#22 NEFERTITI AND MONOTHEISM

“I’ve heard of a body of ascended Masters called The Brotherhood of Light and sometimes the White Brotherhood. Is there any connection?”

“As above, so below...

In the heavens it’s the Brotherhood of Light, on Earth it’s the White Brotherhood or the White Order founded by the being who was the same energy who would return as John the Baptist. Nefertiti was initiated into both.”

“Did her husband’s court know that Nefertiti originated the idea to move to one god?”

“Certain members of the court knew it. The court generally was puzzled by the move to one god because Akhenaton up to that point hadn’t displayed any powers of imagination to enable him to think of this for himself.”

“Why did they do it? Why embark on religious reform to introduce monotheism?”

“They did it to break the boundaries to make Egypt flower; it was stultified like Imperial Japan, in a love affair with tradition and hide-bound with rules quite literally set in stone. Even more crippling, this rigidity prevented the expansion of ideas and the flourishing of its talent. Nefertiti and Akhenaton were kicking out the windows and letting the air rush in.”

“Did she have any real power or was her power just ceremonial?”

“She had real power and her power, influence and beauty made her dangerous.”

“But don’t we get any whispers of her as a religious innovator or a powerful queen through history?”

“I’ll answer that in two ways. The victors are those who will decide what you need to know. Nefertiti was clever enough in her handling of Akhenaton to convince him that it was his idea anyway. On the other hand, the whispers are there in the bas-reliefs you have mentioned that show her participating with her husband in ceremonies. Sexist assumptions of the archaeologists have blinded them to interpreting them correctly.”

“And her spiritual challenge?”

“Nefertiti’s spiritual challenge was dealing patiently with people of lesser intellect than herself, particularly men who thought they owned all intellectual discourse. She was sweet and kind and used implacable logic. Then she committed the unforgivable sin of showing how intelligent she was and from that moment her life became in danger.”

“It seems that monotheism was her life purpose. In your view, did she achieve it?”

“She wanted to make monotheism possible and broaden the scope of women as powerful figures. In the latter she had success. She was, however, unaffected by the power she wielded.”

“What happened to her? Did she die at thirty, or was she banished?”

“Nefertiti came from an influential, royal family. Around the fourteenth year of her husband’s reign in 1336BC, she was poisoned by maidservants in the pay of the chief priestess who was her cousin. She believed Nefertiti was too influential, too smart and too supportive of her husband Akhenaton’s religious obsession. Nefertiti was a political embarrassment because she was supposed to have supported the God Amun not Aten.

Nefertiti, however, was genuinely adored by her husband and when he lost his beloved wife he also lost the support of her family who then felt free to turn against him. After she died her body was taken to the embalmers and some of her funereal objects were crafted before her body was stolen. The body was taken away, rolled in carpets and put on a caravan and the conspirators buried the body in the desert of Sinai, disposed of it well off the beaten track. Akhenaton was beside himself with grief, he couldn’t understand why there was no body and why it disappeared. There was growing opposition from her family, priests and the army when he was forced to take as a co-regent, Nefertiti’s uncle.”

“A short time before her death, her mother-in-law and her three daughters all died around the same time. Was there was a plague of some kind?”

“There was foul play; they too were poisoned. It was administered by the High Priestess of Bast under the evil genius of the Chief of Army. He intended to marry the surviving daughter and claim the throne of Egypt for himself!”

“Surely the death of half the royal household should have alerted the Pharaoh and court to protect Nefertiti?”

“This is a good question. In my opinion, looking at their lives Akhenaton was so egotistical he didn’t think anyone would have the nerve to harm his queen. He had called in his bodyguards, asked them to increase security. Akhenaton came from the school of thought where if he snapped his fingers, he thought it was already done. He was not very bright and had a decidedly obsessive nature.”

“Did Nefertiti share her husband with two other royal wives and eventually her own daughter?”

“Yes, and you must view this practice of incestuous relationships and multiple wives in the context of her time. It was not uncommon and it increased the deterioration of their lineage as it did in the house of Herod. Look at Akhenaton. His body is elongated and twisted with spina bifida from the in-breeding of his ancestors. In the context of their line, incest was an acceptable practice. You look at slavery as appalling and repugnant, as it is, but from Nefertiti’s time until quite recently it was accepted and not repugnant. Noah and Methuselah had sexual union with their daughters because it was not uncommon in the animals they observed and they therefore thought it was natural.”

“Why did Nefertiti incarnate?”

“She incarnated to experience as a woman the first really powerful governmental figure in Egypt. It was necessary for all the aspects of Mary to learn through her how to wield power without intoxication and that occurred in the most unusual and exceptional way. All three lines or aspects of Mary incarnated in one being: Mary the Mother, Mary the Magdalene and Mary, the High Priestess.”

“Your answer will mean this question will be redundant but I will ask it anyway. What of Mary’s attributes did she bring to the incarnation?”

“She brought everything. Her ravishing beauty, her independence, intelligence, no, her intellect, her strong will, kindness, patience and a strong decision-making ethic. She showed Mary’s gift for governance and her passionate feminism.”

“It’s difficult to understand people who lived so long ago. Can you give me any future lives of Akhenaton and Nefertiti so I can understand them better?”

“If you look at Akhenaton’s most recent life it is as the musician and Beatle, John Lennon, a far more intelligent life and an aspect of El Moyra. There you’ll see him again kicking out the windows to let the air in and Akhenaton was as musical as Lennon. Nefertiti’s most prominent next life was as the tough Jewish warrior, Deborah, one of the Judges and leaders of Israel. As Deborah she would learn that life treats plain women very badly, as second-class citizens, and she would rise above that. When you look at Deborah’s life you will understand Nefertiti better. In the meantime, she had a challenging life as Dinah, Jacob’s and Leah’s workhorse daughter who was raped.”

“Nefertiti appears to be an important life in the lives of Mary.”

“You will come to expect to see her doing difficult jobs especially working to birth new spiritual movements. Some aspect of Mary will be present at the birth of Judaism, Christianity and at its Protestant reform. This is what she does and does well. But she is also regal and instinctively understands governance. So we’ll turn now to Queen Nefertari of Egypt.”