AKHNATON ROLE IN HISTORY

THE CIVILIZATION FOLLOWING AKHNATON-MOSES-OEDIPUS
an Outline

I suggest that Akhnaton's influence has been as big on the Aegean people than it has been on the Hebrew people. This is shown as two chapters on my web site, one is very modern, cybernetics, genetics, ecology - the other looks in the past, at Akhnaton's historical character, his exile by the Sinai and his reiterated exile further North conveyed by Theseus, the founder of Athens. I believe that those two chapters are similar to the double initiation merged into Akhnaton's saga which has launched a civilization process until its contemporary achievement.

There follows the outline of this idea:

A dislocation of Akhnaton's initiation having being at first conceived (for political, strategical necessities), from 1000.BC (David Kingdom, Delos League) only initiates (Rabbis and/or Priest of the numerous Schools of the African-Eurasian Isthmus) have known that the Hebrew collectivity and the Hellenic civilization was one and the same (as two faces of a coin). This situation was slightly modified in 400.BC when the Greek politicians condemned Socrates (the major initiated, a kind of Dalai Lama, the cultural prime representative of Athens).

Consequently, his disciples, Plato and others, made public the former Secret Knowledge of the city which was, I believe, for most of it, Akhnaton's initiation (symbolically given to Theseus at the foundation of Athens). Historically this divulging has been rapidly followed by the unification of the African-Eurasian Isthmus, by Alexander the Macedonian, so the Ptolemeans (his heirs) reigned thereafter on the territory that Akhnaton was once envisaging to unified under a unique and Monotheistic religion (Velikovsky thus thought that his Oedipus=Akhanton would cast light on Alexander's story).

Now if we look back closely at Socrates' affair, we see how it was linked to a general policy regarding Sicily (this was in 400.BC) - after a few centuries of the Ptolemean Era, the very same issue reappeared, having matured and increased from Sicily developed into Rome. So the conflict re-manifested between the colony of ancient Greek dissidents (Sicily had been to Athens as Australia to England) and Rome eventually took power over the Greek Legacy. Socrates, free friends having grown and empowered, were eventually in charge of the Atonian legacy.

The details of this moment show interestingly how Caesar and Cleopatra (the last Ptolemean) tried to conserve the Hellenic Akhnatonian initiation into the Roman transfer. But they failed and the following Roman Imperator was undertaking to crush over the Greek initiation - when at this very moment, the Hebrew component of Akhnaton's initiation ignited and rapidly spread up to take base in Rome (leaving aside in this text the Copte, Constantinople and Nestorian Churches).

This is what can be described at first as the long term effect of the Triple activity of Akhnaton - when the Roman Empire absorbed the Athenian component and acquired the Christian one, of Akhnaton's initiation. It is a first stage that I have illustrated in some of my books as a loop:

I shall continue this exposé, starting now from the other chapter of www.akhnaton Web site. It presents an ecological Model as it may acknowledged to derive from the Freudian Psychoanalytic System. Actually, it presents a whole reading of one century of Psychoanalysis - and shows quite clearly, for anyone who knows the formula and the Psychoanalytic concepts, that they are nothing but the Platonic, Sophoclean and Simonidian stances updated to the present intellectual and technological context. In other words, to make it clear, I show that the Western Psychological Model of the 20 century is strictly the reactualization of the Hellenic part of Akhnaton's initiation - and if we add Freud's study on Moses with Lacan's Name-of-the-Father interpretation, the Hebrew part of Akhnaton's initiation makes it complete as the Western Civilization Model.

The acknowledgment of Psychoanalysis as the reenactment of Akhnaton's initiation. may be very useful. It shows at the same time that our Western civilization represents a sociological theory of collective ecology (and thus correct many prejudices and misunderstanding caused by despondency and depression).

On the opposite of its self-resistance, Psychoanalysis is not the narrow sophisticated fad which has made the cup of tea of people who like to lay down... it answers your question about the effect that Akhnaton's act has had until now. The ecological chapter of www.akhnaton's site relates the Freudian and Lacanian formulas to Plato's Cave, to Simonides' Banquet, to the Patronymic rule, and they reveal their present actuality regarding genetics, cybernetics and other sciences of machines and life.

So I have described a first stage in the past of Akhnaton's initiation, which regrouped its dislocated components in Rome - and at the present time a new stage which re-actualize this Hellenic and Hebrew composite civilization.

But we may not think that the display for all the people of the Egyptological artifacts which had been buried and hidden during 3000 years, is the only reason for our Time to recover such a vivid memory of its industrious identity There must be an hinge which has supported the integrity of its re-actualization.

Alas! At first sight it is not an hinge... but a 2000 years gap.!. that we see between Ancient Atonism and Modern Analysis.

Fortunately, this broken view of Akhnaton's initiation does not resist to further examination. A closer look at history discloses easily the interface which has related and linked the cause (Akhnaton's act) to the effect (contemporary civilization).

Actually, this is even very simple to show. Let's go back to the `historical' chapter that I suspended, above, at Rome at the beginning of Christianity.

It is easy to trace, from the Hermopolis Magna that the Ptolemean had built on the bank of the Nile opposite to the ruins of Akhnaton's city (Akhtaton, Tel El Amarna), the legend carried by the Fathers of the Christian Church (St Augustine, Lactance, etc...) and maintained during the Christian Middle-Ages, of an Egyptian Triple King that they called Hermes Trismegistus.

Hermes Triplex, alias Trismegistus, Thrice Great or Thrice Born - the Monotheist Egyptian King who had built a Solar City in Egypt and was related to the Hebrew Moses, and the Greek Orpheus - was the patron of the Alchemists (See: Hermetica, Emerald Tablets). It would be irresponsible today, to ignore the coincidence of his legendary character with Akhnaton - especially since it is easy to understand the reason why this identification comes with a delay after the Egyptological discovery of Akhnaton: when Akhnaton's figure was brought to daylight by the 20th century Egyptology, Hermes Trismegistus was still suffering of a frenetic censorship which had made his reference taboo since the Renaissance.

Only by the mid-20ht century, Academia has been able to begin to reconstitute the puzzle, in the following way:

Before his cultural ostracism, Trismegistus was supposed to have initiated such science as Leonardo's Mechanic, Bruno's Artificial Memory/Intelligence, and other artists, anatomists and physiologists painters etc...

At the beginning of the Renaissance a Marsilus Ficinus showed that, according certain documents that he received from Macedonia, there were no reason to make Hermes Trismegistus (previously, during the Middle-Ages. thought to have had Moses and Orpheus as disciples) different from Moses himself. An intense debate was shaking up Christianity - and at the end of the Renaissance, an Isaac Casaubon wrote a thesis (wrong as we can say now, after Nag Hammadi contemporary discovery) which enabled the suppression of all reference to Hermes Trismegistus.

It is clear that Hermes Trismegistus is the hinge between, the Ancient Akhnaton's initiation and its Modern reappearance by the year 2000.

The only gap we can see in Akhnaton's memory - and cause-effect continuity - is a 3 century period from the Renaissance up to the Modern Ages. But this is not a deconstructive gap - this is only a period of well defined repression. It is known that in such case, the unconscious activity manifests the repressed into a symptom which appeared in the civilization case as a compulsive but productive industrial activity.

Thus, it is by the means of its repression that the activity of Alchemy, initiated in the far ancient past by the Greek Triple Hermes, i.e. the Egyptian Akhnaton, became a mass and industrial, blind and exuberant activity, which carries us at an incredible speed toward a miracle... or a catastrophe.

CONCLUSION added 1997 06, 12 It is therefore worth to collate the indication given by the historian F.A..Yates, in the current ecological context: Yates showed that, in 1600AD, the failure to identify the united initiation of our civilization led the Renaissance to break into the European wars of the 17th century. This situation is repeated today with the second opportunity to realize this unity with Akhnaton's identification. Meanwhile the issue at this time is not limited to national organization, but extends to the industrial management of Earth. It is an opportunity to recall that Akhnaton has not been intuitively named "the First Individual in Human history" by several egyptologists, but also "the First Ecologist"  - in regards to his rational description of natural phenomenons by the Atonian doctrine. It is also a chance to remember the French author, Savitri Devi, who wrote from India how this Atonian model was fitting well with the Asian mentality - thus standing as a sole model in Earth identified history, which could emulate the unified human mentality which is needed for an Ecological industry.

addenda - the following was at first an intro for this page:

I want to answer your point of interest - e.g.: Akhnaton and his religion and any effect his religion has had from that time until now.

You have visited www.Akhnaton web site, so you have seen that it looked divided into two chapters: one is the identification of Akhnaton as Moses and Oedipus (and some other historical names) - this identification may be right, or wrong. The other chapter displays formulas and a theory which tends to link a Sociology with an Ecology. This essay may be a waste of time, or it may be useful.

Whatever the status of those stances, in all cases, what I myself try to describe is simply that Akhnaton's act, 1300.BC, was an endeavor which results today as a possibility to adjust our collective behavior into an ecological intelligence.

In other words, our current technology and industry would be the current effects of Akhnaton's long time passed initiation.

You notice that I write Akhnaton's initiation - and not Akhnaton's religion. It is not because I don't consider Atonism. I know very little about Atonism. Atonism may be the initiation I am talking about. I simply avoid to use the word religion - first because when we look at the many lists of religions which are displayed, for instance, on the many web sites, we never find "Atonism" - and second, because of this void, what we may understand as Akhnaton's religion may be one of the various Monotheisms which has followed Akhnaton's act.

Especially, if one questions any effect Akhnaton's religion has had from that time until now, we may consider Judaism as a form of Akhnaton's religion. In such case, I am sure that you would not need to question me. Many people know much better that me what effect Judaism has had from the ancient time until now. This is why I prefer to speak about Akhnaton's initiation - for I believe that Akhnaton influence has been much larger than the religious manifestation of the monotheists societies.

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© William Theaux 1949-1999