Fresh Batch #155: Orion | Any Celestial Body Becoming Invisible

The Correlation between Cults & Astronomical Occurrences

As we continue to explore the farrago of mythology and history, I’d like to bring your attention to the multiple uses of certain archetypes that at some points are ascribed to asterisms, and at others to the sun or luminaries. Lockyer wrote (Dawn. Astr. p. 299.), “I have previously noted the symbolism of Sirius-Hathor as a cow in a boat associated with the constellation of Orion. We get associated with the cow in the boat, Orion (Sah) as Horus, but in other inscriptions we get Orion as a mummy—that is to say, in the course of Egyptian history the same constellation is symbolised as rising sun at one time and a setting sun at another. Now, that must have been so if the Egyptian mythology were consistent and rested on an astronomical basis, because Sah rose in the dawn in one case and faded at dawn in the other. From the table giving a generalised statement with regard to Osiris, similar to that we have already considered for Isis, it looks as if the mythology connected with Osiris is simply the mythology connected with any celestial body becoming invisible. We have the sun setting, the moon waning, a planet setting, stars setting, constellations fading at dawn. We see, therefore, that the Egyptian mythology was absolutely and completely consistent with the astronomical conditions by which they were surrounded; that, although it is wonderfully poetical, in no case is the poetry allowed to interfere with the strictest and most accurate reference to the astronomical phenomena which had to be dealt with.”

Whether Lockyer’s and other Egyptologists’ interpretations of the mythological system are correct, regardless of how poetic or fantastic they become, their overall sentiment is correct in the sense that the system was rigid and anchored to reality, be it a cycle of nature or an astronomical occurrence.

Regarding Denderah, he wrote (Ib. pp. 299, 300.), “A curious and interesting thing is that we find that the temple of Isis, which is very much ruined, does not contain emblems of the Sirius worship; but that all these appear in the temple of Hathor, which, of course, pointing as it does to the north-east, could never have received any light from a star south of the equator. There has been a change of cult.

“On the other hand, the temple of Isis presents so many emblems thought to relate to the worship connected with γ Draconis, to which the temple of Hathor was in all probability directed, that it was named the Typhoneum by the French Commission.”

Again (Ib. p. 300.), “With regard to this change of cult, we moderns should have no difficulty. We go to Constantinople and see Mahommedans worshipping in St. Sophia; we go to Greece or Sicily and find Christian worship in many of the old temples. Thus the change of cult in Egypt, which I claim to have demonstrated on astronomical grounds at Denderah, is a thing with which we are perfectly familiar nowadays. The great point, however, is that in Egypt the change of cult might depend on astronomical change—upon the precession of the equinoxes, as well as upon different schools of religious or astronomical thought.”

There is something Lockyer observed that raises my suspicion of fraud (not on his part, but on the dating of Egyptian writing and the interpretations of it, in general). He wrote (Ib. p. 301.), “The Egyptians were much more anxious to bring back to knowledge what happened 1000 years before than to give an idea of the current history of the country.”

This reeks of the Indian Princes having the history of India written in such a way as to pretend to be unimaginably ancient, yet they produce no historical artifacts or inscriptions that corroborate this. There is, in fact, nothing even pretending to be history prior to the 3rd century BC in that country. There is no practicality of any race glorifying history they have no artifacts from. My culture does this particularly with Atlantis, which there is no evidence of besides the writings of Plato, who admits everything he knows about Atlantis was from what he remembered Solon singing when he was a child, some nine millennia after the alleged fall. Whenever I see this being done, I can almost guarantee it’s an effort by the priests and their noble puppets to feign godliness and descent from the gods.

Lockyer continued (Ib. pp. 301, 302.), “One of the longest-lasting astro-theological strifes in Egypt was the fight for supremacy between the priests of Amen and the priests of Set. At Denderah the former were ultimately victorious, and hence the change of cult.

“This suggestion is based on the following considerations:—

(1) While the Denderah Hathor was represented by the disk and horns on a hippopotamus, at Thebes (the city of the Bull Amen) Hathor is represented by a cow with a like head-dress.

(2) Isis, represented originally as a goddess with the two feathers of Amen, standing in a boat, is now changed to a cow with the disk and horns.

(3) Hathor was the cow of the western hills of Thebes. It is in these hills that the temple Dêr el-Bahari lies; and this temple, if oriented originally to Sirius, would have been founded about 3000 BC, when Sirius at rising would have an amplitude of 26˚ S. of E.

(4) A temple was built or restored later at Denderah, and Sirius with the cow’s horns and disk became the great goddess there; and when her supremacy all over Egypt became undoubted, her birthplace was declared—at Denderah—to have been Denderah.

(5) In the month-list at the Ramesseum the first month is dedicated to Sirius, the third to Hathor. This is not, however, a final argument, because local cults may have been in question.

(6) Set seems to have been a generic name applied to the northern (? circumpolar) constellations, perhaps because Set = darkness, and these stars, being always visible in the night, may have in time typified it. Taurt, the hippopotamus, was the wife of Set. The Thigh was the thigh of Set, etc. γ Draconis was associated therefore with Set, and the symbolism for Set-Hathor was the hippopotamus with horns and disk. Now if, as is suggested, Sirius replaced γ Draconis, and the cow replaced the hippopotamus, the cult of Set might be expected to have declined; and as a matter of fact the decline of the worship of Set, which was generally paramount under the earlier dynasties, and even the obliteration of the emblems on the monuments, are among the best-marked cases of the kind found in the inscriptions.

(7) The Isis temple of Denderah was certainly oriented to Sirius; the Hathor temple was as certainly not so oriented. And yet, in the restorations in later times (say, Thothmes III.—Ptolemies), the cult has been made Sirian, and the references are to the star which rises at the rising of the Nile.

To Lockyer’s credit, he also acknowledged some difficulties with his theory, especially with the orientation theory, which would necessitate the cult following the star for as long as possible. But even with the precessional movement causing the star’s function to become inoperative, he did not have an explanation for why the Egyptians didn’t continue the same cult under a different star when they changed Orion from a form of Osiris (Sah-Osiris) and a mummy (when they were blocked at dawn during the rising of Sirius) to that of Sah-Horus (when in later times the constellation rose heliacally).

For this particular portion of the article, my intent is not to correct anything or give insight, but rather provide you with a resource so you can see how uninitiated scholars approached these subjects in the 19th century, and how much of it was based on interpretations and guesswork. For those interested in learning the ancient universal system of priestcraft, rather than focusing on guesswork and interpretations, dive into the Spirit Whirled series and The Real Universal Empire.

Become a member to access the rest of this article.