Magi | De Wijzen uit het Oosten (1) Gurdjieff en zijn Kaart van ‘Pre Sand Egypt’

Een van de raadselachtigste gebeurtenissen uit het leven van Jezus is het bezoek van de wijzen uit het Oosten, een verhaal, uitsluitend te vinden in het Evangelie van Matteüs. In Grieks Latijn worden ze ‘magi’ (enkelvoud ‘magus’) genoemd, wat de betekenis van ‘tovenaar’ heeft, wat in de context van de Bijbel wordt vertaald met ‘wijzen’, maar het betreft priesters van de religie van Zarathustra (zie https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zarathustra).

Deze wijzen – er wordt altijd aangenomen dat het er drie waren, maar dat is afgeleid uit het drietal geschenken – kwamen voor de nieuwgeboren koning van de Joden wiens ster zij hadden gezien in het Oosten (2:2). Herodes liet hen in het geheim bij zich komen en informeerde naar de tijd, dat de ster aan hen verschenen was. Volgens de tekst stuurde hij hen naar Bethlehem, omdat de profetie was dat uit Bethlehem een leidsman zou voortkomen. Maar de wijzen zien, zodra ze zich op weg hebben begeven, de ster, die ze hadden gezien in het Oosten, die voor hen uitging en stil bleef staan boven de plaats waar het kind was. De tekst meldt expliciet: ‘Toen zij de ster zagen, verheugden zij zich met zeer grote vreugde.’ Bekend is het verhaal, dat ze verslag moesten uitbrengen aan Herodes, die hen had wijs gemaakt, dat hij het kind ook wilde vereren, maar dat ze in een droom werden gewaarschuwd en langs een andere weg naar hun land trokken (2:12).

Gewoonlijk wordt het hele verhaal afgedaan als een vrome legende, hoewel het onduidelijk is, waarom een dergelijke legende door Matteüs zou zijn opgenomen. Dat het Jezus’ claim op het koningschap verstevigt, is enigszins gezocht, want onduidelijk is wat die magi met het koningschap te maken hebben; ze komen immers van ver, al is niet duidelijk waar ze precies vandaan komen.

In 1996 verscheen het boek ‘Magi’ van Adrian G. Gilbert, medeschrijver van de bestsellers ‘The Orion Mystery’ en ‘The Mayan Prophecies’ (zie https://www.linkedin.com/in/adrian-g-gilbert-b56a8328). Het boek heeft de ondertitel ‘The Quest for a Secret Tradition’ en is deels een boek over de ontwikkeling, die Gilbert doormaakte, en bevat veel persoonlijke notities, reisverslagen van Gilbert, die met zijn vrouw Dee over de wereld reist om persoonlijk de plekken, die van belang zijn, te bezoeken. Als kind had Gilbert eens deelgenomen aan een kerstspel en had daarin de rol van Melchior, een van de drie koningen, gespeeld. Hij had nooit begrepen wat dat was met die drie ‘koningen’, en vroeg zich af wat voor mystieke traditie ermee verbonden was.

Ik heb zelf ook voor een van de drie koningen gespeeld in een kerstspel (naast het langs de deur gaan met mijn twee broers, zie https://robscholtemuseum.nl/cor-hendriks-de-vele-gezichten-van-zwarte-piet-1/) en heb meer ervaringen met Gilbert gemeenschappelijk. Zo heb ik me net als hij verdiept in de leer van Gurdjieff (zie https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gurdjieff), zoals uiteengezet in het boek ‘The Fourth Way’ van Pyotr Demianovich Ouspensky (zie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P._D._Ouspensky), dat na diens dood werd gepubliceerd in 1957, en heb ik de twee bekendste boeken van Gurdjieff gelezen, d.w.z. ‘Meetings with Remarkable Men’ en een deel van het volumineuze ‘All and Everything’. Dit alles was lang geleden in de 70-er jaren. Ook Gilbert keert terug naar die tijd, want hij ontmoette in 1973 J.G. Bennett, de op een na bekendste leerling van Gurdjieff (zie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_G._Bennett). Hij beschrijft deze ontmoeting in hoofdstuk 2: ‘Meeting with a Magus’. In dit hoofdstuk wordt melding gemaakt van een kaart van ‘pre-sand Egypt’, die Gurdjieff ontdekte bij een Armeense priester en heimelijk kopieerde, waarna hij naar Egypte vertrok. We komen deze kaart weer tegen in hoofdstuk 6: ‘A Search for the Secret Brotherhood’, waar een afbeelding is opgenomen van een ‘Possible Map of Pre-sand Egypt as found by Gurdjieff’ (Map 3).

In mijn optiek is het idee van een dergelijke kaart te vergelijken met een schatkaart. Hoe is het mogelijk aan een kaart te denken van een land, waarvan geen kaarten bestaan? Zoeken op internet leverde meteen op, dat de term ‘Pre-Sand Egypt’ alleen door aanhangers van Gurdjieff wordt gebruikt. Hier is het resultaat van mijn zoektocht, te beginnen met enige korte video’s.

https://youtu.be/rZWrhYzLVUc (9:22) ‘Gurdjieff & A Map Of Pre-Sand Egypt’ van cfapps7865, gepubliceerd op 17 okt. 2015 (10.754 v; 27 r). Tekst: ‘A little over a hundred years ago George Gurdjieff was saying some very interesting things about ancient Egypt.’

https://youtu.be/zBwnvl253lo (6:57) ‘1837 Giza, The Bridge, Dyke & Pre-Sand Egypt’ van cfapps7865, gepubliceerd op 24 jun. 2017 (7.483 v; 25 r). Tekst: ‘An 1837 documentation of a bridge and southern dyke found at Giza and a reference that corresponds with a video from 2 years ago on George Gurdjieff… which I share part of.’

https://youtu.be/JXkglPvm-xo (8:11) ‘Gurdjieff and the Map of Pre-Sand Egypt (Totally Awesome History)’ van Robertus Magnus, gepubliceerd op 11 nov. 2012 (18.818 v; 38 r). Tekst: ‘In this episode we look at the 20th century mystic Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff and the map of Pre-Sand Egypt he claims to have been in possession of in “Meetings with Remarkable Men”. The Sphinx and the sites of Nabta Playa and Gobekli Tepe are also discussed. Please feel free to leave a comment. I’d love to hear your thoughts or answer any questions you might have!’ Zie ook https://vimeo.com/54489446 (8:11) ‘Totally Awesome History 4 – Gurdjieff and Map of Pre-Sand Egypt’ van Robert Berge. Deze video is ook te vinden op de site http://wexclub.ca/ancient-north-africa-part-2-a-map-of-pre-sand-eygpt/ ‘A Map of Pre-Sand Egypt – Ancient North Africa, Part 2’. Posted on March 2, 2017 by brownsound. Tekst: ‘The mystic adventurer, Georges Ivanovitch Gurdjieff (1866-1949), is said to have visited Egypt and searched the ruins, looking for clues to the meaning of life. Although he might be speaking in parable, Gurdjieff explains he had come across a Map of Pre-Sand Egypt. Totally Awesome History presents a homemade dramatization: https://vimeo.com/54489446. An actual “parchment” might have never existed. Gurdjieff’s teachings were designed to challenge your preconceptions and the map might have been symbolic of the path to knowledge. Interestingly enough, satellite imagery confirms the Sahara was indeed a wet and green pre-sand place. The satellites reveal large lakes and multiple rivers throughout North Africa that have long since dried up. If Gurdjieff’s map existed, we might locate an earlier Egypt and have more clues as to how the civilization jumped so quickly from the pastoral and agricultural society of 3100 BC (just over 5000 years ago) to builders of stone temples and the Great Pyramid (2500 BC) in such a short space of time. Some wonder if the advanced technology and math involved in pyramid and temple building were inherited from a lost, older civilization.’ Etc. over Sfinx en Gobekli Tepe, met video’s ‘Zahi Hawass vs Graham Hancock on significance of Gobekli Tepe’ en ‘mysterious temples – Hagar Qim’ en ‘Dinka: The Legendary Cattle Herders of South Sudan by Oscar Mann (Box 24501-00502, Kenya) en ‘Osireion de Abydos’. De video van Robertus Magnus is ook opgenomen op http://forum.megaliths.org/viewtopic.php?t=56 ‘Gurdjieff’s Map of Pre-Sand Egypt’, geplaatst op Mon Jan 22, 2018.

https://youtu.be/8OKVVag24io (2:11) ‘Gurdjieff in Egypt’ van William Patterson, gepubliceerd op 2 mei 2007 (69.892 v). Tekst: ‘GurdjieffLegacy.Org – Trailer for The Life & Significance of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, Part I — Gurdjieff in Egypt: The Origin of Esoteric Knowledge. Follows Gurdjieff’s search for pre-sand Egypt beginning with the Sphinx and Great Pyramid, to Thebes and the Temple in Man and Karnak, to the Valley of the Kings, the Temples of Edfu and Abu Simbel, and into Ethiopia where he unexpectedly discovers the origin of the ancient teaching of The Fourth Way. William Patrick Patterson, a leading international exponent and teacher of The Fourth Way is the founder/director of The Gurdjieff Legacy Foundation and has led groups, as well as given seminars and talks throughout the United States for many years. He has written nine books on the teaching and directed, written and narrated the award-winning video trilogy The Life & Significance of George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff, Introduction To Gurdjieff’s Fourth Way: From Selves To Individual Self To The Self and the just released Spiritual Pilgrimage – Mr. Gurdjieff’s Father’s Grave. He is also the founder/editor of The Gurdjieff Journal (est. 1992), the first domestic and international Fourth Way journal.’

Hier zijn enige artikelen betreffende de kaart.

http://www.gurdjiefflegacy.org/60gine/pre_sand.htm ‘Gurdjieff in Egypt – Pre-sand Egypt’: During Gurdjieff’s search for esoteric knowledge he unexpectedly came across a map of pre-sand Egypt, a pre-historic time when Egypt was green. This had to be about 7,500 B.C. or earlier. He immediately delayed his search for the Sarmoung monastery. Whatever Gurdjieff saw on the map of pre-sand Egypt, it took him directly to the Giza Plateau. He said he came “to find an explanation for the Sphinx and certain other monuments.” Now why an explanation? Even when Gurdjieff arrived, in 1895, the Sphinx was commonly thought to date from 2,500 B.C. If it was the Sphinx that Gurdjieff saw on the map—and what else could he have seen?—then that would mean that the Sphinx was a monument of pre-sand Egypt, a monument carved about 7,500 B.C. or earlier. Even in 1895 when Gurdjieff visited, it was widely accepted that the Sphinx had been carved around 2,500 B.C., its erosion caused by wind and sand. Others, such as the noted hermeticist and Egyptologist René Schwaller de Lubicz, believed the erosion was caused by water. Now when was there enough water to cause such erosion? Only in pre-sand, or prehistoric Egypt. In 1990, John Anthony West, an authority on ancient Egypt, convinced Dr. Robert M. Schoch, an eminent paleontologist and a specialist in the weathering of soft rock, to validate or rebut the aquatic erosion theory. Schoch indeed found the Sphinx to be water-eroded, but he believes the cause was not flooding from the Nile—but rain, with a minimum date for its carving at 5,000 to 7,000 B.C.

https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum/topic/99130-pre-sand-egypt/ ‘Pre-sand Egypt?’ By johan67, July 5, 2007 in Ancient Mysteries & Alternative History. Im so curious about this.. I recently saw a movie about Georges Ivanovich Gurdjieff “Meetings With Remarkable Men” / “The Origin of Esoteric Knowledge” what was that Gurdjieff really saw in the Pre-sand Egypt?? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G._I._Gurdjieff – (for those who don’t know about him). jaylemurph (#the funniest human being on planet earth) posted July 5, 2007: ‘No, Egypt wasn’t always desert. Several thousand years ago (at the close of the last Ice Age), most of North Africa was a more verdant place. I don’t think there’s a shred of evidence to suggest there was an advanced, map-making civilisation at the time, though. And I’m not touching the whole ‘secret society’ angle — it’s not that big a mystical leap to say “the past was different from now.”‘ Hierop reageerde questionmark (Cinicus Magnus), op July 5, 2007: ‘Just amazing that he could identify Egypt at that point. Most of what is now the Aegean and eastern Mediterranean were dry land at the time… It is questionable, even if somebody had made a map (very doubtful), unless it said Ancient Egypt, had the sites of the future Pyramids marked or used the Greenwich coordinate system, it would be nearly impossible to identify what the map shows. Even the Nile had a different bed at the time.’ digitalsea (Alien Embryo) posted October 23, 2007: ‘The simplest way to understand the significance of Gurdjieff and the pre-sand map of Egypt is that it must have convinced him of the much more ancient age of some of the structures. It is believed that one structure he saw on the map was the Sphinx. Gurdjieff thought that the Sphinx was created by remnants of Atlantis which date he gave to its fall as between 8,000 and 10,000 years ago. Recently as we know the age of the Sphinx has indeed been pushed back to a time when there was a lot more precipitation ie. pre-sand Egypt. Gurdjieff definitely believed in the fall of an Atlantis… in Witness, by J.G. Bennett writes… He went on to the caves at Lascaux. The long drive tired him very much, and his legs were beginning to swell ominously. But he insisted on going down into the caves. As he stood looking at the paintings, he seemed completely to belong there. He explained various symbols, and especially the strange composite animal, which he said was, like the Sphinx, the “emblem” of an esoteric society. I said: “Symbol?” He rejected the correction. “No. Emblem. At that time there were societies with special knowledge, and each society had an emblem by which the members recognized each other. Same way as we have.” He said that the deer were the totems of individual people. By the number of points on the antlers you could know the degree of attainment of the man they represented. He bought pictures for everyone. A special album was given to Iovanna Lloyd Wright with injunctions to give it to her father and “tell him that such place exist.” but if you go to, http://www.gurdjieff-legacy.org/40articles/lascaux.htm you will see what Bennett left out of the story…’

https://ggurdjieff.com/pre-sand-gurdjieff/ ‘Pre-sand Gurdjieff’. George Gurdjieff was a mystic who revived ancient wisdom during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He lived between two ages, catching the tale end of a pre-industrial world and transporting its legacy to an era where mythology and symbology had all but died. In his youth, Gurdjieff sensed that there had to exist knowledge that instructed man how to transcend himself. He sensed that such knowledge had to be obtained by special effort. He arranged expeditions to exotic places in search of ancient teachings and eventually came upon a secret brotherhood. All we know about his days of apprenticeship is autobiographical, deliberately shrouded in mystique by its author. Nonetheless, when he appeared in Russia in 1910, he undoubtedly possessed a unique system of self-development. Gurdjieff claimed to have found, in his expeditions, a map of pre-sand Egypt. The supposed map was evidence of a civilization that had existed before what we know as dynastic Egypt, an advanced pre-historic culture responsible for humanity’s subsequent wisdom. In those times, sand had not yet transformed northern Africa into what we now call the Sahara Desert, and the continent was a the most thriving and civilized place on the earth. Man was closer to the earth, to the heavens – and most importantly – to himself. Such claims – of secret brotherhoods and lost maps – gave George Gurdjieff the reputation of a controversial mystic, knowledgeable but exaggerated, profound but nonsensical. In this site, however, we deem the authenticity of his stories secondary. Whether he actually found an ancient map, or whether it was a facetious fable made to force his students to think for themselves, rather than blindly believe, we take Gurdjieff’s pre-sand Egypt as a metaphor, a parable – a principle. Time has always buried wisdom in sand, smothered it in jungle or submerged it in flood. Again and again, time has warped the best of man’s teachings, distorting them into dogma or politicizing them into religion. We take Gurdjieff’s pre-sand Egypt to signify wisdom before distortion, the teaching prior to religion and the myth that precedes dogma. It was these gems that he had found, unearthed and brought forth to a new age. Time’s effect on every age is like winds caressing desert dunes, covering the traces of former generations in vagueness. Each age is thus forced to dig anew, retrieve what its ancestors tried to leave for its benefit. Gurdjieff’s explorations were precisely such excavations. He dug out the ancient wisdom coined in myth and ritual and translated it into the scientific language of the industrial age. He knew that a teacher of wisdom had to be an archeologist; that each age needn’t reinvent the wheel, but rediscover it anew. A hundred years later, sands are swiftly burying Gurdjieff’s legacy so that it calls for re-excavation. The vitality of his teaching is gathering fresh layers of desert dust. Another age has dawned since his day, an age of computers and Internet. His sources are demolished beyond our reach, but their spirit remains accessible: the spirit of ancient wisdom lives on, as vital as it has been in any age, threading its way from one generation to the next. This site will draw a map of Pre-sand Gurdjieff. It will wipe off a few layers of dust from the origin of his teaching. It will periodically publish posts on ancient traditions that instructed Gurdjieff, share Gurdjieff’s comments on them, and transport their invaluable instruction to our age.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmoung_Brotherhood ‘Sarmoung Brotherhood’. The Sarmoung Brotherhood was an alleged esoteric Sufi brotherhood based in Asia. The reputed existence of the brotherhood was brought to light in the writings of George Gurdjieff, a Greek-Armenian spiritual teacher. Some contemporary Sufi-related sources also claim to have made contact with the group although the earliest and primary source is Gurdjieff himself, leading some scholars to conclude the group was merely a fictional teaching device. According to the author John G. Bennett, a student and aide of George Gurdjieff who first mentioned the concept, the word sarmoung uses the Armenian pronunciation of the Persian term sarman, which may mean either “he who preserves the doctrine of Zoroaster” or “bee”. Regarding the meaning, Bennett writes: “The word can be interpreted in three ways. It is the word for bee, which has always been a symbol of those who collect the precious ‘honey’ of traditional wisdom and preserve it for further generations. A collection of legends, well known in Armenian and Syrian circles with the title of The Bees, was revised by Mar Salamon, a Nestorian Archimandrite in the thirteenth century. The Bees refers to a mysterious power transmitted from the time of Zoroaster and made manifest in the time of Christ…. Man is Persian meaning as the quality transmitted by heredity and hence a distinguished family or race. It can be the repository of an heirloom or tradition. The word sar means head, both literally and in the sense of principal or chief. The combination sarman would thus mean the chief repository of the tradition.” Yet another possibility was “those whose heads have been purified”, in other words: the enlightened. However, in the Persian language, ‘sarman’ has no meaning, and the actual word for a bee is ‘zebh’ or plural ‘zobabeh’. The Brotherhood was also sought by Georges Gurdjieff on his journeys (pre-1912) through Southwest and Central Asia. Describing the contents of an old letter written by a monk which he had obtained, Gurdjieff writes: ‘”Our worthy Father Telvant has at last succeeded in learning the truth about the Sarmoung Brotherhood. Their organisation actually did exist near the town of Siranoush, and fifty years ago, soon after the migration of peoples, they also migrated and settled in the valley of Izrumin, three days journey from Nivssi….” Then the letter went on about other matters. What struck us most was the word “Sarmoung”, which we had come across several times in the book called “Merkhavat”. This word is the name of a famous esoteric school which, according to tradition, was founded in Babylon as far back as 2500 BC, and which was known to have existed somewhere in Mesopotamia up to the sixth or seventh century AD; but about its further existence one could not obtain anywhere the least information. This school was said to have possessed great knowledge, containing the key to many secret mysteries. Many times had Pogossian and I talked of this school and dreamed of finding out something authentic about it, and now suddenly we found it mentioned in this parchment! We were greatly excited.’ Gurdjieff goes on to relate the Sarmoung to the Nestorians, descendants of the ancient Byzantine, their expulsion from Mesopotamia and the city of Ninevah. Gurdjiieff’s experiences on these journeys, and a sketchy account of his somewhat mysterious relationship with the Sarmoung Brotherhood, can be found in his autobiography Meetings with Remarkable Men. He claims he made contact with a representative of the Sarmoung through his friend, the Dervish Bogga Eddin (Bahauddin), in Bukhara. The chief monastery of the society was said to be located somewhere in the heart of Asia, about twelve days’ journey from Bukhara by horse and donkey. Once he arrived at the monastery, Gurdjieff discovered that his old friend Prince Lubovedsky was already there. The Prince tells Gurdjieff that he had met a representative of the Sarmoung at the house of the Aga Khan in Kabul, Afghanistan. During his stay at the monastery, Gurdjieff recalls seeing a complex and ancient tree-like apparatus used to indicate bodily postures and train temple dancers. Gurdjieff’s attempts to establish a link between the Brotherhood, ancient Sumer, and even “pre-sand Egypt”, was an intriguing attempt at acquiring esoteric knowledge that had been passed down from antiquity. […] Mark Sedgwick, the coordinator of the Unit for Arab and Islamic Studies at Aarhus University writes: ‘Although few commentators in Gurdjieff would put it so bluntly, it seems clear to me that the Sarmoung are entirely imaginary. No Sufi tariqa of such a name is known, and in fact “Sarmoung” is a typically Gurdjieffian fantastical name. It is immediately obvious to anyone who knows anything about regular Sufism that there is nothing remotely Sufi about the Sarmoung Order described by Gurdjieff.’ James Moore, in his biography of Gurdjieff, writes ‘Gurdjieff’s claim to have found and entered “the chief Sarmoung Monastery” is, in effect, a litmus test, distinguishing literal minds from those preferring allegory.’

Voor wie dieper op de materie in wil gaan, zijn hier nog twee links:

https://www.concen.org/content/pre-sand-egypt-hidden-buried-cities-gurdjieff-c-piazzi-smyth-ouspensky-2009 ‘PRE-SAND EGYPT Hidden Buried Cities Gurdjieff C Piazzi Smyth & Ouspensky 2009’

http://www.katinkahesselink.net/sufi/gintro3.htm ‘Chapter 2 – Gurdjieff’s Search’, Reijo Elsner, CONTENTS OF THIS PAGE: Summary of the Motives – Finding the Sarmoung Brotherhood – What else did he find? – Christianity – Sufis & Dervishes – Other Discoveries – Some Conclusions.