by Ishmael Reed
And later even Life itself. He began to groove behind a real death cult that grew up about him. His legislators and their wives resembled a Billy Graham audience at Oakland Coliseum. The people began to grumble. There was talk of revolution. Talk that Horus had grown up in Koptos where Isis had gone into exile and was prepared to march on the old man. When the child was younger Set had dispatched an arch poisoner, but he failed because Isis was in possession of the Sacred Book and had developed some pretty strong garde.
Set decided that he would fasten his hold on the populace by performing a miracle the way Osiris used to. He had 1 of his bokors who practiced the art of the Petro Rites with the Left Hand to “come on up and give the folks a show.” Well, being insufficiently trained the boker didn’t know what he was doing; he only knew Dirty Work and raised the temperature of Egypt to over 50,000 degrees* resulting in something resembling an A-bomb explosion. Set and his followers fled to Heliopolis City of the Sun and decided to rule Egypt from there.
Set grew worse. The people began to return to their old ways, dancing and performing the rites as they remembered them, but without the Text and someone to tell them what to do—Osiris’ assistants now dispersed in West Africa, southern Europe, and elsewhere—it resulted in degeneration. Set began to develop a weird relationship with the Sun. If you can understand Los Angeles you can almost get the picture; imagine 2 or 3 Los Angeleses and you got Heliopolis. The legislators lay around in the Sun all day and developed a strange Body Building scene on the beach. Set decided that he would introduce a religion based upon his relationship to the Sun, and since he was a god then the Sun too would be a god. Of course this was nothing new because the Egyptians had worshiped the “heat, light, orbs, and rays,” had worshiped the Sun in a pantheistic manner. With Set, the Sun’s flaming disc eclipsed the rest of its parts.
He made the legislators serve as his writers, as Thoth had for Osiris. Maybe this would do it, he thought. And so the legislators went through the old texts and started rewriting things and doctoring them to make Set look good and Osiris look bad. By establishing his own religion based upon Aton (the Sun’s flaming disc) he felt he would overcome the nature religion of Osiris. He would be the reverse of Osiris who was associated with fertilization and spring; he would become Aton the “burner of growing things,” the Egyptian Jehovah who causes famine pestilence and earthquakes. Before he died he was in such a state that he believed that the Sun was dependent on him and thus he would walk around in circles all day thinking that when he walked the Sun made its course about the planet.
He really flipped. And he was to die watching the Bull God Apis rise all over the land. The Temples of Osiris and Isis were constructed in southern Europe, Nubia and the Sudan. It was becoming a world-wide religion. It was successful everywhere the remnant of the Osirian priesthood was; they knew what it was capable of and knew how to draw it out or make it depart. But in places where The Work wasn’t known it would spring up unexpectedly and cause disastrous results or be mistaken for entertainment or be practiced with the Left Hand. Try as they may to popularize Atonism, the Egyptians weren’t going for it. It became nothing but a club of old grumblers located in Heliopolis.
That was until Amenhotep 4 (about 1500 B.C.). He was a frail tall and weakling interior-decorator type who became an Atonist and changed his name to Akhnaton (devoted to Aton) while he spent sometime in Heliopolis hanging out on the beach the Atonists made popular, now a decadent, Joe Atlas scene.
When the fool moved the capital to Tel el Amarna they knew they had another Set on their hands and the Amon sect, the ones in charge of maintaining the Osirian mysteries, had the sucker offed. To make an uneasy pun they quit this 2nd Set.
Fortunately Tutankhamen came to power and the people were allowed to do their stuff, working out this way on the wall in the hall every which-a-way. That was until Thermuthis, the stubborn, self-indulgent daughter of a weak Pharaoh. 1 day while bathing she discovered a child in a basket and against the advice of Baria, an old HooDoo woman, brought the child into the palace. No 1 could tell her anything. Thermuthis had had her “been to”: her expatriate fling in Europe. Hadn’t she hung out in the cafés and listened to Greek, the language of “civilization”? Hadn’t she learned how to be vague? To flim flam? She looked down on her own people whom she joined her friends in mocking as they went about “practicing that superstitious mess.” The Osirian cult had lost its prestige and now did its stuff “way out on the outskirts of town.” There were rumors of dancing and “getting happy” and singing out here in the roadside temples. At Thermuthis’ request the Pharaoh would have them raided once in a while. But since the Osirians were giving the guard some “ice”—emeralds, diamonds, lapis lazuli—as soon as a priest, houngan and houngonikon or mambo or an elder and his sisters were arrested he was soon back on the street in circulation. Thermuthis and some of her Greek friends went down to these places one night and were appalled at the frankness of these rituals; the Pussies and Dicks on the walls as decoration, the low-down gut-bucket music. They were snobs. (The opening night crowd of charlatans at a racist N.Y. museum.) All day they sat around discussing such things as “If I stand in the water today am I the same person who stood there yesterday etc. etc.” you know. Jiving the citizens of Egypt.
Her adopted son Moses (1350-1250 B.C.) had different ideas. He sneaked off to the Domain of Osiris every time he had a chance. Manetho the 3rd-century B.C. Egyptian historian contends that he even became an Osirian initiate and changed his name to Osarsiph.*
The people, down at these places which bore the aroma of plants growing wild in the fields, called him Pharaoh. The Egyptian scribe Manetho also refers to him as a Pharaoh, most likely the successor of Thermuthis’ father. These orchestras of brass, sistrums and drums would play a music that was influenced by the stars. They played under the stars to 1000s of what they remembered of the Osirian Mysteries. Moses, the young Pharaoh-to-be, would sit in and join in with his brothers. The fingers of these men who worked the crops brought the electricity of the earth to their strings, these men who drank from the cold Blue Nile, whose lips had touched the waters of this magic river, brought this Nile sound to their instruments. Well 1 night they were sitting around and Moses asked them what was the heaviest sound they had ever heard. All the men agreed that it was old Jethro the Midianite who could still play the sounds of the spirits and had a legendary instrument that sounded like an orchestra and knew all the “old songs.” It was rumored that he was a descendant of an actual follower of Osiris who had gone into exile after Set’s purge. They said that he could play so well that lions assembled on the grounds of his farm and went to sleep, that the crops would weave their leaves toward the huts and climb into the bedroom window. That Nature had blessed him with daughters so that there would be more like him. Moses felt that he would have to study under this man. He would have to somehow gain this man’s confidence and perhaps he would teach him everything he knew.
The next day Moses set out to see Jethro. When he came upon the town in whose suburbs Jethro dwelled he went into the local Spirits Temple and made inquiries about Jethro. The Spirit Tasters told him all about Jethro and that he could see his daughters tending to Jethro’s cattle if he went outside of town. They told him where and how far to go. Moses revealed himself as a Pharaoh-to-be and hired the men to stage an episode for him. They would go and pretend to rustle Jethro’s cattle and Moses would come riding out of the hills and divert them. (Moses really liked melodrama.) Well this was done and Moses came out of the hills and repelled the rustlers whom he had paid to perform such a stunt at the Temple of Spirits. The women took their rescuer home and introduced him to their father Jethro. Jethro was happy and persuaded Moses to remain at his home and “drink and eat as much as you want and make-out with my daughters.”
Why not? Moses thought. They weren’t bad and he could just write down everything that Jethro said and when he returned to Egypt he would turn the place out. That night Jethro took out this i
nstrument that must have had about 25 strings. He then put some kind of early styled harmonica in his mouth. And with his feet he beat on some kind of tinny thing. Then he started twanging on that many-stringed monstrosity and zipping his fingers up and down that thing and making that thing cry so that several times Moses leaped in the air and said, Damn! If he could learn that he could be the Hierophant of the surviving Osirian Order. Moses asked Jethro would he mind if he wrote all of this down. Jethro was grateful to this man. He almost considered him a son and told him that this would be fine.
Well the next few months Moses would help the women tend the cows, using them any way he desired, and at night Jethro would play and Moses would write it all down. Soon they were doing duos as Moses slowly learned Jethro’s art. Well when Moses had learned all of Jethro’s songs and had made Jethro create upon these strange instruments he played, Moses packed his papyri instruments and was bidding Jethro goodbye. He said he would play his songs in the temples and while he was playing them he would always have a kind place in his heart for Jethro.
Just as Jethro was bidding Moses goodbye Jethro told him “It’s too bad you’re leaving because that’s not enough. You must know the words to the songs and that’s a family secret.” Moses paused. “Family secret?” “Yes unless you know the words the music becomes ½ right, not all right.” Moses told Jethro and his daughters that he was going to set out but the moon looked ominous. Perhaps he could remain with them for a few more days. That evening Moses asked Jethro to teach him the words. Jethro told him that they were family secrets. He would only pass them on to a son-in-law.
Well, the next day Moses told Jethro that he was in love with Zipporah and wanted to marry her. Jethro, trusting, was overjoyed because he had developed a great fondness for Moses. Moses married Zipporah and as her dowry Jethro taught Moses the family words. Well, Moses and his wife Zipporah were about to leave because he wanted as quickly as possible to return to Egypt to “show off my lovely Black bride to my stepmother, the Pharaoh and my high-yellow sisters and brothers.”
1 day when you return, Jethro said, you can take a trip to Koptos where there is in existence the Sacred Book said to have been written by Thoth himself.
What? Moses asked.
I said 1 of these days Isis will show you the real Book of Thoth—the original sound. The 1 located in her temple at Koptos, guarded by the deathless snake. It has to be gotten during the right moon or it will be the Book in its evil phase.
Moses sighed, Now he tells me! He told his father-in-law that Zipporah didn’t look too well and that he would remain around a few more days before they set out on such an arduous journey. Zipporah pleaded that she felt all right but Moses insisted. Jethro was pleased that Moses was so concerned for his daughter Zipporah and rebuked her for sassing her husband. Moses after a few weeks told Jethro, his wife and her sisters that he felt like going on a camping trip to get some air and that he would return soon.
Moses went into the woods and traveled to the mountains. He wanted to contemplate. He went atop Mount Horeb and fasted and meditated for days. On the night of the 12th day he was so weak, having lost many pounds, he thought he was going to die. It was then that a vision came to him. It seemed, the Specter, to be a man dressed in old-style Egyptian clothes 1000s of years before even Manetho had recorded the 30 Dynasties. He told Moses that he knew his problem. He knew that Moses wanted to find out how to circumvent the deathless snake who guards the temple at Koptos: Isis and Osiris’ Temple. The Specter said he knew that Isis would succumb to a certain line because it was “that time of the month.” He said that he would tell Moses what to do, but first Moses had to promise that he would restore the cult of Aton to Egypt.
Moses laughed. Man, the way people are into animal and vegetation rites and calling everything that moves a spirit, I would be the buffoon of Egypt restoring something as arid as that. The present mysteries, although frowned upon by the aristocracy, including my mother, are extremely popular with the masses. Why there would be revolution. The Specter began to fade-out when Moses reconsidered, I must play this Book! I must find it! He had developed a real thing about it.
Wait. Wait. Of course I will do what you say. How do I go about getting this Book?
You have to talk trash and feed her.
What is that? Moses said recognizing this as ancient dialect that would have to be revealed to him.
Set told him what he meant by these things and after Moses had gotten it all down he returned to Jethro’s ranch looking like a new man. The next day Jethro was sitting on the porch, chewing on some herbs and swinging in a hammock he had made for himself. Some of the old red-eyed Black men from the hills were gathered about the master playing their stringed and percussion instruments, cowbells, mouth harps, calliopes.
Moses seemed like he was trying to tiptoe away when Jethro stopped him because by now Jethro knew that he was being used.
Where are you going, son? Koptos?
The men ceased playing their instruments. It became so quiet you could hear the crickets for it was the crepuscule.
Aren’t you taking Zipporah with you, said this man, his face a dark wood, his grey hair blue in the early twilight.
I’ll… I’ll er return for her before I go to Egypt, Moses said.
The men returned to playing their instruments. Jethro stopped them. He rose and addressed his son-in-law.
If you get it out of her it will be useless to you; only a few things about converting rods to snakes; simple bokor tricks, the rest will be so awful that you will wish you had never known The Work. Son, she’s in that Aspect of herself with this Moon and you won’t be able to receive the better side of her Book…
Look, leave me alone. Silly old man out here in the backwoods. How dare you talk to me that way. I’m a Pharaoh, or soon will be 1.
Moses jumped on his horse as tears came to Jethro’s eyes. As he was about to ride away Moses rode to Jethro’s porch where all the men were assembled and he dropped “a couple of bucks” on old Jethro.
Here’s the copyright fee for the junk you taught me, he said sarcastically.
Jethro took the dollars and flung them at Moses who rode off into the night.
He wouldn’t listen and now he will be merely a 2-bit sorcerer practicing the Left Hand.
It wasn’t your fault, Jethro, you warned him, a friend consoled.
The old men resumed the playing of the instruments.
* Works of Julian the Apostate.
* The temperature of the Loa Legba alone is 30,000 degrees.
* Isis Unveiled, vol. I, p. 555.—H. P. Blavatsky.
53
MOSES ARRIVED IN KOPTOS a few weeks later. There were statues all over the town devoted to the ancient theme of Isis and her child Horus who according to some versions returned and overthrew his father’s murderer, Set. It is also said that Horus was the result of a coupling of Isis with the deceased Osiris. People were wearing emblems of the Mother and Child and their pictures were etched on coins. Moses was directed by a traveler to the Temple of Osiris and Isis. He walked until he came upon the temple outside town. He entered between 2 of its 6 columns. In the main room was a smoking pit, a retainer of sacrificial refuse; a statue of Osiris and Isis, holding the child Horus; and friezes depicting Sea Fights, the mysteries: Thoth, Nephthys, Horus, Anubis, Osiris the Eater of the Dead armed with two knives, Osiris Khenti, Amenti, Lord of Abydos and others. There were the animal-shapes: crocodiles serpents birds and rams. The colors of the rooms were green blue and yellow. Grains were scattered about the floor. The room was littered with tom toms pipes and drums. The air of funk was being dispersed by burning incense. It had been quite an afternoon. Several pigmy kings of about 4’ 10” had danced all afternoon intermittently, leaping into the air. Moses went into the kitchen and munched on some cereal that had been left in some ritual bowls. He drank some wine; he went past the dining room and into the bedroom of mysteries which was covered with pictures of male and female genitalia. Fatigued f
rom traveling, Moses lay down on the bed and went immediately to sleep. At about 2 A.M. he awoke to someone running her hands through his hair and kissing him. It was Isis in the Petro aspect of herself. She was dressed in a scarlet see-through gauzy gown and covered with the odor of a strange perfume. He had never smelt anything so intoxicating to the brain. Her hair was giant blackbird feathers, her eyes blazing.
He would have to be careful. There were stories of mangled bodies carried through the air in the cruel beaks of giant birds. Men “bleeding like hogs,” wandering about the temple senseless at dawn. There were tales of her victims condemned to traveling the world. Headless, pitiful men who brought the plague to the cities.
I will give you what you want if you give me what I want.
She was so fine that if she dived down the abyss Moses would have plunged in after her. Moses was sweating as she removed her gown and began to make love with him. Moving her thighs about his legs, running her hands across his penis.
Well, Moses thought, as he responded to her caresses, I only hope the bird handles me gently.
Suddenly she leaped to her feet, her prominent firm black breasts swinging, her hands on her hips.
What have you brought for me?
Moses removed from his satchel everything Set instructed him to bring: brightly colored scarfs and liquors, jewelry and delicate chickens for her to eat. She handled the scarfs and tasted the liquor. Moses, when he saw her delighted expression, thought that he had passed the test but she hurled the things to the ground with 1 gesture.
That isn’t enough, she said, returning to the bed and lying next to him. You must talk to me. Baby, please talk to me.
