Transcript

{ } = word or expression can't be understood
{word} = hard to understand, might be this

...on a -- empire of old, that the founding fathers had the -- had this dollar note imprint with the pyramid, because that was the symbol of freemasonry. The freemasons in -- in contrast to the Church, looked upon the Egyptian pyramid as full of wisdom and secrets. And if you have ever attended a performance of The Magic Flute, you will know that Zarathustra, under the name of Zorastro, is there not a Persian as he was in reality, but an Egyptian high priest. Do you know that? You know the name Zorastro, perhaps, the -- the opponent of the King -- Queen of the Night.

So in the -- at the end of the 18th century, we are in middle Egypt. We are in the restoration of the ideas of antiquity. And we'll have -- will have to follow this up, this very strange -- perception of universal history, that we, when we go back- -- forward in time, and now write 1967, you have even more cause to look backward at the same time -- further, deep down into -- history. Man is this animal which, when he goes forward, must go backward. And that's why I have to -- had to tell you first of the tribes, because they are older than Egypt, even. And that's the -- why they have to be regenerated today. The strange tension, that the more we go forward in time, the more we begin to tremble if we lose contact with the -- our beginnings.

And so on this pyra- -- this pyramid proves that all of a sudden, while the Europeans knew nothing of Egypt--they didn't care -- couldn't care less--all of a sudden, the Americans print the pyramid here on their everyday note. It's really a very clear story. And of course, you can see how history proceeds. Not one of the fathers of this country who had this done understood it, knew why this is an instinctive movement, to give the United States a background that would out- -- out-European the Europeans, you see. The Europeans had no pyramid. We { } this new state, with -- the 13 colonies, and -- you see, and excel, and go backward more than Europeans ever dreamt.

So if you think you are existentialists, and that you live today, you are very mistaken. You are very old. And in order to speak to other people, you must even grow older. History is nothing of the past, but it surrounds us. And this fact that this pyramid is on this bank note should make you -- well, either shudder or at least think that the -- the more you hurry into the third millennium, the more you will be translated into languages of old, one of them being the Egyptian language of the hieroglyphs.

When Napoleon--at about the same time as this -- as this note was forged--when Napoleon went to Egypt in 1798, he sat down at the foot of one of these pyramids, the Great Pyramid in Gizeh, near Cairo, and he -- he was 30 years of old -- of age, and his generals were even younger. But he was already --

had an { }, and was lazy. So he sat down at the foot of the -- Large Pyramid and said to the generals: "Now you climb it." And they all had to go and run up.

And while they were running and perspiring, he sat down. And when they came back from their errand, he said, "You know what I have done in the meantime? I have figured out the number of stones that were needed for this pyramid. And I have figured out that these stones are so many that a fence, a wall would stretch around the whole of France, of the kingdom of France in order to use up these stones."

I think that's a good story. But it may impress you with the fact why the pyramids are such a tremendous thing, and why to this day they appear on your banknotes. Imagine! One pyramid devours as many stones as it would take to build a wall around the whole of France. That's quite a big order, even for California.

The whole world is in one pyramid, condensed. And that's literally true. A pyramid is the expression of the world domination of the ruling Horus, the rul- -- ruling falcon-god, who flies from the First Cataract in Aswan and Syene, where now the Aswan -- Dam is built, to the mouth of the river in the Mediterranean. And in this quality of the flying Horus, he masters the universe. And it is a universe. It is that universe which is needed to explain the harvest, the movements in -- of this whole agricultural endeavor, which Egypt constitutes. Egypt is one big cereal factory, and the Hindus could indeed be glad if they had even a semblance of this rationalization which the Egyptians introduced, after all, 2776 B.C.

Now about this Egyptian order, there is more or less -- more -- many stupidities and follies are in circulation. And that's why I would like to begin with something rather simple about the order established there by the pharaohs. And that is found in Troilus and Cressida, by Shakespeare. Shakespeare describes in the first act of Troilus and Cressida that which the -- the pharaohs achieved. And Mr. Smith was good enough to lend me a copy of Shakespeare. And I have now to find it. That's not so easy.

(Page Smith: Page 973.)

Good for you. Wonderful. You see, that's history.

Now -- many of you will have heard of this famous quotation, when the prince, in -- the Grecian camp, before Agamemnon's tent, the princes meet. That's what Odysseus said:

"...look, how many Grecian tents do stand

Hollow upon this plain, so many hollow factions. When that the general is not like the hive To whom the foragers shall all repair, What honey is expected? Degree being vizarded, The unworthiest shows as fairly in the mask. The heavens themselves, the planets and this center, Observe degree..."

You remember what I said about observing, in the last -- at our last -- lecture, that this was the secret of their feeling?

"Observe degree, priority and place, Insisture"--wonder- -- wonderful word, "insisture," made up for the purpose--"course, proportion, season, form, Office, and custom in all line of order: And therefore is the glorious planet Sol In noble eminence enthroned and speared Amid the -- amidst the others; whose medicinable eye Corrects the ill aspects of planets evil, And posts like the commandment of a king, Sans check" -- check, sans check, yes, that's what it is--"sans check to good and bad: but when the planets In evil mixture to disorder wander, What plagues and what portents, what mutiny, What raging of the sea, shaking of earth, Commotion to -- in the winds, frights, changes, horrors, Divert and crack, rend and deracinate The unity"--now comes this wonderful word, which you all must keep forever--"the unity and married calm of states Quite -- quit from their fixture! O when degree is shak'd, Which is the ladder to all high designs, The enterprise is sick! How could communities, Degrees in schools and brotherhoods in cities, Peaceful commerce from divid- -- dividable shores, The primogenitive and due of birth, Prerogative of age, crown, scepters, laurels, But by degree, stand in authentic place? Take but degree away, untune that string, And, hark! what discord follows; each thing meets In mere oppugnancy: the bounded waters Should lift their bosoms higher than the shores And made a sop of all this solid globe. Strength should be lord of imbecility, And the rude son should strike his father dead: Force should be right; or rather, right and wrong,

Between whose endless jar justice -- resides, Should lose their names, and so should justice, too. Then every thing includes itself in power, Power into will, will into appetite; And appetite, a universal wolf, So doubly seconded, with will and power, Must make perforce a universal prey, And let us last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon, This chaos, when degree is suffocate, Follows the choking. And this neglection of degree it is That by a pace goes backward, with a purpose It has to climb."

Well, I'll leave you here. You have -- probably have all read this before. But it is an attempt to rule man in an astronomical, in a celestial order, and to have on earth a reflection of the degrees. And this -- ambiguous word, "degree." We speak of 360 degrees in a circle. And here is degree, dignity, you see, rank; it's the same. Because the stars move, of course, by degrees and in degrees. And if every one of -- one of you can feel that he moves as a star, his degree will be obtained, and will be known, and will be observed.

So the word "degree" in this democracy of yours is perhaps the best word of reconciling you to the fact that there are degrees. Somebody is president of the United States, and somebody is even standing here at this moment and doesn't allow you to do anything but sit there and yawn. That is, we here, too, obtain degrees. There are movements of the mind, in which you pretend that you're learning something. I'm pretending I'm teaching something. But without these pretensions, we couldn't be here.

This is the discovery of the Egyptians. I -- brought you -- there is a parallel of even a better thing perhaps than Shakespeare who wrote this, after all, in 1600. This dates back to the year of the Lord 1500 B.C. But in history, that's a very small time, you see. Only in newspapers is -- is a year a long time. In history, a thousand years before God are just as one day.

The whole order--the "consideration of the world" is the proper word--is an attempt to treat the world as an astronomical order. If you look at the word "consideration," it comes from "sidus," the star. And "consideration " is treating you considerately, as though you were a star, with an unbreachable, unimpec- -- impeccable course to follow. You -- I treat you considerately if I respect that you are in the world of the heavens a star who must be allowed to move on his -- on his destined course.

This is, of course, lost on you, because the word "consideration" has lost all

consideration. But it is a very wonderful word. It's an astronomical word. Not an astrological word, but it is a word of wisdom. Man will be treated by his fellow man correctly and -- humanely if he is treated like a star in the sky. If your parents can treat you as a constellation, they will know how to deal with their children, even if they have 16. If they have only one child, and don't treat it with consideration, they do- -- can't place him. It's easier, of course, to educate a long -- a large family, because in a large family, this fact that every one of these children moves in a certain spectacular and yet un- -- predictable order, makes itself -- more easily felt. The only child is very bad -- bad off, because no consideration, but spoiling.

And I recommend you then to -- to consider--that's the same word once more, you see--that we must treat each other considerately. And in doing so, we transpose the order of tribal descent, from chieftain to medicine man and living generation into the sky world, where there is an order which is more majestic, which with -- nobody can interfere. Here you are; I am not allowed to kill you. I'm not even allowed to tease you, because you move in an order which is invisible, which I can only anticipate by treating you with respect. And so you do to -- with me. It's very queer, because it shows you that modern philosophy is very poor indeed. We all live in two worlds: in the visible world, and in the world of consideration. You couldn't possibly, by looking at me, know how you should treat me. You must have heard my name; you must have { } to this, you see. You must have come and sit down here. That's all in a second world, in a higher world, in a world of professions, in a world of knowledge, in a world of tradition. And most people -- you are such boys of nature--or girls of nature,which is even worse--that you decline. All Americans think, "I'm just -- I'm me; I'm myself." Gentlemen, self doesn't exist in humanity. don't believe that you are ever self. When you are self, you are ripe for the graveyard.

This -- this self-consciousness, this enlightenment, this all -- has struck me all my life as absolutely silly. As far as you -- talk to me and I talk to you, and expect something from me, we cannot be self. We can only be considered as moving in an order, which every one of us tries to smell with our flair, with our scent for the eternal order which we try to reproduce. As soon as you begin to look at yourself, what you see is too ugly for words. It -- you commit suicide. All the nervous breakdowns come from the fact that people want to use self- -- introspection. Clean your room or organize your books is a better activity, you see. Forget yourself. That's the only way in which we can survive. We can, however, find ways and means of eternal consideration, of eternal meaning.

Now here is something written down around 1500 B.C., which may be the -- the oldest budget of a kingdom. A famous Egyptologist, {Allan Gardiner}, {Allan Gardiner}--whose name I think you should make -- keep in -- in memory, because he is the outstand- -- was the outstanding explorer of Egyptian texts, {Gardiner}--published this list from an inscription in the temples in Luxor.

North of Aswan, north of the First Cataract, there is a temple -- city of Karnak. You may have read this. It's quite famous, Karnak, with all the temples. And the city is called Luxor from the -- Arabic: "the two fortresses," it means. And they are all the later tombs of the Egyptian kings at the time when they couldn't afford to build pyramids, after the -- the Jews, and the Israelites, and the other natives of Egypt had struck, and said, "We won't go on building these damned pyramids." And they did this, you see, after the first -4 -- period of 1460 years, the years which form the -- the first Great Year of Egyptian history. The Egyptians stopped the pharaohs and said, "We won't do it."

So the pharaohs found in the heart of Egypt a big wall called the Valley of the Kings in which the -- the second batch of pharaohs--beginning with, I think, 1500 B.C. to 700--were buried. And the -- so there was a kind of -- shorthand, kind of abbreviated edition of the pyramids. Has anybody been to Egypt? It's worth doing.

The word for this order which I'm now going to read to you from this old inscription is hard to translate. I can say "budget"; I could say "state." The very word "state" comes from this order, so that everybody has his proper state and estate. And it's a statement of states, of statehood. Look -- listen to how it begins.

"The god of speech, the god {Phar}, who invented the hieroglyphs is said to have created the sky with all its processes. The earth, and everything that it -- contains. The rudiment, the waters coming forth, the mountains, the inundation..."

...which is of course the heart of Egyp- -- Egypt. Oh, heavens! Is here no water? Inundation brings this -- brings this to mind, you see.

"The abyss of the waters, and all the things on which the sun shineth. All"--now comes the very great sentence--"All the institutions which on earth connects one piece with another."

That's perhaps the most profound con- -- conception of the Egyptians, you see. There are ditches; there are bridges; there are roads. They are there to connect one piece of land, or one entity -- unity with another. I've never seen in any other report of antiquity the feeling for the miracle that all these things are connectable, and are connected. That they belong, you see, together. Although at first you see only one tree, and then you see a mountain. But you also realize that they can be connected.

So on it goes from this center point.

"All the institutions by which on this earth, one piece is connected with one other. The writer of the sacred book says, 'Sky,

disk of the sun, moon, main star, Sirius, Orion, the thigh of Set in the northern sky, his custodian, the hippopotamus, the consid- -- constellation, { }, tempest, thunder, dawn, darkness, light, shadow, flame, ray, dew, hail, fountain, mainstream...'"

...or you can say "Urstrom." How would you translate this? "Ur." It's more than "main." It's the primeval stream.

"The climbing," or "the mounting of the river, one of the arms of the Nile, the sea or the ocean, the wave, the lake, the pond, the cistern, a basin, the water in the canal, the -- the swamp in the southern part of the country, the swamp in the northern part of the country."

It's called not "northern" and "mid-" -- and "southern," but it's called the "noon" counties, and the "midnight" counties.

"The lower lands, the lowlands, the trenches, the dessication, the basin, the --"

What's the Pftze, the piece of water? What's the -- in which you tread?

(Puddle.)

Wie?

(Puddle.)

Ja. The puddles, quite. "The -- the fen- -- the -- the frontier between lands," I mean, the little -- how do you -- call the little piece of land between two fields on which you can barely walk, you see? Two farmers will have a -- a boundary.

({ }.)

Wie?

({ }.)

Ja.

"The hills, the roads, the dikes, the islands, the plains, the highlands, the hills, the quarries, the new harvest, the new seed, wood -- the sand..."

How would you say? the sand -- we have it -- down here, I mean, not a quarry, but where you find sand instead -- instead of stones. How would you call that? {Sandoben}. What? What do you say?

"Lime, wast- -- waste- -- wasteland, cultivated land."

Now comes another list, but is equ- -- equally startling. This was all a visible part of the earth. Now comes:

"God; divinity; soul of man, soul of woman; the governing emperor, who is God at this time; the imperial lady, the empress; the mother -- of the emperor; the princes; the heir of the throne; the first minister; the unique friend..."

That was a title for the famil- -- for the people in the confidence of Pharaoh, you see; he was called "unique friend"--of course he was not unique. That's why he was -- had to be called so.

"...the son of the lord; the oldest son; the commander at the head of the bodyguard; the secretary of his cabinet of the -- of -- of Horus; powerful god; grand master -- great mas- -- grand master"--I think is correct--"grand master of the house of the good god; first imperial herald" -- what's { }, "herald?" the man who marches ahead of somebody? how do you call them? No? Neither Latin nor Greek. So -- "Hail and eternal life to his majesty."

So after they have listed all this, he is obviously frightened that he hasn't shown enough humility, enough devotion to these great titles and these great powers. So all of a sudden, he exclaims -- oh, wonderful.

({ }.)

I must -- . Now --.

({ }.)

So, that's the celestial order. Thank you. All right.

Now comes "the carrier of the Wedel" -- how would you? the fan, the fancarrier around the god. Of course, you can see -- think of all the flies in Egypt. So you couldn't govern without such a --.

"Executor, executioner of the famous works of the lord of both parts of Egypt; palace -- palatial president of the victorious overlord; master in the hall of receptions for the divine master: hail

and eternal life to his majesty; scribe over all the magazines which are found in the palace."

Now we go on. This is the center of government, described as you have it here. Then we go on -- and why do I go on, gentlemen? Because Egypt is the cradle of what you call "economy." "Economy" means to rule a house. What -- I have been hearing here, and what I shall have to proceed with, is that the -- the hundred tribes, by the courage or the enterprise of the pyramid builder, was transformed into a house.

All houses before Egyptian -- Egypt were round huts. They were -- the house of Egypt, however, is an imitation of the sky. Therefore it is oriented. You know where east, west, north, and south are. And there are sharp corners. The -- the invention of architecture is an Egyptian invention. Nobody before ever had an idea that you could do -- had to determine in building where the four directions were. Why should it be east-oriented, you see. The very word "orient," as you can see, comes from the idea that you cannot build unless you know where east is. That's the condition for your being oriented. The word "orient" means to have fixed the -- east.

That's all forgotten today, of course. But here we are at the beginning of all lasting buildings. And this is what was -- happened here for the first time. The Chinese, the people in Guatemala and Yucatan, they all have acceptances from Egypt. There are no buildings in America -- which have not their origin via Cambodia, and India, and perhaps Persia, from these Egyptian buildings.

So I now come -- this transformation then, of the wild earth, the irregularities of the earth, into a mirror of the sky in which in ev- -- of every -- on every piece of land, and on every human being shines the sun of order from the sky. This is the contribution. And that is, I think it is right, it should be on this dollar note. You are reminded quite rightly that your organization, which you take today for granted, was invented here.

The local administration -- now we come -- that is, removing from Pharaoh's center, we find a reflection, a duplication of beautiful order in the 36 counties of Egypt. Just as there are 36 times 10 days in the calendar in the sky, in constellations imitating the position of Orion in the -- in the zodiacal light, the pyramidal light, so on earth in Egypt there are 36--later, 42--counties. They reflect the same order as in Heaven, on earth. When we pray, "Your will -- thy will be done as in Heaven -- on earth as it is in Heaven," that is good Egyptian.

The local administration then is:

"the governor of the -- of the -- well, district, the count, the -- I'm try- --it's hard to translate these titles into English--the com-

manders of the military district, the commanders of the reserves; the head of the white double house, which is silver at -- in -- for the night, and gold for the day; the administrators for the beauty from foreign countries; the colonels for the bulls; the colonels for the imperial slaves."

The sequence is very significant: first come the bulls, and then come the slaves. You -- think you could be in Mississippi. And:

"The people who administer the chariots for battle; the people who are in charge of the chariots, who govern" -- oh, how do you say? "handle them; the people who fight from the top of the chariots"--so they are, so to speak, the -- the mobile part of the -- of the force; "the people of the infantry; the chairman of the office in which the writing is done; for all the gods of all the country in the temple of every county, venerable heads of priests and astrologers; for all the gods in the North, as well as in the South, which are worshiped in every part of the land; the mayors of the villages; the inspectors of public works; the leaders of the peace corps of his majesty: Hail, and eternal life to his majesty."

In sequence to this, we list the financial experts of the imperial treasure:

"The conductor of the whole agricultural tasks; the officers who -- conserve the seal, the seal for the customs to be levied at the -- on the -- at the seashore; the president of Syria and Ethiopia"--they are, of course, outlying districts; "the writer of the revenue service; the people who estimate the land"--'tax collectors' you can also say--"the people who are in charge of -- building the canals in the lowlands; the people who con- -- collect the taxes everywhere, where agriculture is done; the intendance for -- for entertaining the members of the court; the heads of the voluntary courts for the highest office of justice; the inspectors of the ports in the Red Sea, in the Nile, and the Mediterranean; the imperial writer of Horus, who is in charge of the divine liturgy; of the white double house, the main -- master of ceremonies; the first, the stargazer of the god Amon of The- -- Thebes; the high priest of the sun-god Ra, and of the god of the horizon; in On..."

That's Heliopolis, the -- the sun near the pyramids, the oldest temple city of Egypt, O-n, is wha- -- where you go today to -- it's called Heliopolis, which means the -- "city of the sun." But the original name for the first 3,000 years has been On. It's on the right bank of the river Nile, so opposite from Cairo, and opposite from the pyramids. I hope you will all see this one day. It's worth a -- more worth the journey certainly than to go into the fog of London.

"President of the administration in Memphis; organizer of the household of the god who has the beautiful face of Ptah, P-t-ah."

Ptah is such a wonderful word, because he is the god of writing.

Now we go on. Don't think that -- this is all already finished. Now come:

"The presidents of the double im- -- double service of taxes, in the South as well as in the North."

I may repeat for your orientation, that the -- the -- the country of Egypt is divided. Here are the pyramids, in Gizeh, in Saqqara to this day. That's the heart of the country. Through the building of the pyramids, the king--or the Horus, the falcon-god of Egypt--uni- -- says that he dominates both halves of Egypt. If this is here Aswan where now the big dam has been built by the Russians; and if this is Gizeh; and Cairo is here; and this is the delta, which is the most fruitful part of Egypt, because it's amply flooded, and it expands here --. The whole of Egypt is 1,030 miles long. Agricultural. And so the middle of -- Egypt is here. But the pyramids were not built, as you might -- expect, centralistic, but it is much closer to the wider land, the fruit land, where the delta spreads.

Now --. The list comes now to show the administration of the court of the emperor. In all double, every office in the -- in the imperial court had to be duplicated, because he was one emperor for the moonlight, the silver; and one emperor for the gold light of the sun. And every office therefore is duplicated in order to show that he is master of day and night.

I told you that Horus has -- is written with two signs for the rising of a star. Sun -- that's his sign. Sun and moon. What's the moon? Just at night, and then disappears often. What's the sun? Just at day. You must think that an em- -- empire is based on the assumption that the emperors -- just as now Mr. -- Mr. Johnson, you see, can master the -- the business cycle. Anybody who can master the business cycle, you see, is superior to anything in the sky, which is simply following its eternal rules, but cannot change them.

Now you assume too that the -- some economist will break the business cycle and -- get you rich. The -- Egyptians were surpri- -- convinced that the phar- -- pharaoh of Egypt could produce the great harvest every year. That this was their -- that's why they -- they felt protected by him.

Down to 1874, since 2778 B.C., every July, the scribe at the Nile-o-meter, in Cairo, had to report how fruitful the year would be. And he had to mark it -- and we have this Nile-o-meter to this day. In 1874, however, it was given up because the English came. And down to that time, the pharaoh had to prove himself that

he could always produce the harvest.

I think we -- I cannot afford to go into the details of this measurement of the {tribes}. Here, in this book of mine, my historical book, The Full Count of the Times, I have given the details how it was done. But you must know that these inscriptions, which I'm reading here now, were read with great rejoicing and with the emphasis: "He really can do it. It's true. Every year, he has proved that with all these offices--in the South and in the North--the slaughter of the cattle in his palace, the order of the interior bedrooms, and reading rooms, they have worked so that he knew what the stars would be doing."

And so I come back now to my list, and he says -- he -- they say:

"There are scribes for the gods in the temple, for all gods; there are astrologers; there are fathers of the gods; there are priests; there are ministrants; there are scribes; there are scribes for every one liturgical text" -- obviously a different {tribe} for every text; "the master of the chapel, of the portico; the -- the guards for the -- every hour in the service of the -- temple; there are people responsible for the transportation of the sacrifices; there are people who have to carry the god on their shoulders," you know, as in a -- what's 'S„nfte'? Well, they -- "there are those who bake the -- the double cake, and those who bake the simple cake; and there are the incense-maker, the bread makers, the confiture makers, the date -- confiture makers; the people who wind the crowns; the people who carry the milk bottles for the little princes"--that's perhaps an office for me. "And" -- that's what I do with you now, you see. Just bringing you the -- simple milk of innocence; "the carpenters; the people who are able to write in hieroglyphic characters; the people who can cut out the stones, the sculptors; the blacksmiths; the goldsmiths; the formers; the founders; the carriers; the ribbonmakers."

And I end this list with the exclamation: "What a state!" The word "state"--ladies and gentlemen, don't -- never forget this again--comes from this list of functions of an imperial court which -- who has mastered the sky world. The word "sky world" is quite a helpful world. Some anthropologists use it, and I think it's a good term, to remind you that this demanding achievement of an emperor in antiquity is depending on his mastery of the movements in the sky. As people are glad to be treated con- -- with consideration, because he promises them that they should move as the stars in the sky.

Is this clear that "sider-" -- "sidus" means "star," and "consideration" means to treat somebody as though he was in the constellations in the sky? I think it's an important and useful word, and perhaps the regents of the university should

have considered that.

Horus--I have to come back, so that you do not wince when this { }--Horus is the falcon-god. And the great reversal of all religion, from the tribal order to the Egyptian order is that the son, living son--the living Horus, as he is called, the living falcon--must usurp his rights against his ancestor, against his father. In Egypt, the s- -- living son who builds the pyramid is super- -- considered superior to the ancestors. It's the opposite from a tribe.

In this sense, there is this precise dialectics of which you hear in Marxism so often, that history is a dialectical process, you see. The thesis, the antithesis, and the synthesis. Well, in Egypt, it's simply true. Everything you read in the texts of Egypt is written against the previous order of the tribe. Not the ancestors command the living, but the living command the ancestors.

The -- the leading -- this leading man {Gardiner} of -- in -- in -- of Egyptological rank, has expressed it very nicely and said he had never met with any par- -- in any part of the world so much fear of the dead toward the living.

The owner of a pyramid depended for his good treatment on the building -- on the good will of the living pharaoh. He had to build this pyramid. And therefore, whereas in a tribe, the mask of the dead dominates you; in an empire, the living pharaoh has to feed the dead. He has to put out food in -- at the entrance of the -- for example, of the -- every -- every month, there is this corps, which I read to you, these people who have to do this: the cooks, and the --. It's unexpected for you, I'm sure. An owner of a pyramid had a terrible time to reconcile the living pharaoh with his pyramid, and to make sure that the old pyramid was still served and not deserted.

And since there were at the end nearly 70 pyramids, you can imagine that was quite a mortgage for the finances of the living pharaoh. That's probably one of the reasons why they -- he had to be very exacting when the Jews were in Egypt, and they had to work hard.

The budget of a pharaoh is all the time in disorder, because the dead people have to be fed, as though they were alive. And they can't do anything about it. The strange relation of dead people to living people in the empires is not what you would expect. The living are feared by the dead. In the tribe, the dead are feared by the living. In Egypt, the living make themselves felt, make themselves feared. If they don't come, if Horus doesn't travel through Egypt, the whole empire goes bankrupt.

This is for you hard to understand, but perhaps a formula may hel- -- help. The Egyptians have created an eternal present, an eternal present. And since you only live in the moment, you cannot understand the expanse of the

present which was the length of a Great Year, 1460 years. The -- any Egyptian pharaoh felt that he was circling--or cycling, or whatever you call this, moving, constellating--within one Great Year of 1460 years. And he had to keep the wheel of this tremendous steering problem of keeping 1460 years going.

The present of the Egyptians is quite sublime, something you and I can -- can hardly hope to repeat. When Christ come -- came, the problem of the Christian era was to supersede this long period. And you know how they called it? Eon, an ae-on, a-e-o-n. And that's why Christ is called the Lord of the eons, because to Him, the tribes, and the empires, and the city of Rome, and the -- Roman Catholic Church are all one and the same problem: to master time. But He is not bound by the 1460-years' cycle. So He is called, when the first Great Year was repeated in our Christian era, in 781, he -- the document of the pope signs, "Thanks to God, who is the Lord of all the eons, we are free from the old Great Year."

Now you can divide today modern people who read the -- into those who take astrology, and the -- and the stock exchange seriously, and those who do not. And -- because -- we still have among us of course some people who believe in Black Magic, and who are, like the Egyptians, inclined to believe that there is star lore which can foretell them something. For them, I would like to say explicitly that the Egyptians were not in this sense superstitious, that they had a horoscope given to an individual. It was the horoscope of the whole empire which they observed, and which they followed. Only when Egypt disintegrated, around 600 of our era, do you find personal horoscopes put up for you or me, for money, and asking the people, "What do the stars say about my fortune, about my life story?"

Well, you must understand that all this horoscope business for the individuals is a late invention. It had noth- -- has nothing to do with the Egyptian achievement of a real astrology in which the whole empire moved according to the seasons, according to the constellations -- in Heaven.

So it's funny to say, but it is the truth, that the Egyptian were far less superstitious than you and I are inclined, when you have an -- horoscope. They didn't believe in horoscopes for individual farmers, or kings, or philosophers, or doctors, or students at Cowell. They only believed that Egypt was in the care of the gods, that the fruitfulness of their harvest was determined by the rising of the flood and the disappearance of the flood every year, which is simply true.

And since this is nearly unknown, I thought I should tell you explicitly that astrology comes to you today in a -- in a really impossible shape, in a scandalous shape, because it has nothing to do with the ancients, and it has nothing to do with you and me. It is the invention for robbing you of the money which your parents give you.

These are -- what they call "astrology" in the papers is absolute -- later -- a late invention of pure nonsense. It has nothing to do with the astrology of antiquity. The astrology of antiquity came from the necessity of predicting the rise of the Nile waters in July, at a time when in all other countries, the waters decrease, you see. The funny thing about Egypt is that the flood from the Abyssinian mountains melts -- the snow there melts in July. And the flood starts to come down to Cairo at its highest in -- on July 19th. And this is the new year of Egypt. And for this reason, they counted these five Great Days, as the beginning of every new year; and then they had 360 days; that is, 10 times -- what is it? Ja, 10 times 36. And I told you that the Ro- -- Latins, to -- until 500, in the history of Rome, figured their calendars also at 10 months -- 36 days. That's why you only count till December, "December" meaning 10, the last month was December. And November, October -- you can see it, September, see from these names that they were satisfied with the calendar modeled after the Egyptian model of 360 plus 5 days.

This goes into every nook of our calendar. The -- this is much later than February or January were invented and added to the -- our calendar as we -- you use it. And the -- the five days from February 24 to March 1st are to this day, extra five days put out upon the old Roman calendar, the old Latin calendar, and the old Egyptian calendar. You can see it from the 24th of February, which is the day of Matthias, of the apostle who was elected afterwards, when the -- Judas had betrayed the Lord. And from -- February 24 to March 1st was the New Year in -- in Rome. And they had an interregnum, as they called it, of five days from -- from -- no- -- meaning that these five days didn't belong to any special month. They were above the -- the figuring of the calendar calculations. And I think that's of some interest to you to know that the time, chronology is of course of the essence, and of the toughest memory of mankind. You cannot change calendars. Or if you can, you are very -- very, very unhappy.

I -- I feel always that these chambers of commerce who demand that Easter should be fixed, they should all be executed. They have no idea what a calendar is, and what dignity it has, and what importance. And just for their salvation, so that the interest can be paid every month in the -- for the same number of days, the -- all these banks argue now with us that we should give up the ancient calendar and fall into this mech- -- mechanism of 30 days every month, you see, and nothing else. Don't -- don't help them, please. There is danger that even the pope succumbs to these chambers of commerce.

The calendar is not to be tampered with, because it is a real experience. Egypt has lived on the wheat produced by this observance. And I think you must understand that one thing it is to have science, and a -- quite another thing is to be observant, or to be considerate. No science can tell you what you should observe. They don't know that. They don't observe anything, and then they get the Nobel Prize.

This is quite serious, because we are surrounded by this temptation today to do as we please. Well, the working mankind, and the marrying mankind, and the growing mankind--that's not the same as the mind of a physicist. And you have no reason to follow the physicist in any of these things. But what we do tog- -- together in order to make a living; that's important. And so the Egyptians did, and supported, after all, an empire; they exported also the wheat to Rome, for thousands of years. And this means that there was an order in which everybody participated.

And here why -- we come now to the next thing I want to tell you today: the word "myth" and the word "liturgy." The Egyptians have an imperial liturgy. And the actors of this imperial liturgy I have read here to you. Now the word "liturgy" to you is a rare word. You think there is on Sunday something like this in church. You think it's a superfluous thing; or it is an elegant thing; or it's an Episcopalian thing. But believe me, you and I--I told you this already about meals and tidinesses--we cannot live without liturgy. The liturgy is the form by which -- inside which your act is understood by me for what it means, and your act -- I am understood by you. Without liturgy, we are animals. The liturgy, however, has to be replenished by myth, m-y-t-h. And since these two things are unknown to you, and are carried around now in vague books by Bultmann, and Schultmann, and Wultmann, you must know what a myth is. There is no demythologizing; that's all nonsense. But there is myth. And myth is inevitable for any truth which we can only fathom in part.

The Egyptian dollar note here is so important for you, because you can learn what a myth and what a liturgy is from this little picture here. Why? Horus had to travel every year from the First Cataract on July 19th for 60 days down to Cairo, and had to prove to the -- his followers that he mastered the flood, that he knew when the people should give up their garden land, and move -- remove to the -- {building} of the pyramids for two months, you see. Now that's how the pyramids were built. And you find stones from the First Cataract used in the building of the pyramid down here, because of -- these -- all the workers came from down the river and carried stones with them on their boats when they flooded -- when the Nile was high up, and flooded.

This is liturgy. The imperial liturgy of the Egyptians may well take our breath, because it was a unified effort of a -- 2 million people perhaps, you see, to serve, to observe the great event in the sky.

Now what is a myth? Obviously, Egypt is a limited country. China is a limited country. India is a limited country. Rome is a limited country. So the myth is that part of the story which has to be s- -- told, because it can -- can't be experienced.

What does this mean? Simply, quite simple. Gentlemen, if you had been a

pharaoh, you could have ordered your people to follow you down the river. But you couldn't have explained by this voyage how you ever got back on -- on the top of the Ni- -- Nile in Aswan. Every year, the As- -- the -- Horus started his voyage at the First Cataract. The myth tells you how he got there. That is, that part of any liturgy--it's the same in Catholic Church--which cannot be contained in the ritual itself, which is of a uni- -- too universal a character --. You can have the liturgy of Holy Communion; but you can hardly have the liturgy of the 1967 years that it has taken until you can participate in the liturgy. Yet, 1600 -- 1967 years this has gone on.

-- When we tell this story, this is the myth. "Myth" has a -- only means story, narrative. Nothing else. And in every human performance, there is a story to be told, because it cannot be produ- -- reproduced in facts. Somebody has to tell you that your parents got married, and you celebrate the wedding day. And the story how they got married, that's a myth, you see. But that they are married, you realize because they serve you the meal, and they celebrate your birthday. In every human action is both: liturgy and myth. And both you don't know. And you are the unhappiest creatures therefore, because you actually believe only in so-called facts. But they don't dec- -- declar- -- explain why you should act. Facts has nothing to do with your acts. Why should you sit down at a meal -- and give thanks? Facts are facts, and they have nothing to do with your and my heart and soul. Not even with your stomach.

So it is most important that you recover your sense of the liturgy and of mythology. Mythology is not -- is more than myth. It's just narrative, true story, when it explains the existence of an order, of a custom, of a ritual. And since all ritual is partial and cannot tell everything, every such a story is combined of mythology and liturgy.

Now this is totally lost in this country, and I don't know how shall -- we shall ever recover it. All the tradition of the last hundred years has been of these so-called Benjamin Franklin types, who think this is "nothing but." Gentlemen, that your parents give you something to eat, this is -- cannot be explained by "nothing but." It can only be explained by your saying, "Ha, imagine! They haven't let me starve. My parents have supported me all my life." And that's the celestial liturgy which penetrates your household.

Now if you want to have the facts, it explains nothing. Here -- people, your parents haven't enough to eat -- enough themselves, yet they feed you. That's the liturgy, you see. They cannot help inviting the people in the same household to be their brothers, and their sisters, and their children. Very strange. Very strange. Ex- -- doesn't explain everything, because they don't feed only you. They even feed the beggar who enters the house, you see, because he is a brother of the Lord.

So the brotherhood of man is -- is not a myth in the sense that it isn't true. But it helps to explain why in every decent household, there is one plate of soup reserved for the beggar, or for the man who comes uninvited and can participate.

So I -- what I've tried to say is--and I use explicitly these strange words, "myth" and "liturgy," because we need them. You have to emerge from this absolutely stupid approach to history, as though it wasn't your own story. This pyramid, that's you. That's why it is on the -- on the bank note, not for a reminiscence of freemasonry. Because since the pyramids have been built, we trust the heavens that they produce the harvest every year, and that there is enough to go around. The story how every year we do harvest, that's a mythology, because that's every year different. Sometimes by railroad, sometimes by airplane, sometimes by walking, sometimes by rowing. The way to come back from Cairo up to First Cataract, that's a technological question, you see. And that is the myth.

There is a famous myth of the return of the eye of Horus every year to the First Cataract, you see. The -- the Egyptians told this -- their children the story that the -- the eye of Horus flew back to the Ethiopian mountains and so arrived every day -- every year at the right moment on July 19th so that they -- again they could come down the river.

If you -- I'm dwelling on this, because at this one example--it's the same in -- India, the same in China, et cetera--you can -- learn what our language has to serve for, to -- compared to action. Any -- law, or -- the president of the United States, he can travel to Denver. And probably he would govern better if he didn't -- wouldn't reside in Washington, but in -- in Denver. Nobody can have sane ideas in Washington. But -- they have no ideas for this reason. And -- that's possible, too. It's quite serious, however, to under- -- you must understand, that this president of the United States has to govern the whole country. It's a pure abstraction that he can do that. You believe it. It's -- but only from experience that he has some ways and means, despite all these hundred senators who all cheat him -- try to cheat him to govern the whole country. Heaven knows how he does it! But it is quite unnatural. It is not done by a paragraph in the Constitution. It is done by the devotion of all the people who admit that he is president, and should be informed, and should be helped. You and I do this instinctively, too.

Well, that is the liturgy of a government, that the service is rendered. And all the things we don't do--we don't go -- perhaps you didn't vote--so we have to make up a myth, and say "That's democracy," you see. Democracy is that part of the government that functions without your doing anything about it. And when you do your duties, you enliven, you vitalize it. Every act of the government is partly based on your cooperation and partly is -- overrides your laziness or your indifference. If you think of the many acts which are performed, despite your

inner absence, it is very miraculous how we exist at this moment. Here, this room is -- dry, it is repaired, it's kept in good shape; we don't freeze. We have done nothing about it, nothing. You probably have even a scholarship.

And -- in every moment, gentlemen, half of the order is understandable and we are carrying it out. And half the -- order is a fairy tale, a mythology, believed in.

You know perhaps that the -- in theology, there has been a -- a fashion in the last 30 years about the myth of Christ. Well, that's just as nonsense as to say that Mr. Johnson is a myth. It is true that there are acts of the Church or the acts of government in which you and I cannot be found acting. We receive them. And as far as we are in the receiving end, which is pretty big, we can only be told that something happens; and we rely on it; and we accept it. But I am always surprised how these gentlemen and ladies of your age in these high schools are not aware of the incredible miracle that all this is offered you, that all this is coming to you, that we receive these things at the proper time, like the rain and the dew. This is the mythology of the story. We -- we have a mysterious way of -- overweighing the mythology and underestimating your and my necessary contribution to make it work.

I mean, anybody who cheats in an exam destroys one-half of the order which we have built up. And he does. And he doesn't think that this will lead to destruction of the academic process, although it will. If everybody cheats, then the educational process is at an end.

Now the Egyptians had a very clear notion about the -- those things which they could enact and reproduce themselves, and those which were pure myth, only there because they told the story. And the simplest form for you, I think -- that's why I put some importance to my report on the -- on the flight of the ear of the -- of the eye of the sun, of Horus, alongside the Nile River. The Egyptians were aware of this duplicity of all our constitutional behavior. They said, "Down the river, we can see Horus go. Up the river, we just assume that he may be flying there. We don't see it," you see. How he gets there; that's not part of this divine service. Just as a priest on Sunday is there at Mass, you see. How he got there, and what he did in the vestry, that's not up to inquire. The same problem of a myth and a liturgy, you see. The liturgical acts of a priest begin to count when he leaves the vestry and comes out into the sanctuary, to the altar, you see. But obviously many things had to have happened before, and later, you see.

And that -- and I would like to do honor to the term "mythology." I have pondered much about this, you see. Modern theologians take great trouble to -- to say, "This isn't so much mythology; it's all -- decent, and all true." I don't think we should be cheated in this manner. You have to learn that any performance in

which we are not the whole deity, and the whole divinity which we are part -- little pieces in the chess game of our God with us, can only be understood if they are part of something bigger. When we speak of the bigger, the Return of the Native, 4,000 years from now, we believe. And we tell the story. And in as far as you and I can contribute something to the order, we follow a liturgy. We do certain things, as the consecration of the host, or going to church, you see. This is the little part of -- by which we enact the order, you see. The other order, we are told, so to speak, we are spoken of. It's a narrative.

And so I have come to the conclusion: you are so ruined today by the modern Enlightenment, and psychology, and psychoanalysis, and all this -- these deviltries, that I want to -- to do honor to the word "myth." Yes, we can't live without myth. But what of it? "Myth" means story. And that which we cannot enact ourselves must be told. And these are not fairy tales, but are tales. And a tale must be told, as in Macbeth.

And so if you would bring up your children on story-telling, it would be a very good idea.

Thank you.