Josephine McCarthy's Blog, page 2

My latest podcast with GlitchBottle..Nov 2019

A podcast I recorded with Alex of Glitch Bottle has just gone public…. I am chatting with Alex about the environment, nature magic, working magically in service for the environment and how to approach it..  you can find the podcast here on youtube, enjoy!

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Tree of Knowledge by Stuart Littlejohn (C) 2014

 

2020 Exeter Occult Conference UK

Open To All!  –  Magic, Witchcraft, & The Mysteries – A day of Speakers – art exhibit – an interactive photography installation – stalls – Bar/refreshments… plus…a fundraising raffle of original art works, sculptures and signed books!

When? – Sept 6th 2020 10am – 5pm doors open 9.30am for a 10am start

Tickets now on sale – £30 per ticket all inclusive Buy 3 tickets for discount total of £81. tickets can only be purchased online, there will be no tickets available at the door. For further details and ticket purchase please visit the conference webpage

Where? – Exeter Corn Exchange in the centre of Exeter UK, close to shops, restaurants and the famous Exeter Cathedral.[image error]

Exeter Cathedral is surrounded by the Cathedral square which boasts buildings dating from the 12th century and 16th century, and has various cafes and shops. It sits in the heart of the city, which is part modern (rebuilt after being bombed during WWII) and part Elizabethan. The Corn Exchange, the venue for the conference is close by.

The Exeter Corn Exchange is a major venue for theatre productions with a large main auditorium, [image error]and two conference rooms which will be utilised as an art exhibition room and a photography installation room. It is a spacious venue used for theatre productions and rock concerts, and has its own lounge and bar for refreshments. The high street crammed with shops, and cafes is a few feet away, and the venue is surrounded by a wide variety of restaurants.

 

Speakers

We are very proud to present a stunning line up of major magical speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds, which should ensure an interesting, fun and informative day!

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R A Gilbert

Highly respected in various magical and mystical circles for his knowledge and integrity, R.A. Gilbert is a lecturer, historian of the Golden Dawn, and an author on mystical and esoteric subjects. His published works include: The Golden Dawn Companion; The Golden Dawn Scrap Book; A E Waite: Magician of Many Parts;Gnosticism and Gnosis; and Casting the First Stone.

 

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Christina Oakley Harrington

Christina is a respected historian, researcher and academic commentator on the history of Paganism and Witchcraft in the UK and Ireland.  A Wiccan High Priestess, she is a founding director of “Treadwell’s Bookshop”, one of the UK’s premier Occult bookshops located in Bloomsbury, London, which she founded in 2003.

 

[image error]  Julian Vayne

Julian is an occultist and the author of a number of books, essays, journals and articles in both the academic and esoteric press. His published works include, Magick Works: Stories of Occultism in Theory and Practice, Getting Higher: The Manual of Psychedelic Ceremony, and The Book of Baphomet.

 

 

[image error] Josephine McCarthy

Josephine is a British born occultist, esoteric author, and teacher. Author of thirty books on magical practice and training, her works include The Magical Knowledge series, The Book of Gates: a Magical Translation, The Exorcists Handbook, Magic of the North Gate, and is author of the extensive Quareia magical training course.

 

[image error] Robert Anderson Plimer

Robert (Bob) is a Classicist and Philosopher with years of teaching and writing experience. A member of the International Alchemy Guild, he also lectures on a variety of Alchemical, Hermetic and Occult subjects. His published works include Decoding Alchemy: Alchemy and Spagyrics in Theory and Practice, and the flesh of Re.

 

[image error] Jake Stratton Kent

Jake has been a Goetic magician since 1972, making more than forty years of continuous Goetic practice. His practical work integrates the Magical Papyri, Italo-French grimoires in particular the Grimorium Verum and African traditional religions with a focus on Quimbanda and Magia Negra. His published works include; The True Grimoire, Pandemonium, The Serpent Tongue: Liber 187, and Geosophia: the Argos of Magic.

 

[image error] Charlotte Rodgers

Charlotte is a non-denominational magical practitioner, an animist, artist and author who works with remnants of the dead & discarded to create talismanic and totemic art. Her work has amassed an international reputation for power and presence. Her publications include: The Sky is a Gateway Not a Ceiling: Blood, Sex, Death, Magic and Transformation, The Bloody Sacrifice, and A Contemporary Western Book of the Dead.

 

[image error] Richard Levy

Richard is a practicing magician with an academic background in philosophy and theology. Along with giving talks and workshops he is a storyteller focussing on ancient myths, faerie tales and magical narratives.

 

Artists – photography, sculpture and paintings

[image error] Emily Claire Negus

We will be having an interactive photo project run by fine art  and published Portrait photographer Emily Claire Negus.

 

 

 

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Stuart Littlejohn

Stuart Littlejohn is an established artist whose influences range from ancient and classical art, through to the Renaissance, Pre-Raphaelites, the Symbolists and Classicists of the nineteenth century. His work has also explored Ancient Egypt, the Western Mysteries, Grimoire and Underworld traditions. His paintings are in private collections around the world, and his unique style is immediately recognizable.

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Charlotte Rodgers

Besides presenting a talk, Charlotte will also be exhibiting her work (full bio above). In her own words: Everything holds life-force, energy and potential. I work with the memory held in remnants of the dead, the forgotten, the discarded and the rejected. I honour these memories through acknowledgment, then use the past as a foundation for new directions and realities.

The conference is being run on a non-profit basis (organisers take no income or expenses) and the venue cost is being underwritten by Quareia (a guarantee against losses).

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News update on the Quareia LXXXI Magicians Deck

Our second print run of the deck is now down to a couple of hundred decks for sale, plus a hundred decks held back for Quareia Initiate students. Doing another print run is going to prove costly and difficult, particularly in the unstable political and economic climate currently hovering over Britain, so we have come up with an alternative solution.Cassandra guided us to an online print on demand/dropship game company in the USA that does decks. This also gave us an opportunity to provide different size versions of the deck – over the last few years the deck has been in print, a lot of people stated that they would like a smaller version of the cards (for small hands and for pockets) while others wanted to stick with the larger size cards to work with magically.

So with that in mind, we have produced 2 sizes of the deck – one which is tarot card size, and a jumbo version, which is essentially the same size of the original deck (links at the bottom of this post). Cassandra kindly photographed the two new size versions with a card from the original first edition card, so you can see the size of the new Jumbo version (middle card) and the tarot size version (right card).

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The game site doesn’t do books (just tiny pamphlets) but there is a free download version of the book on the Quareia website, and it can be bought separately from any online amazon outlet world-wide. Print on demand/drop ship sites do take a pretty large chunk of the price (seeing as they do all the work and make the product), so the deck alone is more expensive than we have been selling it for.

However, the price of the original deck when selling it on the Quareia website was kept artificially low to make it accessible, and the book that accompanies the deck when you buy from the Quareia website, is essentially free (half of the deck price on the Q website is shipping costs!!)

From now on, the print on demand site in the USA will be the main stop off for buying the deck, and the deck on the Quareia website (in the UK) will only be available to people in the UK and Europe.

Here are the links for the print on demand/drop ship versions of the decks:

Jumbo size Quareia LXXXI Magicians deck 

Tarot size Quareia LXXXI Magicians Deck

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Talks and Podcasts

It has been a busy time for me lately, besides working with students, preparing new texts for the Quareia page, etc, I have been doing podcasts, lectures and have a masterclass coming up at The Magickal Womens Conference in London at the end of this month… so here is what I have been up to…

I was up in Scotland recently for the Scottish Pagan Federation annual conference in Edinburgh, and what a great community they are!

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There was a wide variety of speakers, great market stalls and tons of really good and interesting people who attended. I made a bunch of new friends, and got to listen to some really good talks, my favourite being the lecture on Alchemy by Dr Robert Plimer – you can find out more about his work here.

The general calibre of the speakers was high thanks to Steffy the organiser, and the subject matter was wide ranging. [image error]

The ‘after’ discussions were also really good and I left feeling that magic, Paganism, and all that they encompass was strong and vital in Scotland.

It felt good to realise that very diverse paths were lively, engaged with, and had much to pass on to the younger generation… and everyone rubbed along together so well.

There were so many interesting personalities that I met, who were brimming with enthusiasm, experience and wisdom – I wanted to scoop them all up and take them home with me.

The day after, I had a day to kill before flying back south, so I wandered around Edinburgh for the day. I visited the castle, the National Museum, St Giles Cathedral, and pottered around the old town for a few hours listening to the pipers playing on the street while looking at the mountains of tourist tat on sale in the various shops.

But the museum was the best of all….. its collections are excellent, and I wandered around an impressive Samurai section, a mountain of renaissance curiosities before I landed in the Egyptian section.

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Canopic chest of Amenhotep NMS

Most of the Egyptian section was Greco Roman and Ptolemaic, but there were some corners hiding pure gems, such as small deities from the Place of Truth and a really interesting collection of things found at Deir el–Bahari, the area on the west bank of the Nile  opposite Luxor, an area of mortuary temples and tombs.

 

So all in all it was a fruitful weekend, and I highly recommend Edinburgh as a place to visit and also a base to use for exploring Scotland.

Once I got back, the next thing was recording the podcast with Alex of Glitch Bottle… over three hours long! We talked back and forth about a wide variety of all things magical, and my expletives filter was not working that day………

 

Alex is a wonderful interviewer and really gets to the heart of a question.. so he kept me on my toes!

At the end of the month, on the first day of June, I will be giving a masterclass on magic/structure/boundaries and directional work at the London Magickal Womens Conference. We will also have a stall there with Stuart Littlejohn’s art and various books, decks etc. If you attend, come and say hello!

I hope everyone has a wonderful magical summer, and at some point, the sun shines in Britain (we can all hope!!).

 

 

Goodies of myth, magic and wonder!

Magical artists Stuart Littlejohn and Cassandra Beanland who teamed up to do the Quareia magicians deck have both opened Redbubble online stores so that you can buy their work in prints, art board, and on bags, mugs etc.  It is a good way for the artists to get their work out there, for people to be able to buy something beautiful, and for the artists to earn a bit of royalty from the sales. Here is a preview of just a few of the luscious images that are available with links to the two storefronts…and various details.. help support artists while getting something wonderful!

All the pricing is in dollars, but they are printed not only in the USA, but also in Europe and Britain, so the shipping is more localised.

[image error] The work of Stuart Littlejohn

The first set of images are by Stuart Littlejohn…. and this image is Tin Hinan, historic warrior queen and Mother of the Berbers, by Stuart Littlejohn, the original painted in watercolour (yes… watercolour!!… his own secret technique…).

[image error]Next up is the lady of the white Stone, a British warrior woman with her guardian animals of the Boar, raven, and wren (water colour)…. based around an actual ancestral stone in England. Then we have Ananke at her Spindle with the Three Fates below and the Chariot Rider in the centre.. a great image to work with for fate magic![image error]

 

His page is stuffed with a wide variety of images so go take a peek and see if something jumps out at you….

Then we have the Tree of Life in the Garden….  the Mythic Tree from which all flows, and with two of the four rivers showing….[image error]

 

 

 

The Sefirot are shown as lights on the tree and it is a great image to meditate on.

I could fill pages and pages of this blog with his images as there are so many available on his storefront… but maybe just one more.

Selket is an Egyptian Goddess of the Scorpions, but Stuart did his own take on her, The Lady of the Scorpions, a woman of magic, power…and scorpion workers![image error]

 

 

The storefront of Stuart Littlejohn can be found here

I have to say I don’t find redbubble to be particularly intuitive to navigate, and it tends to show first the most expensive thing you can buy (large canvas print)… but there are a lot of options to choose from. I bought some of the smaller art boards to stick up around the place and they look great and come with sticky pads to put them up with.

I also myself got a couple of medium sized tote bags and they are a hit in the local village where I live… one Egyptian one (Neith) and One with Tin Hinan. The colours are great and the bags themselves are better than I thought they were going to be.

Cassandra Beanland

The next storefront is that of Zakuro Media with Cassandra Beanland, a magical artist (artist and magician!) who worked with Stuart on the Quareia Magicians deck, and who also does a lot of large visionary paintings. The store front also has images from magical manga and the Saros Manga Tarot.[image error]

Cassandra has worked with various magical writers over the years, doing book covers and illustrations, and most of her paintings are in oils or acrylic.

I love how her mind works, and flows from one style of painting, to something completely different…she goes where the river takes her and paints what wants painting…[image error]

Some of the originals of her paintings are huge… large stunning breath taking paintings that just hum with the magic that is in them.

I have a large framed print of one of her pieces… she calls it ‘Mask’ but I call it the Magician, as the painting screams magician….

it is my all time favourite of hers…

 

 

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Saros Tarot

on the ZakuroMedia store front there are also images from the Saros Tarot which I love and are great fun….my grandson has a copy on the way to him…

They are based on a deck[image error] that a character uses in the Saros magical manga series, a series that blends manga with magic, the underworld and mythos.

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The link to the rebubble ZakuroMedia page, which features prints and merchandise for Cassandra Beanland and the Saros tarot can be found here  

The Saros manga series by Zenko, which is myth, underworld and magic, is available on amazon, details of the books can be found here on the main Saros website.[image error]

If you are interested in the Saros Tarot, which I think is great for young folks starting out in tarot as it works within the traditional tarot system (with some interesting shifts which took me by surprise…. more depth than I realised!).. it is a print on demand deck and The Saros tarot deck can be purchased from here direct from the printers

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Although redbubble take a chunk of the price, the artists make enough from a sale that it makes a difference to them…. so please… support an artist  if you can (and want to) … find a goodie to take home with you, or pass the links along on social media…help keep our magical artists in soup and socks!  I hope you enjoyed the pics  and thanks for looking! – Josephine

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Magicians go mad in Munich

I had only just gotten back from a trip to see family in Yorkshire, when we were out again to go visit Munich, Germany. Frater Acher kindly hosted us to go to Munich for a few days and run around Bavaria with a small gaggle of German magicians. And what an adventure that turned out to be – if you have not been to Bavaria, and are able to get there, it is well worth it: it is one of my favourite places in the world.

On the first day we went to visit a large rambling reclamation/antique place that was housed in an old farm. (All images by Frater Acher (C) 2019)

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We wandered around the various barns and rooms, finding astonishing old and interesting objects, statues, and furniture.

Peering in dark corners and abandoned yards, we came across all manner of goodies, and were surrounded by the whispers of people’s memories.

Various creatures said hello, and I got to ride on Sobek.

 

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Then we went to lake Chiemsee and visited one of the islands there,  Fraueninsel, or Women’s Island. On that island is an 8th century Benedictine convent, Frauenwörth, which is still in use to this day. The nuns make various crafts and marzipans to sell, and also run retreats. The complex has an impressive gothic bell tower, and the church is truly beautiful.

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The church walls and ceilings are elaborately decorated and it has been tended sensitively and intelligently enough that some of the very old wall paintings survive.

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Each successive age added to the paintings so that you can see the history of the church in its art.

The history of the church is fascinating, and here is a clip of the founding history:

According to tradition, the Benedictine abbey of Frauenwörth was founded by the Duke of Bavaria, Tassilo III (746-788), around 772 AD.

Bishop Virgil of Salzburg consecrated the church on 1st September 782.

Around 850, Blessed Irmengard (831/33-866) served the abbey as the first abbess known by name.

She was a daughter of King Ludwig the German and the great-granddaughter of Charlemagne.

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This period of Carolingian rule was interrupted abruptly by the Hungarian invasions in the first half of the 10th century.

A further religious upheaval occurred at the end of the 10th century with the introduction of the Benedictine Rule due to the influence of the nearby, newly-founded Seeon Abbey (994-1803).

https://www.frauenwoerth.de/english/the-abbey/

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The Blessed Irmengard is buried in the church along with some of the other abbesses. Behind the main Baroque altar is a smaller more highly tuned chapel and within its altar is the head of Irmengard.

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The relic of the head of The Blessed Irmengard

I spent a while in meditation in the small chapel, and found layer upon layer of female consciousness/collective that had somehow become like a hive: they were all buried there, and joined together in death as they had in life. There was no heavy religious overlay to the contact, it was more one of spiritual union, healing and compassion for all beings. It was a truly beautiful experience.

 

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The lake is also where the Chiemsee Cauldron was found in 2001. The cauldron looks like an ancient Celtic cauldron made of pure gold, but is now thought to have been made by an expert Jeweller for the Nazi’s during the 1930’s.

The lake itself is beautiful, calm, and a very nourishing lake. We came away from the visit feeling peaceful, clean, and harbouring a deep stillness: the island’s reputation for healing is certainly correct!

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The following day we went into Munich and met up with other magicians. The city was in total chaos: there were armed police everywhere on every single corner and kept stopping the traffic to let long convoys of limos through.

The police seemed very jumpy and were constantly on the lookout, watching everyone… so of course a bunch of odd-looking magicians stood out a fair bit! It turned out that it was the yearly world security council being held in Munich and we had dropped straight into the middle of it… we were surrounded on all streets by world leaders and their security details – hmmm….. magical crossings of paths!

We went to the Lenbachhaus art museum in the middle of Munich to visit the exhibition of art by Georgiana Houghton, Hilma Af Klint and Emma Kunz. It was truly a magical feast for the eyes and soul.

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While the work of Klint and Kunz was really interesting, a collection of magical geometric symbolism, it was the work of Houghton that truly punched me between the eyes.

Georgiana was a mid 19th century English spiritualist/medium and while she got entangled in controversy with  fraudulent spirit photographer Frederick Hudson, her actual contacted paintings are truly powerful and mystical.[image error] I had seen her paintings in print fairly recently and thought they were interesting, but being in the physical presence of them was something different entirely.

The paintings are an abstract weave of lines and colour, and are her depictions of how she saw angels, spirits, God and power. Just in artistic terms, her work in the 1860’s was way ahead of the abstract movement.

The technical detail is astonishing, and we needed magnifying glasses (handed out to us) to see the incredible detail of fine hairs, swirls and spirals that can only be seen under magnification.

On the back of each painting is a description of what she was painting, and the inner contact who bridged the images through her.

The paintings pack their own punch: they are living patterns of power and consciousness, and it is like walking into the presence of the being itself as you stand before a painting. My forehead began to hurt from the power, and one of the magicians with us had to back away from them – they were just too full of raw power. But the beauty and soul within them was breath taking: they brought me to tears. It was a very humbling experience.

We finished the day back at the home of Frater Acher who cooked dinner… what can this man not do!! Not only is he a kick ass magician, a mind boggling intellect and a serious professional in his daily life, he is also a brilliant cook and a supreme artist in his own right. He also gave me some much needed training in people management skills in order to move the Quareia school into its next phase of development. It was a truly inspiring time!

On the final day we went for a walk in an ancient yew forest that lies about an hour outside Munich.[image error]

Some of the trees are more than two thousand years old, and crunching through the patches of frozen snow while feeling the immense silent power of these ancient trees was yet another humbling experience.

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We were brought back down to earth the following day when we reached the check in desk at the airport – the airline we had flown in on (BMI) had gone bankrupt over the weekend, and our return tickets were useless. Thus began the odyssey of trying to get home. I had my aging phone with me that has a habit of dying after one or two calls, and the defunct airline was not picking up the phone.

Frater Acher once again came to the rescue and sorted us out tickets to get us to London. Our car was in Bristol airport so then we had to get across the country from east to west with a cab driver who knew little English, couldn’t read the road signs properly, and who thought Bristol was Brighton (wrong direction!). After yet another panic, much pointing of directions and explanations we were going in the right direction. I felt really bad for the driver as we were tried, stressed and cranky, and he was in full panic mode.

But the chaos did not end there… curtesy of the full moon…. When we got to Bristol airport, our car was not in its designated lot. The parking attendants had to move the car and had written down the lot number wrong. So after some frantic clicking of keys and watching for flashing lights, and guess work from the attendant, we finally got the car. End of story? Not quite….. when we got near to home, the main road to our area was closed off – someone had thrown themselves off a bridge.

After dodging around back roads we finally got to our little hidden valley, only to find that the valley road was also closed – there had been a landslip that covered the road (often occurs around here). It was dark, we were tired, and stressed and enough was enough!! We finally managed to get home, tired, thankful, and supremely inspired by a crazy, wonderful, friendship filled weekend in the ancient land of Bavaria.

And finally here is my favourite photo from the trip…. my handsome beloved – Stuart ![image error]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Frater Achers blog can be seen here, and it is well worth the visit if you have not already been there: he is a rare magical treasure indeed.

All images (c) Frater Acher 2019

 

A trip to Brigante land

Last week I headed north for a week, visiting with family and old friends, and going around some of the old sacred places in Yorkshire, England.

It is a very old land that was once the territory of the Celtic tribe of Brigantes, before becoming a Viking land under the Danelaw. It is an area that has seen successive incursions over hundreds and hundreds of years, with frequent raids from the Scots, to the establishment of Norman rule.[image error]

Some of these places were my old stomping grounds of youth and it was nice to touch base with ancient friends who sleep in the stones and to marvel at some of the beautiful hidden treasures of Yorkshire.

Of course I managed to time it just when a blast of Siberian weather plunged the temperatures down well below freezing, though I did manage to dodge the snowfalls! On some days the blinding low hung sunlight of deep winter dazzled our eyes while the freezing wind sliced through our faces – it was an adventure for the hardy and foolhardy.[image error]

One of the first places we visited was Bolton Abbey, an ancient Augustinian monastic settlement that was founded in 1120AD.

It sits in the beautiful Wharfedale valley in North Yorkshire, with a gentle river at its feet and rolling hills, valleys and forest all around it.

It was originally dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary (Sancte Marie de Bolton) and part of the church is still standing and is still in use to this day.

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Here is the east transept.

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Another day took us on a trip to visit family on the east coast.

First, we stopped off at the church of St Michael and All Angels at Garton on the Wolds in the East Riding of Yorkshire. It was a truly stunning find.

I had originally intended to stop at St Marys Church in Kirkburn, which has some lovely Saxon stone work, but fate took over, we got lost and ended up sat outside a very old and seemingly plain old church that hid behind an impressive 19th century Celtic revival cross.[image error]

I took the hint and we decided to go explore it. And what a treasure it turned out to be.

The church dates back to 1132AD and was extensively decorated in 1865, and the decorations are truly breath taking.

Every inch of the church is decorated with scenes from the Old and New Testament, with the occasional visionary apocryphal scene. Here is a selection of some of the interior…. isn’t it beautiful!

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Have a look at the stunning ceiling…….

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These angels lined the walls with the names of the saints….

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And layer upon layer of archways by the ceiling that let light into the sanctuary

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We then wandered around outside and said hello to the dead people, and the stone gargoyles that lined the outside roof, before getting back into the car (and heat) as we were starting to freeze on the spot.

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Living in the south west of England which is far milder than the wilds of the Yorkshire Dales, I have obviously become soft. I had lived happily in the deep cold of north West Montana winters in the past, but to be suddenly plunged from gentle Devon weather into sub-zero temperatures with sharp sea winds was a bit of a shock! The land in this part of Yorkshire (east riding) is gentler than the steep hills, cliffs and gorges of parts of North Yorkshire, but the gentle landscape allows the bitter cold wind flowing in from the North Sea  to cut right through you.

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Our next stop took us to Rudstone, which is a small village a few miles west of Bridlington. It is an area littered with Neolithic remains and Roman findings, but its crowning glory is the Rudstone monolith, a standing stone that is nearly 30ft high (and goes down another approx 30ft underground) that sits in the local churchyard. It was so big I could not get the whole thing in shot, but my trusty hubby provided decoration and perspective

Introducing ‘Sacred Women: Images of Power and Wisdom’

Sacred Women: Images of Power and Wisdom – the Art of Stuart Littlejohn is a new book that celebrates women through full colour paintings and accompanying texts.

[image error]From the beginning, the constant thread woven deeply throughout my work has been the depiction of powerful females from the religions, mythologies, and histories of many eras and cultures.

For millennia, the images of female divinity, the visions of female philosophers, priestesses, seers, saints, and mystics, and the achievements of female rulers, warriors, artists, and scientists, have been suppressed, dismissed, and ignored.

Such disregard for the wisdom and talents of over half our population has had, and continues to have, a disastrous effect on our evolution as a species.

In the times through which we are now living, it is vitally important that these marginalized images and long-silenced voices be heard anew. As a male artist, I see my role as helping to illuminate a hidden counternarrative. It is my small contribution against the destructive tides of misogyny and hate flowing through the world.— Stuart Littlejohn

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Sacred Women: Images of Power and Wisdom is a treasure house of art dedicated to the feminine power. Each artwork is intended to be savoured not just for its inherent beauty but also as sacred art.[image error]

A full colour collection of paintings by the renowned British artist Stuart Littlejohn, this book serves as a celebration of all that is great yet ignored, of all that is powerful yet shunned, from goddesses to warriors, from mystics to the mythic.[image error]

 

 

 

 

 

Each painting is presented as a full-page image and is accompanied by some brief information about the mythology, history, or legend surrounding the character represented. This is intended to provide a basic understanding of the painting’s background, imagery, and symbolism, and to act as an entry point for the reader’s further research.

This is a special book to be appreciated over time; it may also act as breviary, and even as part of a devotional service to the living Goddess in her myriad and age-old forms.

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It is true to say this is a two-way encounter, for, as She rises from forgotten history to meet us by our act of remembrance, we her followers and devotees (regardless of gender) will surely rise with Her.[image error]

As one of a dedicated group of magical artists, Stuart Littlejohn slakes the modern pagan Renaissance’s thirst for pictorial imagery.

While icons and devotional images in Western art act as a living conduit to reach out and touch the Divine in material form, they also remind us of a lost tradition of painted and sculptural effigies of ancient pagan goddesses and gods.

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Sacred images do have an extra dimension: they spring from artists’ imaginations, yet they are so powerful and arresting that they feel more than merely the creations of gifted individuals.

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Available through all Amazon sites and online retailers

As the book has just been released (January 2019) , various prices will crop up on Amazon as third party sellers try to make more money on the title while amazon gets its stock in order.

The correct price guides are US $39.99, UK £33.99

130 pages full colour full page illustrations 8.5 x 11 inches. Published by Quareia Publishing UK

 

 

SACRED WOMEN: IMAGES OF POWER AND WISDOM

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Magic, Power, Focus and Emotion

The journey of magic that touches real power is a long and convoluted road that triggers ever deepening awareness of inner powers, consciousness and our own inner spirit and outer body. That long journey takes us down many roads of learning, not just about magic, but about power, energy, and our bodies.

Edit 25/11/18: I think it maybe helpful for some people if I put this post in some sort of everyday context, as some folks are having a very emotive reaction to this post.

This post talks about moving emotion to one side or focussing out emotion from a magical task, such as when you are doing a specific ritual, vision or visionary ritual, sigil working etc.

This is the same dynamic as when an airline pilot is struggling to control a damaged aeroplane, or a paramedic is trying to stop someone dying, or a doctor is doing emergency open heart surgery, etc – there are times when emotion does not help and has no place (you don’t want the pilot melting down into a heap of sobbing fear for example). There are times in magic when emotions also have no use or place, and should be moved to one side for a variety of reasons, some of which are outlined in this post.

In a recent student debate, the issue of emotion and magic came up repeatedly, and maybe this is a subject matter that might be of wider interest in the magical community. [image error]There are many different roads of magic, many different forms and systems, and they all express differently in the relationship between the magic, and the magician. But regardless of ones’ own path, it is really worth knowing what dynamics are in action, what they are, how they work and why.

To really understand this dynamic of magic +/- emotions we first need to truly understand our bodies, our minds and our spirits. Mystics and magicians have struggled for millennia with this understanding and decided to approach it in a variety of different ways.

Once immersed into real magic and mysticism, the person begins to understand that the emotions, the urges, wants and needs are all of the body, and the connection and communication with everything inner(i.e. not physical realm)/Divine/inner worlds is of the spirit. The body is the vehicle of the spirit and through the body the spirit can immerse itself in the physical world, and the body can experience the inner none physical – it is a symbiotic relationship/agreement/construct/externalisation.

When we look back in history and look at the time just before Christianity emerged (say from 500BC) to when Christianity was starting to become a force (say to about 600AD) people explored this relationship deeply and came to different conclusions.[image error] Some realised the separate but entwined dynamic between body and spirit and reacted by rejecting the body in favour of the spirit – they starved themselves, denied themselves, and some groups used suicide to release the spirit.

Others went the other way and immersed themselves totally in the senses of the body. Both are unbalanced extremes, but they were valid experiments that we could learn from.

What has this to do with magic? Emotions are a form of fuel, they are also a survival and bonding mechanism, and they are complex necessity for our physical survival.

They are purely of the body – they are essentially the product of neurotransmitters – endogenous chemicals, a highly complex signalling mechanism that operates the body and brain, and pushes the body to react in various ways.

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Synaptic vesicles containing neurotransmitters

That is normal, and every normal magician (and person) has them…without them we cannot operate as a living human being nor as a species.

Feelings of holiness, glory, majesty, power, eternity, perfection, along with happiness, depression, fear, anger, etc all fall into the same emotive category – they are a body reaction to contact, power, energy and connection.

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Dopamine molecule

And this is where it gets interesting and also complicated. When an inner being, Divine force, an inner power spot or construct is in contact/connection with a human body, it triggers an emotional reaction in the body. This is a signal generated from within the human body to say ‘something powerful, Divine, and/or conscious is connecting with you’ (events, interactions, and drugs can do the same thing).

This is the reaction for example of the mystic where an inner consciousness reaches out to connect with them, or the mind of the mystic has touched upon a deep inner world place or being… it is a symptom of that connection, it is not the actual connection itself. The contact triggers a cascade of neurotransmitter activity in the brain and body which protects the physical substance of the body from the power, and in turn makes it easier for the spirit of the human to interface with that inner connection: it forms a bridge of connection… and we experience that process as an emotive event.

This is the process whereby, for example, the magician or non magician (happens to both) is walking among trees and has a sudden unexpected awareness of the living conscious creation all around them [image error]– some will interpret this as a ‘god moment’, some as a ‘nature moment’, it doesn’t matter how the brain processes it…. they have a moment of fleeting deep and life changing connection, an experience which changes their life forever… it is something that can be experienced through music, through nature, through walking into a sacred space, whatever…. it can be simply just walking down the road and boom…. it happens.

Emotions can bridge communication, and a deep emotional reaction burns something deep into our memory that never leaves us… these are the things that keep us going.

So let’s imagine a road, with a bridge, and beyond the bridge is a door. The door is access to the inner being/inner place, Divine experience and so forth. When there is an unexpected encounter, you are stood on the road, and the door appears directly in front of you, bypassing the path and bridge.

[image error]The power on the threshold of the door wishes to ‘touch’ you or awaken you in some way, so it reaches out to you and connects – the vocabulary/language of the being, and your vocabulary/language are not the same – so the being connects and your emotive system becomes the translator. The emotions generated are not the message, they are signals telling you a message/connection is ‘incoming’.

Your deeper spirit gets the message, and your conscious mind can then take years to grasp the meaning, and such experiences often can trigger in people a whole new path in life as they search for the meaning of that experience.

In magic we are into a whole different ball game. Those unexpected connections still happen, as they are part of the constant interaction between the physical and the unseen. However, what a magician does is learn how to walk that path, cross the bridge, open the door and step through it to converse with the unseen in a conscious and intentional way.

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The path is magic, the bridge is the magicians’ skill. That path has a lot of good and bad ‘people/beings’ upon it, which is a part of its natural defence mechanism. Some help (for example Companions) and some hinder (parasites, destructive beings etc). A helper will walk alongside you and at times, nudge you out of the way of danger. A parasite or destructive being will try to engage you to distract you, unravel you, or even destroy you. They are just doing their job, and at times, looking for a meal (inherent reward built into the job).

Emotion is the only common language when you are not fully trained in magic, and a lot of magical training besides the obvious, is learning to know thyself – know what is truly you, what is your own body and brain chemistry, what is your own baggage etc. The more you experience for good and bad, the more you learn, the more discernment you get. Slowly, the magician starts to realise that the emotive reactions they have when they are working in magic can cause more problems than they are worth, as they attract the beings that are trying to block them, feed off them, or distract them.

So when the magician is engaging in a magical act, their emotions and emotive reactions are moved to one side so that they are not vulnerable or even visible to those destructive beings.  [image error]

A human full of emotion lights up like a Christmas tree and can be seen to everything around them.

The magician triggers or builds the bridge (magical technique), in silence and with no emotion,  and invisible,  he or she goes to the door, opens it and steps through (visionary work).

This does not mean that a magician has no emotions, or does not have profound emotional experiences, it means that while in the midst of a magical act, communication, or working, emotions are moved to one side: they are focussed out.

It is like learning how to sit in a classroom for two hours and not getting up to go to the toilet every time you think you might need to pee…. emotional control in a magician is like potty training…. and it doesn’t come from suppressing the emotions, it comes from learning silence, from learning to observe emotions for what they are, and learning to focus beyond emotion.

The magician stills and clears themselves before the work, they then work in a none emotional way until they have finished. They do not ‘run with’ the emotional cascade that can happen after or during a working, they simply observe. Once the working has cleared and the body has re set itself back to emotive normal mode (can take around 12 hours), then they are back to being a normal thinking feeling human being.

Should a strong emotion present itself during a working, the magician observes, recognises it for what it is, no matter how grand it may seem, and simply continues without engaging that emotion.

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And this is also why it is always best to never theorise on anything to do with power/magic, but to first experience, then gain knowledge, understanding and wisdom through long term repeated practical experience. The deeper into magic you go, the more dangerous it potentially becomes, and knowing yourself, knowing your body, your mind, your spirit, and all the strengths and weaknesses you have, is the key to adeptship.

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(c) 2019 Josephine McCarthy

The ancestry of Ancient Egypt – a long read

While listening to student’s questions and debates, there is something that has emerged in discussions a few times, and it is thorny issue indeed. Discussions on the topic in wider social media range from silly to down right offensive, which is to be expected, but there seems to be little sensible discussion around this topic. While it does not appear directly related to magic per se, (but it is, as the Egypt pattern is still alive in western magic to this day) it is affecting many students in a variety of ways, particularly magical students who are African Americans. Because of this, I feel it necessary to add to the debate in an attempt to try and bring a bit of clarity to the debate, but also to look at the magical implications. So I am approaching this not as someone who has roots in Africa, but as a magical teacher: my job is to ensure that students are able to progress in the magical studies and not be held back by something when it is not necessary.

The argument in question that is coming up is whether ancient Egypt was ‘black’ or ‘white’ (African or European). As you can see, this can turn into a very sticky debate as there are many different agendas on both sides of the argument. The debate arose as a result of racial politics most commonly found but not exclusive to the USA. Ancient Egypt was one of the great founding civilisations that we know of (though not the only one), and the majority of information sources that can be drawn from the internet about Ancient Egypt are often simplistic, incorrect, ill-informed or heavily agenda driven. [image error]

Because ancestral work is an important part of magic and the mysteries, it is a difficult subject that must not be ignored, for many different reasons. It would be easy for me to keep out of the debate, but that would be cowardly – I am sure I will attract ‘lightening strikes’ from both sides of the debate, but as a magical teacher, I cannot hide from that: it is my responsibility to help students navigate their way through such situations that could serve to hobble their progress.

Before I get into the question of where Ancient Egyptians came from, there are a couple of basic things that need clarity. One is the misuse of the term Pharaonic Egypt – that was a term that most probably arose from the writings of Manetho, a Ptolemaic (305 to 30 BC) Egyptian priest who translated a lot of Egyptian works into Greek.

The use of the term ‘Pharaoh’ comes from the word pr-ˤ3, which means ‘great house’ or palace. The first documented (translated by A Gardiner) use of it in reference to a king was in a letter to Akhenaten. From the nineteenth dynasty, it was occasionally used as a term akin to ‘his Majesty’, but it was never really a formal title of the king. So the term ‘Pharaonic Egypt’ doesn’t really mean much at all. It would be better to term the period of Egyptian kings as ‘Dynastic Egypt’.

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Hatshepsut

It might appear picky, but in today’s crazy world of bad information, it is a good habit to get into to be as clear and accurate as you can be.

The other basic thing that needs bringing into the debate before we dig further into this is the understanding that Lower Egypt and Upper Egypt were fairly different racially and also to an extent, culturally. Lower Egypt generally became the centre of kingship power and administration (Memphis) and yes, I know this and the following statements are generalising a lot, but it is an overview…. And Upper Egypt leaned more towards the spiritual heart of Egypt (Abydos, Waset/Thebes etc).

The other thing that is tough for people, particularly in the USA to understand, but to some extent is not thought about generally, is that people approach this from a racial perspective when it is about territory. People think, ‘oh the Egyptians were Egyptians, and the Nubians were African’. To start with, there was no such concept as ‘Africa’ then, there were territories, and the tribes in each territory were a genetic mix to a greater or lesser degree.

For example in Britain, to folks around the world, the British are one ‘race’ and all look alike. But they are not. In England, the south, south east and Midlands tend to be more Saxon and Norman than anything else, with smatterings of Roman etc. But some areas in the north and west, like parts of Yorkshire, Wales and Northumberland, the folks are more Celtic and Viking than anything else. Go west to Wales, and Cornwall, and you have more of the ‘old Brits’ mixed with Celt: genetic remnants of the folks who were there before the Roman invasion, and in the Scottish Highlands it is different again. They range from small, dark hair and dark eyes, to tall blond blue eyes, and the startling red hair of the Viking blood.

So if you transplanted the same attitude onto Britain that is currently being used over Egypt, you would have one side saying that the Brits are all Germanic Saxon blond hair blue eyed………and the short dark Celt would stand in the corner and blink in confusion. The Celts were there before the Romans, Saxons and Normans came, and before the Celts arrived, there were the original Brits and Picts, that we know little about. No one race can claim Britain, and no one group can exclude the early settlers either.

The story of Egypt is similar…. Early indigenous settlers, and other local tribes expanded into the territory, and some folks from further away trickled in over time through waves of trade, migration and war.  I find it interesting that people who love Britain from afar romanticise about the Celts and think that it is a Celtic country, but those same people refuse to accept or understand the African blood roots of a country in Africa.

I think it best at this point to say why it is so important that this debate is looked at in the cold light of day for magicians. Ancestral connection is a branch of magic that an adept needs to fully understand. In order for a magician to step into the deeper mystical mysteries of magic, they go through a series of processes that start at the apprentice phase of training and come to completion as an adept. One of those processes is to connect with and to face their blood ancestors and also the ancestors of the land that the magician now lives in. That connection forms part of a temporary pattern that bridges power and understanding for the magician.

Once the magician has learned what they need to learn, and has settled what they need to settle, the more advanced magician in preparation for adepthood first steps back from those ancestral lines, and finally cuts them. An adept is a freestanding spirit in the universe who is not held back by nor governed by ancestral baggage, suffering, ties, or calls for revenge. Before the adept can disconnect from those lines, he or she needs to fully immerse in work with those ties, and also learn how much of an influence ancestral spirits can have upon the living. [image error]

Many people these days do not know who their ancestors are beyond two or a few generations, and that knowledge is not important magically, as the magician learns how to connect magically with any blood ancestor of theirs who is willing to connect with them. However, when you come to a large group of people who were ripped from their own lands, shipped around the world en-masse as part of the slave trade, and had their culture, language, history, and family torn from them, you are into a whole different ball game. Such events have a massive collective psychic impact that resonates for generations.

It is one thing to not know who your great great grandmother was, it is another thing entirely to not know what country, what blood line, what religion, nor what culture you come from. When that is multiplied by millions, you have a collective consciousness that is bereft of roots. Unless you have experienced that, you cannot even begin to perceive what a huge impact it has on the psyche of the people, nor how it cascades down the generations as an open wound.

So it is not surprising that people of African American descent look to Africa for role models/roots/identity, and Egypt is one big shining light of civilisation that can be drawn upon to root oneself in a sense of ancestral identity and pride – it is one of Africa’s greatest success stories.

Of course this does not fit with the Eurocentric sense of ownership of the roots of civilisation. Two different narratives emerge from this sense of Eurocentric ownership, particularly in magical circles. One is that Egypt was just a corrupt African country where kings married their sisters (such events happened over a short period of time in a long civilisation) and that Greece was really the cauldron of civilisation (Egypt was already an old lady when Greece climbed out of its cave). The other is that Egypt was essentially a ‘white’ country (blink…). Both of those narratives are historically wrong, but the truth, as always, is far more complex than it appears on the surface, and is an uncomfortable truth as its complexity does not fit with any specific narrative, be it white, black or purple.

In today’s world of sound bites, memes, and bullet point information, complexities get kicked into the long grass and ignored. While many people are comfortable with that as it serves their various narratives, it does not serve a magician well. [image error]Being a magician is to be understand and work with the complexities of the universe, and to not turn away from balance and truth, two qualities that both magic and Egypt were founded upon.

So let us have a look at what we know about the ancestral roots of Egypt, both from science, observation, texts, and common sense. The picture, when stripped of narratives, politics and agendas, is astonishing, and is also a good example of how we in the modern world, regardless of which culture or country we come from, and whether we are black, white, purple, or green with yellow spots, should get along. What I will say is though, as I was doing some research for this blog post, I did expect to bump up against racial narratives on both sides. I have to say I was shocked at the subtle level of racism I found in European science. Taking data and cherry picking how that data is presented, and leaving out obvious elements seems to be the norm – very depressing. But rejecting science is not the way to go.

Science is good, it is very helpful to us – so it is important to look at science, and then look at the narrative – if the narrative is stacked, then you reject the narrative, but you look at the actual science in its bare bones. Where there is not enough science, then you use intelligence and common sense, and also spot your own narrative trying to creep in.

The first thing to look at is the geographical location of Egypt. [image error]It sits at a crossroads between north Coastal Africa, Sudan/Nubia, the Levant and Arabian peninsula, and is in close proximity to not only the very ancient trade and migration routes from the east, but also the migration routes probably taken from the Sahel region of Africa when the Saharan desert started to slowly dry up (5/4500BC to approx. 2000BC). https://www.astrobio.net/news-exclusive/how-earths-orbital-shift-shaped-the-sahara/

If you look at this map of North Africa and surrounding regions, not only will you see the territories of influence, you will also see the band of the Sahara desert. Until it turned into the vast desert we now know, it was a vast area of lush land that we know was populated. When it started drying up, people at the time didn’t think, ‘oh… we cannot go east as there is a perfect river environment there, but it will be populated by white people in the future’ (which is essentially what the current Eurocentric narrative is), rather people migrated in stages to the nearest land where they could find food and water: they went north, south, west and east. These people were Africans, with African physique/features. With them they carried their cultural wealth of knowledge.

An interesting archaeological find that should potentially be part of this branch (Saharan) of the narrative of the origins of very early Egyptian peoples, is the Tashwinat Mummy, found in Uan Muhuggiag (now SW Libya Saharan region). The mummy is of a small child that was embalmed, and was, as the researchers put it, of ‘Negroid skull features’. It dates to 3600BC, a good thousand years before Egyptians began mummification. These are fragments of details that should be looked at properly, in case there are threads of connections, but they are not even glanced at, as they do not fit the narrative. But if it quacks like a duck….. at least is shows that those techniques were kicking around North Africa fairly early on. Here are some details of that mummy.

Tashwinat Mummy

“The most noteworthy find at Uan Muhuggiag is the well-preserved mummy of a young boy of approximately 2 1/2 years old. The child was in a fetal position, then embalmed, then placed in a sack made of antelope skin, which was insulated by a layer of leaves. The boy’s organs were removed, as evidenced by incisions in his stomach and thorax, and an organic preservative was inserted to stop his body from decomposing. An ostrich eggshell necklace was also found around his neck. Radiocarbon dating determined the age of the mummy to be approximately 5600 years old, which makes it about 1000 years older than the earliest previously recorded mummy in ancient Egypt. In 1958-1959, an archaeological expedition led by Antonio Ascenzi conducted anthropological, radiological, histological and chemical analyses on the Uan Muhuggiag mummy. The specimen was determined to be that of a 30-month old child of uncertain sex, who possessed Negroid features.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uan_Muhuggiag

https://www.temehu.com/wan-muhuggiag.htm

So the early Egyptians were from Saharan Africa? Well, its not that simple… nothing ever is. The earliest DNA analysis (Max Plank Institute) of Ancient Egyptians is from the period span of 1400BC to 400BC and that was from one narrow regional area in a large territory, so we have to use common sense, logic, and the tracking or artefacts. In the Naqada culture (Chalcolithic pre dynastic Egypt 4400-3000BC) that was centred around Qena (Upper Egypt, near modern day Luxor) downwards to the second cataract,  there were finds that show depictions of white skin and blue eyes in statues.[image error]

The blue eyes are made of Lapis, which only comes from an area in what is now Afghanistan, so that is some pretty distant trading at a very early stage of Egypt’s formation. The white skin/blue eyes likely come from the west Asian/Eurasian areas that are now Anatolia, Turkmenistan, Northern Iran, and into Afghanistan – it is one of two genetic anomalies (the other coming from South Africa) that we know of that causes blue eyes, and the arrival into the Nile area of such people early on, or the knowledge of such people via traders must have seemed unearthly at the time – people are fascinated by differences. So we have very early traders or migrating peoples who have this anomaly of white skin and blue eyes, and the NW Asian gene shows up clearly in the much later mummies…so we know they settled in Egyptian territories. We will come back to them later.

The other curve ball to throw into the mix is early finds in the Naqada culture, of seals both from, and also copied from Sumerian city states, which at that time were far more developed as a culture that the toddler Egypt. This mix by Sumerian interlopers also shows up in much later Egyptian DNA, and comes from the areas we know now as southern Iraq, the gulf states, and into Jordan.

There is also what is known as the A-group (3800 BC but could be as early as 4400-3100BC), an early civilisation in the area of the Nile valley (what is now Upper Egypt) which included parts of the valley that would eventually become known as Nubia. The cemeteries showed an advanced people of sophistication and wealth, and predate dynastic Egypt by at least 300yrs. Here are some excerpts from a news report on the finds – the news report is dated 1979.

“the discovery is expected to stimulate a new appraisal of the origins of civilization in Africa, raising the question of to what extent later Egyptian culture may have derived its advanced political structure from the Nubians. The various symbols of Nubian royalty that have been found are the same as those associated, in later times, with Egyptian kings.

The new findings suggest that the ancient Nubians may have reached this stage of political development as long ago as 3300 B.C., several generations before the earliest documented Egyptian king.

The discovery is based on study of artifacts from ancient tombs excavated 15 years ago in an international effort to rescue archeological deposits before the rising waters of the Aswan Dam covered them.

The artifacts, including hundreds of fragments of pottery, jewelry, stone vessels, and ceremonial objects such as incense burners, were initially recovered from the Qustul cemetery by Keith C. Seele, a professor at the University of Chicago. The cemetery, which contained 33 tombs that were heavily plundered in ancient times, was on the Nile near the modern boundary between Egypt and the Sudan.

…….. The majestic figure on the incense burner, Dr. Williams said, is the earliest known representation ‘of a king in the Nile Valley. His name is unknown, but he is believed to have lived approximately three generations of kings before the time of Scorpion, the earliest known Egyptian ruler. Scorpion was one of three kings said to have ruled Egypt before the start of what is called the first dynasty around 3050 B.C.

Dr. Williams said the dating is based on correlations of artistic styles in the Nubian pottery with similar styles in predynastic Egyptian pottery, which is relatively well dated.

He said some of the Nubian artifacts bore disconnected symbols resembling those of Egyptian hieroglyphics that were not readable.

http://www.nytimes.com/1979/03/01/archives/ancient-nubian-artifacts-yield-evidence-of-earliest-monarchy-clues.html

Just a technical point – when people talk about the ‘Nubian culture’ during the Naqada period, there really was not two different cultures – there were a variety of people living along the Nile valley area, the separation came in with the early phases of the First Dynasty.

So…… in Upper Egypt we have a bunch of people living in a perfect environment for civilisation (water, abundant food, no heavy lifting to survive). There is a mix of African, NW Eurasian, and Sumerian dudes hanging out and swapping stories, skills and arguments. This went on for hundreds of years (Naqada I 4400BC, through Naqada II 3500-3200BC to Naqada III 3500 to 3100 early Dynastic period)… Egypt didn’t exist as an identity at that point.

Common sense tells us there would have been a flow back and forth between the various peoples over hundreds of years (think in terms of the development of the USA, it is a similar time span), and slowly through the Naqada III period, distinction became made between two territories: Egypt and the Land of the Bow. By the end of the Naqada III period (3100BC give or take a few years) these two territories came into conflict, probably over resources and wealth. Bow was rich in gold, ivory, carnelian, incense resins, and ebony which they traded further north, something the dudes further north really liked and wanted for themselves.

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With the advent of the first overall Egyptian king, Narmer/Menes which was around 3100BC, a conflict arose that ended with a line drawn to define the territory of the two lands (Upper and Lower Egypt or Kemet), and the territory of the Bow (Nubia).

It is hypothesized that with that conflict, the people of the Bow left that region unoccupied for some 500 years, only to return later. However there were finds in that area (Land of the Bow) that showed continuation of trade and settlement, which is explained away as an ‘Egyptian outpost’ in vague terms. There were signs of local inhabitants trading and copper mining in the 2nd Dynasty, and a possibility of an Egyptian incursion in the 4th dynasty under Sneferu, but the Egyptians were booted out in the 5th dynasty (ancient graffiti left clues). We have no idea why the Egyptians were there, whether they were traders, or whether they had a military outpost, or whether they were occupiers – we just don’t know.

A massive fortress and settlement was built there by Senusret III (12th dynasty 1860BC) and there was trouble back and forth between the two sides until Egypt was again booted out  of Bow in the 20th dynasty. So it is not as straight forward as the narrative assumes. There is little chance of any archaeological discovery in this region now because of the flooding of the region with the Aswan dam.

There is also a lot of contradiction regarding this area in history terms, either through carelessness, ignorance of history, or intent. This is a good example – this is a wiki page about Nubia ( I know….wiki…. but this example is a good warning about accuracy for folks trying to search for themselves). It rightly states a lot of the archaeological history of the area, but the article starts out by stating:  It was the seat of one of the earliest civilizations of ancient Africa, with a history that can be traced from at least 2000 BC onward. . Really? I don’t think so buddy…. Finds date back to at least 3500BC. See how little subtle mistakes can change people’s understanding of their own history. This is why it is so important to read everything carefully, cross check things, and not skim over texts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nubia#Prehistory

The way the narrative is told in education is that the Egyptians were a distinct race, and the Nubians were a distinct race, and when they clashed, the Egyptians won (which they did). But that is like saying that the war between Scotland and England was a war between two distinct races. It’s not that simple: both sides were mixes of each other. It was not a war of race, but one of culture, politics and resources. It is an age old story: neighbouring tribal territories develop differences, they clash, usually over resources, and slowly over time they develop in to separate nations.

It is very likely that the clash between the ‘Land of the Bow’ and the early dynastic culture in Upper Egypt was one of resources, politics and territory. Both sides were very likely mixes of each other in terms of genetics, but after that clash, and the founding of Dynastic Egypt, a firm line was drawn between the two. That in turn would have led, over a thousand years, to the ‘Egyptians having less Nubian influence, and in turn, the Nubians having less Egyptian influence. Those are cultural distinctions, not racial ones. However Lower Egypt (around the Nile Delta) quickly developed a far more diverse genetic soup simply because of its location.

The story of the Land of the Bow (became Nubia) and Egypt, is similar in many ways to the story of the Roman incursions into Britain. They pushed north in Britain over a hundred years or so, building forts and towns as they went. [image error]When they got quite far north (what is now northern England) they met a bunch of Ancient Britons and Picts who were terrifying: they had a pretty good tribal structure going, and were adept fighters. They harassed the Romans and basically beat them up on a regular basis, and the Romans found themselves in a cold misty wet boggy land populated by terrifying warriors. So they built a large wall (Hadrians Wall), and on their side, it was the last outpost of the Roman Empire, and beyond the wall, ‘there be dragons’….

The newly forming Egyptian culture in its early dynastic phase, drew a line and decided that before that line, it was Egypt, and beyond that line it was the Land of the Bow, another ‘there be dragons’ type of territory that they could not govern, despite it having rich resources. The people of the Bow told the Egyptians to fuck off, and the Egyptians decided pushing the point would be too much trouble. That divide is one of territory, on the same land, on the same river, with each side having a similar genetic history.

The Land of the Bow was more African than anything, and the Egyptians were African with a mix of other interlopers that created a more complex genetic picture. One was not better than the other: the People of the Bow were obviously civilised, sophisticated and resourced, and the Egyptians were also. The knowledge that was brought from the Sumerian city states likely added structure to the emerging Egyptians, as the Sumerians had been city building for a long time before they hit Egypt, but it is also likely, particularly in light of the finds in Bow, that the People of the Bow also had structure/civilisation. Whether they also got it from the Sumerian city states (when everyone was more connected during the Naqada periods), or whether they had it from other unknown African civilisations, we will never know as the Aswan Dam covered all evidence, and there is very little resources put into archaeology in Africa. But my guess is, that there were many varied developed societies in Ancient Africa, and also that the Sumer city states had a direct influence on both emerging cultures of Egypt and Bow (which were basically the same culture that split in two) but no one has really bothered to look properly.

Now having read all of that, and looked at the 1979 article, now look at this ‘educational’ site and read it very carefully…. The racial undertones of the narrative are subtle, but they are there..  note how it subtly suggests that the Egyptians were in full swing… which they were not quite.

https://oi.uchicago.edu/museum-exhibits/nubia/ancient-nubia-group-3800–3100-bc

“In addition to maintaining trade contacts with Egypt, A-Group rulers employed symbols that were used by Egyptian pharaohs of that time.”

There were no ‘Pharaohs’ at that time, the first king of the two lands was the founder of the first Dynasty –  Narmer/Menes which was around 3100BC. These finds are 3300BC there abouts… and it is assuming that the proto hieroglyphs came from pre dynastic Egypt and were carried/copied by the ‘Nubians’.  Bear in mind these peoples had been living alongside each other culturally, with no territory separation that we know of (like different tribal groups in the same area, not distinct different civilisations) for nearly a thousand years. But note the subtle use of language to say that one ‘lower group’ copied off of a ‘higher group’. This is the sort of language you have to watch out for. In truth, we don’t know. In truth both groups used the same script and we do not know how that came about. Here is a clip from that article:  ‘

“Some Nubian seal impressions depict a bow above a rectangle, probably the earliest writing of Ta-Seti, “Land of the Bow,” an ancient Egyptian name for Nubia. The A-Group flourished until it was destroyed by pharaohs of Egypt’s First Dynasty around 3100 BC. Much of northern Nubia was not inhabited for centuries afterwards, at least partly because of Egyptian military action. There is evidence of some occupation during this time, however; a settlement at Buhen near the 2nd cataract, with Egyptian and Nubian pottery, may have been a base for trade or copper working during the Egyptian Old Kingdom (2686–2125 BC).”

Then…..on top of all of that, in terms of race/genetics in Egypt and Bow, you also have the Berber/Maghreb DNA influence in the mix, which makes it even more complicated.

Also, the latest DNA information also shows a story of the African return genetic line showing up in North Africa (and many other parts of Africa) around 3000BC.

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/350/6262/820

and a news report summary

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-34479905

The NW Asian/Eurasian (not European as many tend to think unless someone redefined Europe’s borders/cultures/genetic make up when I wasn’t looking)… input into the gene pool was… and this is in ‘Josephine humour speak’…. something like this……and yes, it is vastly simplified, but it makes the point.

Some adventurous Africans decided to search new horizons. They pushed north and east, spreading out, doing their thing, shagging a few Neanderthals and other early humans as they went along (or being shagged by them). Through necessity they learned skills,  traded a few skills, and went through some genetic anomalies (example, blue eyes tracking back to one person’s genetic hiccup) and they landed in the area we know as Western Eurasia  https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.htm

One day someone pushed out a baby that had blue eyes, and everyone gathered around and said, ‘whoah, that looks weird’… they all turned to the father and said, ‘shag me, I want one with blue eyes too… it looks really weird’. The father dutifully obliged, and soon, these ancient adventurers from Africa had lots of blue eyed screaming toddlers running around.

Life was tough in this high plateau area, and they had to learn how to work the land to get food: it was not the Garden of Eden that their ancient ancestor stories told them about where they could pick fruit off the tree, and catch game easily. [image error]They developed agricultural techniques but the work was long and hard. One day, someone said, ‘why the fuck did our ancient ancestors leave paradise? Let’s try and find our way back to it.

They met traders who told them about this wonderful land where it was warm, where there was always water, a rich land that grew anything, and that people had time for things like developing art, skills, early writing, lots of shagging and lying around in the sun. It sounded a lot like their ‘garden’ in the ancestral tales. So off they went.

They arrived in the Nile valley eventually (sometime in the Naqada II or III period), and found a mix of people there, and they slid right into the mix. The folks in the Nile valley saw that some of their new guests had blue eyes, and thought that they were mega cool, and the returners found a really interesting mix of folks to make friends with, and yeah, also shag with. Remember, civilisations are founded on food resources that can be gotten with the least possible work, and lots of sex. People never really change.

As early dynastic Egypt developed, Lower Egypt was more of a place of mixing of peoples back and forth through trade, and Upper Egypt likely stayed more stable, with its trade back and forth at times with Nubia in the south. So you have two fairly distinct communities in terms of genetics – same but different. But nothing ever stays the same, and Egypt certainly didn’t.

So let’s zoom forward in time a bit, to the end of the Middle Kingdom. By the end of the 12th dynasty, around 1800BC Egypt was starting to see Canaanite (southern Levant) settlers in Lower Egypt. This was a tumultuous time in Egypt, and saw the end of the Middle Kingdom and the beginning of the second Intermediate period, which was basically chaos. By the 13th dynasty, Egypt had a Semitic speaking king, Khendjer /Userkare.

He was king for no more than about 4 years, and was one in a line of ineffective rulers trying to rule over a country in meltdown. [image error]By the 15th Dynasty (1650 – 1550 BC) we have the Hyksos invaders who set up their own kings and generally went around annoying people for quite some time.

And it is now being hypothosised that the Hyksos were also from Western Asia – those dudes just kept migrating over and over…. Though the winters are pretty tough up there so you can’t blame them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyksos

So you begin to see that Egypt has a very long, detailed, complicated and genetically mixed history that began in an African cradle, but grew up in a wider foster family of African, West Asian/returners, near and middle easterners, and god knows who else.

These folks all intermingled (remember people like sex), and all considered themselves Egyptians. They did not differentiate between skin colour, only whether you were ‘in’ the club as an Egyptian or whether you were a foreigner. And even that club changed many times.

For example, Nubians were at times considered Egyptian, a brother nation, trading cousins, enemies, and best friends.

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This is well depicted in the Book of Gates, a New Kingdom funerary text that has in it, in the 6th hour, a depiction of the four races that make up Egypt and friends of Egypt. In the 6th hour, it is showing how these different peoples are all acceptable to the Egyptian gods, and while they may at times be from different cultures, they are also acceptable to the Gods and therefore the people.

The Egyptians show themselves as red/ brown skinned, which you would expect with the racial mix over the centuries, and then they depict the Levant, Nubian, and NW Asian/Assyrian, which are essentially the actual DNA lines that run through the early Ancient Egyptians – they are all brothers.

By the time you get to the late 18th dynasty, you get a really heady mix in the gene pool, and also more of a series of divisions: the nobility and rulers often had different ancestry to the local people they ruled, and also by this time the lower Egypt/Upper Egypt gene pool was likely quite different…. Lower Egypt was far more diverse as it is far closer to all the crossroads, so the African blood became a weaker signal over time, and Upper Egypt retained more of its African roots, but with a good sprinkling of the northern interlopers.

This is why the Max Plank Institute study is so ‘off the wall’.  http://www.shh.mpg.de/423779/mummy-genomes

In terms of science, it is very interesting, but historically? Pah…. To try to say that 90 mummies from 1400BC to 400BC (already late in Egyptian terms) all from Lower Egypt outside Memphis… who were all likely noble remains, that it is indicative of the whole genetic picture of the sum total of Dynastic Egypt and all its people, is beyond silly…. It is insulting to the intelligence. This is a map, using colour coding to show the two lands.(note: Memphis was lower Egypt, not Middle Egypt as stated in the articles about this study… the two lands had two land areas…middle Egypt is a more modern idea. Egypt was called the two lands of lower and upper Egypt, not the three lands!)

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To finish, the late dynasties saw waves of invasions, settlers and cultural/genetic ‘injections’ into the soup. This started with the arrival in the 7th century BC of Greek colonies, mainly for trade, and then the Persian conquest of Egypt in 525BC with the battle of Pelusium, where Cambyses II (son of Cyrus the Great) became Pharaoh. Then we had Alexander III of Macedon (Alexander the Great) who became Pharaoh in 332BC.

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Cleopatra

Then we had the Ptolemaic dynasties (who were Macedonian Greeks) who were the last dynasty in Egypt, which finished with Cleopatra (who was Greek, not Egyptian).

In 30BC it became a Roman province, and in 42AD it became Christian. 20 years after the 619 AD Sassanian Persian invasion, in 639AD with the Arab invasion, Egypt became a Muslim country.

So Egypt, from its beginnings in 4400BC to the end of the Dynastic period in 30BC, it was a melting pot of cultures, genetics, and bad habits. [image error]Egypt’s mother was African, and her children were both African and also a varied selection of foster children from all over the place.

No one group can claim Egypt as theirs, but rather we can celebrate the fact that over its vast span of time as an ancient culture, it seeded wisdom, knowledge, tolerance of differences, and a vast intelligence that we should all be in awe of.

But we should also not forget that it all started with a bunch of African folks getting their shit together and building the foundation of a civilisation that has yet to be rivalled.

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