by Max McCoy
A somewhat softer attitude has been taken by researchers such as Rupert Sheldrake, author of Seven Experiments That Could Change the World. Sheldrake argues that ESP and other traditionally taboo topics have been neglected for too long by mainstream science. It is time, Sheldrake says, to test these phenomena on a wide scale, and it doesn't take big money in the form of endowments or research grants to do it.
"This book is not only about a more open kind of science," Sheldrake writes, "but about a more open way of doing science: more public, more participatory, less the monopoly of a scientific priesthood." He suggests seven shoestring experiments for the layperson to test—for example, the seemingly psychic ability of pigeons to home and the common human sensation of being stared at. About 80 percent of people have experienced the latter, Sheldrake says, and the phenomenon is closely related to the ancient "Evil Eye"—a belief in negative influence that can be transmitted to another by the act of staring.
Magic is a part of all religious systems, or appears to be at least a part of the origins of all religions, although its importance to each system varies. In the nineteenth century, however, there was a trend in Judeo-Christian civilization to set magic apart from other religious phenomena and to describe cultures that practiced it as "primitive." Today, the distinction between magic and religion is less clear, although magic tends to be technical and impersonal—a means to an end, in other words—while religion has personal and spiritual overtones.
Egypt was called the "cradle of magic" by Albert A. Hopkins in his 1897 book documenting the world's most famous magic tricks, and for good reason. In addition to Pharaoh's magicians mentioned in Exodus, ancient papyri are rife with spells and incantations, and there survive plenty of magical documents from the apex of Eygptian magic, which occurred around the second century in Alexandria. Indeed, magic—at least professional magic, the conjurer's art—seems to have survived well in the twentieth century. Snake charming is still a widespread family business from Egypt to India.
John A. Keel's Jadoo, first published in 1957, is an absorbing investigation into the "black magic of the Orient," and those interested in snake charmers, rope tricks, and abominable snowmen will find it delightful. Black magic, by the way, is that which is intended to harm another, and is also known as sorcery; white magic is said to be beneficial; and divination is an attempt to understand or foretell events rather than influence them. Stage magic, however, can be more clearly defined.
Jean Eugene Robert Houdin, the nineteenth-century French magician who is regarded as the father of modern stage magic, named five classes of performance magic, all of which are still with us in one form or another: Feats of Dexterity, such as card tricks and other legerdemains; Experiments in Natural Magic, which employ established scientific processes for entertainment; Mental Conjuring; Pretended Mesmerism, such as "mind reading" acts and displays of extrasensory perception; and Pretended Mediumship, such as the classic nineteenth-century seance and its New Age counterpart, channeling.
Closely related to stage magic is the performance of the escape artist, which came into its own early in this century. The most famous of all escape artists was Harry Houdini, who was born Erik Weisz and adopted a stage name in honor of Robert Houdin. Like Randi, Houdini vigorously crusaded against mediums and others he considered frauds. Yet, the question lingered in the back of Houdini's mind, too: Was communication beyond the grave possible? Long before he died on Halloween, 1926, of a ruptured appendix, he had established a code to be delivered to his wife so that she would know if his spirit existed on the other side. The code was delivered to his wife during a seance, but there was later a suggestion that the medium may have learned of the code through a third party.
The nexus where magic and science meet is in the mind of the beholder. Ask any nontechnical person how a television set, or a computer, or a microwave works, and you are likely to get a blank stare and the rather pragmatic defense that the important thing is knowing how to use the devices, not understanding how they work. I am reminded of the maxim by scientist and science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke: "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."
The Staff of Aaron
Like the Ark of the Covenant, the Staff is a biblical artifact that continues to resonate with the power, mystery, and sometimes vengeful and warlike spirit of the God of the Old Testament. It is also called the Staff of God in scripture, and is sometimes incorrectly identified in popular culture as belonging to Moses; although the Staff was the instrument that helped summon the plagues upon Egypt, and that mysteriously enabled the Hebrews to win in battle (as long as Moses held it up), this miraculous device actually belonged to Aaron. The story of Moses—who delivered his people from Egyptian slavery and established the independence of Israel as a nation in about 1440 B.C.—is incomplete without mention of Aaron, Moses' older brother, and their sister, Miriam.
Born three years before Pharaoh's edict to kill all male children, Aaron was the elder brother of Moses. His name means "uncertain" in Hebrew, and this seems to describe Aaron best; he was sometimes weak in character, and jealous. When Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments directly from God, Aaron helped the backsliding Israelites return to idolatry by fashioning the golden calf. Aaron, along with his sister, who was a prophetess, was also harshly critical of Moses' marriage to a Cushitic woman. Yet, Aaron consistently found favor from the Lord. He, not Moses, was the supreme religious leader of the Israelites. When his authority as high priest was challenged, Aaron's staff miraculously bloomed and bore fruit, signifying his divine authority; his position was then made perpetual by the inclusion of the Staff in the Ark of the Covenant, along with the second pair of stone tablets (Moses had smashed the first in anger) containing the Ten Commandments. The Ark was the focus of the Israelites' traveling sanctuary, which, according to scripture, had the nasty habit of striking those dead who dared come near it.
When Moses first received his commission as a deliverer of his people, and doubted his ability to lead—perhaps because of a stutter or speech impediment, some say—Aaron was chosen by God to be his spokesman. This seems to contradict other passages in the Old Testament, which report that Moses was a gifted orator and leader. Moses, you may remember, spent the first forty years of his life as a privileged member of the Egyptian royal court; he was found by Pharaoh's daughter in the reeds along the bank of the Nile, where he had been hidden to prevent his being slain along with other male infants doomed by Pharaoh's edict.
When Moses went to Pharaoh to demand the release of the Israelites, Aaron accompanied him. According to Exodus, it was Aaron, not Moses, who cast down his staff, which changed into a serpent and gobbled up the enchantments of Pharaoh's magicians.
Like Moses, Aaron was not allowed by God to enter the Promised Land at the end of the forty years in the wilderness. After surrendering his priestly robes to his son Eleazar, Aaron died at age 123 and was buried on Mount Hor. That, at least, is according to Numbers 33. Deuteronomy 10 says Aaron was buried at Mosera. In either case, no mention of the Staff is given—was it buried with Aaron, was it handed to Eleazar, or did it continue to be carried in the Ark of the Covenant?
I have dealt primarily with the Christian version of the story, as related by tradition and the ubiquitous King James Version of the Bible. The reason, of course, is not because of some personal bias, but because this would be the predominant cultural and literary tradition for Indiana Jones. It should be remembered, however, that Moses and his siblings are important figures in Islam as well as Judaism and Christianity. Also, the story of Moses achieved special resonance when Israel was once again declared an independent nation on May 14, 1948.
The Omega Book
Although the Omega Book is a product of my imagination, it was inspired by an ancient and nearly universal belief: that somewhere, perhaps in the shadowy area between this world and the next, there exists a carefully kept and all-knowing record of our lives. This myth, in one form or ano
ther, seems to have been around for as long as we have. It is a myth, as Joseph Campbell once described myth, not because it is a lie, but because it represents a metaphorical—or, more accurately, the penultimate—truth. "Penultimate," Campbell said, because ultimate truth is beyond words and images.
In Christianity, the Book of Life is the record of all of those who have been redeemed by Jesus Christ and who will therefore be allowed to enter the New Jerusalem, as described in Revelation. Three books with similar titles are traditionally evaluated on Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year: The Book of Life of the Wicked, The Book of Life of the Righteous, and The Book of Life of "Those in Between." The righteous are promised a good and eternal life, while the wicked are immediately condemned to death. Judgment of those in between—and I presume most would fall into this category—is deferred until Yom Kippur.
Other religions have had similar beliefs, and they go at least as far back as Babylon, where the gods could erase the names of the wicked from "The Tablets of Destiny" and enter them instead onto "The Tablets of Transgression."
The title of my book comes from the last character of the Greek alphabet, which resonates with biblical finality; it was also influenced by physicist Frank J. Tipler's controversial "Omega Point" theory. In brief, Tipler suggests that the universe might evolve into a kind of all-knowing and all-powerful computer at the end of time and simulate "an entire visible universe for the personal use of each and every human" who ever lived. The result? Virtual resurrection. Although Tipler's theory, which includes a discussion of how much computing power would be needed for these worlds without end, is thought-provoking and well-argued, it seems to me that it is just the latest incarnation of an old belief. But instead of being represented by a book, which was the most powerful information storage device in the time of Moses, the Omega Point uses a computer, which prepares to launch the myth into the twenty-first century. The ultimate truth may lurk in the wordless areas of our psyches, where there is transcendent truth and an unending tally of our own good and evil.
The Sphinx
Through tradition, the Great Sphinx at Giza has long been the symbol of unfathomable mysteries. The name "sphinx" is Greek for an imaginary and evil monster with the head of a woman and the winged body of a lion that was prone to destroy travelers who could not supply the correct answer to her riddles; the most famous of all Greek sphinxes appears in the story of Oedipus. Egyptian sphinxes are similar, but could have a human or animal head.
In mythology, all sphinxes seem to be connected with riddles or ancient secrets, with terror following close behind. And in literature, sphinxes have also been used to represent future horrors. In the H. G. Wells classic The Time Machine, for example, the dreaded Morlocks emerge from their subterranean chambers through a Sphinx-like structure to feast upon the childlike Eloi.
Recently, the age of the Great Sphinx at Giza and its significance to world culture has been the subject of several popular books and television shows that have traditional Egyptologists spinning. In The Message of the Sphinx, for example, Graham Hancock and Robert Bauval argue that the enigmatic monument was not built around 2500 B.C., as Egyptologists believe, but some ten thousand years earlier.
The authors cite the work of John West, who believes that the deep erosion on the Sphinx and the surrounding enclosure were caused not by wind and sand, but by water. The weathering, West says, must have taken place before the breakup of the last Ice Age—which, to say the least, would upset the conventional wisdom about the emergence of civilization.
Hancock and Bauval believe the Sphinx was created not by the Egyptians, but by an earlier and technologically superior civilization. It is not a new idea, and there is a long tradition that the Sphinx is a monument created by an advanced and now-lost civilization before the biblical flood. Edgar Cayce, the "sleeping prophet," predicted that the lost records of Atlantis would be found beneath the paws of the Sphinx. This Hall of Records, Cayce said, would be rediscovered at or near the end of the twentieth century.
Authors Hancock and Bauval seem to agree, and they steep themselves in detailed facts and figures and conjecture about the Great Sphinx in much the same way that pyramidologists have done for generations.
"There is something of momentous importance there," they write, "waiting to be found—by seismic surveys, by drilling and excavation, in short by a rediscovery and exploration of the hidden corridors and chambers (beneath the Sphinx).... It could be the ultimate prize."
Cayce, by the way, believed that he was the reincarnation of an Atlantean prince named Ra-Ta.
Dr. Mark Lehner, the world's foremost expert on the Sphinx, is also traditional Egyptology's foremost and perhaps most eloquent spokesman. In a letter to Hancock and Bauval after reading portions of the manuscript of The Message of the Sphinx, Lehner wrote:
"I began to suggest to the Cayce community that they look at the Egypt/Atlantis story as a myth in the sense that Joseph Campbell popularized, or that Carl Jung drew upon in his psychology of archetypes. Although the myth is not literally true, it may in some way be literally true. The Cayce 'readings' themselves say, in their own way, that the inner world of symbols and archetypes is more 'real' than the particulars of the physical world. I compared Cayce's Hall of Records to the Wizard of Oz. Yes, we all want the 'sound and the fury' and powerful wizardry to be real, without having to pay any attention to the little man behind the curtain (ourselves). In archaeology, many dilettantes and New Agers want to be on the trail of a lost civilization, aliens, yes, 'the gods,' without having to pay attention to the real people behind time's curtain and without having to deal with the difficult subject matter upon which so-called 'orthodox' scholars base their views."
In one of the ironies with which archaeology is rife, it should be noted that Lehner—the orthodox world's expert—began his study of the Sphinx because he was inspired by Cayce's prophecy, and with the backing of an organization of Cayce believers. But, Lehner says, the more he studied the more he came to believe in empirical evidence over prophecy.
A Final Note
This series of original Indiana Jones adventures would not have been possible, of course, without the wonderful characters and situations that Raiders of the Lost Ark gave us. Thanks to moviemakers George Lucas and Steven Spielberg for worlds of entertainment, and to all of the actors in the Indiana Jones trilogy for helping to create such easily identifiable characters. One cannot write about Indy—or, I suspect, read about him—without imagining Harrison Ford.
Thanks are especially due to my long-suffering editor at Bantam, Tom Dupree, who shepherded the first three books to publication, and to his successor, Pat Lobrutto, who suffered less only because he had just one of my books to worry about; to my agent, Robin Rue, for her belief and support; and to my Austin friend Fred Bean, for his creative contributions. Special recognition is also deserved by the late Gene DeGruson, special collections librarian at Pittsburg State University in Kansas, whose unselfish contributions enriched these and many other books.
There are many others I should thank, including librarians and researchers across the country, but unfortunately the list is too long to cite each individual. A collective thanks to all must suffice.
That said, I pass the hat and whip.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAX McCOY is an award-winning journalist and author whose Bantam novels include The Sixth Rider and Sons of Fire. He lives in Pittsburg, Kansas.
WRITTEN IN BLOOD
It is the most coveted of all ancient artifacts. In it is written the history—and the fate—of every human being. And he who owns it writes his own destiny. Now Indiana Jones follows a trail of danger, magic, and archaeological mystery through the war-torn Orient, from Rangoon to the Egyptian desert, searching for the secret underground hiding place of the all-powerful Omega Book. But with a beautiful woman seeking her missing magician husband, and a vengeance-crazed Japanese spymaster hot on his heels, Indy is running out of time. If the Omega Book falls into the wrong hands
, not only his own fate but the fate of the world will be at the mercy of a madman bent on writing humanity's final chapter!
