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The Egyptian Mystery Religions |
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As in lacing a shoe with a string, early Africans' religion laced every activity of their daily living. At first they were oriented to religious practices (e.g. rituals) in order to get what they wanted (e.g. health) or to not what they did not want (e.g. natural disasters).
Then, sometime before 10,000 B.C., a system of beliefs centered around three types of deities arose out of their religious practices. First was the supreme deity, the one universal high God who represented the forces of nature (e.g. the sun, moon, stars, wind, storm).
Second were the local gods contained in objects and animals. Third, personal gods consisted of objects or creatures chosen by individuals to receive their allegiance. Eventually, religious cults in different locations of Egypt took on trademark beliefs.
Since knowledge of these beliefs was closed to the public, they became known as the Egyptian Mystery Religions. When priestly teachings of each began in full force during the third millennium B.C., they were also called Egyptian Mystery Schools.
The main appeal of these secret cults was to those who simply wanted something more profound than what was available to everyone in the public temples. All mystery schools stressed the Esoteric aspect of their respective religious traditions -- i.e. understanding the inner truth lying hidden within the core of their fundamental beliefs.
For example, the Hermetic school of Hermes Trismegistus (?4000 BC) divided its esoteric teachings into the mysterious things about God, the things belonging to God, and the things revealed by God to humans (Deut. 29:28). Since God has unknowable, the best these teachings could do was to put the student into the "ballpark" of what each of these three were about.
It was then left up to the student to engage in Contemplation (thoughtfully dissolving into and identifying with Universal Truths) so as to develop insights into deeper meanings of God's profound reality. Other cults focused on the supernatural (those spirits and forces located between God and humans) and ways to magically control them through the mere possession of spells, formulas, and secret names.
An example of how the priest/magician could command the very gods to do his/her will is seen in the Turin Papyrus. In essence, the goddess Isis gained control over the sun god Re (Ra) by tricking him into revealing his true, or secret, name.
In order to have a rebirth, each member of the Hermetic religion aspired to pass above and beyond "selfhood" as well as to pass the limits of his/her mind. The path to rebirth was about becoming mystically involved with God. Hermes said God is a Big Mind and ultimately everything in existence in the Universe is a thought within God's mind.
Furthermore, by being made in God's image, whatever exists within a human's world is similarly a thought -- a thought capable of enlarging and expanding into creations. His point is that through powers of the human mind, all things are possible.
Knowledge from discerning the inner meaning of external appearances and knowledge for making amazing creations obviously conveyed very special powers to the possessor of that knowledge. For fear of its misapplication by the masses and for fear of its destructive application by evil people, Egyptian sages recommended popular education of the masses but without teaching their Divine secrets.
To ensure no informational leaks occurred, African sages "Hermetically sealed" the Divine secrets by adorning them with layers of myth. Their words: "The lips of wisdom are closed, except to the ears of understanding" ...and "When The Student is Ready, The Teacher Will Appear" meant that only the initiates (candidates for priesthood) could be taught the esoteric secrets.
Today, many authorities say the Egyptian mysteries are the ancestors of the Greek mystery school; the religion of Moses and the Jews; and the birthplace of Christianity. ("The Hermetica," Freke p. 15)
Joseph A. Bailey, II, M.D
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