In other illustrations, just his hawk or falcon head is visible emerging from the top of the ‘primordial mound’, as symbolised by the pyramid structure, usually placed at the centre of a henu barque (a solar boat).
(“He of Rostau” . . . “Lord of the Secret Place”)
Perhaps the earliest ‘Christ figure’ one can find, and one who is most likely the original Shamanic priest/god archetype behind the ‘Messiah mythos’ of the ancient Middle East, is a mysterious ancient Egyptian god named Sokar, Sekar or Seker . . . “He of Rostau”* being one of many descriptions attributed to this most ancient deity.
* See here.
In Greek he is known as Socharis or Sokaris.
Sokar is said to be a form of - or rather a pre-incarnation - of the god Osiris, as well as his son, the falcon god Horus.
Sokar appears to have been an early syncretised version of both Osiris and Horus), and I say he is ‘mysterious’, because we really don’t possess a lot of information about him.
What we do know is this:
Sokar is said to be one of the oldest and most venerated gods of ancient Egypt, his veneration possibly going back to predynastic times, which makes him very ancient indeed.
Sokar was primarily worshipped in Memphis, the ancient capital of Egypt.
The ‘Sanctuary’ or ‘Dominion’ of Sokar was ROSTAU (R’-sTA.w), which is said to be the necropolis of Giza and where of course the Great Pyramids and the Sphinx are located; however, we are reminded by Egyptologists that ‘Rostau’ is a name that could apply to any necropolis.
The ancient burial ground of Şaqqāra or Sakkâra which served as the necropolis for Memphis, was most likely named after Soker who is also frequently mentioned in the Pyramid Texts at Şaqqāra
“ . . . was the deification of the act of separating the Ba and Ka from the Ha, roughly the separation of soul from the body, after death. This was said to be enabled by the funerary ceremony of opening the mouth, and thus Seker was given his name, meaning cleaning of the mouth. The Ba and Ka, or the "personality" and the "life force" would be reunited as a kind of "enlightened" entity, or Akh”.
‘There are two schools of thought as to the underlying symbolism of the death-and-resurrection motif. It may be a response to the natural cycle of the seasons, particularly in the temperate and northern realms, in which winter brings a very clear apparent "death" of most vegetation, and spring is an almost miraculous resurrection of green. Alternatively, it could be a subconscious representation of the process of "ego death", which is a necessary first step in personal psychological transformation, and the subsequent upwelling of newly-released life energy once the transformation is complete’.
Joesph Robert Jochmans.
‘Memphite Creation beliefs held that the first Creation was through Ptah-Sokar, with his symbolic egg shaped dome the egg/seed of first creation, all the cyclic aspects of nature originated from this point, including that of the Sun, and the rebirth correspondent with its cycles, the Horus Kings upon the Earth effectively reigned through the power of the Great Lord of the Heavens’ .
Source: (After a transliteration and German translation on the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae website:
Old Agyptisches Dictionary, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, PT 532).
Interestingly, we are told that Sokar was a tutelary god of meteors and comets and the patron god of Goldsmiths (again the association with Gold – the final phase of the ‘Great Work’ known as Alchemy).
The ‘Smithy’ Blacksmith, who worked with fire to transform matter, was the brother of the Shaman – the “shaman smithy” – in that they shared a common attribute associated with ‘transformation’ on all levels.
In some ancient Egyptian illustrations, Sokar is also shown standing on the back of a winged serpent about to ascend towards the heavens and from the base or somewhere beneath the primeval mound or ‘mound of creation’, also called the Omphalos at the centre of the world.
This really describes the Great Pyramid and here we see a powerful image of Sokar who looks as if he is about to ascend to the apex of this primordial mound or pyramid.
The primordial mound is also represented by the Omphalos-shaped, "black Void" above which is flanked by two birds (Kites) and has a Tau Cross sticking out the top of it as if conveying the message that the primordial mound of creation over which the Pyramid has been built, is really a swirling vortex – a description which can be understood today.
This illustration also commemorates “the first time of the age of the Gods” according to researcher Joseph Robert Jochmans.
Copyright © Gary Osborn 2005. All Rights Reserved.
Figure 7: Sokar laying prone inside the seven-stepped mound or pyramid, surmounted by the god Osiris.
Figure 8: A rendition of one of the details from the “Fifth Hour of the Duat” – one of the many wall paintings from the “Book of the Secret Room” found inside the tomb of the 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom Pharaoh, Thutmosis III, who ruled Egypt between 1504 and 1450 BC.
The tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings (tomb KV 34) in 1898 by Victor Loret’s workmen.
This ancient Egyptian illustration is known as“The Fifth Hour of the Amduat” or Duat (Underworld).
Note the head of the raised ‘Kundalini goddess’, taking the place of the apex.
Note also, the scarab beetle god Kheper or Khepri associated with the Sun – the ‘Inner Sun’ – entering or exiting the Void of creation.
We shall discover in the following presentation that Khepri also symbolises the Thalamus, but rather the connection the thalamus has with the seventh chakra and the bindu point above the head - again also known by the Hindus as the Void.
These additions to the image symbolise the raised or ascended consciousness of Sokar himself and this is what is being conveyed.
Compare the image of Khepri who is shown half inside the Void with the image below.
This image first appeared in an edition of The New Scientist, (1998).
This edition of the magazine featured articles exclusively about the ‘Nothing’ Void in terms of Free Energy, Zero-Point Energy and the Zero in mathematics.
Figure 9: Front cover of The New Scientist, (No 2131. 25th April 1998).
Again, we can compare the above with what the scarab beetle is doing in the ancient Egyptian image.
This image, although not in any way meant to be associated with the above ancient Egyptian illustrations, is apt nevertheless, and seems to suggest a subconscious acknowledgement of what all of us know deep down at the unconscious level.
We could say that the man is shown entering the ‘Unconscious’ – his own and that of the collective - and that this is a modern-day version of what is being symbolically conveyed in the ancient Egyptian illustrations of an individual entering the Duat or ‘Underworld’ and using "something" within the brain, as represented by the beetle god Khepri, to achieve it.
This “something” within the brain is again the central Thalamus which actually resembles a scarab beetle; a connection that the ancient Egyptians were well aware of so it appears.
Its not surprising then to discover that the god Sokar was also depicted with a scarab beetle standing on his head, representing the scarab beetle god Khepri – associated with the Rising Sun.
In the following illustrative example we again see the same “matchstick-man” image of Sokar, this time with a scarab beetle above his head.
He is also surrounded by a five-headed serpent – again associated with the risen energy of the Kundalini through the chakras, as depicted in Hindu art as seven cobra heads rearing up over the back of the head of an avatar or Naga god – a Hindu ‘shining one’.
Figure 12: The god Sokar with the beetle god Khepri above his head at the location of the Bindu.
From The Sixth Hour of the Amduat – also from the tomb of Thutmosis III.
Here, the beetle god Kheper or Khepri (the Rising Sun) takes the place of the Ra ‘Sun disk’ often worn on the heads of other deities, and also the ‘circumpunct sun symbol’ (Eye of Ra) as shown above Sokar’s head in the illustration above.
The ‘sun symbol’ or circumpunct is given reference as the Oculus of dome buildings and like the one which George Washington sits beneath, the circumpunct or solar symbol of the oculus is above his head like the ‘solar disk’ we see above the head of Sokar.
Again, this is the location of the Bindu point; however, in this illustration, the scarab beetle (Khepri) is being used here to further one’s knowledge. In other words it is a symbolic device conveying the organ or area within the centre of the brain - the thalamus - through which one is spiritually connected to the Bindu – the Void or Source-Center of consciousness.
“They [the temples] were built according to an architectural plan which was supposed to have been revealed in a codex that came from the heavens at Saqqara in the days of Imhotep.”
The Egyptians by Cyril Aldred, 1961, p.32
In other illustrations, just his hawk or falcon head is visible emerging from the top of the ‘primordial mound’, as symbolised by the pyramid structure, usually placed at the centre of a henu barque (a solar boat).
“ . . . was the deification of the act of separating the Ba and Ka from the Ha, roughly the separation of soul from the body, after death. This was said to be enabled by the funerary ceremony of opening the mouth, and thus Seker was given his name, meaning cleaning of the mouth. The Ba and Ka, or the "personality" and the "life force" would be reunited as a kind of "enlightened" entity, or Akh”.
The Complete Gods and Goddesses of Ancient Egypt by Richard H. Wilkinson,
(Thames and Hudson 2003), pp.209.
‘There are two schools of thought as to the underlying symbolism of the death-and-resurrection motif. It may be a response to the natural cycle of the seasons, particularly in the temperate and northern realms, in which winter brings a very clear apparent "death" of most vegetation, and spring is an almost miraculous resurrection of green. Alternatively, it could be a subconscious representation of the process of "ego death", which is a necessary first step in personal psychological transformation, and the subsequent upwelling of newly-released life energy once the transformation is complete’.
Joesph Robert Jochmans.
‘Memphite Creation beliefs held that the first Creation was through Ptah-Sokar, with his symbolic egg shaped dome the egg/seed of first creation, all the cyclic aspects of nature originated from this point, including that of the Sun, and the rebirth correspondent with its cycles, the Horus Kings upon the Earth effectively reigned through the power of the Great Lord of the Heavens’ .
Source: (After a transliteration and German translation on the Thesaurus Linguae Aegyptiae website:
Old Agyptisches Dictionary, Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, PT 532).
Interestingly, we are told that Sokar was a tutelary god of meteors and comets and the patron god of Goldsmiths (again the association with Gold – the final phase of the ‘Great Work’ known as Alchemy).
The ‘Smithy’ Blacksmith, who worked with fire to transform matter, was the brother of the Shaman – the “shaman smithy” – in that they shared a common attribute associated with ‘transformation’ on all levels.
In some ancient Egyptian illustrations, Sokar is also shown standing on the back of a winged serpent about to ascend towards the heavens and from the base or somewhere beneath the primeval mound or ‘mound of creation’, also called the Omphalos at the centre of the world.
This really describes the Great Pyramid and here we see a powerful image of Sokar who looks as if he is about to ascend to the apex of this primordial mound or pyramid.
The primordial mound is also represented by the Omphalos-shaped, "black Void" above which is flanked by two birds (Kites) and has a Tau Cross sticking out the top of it as if conveying the message that the primordial mound of creation over which the Pyramid has been built, is really a swirling vortex – a description which can be understood today.
This illustration also commemorates “the first time of the age of the Gods” according to researcher Joseph Robert Jochmans.
Copyright © Gary Osborn 2005. All Rights Reserved.
Figure 7: Sokar laying prone inside the seven-stepped mound or pyramid, surmounted by the god Osiris.
Figure 8: A rendition of one of the details from the “Fifth Hour of the Duat” – one of the many wall paintings from the “Book of the Secret Room” found inside the tomb of the 18th Dynasty, New Kingdom Pharaoh, Thutmosis III, who ruled Egypt between 1504 and 1450 BC.
The tomb was discovered in the Valley of the Kings (tomb KV 34) in 1898 by Victor Loret’s workmen.
This ancient Egyptian illustration is known as“The Fifth Hour of the Amduat” or Duat (Underworld).
Note the head of the raised ‘Kundalini goddess’, taking the place of the apex.
Note also, the scarab beetle god Kheper or Khepri associated with the Sun – the ‘Inner Sun’ – entering or exiting the Void of creation.
We shall discover in the following presentation that Khepri also symbolises the Thalamus, but rather the connection the thalamus has with the seventh chakra and the bindu point above the head - again also known by the Hindus as the Void.
These additions to the image symbolise the raised or ascended consciousness of Sokar himself and this is what is being conveyed.
Compare the image of Khepri who is shown half inside the Void with the image below.
This image first appeared in an edition of The New Scientist, (1998).
This edition of the magazine featured articles exclusively about the ‘Nothing’ Void in terms of Free Energy, Zero-Point Energy and the Zero in mathematics.
Figure 9: Front cover of The New Scientist, (No 2131. 25th April 1998).
Again, we can compare the above with what the scarab beetle is doing in the ancient Egyptian image.
This image, although not in any way meant to be associated with the above ancient Egyptian illustrations, is apt nevertheless, and seems to suggest a subconscious acknowledgement of what all of us know deep down at the unconscious level.
We could say that the man is shown entering the ‘Unconscious’ – his own and that of the collective - and that this is a modern-day version of what is being symbolically conveyed in the ancient Egyptian illustrations of an individual entering the Duat or ‘Underworld’ and using "something" within the brain, as represented by the beetle god Khepri, to achieve it.
This “something” within the brain is again the central Thalamus which actually resembles a scarab beetle; a connection that the ancient Egyptians were well aware of so it appears.
Its not surprising then to discover that the god Sokar was also depicted with a scarab beetle standing on his head, representing the scarab beetle god Khepri – associated with the Rising Sun.
In the following illustrative example we again see the same “matchstick-man” image of Sokar, this time with a scarab beetle above his head.
He is also surrounded by a five-headed serpent – again associated with the risen energy of the Kundalini through the chakras, as depicted in Hindu art as seven cobra heads rearing up over the back of the head of an avatar or Naga god – a Hindu ‘shining one’.
Figure 12: The god Sokar with the beetle god Khepri above his head at the location of the Bindu.
From The Sixth Hour of the Amduat – also from the tomb of Thutmosis III.
Here, the beetle god Kheper or Khepri (the Rising Sun) takes the place of the Ra ‘Sun disk’ often worn on the heads of other deities, and also the ‘circumpunct sun symbol’ (Eye of Ra) as shown above Sokar’s head in the illustration above.
The ‘sun symbol’ or circumpunct is given reference as the Oculus of dome buildings and like the one which George Washington sits beneath, the circumpunct or solar symbol of the oculus is above his head like the ‘solar disk’ we see above the head of Sokar.
Again, this is the location of the Bindu point; however, in this illustration, the scarab beetle (Khepri) is being used here to further one’s knowledge. In other words it is a symbolic device conveying the organ or area within the centre of the brain - the thalamus - through which one is spiritually connected to the Bindu – the Void or Source-Center of consciousness.
Could this ‘codex from the heavens’ have been the ‘Geometric Formula’ containing the “proportions of the universe” that 32nd-Degree Mason Frank C. Higgins had written about so extensively?
It would certainly appear so, as this is exactly what this statement from the Temple walls of Edfu says.
Again, Sokar is the god whose name was most likely given to Şaqqāra, and so there is indeed a link between this god and the codex or ‘geometric formula’ containing the proportions of the universe and on which the architectural geometry of the Great Pyramid was based.
The Pyramid Texts are profoundly metaphysical and are certainly shamanic in origin, and we find that the symbolism and attributes relating to Sokar, who is mentioned in the Pyramid Texts, along with the gods, Osiris, Horus, Thoth, and Ra, means that he embodies many, if not all, of the metaphysical, qualities, abilities and powers expressed in the Pyramid Texts.
Sokar is also shown seated on a throne and also in mummiform; laying prone.
In the image below we see Sokar laying prone inside a seven-tiered, stepped pyramid with the Sun disk at the apex, surmounted by a large risen serpent whose striped body resembles the striped steps of the pyramid, indicating that the pyramid and its seven levels is also associated with the same serpent.
Sokar was described or referred to as the “Great God with his Two Wings Opened”.*
Or “the great god who spreads his wings, with multicoloured plumes”, and was called the “Guardian God of the Door to the Underworld”, the “Lord of the Secret Place” (StA.yt),*
And also like the falcon god Horus, who was later associated with the Horizon, Sokar was also “Lord of the Horizon”.*
In the Amduat, Sokar is named as “He who is upon his sand”.*
Through the symbolism being displayed here, we are possibly being told that the sarcophagus wasn't always used as a coffin for the dead; that it was also used as an initiation chamber or deprivation tank, to access altered states of consciousness associated with the 'third eye', pineal gland as symbolised by the pinecone - initiating a shamanic, astral, near-death experience. The objective of the shaman-priest-king was to access the Source-Centre of Creation - the heavenly kingdom within.
One of the secrets of the Freemasons has always been "To learn how to die before you die".
The theory that the pyramids were not tombs but were used as shamanic initiation temples, has recently been presented in the book, 'Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: The Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt', by Jeremy Naydler, (Inner Traditions), 2005.
Figure 11: The ancient Egyptian sarcophagus behind the pinecone positioned at the entrance to the Vatican in Rome.
. . . but what's behind this facade?
At the top of the stairs and behind the pinecone sculpture is an open, ancient Egyptian-styled sarcophagus.
Figure 10: The large Pinecone flanked by two birds positioned at the entrance to the Vatican in Rome.