A production of the South Carolina Educational Television Network.

Listervelt> "I will that where I am, they also may be with me.

The Egyptian Ritual .

"Be they with thee, so that they may be with me."

Keep that up for a second, please.

Go ahead.

Dr.

Finch> Okay.

I think this relates to, another idea that you find in the New Testament, and that is none come, come by the Father, but through me.

And also part of that is where two are gathered together in my name, there shall I be.

And this is, part and parcel again of the ritual of the Book of the Dead .

Is that the only way that you attain salvation, and that you are able to go to the Boat of Ra is through Osiris, that you become as Osiris himself.

That is, that Osiris is the way and the life.

That is why you come and be judged by Osiris.

And then once you are judged, you are judged and justified.

You take on the name of Osiris, which means that you take on the essence of Osiris.

It means you become and are Osiris.

The Earth tilts at a 23.5 degree axis from true vertical north.

When it does that, the Earth, the axis, the Earth, when it revolves or rotates, wobbles like a top.

When it wobbles like a top, that 23.5 degree axis, which is our magnetic north, it slowly revolves around true north or the North Pole, the ecliptic.

Taking 26,000 years to do so.

This is the great year.

What they did after they determined the great year, which took maybe may have taken them 26,000 years of astronomical observation to do so.

They, in effect created a great circular clock, if you will, an imaginary clock, mythological clock that was defined by that 26,000 year, great year.

And they divided up into 12 arcs or 12 months.

They put the zoo types that we talked about into the heavens on this clock to define each arc or each segment, which was an age.

This is a so-called zodiac.

> Good evening and welcome to For The People .

If you've been watching For The People over the last several years, you know why the former slave cannot blindly accept the truths that the former slave master holds dear.

You know that much of the slave master's power lies in his ability to control and manipulate information.

A statement made by a delegate in the Virginia House of Delegates during the pre-Civil War days should adequately make the point.

After the House of Delegates had passed a bill prohibiting the education of Black people, this delegate said, quote, "We have as far as possible, closed every avenue by which light may enter their minds.

If we could extinguish their capacity to see the light, our task would be completed, for then they would be as beast in the fields" end quote.

There has always been a desire to control the flow and type of information that enters the mind of Black people, for it is information in books and other media that shapes our view of ourselves, of other people and of the world.

Even our image of the size of the countries and continents of the Earth has been shaped by racist scholarship.

The so-called "Peters World Map," which was produced with the support of the United Nations Development Program, makes this point.

The traditional map distorts the world to the advantage of European colonial powers.

The north, in actual fact half as large as the south, appears on Mercator maps to be much larger.

The traditional map was devised by Mercator in 1569 in Germany.

It shows Europe larger than South America, which is almost double the size of Europe.

It places Germany in the middle, even though it is in the northern most quarter of the earth.

The traditional map distorts not only Europe in relation to the world.

The American continents, also are shown in false proportions.

Alaska appears about three times as large as Mexico, though in reality Mexico is larger.

The traditional map is skewed to the advantage of the Northern Hemisphere, where whites have traditionally lived.

The Soviet Union appears to be more than double the size of Africa, in spite of the fact that Africa is actually much larger.

The traditional map exaggerates the northern most areas.

As a result, southern areas seem small by comparison.

Greenland appears to be larger than China, though China is actually four times as large.

The traditional map distorts the world to the advantage of the countries in which White people predominate.

Though Scandinavia appears to be larger than India, India is actually about three times larger.

The traditional map is not compatible with objectivity, which is required in a scientific age.

Two-thirds of the map is taken up to represent the Northern Hemisphere, while the Southern Hemisphere is compressed into the remaining one-third.

We have said all this to introduce this evening's program.

In the next couple of weeks, we'll examine Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World by the British antiquarian and Egyptologist Gerald Massey.

Published in 1907, Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World is a treasure house of information on the Black African origin of Christianity and the Black African origin of what we have been told are European fairy tales.

Our guest is Doctor Charles S. Finch, a board certified family physician and assistant professor of family medicine at Morehouse School of Medicine.

A graduate of Yale University, Dr.

Finch has been studying Gerald Massey and the implications of his work, as well as the wider field of African Cultural History, since 1971.

Dr.

Finch has been published extensively in the "Journal of African Civilizations."

If you were to give a warning, to someone that was about to read Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World , or someone that might be watching this series, what would that warning say?

Dr.

Finch> Leave all, preconceptions behind.

Be ready to... Be ready to forget everything that you learned and to relearn it.

Be ready to, look at everything in the world, and particularly everything that you have been taught, everything that you took in with mother's milk- Listervelt> Because once again, Massey's main theme, thesis is what?

Dr.

Finch> Massey's main theme or thesis, fundamentally, of course, is that... all the things that we consider the symbolisms and teachings and doctrines of Christianity, certainly, since the Council of Nicaea and really Judeo Christianity come out of an African matrix.

That the fundamental templates of those religions, that is, the models of the symbolisms of those religions, the doctrines of those religions, come out of the African experience.

Particularly as distilled through Ancient Egypt.

<Okay> And so that if you're, if you're going to understand those, if you're going to understand anything about the religions that you profess to believe, then, if you want to know and understand that religion, its truest essence, you can go on in one place and that is Africa.

Now, you can imagine in this day and age what that means.

I mean, talk about a revolution.

I mean, you're talking about turning a lot of people's world upside down.

So, you know, the warning that you're suggesting means that, if you're going to read Massey, you have to be prepared to have your most cherished beliefs turned upside down.

Really- No, no, let's put that in a different way.

The beliefs that you have now are really upside down.

What you have to have is a willingness to see those beliefs stood right back up on their feet.

Now, when you think up is down and, you know when you've been walking up on the ceiling all your life it's tremendously traumatic to find out that you've been upside down.

And what I'm saying is that whatever, however you might look at it, it means a 180 degree turn around.

And that is powerfully traumatic to a lot of people, perhaps even most people.

Listervelt> Okay, we're going to go to key number, key zero after this question.

But... Some people, upon hearing what we have already said, and we have not even begun to really discuss this yet, the topic, might think that this discussion, after they've heard it... Says that, "you are anti-spiritual, anti-religion."

How would you respond to that?

Dr.

Finch> One way, I always have to respond- I have to always respond to that partially in a personal way.

And, I only use it to illustrate a point, not to make any particular statement of one kind or another.

One is that, by denomination, I'm a Roman Catholic.

And for 15 years I was out of the Roman Catholic Church for a whole lot of reasons.

And I finally came back into the church.

The way that I got back in the church was through this.

This was the path that opened up for me that allowed me to go back and seize the fundamentals of this religion.

Because all of a sudden it spoke to me in a way that Catholicism never spoke to me before, because I found something about the true essence of Christianity in my studies of Massey.

So no, it does very much the opposite for those who will look to see and have the ears to hear.

It will strengthen your faith.

It will fortify your spirituality, because now you will find that Christianity, is part of a living stream that goes back to the childhood, to the beginning, to the human race itself.

It is part of something that is beyond the historical moment of Christianity and that these... and that these, these experiences of Christianity, human and divine and spiritualistic take on meanings that enormously expand your appreciation and your understanding of life and your relationship with the divine.

Massey can do that for you.

Or a study of Massey can do that for you.

And all, and what it really does is that it fortifies your religion.

It does not- For those who can be open to it, it does not in any way attack it or weaken it or, create a crisis if you, know, if you truly are open to what... what Massey's lessons have to teach you.

Lestervelt> And, let's clarify what we are dealing with is Massey's research into the sacred writings, religion of the African people.

Dr.

Finch> Exactly, precisely.

Listervelt> Before we go any further, let's, take a look at the guiding thought from Gerald Massey.

We'll have, we'll take key zero right now, please.

And he says, quote, this is from Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World, "In this way, the Egyptian wisdom registers the fact that the Pygmy was the earliest human figure known, and that this was brought into Egypt from the forest of inner Africa and the record made in the mythology.

In this mode of registering the natural fact, the Egyptians trace their descent, from the folk who were the first in human form, that is, from the Pygmies.

Dr.

Finch> Absolutely.

Good.

They have that, they show the slide there.

The first known modern human type.

That is what we call Homo sapien, sapiens.

Anatomically, modern man.

That is, the people, the original people, who are the same as all five billion people who inhabit the planet came into being or emerged in East Africa, some 200 to 300,000 years ago.

This is not merely an opinion.

This is certainly not hearsay.

This is an operative scientific fact, buttressed, documented, verified by all the, anthropological and biomolecular data that has been brought to bear on the subject.

These earliest types were, what we would today call or were certainly very similar to what we would today call, quote, "Pygmies who are really the Twa, the Bushmen, who are really the San."

And these people represent the people who live in the Kalahari Desert, the so-called Bushmen or the San, the people who live in the forest of the Congo, the so-called Pygmies or Twa, represent the remnants of the first type of humanity.

And this was the type that emerged first in East Africa 200,000 years ago.

This was the type that eventually populated the rest of the world.

And in fact, you can find their remnants as the Aboriginal peoples in places like India, Southeast Asia and the South Pacific.

You know, we think of Asia as being a place where people of Mongoloid descent live.

True, they lived there, but they were later the first people in India, and they're still there, by the way, in southeast Asia and in the South Pacific were Black Negrito, Pygmy Bushmen type.

I'm using words like Pygmy and Bushmen because that's what people understand.

But, really, there was a kind of derogatory, but I'm just using it so people know who I'm talking about.

The Egyptians, Massey's reference to the Egyptian's veneration of the Pygmy is absolutely true.

It's shown in... for example, the iconography of the Ancient Egyptians.

one of the earliest and oldest and most important gods was Ptah.

When the Egyptians or the people who gave rise to the Egyptians first chose to represent a god in human form, they represented as a Pygmy.

But one of the oldest representations of Ptah, for example, is as a Pygmy.

And he was one of their most important of all deities Ptah.

T-H-A.

P-T-H-A-H.

Listervelt> P-T-A-H.

Dr.

Finch> That's right.

(laughter) Not only that, particularly in the Early or Old Kingdom, so important were Pygmies to the ritual of the Pharaonic Kingship that the Pharaohs were in the habit of sending... monumental or vast expeditions deep into the heart of Africa, literally down, excuse me, up the Nile into the southern Sudan, into Uganda, to bring back an emissary from a Pygmy who would, they would bring back up to Egypt.

And these were, then, as even now, were dangerous, perilous journeys.

Two, three, four years, sometimes in completion.

All to, get a, a Pygmy to bring back to Egypt, to dance the dance to the God.

Because the only, true form of the sacred dance that could be done could be done only by a Pygmy.

And in fact, one of the titles that the Pharaohs used to take it was an honorific.

In other words, it was a title that you would give the Pharaoh to praise him was as a dancing Deneg or dancing Pygmy.

So, what Massey said is absolutely true.

There has been work done of the, Pygmy, so-called Pygmy mythology and religion, and it shows that, that the Pygmies had a, a figure, a religious figure, or a divine figure who was almost identical to the Egyptian Osiris.

So... what Massey said about the Pygmy is absolutely true and is verifiable in the Egyptian iconography and in Egyptian writings.

Listervelt> What was the cultural relationship, briefly between the Ancient Egyptians and other Africans?

And you've already touched on this.

<Yes> But if we could... go ahead.

Dr.

Finch> Well, I mean, after all, Egyptians were in fact Africans, Black Africans.

Black skin, wooly-haired people.

They themselves described themselves as kmu.

Now, kmu comes from an Egyptian word K-M, km, which means black or blackness.

Now what you, what the Egyptians did, they would add a "u" to kmu or km, excuse me.

And that would give you kmu.

The "u" made the plural out of a word.

Just like in English, if we want to make a plural out of you word, we add an "s" to it.

So they add "u" to km, and it meant kmu.

Now kmu was their word for themselves and it means literally the Blacks.

Their orientation was totally southward.

Even though they lived in the northern hemisphere, they oriented themselves southward.

They called the south, "Khenti."

It was the first land, the chief land, the land, the beginning, land of origins.

It was, the word was Khenti K-H-E-N-T-I.

It was also their word for the Sudan and the Sudanese.

So again, everything in the Egyptian framework was oriented southward.

Everything that they said about their origins place them in inter-Africa as the source of their beginnings, as their homeland, their ancestral homeland.

In fact, they even called it Ya, or Yah.

Now, yah means old, meaning old country.

That was their word for the inner part of Africa.

Just like people in this country, if they are of Italian descent or Irish descent or German descent, they refer to the old country, Europe, where they came from.

That is what the Egyptians did to, southern Africa or East Africa.

They called it "Yah," the old country, because that is where their ancestors came from.

All of their cultural customs... all of their cultural framework was African.

Everything from matriliny, which we'll talk about a little later on.

That is descent through the mother.

Including the, and also the the so-called divine kingship, of which the pharaoh was a prototype and which you find throughout Africa.

Even their way of... of coloring and dyeing their bodies, their religion and their gods all came out of Africa.

Their, their... their approaches to sacrifice their practices of circumcision.

And we could go on and on and list all the cultural, all the cultural practices and customs of the Ancient Egyptians.

And they are referable only to Africa.

This is one reason why E.A.

Wallis Budge, for example, finally decided after a long time that Egyptians could not possibly have come from Asia, could not have possibly been, quote, "Semitic" unquote.

Because all of the, practices and customs of the Ancient Egyptians could only be found in Africa, particularly in the Sudan.

You couldn't find... any correspondences to many of the ideas and practices and customs of the Ancient Egyptians anywhere but in Africa.

So this was just one other, reason that he had to finally come to the conclusion that the Ancient Egyptians were fundamentally and essentially a Black African, sub-Saharan people who came down the Nile from, the inner African homeland.

Listervelt> Okay, Ancient Egypt: Light of the World.

Let's begin by discussing some of the important Egyptian deities.

First... Osiris.

I think we have a slide on that.

Dr.

Finch> This is Osiris sitting underneath the grapes.

Osiris was a deity whose Egyptian name was Asar.

He was a manifestation of many things.

One of the things, interestingly enough, even though in the myth he is a brother and son, a brother and, husband of Isis.

In one of his early forms, he's actually the son of Isis.

Asar can be broken down to "As," which is Isis.

"ar" meaning son of or child of meaning son of Isis.

He was a corn or vegetation deity.

The principle of growth, principle of growing or green things.

He was identified with the moon.

And in the myth by Plutarch, he is said to reign 28 years, which is the cycle of the moon when he is cut up by Set, it is into 14 pieces, which represents the waning, 14 waning phases of the moon.

He was the god of the underworld, the lord of eternity.

He was identified with the vine and wine making.

And in fact, that is why, you see on the slide, he is, identified with the grape- Right under, right there on the slate those are clusters of grape hanging over his head.

<Right> He is identified with the grape and the wine is the blood of the grape is therefore the blood of Osiris.

So, again, this idea of the wine being the blood of the savior comes first from the prototype of Osiris.

He is the one deity in Egypt who, throughout the 4,500 years of Egyptian dynastic history, maintains his central place in the Egyptian religion.

Because he is the man who died and resurrected and became God.

And yes, he is the prototype of Christ.

Listervelt> Let's go to the next... Isis.

Dr.

Finch> Isis is... many things.

She is the consort of Osiris, his sister and his consort.

In the early phase, she is his mother.

She is identified also, she is the feminine aspect of the growing things of grain.

In fact, she is the one who presides over the making of beer, again.

She is also a moon goddess identified with Hathor.

And the cow goddesses like Hathor and Isis were identified with the moon, because, well one thing, the horns of the cow, represent the crescent, crescent of the moon.

So she was sort of the feminine half of the moon.

She was also identified with the star goddess, a star, Sirius.

Which was the brightest star in the heavens.

And so therefore she was a queen of heaven.

Listervelt> Let me stop you right there.

While we have that slide.

Because, people will look at this, drawing and say, "well, you know African, what's African about this?"

Could you deal with this, with this drawing, please?

Before you go any further.

Dr.

Finch> There's a couple of things.

Remember this, that's what this is.

This is a drawing, a recreation by an artist for Budge's book.

This is where I got this from, Budge's book.

So again they are going, they drew it in such a way as you say to... to take away to de-emphasize the African features of Isis.

And the second thing is now, frequently what you find in the, in Egyptian iconography that is, pictorial representations of the gods or even people for that matter, is that they drew in a very conventional way.

In other words, there was a conventional artistic form which frequently could... but just as frequently did not necessarily represent, ethnic details.

It isn't just Egyptians who did that.

I mean, the Ethiopians did it.

Other people in Africa did it.

But it is still, if you look at the authentic Egyptian painting, to wall paintings and sculptures and figurines, etc., generally the ethnic sense of it does come out, in spite of the fact that much of the drawing and much of the art and much of the, portraiture is, if you will, conventionalized.

And this just represented a canon of Egyptian art.

But then to add on to that, as you say, those who reproduce these things, even went further to kind of, as you say, blur the ethnic details even to the point of not coloring them, of not, of kind of not, putting the actual coloration in.

So, yes, that's the one thing that you have to do.

You have to be able to look at the things that you that come to you in books and pictures about Ancient Egypt.

You have to, particularly if they're representations, you have to understand that.

And... yeah, this is where people get get very hung up on- Listervelt> Okay, Isis back to Isis.

Dr.

Finch> Okay, Isis.

Well, we've already said that she's a star goddess.

Queen of heaven.

She's identified with the moon.

She's identified with the female aspect of growing things.

She is also the one who searches for Osiris' body in death.

Collects all 14 dismembered pieces, fits them back together, and revives him.

And she is, the virgin mother of Horus, too.

Listervelt> But... mention the fact that, that she was not able to find all of them.

Dr.

Finch> Okay, she, she didn't, she, she was not able to find all of the- The missing piece of Osiris was his phallus.

And in fact, what she did is recreate a phallus and impregnated herself after reviving the dead body of Osiris.

And the product of that impregnation, of course, was Horus, who really is just a form of Osiris.

Horus and Osiris, if you will, are aspects of the same deity.

Horus, if you will, is just a newborn or reborn form of Osiris.

Listervelt> Okay, okay.

Set.

Dr.

Finch> Set, Set is a very- I find him to be one of the most interesting and enigmatic of the Egyptian deities.

Listervelt> I think we have that slide.

I think we do.

Dr.

Finch> Yes we do.

Listervelt> Okay.

Go ahead.

Dr.

Finch> And that is... he is the oldest of the Egyptian deities, number one.

He starts out as a benevolent deity who, again, is... an earth god, a star god.

And... but turns into a figure of evil or becomes the great adversary, or becomes the great archenemy.

And he is the one who actually kills his brother, Osiris.

And he is the one who threatens Horus the heir of Osiris.

Interestingly enough, and we can't go into this.

Is that, one of the things that you know about Set is that he was, once upon a time, the male personification of Isis.

How do we know that?

Well, Isis' name is Aset, A-S-T.

Set's name is Set, S-T.

So, Aset and Set were really aspects of one another, male and female aspects of one another at a very early stage, probably in a Pre-Egyptian stage of the mythology.

His place was later... usurped, excuse me, by Osiris.

So that there's actually strangely enough, a very close connection between Set and Isis.

And this is seen, by the way, in the star Sirius, who is identified with Set and Isis, both.

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