The Afterworld

by Dennis Green

The tomb of King Tutankhamen was discovered in 1922 by Howard Carter, sparking a huge interest in Egyptian mythology, symbols and artifacts. I have acquired a few relics from that surge of interest, an old 1920s mirror in the shape of an Ankh with images of Isis upon it, (a slightly smaller replica of the one in the current King Tut exhibit), and two friezes from the old Grand Lake Theater in Oakland — one of Isis upon her golden throne and another of her son Horus sitting on his, the falcon-headed god who helped her find in the Underworld, and resurrect, his father, Isis’ consort, Osiris.

Many misunderstandings surround the Tut Exhibit, which we just saw at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco Friday. One is that Tut’s father, Akhenaten, was a monotheist. (He merely put the Sun god it the ascendant, a move which Tutankhamen rescinded). Another is that the “Afterworld,” the “Next World,” the “Other World” was somehow comparable to our notions of heaven and hell.

But for the ancient Egyptians, this world, all of existence, is positively infused with magic and mystery. The “Afterworld” is not out there somewhere, or in the distant future, but right here, right now, underlying all of what we experience with our more prosaic five senses. Their symbols are envisioned as a means of enabling us to see that parallel reality.

The two serpents emerging from Tut’s forehead, the Cobra and the Asp, are merely examples of the “Serpent Power” he exercised.

Like all religious symbolism, it is very esoteric to someone who doesn’t share the culture or the belief system. The ubiquitous Cobra, representing Serpent Power, is a reminder that given proficiency in the discipline of meditation, borrowed from the yogis of India, one can unleash and manifest a primal reptilian force most people never know.

The Ankh itself, that “cross with a handle,” which combines the symbol for “life,” and for female and male energies, also represents infinity, eternity, but especially, as William Blake puts it, “To see the world in a grain of sand, and to see heaven in a wild flower, hold infinity in the palm of your hands, and eternity in an hour.” The ineffable, it precedes the cross later adopted by the Christians.

I am convinced from hours of meditation upon the symbol, wearing several versions, including the Peruvian Ankh, which features the loop without an opening, that the loop itself represents the female sex organ, and the “stem” represents the male’s, while the crossbar, or horizon, is the place where heaven and earth meet. If the closest most humans will get to eternal life is procreation, then the symbol makes all the more sense.

And the Egyptian religion, unlike the Judaic, glorifies sexuality, celebrates it, doesn’t fear it, honors the female in Isis, rather than demonizing her as the “Whore of Babylon.” She was, in different eras, consort to Osiris, to his brother Set and even to her own son Horus. “Incest is best,” or “It’s all in the family..?” Whatever.

Half-sisters, brothers-in-law, mother doers…no wonder the Israelis, sex-phobic in some ways, recoiled in horror. “Captivity” meant being subjected to such values and cultural norms. No wonder Moses parted the Red Sea to get them the hell out of there!

©2010 Dennis Green