THE HATHOR HOLOCAUST

by Roy Lester Pond

  The god Ra had second thoughts. With no subjects left, who would worship him? He tried to put a brake on her killing spree when his temper cooled.

  Tricking the lioness into drinking from a lake of beer disguised as blood, Ra took this moment when the alcohol stunned her brain to transform Sekhmet from The Destroyer of Humankind into Hathor, the Sweet One, goddess of sex, love and intoxication.

  But the execration had been uttered and it was always feared that the inherently unstable goddess Hathor-Sekhmet – the Female Soul With Two Faces – would one day return to finish off what she had started, cleansing the earth with her scorching breath.

  One good thing about having a blog presence on the Internet and a renegade reputation is that people leak you information. There are persistent whisperings on the web that a sanctuary has been found in Egypt belonging to one Sekhmet with a stash of peculiar relics, though no coffin inside.

  A priestess? An unknown queen from the semi-mythical realm called Dynasty Zero?

  Or has some disturber penetrated into a fiery realm of elemental forces?

  Could the tomb of Sekhmet, of a neter, or divine one, actually exist, the remains of a goddess who once lived and died? We tend to think of a deity as someone immortal, existing outside of space and time, but the Egyptians believed that a divine race called the Neteru once ruled Egypt in an early epoch before the pharaohs. The Turin papyrus lists their life spans in hundred or sometimes thousands of years. All things die, the Egyptians believed - every man, every woman, every god, every goddess, every animal. Only the High God lived forever.

  There is evidence that the sanctuary of Sekhmet may have been breached at other times of calamity in Egypt’s past, including the three chaotic periods known as the Intermediate Periods – hundreds of years of devastation, drought, famine, scorching sun and pestilence that spread beyond Egypt to the known world of the Middle East and Southern Europe.

  Sekhmet-Hathor’s influence was certainly associated with a devastating epidemic. In the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep the Third, the “Sun-king” ordered the construction of almost a thousand statues of the lioness goddess, both seated and standing, a solar disc on her head, in an attempt to make offerings and placate the baleful influence of the ‘Lady of Dread’. In fact these prophylactic statues are still turning up. Restoration at the temple of Amun in Luxor not long ago turned up a further seventeen stone images of the goddess of epidemics.

  It is my belief that Amenhotep’s successor, the disastrous pharaoh Akhenaten took the fiery disc from Sekhmet’s head – the Atenet – and built a whole religion on it, seeking to worship a more benign aspect of the sun.

  am convinced that the sanctuary of the lioness goddess Sekhmet has been found in Egypt and her locus of power, a solid gold image. But the find is incomplete, missing the scorching sun disc, which was once on her head. I believe it was taken and I have a few ideas by whom and where it might still be today. Should the primeval image of Sekhmet ever be reunited with its sun disc, a terrible power will be released.

  It is no accident that the early Coptic Christians recognised Hathor as the enemy. It was for this reason that her image came in for such ferocious defacement from the faithful who dwelt among the tombs and temples. The goddess Isis, by comparison, came in for much gentler treatment, appearing as she so often did in a Madonna-like pose, holding the baby Horus. Zealots identified Isis with the Virgin Mary and thus she escaped their anger. Not so, Hathor who also appears as the lioness Sekhmet, The Destroyer of Humankind. A very ominous symbol for the early Christians. As Scripture says: ‘Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour... Much like Sekhmet, a female she-devil and the Lady of Terror. To this day they call the terrible dust storms that bedevil Egypt the ‘breath of the lioness.’

  Chapter 8

  AS HIS AUDIENCES had come to expect of him, Anson threw the fear of God into them about dangers to the world arising from the ancient past, the threat of Sekhmet in particular, of destruction, fire, pestilence and plague.

  “The sun… and the earth,” he said to his US gathering. “Humankind’s future, either destruction or survival, may be the result of a battle between two spheres and two mythologised forces. One is Greek, the other Egyptian. For the New Age nature-lovers among you, consider this. I’m sure you’re familiar with the Gaia hypothesis, a piece of modern day mythology named after the Greek Goddess of the Earth. It says that the atmosphere of Earth is a living, self-correcting feedback system, or as the theory’s originator described it “the Gaia quest is an attempt to find the largest living creature on Earth.” You may be hoping that this benign goddess can save us from a future of scorching hell, famine, disease and pestilence brought on by our own recklessness regarding the laws of nature.

  But don’t put away the sunscreen yet.

  Will Gaia prevail against the force of destruction of another goddess, Sekhmet-Hathor… symbolized by the angry eye of Ra, the sun?

  A holocaust sun.

  Spend a moment thinking about an angry sun. The destructive power of this atomic inferno is something we rarely think about and it’s a lot more than sunburn or desertification we have to fear. Today, as we all went about our lives, this searing inferno put out ferocious energy as it burnt at over twenty million degrees Celsius. Consider a few sizzling facts. This nuclear furnace is so big that a round-the-sun air ticket would take you six month of flying to complete, travelling day and night, except there wouldn’t be any night. Gigantic solar flares of burning gas tear off in flames from the sun like ragged peel off an orange, stretching out for hundreds of thousands of kilometres into space. Violent transmissions of energy cause billions of dollars in damage to space satellites. An increase in solar flares would unleash a bombardment of radiation waves that would destroy the communications our civilization counts on… What, no iPhone, no iPad, no satellite TV? It would also play havoc with our power sources through damaging power surges.

  But back to Sekhmet, eye of Ra, goddess of an angry sun, disease, plague, pestilence and war… and also, paradoxically of physicians.

  The legions of Sekhmet statues created by a pharaoh Amenhotep the Third were a desperate attempt to escape the Hathor Holocaust.

  This baleful influence also lay at the heart of the fiery plages and pestilence of Exodus in the reign of Rameses the Great, I propose.

  What triggered the disaster? Or should we ask whom? I have a theory. It involves a son of Pharaoh Rameses the Great, of Exodus fame, a young magician-prince and priest, called Khaemwaset. The prince liked to dig around Egypt for forbidden secrets of power. One day, I believe, he penetrated the sanctuary of Hathor-Sekhmet, releasing not just the pagan breath of destruction, but also provoking the anger of a jealous God who states very definitively in the Bible, “all power is mine”.

  How could the appearance of this source of power invoke holy wrath? You’ll recall that the god of Moses abhorred Egypt’s ‘false’ gods and the source of their magical power, called heka. ‘Against all the gods of Egypt I will execute judgment -I am the Lord,’ he said in Exodus. When the serpent-staff of Moses swallowed the serpents of pharaoh’s magicians, Jehovah was symbolically smiting the magical serpent goddess that adorned pharaoh’s brow. The royal uraeus or cobra on the pharaoh’s brow embodied the most potent symbol of the pharaoh’s magical power and bore the name ‘Great of Magic.’

  When Moses turned the river into blood, God was striking against Hapi, magical god of the Nile. When he plunged Egypt into darkness, he struck against the magical power of Ra, the sun god… and so on.

  The whole Bible sets itself implacably against all magic, occult power and practitioners, among whom we might lump together idolaters, magicians, necromancers, crossover clairvoyants, diviners, astrologers, false seers, horoscope peddlers, teacup and tarot readers, witches and wizards. And I’m sure today’s necrophiliac fondness for vampires - the undead - falls under this blanket proscription. And Egypt was the mother of them all, as church father, Cl
ement of Alexandria tells us. The Talmud also recognizes this fact, stating that of the ten measures of magic, nine came from Egypt, while the rest of the world could only muster the remaining fraction. Even in Islam, Arab authors continued to believe that ancient Egypt’s temples were teaching places of magic and we have the local community’s fear of protective spirits and the risk of vengeance to thank for the state of preservation of much of Egypt’s heritage today.

  I believe that this frightening source of power is like a red rag and that its re-emergence in history acts as some kind of Armageddon trigger. Khaemwaset’s discovery brought disaster upon the land of Egypt, the royal family, and great affliction on the Hebrews.

  Will disaster again be unleashed today as it was on Rameses the Great?

  For those who doubt that the Ten Plagues ever happened, there’s evidence that events very like them did occur. Writings such as those of the Egyptian sage Ipuwer use language that has a familiar ring to readers of Exodus, about a tradition of catastrophic events in Egypt. He flashed a ‘text of lamentation’ on to the screen.

  In the papyrus, the writer wails:

  Plague is throughout the land. Blood is everywhere… gates, columns and walls are consumed by fire… grain has perished on every side… cattle moan… the land is not light… it is groaning that is throughout the land, mingled with lamentations.

  Familiar?

  Here’s another coincidence for you - in year thirty one of Rameses’s reign, at the temple of Abu Simbel in Nubia, a mighty earthquake strikes, cracking columns in the hypostyle hall and smashing one of the four outer colossi of Rameses, the image of the king that sat on the right hand side of the sun god Ra. The head and torso of the king toppled and crashed to the ground.

  If you’re of a religious view, you may like to entertain the possibility that an even more awful danger than esoteric forces attach to these ancient source of destructive power…” Anson paused to give weight to his next words… “the anger of a jealous God intent on striking down Egypt’s gods and the power of Egypt’s magic. All power is mine.

  Now I know what some may be thinking,” Anson went on, anticipating atheists in the audience. “You may not believe in God, so why should you believe in his anger? Here’s the point. Other people do. It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe in ancient unseen powers of apocalypse, or that God, if he exists, gives a fig about it - there are people in places of power who believe that it is a trigger and that’s scary in itself. Who are these people? I’m sure you, like many of my followers, enjoy conspiracy theories.”

  This audience could probably quote conspiracy theory chapter and verse. But it was best not to assume.

  “The Internet is of course full of conspiracy theories about an esoteric agenda. The theories involve a secret brotherhood of Masons and Illuminists working through the World Bank and the IMF, the European Union, with its single currency, the United Nations, certain rich bankers and families, globalising industrialists and others covertly driving events in the world today, intent on creating a new world order. Masons, and other fellow esotericists, so this scare ideology claims, are behind the revival of occult interest today, including the New Age Movement, Satanism, Cabalistic Black Magic, Theosophy and Wicca. Then there are the claims about secretly planted Masonic codes, the ancient Egyptian pyramid and capstone on the US dollar bill, as well as the Masonic all-seeing eye, echoing the eye of Osiris. Never forgetting the Latin words on the Great Seal of America: Novus Ordo Seclorum meaning 'New World Order'… or New Order of the Ages.

  Ancient Egypt and America, along with America’s friends, form the axis of a New Age and New World Order conspiracy, the theory goes. There exists an ultra secret and powerful Masonic doomsday cult of illuminants in high places who believe that mankind must die and be resurrected just as Christ, Osiris and the Phoenix were. These Torchbearers or Holders of the Light believe that when the time is right a global catastrophe must be triggered, intended to kill around two thirds of the population. That in the chaos, after the death of the old order, a new one will be declared officially so that it, and they, will be proclaimed saviours of humankind.

  And when exactly will they judge the moment right to strike? That’s where the Hathor Holocaust comes in. These people are also mystical visionaries and, of all the symbols and triggers that matter to secret societies, the most significant and powerful are the mystery religions and esoteric forces of ancient Egypt. It is from Egypt that Illuminants will take their light, and they want to shine it on an unsuspecting world as part of the regeneration of humankind. Bringing on an ancient apocalypse is key to a Great Plan to restore society to a state of harmonic resonance such as they believe existed in ancient Egypt’s primordial age of Zep Tepi, or ‘First Time’, and these people look forward to the re-instatement of the mystery religion in the coming New World Order…”

  He let that sink in.

  “So the threat could be both an esoteric trigger and a very real-world trigger for catastrophe regardless of whose finger is on that trigger… an angry God, or a leader of a powerful secret society… the result could be the same. Catastrophe. I’ll leave it to you to decide whom we should fear the most. Man or God. Or maybe there’s a third option… someone who would be God.”

  He concluded his lecture by throwing a spanner in the works, intended for the ears of certain unknown members in the audience, if they were present, the same spanner he’d dropped into a recently posted blog.

  “There are rumours that a certain predynastic sanctuary has been found with relics of a revered one by the name of Sekhmet, and a potent cult image. But a key element of that find is missing, which would multiply its power a thousandfold. I have a few private theories about where that element might be hidden today. I just hope the wrong people don’t find it and bring the two together.”

  Two people lingered after the presentation, one a restless young man who stood nervously rubbing his face like an addict anxious for a fix.

  The other was a tall, leonine young woman with cropped golden hair and dressed in a business suit jacket and skirt. She could have been a lawyer or executive.

  “Thank you for your stimulating talk,” she said in a low voice. “You have a gift. I have long followed your interest in unseen realities and I applaud your alternative views. But you’re not quite alternative enough, perhaps. You’re on the right journey, Anson. May I call you Anson? But you never go quite far enough. Some barrier is holding you back. Outdated ties to Christianity perhaps? Or possibly a fugitive desire for academic acceptance? You’re reluctant to engage fully with the divine of ancient Egypt, though you call yourself a phenomenologist.”

  “If you mean I stop short of neo-paganism, bowing down to the ancient divinities of Egypt, then yes, thank God.”

  She gave him a slow, tolerant smile but her eyes sparkled.

  “There it is again. The barrier. Perhaps you’ll find we are on the same journey after all, but you just don’t know it yet.”

  She dug left-handedly into a purse and handed him a card that said:

  LADY NEITH, Ancient Horizons

  An ancient Egypt neo-religionist.

  “Lady Neith?” he said. “I’m honoured. I love New Age young women, usually web-based, who grant themselves the nom de plumes of Egyptian goddesses, and then, as if the sacred name is not enough, preface it with the honorific ‘Lady’. A bit unbelievable don’t you think? I mean I’m perfectly willing to believe you really are the terrible Egyptian goddess of war, but a lady?”

  She gave a visible quiver.

  “What are you saying?”

  “Just an Englishman sensitive to an outdated peerage system.”

  “I see.”

  “And Neith?” he said, puzzled. “A warlike entity regarded as an androgynous goddess, Mistress of Bows and Ruler of Arrows. I hope you know that in hieroglyphs they wrote her name as an ejaculating phallus - a reference to her male creative force. She was also a mortuary goddess. Neith wove the bandages and shrouds worn by the mu
mmified dead as a gift to them. ‘I am All That Has Been, That Is, and That Will Be. No mortal has yet been able to lift the veil that covers me,’ it was said of her.”

  She looked at him sharply.

  “What are you implying?”

  “An unusual choice of a name, that’s all.”

  “I hope it won’t be another barrier you can’t overcome,” she said. “I have an invitation for you. Will you be one of our guests, a speaker, on a forthcoming cruise in Egypt? Not on a commercial tourist boat, let me reassure you, but aboard a large private, dahabiyya sail boat. A much more spiritual way to see Egypt, I think you’ll agree, and a perfect way to be closer to the Nile and commune with the past and divine energies. We will meet any fees and all expenses and you’ll enjoy a cruise from Aswan, including Kom Ombo, Edfu, Esna, a few days in Luxor, then on to Dendera.”

  Dendera. Dendera was high on his agenda for investigations. Along with Luxor, as well as a few other places.

  He was about to say. ‘I do intend to go very soon on a journey of investigation, but I certainly don’t plan to do it in the company of chanting, hand-holding neo-pagans.’

  But then his ‘flexibility reflex’ kicked in.

  Maybe this was exactly what he did need. A coterie of American New Agers could provide a cover. They could hide him from the attentions of inquisitive Egyptian authorities.

  He had certainly acted as a guest lecturer with fringe tour groups in the past, and if this young woman in a business suit was a New Age bizzarro, he thought, then she’s a very classy-looking one, unlike her young companion.

  Besides, who were these two who had approached him? Were they connected to the Sekhmet discoveries?

  “Well, Anson?” the woman said. “Will you join us?”

  “That depends, Lady. Is it all right if I call you Lady? What exactly do you mean by join? You’ll have to skip any indoctrination, I’m afraid. I won’t be swearing some initiation oath to Ra in a temple at the next heliacal rising or anything, if that’s what you mean.”