Customer Reviews

The Spiritual Technology of Ancient Egypt: Sacred Science and the Mystery of Consciousness

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I bought this book in high anticipation that an author had finally written about the obvious and spectacular depth of ancient Egyptian (ne Kemetian) spirituality. Who could blame me given the title of this book, "The Spiritual Technology of Ancient Egypt?" What I got was wholly unexpected. This proved to be a great thing and a bad thing.

The principal problem with this tome is that it is a dramatically unfocused brain dump of a book. The author is unquestionably learned and well read; and what this means as a reader is that you are forced to read hundreds and hundreds of pages of the author's personal synthesis of his research interests. This would not be a bad thing if the interest was laser-focused on ancient Egypt (remember the book's title). Instead, the first section of the book is a review of modern physics, both Newtonian (Einsteinian) and Quantum. Additionally, in the other major section of the book we are given very, very lengthy descriptions of neolithic people's presumed spirituality, the roots of Judaism, the lost Gnostic gospels, Essene beliefs, the polluting of Christianity, etc. Interspersed amongst this splattering and smattering of spiritual information is an overview of cellular biology, discussions about DNA and blackholes, creationsim and intelligent design vs. Darwinism, an extensive review of R.A. Schwaller de Lubicz's thinking, Pythagorean thinking, etc. Thus, if what you wanted in a book was an overview of the state of science, as projected through a spiritual lens, then this book is certainly for you. Ironically, on my backburner reading list was the desire to find a book that did just what Malkowski's book here has done. But this work is horribly titled and very misleading. So this is, in a sense, what I meant by the contents being wholly unexpected in a great way.

The wholly unexpected bad thing has to do with the low ancient Egyptian content contained in the work. Yes, Malkowski ultimately tries to tie the literally dozens of threads and digressions back to ancient Egypt. But by the time he does this you have long since lost interest in his point, or just plain gotten lost. At times I had to remind myself I was reading a book that was supposedly about ancient Egypt because the digressions were so very enormous and frequent. If this book's many concepts were put on a flow chart you would reach for a jar of marinara sauce to accompany the spaghetti. Yikes!

The other bad thing about this book that demands mentioning is the unnecessarily academic language and tone of the book. There are many, many passages that need to be read and re-read to be understood. I certainly don't mind being intellectually and spiritually challenged. I would just prefer that the challenge came from the concept, not from the language! What seems to be utterly lacking on Malkowski's part is a mastery of metaphor, analogy, and parable. Furthermore, the author seems to lack the ability to relate his concepts to the real world. As a reader I felt as if I was being subjected, not entertained. And by 'entertained,' I mean titilated and interested. This was a big disappointment because for spirituality to be relevant for people it cannot be such a massive abstraction without grounding in everyday experience. Nor can it be presented to us with such an utter lack of a sense of humor. This was a slog of a book that I began once, put down, then began again many months later as an exercise in personal discipline. With sheer determination I made it through this work in three weeks, all the while feeling as if I was an ascetic wearing a hair shirt.

In conclusion, the strengths of the work are its massive overview of modern science and the tying of those theories to the spiritual experiences of people. Its primary weaknesses are that it is really not a book about Egyptian spirituality as it is about the author's dull brain dump.

Jason Voss

Ok, what you have here is a general survey of some spiritual concepts around gnosticism, Catayal Huyuk, Egypt, and elsewhere. So if you don't know anything about these subjects you can start here. But if you have been around these and other esoteric subjects then you will not find much that is deeply spiritual or any real spiritual technology here. If you want spiritual Egypt start with John Anthony West. If you want esoteric start with the Sufis such as Hazrat Inayat Khan. But don't start here, you've probably already seen most of what is in this book before.

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Readers will be surprised at the depth of introductory groundwork that has been provided in the opening chapters of this book. The author presents more than adequate information which sets the stage for a much deeper and comprehensive understanding of the evolution of spiritual awareness embodied within Egyptian art and society. It is a book to be read and ingested slowly as it encompasses material from myriad disciplines and perspectives, all contributing to a firm foundation from which to formulate a clear picture from both historical and spiritual vantage points.