THE HALL OF RECORDS

2 May 2001

Notes by Lee McGiffen about theosopher Gerald Massey's 1907 suggestions regarding a set of records buried beneath the Sphinx, originally posted to The Daily Grail

The earliest reference to a possible stash of records beneath the Sphinx (and the date of 10,500 BC) may be found in Ancient Egypt: Light of the World, a massive two volume set on Egyptian mythology first published by Theosophist Gerald Massey in 1907 (reprinted 1970). On p.337, Massey wrote:

An ancient Egyptian name for the Sphinx is Akar. This was also a name for the hollow of the under-world…. It is said that the very bones of the deities quake as the stars go on their triumphant courses through the tunnels of the Akar (Pyramid Texts, Teta, 319). It is demonstrable that a passage through the mount of earth, the same that was made through the Cow, was followed by the passage through Akar, the Sphinx, which was built for the god Har-Makhu, the Horus-sun that was immeasurably earlier than Ra…. The tunnel through the mount of the Sphinx is oblong; and it is noticeable that the oldest known pyramid in Egypt, that of Medum, is neither conical nor quadrangular, but oblong. To understand the nature of the Akar, says Renouf, we have to imagine a tunnel starting from the spot where the sun sets and extending through the earth as far as where the sun rises. Each end of the tunnel has a sphinx-like form. A human-headed lion couches at the entrance and also at the end. It is through the paws of this double sphinx that the galley of the sun-god enters on the western horizon and comes out on the eastern mount…. These two gates of entrance and exit on the horizon were called the gates of Akar, and sometimes the gates of Seb, the god of earth. They were the two gates of earth for the sun in the mythology, and the two gates of Akar for the manes in the eschatology. Thus the twofold horizon was imagd for Har-Makhu in the figure of the double Sphinx. The traditions leads one to think that profound secrets were buried in the building of the Sphinx, as was the way with these builders, who put all they knew into all they did.

Gerald Massey is also the probable source of Schwaller de Lubicz’s date of 10,500 BC. On p.339, he wrote:

The great Sphinx as keeper of these secrets was couched in mountainous repose upon the horizon in the eastern equinox, when the gate of ‘fair exit’ was in the lion-sign and the gate of ‘fair entrance’ was in Aquarius, the water-sign that is figured over the abyss of source on the celestial globe. The Sphinx then is a figure of the double horizon and the duality of Har-Makhu when the place of conjunction was at the point of precession in the lion-sign. And if, as is the Egyptian way, the fact was registered forthwith, we may date the Sphinx as a monument which was reared by these great builders and thinkers, who lived so largely out of themselves, some thirteen thousand years ago.

Massey never mentioned Atlantis.

22 Dec 2005

IL comments on important extracts from Paul Brunton's 1935 book A Search in Secret Egypt, including assertions about the true spiritual nature of the Great Pyramid, and about the progressive degradation of ancient Egyptian religious and magical practice

[My sincere thanks to my good friend Stephen Gawtry of Watkins Books for passing this book on to me]

Paul Brunton was a renowned student of the mystery schools, who travelled the world to further his understanding and wrote many books on his experiences. In this 1935 work he discusses the mysteries of ancient Egypt. Much of this material is not particularly to my taste, including the hoary old assertions that the pyramids and Sphinx were created by emigrant colonists from Atlantis. However, there are a couple of highly illuminating passages that I believe are worthy of reproduction and comment.

The first concerns the nature of the Great Pyramid's secrets, which impinges also on the whole idea of a secret Hall of Records. Those familiar with my books will know that I have always asserted that, if ideas of such a Hall - and of Holy Grails and so on - have any validity at all, they have nothing to do with buried treasure or incredible records of forgotten history. Rather, they are symbols of an inner spiritual search.

Brunton spent a night meditating in the King's Chamber and, after being confronted by various malignant demons, was assisted by the spirit figure of an ancient Egyptian high priest to imitate death. He left his physical body but remained attached to it by a 'mysterious psychic umbilical cord' of 'faint silvery light' - just as described by near-death experiencers - and suddenly found himself being led by his priest-guide down a secret corridor whose entrance he had not seen, supposedly to view some sort of ancient 'covenant'. However, in his desire to establish the location of the entrance to this corridor, he failed to heed his guide's warning not to look back. Immediately he did so he found himself transported back to the King's Chamber. This is what his guide then told him (chapter 4, p. 77):

My son, it matters not whether thou discoverest the door or not. Find but the secret passage within the mind that will lead thee to the hidden chamber within thine own soul, and thou shalt have found something worthy indeed. The mystery of the Great Pyramid is the mystery of thine own self. The secret chambers and ancient records are all contained in thine own nature. The lesson of the Pyramid is that man must turn inward, must venture to the unknown centre of his being to find his soul...

I could not have put this better in a million years, and I earnestly hope that seekers after the mysteries of ancient Egypt will one day recognise this fundamental truth, and call a halt to their predominantly materialistic and misguided quests.

The second passage links to this in the way that it describes the progressive degradation of ancient Egyptian spiritual beliefs, so that almost all of what we now have in the historical record, in terms of hieroglyphic texts and so on, shows only the results of this degradation. In several of my books I have stressed that the ancient Egyptian beliefs that we know about from the evidence are actually extremely unphilosophical in their outlook. The elitism underlying the idea that only those who could afford to have a copy of The Book of the Dead inscribed in their tomb would successfully negotiate the trials and tribulations of the netherworld, and the vulgarity of thinking that the physical body needed to be preserved along with all the trappings of material wealth, being just two prime examples.

Towards the end of his travels in Egypt Brunton had a synchronous encounter with a mysterious adept who, amongst many other things, revealed the following (chapter 19, p. 277):

In the final cycle of Egyptian history there was a great degeneration of the men of knowledge - the priesthood - and sorcery and the black arts were commonly practised. When the white light of truth which was formerly shining through the pure Egyptian religion became dimmed, and the noisome shadows of false, materialistic doctrines crept in to replace it, the practice of mummification arose, together with all the elaborate accompanying rituals.

No one likes a know-it-all, but don't say I didn't warn you... ;-)