Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).
I'm not aware that Ancient Egypt had any direct contact with Ancient China. There may have been secondary trade contact (trading with people that China traded with), but I think Egypt's own trade routes only really extended, at their height, as far as central Asia maybe? I might be wrong though!
For what it's worth, you do often find similarities between ancient cultures, in different aspects of their society, architecture, religion and so on. If it can survive, and help people survive, in a hostile world without the protections of concrete and mass production, then there's likely a core of usefulness to it that other cultures may also stumble upon.
Maybe when you read the book you'll let us know what you find. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're hoping to find here?some vague suspections I've had about it ie possible connections between these two empires
Maybe when you read the book you'll let us know what you find. Otherwise, I'm not sure what you're hoping to find here?
These two civilizations are separated by eight centuries and about four thousand miles, and I don't know of any connections between their religious or spiritual beliefs.
There were oracle or divination methods / traditions in China that pre-date the Zhouyi, and there are records of at least two other "Yi" oracles, but that doesn't prove or provide any sort of connection between New Kingdom Egypt (1548–1086 BC) and Han dynasty China (206 BC–220 CE).
And there were other large and ancient civilizations that developed along great rivers: within the Tigris–Euphrates river system in the Fertile Crescent; along the Indus River valley in India and others.
There are also different types of divination using shells, rocks, bones, entrails, reading the shape of the land, and many others that we find throughout the world, but again, I don't know what connections are there between all these.
I get the sense that you're starting from a place - that just because you can't prove (or we don't have proof that) something didn't happened, that doesn't mean that it didn't happen: e.g. just because we don't have any record of space aliens visiting New York City, that doesn't mean that space aliens didn't visit NYC.
This opens up too wide a range of possibilities of things that can't be proven - so therefore they may have happened: my great-great-grandfather may have been a Tibetan lama; Native Americans may be the lost tribe of Israel; or the Hmong may be the lost tribe of Israel, or ...
... the Yi may have come from the Ifa oracle tradition of Africa, which then went to Egypt and then to India (where it turned into the Vedic tradition) and finally to China .... Or perhaps the first incarnations of the Zhouyi (going back tens of thousands of years) were sex manuals and mating rituals ....
I imagine we could spend at least a few dozen life times of imaging historic, spiritual, and oracular 'what ifs', so I'll just leave you to further speculation about this.
Best, D
I sort of lost you here. What is the “that” that doesn’t have a lot to do with ‘it’?And at some point, someone may or may not realise that that hasn't got much to do with it,
Again, I sort lost you here. Are you saying that there are connections between all these ancient Pizza Huts, but we can’t know what that is because we are missing the actual pizzas that they had been making and eating? Or?They connect in spheres that is unlikely to ever be seen from where history is looking at them ....
Yes, I too read the intro.centered around major, flood-prone rivers—the Nile and the Yellow River—and established complex hydraulic systems to manage their power. Both spread their territories across vast empires that were controlled through warfare and diplomacy and underwent periods of radical reform led by charismatic rulers
Okay, thanks for clearing up what you were talking about.I also believe that same connections we can find in Kabbalah and even in people like Ptolemy and others that many of the sciences we know today can trace back to... Yet they were all speaking of something before..
The great Jungian mythologist Joseph Campbell spent his whole career examining common themes in mythologies around the world, as did Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer, the author of The Golden Bough, much earlier. Campbell saw the idea of the hero who dies and is reborn (found in Christianity, the ancient Egyptian religion, and many others) as a metaphor for the agricultural cycle. He did look into the idea of common origins, but he also found similar myths in remote communities in the Americas, in the Amazon and elsewhere, places where you really can't argue that the ideas were transmitted from outside. So, it seems to be that people have common experiences, across cultures and across time. The idea of a male-female dichotomy is pretty basic and fundamental in most mythologies, often expressed in duotheistic systems, often Sky as male and Earth as female. You can certainly see that idea reflected in the Yijing.I were thinking when seeing this, posted by egyptologist Kara Cooney, that it's probably the first time such a comparison has been made.... But I don't know if it has been made before. Were it coincidental that the similarities mentioned in this introduction were present, has there been a contact between those two empires etc.
Very interesting! I have a background in anthropology, with a strong interest in mythology -- and I'm fairly confident that I've never come across those associations before. But I trust your sources. There are some oddballs out there -- even the trigram associations don't quite fit the general pattern, Water, associated with the unconscious, emotions and so on, is the middle SON, not the daughter, despite the fact that those attributes might be associated with Female in other systems. Well, just goes to show, no system produces neat, easy solutions ....Side note: I love that the Egyptians did everything differently. The sky female, the earth male. The sun female, the moon male. It makes stepping out of that box a fun exercise for my mind.
The great Jungian mythologist Joseph Campbell spent his whole career examining common themes in mythologies around the world, as did Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer, the author of The Golden Bough, much earlier. Campbell saw the idea of the hero who dies and is reborn (found in Christianity, the ancient Egyptian religion, and many others) as a metaphor for the agricultural cycle. He did look into the idea of common origins, but he also found similar myths in remote communities in the Americas, in the Amazon and elsewhere, places where you really can't argue that the ideas were transmitted from outside. So, it seems to be that people have common experiences, across cultures and across time. The idea of a male-female dichotomy is pretty basic and fundamental in most mythologies, often expressed in duotheistic systems, often Sky as male and Earth as female. You can certainly see that idea reflected in the Yijing.
So, these links you see may refer to basic archetypes that underlie these systems, rather than transmission between them. It suggests that there is a basic underlying structure, although the manner in which this structure is expressed may be culturally specific. The Catholics have Mary, the Egyptians had Isis, the Vedas had Kali, and the Javanese animists had Nyai Loro Kidul, queen of the south seas. You'll often find that the Goddess is associated with the moon, while the male counterpart is associated with the sun. And so on.
No transmission, just based on common experience. To my mind, that doesn't make the linkages less interesting. If anything, rather the opposite. It's worth exploring these ideas to try to find correspondences. Just don't get too fixated on the idea that one particular idea was derived from somewhere else.
Hi!Now I'm pondering! The other geomantic system I mentioned in my intro is actually from my Egyptian religious path. I'm part of a temple and the person who leads it teaches this divination system, which she came up with after forming a theory based on some interesting Egyptian art (she is an Egyptologist). There's a reason she hasn't gone public with this theory, mind you, there's no solid evidence that she's correct, and I'm respecting that at the moment.
That system is not one I could alter, it is taught "as is", but that doesn't mean I can't create a different system with similar principles that I can work on. I'll have to think about the merits though. Yi seems really good as it is, and often what I like about my divination systems is that they are imperfect. None of them can do everything. Whenever I have something to ask, I contemplate, what kind of answers can this system, or deck, etc, give me? Are those answers the kind of answers that would be helpful? Do I feel drawn to use a particular system? Perhaps I can get an answer from one system, and if I need something different or more specific as follow up, I can ask another system for it. Their diversity is their strength, even as they are similar in some ways.
Side note: I love that the Egyptians did everything differently. The sky female, the earth male. The sun female, the moon male. It makes stepping out of that box a fun exercise for my mind.
I took a look at the link above about this Napolean Oracle and frankly the site looked more like an Advertising-site than a serious site. Not thereby to say that the Oracle itself (which I know absolutely nothing about) should be in that category.Hi!
Many years ago in my country there was an divination book that was saying it uses a divination system from ancient Egypt.
The idea was we draw symbols "/" with a pencil and we stop when it feels right. 6 lines like that with at least 12 symbols. Then depending if its even or odd number of "/" and the lines we read different text.
Looks like that:
///////////////////////////
////////////////////
//////////////////////
///////////////////
////////////
////////////////////
Today that clearly seems we were making hexagrams, but back then I didn't knew anything about the Chinese systems I think.
More then that, it feels almost exactly the same as some Chinese Divination systems today related to Yi Jing only the text was different yet more easier to understand then Yi Jing can be for someone that hasn't been using it long. Yet making of the Hexagram has its tips and tricks, I can't go into that in detail, but there are reasons approach like that is unlikely to work perfectly without adjustments.
But my idea is that it was one similarity very early on, between Chinese and Egyptian systems, even though I haven no idea what that oracle system was or if there is info in English about it(it was 25-30 years ago). Through the years there have been more but usually scattered, all over.
Can you link your post where you mention geomantic system related to Egypt?That is very interesting to relate to Chinese Feng Shui for me.
Edit: Got curious about it and searched if there is info in English. It seems its this:
4 lines and it was *, though, it was really long time ago, so I have forgotten it was that much.Napoleon's Oracle | Consult Napoleon's Book of Fate Oraculum | Ask The Oracle Free - AstrOccult.net
Consult Napoleon's Oracle. Ask Napoleon's Book of Fate Oraculum free and get accurate answer to your question. This ancient oracle was often consulted by Napoleon. Now it is available for your consultation. Best free astrology, horoscopes, numerology readings, reports and occult services and...www.astroccult.net
Still the odd and even part and other stuff points to something very close to what is used in Chinese systems, in my humble view.
Gmulii, I'm wondering, isI'm happy to participate, thank you. : )
Can you link your post where you mention geomantic system related to Egypt?That is very interesting to relate to Chinese Feng Shui for me.
Another thing, you can do a few Google internet searches, like: "comparing ancient China and Egypt", or "comparing ancient civilizations". A quick search confirmed what I knew all along: that this has been done quite a lot, even before a reputable Egyptologist published her 2021 book.my question as to wether this was the first time a study Egypt/China in special was published
The collective unconscious is described by Carl Jung in his transpersonal view of all things. This concept talks of the deeper realms of the unconscious mind where themes are not directly shaped by personal experience. Every human being that has ever lived is connected through their psyche to this deeper realm. This connection helps form the deep seated beliefs and instincts, that as you say, Joseph Campbell spent many years researching in the mythologies of cultures. The themes tend to mainly coalesce around life, death, sex and spirituality.The great Jungian mythologist Joseph Campbell spent his whole career examining common themes in mythologies around the world, as did Scottish anthropologist Sir James George Frazer, the author of The Golden Bough, much earlier. Campbell saw the idea of the hero who dies and is reborn (found in Christianity, the ancient Egyptian religion, and many others) as a metaphor for the agricultural cycle. He did look into the idea of common origins, but he also found similar myths in remote communities in the Americas, in the Amazon and elsewhere, places where you really can't argue that the ideas were transmitted from outside. So, it seems to be that people have common experiences, across cultures and across time. The idea of a male-female dichotomy is pretty basic and fundamental in most mythologies, often expressed in duotheistic systems, often Sky as male and Earth as female. You can certainly see that idea reflected in the Yijing.
The collective unconscious is described by Carl Jung in his transpersonal view of all things. This concept talks of the deeper realms of the unconscious mind where themes are not directly shaped by personal experience. Every human being that has ever lived is connected through their psyche to this deeper realm. This connection helps form the deep seated beliefs and instincts, that as you say, Joseph Campbell spent many years researching in the mythologies of cultures. The themes tend to mainly coalesce around life, death, sex and spirituality.
So there most probably is a connection between Egyptian and Chinese culture and I agree it is readily noticable around the spirituality aspects of Yi. Additionally a number of the Egyptian gods had oracular duties to perform in their respective roles.
Clarity,
Office 17622,
PO Box 6945,
London.
W1A 6US
United Kingdom
Phone/ Voicemail:
+44 (0)20 3287 3053 (UK)
+1 (561) 459-4758 (US).