A Search in Secret Egypt, one of the early travel books, transports the reader into magical Egypt and researches Egypt’s pre-history. Paul Brunton describes sitting before the crouching Sphinx, watching the ethereal colours of the dying sun, and asks “…. who can receive the sacred message which is given him by the beautiful mysterious afterglow of an African sunset, without being taken into a temporary paradise? So long as men are not entirely coarse and spiritually dead, so long will they continue to love the Father of Life, the sun, which makes these things possible by its unique sorceries. They were not fools, those ancients, who revered Ra, the great light, and took it into their hearts as a god.” (p. 1).
Brunton calls the Sphinx “the grave stone guardian of ancient secrets, emblematic of the Silent Watcher of our world.” and describes the dream of the young prince, (later Pharaoh Thothmes IV), who was commanded to clear the sand away by Heru-Khut, the Rising Sun Spirit or god of the Sphinx. Thothmes later recorded the dream in hieroglyphic characters upon the red granite stele which today lies between the paws of the Sphinx. (p.15.)
The book reveals that the men who carved the Sphinx and founded the world’s oldest civilization had emigrated from Atlantis. Brunton writes, “It was a tremendous and astonishing thought that the Sphinx provided a solid, visible and enduring link between the people of to-day and the people of a lost world, the unknown Atlanteans.” (p.19). He recommends probing the rituals of the Incas and the Mayas who built pyramidal Temples of the Sun throughout ancient America and encourages research into The Great Pyramid. PB further states, “The purpose of the Sphinx had now become a little plainer. The Sphinx was the revered emblem in stone of a race which looked upon Light as the nearest thing to God in this dense material world. Light is the subtlest, most intangible of things which man can register by means of one of his five senses. It is the most ethereal kind of matter which he knows ….. ‘The spirit of God moved upon the face of the Deep,’ wrote Egyptian-trained Moses. ‘And God said, Let there be Light: and there was Light.’ Not only that, it is also a perfect symbol of that heavenly light which dawns within the deep places of man’s soul when he yields heart and mind to God; it is a magnificent memorial to that divine illumination which awaits him secretly even amid the blackest despairs. Man, in turning instinctively to the face and presence of the sun, turns to the body of his Creator.” (pp.20-21).
A Search in Secret Egypt whets the appetite of the reader drawn to the study of ancient cultures and provides food for thought about modern day connections.
Note:
Quotes taken from A Search in Secret Egypt, Special Illustrated Edition, 2007. Published for Paul Brunton Philosophic Foundation by Larson Publications.
Originally published: New York: E.P. Dutton, 1936.