Customer Reviews

Serpent in the Sky: The High Wisdom of Ancient Egypt

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John Anthony West has done the world an enormous service with this bold, brilliance, beautifully written and thoroughly engaging book. He extends the work of Alsation philospher and mathematician, R.A, Schwaller de Lubicz, making it not only comprehensible to the lay reader, but the only plausible explanation for the grandeur and magnificance of ancient Egyptian culture. West is anything but a New Age flake, and he takes some fairly tough-minded positions on the absurdities of modern scholarship. Yet he has the advantage over most orthodox Egyptologists in that he can (a) write -- and write superbly -- and (b) he has a sense of humor, which makes even his most vitriolic attacks on those who persist in ascribing the monuments of Egypt to a race of egomaniacal barbarians the work of a rational giant in a world of Lilliputians. His grasp of the entire sweep of Egyptian history is extraordinary, and his ability to render even the most complex accounts of Pythagorean geometry or symbolism in the hieroglyphs is something every would be academic should take notes on. Besides all this, the book is magnificently illustrated on every page. Without any question, this is one of the best books I have ever read

When I returned from my first trip to Egypt in May, 1998, I voraciously read everything I could get my hands on. Before I read Serpent in the Sky, I had viewed John's emmy-award-winning documentary, so I was prepared for excellence in thinking and new ideas about ancient Egypt. Although John West writes with great flair and articulation, his summarizing of Schwaller de Lubicz was tough going. West makes some good points of his own, but some of de Lubicz's theories are too esoteric for me. West acknowledges he's not a mathemetician and much of de Lubicz's theories are based on sacred geometry, and was beyond my scope as well. I found that the quotations on the sides of the pages detracted from the main body of work. It's very apparent that West thoroughly loves ancient Egypt and has devoted many years to study, discussion and leading tours there. I had the good fortune to be with him on a second tour to Egypt in Nov, 1998. I enjoyed the foreword by Robert Masters regarding Sekhmet, as I had some extraordinary experiences with Sekhmet myself both while I was in Egypt and when I returned. All in all, I would recommend reading Serpent in the Sky. John still leads tours to Egypt.

J A West has nearly singlehandedly revived R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz' prolific work on the discerned symbolism of the ancient Egyptians. Those interested in learning about SdL's interpretation would find this to be a good introduction, and will also find that many of SdL's titles are back in print, though a little pricey. I have no need to learn any more about what may have been the intent of people attempting to apply magical thinking to the physical world, whether those people are long dead or my contemporaries.

The real value of this book is in a single idea from SdL's work, which is the realization that the Great Sphinx at Giza was heavily eroded by water (pp 177-179). Geologists who oppose the idea that rain caused this erosion are few in number, and their motives are suspect since they'd previously not noticed or not pointed out in public the obvious fact of water erosion. Such geologists are now limited to a slow retreat, attempting to accept water erosion without accepting greater antiquity, and the way they do this is by dreaming up new ways water erosion can do its work with great rapidity in an arid environment with essentially no rain.

One of the revolting aspects of the debate has been that the core argument gets attacked not on any lack of merit, but through damning by association. Robert Schoch doesn't attribute the Sphinx to Atlantis. Even though John Anthony West suggests such a link, the main point of disagreement between Schoch and West is that Schoch's estimate of the Sphinx' age is much lower than West's. Both put the Sphinx origin in what is known as Predynastic times.

West does a good job showing the (two) roots of the various conventional beliefs about the Sphinx, and shows the ancient documentary evidence which supports a pre-Khafre Sphinx. While Robert Schoch's "Voices of the Rocks" is a better choice, one has to read Schoch's articles (KMT, etc) to get the specifics of his views about the water erosion in any detail. West's book is a better choice for that particular narrow focus. Those with an occult or fringe interest will find that West's book is also a better choice than titles by Hancock, Bauval, Gadalla, and Sitchin.

If you prescibe to conventional views about Egyptology don't buy this book. However, if you believe that science does not have the story of our origins and Egypt quite right, then this book will open your eyes.

The writing style is accessible, not too technical, and not too etheric. The work of Schwaller de Lubicz is presented, along with JAWs owns metaphors, in a way to help you understand that Egyptian culture and architecture was much deeper than archeologists think.

JAW is most famous pointing to geologic weathering analysis of the Sphinx show that it is at least 10,000 years old. The book stays rooted in science enough to keep the discerning reader interested. There is also a hint of the civilization that pre-dates Egypt (?Atlantis) which will also keep the alternate reader interested. All-in-all a very good and balanced book.

Also recommended is 'Temple of the Cosmos' by Jeremy Naydler.

The author has always been an unorthodox scholar and this shines through in this work, in which he espouses the views of Schwaller de Lubicz and his own. It is a pioneering study with revolutionary interpretations. The author puts forward his case for a Sacred Science of the Pharaohs, which was conveyed through the hermetic messages embodied within the hieroglyphs. He details Egyptian science, medicine, mathematics and astronomy in vivid and concise detail. The book ends with a presentation of his views on the age of the Sphinx. This book is a must for open-minded readers.

How old is the Sphinx?
This question can be answered in two ways. The standard answer is: it is just as old as I got to know when I went to school when I studied a two volume book published by J.A. Hammerton and translated into Finnish by Ilmari Jäämaa and Mika Waltari (later known as the author of 'Sinuhe, The Egyptian'). This book said that the age of the Sphinx is unknown, but usually it is thought to be from the time of Khefren (Greek version of the name), who lived 2558-2532 B.C. and was the son of Kheops.

John Anthony West starts with the fact that we don't know how old the Sphinx is and has made a study of its age arriving at the colclusion that it is not appr. 4500 years old, but much older. Time will show if he is right or wrong with his theory. Meanwhile he has written a truly amazing book, which has so much more than the above theory: a deep study of Symbolism just to name one thing.

An example of this is the discovery that the Egypt as we know it was born at once, without any prior development; it was a legacy from a preceeding culture that we do not know anything about. What was that culture? Where did it disappear?

Perhaps it is time "to try to re-examine Egypt as a whole" in the light of Schwaller de Lubicz's discoveries, which are not few. This is exactly what John Anthony West has done for the past 30 years.

A book that is certainly worth reading and an inspiration for further studies!

Schwaller de Lubicz was a genius, but a creative genius, not a scientific one.

I don't dispute that there was an advanced civilization millenia before Egypt. The case for that is all circumstantial, but it is an overwhelming circumstantial case, and if historians ever get a clue the existence of so-called "Atlantis" will be taken for granted.

Nor do I dispute the basic truth of Schwaller's esoteric worldview.

What I dispute is the idea that the temple at Luxor has anything to do with what Schwaller says it does. The miracle of Egypt is that it is basically a blank slate. It can be interpreted any way one likes. The interpretations tell us much about the interpreter, but none of us will ever really understand Egypt.

John Anthony West begins with a rant about modern western rationalism, the sort that is usually an attempt to justify shaky logic later on. Fortunately this doesn't materialise, but while the author is extremely well read on Egyptology, (and quotes his sources, which makes a refreshing change from other authors), he has an annoying habit of spouting off on subjects he knows nothing about. One of these is evolution. Anyone who agrees with his charicature of evolutionary theory, should read Stephen Jay Gould immediately. Few if any evolutionary biologists nowadays associate evolution with "progress", and certainly not with "human progress". Complex ("advanced") organisms evolve into simple ("primitive") organisms just as often as the reverse happens. The idea of human beings at the top of the evolutionary tree was an arrogant flight of fancy which died out (among biologists at least)early this century. No one claims that the early E! ! gyptians had "just descended from the trees" as he facetiously claims. Fully modern humans had already existed for the best part of a million years before Egypt arose as a civilisation. A reference to "Neolithic hunter-gatherers" betrays the author's ignorance of human history. Neolithic people have, by definition ceased to be hunter-gatherers. Once West gets onto the subjects he understands, the book improves immensely. His interpretation of Egyptian beliefs and culture, makes a lot more sense than those of any other authors I have read. The refusal of most scholars to examine anything but the most obvious religious symbolism in Egyptian writings, and the consequent tendency to dismiss most Egyptian religion as gobbeldygook is rightly condemned. The speculations about the sphinx are true testable hypotheses, and this is one of the book's high points. Other explanations are also considered. While one theme of the book is the mathematics manifested in Egy! ! ptian architecture, it avoids "pyramidology".

If, like myself, you find conventional Egyptology/archeology, Darwinian evolution, and church doctrine, entirely unconvincing in their explanations of human origins....then you will enjoy this book. It is not a New Age harangue by any means, and though the author does drift into diatribes against orthodoxy, he is clearly justified in doing so. Uncovering the truth of our past is, to my mind, the most important task of any researcher. West is a pioneer in this field.

Symbolic Egyptology, the school of Egyptological thought derived from the ideas of visionary philosopher/scientist/mystics R.A. Schwaller De Lubicz and G.I. Gurdjieff, is an untapped reservoir of metaphysical information. This book is a fabulous introduction to the subject, yet it falls into the unfortunate trap of the author's regressive sociopolitical vision and new-age beliefs. Aside from this, however, the presentation is stunning, and I'd argue that this book is a must-read for anyone with an interest in Egyptian Archaeology, Hermeticism, or any of the ancient spiritual disciplines that originated in ancient Xem.