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Message: <blockquote data-quote="nedjer" data-source="post: 5244353" data-attributes="member: 83796">The "ritual hidden in plain sight" does seems very central to all  these myths and initiation rituals. This stuff interests me through  studying the behaviours, but there's a long tradition of thinking of it  in terms of 'faith' and ensuring 'knowledge' remains hidden.Hamlet's  Mill rambles at great length (never seen it summed up so concisely).  Much of the material is hard to piece together but it's supported by  Egypt in particular. Egyptologists (rather than Pyramidologists) accept  that the Pharaonic stellar royal cult recognised a (limited) set of  constellations and other features as representing the actions and  locations of familiar dieties from the pharaohs' pantheon.It's  heavy going but these Pyramid Texts, among others, mention dieties as  anthropomorphised constellations moving around a stellar landscape with  their anthropomorphised actions encoded in ritual texts:   [FONT=&quot]Utterance 437: 793a-806b[/FONT]  [FONT=&quot]"Awake for Horus! Arise against Seth! Raise yourself as Osiris, as a spirit,  the son of Geb, his first-born! You arise as Anubis who is on the baldachin, the  Ennead tremble at you, the three day festival is celebrated for you, you are  pure for the New Moon, your appearing is for the monthly festival, the Great  Mooring Post calls to you as to Him who stands up and cannot tire, who  dwells in Abydos.[/FONT]  [FONT=&quot]          O  earth, hear this which the gods have said! Re speaks, he makes a spirit of this King, who receives his  spirit-form in front of the gods as Horus, son of Osiris; he gives him his spirit  which is among the Watchers of Pe, he ennobles him as a god who is among the  Watchers of Nekhen.[/FONT]  [FONT=&quot]          The  earth speaks: The doors of the earth-god are opened for you , the doors of Geb are thrown open for  you, you come forth at the voice of Anubis, he makes a spirit of you like  Thoth, you judge the gods, you set bounds to the celestial expanses between the  Two Wands in this your spiritualised state which Anubis commanded. If  you walk, Horus will walk; if you speak Seth will speak; betake yourself to the waterway, fare upstream to the Thinite nome, and traverse Abydos. The celestial  portal to the horizon is open to you, and the gods are joyful at meeting you; they take you to the sky with your soul, you having  been endowed with a soul through them. You will ascend to the sky as Horus upon  the sdsd of the sky in this dignity of yours which issued from the mouth of Re as Horus who is at the head of the  spirits, you being seated upon your iron throne. May you remove yourself to  the sky, for the roads of the celestial expanses which lead up to Horus are  cleared for you. Seth is brotherly toward you as the Great One of On, for you  have traversed the Winding Waterway in the north of the sky as a star  crossing the sea which is beneath the sky. The Netherworld has grasped your  hand at the place where Orion is, the Bull of the Sky has given you  his hand, and you eat of the food of the gods whereof they eat, the savour of Ddwn is  on you, (even) of the youth of Upper Egypt who came out of Nubia; he gives you  the incense wherewith the gods are censed. The two daughters of the King of  Lower Egypt, his first-born, the two Great ladies, bore you, Re has  summoned you from the zenith(?) of the sky as Horus who presides over his thigh  offerings, Stwty Lord of Sbwt, as the  Jackal, the Governor of the Bows,5 as Anubis who presides over the Pure Land. He sets you as the  Morning Star in the middle of the Field of Rushes, you being seated on your throne. Your amputated parts are raised up by the Double Crown, Lord of the Bows,  your abundance is in the Field of the Gods, whereon they feed. You  have your spiritualisation, you have your messengers, you have your intelligence,  you have your earth-attackers(?)."[/FONT]  All the underlined parts may refer to sky phenomena. However, the  winding waterway has been linked to the Milky Way as it appeared, the  Field of Rushes the northern area of the sky near the circumpolar stars  and Orion is familiar. The role/ locations of the rest are hotly debated  to varying degrees but the principle of encoding astronomical data  alongside mythological figures and their actions is accepted.And, yes, it  is slightly odd to have a copy of the PTexts on my PC.As a  mildly amusing aside, on cultural transmission, check this out:Volume  3 of the   [FONT=&quot]Ancient Egyptian Coffin Texts[/FONT] Spell 1099"  [FONT=&quot]I will not be turned back by him who acts with his hands, I will not walk  in the Valley of Darkness, I will not enter into the Lake of Criminals, I will  not be in the heat of (a god’s) striking power,"Psalm 23"[/FONT]though I walk through  the valley of the shadow of  death"Coolio Gangster's Paradise"As I walk  through the valley of the shadow of death I take a look at my life And realize there's nothing left. 'Cause I've been blasting and laughing so long That even my momma thinks that my mind has gone."</blockquote>

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