Alan Richardson - The Inner Guide to Egypt

About the Authors

Alan Richardson is the author of more than fifteen books, including magical biographies of Dion Fortune, Christine Hartley, and William G. Gray. He is also an expert on earth mysteries, mythology, paganism, Celtic lore, Newcastle United, and Ancient Egypt. Alan does not belong to any occult group or society, does not take pupils, and does not give lectures or any kind of initiation. He insists on holding down a full-time job in the real world like any other mortal. That, after all, is part and parcel of the real magical path. He is married with four daughters and lives very happily in the southwest of England. Please visit his Web site at http://www.alric.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk.

The late Billie Walker-John was an American by birth, but lived with her husband Nigel in South Wales for the last twenty years of her life. Affiliated with the Mystery School, The Servants of the Light, she was primarily concerned with the Egyptian Mysteries, and had been both influenced and inspired by the works of Dion Fortune and Charles Seymour, together with the Symbolist books of R. A. and Isha Schwaller de Lubicz. A vastly talented artist, and genuine scholar, she is deeply missed by all who knew her.

Llewellyn Publications

Woodbury, Minnesota

The Inner Guide to Egypt: A Mystical Journey Through Time & Consciousness 2010 by Alan Richardson & B. Walker-John.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any matter whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Llewellyn Publications, except in the form of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any unauthorized usage of the text without express written permission of the publisher is a violation of the authors copyright and is illegal and punishable by law.

First e-book edition 2010

E-book ISBN: 9780738723440

Cover art Tim Foley

Cover design by Ellen Dahl

Editing by Sharon Leah

Interior art provided by Alan Richardson & B. Walker-John

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Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Descent into Egypt

The Boatman and the BoatThe Entry Visas

The Mystical Isle of Khebit

The City of the Sun

Memphis

Hermopolis

Abydos

Thebes

Appendix

Bibliography

To the late Billie Walker-John,
whose magical name was Meri-Khem,
and who was one of the real ones.

Acknowledgments

The illustrations come from the authors. I would particularly like to acknowledge my artistic debt and inspiration to the work of Lucie Lamy, whose unfailing exactitude in reproducing the symbolic/artistic genius of Ancient Egypt is a masterpiece in itself. Also, the work of Angus McBride, whose colorful, lively, and exciting paintings of Egyptian subjects bring the people and places of Ancient Egypt vividly to life for me. I have leaned upon their inspiration in several of the illustrations in this book, but rendering each in my own style and hand.

Finally, but never least, mention must be made of the early inspiration provided in the wonderful paintings of H. M. Herget in various National Geographic magazines and books of the lives of Ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians, Greeks, Romans, and Amerindians. This debt may not be evident in this book, but it is surely the impetus that decided methirty years agoto one day do my own illustrating of these eternally fascinating people.

It is many years since I wrote the foreword to this book and, during all the time since then, I have never changed my opinion of it. I recommend it to all new students entering the SOL school. This book is much more than what it appears to be at first glance. It is not a travel book in the accepted sense, but it is an astral travel book. In fact, I might take that idea and run with it. Why should we not have astral travel books?

I have known and admired Alans work for many years; I value his work and value him as a friend. His interaction with and deep sense of the Power that once was Egypt is enthralling. Like Lawrence Durrell, Alan has an unerring ability to touch the Spirit of Place. His work is enhanced by the scholarly insights and illustrations of the late and much missed Billie Walker-John. You cannot have a more evocative introduction to what Egypt once was, and still is on the astral level.

Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki 2009

This is a book about Ancient Egypt as a strata of consciousness. This strata exists within all of us, and we can access it without needing to make a physical journey to the present-day land. We can explore it by digging inward, uncovering the potent archetypes that are buried deep within our psyches, and making a lost realm come alive.

Between our everyday consciousness, and that of peoples and times long since gone, there is no difference: we are all one another. Between the molecular structure of the physical body and the starry heavens above, there is no difference: we are all parts of one corporate Whole.

It really is a case of as above, so below as the ancients always said. In fact, it was put more explicitly to Asclepius, in the Hermetica:

Do you not know, Asclepius, that Egypt is an image of heaven, or, to speak more exactly, in Egypt all the operations of the powers which rule and work in heaven have been transferred to earth below? Nay, it should rather be said that the whole Kosmos dwells in this land as in its sanctuary...