Each individual type in Nature is a stage in the cosmic embryology which culminates in human
beings. Different species developed various "functions" that the Kmtians called "Neters," and have
their apotheosis and integration in Conscious Human being. Functional consciousness is a way of knowing reality from the inside.
Ancient Kmt was based on this inner knowing, very unlike our own outer-oriented one. The ancient Kmtians were aware of the
limitations of purely cerebral consciousness, the Set mind that "granulates" experience into fragments of time and
space and is behind our increasing abuse of nature and of each other. Granulated experience produces our familiar world of
disconnected things, each a kind of "island reality." Language is not a simple
means of communication, but as an interface between people and with the divine. The universe life is part of a "Great
Chain of Being". From the lowest particle to the greatest deity, all partake of certain characteristics and are linked
together into a great scheme of existence. The foundations of this bridge of resonance are within sacred letters and numbers,
with vibrations and harmonics. Ancient Kmt had an underlying symbolic code, a magnificent numerical system, which operated
as an initiated form of language. KMTian Wisdom thought of Heaven as the seat of the Neters,
that is to say, the creative Causes or agents of continuous creation and the principles which through reflection into the
earthly world maintained its existence. Temples were conceived of as the seats of the Neters, each a dwelling-place of the
particular Principle to which each of them was dedicated.
Cosmos before the Present Universe
- Early
KMTic thinkers grappled with the questions of existence, origins, knowledge of the world, the cosmos, and how they came into
being. The philosophical implications of grappling with questions of existence by relying on observations of material world
were tremendous. For one, the cosmology, philosophy and world view that evolved to characterize this ancient people
were firmly rooted in material reality; they did not make up explanations and understandings of the world around them; rather
they observed the lessons directly from nature. These practices laid the foundation for the sciences and the building of civilization.
- Cosmology:
Before all, there existed Nwn, a watery abyss, absolute in essence, which already contained all primary matter. That matter
was posited in the form of water extended, quite naturally, from their experiences along the Nile [this was a civilization
that evolved along the Nile]. In time, matter would gain consciousness of itself and manifest itself as creation. The
creative essence emerges from within Nwn and begins the work of creation. There is no independent creator standing over and
apart from creation; rather the source of creation exists within creation itself.
- In the beginning there is matter
(water), in a form apparently inchoate, obscure, abyssal, yet potentially powerful, dynamic, creative, innovative, a generative
source. Right from the start, matter is posited (in the form of primal water) at the origins of the universe; this primordial
matter was in a form qualitatively different than what would later emerge from (be born of) it.
- Modern science suggests
that the universe originated in a manner similar to African Kmt's cosmology, though not in water. African Kmt's error
(the primordial matter was liquid) was due to their technological development at the time.
- The most important thing
to note is that they posited matter prior to anything else.
- That the Nile was so central to their existence, it was
natural that water would come to represent the primordial mass called Nwn. Nwn-primal matter, primal, abyssal water. Atum,
Re represented the creative reason (and consciousness), which then gave rise to all of creation [philosophical implications-reason,
intelligence organizes chaos.
- We cannot understand the world around us without having developed a set of strategies,
tools, categories, concepts that permit us to take in sensual stimuli, mentally organize it, understand it, and respond appropriately.
This process (of intelligent understanding) requires the existence of a language that permits members of a population to communicate
with one another about reality.
Seed Time of the Cosmos
- Human
intelligence normally strives to understand how all that exists came to be.
- Matter is posited first, although it has
no thematic form. Matter, through its interaction with intelligent consciousness becomes involved in a process of becoming.
- The concept of this inchoate primordial mass was a sort of spatial medium antedating space and time. Everything-all
of reality as we know it-would ultimately emerge from this "originating medium" and within it; this reality explored
and exploited by human ingenuity.
- Nwn: This spatial medium was not yet capable of expressing the real and the imperceptible;
it predated the world, itself uncreated, but adaptable as the raw material for creation; this was an ungenerated, uncreated
reality that was neither born nor created - if African Kmt considered Nwn as neither born nor created, then it suggests a
couple of things: (1) that they recognized that they did not have an answer, or (2) that reality comes into existence on its
own (self-generation), or (3) acceptance, at a certain point, of reality (fate), things are as they are.
- Menes unified
northern and southern African Kmt under a peraa institution; a coherent organization for channeling and harnessing the waters
of the Nile through systematic irrigation, accompanied by a writing system useful for regulating ceremonies and rituals, setting
the calendar, and communicating the Peraa's messages across great distances. All at once, African Kmt created a set of
impressive architectural constructions.
- At this time, the earliest philosophy emerged; just as rigorous and vigorous
as the geometry of the pyramids, precise as the peraa ritual. The African Kmt thought system, which laid the foundations and
erected the scaffoldings for temple architecture, was a decisive organizational influence on the construction of the pyramids.
Nwn: The Primal Waters
The
beginning of all beginnings was Nwn, the primal, absolute mass of water, container of all seed, home to all creative potential.
It was reality before the universe we know, already pregnant with the ‘raw material' of creation in a latent state.
In the cosmogony of The Book of Coming Forth by Day, it was within the primordial
chaos that the demiurge achieved consciousness of itself. Only after that rise to self-consciousness did the demiurge come
into real existence, on its own and by itself. Then it began to work. Everything in the world
had a starting point, a genesis, with the exception of Nwn; Nwn was the uncreated reality of moist, watery, abyssal depths,
fecundating and creative. In African philosophy, the concept of water is the logical outflow
from the lived experience of the African environment. All stream outward from the great cosmic waters, flowing into the real
world as a generous force working to seed the earth, touching all it reaches with it s animating vitality. Water is and water
lets be. Water is the drought-ending energy that clears the way for the active life, season
after season, day after vital day, in a tireless cycle. Nwn is not simply a name for some
inert, primal abyss, rather it flows across space and time. The Great Waters are constantly revived, and new life born out
of their quickening flow. Nwn is a structural concept, a vehicle of progress. The concept
of Nwn infuses historical meaning and human intelligence in the present, while retaining its immanent status.
Primal Egg The cosmic egg, represents the morning
of the nascent world, the world in the state of becoming The egg represents the concept
of completeness, perfection, wholeness-of purity, youth and life. By the same token, it evokes the future, the world about
to be born from it.
Basic Elements: Water, Fire,
and Air - In African Kmt philosophy, there is no opposition between ‘matter'
and ‘spirit.' Nature is a whole, within which matter and consciousness are merged. Water is a substance; living
water is a germinating force, an energy, a divinity. Matter and spirit are different manifestations of reality.
- The
objective object is inseparable from the subjective subject.
- Because it was a living system of thought, African Kmt
philosophy is frequently identified with religion; this is not justified.
Ontology and Cosmogenesis
From the
moment it exists, That Which Is causes being to come into existence Through its own power,
its own energy and movement, that That Which Is comes into existence; it engenders itself, from itself It
is the Absolute, that which exists by itself, from the beginning, before Creation That Which
Is causes the other modes of existence to come into being through love and through its own will, being alone by its own power.
Being is absolute, it is also love and will Being is in addition, and above all, reason. Being
designs projects in its heart; in complete, lucid consciousness Reason encompasses the entire
design, then the creative plan presents itself before the Creative one, in front of it, completely visible, with no confusion.
Creation is a clear concept, neat, distinct, unambiguous to the Creator, who is absolute love, will and reason, an active
energy, the very essence of efficiency, master of the whole Through Creation, the existence
of What Is gets multiplied, becomes a fecundating process, is diversified Creation is an enterprise
of beginnings, and, in a sense, proof of the existence of what is to demonstrate one's existence means to cause to come
into being other modes of existence; it means to create, to produce In African Kmt, the heart
was the seat of intelligence, reason, and intellectual perception-what is conceived in the heart is uttered by the mouth In the beginning there was reason, followed later by the word-the Demiurge first conceives what is to be and
then causes the palpable existence by pronouncing the actual name of that which is invoked into existence through the power
of the word, the efficacy of creative utterance Nwn was imagined as what existed before the
ordered, organized universe came into existence after the emergence of Ra (consciousness), on its own, in Nwn as ‘being
in a state of becoming Nwn, the basis and reason for all subsequent becoming. It is the same
time the matrial cause, the formal cause, the effective cause ad the final cause of everything, of the gods and of their creatures.
It is the undifferentiated absolute, with no describable or knowable form. Yet Nwn is the
ground of Ra's being, and existence comes into beging from the manifested existence of Ra Nwn
is the principle at the root os all principles, the foundation of all foundation; Nwn itself derives from no foundation Some commentators have misconstrued all significant African Kmt texts as religious documents; African KMTologists
have a duty to combat this generalized tendency. Evidence indicates it is the result of prejudiced assumptions, no less dangerous
for being implicit The reality is that ancient Kemites reflected on being, life, death, etc.
- The African Kmt scarab, a highly typical symbol, occurs and recurs whenever the issue is
the creation of Being and all that exists: Kheper, to be, to exist; kheper-djes-ef, he who came into existence by himself;
kheperu, modes of existence of Being; kheperi, Being or What Is.
- The vision is of creation as a continuous process,
sustained to the end of time. The implication is of a universe in perpetual transformation, incessantly changing. It is of
a universe always active, perennially creative. Within it, however, all elements, all beings and all things, begin necessarily
from earlier, unique forms. Here we have a conception of the universe as a continuous process of creation, the cosmos as one
immense, uninterrupted creative gesture.
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Birth of the World According to the Philosophical Tradition
of Memphis The heart and tongue are only images
expressing abstractions: reason and speech, Intelligence and the Word It is through speech
and thought that Atum created all the other gods, after which all their creatures came to birth Universe
conceived as a totality of numerous phenomena African Kmt produced its best work at its dawn
(early in history), while it was still groping toward the full expression of its national identity The
first dynasties were credited with the construction of the pyramids, invention of the 365-day calendar, development of normative
values and ethical cods in wisdom literature and instructional books, the clear progress made toward abstract thinking aimed
at the understanding of the Whole Similar cultural communities exist between African Kmt and
Dogon cosmology; there is the same speculative universe, a deep intellectual identity between Peraa African Kmt and other
areas of black Africa Where the issue of genesis is concerned, the speculative philosophy
of Peraa African Kmt is identical in content to other black African traditional conceptions If
philosophy remains, rightly understood, the human attempt to achieve orderly thought, and if a civilization may be understood
as a social system dominated by a coherent conception of life, then it is incontestably true that pharonic African Kmt was
the real cradle of speculative philosophy as we know it. It achieved that level of speculative thinking without recourse to
any kind of religious revelation Hieroglyphs comprised a set of special ontological signs;
they are physical containers of meaning that marked a level of substantial discourse where words engaged with nature as vehicles
of human value in the larger flux of existence. Hieroglyphs constituted, for eyes trained to
see, a complete vision of reality. They were representations of living beings, essential forms flowing through all things,
the better to make their presence palpable. Hieroglyphs were vehicles expressing the extraordinary
capacity of thought to mobilize first itself, then all reality. To name is to bring into existence,
in the sense of revealing a genealogy, a process of evolution.
Organization
of Nature: The Great Hymn to Aten Amenophis IV (Akhenaten) was an 18th
century ruler; had 6 daughters; wife Nefertiti; a poet and philosopher pyramids build from the 3rd dynasty were
basically solar monuments; by invoking various modes of ascension such as stairways and shafts of sunlight, they enabled the
pharohs to live in the afterlife-either as companions of the Sun God, or as the Sun God in person. Beginning
with the 4th dynasty KMTic kings became known formally as ‘sons of Ra' This
text encapsulates information from several scientific fields touching on the economy of nature The
sun (Ra) in its solar disk is the first to come to life. All other things are born, exist, live because of it. The sun's
rays reach our faces, yet the paths followed by sunlight are invisible. Distant though it is, the sun makes its rays reach
the earth. Solar radiation is powerful taking only a few moments to cross the enormous distance separating the earth from
the sun. Everything on earth derives its life, consubstantially, from the sun's. Whatever exists is, in this sense, a
solar creature, living off the sun's own energy. The resulting forms of life drawing on this single source, are multitudinous;
however we do not see them all (inaccessible to the human eye) - The hymn to Aten is a structured
statement on the organization of nature; it is a philosophical discourse based on the description and allusion related to
the study of nature; the earth is named with its components. In this universe humans work, clearing paths, building cities,
irrigating fields, and piloting boats. The human relationship to nature is creative, not passive
- In the text, the
vegetable and animal kingdoms endowed with organic, living forms, get ample attention. Left out is the mineral world, deliberately,
given its inert nature; stones are seen as lifeless, uninhabited by organic life
- Reproduction is a natural, not mystical
process that involves the male depositing his seed in the female body, which contains eggs; the eggs, upon fertilization,
then develop (come into existence).
- Transitioning to linguistic observations-the languages spoken by these
individual components of humanity are separated, divided, and differentiated in idiom and vocabulary; languages differ from
one linguistic community to the next (languages as systems of verbal signs particular to a group or community designed to
ensure communication within such ensembles); languages set limits to communication outside one's own group. Language identifies
each human group precisely, without confusion
- Humans are different, separate, varied according to their skin color
and national temperament (ethos); KMTic paintings depict the ethnic composition of humanity with meticulous attention to dress,
physical features, and skin color; such representations are of realities seen, perceived, objectivized.
- All
life forms are linked to and depend upon the sun
- The energy travels to us from a great distance, but the paths along
which it radiates are invisible to the human eye. Among living forms, some are hidden, or invisible. The visible world results
from the invisible organization of energy. When the sun sets, the universe is engulfed in darkness as in death.
- Peraa
philosophy is solar in that it endeavors to understand the sun as perennial life and energy, inseparable from human destiny
on this planet earth. In ordinary discourse, this philosophical enterprise was given the form of myth. The basic philosophy
remains identifiable, rigorous in its exploration of reality and of the whole which draws its life from this reality and which
ultimately becomes coterminous with reality itself
Four Great Achievements
of RA at Creation Time n this text, Ra-the creative
principle who emerged from Nwn-describes his creative work, focusing on four major acts accomplished in the primal period
of creation First creation was air-giving living beings
breath throughout their time on earth Second creation
were the waters-essential to the life of the country Third
creation was the institution of equality and fraternity between humans-there is a transcendent order, but humans can obey
or disobey; the heart symbolizes the seat of liberty, the locus of the guiding principle of practical behavior; the heart
expresses both the ontological and the logical nature of being; this makes attainment of wisdom an achievement for each individual,
striving to do her/his work without necessarily taking orders from an external power; we are bonded to our ancestors in solidarity,
we are a part of society, and still we are individually responsible for what we do Fourth creation involved the use of liquid essences-sperm, water, sweat, saliva, and tears-to create
all the various forms of nature When people attain the
status of humanity, they become mutual, equal companions; [look at again] Humans are divinities; humans are part god, constantly re-enacting the creative process in their own right.
Peraa society was a grand, organized, universal ensemble embracing the elements, beings, administrators, peasants and herders;
nothing was completely independent, isolated from the overall Peraa domain. The sacred and profane were merely two aspects
of a single socio-political reality incarnated by the Peraa It
was natural that a philosophy of wholeness would emerge from a society that integrated in itself all aspects of reality All branches of knowledge-theoretical and technical, basic and applied, were
equally valued components of the intellectual life; all these aspects were unified from within to provide a comprehensive
vision of reality
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