What do you think?
Rate this book
Her-Bak: Egyptian Initiate
In these fictional accounts, Ancient Egypt is made accessible, revealed through the eyes of young Her-Bak, candidate for initiation into the Inner Temple.
400 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1967
5 people are currently reading
98 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
September 13, 2022
The way that this book was written is functional for me. I found it to be historical and slightly entertaining insomuch that it made me smile many times throughout. None of it was over my head. I actually deeply and profoundly understood it all. I had to access a different way of thinking, outside of the ordinary taught ways of our world cultures. I also, perhaps had to access different parts of my brain to understand this book. This, I don’t have the words to explain. I have read other books that allowed me to get to a point where I could hear the historical truths in this one, rather they are accepted or not by the academy or whoever. I am not concerned with that as I don’t wait for any person to identify and tell me what things are or what things are not. I explore.
This book may be a good companion to any book of the dead rather it be The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Coming Forth by Night and Day), The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Maya Book of the Dead, The Nahuatl Book of the Dead, or Christian Book of the Dead.
This book may be a good companion to any book of the dead rather it be The Egyptian Book of the Dead (Coming Forth by Night and Day), The Tibetan Book of the Dead, The Maya Book of the Dead, The Nahuatl Book of the Dead, or Christian Book of the Dead.
March 1, 2020
It’s hard to rate this book, because I suspect to fully apprehend it, I will need to read it more than once. At the same time, I’m not actually certain it deserves that much scrutiny.
This is the second volume of a novel set in the ancient Egyptian past, based on the archaeological and spiritual insights of the author’s husband, R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz. It’s safe to say that Schwaller de Lubicz was never taken very seriously by academic archaeologists, and the objective reality of his conclusions is far from proven. He did enjoy some acclaim in the “occult” spiritual realm, particularly in the seventies, and is not without some influence in the realm of “alternative” Egyptology. This might put him in the “kook” realm for some, but if this book is an example of how his ideas were argued and presented, it does not come across as incoherent or poorly researched. As this is a novel, and wasn’t written directly by him, it may also not be the best way to assess his ideas.
This book takes the form of many lengthy Socratic dialogues, with the title character speaking to sages, masters, and other students about gods and parts of the soul, as well as funerary practices and the meaning of hieroglyphs. The final 150 pages is given over to non-fictional “commentaries” that also rely heavily on the work of R.A. In one of these, Schwaller de Lubicz quotes extensively from “mainstream” archaeologists in order to debunk them, although personally I found their arguments the more convincing than hers. A lot of the problem comes from a conviction that Egypt’s religion was more consistent and less politicized than any other known in history, and I find this utopian vision hard to swallow. The reasoning for any specific part of the argument is generally based on hieroglyphic imagery and numerology that is at times hard to follow – but not especially “kooky” as such things go. It seems to be internally consistent and might actually mean something, if one was willing to take the time to parse it out.
In the end, I tend to think the Schwaller de Lubicz’s insights are more valuable when not taken to be objective statements about the past, but seen rather as subjectively useful ideas to pursue in one’s own development. They (husband and wife) appear to have a good understanding of the value and structure of initiatory systems and communicate some of that here. It’s probably impossible to experience what Her-Bak experiences just by reading about it, however. You have to take the principles into your own life and work with them. And that may be better done by finding a group which already has such a structure and trying it for yourself, as opposed to reading about it in books and trying to learn it that way.
This is the second volume of a novel set in the ancient Egyptian past, based on the archaeological and spiritual insights of the author’s husband, R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz. It’s safe to say that Schwaller de Lubicz was never taken very seriously by academic archaeologists, and the objective reality of his conclusions is far from proven. He did enjoy some acclaim in the “occult” spiritual realm, particularly in the seventies, and is not without some influence in the realm of “alternative” Egyptology. This might put him in the “kook” realm for some, but if this book is an example of how his ideas were argued and presented, it does not come across as incoherent or poorly researched. As this is a novel, and wasn’t written directly by him, it may also not be the best way to assess his ideas.
This book takes the form of many lengthy Socratic dialogues, with the title character speaking to sages, masters, and other students about gods and parts of the soul, as well as funerary practices and the meaning of hieroglyphs. The final 150 pages is given over to non-fictional “commentaries” that also rely heavily on the work of R.A. In one of these, Schwaller de Lubicz quotes extensively from “mainstream” archaeologists in order to debunk them, although personally I found their arguments the more convincing than hers. A lot of the problem comes from a conviction that Egypt’s religion was more consistent and less politicized than any other known in history, and I find this utopian vision hard to swallow. The reasoning for any specific part of the argument is generally based on hieroglyphic imagery and numerology that is at times hard to follow – but not especially “kooky” as such things go. It seems to be internally consistent and might actually mean something, if one was willing to take the time to parse it out.
In the end, I tend to think the Schwaller de Lubicz’s insights are more valuable when not taken to be objective statements about the past, but seen rather as subjectively useful ideas to pursue in one’s own development. They (husband and wife) appear to have a good understanding of the value and structure of initiatory systems and communicate some of that here. It’s probably impossible to experience what Her-Bak experiences just by reading about it, however. You have to take the principles into your own life and work with them. And that may be better done by finding a group which already has such a structure and trying it for yourself, as opposed to reading about it in books and trying to learn it that way.
March 30, 2020
With all the austere demands of the immortal - timeless wisdom for the ages.
November 29, 2013
An incipient interest in mystery cults drew me to this book. Whether Greek, Roman, Persian, or Egyptian, mystery cults are, by definition, inscrutable. Considering that the corpus was transmitted orally and only recorded symbolically if at all, how could they be anything but inscrutable? Hence the term mystery cult. So to fictionalize the process by which a pupil in one of these cults is initiated into the inner temple, as this book purports to do, is a supreme effort in conjecture…unless one has deciphered the cult’s symbolic language which R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz, the highly controversial Egyptologist on whose work the story is based, has claimed to have done. Difficult, difficult reading to say the least, but there is genuine insight here. I was hooked early on when Her-bak asked his master and mentor about the meaning of life. That is the wrong question the master tells Her-bak. The question that must first be asked and answered is What is life? Much of the answer to the what-is-life question went way over my head, (a comprehensive background in Egyptian mythology would’ve helped immensely) but I did recognize elements of Gnosticism, Taoism, and esoteric Christianity, which tells me that mystery cults were all about waking up, all about recognizing the divine spark within and fanning that spark into an illuminating flame.
January 17, 2015
The book had some moments of incredible insight that made it well worth the read. It really delved in depth with the symbolism of the Egyptian language. At times the book was totally over my head, and it is rare that this happens to me. I enjoyed the the dialogue where Her Bak decides what question he must ask as an initiate.
October 27, 2015
Extremely dense at times. Someone without an interest in "esoteric Egyptology" might have a great deal of trouble making it through this book. I powered through it from beginning to end, but it was by no means an easy read. I'd go as far as to say it was painfully dense, cryptic, and unenjoyable at times, but there was much to be gleaned from the book as a whole.
October 31, 2018
This is a very good and informative follow on from 'Her-bak The living Face of Ancient Egypt'. If you have any interest in the occult this is very illuminating and the style is suitable for a variety of interests. A really good read!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews