HTP SONG / SCYRING BOWL INCIDENT

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Eye of Horus on an Egyptian Bracelet

SCRYING BOWL

While I'm sipping coffee outside a cafe in Burgess Hill, an inner nudge directs me to a nearby bookshop, and there I find a book about Egyptian magic. I open it and read about a spell for seeing the future by gazing into the swirling patterns of oil on the surface of water in a bowl.

Staying true to the original Egyptian papyrus, the spell requires the use of a copper bowl, and mentions that in the original papyrus text this bowl was also to be inscribed with an image of the god Anubis.

I decide it sounds like fun, and wander off to have a look in the local second hand shops for some kind of copper bowl. Ten minutes later, having handed over mere pennies to the shop assistant, I hold in my hand a small copper bowl inscribed with Egyptian lotus flowers, a Sphinx, three pyramids and a serpent. My feeling: delightfully spooked.

It can be seen, by cross-referencing various Egyptian sources, that the wounding that was called the injuring of the Eye of Horus has to do with the influx of agressive Sethian energies in the male adolescence, which could mean that the injuring of the testicles of Seth may represent male grumpiness when testosterone levels drop in later years.

The message then is that there is an optimum, healthy level of testosterone for a male, not too much, but not too little - both of which extremes can lead to agression and depression. How can we say that the story related to such matters? The Egyptians believed that children had intuitive mediumistic abilities. It is not only from Plutarch's essay on Isis and Osiris that we know this. It is an Egyptian text called the London-Leidon Papyrus that describes the method for seeing the future by 'scrying'. It involves looking into a bowl in which oil is floating on the surface, illuminated only by a candle, and with incense wafting about. The text says that the procedure is to be peformed by a young boy, accompanied by a priest. This is surely what is refered to in the story of the god Ra looking into the eyes of the young Horus to see the future. The London-Leidon Papyrus is from a date when one might suspect an influence from Greek oracular methods, which were certainly similar in nature, but the story of Ra telling the future by looking into the Eye of Horus dates from back in the Egyptian New Kingdom long before the rise of Classical Greece. In one sense then the scrying bowl itself is the Eye of Horus, akin to a crystal ball, and in the other sense the Eye represents the mediumistic abilities of the young boy who is not yet a man.

A key question then is how a man might recover the Sight, how Horus might heal his eye. In the Roman novel the protagonist recovers and has his vision of Isis after eating roses. In Egypt, in the original Mysteries, the flowers were surely those of the sacred Nile lotus. When planted in the ground in the Egyptian story Horus' eyes sprouted as lotus flowers.

The petals of the Egyptian lotus flower - which is actually a type of waterlily - are edible and are to be seen all over the place in the sacred art of the Egyptians. Herodotus describes their being eaten by the Egyptians in his Histories. The Egyptians made beautiful drinking chalices in the form of lotus flowers. The dried petals are available for purchase in the UK and can be infused slowly with wine which is then drunk.

From personal experience I can say that the result is a pleasant vibe, subtle but graceful. To say that the effect seems more aromatherapeutic than narcotic is certainly not to diminish its potency. Floral oils can have marked effects, such as the relaxing, sleepy feeling induced by lavender, or the profound muscle relaxation that clary sage oil can bring about. Each of these has a certain feeling to it, and the feeling that comes from wine infused with Egyptian blue lotus petals is that of a gentle, feminine harmony - just what one needs if feeling aggravated by the aggressive agitation of too much Sethian 'yang'. There is no reason why this feeling might not be thought of as a healing of the Eye and a vision of Isis.

In the Egyptian story it was the goddess Hathor, the Egyptian Aphrodite-Venus, the feminine as lover rather than mother, who healed Horus' sight. In the story she did this with gazelle milk. Did she milk the gazelle in the evening, when the milk is full of melatonin? Either way, milk is a good source of the amino acid tryptophan, a precursor to both melatonin and seratonin. Milk is also a high source of calcium, which has a relaxing effect on the body. This is why warm milk is drunk at night as a sleep aid. In the sleep state, when melatonin levels are high, we see visions called dreams. High melatonin levels in the waking state seem to be linked to the ability to see images when slipping into a kind of trancelike daydreaming, the same state needed for scrying with a bowl. This is not hallunication since it can be ended easily just by snapping out of the day dream. It is difficult to imagine achieving this with milk alone, but we now have a stronger source of this precursor to the brain chemicals of relaxation and satisfaction.

5-HTP, derived from an African plant, is available in healthfood shops. This form of tryptophan is particularly effective in entering the brain, when combined with a small amount of B-vitamins, a little carbohydrate, and, in my experience, a glass of good organic cider. A cup of tea in addition may help you go more towards the awake state where seratonin predominates. Serotonin is the chemical of physical satisfaction. Serotonin levels in the brain are higher when St John's Wort - also available in healthfood shops - is taken. People taking St John's Wort report an improved sex life, and this may be because a more satisfied state is a less out of control one. Now to go to a rather different level of reality.

The Egyptian word for satisfaction was written with the hieroglyphic equivalent of the three consonants H, T, and P, in that order, which seems to me to be something of a revelation, as if the present abbreviation for Hydroxy Tryptophan has somehow gone back into the past to form the ancient Egyptian word for the physical state which it induces. Egyptologists guess that the vowel sounds (not included in written Ancient Egyptian) would have made pronunciation of the word something like Hotep or Hetep, but what we actually have to go on is H T P. Some 5-HTP, some blue-lotus infused wine, a little milk (goat if you can't get gazelle), candle, scrying bowl, and incense (the latter really being ancient equivalents of lava lamp and joss stick) - yoga poses and trance inducing classical Indian sitar music will also help - and away you go. You'll have the Eye of Horus healed in no time.

What about the testicles of Seth? Research continues apace. Apparently resistance excercise - weights - two to three times a week increases testosterone levels in the body. Of human folk it was big-muscled Heracles who, for the ancient Greeks, beat death - by sheer strength - and got away with it, but at the same time too much excercise - particularly of the endurance kind - is detrimental to longevity. From the plant world, Long Jack has met the challenge of scientific experiment. From the labratories, ZMA 'supports the male hormonal environment' and something called 6-OXO is supposed to be effective in restoring the testosterone-oestrogen balance. A world with less young male aggression and less older male cantankorousness is a more peaceful world, a world with less war. Sort this out and we can return to the how things were in that time, as described in the Pyramid Texts:-

When no anger had yet arisen

When no noise had yet arisen

When no conflict had yet arisen

When no confusion had yet arisen

When the Eye of Horus had not been injured

When the testicles of Seth had not yet been made impotent.

LOOP pschedelic eye