“It’s better to be poor and to live in a desert but with a lotus in the soul than to be rich and to live among people but with emptiness in the soul”;
“There is no use in freedom for a man if he is blind to his soul”;
“Merits are measured by deeds performed by you”;
“During the time of a trial don’t look for friends and don’t blame enemies but set hopes upon God”;
“Only that man misses slavery who strives to dethrone a king who gave him freedom”;
“Only that man flourishes who helps people in need and not that one who makes others fear him”.
Many other sayings by Imhotep were used by priests and viziers of the next generations in their ‘teachings’ because the words by Imhotep were quite popular among people and were spreaded by word of mouth, from one generation to another.
“Imhotep had a quite tolerant attitude to all religious concepts of the state. He deserved a genuine respect and sympathies not only of the pharaoh but also influential priests of various religions because he acted very wisely and delicately even in respect of the priests’ policy. However his own firm position was belief based on Knowledge. He didn’t have doubts in what he was saying, he wasn’t hypocritical as it was typical to many priests and aristocrats. People felt a Man of Knowledge in him. That’s for why many people who found this invisible but quite perceivable strong belief in him Imhotep became a revealer of Truth. Mainly due to his life style and world view Egyptians got a concept and absolute belief that this life is temporary and it is given for a man to deserve better life in the after-death world by his righteousness, honesty of thoughts and deed before God (and not before people). In that society belief in the after-death life became dominating.
Certainly, this belief was begotten not on the empty place. Belief in the after-death world was inherent to Egyptians from ancient times and, as I have already told you, it was initially based on knowledge. Just with time the knowledge was partially lost and this belief gained a form of confusing and unclear religion. Therefore the majority of people, so to say, worshipped mechanically to ancient gods, mostly without understanding and going deeply into the very religion. It was for them just a tradition heredited from ancestors nothing more. However everything has changed due to invisible work of Imhotep.”
“Invisible work? What do you mean under ‘invisible’?” Kostya asked. He listened to Sensei with the same enthusiasm as we did.
“Wait a minute, I will tell you right now.” Sensei made a few drinks of mineral water and continued his story. “All mentioned merits of Imhotep were only a visible part of that great work he managed to do during his life. But there was more valuable and significant invisible work which was thoroughly hidden from strangers. High position gave Imhotep a real opportunity to contribute his share to realization of the global world architectural project narrated to him by the Sokrovennik. It could bring an invaluable value to the humankind of the far future.”
“I see it was a man of great soul,” Nikolai Andreevich said thoughtfully. “When he was at the top of power he thought first of all about common people and took care about the future of humankind. I wonder whether there are such honest people in the upper strata nowadays.”
Sensei nodded but didn’t join this topic and went on telling. “Imhotep acted wisely in solving this very complicated problem. In fact, the visible part of his work was preparation to the main work. Because to realize Imhotep’s idea was possible only under the conditions of highly organized society. So he acted as follows. After he learnt well traditions morals and manner as well as psychology of the ruling elite, priests and especially the pharaoh, he used their weak points for the sake of realization of his plans which brought later invaluable spiritual help to many people. Imhotep suggested to Djoser a project which was completely unprecedented for that time, and the pharaoh couldn’t reject it. Since according to his belief Djoser, like other Egyptians, had to take care first of all about his life after death and as it was usual among pharaohs he was obliged to build his sepulchre still when he was alive. Imhotep proposed him an idea to erect an unusual burial-vault. It was unusual because it was not just a mastaba…”
“Mastaba? And what is it?” Yura asked politely.
“First it were rectangular wooden tombs of Egyptians. After that they began to build the tombs from brick turning them into constructions with decorative niches pointing out to the burial place and hiding it. Nevertheless ‘mastaba’ is not a Egyptian but an Arabian word meaning ‘bench’. They were called so by Arabian workers who worked with archeologists in Egypt in XIXth century.
So, Imhotep suggested to Djoser to build a stepped pyramid instead of a usual tomb, and moreover not from the simple adobe brick which was a widespread fragile building material but from hewn stone which provided for durability. It was a revolutionary decision for Egypt in those times. Imhotep’s idea to build ‘a staircase thrown from heaven for divine ascension of the pharaoh’ inspired Djoser so much that he ordered to start the works immediately, not sparing money for that, and entrusted it with Imhotep himself. I need to mention that a big brick mastaba for Djoser has been already built in Abidos, a place where pharaohs were traditionally burried.”
“It means that as Imhotep showed initiative, he was entrusted with it,” Stas grinned. “They say, iniative is always punishable!”
“But not in this case,” Sensei objected. “Imhotep was interested in this project more than others. He managed to interest in it not only the pharaoh but also influential priests because this project envisaged, apart from unusual burial-vault for the pharaoh, building of the whole complex including temples as well. Moreover, at the expense of the pharaoh’s treasury. And therefore it provided priests with future income from services in these temples. Furthermore he included into a site layout plan even a big granary, so to say, state owned. And I should mention that later due to big stock of grain kept there Egyptians were able to survive more or less well during the years of bad harvest and draught.
The place chosen by Imhotep for building of this truncated pyramid wasn’t occasional. It was located on the verge of plateau, the same very pateau which was only a few kilometers to North from the Great Sphinx. When Imhotep has been showing the site layout plan to the pharaoh, priests and aristocrats he explained the choice of this place of deserted plateau as a more close location to Memphis and a beautiful view from that place on Memphis. But in fact this place fully matched with one of the earth geographical coordinates marked on the ‘star map’ revealed to him still by the Sokrovennik. The Great Shpinx erected far earlier than that time (and not after the life of Imhotep as they assume it now as if it were during the time when big pyramids were built!) was an important reference point for precise and accurate location of this truncated pyramid.
“So, this grandiose building was intentionally extended not for one decade. Why? Because it wasn’t enough to build this object, it was necessary to ‘launch’ it. And for doing this the most important were highly spiritual people, both men and women. Imhotep spent many years for their upbinging and education, that’s why he extended in principle terms of this building and explained the delay to the elite as improvement and modernisation of his architectural plan.”
“It means that people were most important for Imhotep,” Nikolai Andreevich specified.
“Certainly. So, Imhotep acted this way… He gathered from all Egypt best masters in their professtions, and appointed best moral people (both men and women) to their assistants. He organized for them not only full employment but other better conditions of life and increased their social significance for the state. Imhotep launched not just a building. It was something like nowadays state enterprise with a full complex of social welfare starting from solving everyday problems of peole and ending with medical service of high quality. Bakers, doctors, clerks, accountants, sculptors, brick-layers and people of other professions worked at this huge enterprise, there was enough work for all, both men and women.”
“But they all were slaves there!” Kostya exclaimed with surprise. “Women most of all.”
“Noway,” Sensei objected. “This complex was built by free people. And despite the dominating opinion in our days there was a special attitude towards a woman in Ancient Egypt. She occupied an important place in the society, first of all as mother and successor of the kin, and she had the same right in the society as men. A woman had a right to choose any profession she liked. Talented women became high priestesses, doctors and even architects.”
“Wait a minute,” Nikolai Andreevich got interested in this issue. “Does it mean that there were high priests and priestesses in Ancient Egypt?”
“Yes. The high priest, for example, in that very Iunu was called as Ur Maa and the highest priestess as Urt Tekhent. Their status and level of knowledge was similar to the status of people with highest scientific degrees.”
“Do you want to say that they were people of science, including women?!” Nikolai Andreevich asked even more surprised.
“What does embarrass you?” Sensei asked in his turn.
“Well, I have read once that in ancient times if a woman took part in some religious rituals her role was usually limited with ceremonial dances and in the best case with musical accompaniment. But as a rule especially in those temples whose god was connected with fertility, her business was the so called ‘sacred prostitution’.”
“It happened really so but as an echo and empty imitaion by people to the so called ‘acts of divine force’ which were held in the secret organization of Imhotep among the narrow circle of initiated people where women played the leading role. These mysterious people of Imhotep were called as ‘possessors of sacred forces’, priests Ur Heku and priestesses Ur-t Hekau, since the divine force which they obtained from above during these ‘acts of force’ was called Heka. These people were not only storages and keepers of this divine force but they were able to pass it to things, thus ‘sanctifying’ them, and due to this force to help sich people to get healed. That’s why they were also doctors, not ordinary but universal, the most skillful among ancient doctors though these people just used pure Knowledge. I will tell you about it one day.”
“Excuse me, but why were there such limitations in Knowledge in hierarchy of doctors?” Nikolai Andreevich asked in official tone.
“Because this Knowledge was entrusted only to spiritually pure people. And they kept in deep secret the sacrament of obtaining the Force. Because the Force is the Force. It’s like a hammer, you can either build with it or destroy with it. Everything depends on the Master who holds this hammer in his hands.”
“It sounds logical,” Nikolai Andreevich remarked.
“As far as people of science in those times concerned, well, talented women also achieved much success in this sphere. Let’s regards that very medicine. Even today you may find a record that ‘the earliest known female physician who practiced in Memphis in IIIrd millenium b.c. was called Peseshet’. Though in fact she wasn’t the first female physician, just archeologists have found this only earliest record about it that’s why they called this woman the first physician… Medcine was regarded as sacred science at that time and it was taught at temples. It was believed that the recovery depeded not only on practical knowledge of a doctor but also on divine will that’s why apart from medical knowledge physicians learnt sacred texts. The priest-doctor didn’t have right to start healing a patient without offering up a prayer.”
“A prayer?” our psychotherapist again catched on a word. “But as far as I know, that time they practiced witchcraft and spells in religion of Ancient Egypt.”
Sensei smiled and replied joining this game of ‘official tone’, “Doctor, you have a wrong concept about the genuine reality of that time. And you will understand later why. And you will not just understand it but you will find necessary guidelines due to which you will find out all the truth about that time which would exhaust all your doubts. And now I will mention that witchcraft was prohibited in Ancient Egypt. There were clear distinctions between the divine mysticism which was based on knowledge of the ancients, prayer and assiduous spiritual service to God, and witchcraft which was practiced by curious laity inspired by their egoism as well as sorcerers or the so called ‘black magicians’, people who possessed some knowledge and used it for their mercenary goals against other people. Furthermore, people were strongly convinced that sorcery was harmful for spiritual health of people. And by the way some of the priests had even such a ‘specialization’ and were called Uab Sekhmet. They were specially trained to ‘neutralize’ activities of black magicians. Some echo of that priests’ ‘specialization’ could be seen in the modern world. The same is practiced by modern priests who deal with exorcism.”
“Alright, but you will not deny that they practiced magic forecasts of the future in Ancient Egypt and at least astrology?!” Nikolai Andreevich couldn’t stop.
“I will,” Sensei declared firmly but with a smile. And he explained immediately. “It took place but with a completely different implication than it is interpreted today. Let’s regard for example forecasts. One of Egyptian ‘commandments’ stipulated that people are not allowed to know about the future and to resort to services of fortune-tellers. It was written in the rules for priests, “Don’t try to know what hasn’t happened yet”. Moreover, the title of the highest priest (Imhotep also got it later) was called Ur Maa, it means ‘the Great prophet”. However activities of this priest weren’t connected with magical forecasts. His goal was to interpret in a right way the past events in order to ‘understand the will of God on which depended the future’. Since Egyptians were in earnest about the past important events, ‘signs’ and dreams, it was considered that God tries to warn people through them about something. And I would like to mention that due to this belief ancient Egyptians were very observant people in regard to both natural phenomena and social. Their ‘predictions’ were based on revelation of analytical regularities. The same concerned ‘astrlogy’ as well. ‘Astrology’ of that time wasn’t ‘fortune-telling’. In general it could be rather called as scientific forecasts in agricultural, astronomic, medical issues. Because namely priests dealt with development of science that time.
“But still, who were priests, religious leaders or scientists?” Victor asked.
“Both of them. In general they had a special priestly structure. The highest priests were religious leaders who were dealing with such issues as religion, politics and science. Also they had in this structure priests-scientists, priests-physicians, priests-clerks, priests-administrators, priests-clergymen, preachers. By the way, the last ones read during temple servies to believers ‘divine laws’, religious ‘teachings’ and preached.”
“Hem, I see their structure was similar to nowadays religions,” Victor remarked.
“Rather!” Sensei said with a smile.
Nikolai Andreevich uttered with a slight note of scepticism, “Well, I could imagine if in the modern world with its priority of scientific knowledge a physician would start to pray before healing a patient. It can cause confusion…”
“Confusion?!’ Sensei grinned. “Do you know, doctor, that even those who are considered now in the world medicine to be the most pragmatic people, I mean surgeons whose work is connected with living matter… and not just surgeons but outstanding surgeons… they prayed before operation, during operation and after operation. And they pray till now for the health of their patients. Since they know from their experience that however highly qualified a doctor is, many things in his practice depend on the Will from Above.”
“Really?” Nikolai Andreevich was sincerely surprised and uttered thoughtfully. “I didn’t know that…”
“But we digressed a bit from the main work of Imhotep,” Sensei came back to the main topic. “Due to that grandiose unprecedented building and joining to it of the best people in Egypt Imhotep got an opportunity to chose his personal disciples from the best both men and women who had a grain of spirituality and humanity. That group which Imhotep took to teach personally consisted of people with different professions but primarity it based itself on brick-layers. Therefore Imhotep entitled his group approximately as ‘Spiritually free brick-layers’ that is those who strived to the freedom of soul and got firem monolith-like belief and knowledge.
“Gradually they developed symbols of Imhotep’s ‘Spiritually free brick-layers’ which were copied so dashingly later by Ariman’s ‘Freemasons’: a bricklayer’s apron, a stone, a hammer, a pyramid with all-seeing eye (the ancient sign of Shambala, and for Imhotep’s brick-layers it meant belonging to light, spiritual forces), Phoenix, Sphinx (later ‘Freemasons’ changed it to a lion), a forepaw of Sphinx (a lion’s forepaw), figures 3, 5, 7, 13, 33 (it’s a number of people who formed a certain circle of power) etc. They recognized each other by certain words, signs and touches and later it was taken over by ‘Freemasons’. By the way, the sign of pentagram, the isogonal five-point star, which became popular among ‘Freemasons’ was one of the most important symbols for ‘Spiritually free brick-layers’ but they interpreted it completely differently. The thing is that according to the primordial knowledge of the science of ‘White Lotus’ a star is a symbol of the female divine nature, a circle means life and Universe. A star in a circle means a presence of female divine nature in the circle of existence. Besides, the female nature was regarded as a vessel for reincarnations and a woman regarded as a force– and life-giving being. That’s why they depicted in Ancient Egypt the Kingdom of Duat as a star in a circle which meant a kingdom for reincarnations of human souls.
“There is no use in freedom for a man if he is blind to his soul”;
“Merits are measured by deeds performed by you”;
“During the time of a trial don’t look for friends and don’t blame enemies but set hopes upon God”;
“Only that man misses slavery who strives to dethrone a king who gave him freedom”;
“Only that man flourishes who helps people in need and not that one who makes others fear him”.
Many other sayings by Imhotep were used by priests and viziers of the next generations in their ‘teachings’ because the words by Imhotep were quite popular among people and were spreaded by word of mouth, from one generation to another.
“Imhotep had a quite tolerant attitude to all religious concepts of the state. He deserved a genuine respect and sympathies not only of the pharaoh but also influential priests of various religions because he acted very wisely and delicately even in respect of the priests’ policy. However his own firm position was belief based on Knowledge. He didn’t have doubts in what he was saying, he wasn’t hypocritical as it was typical to many priests and aristocrats. People felt a Man of Knowledge in him. That’s for why many people who found this invisible but quite perceivable strong belief in him Imhotep became a revealer of Truth. Mainly due to his life style and world view Egyptians got a concept and absolute belief that this life is temporary and it is given for a man to deserve better life in the after-death world by his righteousness, honesty of thoughts and deed before God (and not before people). In that society belief in the after-death life became dominating.
Certainly, this belief was begotten not on the empty place. Belief in the after-death world was inherent to Egyptians from ancient times and, as I have already told you, it was initially based on knowledge. Just with time the knowledge was partially lost and this belief gained a form of confusing and unclear religion. Therefore the majority of people, so to say, worshipped mechanically to ancient gods, mostly without understanding and going deeply into the very religion. It was for them just a tradition heredited from ancestors nothing more. However everything has changed due to invisible work of Imhotep.”
“Invisible work? What do you mean under ‘invisible’?” Kostya asked. He listened to Sensei with the same enthusiasm as we did.
“Wait a minute, I will tell you right now.” Sensei made a few drinks of mineral water and continued his story. “All mentioned merits of Imhotep were only a visible part of that great work he managed to do during his life. But there was more valuable and significant invisible work which was thoroughly hidden from strangers. High position gave Imhotep a real opportunity to contribute his share to realization of the global world architectural project narrated to him by the Sokrovennik. It could bring an invaluable value to the humankind of the far future.”
“I see it was a man of great soul,” Nikolai Andreevich said thoughtfully. “When he was at the top of power he thought first of all about common people and took care about the future of humankind. I wonder whether there are such honest people in the upper strata nowadays.”
Sensei nodded but didn’t join this topic and went on telling. “Imhotep acted wisely in solving this very complicated problem. In fact, the visible part of his work was preparation to the main work. Because to realize Imhotep’s idea was possible only under the conditions of highly organized society. So he acted as follows. After he learnt well traditions morals and manner as well as psychology of the ruling elite, priests and especially the pharaoh, he used their weak points for the sake of realization of his plans which brought later invaluable spiritual help to many people. Imhotep suggested to Djoser a project which was completely unprecedented for that time, and the pharaoh couldn’t reject it. Since according to his belief Djoser, like other Egyptians, had to take care first of all about his life after death and as it was usual among pharaohs he was obliged to build his sepulchre still when he was alive. Imhotep proposed him an idea to erect an unusual burial-vault. It was unusual because it was not just a mastaba…”
“Mastaba? And what is it?” Yura asked politely.
“First it were rectangular wooden tombs of Egyptians. After that they began to build the tombs from brick turning them into constructions with decorative niches pointing out to the burial place and hiding it. Nevertheless ‘mastaba’ is not a Egyptian but an Arabian word meaning ‘bench’. They were called so by Arabian workers who worked with archeologists in Egypt in XIXth century.
So, Imhotep suggested to Djoser to build a stepped pyramid instead of a usual tomb, and moreover not from the simple adobe brick which was a widespread fragile building material but from hewn stone which provided for durability. It was a revolutionary decision for Egypt in those times. Imhotep’s idea to build ‘a staircase thrown from heaven for divine ascension of the pharaoh’ inspired Djoser so much that he ordered to start the works immediately, not sparing money for that, and entrusted it with Imhotep himself. I need to mention that a big brick mastaba for Djoser has been already built in Abidos, a place where pharaohs were traditionally burried.”
“It means that as Imhotep showed initiative, he was entrusted with it,” Stas grinned. “They say, iniative is always punishable!”
“But not in this case,” Sensei objected. “Imhotep was interested in this project more than others. He managed to interest in it not only the pharaoh but also influential priests because this project envisaged, apart from unusual burial-vault for the pharaoh, building of the whole complex including temples as well. Moreover, at the expense of the pharaoh’s treasury. And therefore it provided priests with future income from services in these temples. Furthermore he included into a site layout plan even a big granary, so to say, state owned. And I should mention that later due to big stock of grain kept there Egyptians were able to survive more or less well during the years of bad harvest and draught.
The place chosen by Imhotep for building of this truncated pyramid wasn’t occasional. It was located on the verge of plateau, the same very pateau which was only a few kilometers to North from the Great Sphinx. When Imhotep has been showing the site layout plan to the pharaoh, priests and aristocrats he explained the choice of this place of deserted plateau as a more close location to Memphis and a beautiful view from that place on Memphis. But in fact this place fully matched with one of the earth geographical coordinates marked on the ‘star map’ revealed to him still by the Sokrovennik. The Great Shpinx erected far earlier than that time (and not after the life of Imhotep as they assume it now as if it were during the time when big pyramids were built!) was an important reference point for precise and accurate location of this truncated pyramid.
“So, this grandiose building was intentionally extended not for one decade. Why? Because it wasn’t enough to build this object, it was necessary to ‘launch’ it. And for doing this the most important were highly spiritual people, both men and women. Imhotep spent many years for their upbinging and education, that’s why he extended in principle terms of this building and explained the delay to the elite as improvement and modernisation of his architectural plan.”
“It means that people were most important for Imhotep,” Nikolai Andreevich specified.
“Certainly. So, Imhotep acted this way… He gathered from all Egypt best masters in their professtions, and appointed best moral people (both men and women) to their assistants. He organized for them not only full employment but other better conditions of life and increased their social significance for the state. Imhotep launched not just a building. It was something like nowadays state enterprise with a full complex of social welfare starting from solving everyday problems of peole and ending with medical service of high quality. Bakers, doctors, clerks, accountants, sculptors, brick-layers and people of other professions worked at this huge enterprise, there was enough work for all, both men and women.”
“But they all were slaves there!” Kostya exclaimed with surprise. “Women most of all.”
“Noway,” Sensei objected. “This complex was built by free people. And despite the dominating opinion in our days there was a special attitude towards a woman in Ancient Egypt. She occupied an important place in the society, first of all as mother and successor of the kin, and she had the same right in the society as men. A woman had a right to choose any profession she liked. Talented women became high priestesses, doctors and even architects.”
“Wait a minute,” Nikolai Andreevich got interested in this issue. “Does it mean that there were high priests and priestesses in Ancient Egypt?”
“Yes. The high priest, for example, in that very Iunu was called as Ur Maa and the highest priestess as Urt Tekhent. Their status and level of knowledge was similar to the status of people with highest scientific degrees.”
“Do you want to say that they were people of science, including women?!” Nikolai Andreevich asked even more surprised.
“What does embarrass you?” Sensei asked in his turn.
“Well, I have read once that in ancient times if a woman took part in some religious rituals her role was usually limited with ceremonial dances and in the best case with musical accompaniment. But as a rule especially in those temples whose god was connected with fertility, her business was the so called ‘sacred prostitution’.”
“It happened really so but as an echo and empty imitaion by people to the so called ‘acts of divine force’ which were held in the secret organization of Imhotep among the narrow circle of initiated people where women played the leading role. These mysterious people of Imhotep were called as ‘possessors of sacred forces’, priests Ur Heku and priestesses Ur-t Hekau, since the divine force which they obtained from above during these ‘acts of force’ was called Heka. These people were not only storages and keepers of this divine force but they were able to pass it to things, thus ‘sanctifying’ them, and due to this force to help sich people to get healed. That’s why they were also doctors, not ordinary but universal, the most skillful among ancient doctors though these people just used pure Knowledge. I will tell you about it one day.”
“Excuse me, but why were there such limitations in Knowledge in hierarchy of doctors?” Nikolai Andreevich asked in official tone.
“Because this Knowledge was entrusted only to spiritually pure people. And they kept in deep secret the sacrament of obtaining the Force. Because the Force is the Force. It’s like a hammer, you can either build with it or destroy with it. Everything depends on the Master who holds this hammer in his hands.”
“It sounds logical,” Nikolai Andreevich remarked.
“As far as people of science in those times concerned, well, talented women also achieved much success in this sphere. Let’s regards that very medicine. Even today you may find a record that ‘the earliest known female physician who practiced in Memphis in IIIrd millenium b.c. was called Peseshet’. Though in fact she wasn’t the first female physician, just archeologists have found this only earliest record about it that’s why they called this woman the first physician… Medcine was regarded as sacred science at that time and it was taught at temples. It was believed that the recovery depeded not only on practical knowledge of a doctor but also on divine will that’s why apart from medical knowledge physicians learnt sacred texts. The priest-doctor didn’t have right to start healing a patient without offering up a prayer.”
“A prayer?” our psychotherapist again catched on a word. “But as far as I know, that time they practiced witchcraft and spells in religion of Ancient Egypt.”
Sensei smiled and replied joining this game of ‘official tone’, “Doctor, you have a wrong concept about the genuine reality of that time. And you will understand later why. And you will not just understand it but you will find necessary guidelines due to which you will find out all the truth about that time which would exhaust all your doubts. And now I will mention that witchcraft was prohibited in Ancient Egypt. There were clear distinctions between the divine mysticism which was based on knowledge of the ancients, prayer and assiduous spiritual service to God, and witchcraft which was practiced by curious laity inspired by their egoism as well as sorcerers or the so called ‘black magicians’, people who possessed some knowledge and used it for their mercenary goals against other people. Furthermore, people were strongly convinced that sorcery was harmful for spiritual health of people. And by the way some of the priests had even such a ‘specialization’ and were called Uab Sekhmet. They were specially trained to ‘neutralize’ activities of black magicians. Some echo of that priests’ ‘specialization’ could be seen in the modern world. The same is practiced by modern priests who deal with exorcism.”
“Alright, but you will not deny that they practiced magic forecasts of the future in Ancient Egypt and at least astrology?!” Nikolai Andreevich couldn’t stop.
“I will,” Sensei declared firmly but with a smile. And he explained immediately. “It took place but with a completely different implication than it is interpreted today. Let’s regard for example forecasts. One of Egyptian ‘commandments’ stipulated that people are not allowed to know about the future and to resort to services of fortune-tellers. It was written in the rules for priests, “Don’t try to know what hasn’t happened yet”. Moreover, the title of the highest priest (Imhotep also got it later) was called Ur Maa, it means ‘the Great prophet”. However activities of this priest weren’t connected with magical forecasts. His goal was to interpret in a right way the past events in order to ‘understand the will of God on which depended the future’. Since Egyptians were in earnest about the past important events, ‘signs’ and dreams, it was considered that God tries to warn people through them about something. And I would like to mention that due to this belief ancient Egyptians were very observant people in regard to both natural phenomena and social. Their ‘predictions’ were based on revelation of analytical regularities. The same concerned ‘astrlogy’ as well. ‘Astrology’ of that time wasn’t ‘fortune-telling’. In general it could be rather called as scientific forecasts in agricultural, astronomic, medical issues. Because namely priests dealt with development of science that time.
“But still, who were priests, religious leaders or scientists?” Victor asked.
“Both of them. In general they had a special priestly structure. The highest priests were religious leaders who were dealing with such issues as religion, politics and science. Also they had in this structure priests-scientists, priests-physicians, priests-clerks, priests-administrators, priests-clergymen, preachers. By the way, the last ones read during temple servies to believers ‘divine laws’, religious ‘teachings’ and preached.”
“Hem, I see their structure was similar to nowadays religions,” Victor remarked.
“Rather!” Sensei said with a smile.
Nikolai Andreevich uttered with a slight note of scepticism, “Well, I could imagine if in the modern world with its priority of scientific knowledge a physician would start to pray before healing a patient. It can cause confusion…”
“Confusion?!’ Sensei grinned. “Do you know, doctor, that even those who are considered now in the world medicine to be the most pragmatic people, I mean surgeons whose work is connected with living matter… and not just surgeons but outstanding surgeons… they prayed before operation, during operation and after operation. And they pray till now for the health of their patients. Since they know from their experience that however highly qualified a doctor is, many things in his practice depend on the Will from Above.”
“Really?” Nikolai Andreevich was sincerely surprised and uttered thoughtfully. “I didn’t know that…”
“But we digressed a bit from the main work of Imhotep,” Sensei came back to the main topic. “Due to that grandiose unprecedented building and joining to it of the best people in Egypt Imhotep got an opportunity to chose his personal disciples from the best both men and women who had a grain of spirituality and humanity. That group which Imhotep took to teach personally consisted of people with different professions but primarity it based itself on brick-layers. Therefore Imhotep entitled his group approximately as ‘Spiritually free brick-layers’ that is those who strived to the freedom of soul and got firem monolith-like belief and knowledge.
“Gradually they developed symbols of Imhotep’s ‘Spiritually free brick-layers’ which were copied so dashingly later by Ariman’s ‘Freemasons’: a bricklayer’s apron, a stone, a hammer, a pyramid with all-seeing eye (the ancient sign of Shambala, and for Imhotep’s brick-layers it meant belonging to light, spiritual forces), Phoenix, Sphinx (later ‘Freemasons’ changed it to a lion), a forepaw of Sphinx (a lion’s forepaw), figures 3, 5, 7, 13, 33 (it’s a number of people who formed a certain circle of power) etc. They recognized each other by certain words, signs and touches and later it was taken over by ‘Freemasons’. By the way, the sign of pentagram, the isogonal five-point star, which became popular among ‘Freemasons’ was one of the most important symbols for ‘Spiritually free brick-layers’ but they interpreted it completely differently. The thing is that according to the primordial knowledge of the science of ‘White Lotus’ a star is a symbol of the female divine nature, a circle means life and Universe. A star in a circle means a presence of female divine nature in the circle of existence. Besides, the female nature was regarded as a vessel for reincarnations and a woman regarded as a force– and life-giving being. That’s why they depicted in Ancient Egypt the Kingdom of Duat as a star in a circle which meant a kingdom for reincarnations of human souls.
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