Science of Images – Bronze Age to Neoplatonism
Part 1: Astronomy, Symbolism and Civilization
Contents:
Egypt’s Antiquity
Images and Forms in Ancient Metaphysics
Decline and Shifts
Intuitive Symbolism to Linear Logic
Adaptations Over Time
The writings of Greek philosophers were responsible for the important advancements made in the medieval period that carried on into the Renaissance. The Ptolemaic era and Alexandria are what brought the use of the tropical zodiac into the western world. It also saw the emergence of an esoteric movement centered around an enigmatic figure called Hermes Trismegistus, which claimed to be the wisdom of Egypt that had been passed down through the ages.
Hermeticism enjoyed an enormous prestige for over a thousand years until the 1600s. Linguists began to attack it as a purely Greek invention with a superficial Egyptian appearance, and some of its popular mystique was lost. But what if it was a deliberately crafted vessel for the remnants of Egyptian spirituality to survive?
The priesthoods of Egypt started to face a serious dilemma during the Iron Age (1200 to 600 BC), the foreseeable and inevitable demise of their civilization which had thrived for thousands of years. Egypt reached a critically weak point at the end of the Iron Age and the region was undergoing more changes that further jeopardized their survival. The Achaemenid Persian Empire annexed Egypt and provided relative stability, but all empires fall and the chaos that follows is unpredictable.
Egypt was quickly taken by Alexander the Great in 332 BC one of his generals, Ptolemy Soter, began the final dynasty of Pharaohs. The Greek language and their system of thought had been adopted across the entire region, collectively called the Hellenistic world. Hellenization was exemplified in the city of Alexandria; people from Europe all the way to central Asia freely mingled and exchanged ideas like never before. Its size, influence and sophistication rivaled Rome.
Egypt adapted its theology into a form that this new world could comprehend and ensure that it would not perish completely. This Egyptian theology, called Hermeticism, laid some of the groundwork for what would become the Ghayat al Hakim or Picatrix almost a thousand years later. The Greco-Egyptian culture also provided a welcoming environment for the later philosophers of Plato’s Academy after the destruction of their school in Athens in 86 BC.
The Roman Catholic Church took increasing control during the long decline of the Western Roman Empire’s government and instituted a theocracy which extended to Roman-occupied Egypt. Justinian I enacted similar laws in the Byzantine world. In 529 AD, Greek philosophers were invited to live and teach in Harran and other parts of Persia. They established a small continuation of the Academy that existed alongside Harran’s ancient star religion, effectively making a time capsule of the Bronze Age through the Middle Ages.
In 717 CE, the first Muslim University was founded in Harran and the Caliph brought many scholars from Alexandria to run the university. Ibn Washiya, author of Nabatean Agriculture, wrote a century later that Harran was home to a thriving school of Hermeticism that was highly secretive about its practices. When the House of Wisdom was founded in Baghdad, pagan scholars from Harran played a significant role in the translation of Greek and Latin texts into Arabic. Baghdad would quickly become the center for a revival of Platonism and Hermeticism that would later spread to Europe, along with astrology itself which had largely disappeared for over five centuries.
The fall of Rome and the Middle Ages was not the first struggle to preserve and adapt during periods of upheaval. It had occurred many times before and appears to have been one of the driving forces that helped rebuild civilization after periods of decline and disaster. 
The Bronze Age Collapse that occurred around 1200 BCE left Egypt as one of the few major kingdoms that survived intact, and many faded into legend or were simply forgotten. The Siege of Troy and even the city’s existence was regarded as fictional until it’s discovery in the late 1800s.
Egypt’s Antiquity
The true depth of antiquity and mystery of Egypt is hard to fathom. In Timaeus, Plato records an exchange between Solon and the priests of Sais who told him that they had already inhabited the area for eight thousand years (8,500 BC) and that the Greeks had forgotten their own history.
Over 9,000 years ago in Nabta Playa, what is now desert was tropics and astronomers were performing advanced calculations using a circular stone calendar. Just under 5,000 years ago, the Giza pyramids that have become synonymous with Egypt were built. This was a sudden explosion of unbelievably sophisticated engineering that drives endless debate to this day. It coincided with Menes uniting upper and lower Egypt and creating the first dynasty around 3100 BC. Very little is known of this period and even less before then.
Manetho was an Egyptian priest who compiled his History of Egypt or Aegyptiaca early in the Ptolemaic period. He provided a complete list of Egyptian kings and the dates they reigned back to the first dynasty. He also wrote that numerous gods and demigods ruled Egypt in the ages before the first dynasty. On the other hand, the Palermo Stone, over 4,000 years old, records the names from the Old Kingdom dynasties and nine kings before them. The stone is unfortunately broken and appears to have had more. It’s a rare instance of predynastic records surviving and being recognizable.
At the same time in Mesopotamia, the Sumerians built cities with all the advanced tools of civilization, including paved roads. We still use the timekeeping system they established; the 360 degrees of the ecliptic and the base 60 division (60 minutes) is credited to them. Like Manetho’s history, the Sumerian Kings List states that divine beings ruled for ages before the mortal kings.
Phoenician (or Canaanite if you prefer) cities sprang up along the coast of the Levant with an impressive region-wide seafaring trade network. The stars and many aspects of their religions all appear to be intimately related. The perplexing combination of extremely advanced knowledge combined with countless religious writings about “star gods” has spawned an entire subculture that maintains these people were guided and controlled by extraterrestrials. Egyptology and archaeology have filled in a lot of gaps, but its fair to say that this part of history is still largely unknown.
For the next three thousand years throughout the Nile Valley, temples were built that make most modern architecture look amateurish. Egypt was ruled by a highly secretive class of priests who were polymaths and possessed incredible skills in every field of learning, to include magic and spiritual development. They were the advisors and administrators for the Pharoah, who was head of state and the spiritual leader of the nation, being a physical incarnation of divinity.
Today, Egypt is known for its architecture and advanced engineering, but in the ancient world it was most revered for magic. King Solomon, the wisest man in Jewish lore, was said to be “in no way inferior to the ancients”, with Egypt likely among the ancients referred to. Exactly how and why Egypt’s rulers did what they did is still a mystery due to their extreme secrecy around all their knowledge, and spiritual practices were said to be the highest form of wisdom they possessed.
Something very important in human history has disappeared and many things point to that “something” being their spirituality. This is an uncomfortable idea for most people to deal with for many reasons, not least the strong opinions that have always surrounded it. The possibility that any useful information can come from psychic senses is vehemently rejected by many. Extensive scientific studies of ESP have established that human intuitive faculties are real but weak and unreliable.
We subconsciously associate the spiritual with modern religions. We think in terms of materialism and the very existence of something beyond the physical is hard to handle, even for those who want to believe it. We have been bombarded with the dogma of constant progress or the idea that everything before our age is inferior.
Popular opinion paints Greek philosophers not as devout mystics, but modern sensibilities personified. We are told that depictions of animal-like beings as divine must be the attempts of savages to cope with fear of the unknown. “Superstitions” and myth couldn’t possibly have value aside from being curiosities of a bygone era. This narrative has been used to devalue ancient thinkers for a long time.
Images and Forms in Ancient Metaphysics
According to Picatrix, within its pages are instructions for the “Science of Images”. Paintings, drawings, sculptures and even modern photographs and videos are images. The techniques of an artist or photographer could fit that loose definition. What is significant about the image created as an astrological talisman? The word “image” in English seems unremarkable but a deeper look through a different lens shows that it is anything but ordinary. The answer is in the Theory of Forms which was at the core of philosophy and metaphysics.
Plato’s metaphysical ideas of the Forms are clearly stated to be foundational in Picatrix.
“Plato says as much in the book he wrote called Timaeus, which goes on at great length in words and reasoning about Forms”.
The author alludes to the Science of Images being an interdisciplinary endeavor and that understanding it comes in stages. There are hidden aspects that can’t be communicated, not because of a desire to withhold knowledge, but because it can’t be grasped in the ways that other subjects are learned. It reveals itself as a process of unfolding insights, just as the Forms are discussed in Plato’s dialogues. “This science of magic is divided into two parts… The part deeply hidden is profound, and there are profound perceptions that cannot be grasped except with others that come before them through hard work…”.
The phrase “Science of Images” in Picatrix is the Arabic phrase ʿilm al-ṣuwar (علم الصور) and its Latin counterpart scientia imaginum. The Greek words used by Plato that have become collectively translated as “Form” are εἶδος (eidos) and ἰδέα (idea). This is the root of the English word “idea”. At first glance, the word “Form” may appear to be a poor choice of translation for the Greek, but this seeming discrepancy perfectly conveys what Plato was attempting to teach his readers.
“Form” implies something visible and tangible that can be seen or touched. “Idea” is something that has no physical existence and can only be grasped internally. The relationship between what can be known through the senses and what can only be known through the mind and soul is at the heart of the Theory of Forms. Plato’s Forms are, in fact, transcendent and pure ideas. The outward appearance of the word Form ἰδέα or idea is the visible representation or image of something that exists as pure, divine idea. This paradoxical relationship within the word itself perfectly embodies the Theory of Forms.
By pursuing knowledge of the Forms, the philosopher awakened the highest faculties of the mind and soul. The Forms can be likened to the pure thoughts within the mind of God, the root of all things. Images or outward appearances are a distorted reflection of their pure source which cannot be seen, heard or touched. Words themselves are an outward appearance in the form of sound, a representation or reflection of an idea. The pure idea that a word represents has the nature of the Forms. Plato often examined words from this perspective to illustrate this intangible principle of reality. The Theory of Forms is a key concept in the theologies and mystic traditions of many different people during the Hellenistic period, and arguably before. It can be recognized at the heart of Kabbalah, Sufism, Hermeticism, Christian mysticism, and every practice that recognizes a single source of creation and aims to bring the practitioner closer to it. The concepts inherent in the Theory of Forms is conveyed through the framework of different holy books, languages and cultures.
The roots of the word talisman were used by medieval Arab philosophers to contemplate the Forms. The Kitab al-Nukhab is part of the Jabirian Corpus, a large and diverse collection of medieval Arabic manuscripts that contain important developments in science and mathematics as well as Hermeticism, alchemy and other occult practices. Some are training manuals used by the Brethren of Purity. This was a secret society of Muslim philosophers that emulated and continued the Platonist tradition in Baghdad and the surrounding areas. Kitab al-Nukhab is a dialogue between a teacher and student that is intended to provide the knowledge base for making talismans. Its first definition is relatively simple and straightforward.
“A talisman is the likeness of artificial actions to natural actions […] Every talisman is a crafted thing that is like something natural, yet not every artificial likeness to something natural is a talisman. The meaning of talisman is distinguished by the celestial observation that characterizes it.”
The astrological timing is the distinguishing factor. But as the dialogue continues, the teacher cryptically connects the making of talismans to geometry, astronomy, natural sciences, philosophy and practically all branches of learning. He explains that talismans are the culmination of all of these and asks the student again what a talisman is. The student ponders the question for an entire year and reveals that he can’t even attempt to provide an answer. The teacher urges the student to begin his search for deeper understanding by searching for the deeper meanings of image and hints that the Greek philosophers had some of the answers he is seeking.
In ancient Hebrew, the word צֶלֶם, pronounced “tselem”, is used in the first chapter of the Book of Genesis. The primordial human Adam was made “in our image” with a divine utterance. Its root word in ancient Hebrew means “shade” or casting a shadow, the underlying symbolism being an illusionary appearance created by manipulating light, partially mirroring or reflecting the original. A literal translation of Genesis 1:26 reads,
“And Elohim uttered we make man in image of us”.
ויאמר אלהים נעשה אדם בצלמנו
Elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible this word is used to denote a phantom, illusion, idol, or spiritual appearance. The tselem is a core concept in Kabbalistic traditions and is related to the astral body and the composition of the human soul. In other ancient Semitic languages like Akkadian, Aramaic and Old Syriac the word is used to denote an engraved image, sacred image or statue.
The Arabic word طِلَّسْم or “tillasm” means magical image, related to the ancient Greek word telesma (τέλεσμα) which means “completion” or “fulfill” in the context of a ritual. In the Septuagint, the Greek translation of Hebrew scriptures that was done at the behest of Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the Pharoah of Ptolemaic Egypt from 285 to 247 BC, the word “tselem” is translated as εἰκών or “eikon”, a word which is frequently found in the writings of Platonic philosophers and having a related meaning.
In Greek cosmology, the word eikon is only used in the context of the metaphysical. In the New Testament it has similar connotations, for example in Colossians 1:15 when Christ is said to be the eikon of the invisible God, meaning a replica or copy.
Images or eikons in Greek metaphysics is a key part of the Theory of Forms. This is itself a deep subject, but it can be summarized as: the physical world is a realm of appearances or shadows, while true reality exists in a higher, immaterial realm of perfect, eternal, and unchanging Forms that are beyond human perception. Eikons or sacred images serve as mediators between the physical and the perfect World of Forms by participating in the Form it represents. It does so by imitation, creating an invisible but real link through cosmic sympathy. The human soul is an image or eikon of the cosmos, according to Pythagorean teachings and the cosmos according to Plato. The Sun is an image of the Form of the Good according to Socrates, with “the Good” being a Platonist term for God’s benevolence.
When we look at the ancient writings, it becomes even more of a labyrinth. Images and talismans have a wide range of uses and meanings from Plato to Late Antiquity. Adding to the complexity is the importance of statues in Greek cosmology. Human beings are statues made by the divine; this concept was part of Greek thought before the philosophers. In the Iliad, Hephaestus was the god of craftsmen and forged “animated statues” that were intelligent and had souls. Hephaestus was also distinguished from the other Olympian gods because he felt pain. In Plato’s Timaeus, the Demiurge (Creator God) crafts human beings as his living statues. Aristotle elaborates further in Laws I when commenting on the Allegory of the Cave; he says that human beings are ensouled puppets and the strings from the unseen world are emotions.
Early in the Common Era, the Greek philosophers wrote entire treatises on the use of statues, divine images, symbols, talismans, letters and more with many different terms. The precise meanings are sometimes difficult to discern. The vast number of medieval translations from Greek to Arabic are an enormous web that hasn’t been unraveled and may remain that way.
During the Hellenistic era, the philosophers of Plato’s Academy (Old, Middle, and New) used eight different Greek words that have some relationship to sacred images or talismans. The Neoplatonist writings (3rd to 6th century) were much more overt about the mysticism in Plato’s tradition and used an additional five terms. The Neoplatonists were forced to defend their tradition more and more and wrote details that their forebears had little need to explain. This will be explored more in another chapter.
The Greek concept of the world being statues and images crafted by the divine has parallels with the Egyptians. Ptah is depicted as a sculptor fashioning creation with a potter’s wheel, and in the Hermetica’s Perfect Sermon Hermes tells Asclepius about statues ensouled by divine spirits.
The best written sources to consult would be that of the ancient Egyptians themselves, but this is a unique problem in and of itself. Even with the benefit of translations enabled by the Rosetta Stone and the survival of the Coptic Egyptian language, today there is difficulty comprehending certain ancient Egyptian writings. Texts that deal with philosophical and spiritual concepts are impossible for the modern person to relate to. This is not specific to Egypt, but the entire ancient world. Records of wars, taxes, and daily living are generally understandable but the worldview in sacred writings is almost alien. Human consciousness underwent a deep change between 1000 BC and the common era, and the use of language and writing reflects it. The only relatable hints that we can hope to approach them are from Hermes Trismegistus.
Like Christ described as an eikon or image of the invisible God, the Pharoahs fulfilled the same role in Egypt. According to a spell in the Old Kingdom’s Pyramid Texts § 406 – 407, the hieroglyphic writing translates to:
“For Pharaoh is the great power that overpowers the powers.
Pharaoh is a sacred image, the most sacred image
of the sacred images of the Great One.“
In the Memphis Theology (700 BC), line 53, the creation of Atum is narrated in the divine writing of hieroglyphs. Atum is the Primordial Man, analogous to Adam Kadmon in Kabbalah, or the World Soul (collective human soul) of Greek metaphysics.
“There comes into being in the mind; there comes into being by the tongue as the image of Atum.
Ptah is the very great, who gives life to all the gods and their kas. It all in this mind and by this tongue.
Horus (as mind) came into being in him (Ptah); Thoth (as tongue) came into being in him as Ptah.”
Atum is composed of the speech and thought of Ptah, who is equivalent of the Greek Demiurge, depicted as a mouth speaking or as a potter shaping clay. Ptah fashions Horus and Thoth, and in Atum they have a microcosmic image that connects them all. The entire universe is connected through a single source that creates with principles of multiplicity.
The phrases of the Pyramid Texts and Memphis Theology would be more incomprehensible without Hermes explaining it:
“Mind, my son Tat, is of the very substance of God, if indeed there is a substance of God; and of what nature that substance is, God alone precisely knows. Mind then is not severed from the substantiality of God, but is, so to speak, spread everywhere from that source, as the light of the Sun is spread far and wide.” (Corpus Hermeticum, Libellus 12, 1)
It’s becoming clearer that “images” held a far deeper meaning than works of human art. The concept of divine images reaches back to the oldest writings of Egypt, when that knowledge was exclusive to royalty and high-ranking priests. The science of the stars, both astronomy and astrology, has far more depth than most realize. It’s in the foundations of all sciences. The Hellenized Egyptian astrologer Hephaestion of Thebes said of it,
“The science of the stars has granted us knowledge of divine matters, magic, divination, teaching, meteorology, mathematics, alchemy and medicine, thus of the sowing of seed, hunting, fishing, navigation, military strategy, architecture, construction, literature, philosophy and the arts. Those who slander this truth will be cursed with their ignorance and weakness while those who understand this truth will be blessed.” Apotelesmatica, Book 2, VII (Ben Dykes translation)
Decline and Shifts
“Do you not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven? Or, to speak more exactly, in Egypt all the operations of the powers which rule and work in heaven have been transferred to earth below? No, it should be said that the whole Cosmos dwells in our land as in its sanctuary.” (Lament of Hermes, 100-300 AD)
The advanced engineering in ancient Egypt is a vast subject, but a few things are worth noting considering the Asclepius dialogue. Hermes says that Egypt is an image of the heavens and celestial powers dwell there.
On the top left is the Great Pyramid, constructed around 2500 BC, seen from the air during the equinox. In 1940, a pilot flew over Giza during the equinox and saw the Great Pyramid with its four sides showing eight sides. After the equinox passed it no longer made this incredible optical illusion.
The photo on the bottom left is the Great Pyramid as it normally appears. It was discovered that the builders had carefully engineered the pyramid so that its four sides, appearing perfectly flat, had a subtle irregularity that was never noticed until then. Only on the day of the spring and autumn equinox, when the distribution of light and dark is perfectly equal, the solar rays cast shadows on the pyramid.
The solar light of the equinox shows an eight-sided architecture hiding in plain sight. Not only did the builders construct something that has never been equaled, but they also hid within its design another grandiose display specifically for the equinox.
Why would they have gone these extreme lengths to make an optical illusion of eight sides on an already magnificent four-sided structure? They’re not functional for anything other than the light and shadow display. What is significant about 4 and 8 together?
The creation story of the Ogdoad, the “Eightfold” is encapsulated here. These were eight primordial gods arranged in four pairs of male and female.
The oldest direct reference to them comes from temple inscriptions in Hermopolis, meaning “the city of Hermes” in Greek. The queen-regent Hatshepsut made the engravings around 1500 BC and the city itself was founded in the Old Kingdom. Its Egyptian name is Khemenu which means “Eight Town” in reflection of the Ogdoad’s eight gods.
In the Hermopolis cosmology, four primary powers create the cosmos from primordial chaos, and each of the four takes on a male and female aspect, making eight. These eight primordial gods collectively give birth to Atum in the form of the Sun. From himself, Atum births four gods (air, moisture, earth, sky) that establishes the world’s structure. The coupling of earth and sky births an additional four gods: Osiris, Seth, Isis and Nephthys, which all govern the cycles of nature.
Atum and these eight gods are known as the Ennead or Great Ennead. They are the most widely known Egyptian deities and have been depicted in a variety of forms.
The underlying numbers in this cosmology are: 4 becomes 8 and light is created. The singular light of the sun, One, then creates 4 which becomes 8. Seeing the Great Pyramid, the primordial mound, briefly becoming eight-sided only when light and dark are in perfect balance has much deeper meaning in this context. The connection between the Ogdoad and the Great Pyramid is my own personal speculation and no direct links are known, but it is an extremely odd coincidence.
The Ogdoad and Ennead were the foundations of the Egyptian cosmos dating back to the Old Kingdom, eight primordial beings who bring forth nine gods. Over time the creation stories changed, with the specific gods of the Ennead being syncretized or supplanted, but the Ogdoad stayed and the underlying structure of the Ennead stayed the same. In 1945, a large collection of ancient papyrus books was found sealed in jars inside a cave.
The books, collectively called the Nag Hammadi texts, became known for its Christian Gnostic writings that had been lost until then. Among these were three short texts written in Coptic, one called The Discourse on the Eighth and Ninth. In it, Hermes Trismegistus teaches his pupil how to attain spiritual visions of the eighth and ninth spheres of the heavens, after he advanced past the seven spheres of the planets. The conspicuous use of eight and nine in the cosmological structure and used by native Egyptians shows some continuity from older Egyptian traditions.
The pyramids of Giza are perfectly aligned with north, south, east and west. They’re also perfectly aligned with true north, not magnetic north, within one tenth of a degree. True north is lines of longitude that all converge at the north pole, and accurately mapping it requires precise knowledge of the earth’s spherical measurements, or spherical trigonometry, which has only been perfected in the past few centuries.
Global maps before the 18th century were inaccurate because those calculations were missing. The earliest known work on spherical trigonometry is Menelaus of Alexandria, a Greek astronomer and mathematician who lived in the 1st century AD. Little is known of his life other than he resided in Alexandria and Rome.
Using his work as a foundation, it took mathematicians and cartographers over 1,700 years to develop spherical trigonometry to the point of accurately determining true north. Whether the alignment of the pyramids is simply coincidence, the Old Kingdom possessed advanced spherical trigonometry five thousand years ago or determined it through simpler but ingenious methods of star observations that are now lost remains one of Egypt’s many mysteries.
Hermes tells Asclepius that Egypt itself is an image of the heavens and the forces that govern the cosmos had dwelled in it. This is a photo of the Giza pyramids seen from above with the belt stars of Orion as seen from earth superimposed on it. Some independent researchers have speculated that these three pyramids were constructed, at least in part, to reflect the stars. The Sphinx and its lion shape suggest a correlation with the Leo constellation rising in the east with the Sphinx directly facing it.
Looking at the Giza layout as a reflection of the stars, the location of the Nile roughly corresponds to the Milky Way, universally depicted as a river in ancient star lore. This theory is intriguing but is still debated and regarded by most Egyptologists as speculation. If nothing else it’s a fascinating coincidence among countless others that aren’t easily disputed, like the incredible alignments of important temples with the solstices and equinoxes. For example, the Karnak temple is carefully constructed so that a narrow beam of the rising sun briefly illuminates the face of Amun in the Holy of Holies before brightly spreading across the sanctuary. This only occurs on the morning of the winter solstice.
This obsession with capturing the light of the sun and stars in physical objects with laser-like precision brings to mind De Radiis (On the Stellar Rays), written sometime in the medieval period. It was regarded as a companion text to the Ghayat al-Hakim and describes astral rays as having similar properties to visible light and in many ways anticipated modern electromagnetic theory. De Radiis, in turn, draws on older Greek studies of optics.
Whatever the case, it’s clear that the ancient Egyptians were not just incredibly advanced astronomers, but that they were obsessed with the sky to an extent that goes far beyond religious devotion. New discoveries continue to show their temples routinely had advanced astronomical knowledge ingeniously embedded within their architecture, and this was done throughout the ancient world in all corners of the globe. Adding a deeper layer of mystery to an enigma is the remarkable consistency of these temple designs across vast stretches of distance and time.
Left: Pyramid of Kukulkan in Chichen Itza, Mexico on the equinox. Right: Aerial photo of Giza on the equinox.
The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only eight-sided pyramid known to exist, but another pyramid also casts a special shadow with the light of the equinox. On the other side of the globe, in what is now Mexico in the Mayan city of Chichen Itza, the Pyramid of Kukulkan forms a serpent using shadows only on the spring and autumn equinox. At the base of the pyramid is the feathered serpent’s head carved from stone. The pyramid was constructed to align with the Sun’s position on the equinoxes with unfathomable precision. The sunlight casts shadows in the form of a serpent’s body. It causes the snake to slither down from the top of the pyramid two days out of the year.
The Pyramid of Kukulkan is itself a representation of the solar year. Each of its four sides has 91 steps and combined with the platform on top makes 365 steps, one for each day of the solar year. This pyramid is believed to have been constructed around 700 AD, but it has been discovered to contain even older pyramids underneath that was repurposed and repaired. The Mayans and other ancient American people had incredibly advanced astronomical knowledge that they incorporated into their temples, just as the people of the old world did.
Many theories have been proposed about the remarkable similarities between civilizations like the Mayans and Egyptians as evidence of extensive contact across the Atlantic in ancient times or a lost “mother culture”. In my opinion, it further demonstrates that stargazing was primarily responsible for developing sophisticated civilizations. The efforts to continuously improve the precision of star charts and calendars led to increasingly sophisticated discoveries in mathematics and geometry, which easily carried over into other fields like engineering, not to mention the astrological themes that would naturally find its way into divination and religion. Everyone on the planet sees the Sun, Moon and stars, and all experience the passing of time and seasons. There are differences depending on the location, but overall, it is a shared experience common to all.
Even more incredible is the strong similarities in the visions of shamans across the world which became the basis of their religious rites. Astrological elections were not unique to the Hellenized world. It is well documented that the Mayans engaged in warfare primarily based on astrological calculations of the planets. These wars were not fought over resources or territory but were carried out because the heavens showed conflict emanating from the astral world. If nothing else, this validates many of Carl Jung’s ideas about the collective unconscious and is interesting food for thought.
Intuitive Symbolism to Linear Logic
Possibly most significant is the widespread and apparent change in human consciousness that was taking place in the region. Whether it was due to the spread of writing, an effect of evolution, or a combination of factors, the minds of human beings were becoming starkly different and after the Hellenistic age it became a permanent change. One of the plainest examples is the eradication of animism, which is the way human beings perceived and experienced life throughout most of history.
Animism is a term in modern anthropology that means the belief that all objects, creatures and places possess their own spiritual essence. Animals, plants, rocks, lakes, weather, mountains, and all of nature is a vast ecosystem of spirits. Objects created by human beings also have spiritual properties, along with the words we speak and actions we take. Simply put, everything has spirit and is alive in some way. This word came into use in the 1800s and isn’t necessarily demeaning but has connotations of primitive superstitions and illogical thinking. Nowadays it is considered a belief, like dualism, monotheism, and atheism, but this was once the way that people experienced life itself. This innate and intuitive sense of universal connection slowly declined and reached its ultimate antithesis in materialism and with it a sense of separation and being disconnected with everything.
Animism’s long decline and the emergence of a new consciousness is seen in the language of the Bronze and Iron Age compared to Late Antiquity. The Iliad features the gods interacting directly with human characters from start to finish, but rarely in the Odyssey. In the case of Egypt, can be seen in the Pyramid Texts and the Corpus Hermeticum.
In earlier times, thought and language were heavily symbolic, intuitive and almost “spherical” for lack of a better description. Spheres and circles signify a lack of linear, tight patterns yet can contain all of them simultaneously. A word or phrase can have many meanings at once and all of them be “true”.
When the Macedonian Empire came to be, human thought was becoming linear in ways that it had never been before. Something is this or that, true or false, one or the other, all or none. I refer to the former as symbolic language and symbolic thought, the language of mythology, and the latter as linear thought and linear language, which is the way we think and express ourselves today.
A fitting example of this is the way in which we today think of time itself. Time is always expressed in linear terms and timelines. It’s divided into past, present, and future with us eternally stuck in the ongoing present and helplessly trudging on into the future. There is very little attention given to the relationship between the cyclical movements of the skies and time aside from niche specialties.
For ancient people, time was cyclical. Time was a direct reflection of the stars that made their eternal cycles as was all life itself. Time itself was a living thing, a force of nature that could be understood through astronomy, the laws of the stars, and astrology, the knowledge of the stars.
How and when did this transformation occur?
Human consciousness has undergone profound transformations since ancient times, evolving from a deeply participatory state to the analytical mindset of the modern age. In earlier human thought, consciousness was holistic and interconnected, perceiving humanity as part of a unified cosmos. Myth, symbol, and imagination dominated this worldview, fostering a deep sense of participation in the rhythms of nature and the divine. Ancient cultures like ancient Egypt, demonstrated a symbolic mode of thought that prioritized intuition and what René Schwaller de Lubicz described as the “intelligence of the heart,” contrasting starkly with the analytical reasoning that characterizes modern consciousness.
This began to shift during the Axial Age, roughly 800 to 200 BCE, a period marked by the emergence of critical and reflective thinking and overlapping with the Iron Age. Humanity began to see itself as distinct from the cosmos, engaging in the rational analysis of existence and the search for universal truths. This intellectual shift marked the rise of individuality and a gradual departure from the collective mythic consciousness of earlier times. Karl Jaspers famously called this period the “Axial Age,” emphasizing its global significance.
The writings of Plato and Aristotle have a degree of duality in them. Plato’s philosophy introduced a sharp distinction between the physical and the transcendent, viewing the physical world as a shadow of eternal, ideal Forms. Aristotle grounded his approach in empirical observation, seeking to categorize and understand the natural world. This marked a pivotal moment in the evolution of consciousness, with Plato’s cosmology depicting a unity that experiences a sense of separateness. Aristotle built on Plato’s Theory of Forms by anchoring thought in what is measurable, focusing on categorization, logic and the development of natural sciences. For Aristotle, physical and transcendent were best understood and observed on their own terms. This contrast is documented by philosophers such as Francis Cornford and later revisited by Iain McGilchrist in his study of left- and right-brain dynamics.
With the rise of Aristotle’s rationalist framework, language increasingly shifted from symbolic expression to descriptive precision. Aristotle’s focus on categorization and logical argumentation required a form of language that could define, classify, and differentiate. Concepts like the syllogism and the law of non-contradiction demanded that language be used in precise, consistent, and unambiguous ways. While this advance allowed for rigorous philosophical and scientific study, it also constrained the flexibility and multiplicity of meaning that had characterized earlier symbolic languages.
In ancient thought, words were seen as having spiritual properties and certain words had the ability to influence spirit, and to some degree, matter. In the Egyptian language, Heka was the goddess of magic and the word for magic itself, and the term for “spoken word” was hekau. The intricate symbolic relationship of a dung beetle, roosters, gold, and lions was easily and intuitively understood as sharing a relationship with the sun. All of them were different expressions of the same thing and none were better or more true descriptors than the others. All of them participated in the same thing. Egyptian language and culture was so deeply rooted in this ancient mode of thought that it couldn’t easily adapt to the changes of the Hellenistic age.
This shift in thinking had begun centuries before, but Aristotle established the groundwork for important advancements that solidified in the Hellenistic era and continues to the present. The pursuit of spiritual and physical knowledge had been closely intertwined in a holistic perspective in ages past. This shift brought with it significant changes in language and a widespread upheaval in spirituality. This upheaval resulted in a widespread synthesis of the ancient world. According to Emperor Julian (the Apostate), Hellenistic philosophy was uniquely valuable because it consolidated into a cohesive whole the immense achievements developed to mastery by many ancient cultures: the geometry of Egypt, the arithmetic of the Phoenicians, and the Babylonian sciences of the stars.
This upheaval was also accompanied by numerous disasters, endless wars, political instability and social problems stemming from the rapid spread of countless Christian sects which began to threaten the older traditions. The social instability of Christians versus pagans coincided with the collapse of the Roman Empire, and Nicene Christianity seized control of the power vacuum left by the Caesars. The pagan gods and the Monad of the philosophers actively created and participated in all aspects of life. The Christian Gnostics sought to know and experience the transcendent. The One God of Nicene Christianity was remote, unknowable and existed apart from everything. This concept drove another wedge between humans and nature that continued to worsen over time.
The knowledge of the Hellenized pagans was reframed and reconciled with monotheism during the medieval period. The Islamic Golden Age and European Renaissance brought about a renewed enthusiasm for Hermeticism and Neoplatonism but it was not to last.
The Enlightenment brought a total shift toward pure rationality and left-brain dominance. Analytical reasoning, materialism, and empirical science began to overshadow symbolic and intuitive modes of thought. The modern world, defined by technological advancement and reductionist science, fragmented consciousness and reduced existence to what could be quantified and measured. This mechanistic view of the universe excludes notions of spirit, meaning, or purpose, leaving most feeling alienated. As Iain McGilchrist argued, this represents a takeover of the analytical left brain, at the expense of the holistic right. In the effort to break the stranglehold of enforced superstitions and ignorance, the Enlightenment and Industrial Age threw many proverbial babies out with the bathwater.
The focus on left-brain rationality has brought unparalleled technological and scientific progress but at the cost of a fragmented collective psyche. People have never had more material comforts and conveniences but are profoundly miserable. Mental illness and neurosis are rampant in first-world countries. This is not to say that the rest of recorded history was free of misery, far from it. Real utopias and perfect golden ages only exist as ideals, but something big is amiss.
Adaptations Over Time
I believe that one of the broader goals of the Persian Empire may have been large-scale social engineering of the region and that Egypt’s elite classes, namely the priesthoods, had similar ideas. The priests of Egypt recognized that their time was drawing short and saw in Greek students the means to prevent a total loss of the knowledge that had been passed down for thousands of years. All signs pointed towards the end, and this was no doubt devastating for them. The Lament of Hermes, an early Hermetic dialogue, eloquently expresses this situation.
In the centuries prior to Alexander, some key Greek thinkers likely studied in Egypt and the ultimate effect was Greeks advancing in all areas. Pythagoras had proven to be successful, perhaps not in his lifetime, but his lasting impact set enormous wheels in motion. His teachings were fully incorporated into Plato’s Academy. His school produced Aristotle, who educated Alexander.
Alexander then seized control of the international trade network founded by Darius I and made Koine Greek the international language. This, coupled with the desirability of a Greek education, embedded the teachings of the Greek philosophers permanently into the collective psyche of billions. A small number of men and women around five centuries before the time of Christ managed to rescue ancient traditions like Orphism from decline and adapt them to a new era. Not only the Greek traditions, but Egyptian, Babylonian and Persian teachings were adapted into the universalist doctrines of Pythagoras.
The life of Pythagoras was not mentioned in writing until a century after his death, around 400 BC. The Athenian educator Isokrates wrote a story set in Egypt and mentions as common knowledge that Pythagoras was a student of Egyptian priests for many years Later biographers wrote that he spent two decades in Egypt and around a decade with the Babylonian Magi, and others provide impossible or conflicting accounts. He was born on the island of Samos and much later in life established his school in what is now Italy.
The Pythagorean Theorem was recently discovered on a clay Babylonian tablet dated around 1500 BC, a thousand years before him. Egypt’s engineering accomplishments require highly advanced knowledge of mathematics. Both Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus visited Egypt in the 5th century BCE and many priests told them of famous Greeks having studied there. Either Pythagoras rediscovered it independently or it had been taught to him.
By the Common Era, the biographies of many earlier philosophers had been embellished and read like hagiographies of saints. Many historians long rejected the idea that Egyptians had any significant influence on the Greeks, but some are making a strong case that Egypt was a primary influence. Joseph Manning has published a great deal of new evidence, much of it archaeological, showing Greek culture transforming around 600 BC when close, continuous cooperation with Egypt began. This culminated with Alexander and the Ptolemies as the consummation of a long relationship.
When Alexandria reached its peak, all the knowledge Egypt had to offer was available and the Greek thinkers were eager to get as much as possible. Whether this was planned and put in motion centuries prior or was a fortunate accident for Egypt will never be known, but the ultimate effect was favorable to Egypt for over seven centuries.
While the syncretic Serapis was Alexandria’s presiding deity, three key events took place: the emergence of Coptic writing, the introduction of the tropical zodiac and the appearance of Hermes Trismegistus.
Above: Statue of Serapis and Cerberus
Religion and civilization are intimately intertwined and an essential pair. Religion is extremely powerful. It gives people a collective identity, governs their behavior and can exert psychological influences on people more powerful than any living authority figure. A monarch with divine authority and a pious population had total and willing obedience. A large upheaval in religion can easily bring with it the downfall of an entire nation, especially when its rulers’ legitimacy and authority to rule is believed to be divinely ordained.
The region was experiencing a vacuum that saw old gods take on new identities, seemingly new ones appear, and conflicting ideas about one spiritual source that surpasses all others. The change was not welcomed by all. Some people feared the loss of their identity and traditions. Some were outraged by the customs and practices of other people, like the divide between Christians and pagans that eventually strained Rome to the breaking point. Syncretism was perhaps one of the main causes of the strict and narrow interpretations that have come to accompany monotheism in the west.