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The Hypostyle Hall
In Fig.4 below we show a drawing of a
typical hypostyle hall being crossed by a procession during a
festival of the god. As can be seen from this figure and the
preceding ones, both the amount of pillars and their impressive
thickness are clearly exaggerated for the weight of the
superstructure they had to bear.
The Egyptians were fine engineers, and would never commit such a mistake. Hence, we may clearly conclude that the purpose of the exaggerated number and thickness of these pillars was ritual. What ritual was that, though? In the introduction to the present essay, we mentioned the fact that the hypostyle hall was indeed a replica of the subterranean realm of Atlantis or, rather, of its tropical forest with its enormous trees. Indeed, it represents the Lost Continent sunken underground and rendered dark when the sky collapsed over it. Can we justify such an unusual assertion? We certainly can.
The semi-obscurity of the hypostyle hall was intended to convey the idea of a nocturnal, gloomy realm like Hades and Cimmeria. This darkness is further enhanced by the decoration on the roof, which depicts the starry night sky. The same symbolism is also encountered in tombs such as the tholoi of Minoan Crete and the tumuli of Etruscan Rome, or even in the domes and crypts of certain early Christian churches. If we look again at our discussion of Fig.3, we see that this gloomy sky represents the belly of Nut, the Celestial goddess in Egyptian tradition.
This dark abode of the dead corresponds, as we said there, to the region of Paradise, enclosed between the four Pillars of the World. But the Egyptian Paradise, their land ancestral, was Punt, the Land of the Gods. Punt is in reality Atlantis, this Egyptian name being a corruption of the Sanskrit Bandha, a name that literally corresponds to the Dravidian Punt. Punt was precisely the local (Dravidian) name of Indonesia in ancient times, when the Dravidas still inhabited the place, before moving on to India and elsewhere. This name was translated into Sanskrit as Bhanda ("Bridge") in the magnificent relation of the Ramayana, one of the first and greatest epics of all times.
Eden and Its Luxuriant Vegetation
Another thing that strikes the visitor of Egyptian temples such as the one of Fig.2, is the bright coloration of the hypostyle hall and the luxuriant nature of the vegetation therein depicted. Very clearly, the realm there depicted is not desertic Egypt, but some tropical forest turned gloomy and nocturnal for some obscure reason. If we review Plato’s exacta discussion of Atlantis as a tropical paradise full of perfumes, trees and luxuriant vegetation, the analogy with the region depicted in the hypostyle hall comes naturally to the mind.
The second evidence for this analogy consists in the nature of the vegetation there represented, and which is clearly intended to represent a tropical forest of huge trees, something wholly unlike anything we ever had in Egypt but which, to believe Plato, was commonplace in Atlantis. In hindsight, we only find, in the ancient world, a parallel to that place in luscious South India and Southwest Asia, precisely the site of Atlantis, as we have been arguing.
And it was there, in Punt, where the Egyptians fetched their "wood from Meru", which they indeed never obtained from Lebanon, despite the contrary affirmations of some Egyptologists. Thirdly, the very nature of the vegetation represented in the pillars is very characteristic of the distant regions we just discussed.
Strangely enough, none of the three plants represented in the pillars of Egyptian temples — the lotus, the date palm, and the papyrus — seems to be a native to Egypt, as we discuss elsewhere. The lotus (Nelumbo speciosum) is a native of Indonesia, and many Egyptian texts explicitly acknowledge its origin in Punt. Punt was the land of smelly plants such as the lotus, whose perfum so fascinated the Egyptians. The smelly lotus was the attribute of Nefertum, the god that came from Punt, certainly bringing along his fragrant flower for cultivation in Egypt.
The date palm is an Arecacea which thrives in the Indies, from where it probably came, for there thrive an enormous variety of other members of the family, including the famous areca palm. The specialists do not really know the site of origin of the date palm. But they know for sure that it is not native to Egypt and that it indeed came from farther East than there. Finally, the papyrus was, like the lotus and the date palm, a plant that only grew under cultivation in Egypt. Even today the papyrus is rarity there, in contrast to Indonesia, where it is so abundant as to hamper navigation in its shallow seas.
All in all, it is plausible to conclude that the luscious region portrayed in the hypostyle halls of Egyptian temples is indeed Punt, and not at all the Egyptian delta, its attempted copy. And, as we already said above, Punt is no other than Indonesia, the true site of Atlantis, the Lost Continent. And that sunken region of continental dimensions can lie in no other part of the globe than Indonesia, as we argue elsewhere.
Dante’s Selva Selvaggia
A fourth evidence that the thick wood portrayed there is Indonesia is afforded by many ancient Occult traditions. Dante speaks of the selva selvaggia where he is lost in the beginning of his poem. So do the initiatic novels of the Arthurian Cycle. The Argonauts too are, at the crux of their saga, lost in the "wilderness" before they reach the Garden of the Hesperides which, as we said further above, was precisely the one of the legendary daughters and lovers of Atlas. In fact, the Seven Atlantides (or Hesperides) represent the insular remains of sunken Atlantis, as we show elsewhere in detail.
This mythical "wilderness" also figures in the Bible, where it is often confused with a desert. But is indeed a desolated, haunted, gloomy, fearful region like a tropical forest. Hermits everywhere seek this kind wilderness in order to exile themselves in their quest of Paradise. In this they follow the aranyakas ("errants in the forest") that we find in Hindu traditions, and who seek the seclusion of forests for their retirement from society.
The idea is that what little remained unsunken of Paradise, became a pestilent, infernal region, and was abandoned by all survivors, becoming a deserted jungle in the middle of nowhere. But the Indonesian islands — formed out of the mountains of Atlantis that remained unsunken — eventually recovered from the cataclysm, and were again inhabited, this time by headhunting savages that took a lot of effort to pacify.
The Atlantic Islands
Among the Seven Atlantic Islands — that is, "islands of Atlantis" and not indeed "islands of the Atlantic" sought by the explorers and discoverers everywhere — there was always one of them called by names such as "Selvaggia", "Madeira", "Boscosa", "Isla Verde" and other such names that mean something like "woody", "forested", "wild".
In reality, this island is no other than Java, whose name derives from the Sanskrit Yava meaning the same. And Java, like Sumatra and her other counterparts, indeed deserves the name, as it was the wooded island whence the nations fetched their wood, in antiquity. Indeed, the Indonesian islands were the mysterious Meru whence the Egyptians fetched the wood for their temples and their ships, just as did King Solomon and others.6
Yet an argument that is telltale of the true meaning of the origin of the pillars of Egyptian temples has to do with the name of Atlantis. The Hindu name of Atlantis is Atala, (or Patala or Tala-tala), names which are derived from tala ("palm tree", "pillar").
Atala is the same place we know as Hades. This Abode of the Dead is often confused with Hell, though the Hindu abode of the dead ancestors is indeed very pleasant, like the Punt of the Egyptians, the Dilmun of the Babylonians and the Elysium or Islands of the Blest of the Greeks. Indeed, Atala (or Patala) is the archetype of all such "Realms of the Dead" of the ancients.
Actually, Atala (or Atalas) is also the name of Shiva as "the Pillar of World". And this is the very epithet of Atlas, the eponymous hero of Atlantis. It can hardly be doubted that Shiva Atalas was the archetype of Atlas in Greece. In India, many legends tell of the "fall" of Shiva who is, indeed, like Atlas, the Primordial Castrate. And this "fall" or "castration" indeed refers to the one of Mt. Atlas, the Phallus of the World.
There is, yet, another connection between Atlantis and palm trees that is even more compelling to Westerners than the one of Atala. The name of Punt (Puanit in Egyptian) is, as we saw above, precisely the same as that of Phoenicia, the primordial Phoenicia that was both the "Land of the Phoenix" and the "Land of the Palm-Trees".
The origin and reason of this name is not hard to discover. In the Far East, and particularly in the Andaman Islands, the palm-tree is considered the Tree of Life, due to the many products that are taken from it. Moreover, the palm tree is there equated with the Pillar of Heaven whose collapse caused the end of the previous era, the one of Atlantis, as is evident in hindsight.
In other words, this Primordial Phoenicia is the Paradise of origin not only of the Phoenicians, but of many other races as well. Actually, the name of Atala, so closely connected with the one of Atlantis, also means "Land of the Palm Trees", both in Sanskrit and in Dravida, the two sacred tongues of the region of Indonesia before the cataclysm that forced its people to emigrate to better, safer regions of the world.7
The Sanctuary and the Meaning of the Holy Barque
In the sanctuary (or holy of holies) of the Egyptian temple was kept the holy barque of the god or goddess, the one in which he/she was processioned along the Nile. Actually, the statue of the god was kept inside a sort of chest that was indeed the cabin of the embarkation. This cabin was called naos or pyxis in Greek, and corresponds to the Ark of Covenant of Judeo-Christian traditions, to which it served as the model. Its Egyptian name is per, a word which indeed designated the shrine within which the statue of the god was kept.
Actually, many authorities hold that the Ark of Covenant is a direct copy of the Egyptian shrine (per), that is, the naos or cabin of the holy barque. These holy barques correspond to the well-known Solar Boats in which the gods were deemed to travel to and from Paradise, as illustrated in Fig. 5 and in innumerous other iconographies.
To make a long story short, we may say that the barque is the Ark where the gods once came from Punt, crossing the Indian Ocean, driven out of their homeland by the terrible cataclysm that caused its sinking. Such is the nocturnal trip illustrated by the voyage of the matet boat. And, in the end of times the gods, led by Osiris, whose figure the Pharaoh represents, shall return to Paradise (Punt) the same way, sailing in the sacred boat, the one of the return.
The Pharaoh as the Barger of Paradise
In Egyptian, the radix per is connected with the idea of motion and, more precisely, of crossing into Paradise inside the naos of the Solar Boat. It also forms the name of the aa (or pharaoh), who is indeed the alias of Osiris as the ferrier of the Solar Barque of Paradise. Moreover, the word also designated the pylons (or gateway) of the Egyptian temples, which represented the similar ones of Paradise, as depicted in certain Egyptian iconographies. In other words, the Pharaoh (per-aa) was indeed "the great one (aa) in the ship (per)", rather than "the Big House", as some unwise Egyptologists often interpret his name.
This means that the Pharaoh was the captain of the Ark, the pilot of the Celestial Ship represented in the skies by the Argonavis constellation. More exactly, the Celestial Pilot (Per-aa) is represented by the beautiful star Canopus (alpha Carinae), which is often identified with Osiris or Atlas in this role of theirs. As we explain elsewhere in detail, the word Canopus, the name of the pilot of the Argonavis and of the boat of Osiris, the Solar Barque, indeed derives from the Dravida, and means "Pole Star"(xan-oppu. By extension, it also means "Pilot", "captain", as the one who navigated by keeping an eye on the Pole Star.
The word Canopus also applied to the so-called "Magic Calabashes", a sort of primitive sextant/compass combination used by the ship’s pilots in antiquity to orient themselves by means of the star Canopus. Canopus is the (talking) figurehead of the Celestial Ship, the Argos (or Argonavis constellation). It is from these "Magic Calabashes" that derives the idea of the Canopic jars used by the Egyptians. It is interesting to note that the star Canopus was the (Southern) Pole Star some 14,000 years ago. Who else but the fabled Atlanteans could be navigating the outer oceans by means of Celestial Navigation and of advanced instruments such as the Magic Calabashes and Canopic Jars? How could the Egyptians and other ancient peoples know that Canopus was once the Pole Star, in times so far past? Why, if not for this reason, was the star Canopus so closely associated with Atlas and Osiris, the personifications of the "Pillar (or "Pole") of the World"?
In Greece, the equivalent of the Egyptian Pylons of Paradise corresponded to the Pillars of Hercules, the impassable Gates of Paradise. The title of the Egyptian Book of the Dead — indeed called Reu Nut Pert Em Heru (or "Spells for [Safely] Crossing into the Realm of Light") — also embodies the radix per- (with the addition of the t that marks the feminine gender in Egyptian).
This mysterious book of the Egyptians is in reality a recipe for crossing safely into Paradise (Duat or Amenti, the Egyptian Realm of the Dead). And the trip is done in the Solar Barque, which safely crosses through the mysterious place after passing the Gateway (or Pylon) that corresponds to the Pillars of Hercules in Egyptian myth. The soul of the deceased joins the company of the gods under the figure of Osiris, with whom he becomes identified after death.
One such is Fig. 6, which shows the deceased in the Solar Boat crossing into the Sequet-hetepet in the company of two gods, Ra and the Benu bird. The deceased is pushing the boat with a pole. Here, the deceased explicitly represents the Pharaoh in his role of Osiris as the Barger of Paradise; as Canopus, the Pilot of the Argos Ship (the Ark).
The region is divided in three sections by two further canals. In one of these are the gods, crouching. The two pairs of omphaloi represent the two pylons or gates of Paradise. The four ovals in the extreme right correspond to four lakes; the two birds are Benus. The boat carries a staircase with seven stairs. The seven stairs and the seven sections of the region, wholly surrounded by canals confirms the identity with the seven Islands of the Blest (or Elysium) of Greek traditions.
The boat is the one in which the deceased couple crossed into the paradisial place.
Said otherwise, the hieroglyph of the name of P’R-AA variously represents the Solar Boat itself, its shrine or cabin, the Barger and the Gate of Paradise that is to be crossed by the deceased in his role of Pharaoh, as an alias of Osiris. All these imply an idea of "crossing", "coming forth", that is, of "coming forth to Light", into Paradise, the Realm of Light where the Sun indeed resides and from where he starts his daily journey. The name of P’R-AA is indeed written in hieroglyphs as two Aat symbols connected by the Cow’s Belly that represents the Sky (the belly of Nut). The message is crystal clear and unequivocal: "the Gates of Paradise are linked across the Skies by Pharaoh, the Celestial Barger".
In still other words, the Book of Coming Forth (or Crossing) to Light is the recipe for successfully crossing into Paradise, that is no other than Peru or Meru, another name of Punt or Indonesia. And the Egyptian temple is, again, just a replica of Atlantis as the site of Paradise, with its sacred pools, its thick forests, its pylons and divisions and, above all its Solar Boat that guarantees the safe crossing into that difficult region, in the company of the gods, who grant the grace of such safety in crossing the perilous ocean that leads into the netherworld, that of sunken Paradise (Atlantis).
The Great Virgin Mother and Her Wondrous Son
The Sanctuary (or Holy of Holies) that followed the Hypostyle Hall has a very precise ritual function that has not been properly explained so far. The Open Court, fully exposed to the light of the sun, represents the present era. The intermediate, partly exposed Hypostyle Hall represented, as we just saw, the sunken realm of Atlantis. So, what can the third, holiest but darkest of all three sections of the temple indeed represent?
As a matter of fact, there were two Atlantises or, more exactly, what the Occultists call Atlantis and Lemuria. Lemuria (or Mu) is the Great Mother, "virgin" because it engendered itself without the help of a male, that is of external insemination by other civilizations such as is the case with all civilizations we know of. Atlantis itself was engendered by the Great Mother, of whom it was a colony. So, Atlantis is the Son, the wonderful Son of God who grew up to be far greater than the Great Mother, herself a formidable, universal empire.
It is from allegories such as this that the myth of the Great Virgin Mother who engenders the wonderful Son of God, who later becomes her lover and husband, in an affair as confused as that of Brahma and Ushas; Orion and Dawn; Atlas and the Atlantides; Oedipus and Jocasta; and many others we could quote further.
The Secret History of Mankind Embedded in Myths of Paradise
It is now possible to reconstitute the secret history of Mankind so masterfully illustrated by the Egyptian temple. Humanity was born in Punt (Indonesia), where the two original races of Man represented by Adam and Eve first sprung to life. Adam, the Red, eventually mingled with Eve ("the Great Mother" = Ava), and engendered the third race.
The race of Adam was that of the Chamites (or "Reds"), the sons of God. The one of Eve was that of the Aryans (or "Whites"), the Peoples of the Goddess. The third race was the one of the Semites, the hybrids of the first two. This is the marriage of the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men mentioned in Genesis 6 as the actual cause of the Flood and of the destruction of Atlantis-Paradise. But, not impossibly, the ruddy races of Adam were the Cro-Magnons, the one of Eve were the Neanderthals and the third one were us, their hybrid sons. Only further ethno-genetic research will be able to tell with certainty if this ancient tradition is really true, as we believe it is. Would our wise ancestors go to such a trouble just to tell us, their children, a lie?
This mingling — the Original Sin — resulted in the uncontrolled breeding and the consequent overpopulation of the earth which can only lead to famine, war and, finally, the destruction of the earth and the end of the Atlantean era, just as is apparently happening nowadays. In other words, the Bible is indeed right. But its correctness works at a far deeper level than is usually presumed, one so fantastically real that not even the hardiest of zealots ever dared to dream.
The Egyptians embodied, in their eschatological rituals — the ones sacralized in their wonderful temples and their spells of the Book of the Dead — the very history of Atlantis in every detail. Moreover, they clearly identified Atlantis with Paradise, and even gave the recipe of the wonderful news: the one that we can indeed be saved by divine grace and return to our Lost Paradise in the company of the gods, by being identified with Osiris and Pharaoh. Indeed a beautiful message, the same one as that of the Gospels, the evangel we somehow distorted into a purely spiritual alias, the one of the never-never-land of Heaven.
We know that many of our assertions above will seem vaunted and ill-founded to many of our dear readers. But they are the fruit of many years of research, and are founded upon strictly scientific arguments that cannot be given here in full. The reader interested in further details is invited to read Part II of this essay, where the symbolism of the Egyptian temple is compared to the one of other nations and different religions. Better yet, he is invited to read our books on Alchemy, on Atlantis, and on related matters. We recognize the fact that most if not all doctrines herein expounded are not only difficult to follow, let alone believe. But they are the Truth, and nothing but the Truth, just as Plato repeatedly affirmed. When the Light — the Light that radiates from the Primordial Cave — is too much, it can be obfuscating. But light can only blind the bats and other such nocturnal vermin.
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