Secrets of the Sphinx – Part Two
In his book titled A Search in Secret Egypt, published in 1936 under the pen name Paul Brunton, the British spiritualist Raphael Hurst described how he had spent an entire night engaged in meditation in front of the giant Sphinx carved out of the Giza plateau.
With the insight gained from the visionary experiences that were described in the previous instalment, Hurst then turned his attention to the adjoining pyramid. As he commented in his book, he was motivated by an unusual feature of ancient Egyptian architecture.
“That the Sphinx conceals some architectural secret and hides some mystery cut in stone is equally suggested by a curious fact. In every other part of Egypt small copies of the Sphinx were set up before their respective temples, as guardians and protectors of the threshold, or else lions were figured protectively at the gates of the temples.
“Where, then, is the real temple of the Sphinx?
“I raised my head a little and looked behind the statue. And I saw, from the angle where I was sitting, looming up in the early morning light, lifting its truncated apex to the sky, the world’s largest building, the world’s insoluble stone riddle, the world’s first wonder to the Greeks as to us, that enigma of the ancients which continues to puzzle the moderns, the fit friend of the Sphinx.
“The Great Pyramid!
“Both, built in Atlantean times, stand as distinctive marks of the mysterious continent, and remain as mute legacies from a race of people who have departed as mysteriously as their own land. Both remind the successors of the Atlanteans of the glories of that lost civilization.”
It was then that Hurst conceived an even more ambitious plan. He decided that he would try and persuade the Egyptian authorities to allow him to spend an entire night locked up alone inside the Great Pyramid. Hardly surprisingly, his initial overtures were immediately rebuffed. As he wrote:
“I had discovered that, although the public could always approach it, the Great Pyramid was not public property. It belonged to the Government of Egypt. One could no more walk into it and spend an unconventional night inside any of its rooms than one could walk into any strange man’s house and spend a night inside his best bedroom.
“Had I asked for permission to fly to the moon, the face of the official who listened to me could not have betrayed more utter stupefaction.
“I have never had such a request before. I do not think it is within my power to grant it. He sent me to another and higher official of the same Department. “Impossible!” declared the second official kindly but firmly, thinking he had before him a tame lunatic.
“The thing is unheard of. I regret… his voice trailed off, the while he shrugged his shoulders. He rose from his chair to bow me out of the room.
“It was then that my journalistic and editorial training, lulled for several years but not dead, rose rebelliously into action. I began to argue with him, persisted in repeating my request in other ways, and refused to budge from the room.
“He got rid of me, finally, by saying that the matter did not come within the jurisdiction of the Antiquities Department. Within whose jurisdiction did it come, then, I enquired. He was not quite sure but thought I had better apply to the Police. At Police Headquarters I discovered a Permit Section.
“For the third time I begged to be allowed to spend one night inside the Pyramid. The official did not know what to do with me so he sent me to his chief. The latter wanted a little time to consider the matter. When I returned next day he referred me to the Department of Antiquities!
“I went home in momentary despair of ever achieving my objective. My next move was to secure an interview with the genial Commandant of the Cairo City Police. I walked out of his office with a written authority, which requested the police chief of the area in which the Pyramid was situated to give me all the assistance necessary to achieve my purpose.
“A station constable was detailed to accompany me as far as the Pyramid, and to give instructions to the armed policeman who is placed outside the building to guard it at night.”
Once the Police constable had locked the iron grille securely behind him, Raphael Hurst made his way carefully down what he described as “a long, low, steep, narrow and slippery corridor“, armed with a strong flashlight to penetrate the darkness that enveloped him.
Although his stated purpose was to spend the night inside the King’s Chamber, he began his sojourn with an examination of the underground region of the Pyramid. Following this, he crawled back up the steep passage until he reached the level corridor that led to the Queen’s Chamber.
Once inside this Chamber, he examined the two ventilating shafts which slanted upwards on either side. Modern Egyptologists groomed in the conventional theory that the Pyramid was built to contain the funerary remains of Pharaoh Khafre, naturally dispute the idea that these shafts are air vents. But as Hurst explains:
“Here was clear proof that the room had never been a tomb, but was intended to be used. Many have been puzzled by the circumstance of the discovery of these shafts, in 1872, when it was found that they stopped five inches short of the Chamber itself and apparently were not originally cut right through the walls.
“In their discovered state, therefore, they could not admit air; so it is thought that they had some other and unknown use. But the best explanation is that the time came when they had served their purpose and, like the rest of the upper passages of the Pyramid, were completely sealed at their orifices by new stone blocks”.
Hurst then rested for awhile before continuing on up the Grand Gallery which led to the King’s Chamber. As he wrote:
“A few paces forward through the Antechamber, a forced stoop under the granite block which hangs down from grooved side-walls, and which bars the exit of this horizontal corridor, and I had reached the most important room in the Pyramid, the famous King’s Chamber”.
Once inside, he found a dislodged block of stone that served as a suitable place to sit down, and proceeded to settle in for the long night that lay ahead. Alongside, he placed various items that he had brought with him, including “a thermos flask with hot tea, a couple of bottles of iced water, a notebook and my Parker pen“.
As he looked around, he noticed that the King’s Chamber also contained a pair of air vents about nine inches square. Then, satisfied that all was in order, he took one last look at the empty marble sarcophagus alongside of him, and switched off his flashlight. He later described what followed.
“The effects of the three-day fast which I had undertaken in order to increase my sensitivity, now showed themselves in growing chilliness. Cold air was creeping into the King’s Chamber through the narrow ventilation shafts, and then creeping past the thin barrier of my light garment.
“My chilled flesh began to shiver under its thin shirt. I got up and dressed myself in the jacket which I had put off only a few hours before on account of the intense heat. Such is Eastern life at certain times of the year – tropical heat by day and a heavy fall of temperature by night.
“To this day no one has discovered the mouths of these air channels on the outside of the Pyramid, although the approximate area of their positions is known. Some Egyptologists have even doubted whether the channels were ever carried right through to the outside, but the complete chilling of the air during my experience finally settles the point.
“The minutes slowly dragged themselves along, the while I slowly “sensed” that the King’s Chamber possessed a very strong atmosphere of its own, an atmosphere which I can only call “psychic”.
“For I had deliberately made myself receptive in mind, passive in feeling and negative in attitude, so that I might become a perfect register of whatever super-physical event might transpire.
“I do not know how long a period elapsed before I became conscious of a new presence in the chamber, of someone friendly and benevolent who stood at the entrance and looked down upon me with kindly eyes.
“With his arrival the atmosphere changed completely – and changed for the better. Something clean and sane had come with him. A new element began to play upon my overwrought sensitive being, soothing and calming it.
“He approached my stony seat, and I saw that he was followed by another figure. Both halted at my side and regarded me with grave looks, pregnant with prophetic meaning. I felt that some momentous hour of my life was at hand.
“They stood motionless as statues, regarding me, their hands crossed upon their breasts, remaining absolutely silent. Was I functioning in some fourth dimension, aware and awake in some far-off epoch of the past? Had my sense of time regressed to the early days of Egypt?
“No; that could not be, for I perceived quickly that these two could see me and even now were about to address me. Their tall figures bent forward; the lips of one spirit seemed to move, his face close to mine, his eyes flashing spiritual fire, and his voice sounding in my ear.
“Know, my son, that in this Ancient fane lies the lost record of the early races of man and or the Covenant which they made with their Creator through the first of His great prophets. Know, too, that chosen men were brought here of old to be shown this Covenant that they might return to their fellows and keep the great secret alive.
“Take back with thee the warning that when men forsake their Creator and look on their fellows with hate, as with the princes of Atlantis in whose time this Pyramid was built, they are destroyed by the weight of their own iniquity, even as the people of Atlantis were destroyed.
“It was not the Creator who sank Atlantis, but the selfishness, the cruelty, the spiritual blindness of the people who dwelt on those doomed islands. The Creator loves all; but the lives of men are governed by invisible laws which He has set over them. Take back this warning, then.
Interior of the King’s Chamber showing the empty Sarcophagus
“There surged up in me a great desire to see this mysterious Covenant and the spirit must have read my thought, for he quickly said:”To all things there is an hour. Not yet, my son, not yet.” I was disappointed.
“He looked at me for a few seconds.”No man of thy people hath yet been permitted to behold such a thing, but because thou art a man versed in these things, and hast come among us bearing goodwill and understanding in thy heart, some satisfaction thou shalt have. Come with me!
“And then a strange thing happened. I seemed to fall into a kind of semi-coma, my consciousness was momentarily blotted out, and the next thing I knew was that I had been transported to another place.
“I found myself in a long passage which was softly lit, although no lamp or window was visible: I fancied that the illuminant was none other than the halo-like emanation around my companion combined with the radiation from the luminous vibrant cord of ether which extended behind me, yet I realized that these would not sufficiently explain it.
“The walls were built up with a glowing pinkish terra-cotta coloured stone, slabbed with the thinnest of joints. The floor sloped downwards at precisely the same angle as the Pyramid entrance itself descends.
“The masonry was well finished. The passage was square and fairly low, but not uncomfortably so. I could not find the source of its mysterious illuminant, yet the interior was bright as though a lamp were playing on it.
“The High Priest bade me follow him a little way down the passage. “Look not backwards” he warned me, “nor turn thy head.”
“We passed some distance down the incline and I saw a large temple-like chamber opening out of the farther end. I knew perfectly well that I was inside or below the Pyramid, but I had never seen such a passage or chamber before. Evidently they were secret and had defied discovery until this day.
“I could not help feeling tremendously excited about this startling find, and an equally tremendous curiosity seized me as to where and what the entrance was.
“Finally, I had to turn my head and take a swift look backwards at what I hoped was the secret door. I had entered the place by no visible entrance, but at the farther end I saw that what should have been an opening was closed with square blocks and apparently cemented.
“I found myself gazing at a blank wall; then, as swiftly, whirled away by some irresistible force until the whole scene was blotted out and I had floated off into space again.
“I heard the words: “Not yet, not yet” repeated as in an echo and a few moments later saw my inert unconscious body lying on the stone.
“My son” came a murmur from the High Priest, “it matters not whether thou discoverest the door or not. Find but the secret passage within the mind that will lead thee to the hidden chamber within thine own soul, and thou shalt have found something worthy indeed.
“The mystery of the Great Pyramid is the mystery of thine own self. The secret chambers and ancient records are all contained in thine own nature.
“The lesson of the Pyramid is that man must turn inward, must venture to the unknown centre of his being to find his soul, even as he must venture to the unknown depths of this fane to find its profoundest secret. Farewell!”
Raphael Hurst’s experiences during his sojourn inside the Great Pyramid of Giza, speak to an entirely new interpretation of the meaning and purpose of the Pyramid and the Sphinx, than that currently held by modern scholars and Egyptologists.
Lacking any physical proof that would validate such esoteric accounts as those described by Hurst, they prefer to cling to their conventional belief that both the Sphinx and the Great Pyramid were built during the reign of the Pharaoh Khafre.
Yet there are other sources which point to the accuracy of the explanation given by Hurst, such as the American mystic Edgar Cayce, popularly known as the “sleeping prophet”. Cayce gave several readings in which he referred to an ancient “Hall of Records” that lay buried beneath the Sphinx.
When asked during one of his trance readings in 1933 what this secret chamber contained, Cayce replied :
“A record of Atlantis from the beginning of those periods when the Spirit took form, or began the encasements in that land; and the developments of the peoples throughout their sojourn; together with the record of the first destruction, and the changes that took place in the land;
“With the record of the sojournings of the peoples and their varied activities in other lands, and a record of the meetings of all the nations or lands, for the activities in the destruction of Atlantis; and the building of the pyramid of initiation, together with whom, what, and where the opening of the records would come, that are as copies from the sunken Atlantis.
“For with the change, it [Atlantis] must rise again. In position, this lies – as the sun rises from the waters – as the line of the shadows (or light) falls between the paws of the Sphinx; that was set later as the sentinel or guard and which may not be entered from the connecting chambers from the Sphinx’s right paw until the time has been fulfilled when the changes must be active in this sphere of man’s experience. Then [it lies] between the Sphinx and the river.” [378-16; Oct 29, 1933]
This was not the only occasion on which Cayce talked about the legendary continent of Atlantis, as well as the “Hall of Records” that lay buried beneath the Sphinx. The following extracts are taken from other readings which he gave in later years.
“It would be well if this entity were to seek either of the three phases of the ways and means in which those records of the activities of individuals were preserved – the one in the Atlantean land, that sank, which will rise and is rising again; another in the place of the records that leadeth from the Sphinx to the hall of records, in the Egyptian land; and another in the Aryan or Yucatan land, where the temple there is overshadowing same.” [2012-1; Sep 25, 1939]
“… the entity joined with those who were active in putting the records in forms that were partially of the old characters of the ancient or early Egyptian, and part in the newer form of the Atlanteans. These may be found, especially when the house or tomb of records is opened, in a few years from now”. [2537-1; Jul 17, 1941]
“… the entity was among the first to set the records that are yet to be discovered or yet to be had of those activities in the Atlantean land, and for the preservation of data that is yet to be found from the chambers of the way between the Sphinx and the pyramid of records”. [3575-2; Jan 20, 1944. Excerpts from Cayce, Edgar. On Atlantis. New York: Warner Books, 1968.]
It may be significant that Cayce predicted that this “Hall of Records” may not be entered from the connecting chambers from the Sphinx’s right paw until the time has been fulfilled. Certainly there has been no shortage of people who have tried to find this hidden chamber over the years.
Yet for one reason or another, whether the result of equipment failure or obstructions due to bureaucratic red tape, all efforts to do so have thus far proved fruitless. It does seem as if the time is not yet ripe, and that we will have to wait until this time of destiny is fulfilled.
It is perhaps appropriate to end here with the words of the Oracle of Tolemac, who said that similar world-wide catastrophes that caused this ancient wisdom to be hidden in the distant past, would return to permit these buried records to be rediscovered at the dawn of the new Golden Age.
“Various seers and prophets have predicted that the ancient records of Atlantis would be found in Egypt. The American seer Edgar Cayce predicted that a “Hall of Records” would be found beneath the Sphinx. Inside this hall of records would be found tablets, artifacts and gold related to the lost civilization of Atlantis”.
He predicted that these records would also include a detailed history of human life on earth.
“Knowledge and wisdom will make great advances in the coming age. The true history of your planet will be revealed at last. Those same disasters that once caused your earlier libraries and treasures to be hidden will now cause them to be revealed. The lost records of Atlantis and Lemuria will be rediscovered.” (The Last Days of Tolemac)
