Rosicrucian
Digest
No. 1
2007
Page 28
What is it about ancient Egypt that
people today find so fascinating?
Jeremy Naydler suggests that what
really draws people to Egypt is less the great
monuments and works of art than the religious
consciousness that produced them. This religious
consciousness of the ancient Egyptians exposes a
tension in our own culture between the world
view of modern scientific materialism on the one
hand and a worldview that would connect us
once again with the reality of the spiritual
dimension. Looking back to the ancient
Egyptians, we find that their awareness of the
interior realms of gods, spirits, and archetypal
images strikes a surprising chord with our own
deepest longings. This essay is based on a talk
given at the Theosophical Society, London
November 27, 2003.
Jeremy Naydler is the author of two full-
length studies of ancient Egyptian religious
consciousness: Temple of the Cosmos: The Ancient
Egyptian Experience of the Sacred (1996) and
Shamanic Wisdom in the Pyramid Texts: the
Mystical Tradition of Ancient Egypt (2005).
The Fascination With Ancient Egypt
Today there seems to be an unprecedented
fascination with ancient Egypt. We see
evidence of this in the unceasing flow of books
on ancient Egyptian history, culture, and art;
in the seemingly inexhaustible TV coverage
that ancient Egypt attracts; in the amount of
journals and magazines, both scholarly and
popular,
dedicated
to widening
our
understanding of the civilization; in the
plethora of societies devoted to studying and
celebrating it; in the numerous lecture courses
being given in the adult education departments
of our universities; and, not least, in the huge
amount of tourists visiting Egypt each year. We
might well ask: What lies behind this modern
fascination with ancient Egypt?
Jeremy Naydler, Ph.D.
Certainly the Egyptians produced some
monumental buildings and stunning works
of art, the grandeur of which makes the
achievements of contemporary civilization
seem paltry