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Graham Hancock – FINGERPRINTS OF THE GODS
believed in an all-powerful system of nine deities. 6
The Popol Vuh, the sacred book of the ancient Quiche Maya of Mexico
and Guatemala, contains several passages which clearly indicate a belief
in ‘stellar rebirth’—the reincarnation of the dead as stars. After they had
been killed, for example, the Hero Twins named Hunahpu and Xbalanque
‘rose up in the midst of the light, and instantly they were lifted into the
sky ... Then the arch of heaven and the face of the earth were lighted.
And they dwelt in heaven.’ 7 At the same time ascended the Twins’ 400
companions who had also been killed, ‘and so they again became the
companions of Hunahpu and Xbalanque and were changed into stars in
the sky.’ 8
The majority of the traditions of the God-King Quetzalcoatl, as we have
seen, focus on his deeds and teachings as a civilizer. His followers in
ancient Mexico, however, also believed that his human manifestation had
experienced death and that afterwards he was reborn as a star. 9
It is therefore curious, at the very least, to discover that in Egypt, in the
Pyramid Age, more than 4000 years ago, the state religion revolved
around the belief that the deceased pharaoh was reborn as a star. 10 Ritual
incantantations were chanted, the purpose of which was to facilitate the
dead monarch’s rapid rebirth in the heavens: ‘Oh king, you are this Great
Star, the Companion of Orion, who traverses the sky with Orion ... you
ascend from the east of the sky, being renewed in your due season, and
rejuvenated in your due time ...’ 11 We have encountered the Orion
constellation before, on the plains of Nazca, and we shall encounter it
again ...
Meanwhile, let us consider the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead. Parts
of its contents are as old as the civilization of Egypt itself and it serves as
a sort of Baedeker for the transmigration of the soul. It instructs the
deceased on how to overcome the dangers of the afterlife, enables him to
assume the form of several mythical creatures, and equips him with the
passwords necessary for admission to the various stages, or levels, of the
underworld. 12
Is it a coincidence that the peoples of Ancient Central America
preserved a parallel vision of the perils of the afterlife? There it was
6
The Mythology of Mexico and Central America, p. 148.
7
Popol Vuh: The Sacred Book of the Ancient Quiche Maya, (English version by Delia
Goetz and Sylvanus G. Morley from the translation by Adrian Recinos), University of
Oklahoma Press, 1991, p. 163.
8
Ibid., 164.
9
Ibid., p. 181; The Mythology of Mexico and Central America, p. 147.
10
The Ancient Egyptian Pyramid Texts, (trans. R. O. Faulkner), Oxford University Press,
1969. Numerous Utterances refer directly to the stellar rebirth of the King, e.g. 248,
264, 265, 268, and 570 (‘I am a star which illumines the sky’), etc.
11
Ibid., Utt. 466, p. 155.
12
The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead, (trans. R. O. Faulkner), British Museum
Publications, 1989.
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