Al, Me, our Close Encounters of the Second Kind, and Dr C.G.Jung! Part 2

Just a short prologue!
We have had some guests in the last few days, and I was almost off the web. And honestly, I am baffled about where I was or have been and what I wanted to do!! Anyhow, let’s try what I promise to do. 😜😂

This topic is not young, even though older than our history. But it’s been tabu mainly in the whole world. Of course, it is no wonder. Controlling the people is all through religion, and this issue doesn’t fit any religion.

Al and I have watched dearly every mysterious movie and TV series those days. I still do it and remember one of the episodes very well;. However, I am not sure it ran in which season, maybe it was one of the Twilight Zone; anyway, in this one, the story was about a spaceship which, in its travelling through space, found a meteorite on which some species lived, and it’s found out that it was going to explode. The peoples on the ship were advanced, but the inhabitants of the meteorite were primitive. Therefore, they never believed it after hearing it; they said it was nonsense: this “planet where we live” is the whole world, and nothing else exists.

I have kept this episode in my mind because I have compared it with us humans on our planet Earth. I think it is indeed a topic which has a lot to do with our psyche. We are made by nature, but there is also something else in our brains.

Here is a letter that Dr Jung wrote after asking for his opinion on this topic and his book.

Mr Harrison of the New Republic requested Jung to submit an article on UFOs in anticipation of this book. The letter reads:

Dear Mr Harrison,

“The problem of the Ufos is, as you rightly say, a very fascinating one, but it is as puzzling as it is fascinating; since, despite all observations I know of, there is no certainty about their very nature. On the other side, an overwhelming material points to their legendary or mythological aspect. As a matter of fact, the psychological aspect is so impressive that one must almost regret that the Ufos seem real after all. I have followed up on the literature as much as possible, and it looks to me as if something were seen and even confirmed by radar, but nobody knows exactly what is seen. In consideration of the psychological aspect of the phenomenon, I have written a booklet about it, which is soon to appear. It is also in the process of being translated into English. Unfortunately being occupied with other tasks I am unable to meet your proposition. Being somewhat old, I have to economize my energies.

Very sincerely yours.

As indicated in the letter, although he was primarily interested in psychology, Jung had also done extensive research into whether or not the mythology was based on a physical phenomenon. In 1955 he submitted an article to a British UFO magazine called the Flying Saucer Review, in which he stated:

In the course of years, I have gathered together a considerable mass of observations, including reports by two eyewitnesses known to me personally (I have never seen anything!). I have also read about the question. However, I can only say that these things are not mere rumours: something has been seen.

Now let’s go back to my memory about our case; We used to sit in the sitting room separated from the outer world, listening to the radio “Rahe Shab” (the way into the night) all through the night and smoking our drugs. On one of these nights, a special event happened that became worldwide famous!

It was a lovely warm summer night, and we were smoking and listening to our favourite program in which also people could call and say something from their thought and talk to the moderator. Suddenly the moderator said; sorry! There is a woman on the phone crying with fear. She explains that it’s a giant flying subject above her house shining in different colours. She is afraid and calls for help!! Al and I, without hesitation, rushed to the roof. There was nothing to see! We’d waited and looked around into the sky. Al said; come on! Let’s get downstairs. But I was not satisfied and told him that I’d stay a little. Al said; Okay, but you must warn me if you see something. I suggested I’d throw some pebbles through the light shaft if I mentioned something.

We did so, he got back down, and I kept watching the sky, watching and watching excitedly. At first, nothing happened, but suddenly, when I was somehow tiredly wandering my eyes through the sky, I noticed a small round light moving from west to the east on the horizon from far away. It’s an aeroplane, I thought at first. It flew and flew, there was a long tower on its way, and the subject naturally vanished behind. And after a while, it appeared on the other side. I thought, you see! It’s an aeroplane! But it was crazy! After she flew a bit, she stopped standing still and flew backwards! That must be a helicopter, I’d thought. But, when it vanished behind the same tower again, it didn’t appear on the other side! There I immediately threw some pebbles through the shaft. I think that Al was waiting impatiently because he rushed up at once! In between, the flying object came back, from behind the tower towards the east to the same direction which it disappeared, and began to play like a flash; once it was on the left side of the tower and once it was on the right side of it, like snapping your fingers, right, left, right, left. When Al came through the roof door, I’d automatically point to the horizon I was watching it.

God is only my eyewitness; there was an explosion of lights towards us!! I have a creepy feeling even now as I’m writing these! It was like a firework, exploded soundlessly in many small lights sparkling in the sky. Al just said; wow!! And we’d kept looking in this direction; there, we’d noticed a single light moving northwards toward us. It was moving slowly and getting bigger and bigger. Al and I stoned, watching it as it came nearer and nearer; suddenly, Al said, as he ran to the door; come on, Ala, we must hide from its ray! I could understand what he’d meant. It referred to the Spielberg film (The Close Encounter of The Third Kind) because the radiation has left marks on the skin in that movie. However, I remained there, even when it flew nearer and nearer; I began to shout and wave my arms towards it; halo, hear, come!! It flew actually nearer, almost directly above us, and then stopped! It had a round shape and was in colour changing between red and orange. Al, standing at the door looking at this, I, jumping and shouting at it; please just come nearer! But, it stood still. I’d never know how long it lasted; in my memory, I felt it just a minute, then it flew diagonally; straight towards the south with an incredible speed and Wushhh…it vanished! We waited for a while, staring toward the horizon patiently and shocked. After a while, Al said that we’d get back downstairs; I said; he could do that and prepare the things; I’d come along later; he agreed and went downstairs. I stood awhile until I’d got tired too. There was nothing more to see. And as it was almost dawn, I went downstairs too.

And yet, all of a sudden, after so many years, the US congress had found an interest in this topic! We can only wait and look at what will happen next. And I try to push the share button to see what happens next! PS: I will write a third part about the aftereffects of this event. Hoopla hoopla!

Sources:

http://www.openminds.tv/carl-jung-ufo-letter-up-for-auction-1025

https://www.openculture.com/2013/05/carl_jungs_1957_letter_on_the_fascinating_modern_myth_of_ufos.html

https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/himmlische-zeichen-a-d4631e3f-0002-0001-0000-000041760984

Al, Me, our Close Encounters of the Second Kind, and Dr C.G.Jung! Part 1

First, I would like to note a point that is hovering in my mind these days. I am a long-time member of WP, and I began reblogging my favourite articles. (I didn’t know what else should I do!) Then I dared to write one by myself as a nobody (I’ve even written an article under this title) and was humbly thankful for your dear support. Now, I want to remind you that I am still the “the humble man, as I ever have been”! One might say: look at this naughty boy; he got so cheeky! No, I am not. I might have been too young to be considered a professional, but I am too old to be a newcomer. I only found the courage to search for my past life and what I’ve learned in my backhead until I found my style. I have always renounced my ability, and I have tried to help Al succeed in his writing goal for the whole of my life. However, I stress that it would not be possible for me without your support. 🙏💖🙏

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As we all might have heard about the UFO (unknown or unidentified flying objects), and these days the US Congress has (finally) begun to investigate for clarifications. Therefore, I thought it could be a chance to call up my memories and talk about our (Al’s and mine) experience on this subject.

Al and I were attracted to this subject at the end of the sixties to early seventies. We were young, though, but we followed this topic worldwide in the newspapers and other media. It was a hot issue, and we enthusiastically read all of them. Everywhere we looked in the sky, we saw some unknown flying object hovering somewhere, which we laughed at unbelievingly! Then, there came a movie, “The Movie”: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, by Steven Spielberg. It was a confirmation fully for us to take it seriously.

At the same time. We engaged with Sigmund Freud and his psychological themes, though Al was not so happy with his dogmatic conclusions. One day he came to me with a newspaper and said; look!
In principle, there is a new wave in psychology, and its name is Carl Gustave Jung. I took the paper and read the article; it was about the UFOs in the fifties and sixties with a short reference to a famous psychologist named Carl Jung. From that time, we became Jungian.

Jung’s primary concern in Flying Saucers is not with the reality or unreality of UFOs but with their psychic aspect. Rather than speculate about their possible nature and extraterrestrial origin as alleged spacecraft, he asks what it may signify that these phenomena, whether real or imagined, are seen in such numbers just at a time when humankind is menaced as never before in history. The UFOs represent, in Jung’s phrase, ‘a modern myth.’

Dr Jung speaks of the helplessness of humans, and his theory to connect this issue (UFOs) with the psyche of humankind is fascinating. You know, I am a so-called Treky! I mean a great fan of the whole series of Star Trek. We watched them in those days in Iran, the old generation, and here in Germany, the new generation, and all the movies. I just want to say that the dream of humans to be able to travel in space and discover other planets and other species is fair and righteous, but should I reveal how I think about this? I believe this will remain like a dream! Sorry, but I think we humans are too earthy to be able to travel far up the Earth. Travelling with this flesh and blood across the galaxy at the speed of light? Inconceivable! We indeed hear now and then about the trip to Mars and how to take meals and other stuff to survive this long travel. it sounds like we must take the Earth along with us!
I like the ideas about the Klingons and the Vulcans or the Romulans, but I never believe that such a creature like us in this form exists in the galaxies. I do think that we are not the only species in the whole world or worlds, and there is some life up there, but not in this primitive shape as we are! But these all are fascinating.

Anyway, it was in the second half of the seventies, and in Iran, the political agitation and dissatisfaction against the Shah’s regime were on the march. Of course, Al and I were against Shah’s dictatorship, but this revolution had an Islamic smell which we didn’t like! On the other hand, we were deep in our addiction time, and as we were in solitude anyhow, we kept ourselves inside our world.

Oh yes, we had a five-years practice being addicted to heroin. It has its own story, which I will tell one day, but this, in any case, has wholly isolated us from society. But the story about our close encounter comes soon, in part two, of course, as I see this article is already long enough. I will try it next weekend; we will get some friends to visit us on Thursday, and I must see how it goes. Have a lovely weekend, dear friends and “Live Long and Prosper” 🤗🙏💖🦋

Herodotus, a Greek who wrote about Egypt in the fifth century BCE, likened Isis to Demeter, whose mythical search for her daughter Persephone resembled Isis’s search for Osiris. Even with the Egyptian tradition, Isis was associated with other goddesses like Hathor, from the old kingdom, or even older like Renenutet and Beset (the partner of the god Bes)

The importance we might notice here is the emphasis role of the feminine in the old deities. They mostly appear with equal power and rights, if not overhanding the masculine gods. For example Inanna or Ishtar,  Kali, Hecate, Mitra (or Mithra imaged in both; masculine and feminine), etc.

Here is another story of saving such a treasure by artisans for the future by Marie Grillot with heartfelt thanks. 🙏💖

“The Isis of Coptos” from the Turin Museum…

via égyptophile

At the height of 1.53 m, this statue of a female deity is unfortunately deprived of its lower part… But what we are given to see is of touching beauty… Sensuality and softness of the face, femininity and perfection of the body, everything is combined in a totally accomplished elegance and harmony!

This statue is generally attributed to Isis or Hathor, even if Jacques Vandier considers that: “The goddess of Turin, who has always been made, because of her hairstyle, a Hathor, is rather a goddess Mut, this one often wearing, in place of the pschent, the disc and the horns of Hathor”. Some also see it as a representation of the wife of Amenhotep III, Queen Tiyi…

Statue of a female deity Hathor or Isis, known as “Isis of Coptos” – granodiorite – 18th dynasty – the reign of Amenhotep III

Egyptian Museum of Turin – Cat. 694 (by acquisition from the Collection of Vitaliano Donati) – museum photo

The Hathoric crown – cow horns enclosing the solar disk – is placed on her tripartite wig. Adorned with a frontal uraeus, it exposes the ears and surrounds the face with perfect symmetry… For Eleni Vassilika: “Hathor’s features are typical of the style of Amenhotep III, father of the heretical king Akhenaten who, during his reign, suppressed the pantheon of traditional deities (Amarna period). In the shape of a drop, the face of the goddess is very much in the style of Amenophis III, especially that of his wife, Queen Teye. The design of the prominent ribbon-shaped eyebrows, the inner corner of the almond-shaped eyes also circled, and the fleshy lips under the well-defined nasal septum are typical characteristics of this reign”…

Around her neck hangs a delightful usekh necklace, delicately incised, with several rows of pearls, the last of which is in the form of drops.

Statue of a female deity Hathor or Isis, known as “Isis of Coptos” – granodiorite – 18th dynasty – the reign of Amenhotep III

Egyptian Museum of Turin – Cat. 694 (by acquisition from the Collection of Vitaliano Donati) – museum photo

Her dress, which begins under the chest with a braid enhanced with vertical bands, is held by thin straps. Her round breasts are adorned with a floral decoration, which resembles a rosette, a detail which recalls certain statues of Sekhmet from the same period.

Her left arm, hanging along the body, was amputated at the elbow, but the hand, enclosing an ankh sign, survived. The right arm, damaged, is unscathed only from the elbow. It is slightly bent and brought under the navel where the fist firmly holds a sceptre ouas. Her presence makes Eleni Vassilika react as follows: “It is surprising that the goddess holds a sceptre of ouas power (normally the prerogative of male deities), instead of the floral Wadjet sceptre, usually reserved for goddesses”.

Statue of a female deity Hathor or Isis, known as “Isis of Coptos” – granodiorite – 18th dynasty – the reign of Amenhotep III

Egyptian Museum of Turin – Cat. 694 (by acquisition from the Collection dee Vitaliano Donati) – museum photo

This statue was acquired in 1759 in Upper Egypt, at Coptos (the ancient Gebtou) – where there was a temple dedicated to Min – by Vitaliano Donati. Charles-Emmanuel III of Savoy had commissioned this professor of botany at the Royal Turinese University to search for antiquities. He undertook a long journey that took him to Egypt, Palestine, Syria and then on the road to India… from which, unfortunately, he did not return. However, a few pieces from the collection he had built up were able to be recovered by the Turin museum… This statue – registered under the reference Cat.694 – is one of the most remarkable!

Marie Grillot

sources:

Statue of female divinity (Hathor o Iside), cosiddetta “Iside di Copto” https://collezioni.museoegizio.it/it-IT/material/Cat_694/?description=hathor&inventoryNumber=&title=&cgt=&yearFrom=&yearTo=&materials=&provenance=&acquisition=&epoch=&dynasty=&pharaoh=

Franco Cosimo, Museo Egizio, Fondazione Museo delle Antichità Egizie di Torino, Panini Editore, 2016

Eleni Vassilika, Art Treasures of the Museo Egizio, Allemandi & Co

Guide Museo Egizio, Franco Cosimo Panini editions

The Egyptian Museum Turin, Federico Garolla Editore

Ernest Scamuzzi, Egyptian art at the Turin Museum, Hachette, 1966

Arielle P. Kozloff, Amenophis III, the sun pharaoh, RMM, 1993

Y. Watanabe, The architecture of ‘Kom el Samak at Malkata-South: a study of architectural Restoration” in Studies in Egyptian Culture, 5, Tokyo, 1986

Vandier, Jacques, Handbook of Egyptian Archaeology, Paris 1952-1978, III, p.385

Burt Kasparian, When the king jubilates with the gods: the sed-fest, instrument of divine glorification of Pharaonic royalty https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-03202306/document

Part 2, The Cathedrals!

Let’s deviate from heavy terms and back to the “(un)bearable” lightness of being and looking at that beautiful trip to the edge of the Mediterranean.

Of course, I must admit that Mallorca is one of the most beautiful islands in the world. I might just be allowed to wish for some celsius higher in that time of our vacation. It was chilly, and as I am a sun-born child, I would like at least 25′ degrees to spend my holidays, but it came not over 17′ degrees! Yes, I am sensitive. 😉

However, we made the best of it; we reserved a rental car upon our arrival at the hotel for four days and did a review touristically trip out of it. Also, we were on the way every day. We wanted first to travel by a famous old train, which should run towards the north. Still, after two days of trying to get the ticket (we have been attempting through the sales counter), we finally found out that it should only be possible in a digital way: we are too old to be digitalized!

But we had a car; therefore, let the gas pedal speaks, and the cathedrals are calling;

That is the Cathedral in Palma, the capital city of Mallorca. We were not inside (a crowd waiting for the entry ticket!) There were some other cathedrals to go inside much easier. 😉😎

So that’s it; I’m still waiting for my wife’s pictures! Have a lovely weekend, everybody. ✌🌺🙏💖🙏

The masks: I use them indeed in the whole of my life, not like the people of their adult age after they lost their childish innocence. I had learned it when I was a child; I had learned to look the way people wanted to see me, to make them happy! It may be the trauma in my childhood that caused it. However, it caused that I needed time to find my real personality, my real I.

This subject got clear in my mind when my brother Al brought it into our regular meetings with friends. I remember well those days; we had regular psychological meetings (with Al and me, in our apartment) with friends, with a bit of vodka included! Al has put in this theme about masks in one of them. I don’t know where he had this from, although I could bet that he got it from Dr Jung. Anyway, it was a surprise and, at the same time, a fascinating issue for us to talk about. Masks are something we use every day without being aware of it.

He claimed that we even have many different masks in different situations. Of course, at first, our young friends refused to wear any masks, or better to say, they didn’t want to believe they were doing it. But Al, after asking some questions (in the Socratic method!), we all had to admit that we do use it.

I believe and am convinced that this issue is significant and will help us know our inner behaviours; I always thought it was good to observe myself from above! Here I should reference Dr Jung again to understand the subject better. We will understand how the man can unconsciously make a fool of himself and cause suffering to women. Of course, it is an extended argumentation; I have tried to shorten it. 💖

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Translated from “Die Beziehungen Zwischen Dem Ich Und Dem Unbewussten” (The Relations Between The I And The Unconscious) C.G. Jung; Individuation, Anima & Animus. “Anima, animus and the role of man!“

There is an inherited collective image of the woman in man’s subconscious, with the help of which he grasps the essence of the woman. This inherited image is the third primary source of the soul’s femininity.

In the Eastern perspective, the concept of the anima, as we have presented it here, is missing, and logically the concept of a persona is also missing. This is by no means accidental because, as I indicated above, there is a compensatory relationship between persona and anima.

The persona is an intricate system of relationships between the individual consciousness and society, suitably a kind of mask designed on the one hand to make a particular impression on others and, on the other hand, to conceal the true nature of the individual.  The latter is superfluous and can only be asserted by someone who is so identical to his persona that he no longer knows himself, and the former is unnecessary and can only be imagined by someone unaware of the true nature of his fellow human beings. Society expects, yes, it must expect every individual to play the role intended for him as ultimately as possible so that someone who is a pastor not only objectively carries out his official functions but also otherwise at all times and under all circumstances, the role of the pastors play without hesitation. The firm requires this as a form of security; each must stand in his place; one is a shoemaker, the other is a poet. He is not expected to be both. It’s also not advisable to be both because that would be a bit spooky. Such a person would be “different” from other people and not entirely reliable. In the academic world, he would be a “dilettante”, politically an “unpredictable” figure, religiously a “freethinker”; in short, he would be suspected of being unreliable and inadmissible, for the society is convinced that only the shoemaker, who is not a poet, is to provide expertly correct shoes. The unambiguousness of the personal appearance is a practically important thing; the average person known to the society must already have his head on one thing to be able to accomplish something worthwhile, two of which would be too much for him.

Our law firm is undoubtedly attuned to such ideals. It’s no wonder, then, that anyone who wants to achieve anything needs to keep these expectations in mind. Of course, as an individual, no one could fully live up to these expectations, so the construction of an artificial personality becomes an unavoidable necessity.

The demands of decency and good manners do the rest to motivate a wholesome mask. Behind the mask then arises what is called >private life<. This well-known separation of consciousness into two often ridiculously different figures is a drastic psychological operation that cannot remain without consequences for the unconscious. The construction of a collectively appropriate persona involves a tremendous concession to the outside world, true self-sacrifice that forces the ego straight into identification with the persona so that there really are people who believe they are what they represent.

The soullessness of such an attitude is only apparent, for the unconscious will under no circumstances endure such a shift in a heavy emphasis.  Looking critically at such cases, we discover that the excellent mask is internally compensated by a private life. The pious Drummond once complained that ‘bad temper is the vice of the pious’. Of course, whoever builds up a positive persona reaps an irritable mood. Bismarck had hysterical fits of crying, Wagner a correspondence about silk dressing gowns, Nietzsche wrote letters to a “dear lama,” Goethe had conversations with Eckermann, and so on. But there are more sophisticated things than the banal “lapses” of the heroes. I once acquainted a venerable man – one could without difficulty call him a saint – I walked about him for three days. I could nowhere discover the inadmissibility of the mortal in him. My sense of inferiority was becoming threatening, and I was already beginning to think seriously about improving myself. But on the fourth day, his wife consulted me… Nothing similar has happened to me since then. But I learned from this that someone who becomes one with his persona can let his wife represent everything disturbing without the latter noticing, but she pays for her self-sacrifice with a severe neurosis.

I might look forward to sharing another part of this fascinating book. Thank you for being there. 🙏💖🙏

You undoubtedly know that I have a particular love for Dr Jung, though you might wonder why I write from him now more often. That is because, on Facebook, I have recently, by some adorable friends, been upgraded! It might be not such great news, but at least it is a great encouragement for me to work it out. Of course, I have also noticed that it is not an as easy job!

The illustration above is a version that Brother Niklaus von Flüe had to have seen and got the image on the wall of his cell. “”The prototype of a mystic across religious-denominational divisions. Brother Klaus is “the only outstanding Swiss mystic by the grace of God, who had unorthodox primal visions and was able to look unperturbed into the depths of that divine soul, which still contains all denominations of mankind separated by dogmatics united in a symbolic archetype””. C.G. Jung: Brother Klaus. In: Neue Schweizer Rundschau, Neue Serie I/4 (1933), quoted from: On the Psychology of Eastern and Western Religion, Collected Works 11, § 487.

Jung said: “‘God’ is a primal experience of man, and from time immemorial, mankind has made an incredible effort to represent this incomprehensible experience, to assimilate it, through interpretation, through speculation and through dogma, or to deny it”. (C.G. Jung: Brother Klaus. Quoted from: Collected Works, 11, § 480.)

And Dr Jung, as he himself was an extraordinary visioner, mentioned this in his book, “Archetypes.” (Archetypen) He wrote:

What is meant by the archetype is clearly stated by its relation to myth, secret doctrine, and fairy tales just explained. On the other hand, things get more complicated if we try to understand psychologically what an archetype is. Research into myths has always been content with solar, lunar, meteorological, vegetation and other auxiliary ideas. The fact that myths are primarily psychological manifestations that represent the soul’s essence has hardly been accepted up to now.

Why is psychology the very youngest of the empirical sciences? Why hasn’t one discovered the unconscious long ago and raised its treasure trove of eternal images? Relatively simply not because we had a religious formula for all things of the soul that is far more beautiful and comprehensive than direct experience. If the Christian world’s vision has faded for many, the symbolic treasure troves of the East are still full of miracles, which can nourish the desire to look around, and at new clothes for a long time to come. Moreover, these images – be they Christian or Buddhist or anything else – are beautiful, mysterious and foreboding. Admittedly, the more familiar they are to us, the more frequent use has worn them down so that only their banal externality has remained in its almost meaningless paradox.  The mystery of the virgin birth, or the Homoousian of the son with the father, or the trinity that is not a triad, no longer inspires philosophical imagination. They have become mere objects of belief. It is not surprising, therefore, if the religious need, the pious mind, and the philosophical speculation of the educated European should be drawn to the symbols of the East, to the grandiose conceptions of divinity in India, and to the abysses of Taoist philosophy in China, as the mind and spirit once were the spirit of ancient man has been caught up in Christian ideas. There are many who first gave themselves over to the influence of the Christian symbol until they became entangled in Kierkegaardian (Kierkegaard) neurosis, or until their relationship to God, as a result of an increasing impoverishment of symbolism, developed into an intolerably acute “I-Thou” relationship, then to succumb to the magic of the fresh strangeness of Eastern symbols.

It is not enough for the primitive to see the sunrise and set. Still, this external observation must at the same time also be a mental event, i.e. the sun in its transformation must represent the fate of a god or hero who, basically, is nowhere dwells differently than in the human soul…

What I mean is probably best illustrated with the example of a Swiss mystic and hermit, the recently canonised Brother Niklaus von Flüe. Probably his most important experience was the so-called Trinity Vision, which engaged him so much that he painted it or had let it paint on the wall of his cell.

The vision is depicted in a contemporary painting preserved in the parish church of Sachseln: It is a mandala divided into six, the centre of which is the crowned face of God. We know that Brother Klaus used the illustrated booklet of a German mystic to research the nature of his vision and tried to bring his primal experience into a form he could understand. He dealt with that for years. This is what I refer to as >editing< the icon. His reflections on the nature of the vision, influenced by the mystical diagrams of his guide, necessarily led to the conclusion that he must have seen the Holy Trinity himself, that is, the >summum bonum<, eternal love itself. The clarified representation in Sachseln also corresponds to this.

That is an abstract or summary of C. G. Jung; “Archetypen; Urbilder und Wirkkräfte des Kollektiven Unbewussten. (Archetypes; archetypes and influential forces of the collective unconscious.)

I will surely come back more on this. 💖🙏

In the Old Kingdom, Hathor was not only one of the Egyptian Goddesses but also an essential one like Isis after her in the New Kingdom. As we can read here:

Hathor (Ancient Egyptian: ḥwt-ḥr, lit. ‘House of Horus’, Ancient Greek: Ἁθώρ Hathōr, Coptic: ϩⲁⲑⲱⲣ) was a major goddess in ancient Egyptian religion who played a wide variety of roles. As a sky deity, she was the mother or consort of the sky god Horus and the sun god Ra, both of whom were connected with kingship, and thus she was the symbolic mother of their earthly representatives, the pharaohs. She was one of several goddesses who acted as the Eye of Ra, Ra’s feminine counterpart, and in this form, she had a vengeful aspect that protected him from his enemies. Her beneficent side represented music, dance, joy, love, sexuality, and maternal care, and she acted as the consort of several male deities and the mother of their sons. These two aspects of the goddess exemplified the Egyptian conception of femininity. Hathor crossed boundaries between worlds, helping deceased souls in the transition to the afterlife.

Hathor was often depicted as a cow, symbolising her maternal and celestial aspect, although her most common form was a woman wearing a headdress of cow horns and a sun disk. She could also be represented as a lioness, cobra, or sycamore tree.

Cattle goddesses similar to Hathor were portrayed in Egyptian art in the fourth millennium BC, but they may not have appeared until the Old Kingdom (c. 2686–2181 BC). With the patronage of Old Kingdom rulers, she became one of Egypt’s most important deities. More temples were dedicated to her than any other goddess; her most prominent temple was Dendera in Upper Egypt. She was also worshipped in the temples of her male consorts. The Egyptians connected her with foreign lands such as Nubia and Canaan and their valuable goods, such as incense and semiprecious stones. Some of the people in those lands adopted her worship. In Egypt, she was one of the deities commonly invoked in private prayers and votive offerings, particularly by women desiring children.

During the New Kingdom (c. 1550–1070 BC), goddesses such as Mut and Isis encroached on Hathor’s position in royal ideology, but she remained one of the most widely worshipped deities. After the end of the New Kingdom, Hathor was increasingly overshadowed by Isis. Still, she continued to be venerated until the extinction of ancient Egyptian religion in the early centuries AD. Wikipedia

Hathor, Egyptian goddess, sky deity with sun, cow horns. Ancient Egyptian god illustration. Premium Vector

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Here is a brilliant description, by Marie Grillot, of a fragment of Hathor sistrum image, as a glorious star, remained of the past.

Thanks to the generosity of a Polish count, this fragment of Hathor’s sistrum is in the Louvre!

via; égyptophile

Barely 11 cm high, dated to the XXVIth dynasty, this fragment of Hathoric sistrum is made of faience in a soft and icy blue. The Louvre website specifies what this “Egyptian” earthenware is: it is a: “siliceous ceramic product, that is to say, based on quartz (grains of sand, for example) and not ‘clay. The glaze of the surface is mainly blue-green, obtained from copper oxide.’ The shaping of the object is done: “cold either by the technique of modelling or by the technique of moulding”. The cooking takes place at around 900-1000°C. Over the centuries, the artisans of antiquity achieved a very high degree of mastery of this process.

The goddess wears a heavy straight wig, “which seems most common in the late period”, and whose hair texture is evidenced by fine regular streaks. It covers a good part of his forehead and then leaves in two thick masses, rejected behind the ears and back to frame the cheeks. The hairstyle is adorned – or disciplined – in five places by a triple ribbon.

Sistrum fragment, head of Hathor – 26th dynasty
Department of Egyptian Antiquities of the Louvre Museum
donated in 1867 by Count Michel Tyszkiewicz – E 3668 – photo © 2003 Musée du Louvre / Christian Décamps

Its cow’s ears are rounded, folded, striated in their interior, and released from the head. The face, perfectly symmetrical, is almost triangular, broad at the level of the cheeks, then narrower going towards the chin, which is gently rounded. The eyes are nicely treated, elegantly stretched by a line of makeup that matches the shape and length of the eyebrows. The nose, with marked nostrils, is of ideal proportions. As for the mouth with hemmed lips, it is relatively small.

Her neck is adorned with a comprehensive and voluminous usekh necklace with multiple rows. As if placed on this finery, an erect uraeus goes up on each side of the head, crowned with the solar disc.

On the top of her skull rests a cornice punctuated by vertical lines. It supports the representation of a naos or sanctuary. The centre is hollowed out, except for the presence, in the very centre, of an upright uraeus, sculpted in relief.

The top of the sistrum, as well as the handle, are missing.

Earthenware being a brittle material, one is entitled to wonder how these fragile instruments could be shaken and agitated to produce their sounds in a sustained rhythm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, on its website- which has several and somewhat similar examples of this type of sistrum -, puts forward the following hypothesis: “they could have been designed as gifts to a deity rather than as instruments that would have been used often by man. Because they would prove too fragile for frequent use”.

The sistrum is undoubtedly the musical instrument most closely linked to pharaonic Egypt. It is, in particular with the menat, one of the attributes of Hathor, essential divinity of the Egyptian pantheon. “Goddess of love and joy, she is the patroness of music. She embodies eros which allows the perpetual renewal of all forms of life, plant, animal, human and divine. She is the celestial mother” (Isabelle Franco).

If her aspects are multiple, she is most often represented as here, a woman with the ears of a cow wearing a voluminous wig (sometimes surmounted by a naos, horns and a solar disc) or in the form of a cow.

Sistrum with the head of Hathor represented on the walls of the Temple of Abydos.

Thus, the rattling sound that the sistrum emits when it is agitated is supposed to reproduce that which it engenders, in its form of a cow, when it walks in the thickets of papyrus. Another interpretation “links its use to the rite of ‘tearing up the papyri’, originally reserved for the Hathoric cult”.

The ringing of the sistrum is adorned with magical virtues: it can appease the gods, attract their protection and ward off evil spirits. And, if ritualistic priests wave it during ceremonies, it is more generally a “feminine” instrument.

In the study “Petrified Sound and Digital Color: A Hathor Column in the New Ptolemaic Galleries”, published in August 2016 by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dieter Arnold, Ann Heywood and Sara Chen develop this fascinating interpretation: “The instrument of music so characteristically represented the goddess that it inspired temple builders of the 18th dynasty to use columns in the form of this emblem in temples of female deities. The basic structure of the sistrum capital also appears in many variations and combinations with other forms of capitals on columns and square pillars. Such rows of sistrum columns could also be understood as a kind of “petrified sound barrier”, softly playing music around the sanctuary of Hathor and magically evoking the appearance of the goddess.”

It was thanks to the generosity of Count Michel Tyskiewicz that this fragment of sistrum joined the collections of the Louvre in 1862, where it was referenced E 3668. This archaeologist and great Polish collector of the second half of the 19th century, who even counted among his customers Napoleon III, settled in France and Italy after leaving his native land and devoted himself entirely to his passion.

Count Michael Tyszkiewicz,
donator of one hundred and ninety-six Egyptian antiquities to the Louvre Museum

In “Notes and Memories of an Old Collector – My Egyptian Collection”, the Count recalls: “I spent the winter from 1860 to 1861 in Egypt, making excavations at Sakkara, Karnak and Thebes; I had occasion, at the same time, to acquire two collections in Cairo, the most important of which was that of Dr Meymar. Wishing to make a gift to the Boulaq Museum, I chose, for this purpose, a beautiful basalt statue representing a young man standing, dressed in schenti. This statue was sent by the Egyptian government, with other important works, to the Paris Exhibition in 1867, where I had the pleasure of seeing it again. In 1869, I revisited the Boulaq Museum two years later: the statue had disappeared. Returning to Paris in the spring of 1861, I brought there many cases of antiquities. After unpacking everything, I invited MM. de Rougé and de Longpérier to come and see my collection. These two scholars pointed out that it contained several significant objects, the like of which were missing from the Louvre series; the conclusion of their speeches and the compliments they mixed with them was a purchase proposal in the name of the Museum. I refused to sell but was pleased to offer everything as a gift. The next day, the employees of the Louvre came to pack and move my objects.

His generosity thus made him known throughout the world: “thanks to his donation of one hundred and ninety-six Egyptian antiquities to the Louvre Museum, … his name is engraved among the greatest donors of the museum in the Rotunda of Apollo”.

Marie Grillot

sources:

Sistrum at naos

http://cartelfr.louvre.fr/cartelfr/visite?srv=car_not_frame&idNotice=3529&langue=fr

The technique of making Egyptian earthenware

http://jfbradu.free.fr/egypte/LES%20ANIMAUX/hippopotame/savoir-plus-faience-egypt.php3

Petrified Sound and Digital Color: A Hathor Column in the New Ptolemaic Galleries, August 12, 2016, Dieter Arnold, Curator, Department of Egyptian Art; Ann Heywood, Curator, Department of Objects Conservation; and Sara Chen, Draftsperson, Department of Egyptian Art

https://www.metmuseum.org/blogs/now-at-the-met/2016/hathor-column

Faience Sistrum Inscribed with the Name of Ptolemy I

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/546038

Isabelle Franco, Dictionary of Egyptian Mythology, Isabelle Franco, Tallandier, 2013

Donors to the Louvre, Paris, Louvre Museum, 1989

The Tyszkiewicz Collection, W. Fröhner

https://www.persee.fr/doc/mefr_0223-4874_1893_num_13_1_6112

Michel Tyszkiewicz, Notes and Memories of an Old Collector, Archaeological Review, Paris, 1895-1897

http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k203639h/f276.image.r=michel%20Tyszkiewicz,%20Notes%20et%20souvenirs%20d’un%20vieux%20collectionneur