CHAPTER 1
Ancient Egyptian Religion and the Unconscious
That which is called Christian Religion existed among the ancients, and neverdid not exist, from the beginning of the race until Christ came in the flesh, atwhich time the true religion which already existed began to be calledChristianity.
—Saint Augustine
Dream Visions Light the Way
Jung once had a dream of rows of corpses that descended through the centuries toa medieval layer. At the end of this row, he came upon the corpse of a Crusaderwhose forefinger moved, thus presaging Jung's discovery of the unconsciousarchetypes, which had become largely activated in medieval alchemy. I too had astrange dream that also concerned layers of corpses, only this involved diggingthem up in an ancient temple, which quickly became a graveyard of very earlyEgypt. I had first come to a layer involving the Pharaohs, to a stele depictingthe gods in gold leaf and, as archaeologists stood around watching, they werespeechless at my discoveries. As I dug even deeper, I came to corpses of thevery earliest period, and this left the scholars awestruck. (I am merely statingthe dream here.)
Just as Jung then studied medieval alchemy after his dream, coming to somestartling conclusions, I too have come to realize certain things concerning theunconscious processes at work in both the early Egyptians and the Jews, of whichmodern Egyptologists and biblical scholars seem little aware. This is due in themain to their lack of knowledge of the collective unconscious and its archetypalprocesses.
It is also some years since I had another dream, in which Jung demonstrated tome how a royal line of blue blood—divine incarnations of the Higher Self—reachesback to the beginnings of ancient Egyptian culture, through the Hebrew prophets,and up to Christ. In fact, in my dream, Jung was to me "the personification ofspirit," to use one of his terms. The coming forth of these immortal figures isdue to certain initiates undergoing Jung's individuation process, and indeed, wecan see how this is so from both the Egyptian sources and the biblical texts,once we grasp that both are actual records of archetypal processes in andthrough the unconscious.
It is of paramount importance for us to realize that these processes not onlyoccurred, and occur, from the historical past to the present day, on the samedeveloping line, but that they involve direct experiences of God, forming theessence of a prolonged covenant with Him through the unconscious. Modern Man hasbroken that covenant, and it is imperative that it be restored. Man's verysurvival depends upon new understanding of his religious heritage, for only thencan the covenant with the spirit be renewed with the knowledge that it isauthentic.
Here is my second dream concerning the royal line of true blue blood and itsinterpretation. This will show that the concept was not primarily my own idea,but rather the facts as presented to me by unconscious/spirit reality.
I have a vision of a stream of blue blood that starts at the unrecordedbeginnings of ancient Egypt in a sort of lake. This runs through the Egypt ofthe Pharaohs, through the Israel of the prophets, and up to Christ. It becomesstuck there, however, and does not develop further as it is meant to do.
A giant-size Jung is overhead, but just from the waist up, and his mighty armsare outstretched to span the stream of blue blood, which is a royal line fromEgypt to the present. Jung says, "The royal line unites," but it must, I gather,be brought up to the present. Where the stream becomes stuck two thousand yearsago, I see Christ crucified. It is not on a hill, as always depicted, but in asmall public square surrounded by buildings.
The stream of blue blood is the royal line of spiritual kings, not kings of thisworld, but successive developments of the Higher Self as Son of God through thecollective unconscious. Egyptian kingship was based on the phenomenon of theHigher Self, or rather on the divine Father and Son archetype ("Out of theFather comes the Son," as an earlier dream of mine had said; see The Four GoldKeys), as were many gods and culture-heroes around the world. Abraham, Moses,Joseph, David, Solomon, Enoch, Ezekiel, and Daniel, the latter three with theirSon of Man figures, were of the line, and Jesus with the Son of Man, or theChrist, was possibly the highest development of it ever.
The Pharaohs were worldly kings, of course, but each of them was said to beHorus in human form, with the High God, Ra, as Father. This is what Jung meantwhen he said that Jesus as a man equals ego-consciousness, while Christ as a godequals the Higher Self. Iu-em-hetep was, in the cult at Memphis, divine Son ofPtah, and, in another form, son of Atum at Annu (also son of Atum-Ra). Iu-emhetephas since been demoted to the merely human Imhotep, whom we can now takeas the human initiate, corresponding to the man Jesus. Imhotep, builder of thefirst step pyramid in Egypt, was vizier and High Priest to Pharaoh Djoser (c2668-2649 B.C.). Imhotep was always considered a god by scholars until a partialstatue of Djoser was unearthed (only the feet remained), bearing the titles ofImhotep on the base.
So Pharaoh/Horus/Ra, Imhotep/Iu-em-hetep/Ptah, Daniel/Son of Man/ Ancient ofDays, and Jesus/Christ/God are all based on the same developing model.Melchizedek, the mysterious priest-king from whom Abraham receives bread andwine, who has "neither beginning of days, nor end of life; but made like untothe Son of God" Ps. 110:4; Heb. 5:6), is certainly the Higher Self of Abraham.Samson with his great strength, which is actually the power of the Higher Self,is another version, while the story of Moses is full of symbolism of processesthat can only involve the Higher Self and God.
The roots of Christianity, as well as lying far back in the ancient past, alsoand primarily lie rooted deep in the collective unconscious and ultimatelyinvolve God but must undergo further development. This, if it occurs, will be agreat leap forward and will bring the royal line up to date. The effects of thiswill continue the relationship, the covenant, of Man with God, which began somany thousands of years ago. This must involve the Higher Self in all itsaspects, including the divine Father/Son incarnation, as well as the recognitionof the lower depths of the unconscious, the Lower Self, the World Soul, whetheras the Virgin Mary as goddess or otherwise. (Mary as goddess will be explainedlater.)
The further development must also involve the dark underside of the unconscious,which...
