointed or the one who is anointed. The title Christ is actually the Greek translation of messiah, meaning to anoint. And I think the fact that the chief moniker or title used for Jesus even today is a reference to his status as an anointed one.

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speaks to the tremendous significance of this anointing right. And I also think that this title should give most Christians pause. When one claims to be a Christian, what one is really claiming, though I’m guessing that most Christians have no idea that this is what they are claiming, they are claiming that they too have been anointed, that they have been anointed in the same manner as Christ. To say, I am a Christian is the same as saying, I am.

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anointed. That’s literally what it means. Branches of Christianity that still perform an anointing rite are more closely tied to the original religious tradition. Those branches of Christianity that have discontinued the anointing rite or who marginalize it as unimportant or non-essential have moved far from the original religious tradition.

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And I invite them to continue searching the Judeo-Christian scriptures because the power and essential nature of the anointing rite are right there in holy writ for all those who have eyes to see. From what we’ve seen in the ancient record, the anointing rite was not only an essential characteristic of the world’s oldest religious tradition, it was a central, indispensable rite.

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because it was through this rite that one accessed the gift of the tree of life and became, as the ancient Egyptians said, ochified or became like God. Wow, we packed a ton into this episode. So you have a lot to think about and a lot to ponder, which of course I hope you do. You know, if you enjoyed today’s episode or you’re a regular listener,

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I encourage you to take a minute at the conclusion of this episode to leave a review on Apple podcasts or on the platform you’re using. And this review isn’t for me. I find the ancient tradition fascinating no matter what. But I’d like a few reviews so that others who are searching for spiritual truths might know where they can find a few answers. That caps this edition of the ancient tradition. As always, I leave you with the words of William Shakespeare. But this time when you listen to his words.

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Think of the anointing oil and spiritual knowledge. In the words of William Shakespeare, knowledge is the wing we’re with when we fly to heaven. I’m Jack Logan.

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You’ve been listening to the Ancient Tradition. A Wonk Media Production.