# The Grail **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 17, 2008, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922 "2008-09-17T01:04:30Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![maatorc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@maatorc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maatorc)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/201 "2008-09-28T02:42:30Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > … > > > [@](#): > > > > Quote: > > The pre-existing knowledge system is well demonstrated in Horus and the Egyptian Temple. > > No, it isn’t. Egyptian mythology is not my strongest suit. However, Horus was conceived when his mom reassembled Osiris (her brother by the way) and had sex with him. Horus was born and went off to kill his evil uncle Set. Contrast that with JC conceived of a virgin and Prince Of Peace. I am not seeing the parallels.Show me Horus healing the sick, feeding the five thousand etc. In performing his miracles with a word, in being the word incarnated or made truth in person, in wielding a magical power over the elements, in casting out devils, in causing the spirits of evil to enter the swine, in healing the woman with the issue of blood, in giving sight to the blind, in transforming and transfiguring himself, in suddenly concealing himself, in walking upon the sea, in his personal conflict and battles with Satan, in raising the dead to life out of the earth, in resuscitating himself on the third day; _in all these and other things_ JESUS in the New Testament is ACCREDITED with DOING EXACTLY what was ATTRIBUTED to HORUS in the Ritual and in the Egyptian mysteries? ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/202 "2008-09-28T02:44:56Z")
[Horus](http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/horus.html) in the very handy and cool Encyclopedia Mythica. Again, I’m not seeing the parallels to Jesus On preview, what are your sources for Horus doing any of those things? ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/203 "2008-09-28T03:27:00Z")
> [@SiXSwordS](#): > > I’m not trying to play the junior mod here, but it is so simple to link to a specific post that this seems a little roundabout. When you’re already making a reply, the post numbers aren’t visible anymore. > [@](#): > > Not to mention that, one my end, there is NO post at 8:26 P.M. The board must adjust for timezones; it should be clearer about that. > [@](#): > > In which post did he admit that he was lying about Christainity? His post #152 quite explicitly characterizes Christianity as being opposed to his rubbish (which, to give him his due, is correct), and that means, logically, that he was lying when he said that Christianity was based on it (unless, indeed, he is one of that breed of whom C. S. Lewis said that to call them liars was to pay them an undeserved compliment). ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/204 "2008-09-28T04:13:58Z")
I’m being completely ignored. My feelings are hurt. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![maatorc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@maatorc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maatorc)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/205 "2008-09-28T04:44:21Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > [Horus](http://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/horus.html) in the very handy and cool Encyclopedia Mythica. Again, I’m not seeing the parallels to Jesus > On preview, what are your sources for Horus doing any of those things? It is discussed in “Ancient Egypt” by Gerald Massey. ---
**Author:** ![maatorc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@maatorc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maatorc)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/206 "2008-09-28T04:47:20Z")
> [@LurkMeister](#): > > Hell, I’d be happy if he’s just tell us what the “pre-existing traditional knowledge system-myth” _is_, . The myth of occult anatomy. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/207 "2008-09-28T04:49:08Z")
And why should I care what Massey had to say? What were his credentials? What do Egyptologists think of his conclusions? ---
**Author:** ![maatorc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@maatorc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maatorc)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/208 "2008-09-28T04:54:48Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > And why should I care what Massey had to say? What were his credentials? What do Egyptologists think of his conclusions? Have a look see. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/209 "2008-09-28T04:57:27Z")
I may look. I may not. Meanwhile, why don’t you actually answer my questions about Massey? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/210 "2008-09-28T04:57:33Z")
> [@maatorc](#): > > Have a look see. Why don’t you summarize your look see for us? ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 5:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/211 "2008-09-28T05:10:58Z")
> [@maatorc](#): > > It is discussed in “Ancient Egypt” by Gerald Massey. Availability in its entirety [here](http://www.theosophical.ca/AncientEgyptIntroduction.htm). From the, um, Canadian Theosophical Society. Did I call it? Can I claim to know more Secret Knowledge than our Adept? Who was Massey? [Foreward to Gerald Massey’s Lectures](http://www.africawithin.com/massey/gml1_foreword.htm) > [@](#): > > Gerald Massey became increasingly interested in Egyptology. He studied the extensive Egyptian records housed in the British Museum. He eventually taught himself to decipher the hieroglyphics. Finally after many years of study he wrote a series of scholarly works on the Religion and Mythology of Ancient Egypt. In 1881 he published in two volumes “A Book of the Beginnings,” in 1883 “The Natural Genesis” followed, and finally in 1907 he published in two volumes “Ancient Egypt: The Light of the World,”. > > Through those long years of devoted study at the British Museum, Massey enjoyed the friendship and wise counsel of Dr. Samuel Birch, an outstanding Egyptologist. He attracted a following of dedicated students, who later were privileged to assist in his research. Two of his most prominent co-workers were George St. Clair who authored “Creation Records Discovered in Egypt,” and Dr. Albert Churchward, who wrote “The Origin and Evolution of the Human Race.” > > When Massey lectured in America and Canada, he found himself surrounded with able students. Miss E. Valentia Straiton, author of “The Celestial Ship of the North,” and Dr. Alvin Boyd Kuhn, who wrote extensively on comparative religion. Dr. Kuhn acknowledged that in Gerald Massey had been a great inspiration to him. In fact in his posthumous work, “A Rebirth for Christianity,” Dr. Kuhn called attention to the great worth of Massey’s research on Christian origins, as follows: > > "With brilliant scholarship and insight he pierced Egypt’s enigmatic scriptology, and documented the provenance of both Old and New Testament literature from remote Egyptian sources. He forced us to ask how the four Gospels of the Christian canon could be the biography of any Messianic personality living in the first Christian century, when he traced their texts back to Egyptian documents that must have been venerable even in 3500 B.C. > > “We are faced with the inescapable realization that if Jesus actually lived in the flesh in the first century A.D., and if he had been able to read the documents of old Egypt, he would have been amazed to find his own biography already substantially written some four or five thousand years previously. Tertullian, Justin Martyr and other writers have noted that the leaders of the Christian movement confessed that many of their doctrines, rites, creeds and symbols were identical with Egyptian antetypes. The late outstanding American Egyptologist, James H. Breasted, found evidence of such similarities between the Old Testament book, Proverbs, and addresses to the Pharaoh of Egypt dating as far back as 3500 B.C. All this confirms Massey’s conclusions.” (pp. 39-40) What do scholars say? [Massey Misses](http://www.geocities.com/astrologyages/geraldmasseywaterman.htm) > [@](#): > > Massey’s Messianic View: At the end of Massey’s life, in 1907, Massey’s Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World was published. In this rather strange work, Massey places the Messiah legend not with the Hebrews but with an Egypt stretching 10 000 years back into the past. [He accepts Herodotus age for Egyptian history at face value - something now disproved by modern scholarship.] He starts with Leo at the Vernal Equinox and then follows the Messiah legend forward through what we would now call the Ages. This is what we would now call the Movement of the Ages but with a Messianic feel which is no longer present in the New Age reading of the Ages. Much of what Massey writes is regurgitated in certain modern books concerning Egypt and Precession, but with little credit given to Massey. Some excerpts of this long work are given below. [As we now know that the Solar Zodiac came to Egypt only after Alexander the Great’s conquest in 332 BC - the Egyptians instead possessed their own astral system of 36 decans - Massey’s work has, unfortunately, to be considered to be a long exercise in seeing patterns where none actually existed.] Before you scoff, consider that Wiki says “Massey was elected Chosen Chief of the Most Ancient Order of Druids from 1880 through 1906.” What do we know about the [Most Ancient Order of Druids](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Druid_Order)? That > [@](#): > > Students are encouraged not to believe anything they cannot verify for themselves By golly, I appear to be a Druid manqué. ---
**Author:** ![maatorc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@maatorc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maatorc)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 5:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/212 "2008-09-28T05:28:28Z")
[quote=“Exapno\_Mapcase, post:211, topic:463922”] Availability in its entirety [here](http://www.theosophical.ca/AncientEgyptIntroduction.htm)./QUOTE] I know, but like to let others select their own from so many choices. ---
**Author:** ![Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/59ef9b/32.png) [@Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Don_t_fight_the_hypothetical)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/213 "2008-09-28T12:10:22Z")
**maatorc** , I hope you can help me here. I think you want to believe the things you say. But all of these pesky “facts” get in the way. So let’s take baby steps here: When your back is against the wall for you assertions, you default to: > [@maatorc](#): > > [Bear in mind I am talking about the existence of the myth and not its truth or falsity.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10239080&postcount=107) (for example - though you’ve done it several times) But when it suites your purpose you state flatly: > [@maatorc](#): > > 2…No, the myth is a knowledge system which is the true foundation of and tradition behind all the worlds legend-based religions. [(from here - and you have done this several times)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10248249&postcount=176) So, do you believe the myth is true or not. Be definitive - no links - answer in your own words. ---
**Author:** ![LurkMeister](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/3da27b/32.png) [@LurkMeister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LurkMeister)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/214 "2008-09-28T12:33:40Z")
And once again he answers a direct question by doing nothing by telling us to check out a book, and when asked to summarize the “facts” from that book, or give us some idea of the author’s credentials, his responses are: > [@maatorc](#): > > Have a look see. > > I know, but like to let others select their own from so many choices. And of course, once again, his response to > [@LurkMeister](#): > > Hell, I’d be happy if he’s just tell us what the “pre-existing traditional knowledge system-myth” is, . is to just say it’s “the myth of occult anatomy” without any further explanation of **what the myth of occult anatomy is** or how it forms the basis for the “legend” of the New Testament. I’m beginning to think I could have a more intelligent discussion with one of my cats. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/215 "2008-09-28T17:21:28Z")
> [@LurkMeister](#): > > I’m beginning to think I could have a more intelligent discussion with one of my cats. [Don Marquis:](http://www.donmarquis.com/readingroom/archybooks/cleopatra.html) > [@](#): > > mehitabel the cat and i want to > read it i have discovered that > mehitabel s soul formerly inhabited a > human also at least that > is what mehitabel is claiming these > days it may be she got jealous of > my prestige anyhow she and > i have been talking it over in a > friendly way who were you > mehitabel i asked her i was > cleopatra once she said ---
**Author:** ![maatorc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@maatorc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maatorc)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/216 "2008-09-28T22:41:17Z")
> [@Don\_t\_fight\_the\_hypothetical](#): > > **maatorc** , I hope you can help me here. I think you want to believe the things you say. But all of these pesky “facts” get in the way. So let’s take baby steps here: > When your back is against the wall for you assertions, you default to: > (for example - though you’ve done it several times) > But when it suites your purpose you state flatly: > [(from here - and you have done this several times)](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=10248249&postcount=176) > So, do you believe the myth is true or not. Be definitive - no links - answer in your own words. My whole point is the truth of the _existence_ of the myth. The truth or falsity of its doctrines and practices is another question. The Egyptian Temple, Hermeticism, Kabala, Alchemy, Christian Mysticism, Martinism, and Rosicrucianism all represent the myth in action. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 10:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/217 "2008-09-28T22:51:49Z")
> [@maatorc](#): > > The Egyptian Temple, Hermeticism, Kabala, Alchemy, Christian Mysticism, Martinism, and Rosicrucianism all represent the myth in action. Since you’ve been unable to give us a summary of the myth, and you’ve presented no evidence that any of those religions actually represent anything, it’s impossible to evaluate your claim. ---
**Author:** ![maatorc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@maatorc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/maatorc)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2008, 11:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/218 "2008-09-28T23:00:29Z")
> [@Telemark](#): > > Since you’ve been unable to give us a summary of the myth, and you’ve presented no evidence that any of those religions actually represent anything, it’s impossible to evaluate your claim. These are not religions. The Myth is occult anatomy. ---
**Author:** ![Muffin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/muffin/32/4341_2.png) [@Muffin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muffin)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/219 "2008-09-29T01:12:09Z")
How very droll. ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2008, 1:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922/220 "2008-09-29T01:46:27Z")
> [@maatorc](#): > > These are not religions. > The Myth is occult anatomy. Making sense. UR doin it wrong. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-grail/463922.md?page=12)