Now we know where all the crystal-gazers from Sedona went to!! ;-)


>Date:         Sun, 23 Nov 1997 18:23:48 +0400
>Sender: Archaeology List <[log in to unmask]>
>From: sidahmed <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject:      Egypt plagued by new age 'pyramidiots' --FORWARD----
>To: [log in to unmask]
>
>--------------------------FWD-----------------------------------
>June 22 1997 SUNDAY TIMES
>AFRICA
>
>Egypt plagued by new age 'pyramidiots'
>by Steve Negus
>Cairo
>AS dawn breaks over the pyramids, chanting new age worshippers dance
>naked in the empty desert watched by a few incurious camel drivers. But
>other Egyptians are beginning to suspect that a sinister agenda lies
>behind the increasing numbers of outlandish foreigners who claim to be
>in search of the pharaohs' ancient wisdom.
>Egypt, still recovering from the fundamentalist-inspired security scares
>that drove many tour groups away, generally welcomes all the tourism it
>can get. But in this predominantly Muslim country, the antics of
>crystal-clutching new agers are often mistaken for pagan rituals. Worse
>still for many, the new agers are ruffling national pride by insisting
>that aliens ­ rather than the pharaohs ­ built the Pyramids of Giza.
>Mystics have been flocking to Egypt since time immemorial, lured by the
>power of the huge tombs, but only in recent years has their spirituality
>become big business. Last year 5,000 people each paid $600 (£360) for a
>"rent-a-pyramid" experience. Power Places Tours of California, for
>instance, offers "a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to step inside the
>king's chamber, lie down in the sarcophagus and connect to the spiritual
>experiences once available only to Egypt's highest initiates".
>In addition to such legitimate tours, local guides offer illicit
>mysticism for half the price. "I can get you on top of the Great Pyramid
>to meditate," said Mahmoud Fouad, a stable-owner. Fouad offers secret
>trips to the smaller and more isolated Abusir sun pyramids "to sleep
>inside at night and in the morning to go naked into the desert".
>To orthodox Muslims who frown on esoteric religions, however, this
>freedom looks like blasphemy. "I see them pray to the pyramids and the
>Sphinx. They should forbid it. It's not right," said an antiquities
>policeman, watching a Russian tour group pass by on camels.
>Madame Ezza, a tour operator at a nearby hotel, recalled mistaking a
>white-clad group as pilgrims on their way to Mecca. "But no, it turns
>out they're going to the pyramid," she said. "They were going to walk
>around it, like it was the Kaaba [the central shrine of Mecca, towards
>which Muslims pray], hold hands and sing songs. I don't think they have
>any real religion or faith.  Actually, I don't think they have any
>sense, either."
>For now, the authorities are keeping an open mind about meditation,
>perhaps because the Supreme Council for Antiquities can charge 2,000
>Egyptian pounds, about £400, for a night inside the Great Pyramid.
>"I welcome them all, the twelve twelvers, the eleven eleveners, the
>Rosicrucians, the Red Shriners," Zahi Hawass, director of the Giza
>plateau, said recently. But their ideas offend him: "They are stealing
>our history. I call them the pyramidiots."
>Hawass is particularly incensed by the writings of Robert Bauval, a
>Belgian architect, Graham Hancock, British author of the bestseller
>Fingerprints of the Gods, and John West, an American tour guide, who all
>argue that the pyramids were built by superior beings from Atlantis,
>extraterrestrials or angels.
>In response to growing concern about the activities of the new agers,
>Egyptian authorities have vowed a public relations counterattack. "This
>is piracy," said Farouq Hosni, the culture minister. "Our history and
>our civilisation must be respected."
>----end---------------
>
>--
>-
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>

Anita Cohen-Williams
Listowner of HISTARCH, SUB-ARCH, and SPANBORD
Co-listowner/manager of ANTHRO-L
Contributing Editor, Anthropology, Suite101 <http://www.suite101.com>
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