Ancient Traces

by Michael Baigent

  3. Lehner, ‘Giza: A Contextual Approach to the Pyramids’, p. 141. Lehner’s article reproduces photographs of the sunsets at the solstice and equinoxes. See pp. 140–41.

  4. Edwards, The Pyramids of Egypt, p. 286.

  5. Pinch, Magic in Ancient Egypt, p. 51.

  6. Budge, The Book of the Dead, p. 233.

  7. Quirke, Ancient Egyptian Religion, p. 159.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Pinch, Magic in Ancient Egypt, pp. 51–3.

  10. Gardner, ‘The House of Life’, p. 158.

  11. Ibid., p. 175.

  12. Pinch, Magic in Ancient Egypt, p. 63.

  13. Gardner, ‘The House of Life’, p. 173.

  14. See discussion in Quirke, Ancient Egyptian Religion, pp. 17 and 38–9.

  15. That this production of Hermetic books was under way by the second century BC is revealed by a manuscript of that date found in a temple library at Memphis. It is a treatise on astronomy with a note at the beginning explaining, ‘Within, concerns of Hermes’. Within the same text is a circle containing the zodiacal signs with the note, ‘Oracles of Hermes’. See Thompson, Memphis under the Ptolemies, pp. 252–3.

  16. Kingsley, ‘Poimandres: The Etymology of the Name and the Origins of the Hermetica’, p. 7.

  17. Copenhaver, Hermetica, I, ‘Discourse of Hermes Trismegistus: Poimandres’, p. 1.

  18. Ibid.

  19. Ibid., p. 2.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Ibid., p. 6.

  22. Ibid.

  23. Klossowski de Rola, Alchemy: The Secret Art, p. 12. See also The Secret Book of Artephius, Edmonds (WA), 1984.

  11: The Mysterious Art of Alchemy

  1. For the story of the excavations, see Zuntz, Persephone, pp. 288–92.

  2. Kingsley, ‘From Pythagoras to the Turba Philosophorum: Egypt and Pythagorean Tradition’, p. 3. See also Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, pp. 256–61 and 308–13; Zuntz, Persephone, pp. 370–76, who points out specific parallels with the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and Cole, ‘New Evidence for the Mysteries of Dionysos’, pp. 224–37.

  3. Cole, ‘New Evidence for the Mysteries of Dionysos’, pp. 233–4.

  4. Shipley, A History of Samos, 800–188 BC, pp. 43, 56 and 73.

  5. Rather than the date of 569 normally given: See Gorman, Pythagoras: A Life, p. 49.

  6. Ibid., p. 58.

  7. Ibid., p. 83.

  8. Herodotus, The Histories, p. 178.

  9. Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, pp. 325–6.

  10. Lindsay, The Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman Egypt, p. 100.

  11. Fraser, Ptolemaic Alexandria, I, p. 440.

  12. Kingsley, Ancient Philosophy, Mystery and Magic, pp. 339–41.

  13. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes, p. 167.

  14. Taylor, The Alchemists, p. 25.

  15. Lindsay, The Origins of Alchemy, p. 335.

  16. Taylor, The Alchemists, p. 25.

  17. Chadwick, Priscillian of Avila, p. 21.

  18. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes, p. 166, n. 35.

  19. Lindsay, The Origins of Alchemy, p. 336.

  20. Ibid.

  21. Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras, xii. (Guthrie, The Pythagorean Sourcebook and Library, p. 125.)

  22. Flamel, His Exposition of the Hieroglyphical Figures, p. 13.

  23. Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist, p. 166.

  24. Ibid.

  25. Principe, ‘Robert Boyle’s Alchemical Secrecy: Codes, Ciphers and Concealments’. See also Hunter, ‘Alchemy, Magic and Moralism in the Thought of Robert Boyle’.

  26. Boyle Papers, Royal Society, VII, f. 138. See the discussion in Baigent, ‘Freemasonry, Hermetic Thought and the Royal Society of London’, p. 8.

  27. Manuel, A Portrait of Isaac Newton, p. 177.

  28. Ibid., p. 185.

  29. Ibid., p. 170.

  30. Dobbs, The Foundations of Newton’s Alchemy, pp. 16–17.

  31. Ibid., p. 320.

  32. The Times, 11 October 1993, p. 10.

  33. The Times, 24 December 1993, p. 9.

  34. The Times, 12 December 1994, p. 16.

  35. Barnaby, ‘Is There a Pure-fusion Bomb for Sale?’, p. 79. See also Barnaby, ‘The Red Mercury Saga’.

  36. Barnaby, ‘Is There a Pure-fusion Bomb for Sale?’, p. 79. See also Badolato and Andrade, ‘Red Mercury: Hoax or the Ultimate Terrorist Weapon?’, for further information, especially regarding alleged links with South Africa. This was published in Counterterrorism Magazine and is contained in a compilation Best of Counterterrorism & Security for: 1995 and 1996 at the website: http://www.worldonline.net/securitynet/CTS/pages/mercury.html.

  37. Barnaby, ‘Is There a Pure-fusion Bomb for Sale?’, p. 79.

  38. The Secret Book of Artephius, p. 6.

  39. With the use of prodigious amounts of energy, modern science has discovered that it can indeed turn base metal into gold. Atomic nucleii of elements can be fused together to create other elements. For example, the nucleus of a copper atom (atomic weight 29) can be fused with the nucleus of a tin atom (atomic weight 50) to produce an atom with a nucleus of atomic weight 79: this is gold.

  40. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes, p. 123.

  41. Ibid., p. 122.

  42. Lindsay, The Origins of Alchemy, p. 257.

  43. Ibid.

  44. Ashmole, Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum, p. vi.

  12: Reincarnation

  1. Iverson, In Search of the Dead, p. 162.

  2. Ibid., p. 165, quoting the Dalai Lama, My Land, My People.

  3. Ibid.

  4. Ibid., p. 166.

  5. Rig Veda, 10.16.5.

  6. Bhagavad Gita, trans. J. Mascaró, London, 1962, 2:22.

  7. Copenhaver, Hermetica, IV: ‘A Discourse of Hermes to Tat: The Mixing Bowl of the Monad’, p. 17.

  8. Ibid., X: ‘Discourse of Hermes Trismegistus: The Key’, p. 34.

  9. Budge, The Book of the Dead, p. 598.

  10. Carpenter, Past Lives, pp. 91,92 and 93. The story of Philip Corrigan is given on pp. 88–103.

  11. Ibid., p. 102.

  12. Prof. Kastenbaum writes:

  Stevenson has been exceptional in the systematic way he conducts his studies and the detail in which they are reported. Put simply, those who have not read Stevenson’s studies are in no position to have a credible opinion on the evidential basis for reincarnation.

  See Kastenbaum, Is There Life After Death?, p. 201.

  13. Stevenson, The Evidence for Survival from Claimed Memories of Former Incarnations, pp. 15–16.

  14. Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, p. 2.

  15. Ibid., pp. 274–320.

  16. Ibid., pp. 286–98. On this tabulation are the forty-seven statements made prior to the visit to Khriby plus ten made during the first journey there. Imad made three errors in the forty-seven and three errors in the ten (see p. 285).

  17. Ibid., pp. 280–82.

  18. Ibid., p. 301.

  19. Iverson, In Search of the Dead, p. xi.

  20. Cranston and Williams, Reincarnation, pp. 12–13.

  21. Fiore, You Have Been Here Before, pp. 4–5.

  22. Iverson, More Lives Than One?, p. 136.

  23. Ibid., p. 145.

  24. Stevenson, Twenty Cases Suggestive of Reincarnation, pp. 2–3.

  25. Fiore, You Have Been Here Before, p. 194.

  26. Ibid., p. 197.

  27. Ibid., p. 198.

  28. Ibid., p. 223.

  29. Personal communication, 24 May 1997.

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