mirrored file at http://SaturnianCosmology.Org/ For complete access to all the files of this collection see http://SaturnianCosmology.org/search.php ========================================================== CHAPTER SIX THE CHARISMA OF MOSES "To deny a people the man whom it praises as the greatest of its sons is not a deed to be undertaken lightheartedly - especially by one belonging to that people." So goes the first sentence of Sigmund Freud's book on Moses and Monotheism, that views Moses as an Egyptian disciple of Pharaoh Akhnaton, and he continues: "No consideration, however, will move me to set aside truth in favour of supposed national interests."[1] If Freud had published his first line in 1980 rather than in 1937, he might perhaps have taken advantage of the reconciliation achieved by the leaders of Egypt and Israel to advertise his works as an historical gift to the reconciliation. For the first time in 3400 years, some people were speaking well of the Egyptians. (It matters little in the rhetoric of religion or ethnicism that neither the Egyptians nor the Israeli of today are much like their namesakes of Exodus.) THE LOVE CHILD What strikes me about Freud's determination that Moses was an Egyptian was that he should not ask whether Moses might have been both Egyptian and Hebrew. This I attribute to Freud's own problem of identification. On the one hand, Freud believed himself consciously to be a latter-day Moses, a point that will be explained in Chapter VI here below. On the other hand, Freud disbelieved strongly in ethnicism and wished time and time again that psychoanalysis become universal, rather than an isolated Jewish school of thought, to the point where he conceived of himself unconsciously as an assimilated gentile, a Christ-figure, whose teachings would become universalized. Freud's first act, when he arrived in Rome on a long-delayed trip, was to go view the heroic statue of Moses done by Michelangelo. It was, I say, psychologically easier for Freud to claim that Moses was all-Egyptian than to think sociologically and psychologically of the obvious possibility that Moses was half- Egyptian and half-Jewish. "How much" easier can be measured by the frail, yet psychologically significant, rationalization that Freud gave of the two sides of Moses - the universal Egyptian and the tribal Yahwist - that there were two Moses, separated by a century or so, and brought together later to rationalize Hebrew history. Who is rationalizing what? Freud was irrationally led to postulate two Moses, rather than descry a half-gentile, half- Hebrew Moses. In doing so, he was perhaps unconsciously admitting the two elements of Moses, asserting, also surprisingly covertly, that Moses was schizophrenic, and revealing that he, Freud, was ambivalent about the relations of gentiles and Jews. Needless to say, Freud brought down upon his head the wrath of all mosaists. With such controversy over Moses' origins, perhaps the fairest resolution would be to divide Moses in half Hebrew, half Egyptian. Let both mothers claim him, à la Solomon's judgement. Philo Judaeus says that when the princess saw the beautiful weaned child of three months, "she adopted him as her son, having first put in practice all sorts of contrivances to increase the apparent bulk of her belly, so that he might be looked upon as her own genuine child, and not as a suppositious one."[2] One might believe this - and take the ethnic position - or half believe it, seeing in it a denial that confesses: that is, the princess was pregnant with Moses. Then several problems are solved, quite apart from ending the argument. Moses would be the son of a Hebrew official and an Egyptian princess (or, as the Moslems claim, the wife of the Pharaoh). Probably only such a love-child would have received the adoption and attention that Moses got. Hebrew women would understandably be his wet-nurse (his "mother") and baby-sitter (Miriam, daughter of the wet-nurse); Aaron, older brother of Miriam, would be a devoted admirer of the young gentleman from childhood. Thus we solve the relationship with Aaron and Miriam - no brother and sister, but possibly half-brother and half-sister through their father, or cousins by an uncle, with his step-mother or aunt his wet-nurse. The Jewish legends, unlike the Bible, make a number of references to the Egyptianizing of the Hebrews, their abandonment of their old religion, their working against their own people and for the Egyptians, and, of course, the non-tribal "mixed-multitude" that joined in Moses' expedition into another world. In a curious legend, Yahweh blames Moses for the Revolt of the Golden Calf [3], saying that it was Moses who wanted to bring along the mixed multitude that wanted to join them... It is now these people, 'thy people', that have seduced Israel to idolatry. And Moses replies that, yes, "that it was chiefly my people, the mixed multitude, that was to blame for this sin..." Exogamous marriage and concubinage, as well as incest, were common among Egyptian royalty. If recent American statistics are any indication, among the upper-middle classes the Hebrews might have achieved a rate of miscegenation of 15% or more. In more than one legend, the loss of Hebrew race through intermarriage is denounced, it might even be that "Levites" was a generic term for mixed Hebrew-Egyptians (see our index to the book), a thesis defensible both in theory and on the evidence. Jacob-Israel, in his last words, blesses the descendents of Simeon and Levi (perhaps similar in composition)[4] by calling them ruthless, violent people, saying: "I will divide them in Jacob and scatter them in Israel."[5] This puzzling passage might mean: they will live individually spread among the Egyptians in Egypt, and (as occurred) they will be disposed in gangs among all the tribes as an arm of the central Israelite nation. Moses would perforce acquire his combination of arrogant and schizoid traits, his large erudition, his familiarity with the ways of the Egyptian court, his immense ambition and quarrelsomeness, his ready promotion in the Egyptian hierarchy and introduction into both cosmopolitan and esoteric scientific circles. He would be cut off from the line of inheritance to the throne, which would rankle him and bring him enemies too, even those who feared that he would in any event become a threat. He would have an access to the Pharaohs that would otherwise be incredible. But, beneath the veneer of his life and character, he would actively identify with the Hebrews. He would know them and understand them in a special detached way, particularly the assimilated leading Hebraic-Egyptian types among them. If and when the time came to switch roles, the ground would be prepared. His birth would be nicely managed by a myth typical of the birth of heroes. His infant attendants, or relatives, would become his "true" family - mother, Aaron, Miriam. His Egyptianized friends and supporters would become the Levites. His tongue-tied speech would have an additional psychosomatic source in his fear of his loss of identity (nor would I discard completely Freud's suggestion that be might not have spoken Hebrew perfectly, at least not idiomatically). The land of Midian where he was exiled and married was an ally of Egypt; it is mentioned that when the Exodus army came upon them, the Midianites had to make apologies for their faith in Egypt. Much later on, the Midianites fell victim to an Israelite attack. One can only wonder, in the end, why Moses has not been considered the offspring of a Hebrew and Egyptian love-affair. Certainly because the word of the Bible is sacred to many people. Also, the legend of a chosen people demands a full- blooded leader for their birth as a nation (despite history's frequent waiving of this rule). Moreover, the Judaic rule that descent as a Jew occurs through the mother, regardless of the father, contributes to ignoring the possibility. Judaic traditionalists are prone to frown upon miscegenation. (Apropos of this feeling, Senator Barry Goldwater once quipped at the peak of Egyptian-Israeli hostilities that he would be shot at from both sides of the Nile.) But Joseph married an Egyptian beauty, Asenath, daughter of the priest of On, by whom he had Ephraim and Manasseh, who were blessed by Jacob (Israel) and destined to be founders of tribes. And David's grandmother was Ruth, the Moabite... According to the Bible, Moses was born of humble but good Hebrew parents at a moment when the king, advised by a prophecy that a newly born child would live to kill him, had issued a blanket order to kill all Hebrew babies. Indefinitely, says the Bible; for nine months only, says the legend [6], and all babies of Egypt. When the edict was publicized, legend reports, Moses' Hebrew father divorced his Hebrew mother to avoid having a child [7]. This, too, gives pause. Is there some implication of illegitimacy here? Perhaps. Put in a rough basket and set afloat amidst the marshy sidewaters of the Nile, says the Bible, the infant Moses was found there by none other than a princess, daughter of the very same king. He was raised in secret by her, even was nursed by his real mother, hired unknowingly by the princess for the purpose. He grew up a prince, but somehow realized that he was a Hebrew. Not much can be made of this story at first, which Otto Rank, Joseph Campbell, and other scholars would agree is a typical birth of a hero in myth and legend. We gather from it that Moses was probably born in Egypt during an anti- semitic period, that he was related to Hebrews, and that he was related to a highly placed Egyptian woman who raised him in a princely fashion. Everything else seems questionable and in need of analysis and reassembly according to a new theory. It is possible, too, that a general heavy pressure of population was occurring, and infanticide would be a policy, not unknown in many lands, to reduce the numbers of people, with expectable suspicions or actual overtones of genocide among minorities. The Pharaoh mentions overpopulation as a reason for his edict. Whether it was decided to let the minorities pay the price, we cannot say; the Jewish legend says that it was a temporary moratorium on births for all people. Even birth control policies in America have been declared forms of infanticide and genocide by religious and racial minority leaders and writers. Egypt was a heavily regulated, bureaucratic state. There is something to be made of Moses' name. It is clearly Egyptian, meaning "child" or "son" [8] and lacks the surname or prefix as, for example, in the pharaoh's name, Thoth-Moses, or "Child of the God, Thoth" (Mercury, Hermes). A variant theory says Moses means the "born one" in Egyptian, which is only a clumsy version of "child." Buber says: "That Moses bears an Egyptian name, no matter whether it means 'born, child (of somebody)' or something like 'seed of the pond, of the water,' is part of the historical character of the situation; he seems to derive from a largely Egyptianized section of the people."[9] Some say the Hebrew etymology is "he who is drawn from" the Nile River, which is the popular Sunday School meaning, but Buber reverses this to mean "he who draws forth" the Hebrew people. Otto Rank, citing Winckler, gives Moses as "the Water- Drawer." Psychoanalytic theory permits a reversal of meaning, so it becomes "he who is drawn from the water." Whatever route is taken one comes back to the profound simple meaning of "the water-born one." All children are born in the water of the womb. And legendary heroes are sometimes placed amidst water imagery at birth, as King Sargon of Assyria, who, like Moses, was a real person. The box or ark (tebah) of the infant Moses represents the womb of the mother. Eduard Meyer, upon whom both Freud and Rank draw, says that "Presumably Moses was originally the son of the tyrant's daughter (who is now his foster mother) and probably of divine origin."[10] A DISLIKING FOR HEBREWS Moses would have known Goshen by passing through it on the way here or there but would have little familiarity with the Hebrew people. Legend has him meeting his first connections when grown up; then it was that he observed the complaints and hardship of the Hebrews; he used his court connections to help lighten their burdens, says the legend [11]. It is likely that his relatives there would bring him problems from time to time. When he returned from exile to lead the Hebrews, he was a delegate of Yahweh, not a Hebrew who had met with Yahweh for new instructions. Yahweh, not Moses, chose the Hebrews. Moses was launched upon a splendid career. The best teachers were brought in to educate him [12]. He is said to have exercised military command, to have traveled outside Egypt, and to have been well-versed in the science of the times, It is said, too, in a legend, that he had originally an evil disposition, that he was "covetous, haughty, sensual"[13] (reminding me of Mahatma Gandhi as a young man before his great alteration of character) [14]. He cured himself of his vices by a strong will to change. He seems to have submerged his original traits in a kind of inhibition and reserve. He is not "a man of the people," a kindly father-figure, and seems to reject, for himself, the paternal role in regard to the "Children of Israel", giving this all over to Yahweh, Any love that he might have for the people of Israel, and indeed for everyone, including Aaron but with the possible exception of his devoted aide-de-camp Joshua [15], is suppressed; he scarcely permits himself to use Yahweh to express love for the people. In the Pentateuch, forms of the word "love" occur only 41 times, disproportionately in Genesis with 15. (see Table II) Yahweh's "love" for the people is mentioned seven times, Moses' love for the people not at all. The duty to love Yahweh receives 13 mentions, love among individuals 13, social love 5, and the love of pleasure and things 3 16]. For every word of affection there are a dozen words of reproach, censure, adverse criticism, and dogmatic command. One would be naive to search in the Torah for any but the most feeble sources of the often-experienced warmth and graciousness of the Jews. Two notable exceptions - the happiness over the Golden Calf and the union with the people of Beth-Peor - end in horrifying slaughters. Almost never does Moses indicate that the Israelites are his people, and usually, in speaking to Yahweh, he refers to "your people." When Moses heard all the families weeping about the lack of meat, and saw Yahweh getting angry, he exclaimed to him: "Why have you caused evil to your servant... in placing the load of all this people upon me? Have I myself conceived all this people? Is it I who have given them birth...?" In fact, Moses urges Yahweh out of motives of self-esteem not to exterminate Israel: what would other people think if, after all his public boasting and Moses' advertising, Yahweh were to destroy his chosen people? This would be Moses himself speaking; Moses would look the fool (to his imaginary and now mostly deceased Egyptian reference group) if this great adventure were to fail and the people killed or scattered. The projected conscience is often more juvenile than its possessor; so we need not think it odd that Moses, through Yahweh, should be so unsophisticated. At best, then, Moses and Yahweh are ambivalent about the Jews, both hating and loving them. A peculiar, stunted affection for them exists, growing feebly amidst the abuse. It takes sometime the form of a feeling of responsibility for them, having brought them out of Egypt. They were characteristically suspicious of the people's loyalty and affections. Time after time they allege that these are only pretenses, shams. And they allow no excuses, insisting that the people willed their own defects and aberrations. This refusal to accept and receive affection is the paranoiac expression of ambivalence. Part of this suspicion was warranted. A considerable proportion of the people did hate Moses and Yahweh. Moses knew this and said so. Yahweh directly accuses them of knowingly defying him and breaking their promises. Of course the people had good reason to hate Yahweh since the god was the cause of their worst disasters as well as their savior. Moses would be strongly interested in their hating other gods, that is, in displacing the people's hostilities upon Baal and other heavenly gods, and in trying to suppress the destructive side of the great comet. Baal later became the devil figure, Lucifer, who was the "Light-bearer" in Latin (or "Phosphorus" and the word for the planet Venus in Greek). The process of displacement did not work perfectly. Unconsciously many people hated Yahweh as well as or instead of Baal and certainly hated Moses, while Moses and Yahweh did not even try to divide and transform their ambivalence toward the people. The love that is behind Jesus' feeling of atonement for the sins of humanity is not present in Moses and therefore the doctrine itself is largely absent. But Daiches goes too far when he writes that "the concept of vicarious atonement was quite foreign to Mosaic thought."[17] He adds, rightly, that Moses was a "mediator and intercessor" and that sins were forgiven even of all Israel for the sake of their great ancestors. (This latter atonement in reverse being also a way of getting them to focus favorably upon a line of national history.) However, Moses based the authority of the Levites upon vicarious atonement. By taking on onerous sacred tasks, they relieved all Jews of the duty to sacrifice their first-born children and beasts to Yahweh [18]. Further there was the custom of the scapegoat. Annually the goat conveyed the load of Jewish sins away into the desert to the demon Azazel [19]. Following upon the worship of the Golden Calf, Moses himself is on the brink of atoning for Israel's crime, but lets Yahweh pull him back into his typical egotism. For he declares to the people: "you have sinned a great sin. And now I will go up to the Lord; perhaps I can make atonement for your sin."[20] Then to Yahweh he says: "If thou wilt, forgive their sin - and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book..." Yahweh refuses and lets Israel live as a personal favor to Moses [21]. THE MEEK KILLER Machiavelli commented once: "Whoever reads the Bible sensibly will see that Moses, in order to push through his laws and orders, was compelled to kill an infinity of men who were guilty of nothing but opposing his designs."[22] Time after time, Moses imposes rules and hardship upon others in the name of Yahweh. His famous meekness, which the Bible stresses and his biographers claim to find is in psychological terms the "meekness" of an inhibited rage type, who cannot trust his deep passions to public display. He insists, in effect, that he cannot help himself, that he is executing the will of Yahweh, like the foreman who explains to his workers "I'll see what I can do, but you know how things are up there. I can't do much about it." Such is his "meekness." André Neher recalls that "one searches vainly in the Books of Moses for the exposition of a doctrine or theology." Moses "had no need of dreams, trances, quackery, ecstasies, but spoke with God man-to-man."[23] His was a down-to-earth religion. He was a cold, careful, bold manager of schemes and driver of men. There is pressure by Miriam and others to begin a line of hereditary seers [24]. He rejects them. He is hardly ever called a prophet; the word is far too limited for him. Moses is called by Yahweh only three times: from the Burning Bush, from the Holy Mountain and then at the Tabernacle where Yahweh instructs him how sacrifices shall be done [25]. He is moderate, too, in hallucinating; he does so almost always in private and restricted circumstances. He does not prophesy hysterically. His only outburst occurs when, returning triumphant from the Holy Mountain, he comes upon the Golden Calf worshippers, whereupon he dashes the sacred tablets of Yahweh upon the ground. The frequent violence that bears his imprimatur is phrased in divine rhetoric and impersonally ordered and executed. His murder of an Egyptian work-boss has a surprising explanation. After this killing, Moses goes into exile. He has been betrayed to the government by two Hebrews (brothers, says a legend) who were fighting, These workmen know of the secret murder of the Egyptian, who had been beating a Hebrew, and when Moses, now perhaps 30 years old, intercedes between them and admonishes the assailant, this person replies in words typical of lower class insolence to an upper-class member of their minority group: "Who made you a prince and a judge over us? Do you mean to kill me as you killed the Egyptian?" Moses was startled because he had "looked this way and that, and seeing no one he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand."[26] One wonders how they learned the secret, by the next day, too, unless they were working for or near Moses; and then how did Moses kill the foreman? Legend says be killed him not by violence, but by uttering the secret name of god [27]. We know that this word is the treasure of the Ark of the Covenant. It is the equivalent of the word YHWH. Was the Hebrew who was being abused by the supervisor a Levite or helper of Moses? And did Moses electrocute the supervisor on one of his dangerous experimental contraptions? Ordinarily, in a highly stratified society, a highly placed person will not demean himself by physically fighting a member of a lower stratum, but will have the job done for him by the man's equals. Were the Hebrew accusers other workmen in the same establishment, who had perhaps helped Moses bury the body? A body is heavy and not easy to dispose of , nor would a prince dirty his hands with a body. If my guess were correct, it would explain why a princely official could expect to be haled before the highest authority, and why he would in person or in absentia be condemned to exile. The enemies of Moses in the pyramid priest-science establishment would be awaiting such an occasion to demand the punishment of this rash and controversial man. Philo Judaeus is close to arguing in this vein. Pharaoh punished Moses, not for killing the foreman but for siding with those perceived to be enemies of the Pharaoh. "When the Egyptian authorities had once got an opportunity of attacking the young man, having already reason for looking upon him with suspicion..., they even implanted in his (Pharaoh's] mind an apprehension that Moses was plotting to deprive him of his kingdom." They told Pharaoh, "He will strip you of your crown. He has no humble designs or notions."[28] THE COURTLY SHEPHERD Next we come upon Moses in exile among the Midianites. "In his general appearance and clothing he looks like an Egyptian."[29] Buber, too, comments on his "court dress" when he first appears at the water well in Midian. At the well, the daughters of a priest-shepherd named Jethro, who came early to water their flock, are being pushed away (molested and sexually attacked, says the prurient legend)[30] by several rough shepherds. He must have been impressive, this stranger, to browbeat the local roughnecks. Upper-class Egyptian dress was known, most likely, and Egyptian authority was not far out of mind. Moses must have been generally well- equipped to appear so well turned out several days' journey from Memphis. He rescues the damsels, and is presented to their father and referred to by him as "the Egyptian" who helped them so. "Egyptian?" goes the legend; that is why the Lord kept Moses from entering the Promised Land: Moses should have insisted immediately that he was Hebrew, not Egyptian [31]. Moses bought a flock, or tended the livestock of Jethro. He was a careful and methodical shepherd, the legend goes. And he fathered two boys by Zipporah, daughter of Jethro. His mind was on natural events and the court of Egypt; his ambitions raged within him. He explored the area, for the site where he came upon the Burning Bush was removed from his pastures. Besides his trained and self-developed scientific acumen about things electric, he may have been one of those unusual persons who are hypersensitive to static electricity [32]. He would become the world's most famous dowser, finding water miraculously in the desert [33]. No student, to my knowledge, has yet graded a sample of people by test as to their electromagnetic fields which can be measured by vacuum-tube voltmeters and vary in intensity from 15 to 20 millivolts, depending upon emotional states and certainly upon hereditary or bred differences [34]. The famous "Burning Bush" was a "thornbush," its spikes pointed to heaven. (See Figure 17) It was speaking with the sounds of electricity and releasing fire without being consumed. Moses knew better than any man what this meant. His imagination began to work rapidly. He took off his shoes to help ground any electrical contact and examined the bush closely. He touched his staff to the active area and it jumped like a snake. A phosphorus dew whitened his hand and he wiped it off. A surge of excitement might have overwhelmed him. He is said to have had a revelation that a great god was addressing him from out of the bush. The bush suddenly symbolized all that he wanted to be and would be. The portents of heaven were in the sound and flames. They culminated in the Burning Bush experience: Moses who had been watching carefully for changes in the sky, would tell of this experience when asked: "When did your visions come together in you for the first time?" Figure 17. The Burning Bush. (Click on the picture to get an enlarged view. Caution: Image files are large.) He explained his prophetic revelation to Jethro: the new presence of the great god in the world, the fitting of this god to the aspirations and religion of a discontented Hebrew people. He sent a message to the priest Aaron (Yahweh had assured him that Aaron would come to meet him) and when the reply was received and was favorable, he was ready to return to Egypt. He departed with his family [35]. CIRCUMCISION AND SPEECH PROBLEMS An episode occurs on the way to Egypt that surprises and puzzles many students. Yahweh tries to kill his own representative on Earth. Some say by lightning, others by Satan, in serpent form, swallowing him. Moses simply cannot keep away from electricity in one form or another. At a lodging place on the way, the Lord met him and sought to kill him. Then Zipporah [his wife] took a flint and cut off her son's foreskin, and touched Moses' feet with it and said, "Surely you are a bridegroom to me." So he let him alone. Then it was that she said, "You are a bridegroom of blood, because of the circumcision." No more is written [36]. There is a question of pronouns here. Some say that Moses must have been already circumcised and all the pronouns refer to his son, making even "Moses' feet" "his" (the son's). Others say that Yahweh was trying to kill Moses because he had still not attended to his own circumcision. That is, lacking a proper scientific hypothesis, they make of Yahweh's action something arbitrary. The Editors of the Oxford Bible become avant-garde and write in a footnote: "Feet, a euphemism for the sexual organs (Is. 7:20)." Isaiah does support this interpretation, speaking there of a razor shaving the head and "the hair of the feet." I would agree with this view, It is surprising that Freud, who certainly knew of this psychoanalytic principle, if indeed he were not its discoverer, makes no mention of it in his Moses and Monotheism. Can it be that this great objective mind was too fixated upon his idea that Moses imposed circumcision upon the Jews to notice who was circumcising whom? Freud further ignores the son and has Moses being circumcised explicitly; but he says the story is false and that Moses must have been circumcised since he was Egyptian, a kind of petitio principiis that is not otherwise absent from Freud's book. Buber has Zipporah both circumcising the boy and touching the boy's legs. Daiches suggests that Yahweh was aiming his bolt at Zipporah and the boy. Were the Hebrews circumcised at this time or not? Freud says no: the Sumerians, Semites, and Babylonians were not; but the Egyptians generally were [37]. Hence another proof that Moses was an Egyptian and wanted his Israelites to do the same. But then why, if he were an Egyptian, would he not have long before been circumcised? The situation seems totally confused, and I could make the situation worse by asking how Zipporah, a Midianite, happened to be expert with the flint and incantation? Or why did not Moses do the job himself? If Moses were a Hebrew or an Egyptian he would have been circumcised at one time or another. How could he expect to lead a circumcised people if he were not circumcised himself, and even demand their circumcision before admittance to full membership in the new nation? I go into the matter because it may bear upon Moses' character. If Moses is part Hebrew and part Egyptian, and assimilated almost completely to Egyptian thought and ways, and his Levitic friends are almost all circumcised in the Egyptian mode, then he is under cross-pressures. But perhaps he has always been too proud to let himself be circumcised as a concession to Egyptianization. And by "proud" I mean "regards it as a threat to himself" and perhaps in this was defended by his freethinking Egyptian mother: "No part of my precious boy will be taken away." And there is no patriarchal father to put the boy in his place by circumcision. At the same time, Moses has become in character extremely authoritarian and patriarchal. Thinking of himself as his own remote father plus the father who has rejected him, the Pharaoh, Moses projects all of his patriarchalism onto his god Yahweh, who becomes a most arbitrary and autocratic father, carrying all of Moses' subjective passion into the role, and letting Moses loose upon the world in his name. Now Moses, the uncircumcised, becomes Moses, the all- powerful father, in favor of the circumcision of others. Here he may be supported by Levitical-Egyptian scientific opinion. It is the modern argument on behalf of the practice. The Levites and Moses were of a character to believe in health practices; it is only because of the modern tendency (certainly not of many younger scholars, though) to think of ancient thought forms as primitive and incapable of pragmatic behavior, that the idea of a "health practice" as opposed to a ritual is usually ignored. I would surmise that Moses believed the Egyptian practice sane and civilized so that "rational" as well as "unconscious" motives spurred him in his campaign for circumcision. Again cross-pressures, if Moses were not circumcised himself. But profound and sincere hypocrisy is of the essence of the charismatic leader: Do as I say, not as I do; furthermore, I am symbolically circumcised before Yahweh himself, simply one more of the miracles that set me off from ordinary men, Joshua (5:1-9), beyond the Jordan, calls for the total population to be circumcised. Evidently, the practice had fallen into desuetude, implying either that all or some of those born in the desert had not been circumcised. Whether this had grown out of Moses' inability to exercise control over the many new adherents to Israel gathered up along the way, or whether a second mass circumcision of confirmation of unity and dedication to Yahweh was here performed is debated; probably both are true. Moses has a speech defect. He is slow of speech and tongue [38]. The words do not come out. The legendary story of how Moses became thick of tongue is an excellent example of how myth speaks truth even when highly improbable. Moses was only three years old at the time and was sitting with his mother the Princess Bitriah, daughter of Pharaoh, at a dinner party. Moses took the crown from off the king's head and placed it upon his own head. The group was astounded and Balaam, son of Beor, reminded the Pharaoh how troublesome and clever the Hebrews could be and suggested killing him. Pharaoh called for advice, however, from wise men and so came Angel Gabriel in disguise. Let the boy choose between a coal of fire and an onyx stone. If he chooses the gem, slay him, but if he chooses the coal, he shall be judged a simple little child. Moses was forced by Gabriel to seize the live coal, and because he thrust his burnt hand into his mouth and burnt his lips and tongue, he became slow of speech and tongue. Legend here expresses Moses' mind, I think. Possessed of great ambitions, Moses "burned his lips and tongue" psychologically so as not to confess them. One is reminded of a kind of common saying: "She bit her lip to keep from exclaiming in protest..." An alternate common expression, at least in Germanic culture, can occur when a person blurts out words that she instantly regrets: "Oh, I've burned my tongue." It is pertinent here as well to point out how frequently schizophrenics develop speech patterns of an odd, disjointed, fragmented, and irrational kind. When he explains his lame speech to Yahweh at the Burning Bush to avoid going on his mission to liberate Israel, he is told that Yahweh will tell him what to say and Moses can put the words into the mouth of the eloquent Aaron who is coming to meet him, In two further incidents, he is depressed and tells Yahweh that he cannot persuade the reluctant Hebrews nor the Pharaoh of what Yahweh wishes, because he is "a man of uncircumcised lips." And, again: "I am of uncircumcised lips." Yahweh dismisses him the first time and on the second occasion again says he needs only Aaron to speak for him. Yahweh then adds, significantly: "See, I make you as God to Pharaoh; and Aaron your brother shall be your prophet."[39] This metaphorical expression is not used again, For it does make Moses his two fathers - Yahweh and Pharaoh. It reveals for an instant the otherwise suppressed wish of Moses. In any event, the first metaphor is a transference from the genital region to the oral one, and vice versa. Moses cannot get his words out for reasons also bearing upon sexuality. Jewish legend has it that at the same encounter by the burning bush,Yahweh instructs Moses to forego hereafter the pleasures of the marriage bed; two children are enough; he is now to be wedded to the female holy ghost, uniting with "the Shekinah, that she might descend to earth for his sake."[40] But this is post-climactic in Moses' life. He has long been mumbling in an attempt to control his fierce resentments against the father who was not and the father who exiled him. (The pharaoh who exiled him was, besides the great father figure of political authority, his mother's father and, given the incestuous customs of the Egyptian royalty, perhaps his mother's spouse or lover and therefore his "father.") I would therefore ascribe Moses' incoherent speech to his inhibited rage, a rage reaching the magnificent heights which only the most ambitious achieve [41]. "He repressed all the principal impulses and most violent affections of the Soul..."[42] And the connection of his speech with his genital integrity - verbally as well as in fact - is psychologically and physiologically strong. From this powerful foundation in the unconscious, it is therefore possible to conclude, first, that Moses was never circumcised, that he seized upon a symbolic circumcision before Yahweh himself as adequate for his own conscience and to appease others, that his wife and son were apt tools for the purpose, that he could insist that all Israelites, as Yahweh's children, must do their duty by their father and be circumcised. Moses neglected his wife sexually and was reproached by Miriam, one legend states [43]. Philo Judaeus wrote: "He never provided his stomach with any luxuries beyond those necessary tributes which nature has appointed to be paid to it, and as to the pleasures of the organs below the stomach he paid no attention to them at all except as far as the object of having legitimate children was concerned."[44] He scarcely neglected legislating on the subject. If the fulsome detailing of sexual taboos in the Pentateuch is more the product of unoccupied priestly successors and purist prophets than of Moses himself, he designed its framework. It is nothing new: the striving for absolute power and authority go along often with sexual impotency, or uninterest. Moses in de-imaging Yahweh did a more conscientious job in the sexual realm than in all other parts of the anatomy. The de-sexing of Yahweh may have been part of the motive for de-imaging him, in fact, rather than the reverse. Every movement, whether political or religious, that has since been tinged with mosaism has stressed sexual repression, Aside from outright prohibitions in most life circumstances, there has occurred an infinity of regulations on the management of the sexual organs, making of Yahweh a gynecologist as well as an expert butcher. Z. Rix and Peter Tompkins have traced some cometary sources for this painstaking religious interest in sex [45], and argue cogently that, when the comet lost its tail, whether it was cut off, struck off, or bit off, a fine precedent for all manner of sex neuroticism presented itself to human view. Hardly a glimpse of this enters the Bible of course; largely the effects occur without treating of the underlying causes, whether in Moses or in the great comet. The lightning bolt, or serpent Satan, or nightmare inspired Moses to think, and to think meant for him to act upon some major problem. Since those who speak of a close escape from death infer a divine presence, Moses had to put his mind upon Yahweh. Here was his immense new revelation of a father "not trusting Moses," say the commentators. No; conversely, Moses was not trusting the father. Not yet. But in the decision to circumcise himself symbolically and to lead a group united by circumcision, be could gain one more measure of control of the father. He could accept and please his close followers, the Levites. He could preserve his own bodily integrity and possess the female Holy Ghost. Thus, three items of the Old Testament carry a profound illumination of Moses - the Burning Bush, the assault by Yahweh, and the case of the tongue-tied prophet. More is to be made of Moses' speech problem; it has to do with the character of Yahweh, which is treated later on. The reader will probably guess correctly that a man with a speech defect will prefer an ideal without one. Even better than this, a man with a speech defect will invent a model whose speech defect will be, not a source of humiliation, but a divine gibberish to which all must bow down, on pain of death, and who speaks to him alone so that he, who cannot be well understood, is the only one in the whole world capable of understanding all that is spoken by this other unintelligible being. Thus he punishes those who would not understand him, by the act of interpreting another voice for them. SCIENTIST AND INVENTOR Most of the scientific and inventive genius of Moses is shrouded in a general misunderstanding of the biblical language of fire, spirit, and the Ark. Much is short-circuited by the interjection of Yahweh in all affairs. Still, enough emerged even in early times to create a legend of Moses as a scientist. Philo Judaeus wrote of his intellectual precocity [46]. A composite portrait can be drawn from the Pagan writers of Greece and Rome [47]. Moses was an Egyptian who invented sun dials for solar worship in place of obelisks. He was learned, a great magician. He was the best of alchemists, a copious writer, and was called Thoth-Moses by the Egyptians. The legend of Pythagoras influenced the writing of the life of Moses during the late Alexandrian times, writes Buber [48]. Another source relates that in the same general period, in a fashion then typical, Jewish legends grew up asserting "that Moses, blithely identified both with the semi-mythical poet Musaeus and with the Egyptian Thoth, had been the teacher of Orphaeus.. and the inventor of navigation, architecture, and the hieroglyphic script."[49] As the French say: "One lends only to the rich..." We have already presented enough evidence (and there will be more) to show that Moses was a master of electrical science. Until it should be discovered that the Egyptians possessed the Ark, that great technology must be credited to Moses in Israel. His altar does not stand out technically from the other altars of the priests of the high places [50]. The age of the Delphic altar technology is uncertain. It may well go back to Mosaic times. Here again, we await archaeological and mythological studies that are illuminated by appropriate hypotheses. We will question later how the god Thoth (Hermes) and Moses were connected. There is an old tradition both flattering and uncomplimentary, that pictures Moses as a magician, a sorcerer, a medicine man, and a seer. From the presumptuous modern perspective, these words are insults and invitations to disputation. I see no reason for defining and distinguishing them, and fitting them well or illy to Moses. Buber barely skirts the "our boy is no magician" attitude, yet we can quote him here as showing that Moses was a better magician, ergo a better scientist, than others, and I have argued earlier that Moses was tolerated up to the last plague precisely because the Egyptian court knew and respected his science, going back many years. Discussing the plague of frogs, Buber is moved to say: "That he has... foretold the incident, and unlike the usual magicians, has done so without any magical conjurations... and that he further knows how to interpret the signs of the incident; these facts have a somewhat weird atmosphere not inviting any too close contact. The unwieldy words, with which a strange God jerkily moves his throat, only serve to enhance the weirdness."[51] If correct prediction is the test of a scientist, then, never mind the sorcery, augury, conjuration or magic; Moses is a distinguished scientist. Moses himself is at the same time interpreted as one who banishes magic, augury, and divination. But, even when we discover that science underlays the Ark, we must grant that the Ark is intended for augury and divination. No one except Moses can go to the Holy of Holies for oracles, but he does so himself. Judgement is rendered upon Korah and his band of rebels by seeking signs from Yahweh, and so on. One man's science is another man's magic. Our position here is that Moses exceeded by far the then normal ratio of science to non-science in a large realm of practices having to do with discovery, instrumentation, application, and foresight. Moses' alleged detestation of the non-sciences is part fact (granted he was more of a scientist) and quite expected. His suppression of non-science is part of his desire to suppress science as well, for he did not want more than one Ark, nor more than one "research center," for reasons of political control. Nor did he want people to engage in practices, which, quite apart from their scientific validity, would make of them independent leaders in prophecy, ceremony, or combat. Yahwism was to be a central rule interpreted by priests after Moses and enforced by the security police. Free science was believed to be inimical to religion and good government. We have already dealt with Moses' competence in the field of radiation diseases, phosphorus, and manna. According to legend [52], Moses claimed to know "how leprosy arises and how it disappears." He certainly knew in Miriam's case and could be sure that seven days outside the camp was enough to heal her "leprosy" or phosphorus burns. We should also remind ourselves of Moses' Brazen Serpent, probably his final perfected instrument of the type of the rod. Used in conjunction with the Ark, it found a place therein, and was exhibited for a long period as a healing caduceus on its own account until it was destroyed. The contraption could by itself act as an electrical sparker, and it is conceivable that it was used both for charismatic (psychosomatic) therapy and for electroshock therapy. Moses was not an astrologer (except in the sense that any astronomer whose ideas are mistaken or outmoded is an astrologer). On the contrary, his preoccupation was earthly, and he hated astrological science. This probably stems from his controversies with the Egyptian "pyramid scientists" and his perceived "persecution" by them. In Deuteronomy [53] he warns the Jews against worshipping the heavenly bodies, condemning to death by stoning any man or woman who is proven to have "gone and served other gods and worshipped them, or the sun, or the moon or any of the host of heaven..." But there is no question of his meteorological interests and competence; he is a master of atmospheric and electrical arts. Why did he not expand Yahwism to take in the heavenly movements? The answer is fairly plain: there is too much fatalism, too little drive, permitted in the fascination with celestial bodies; further, other religions were performing astrological services as effectively as the Jews with their scant resources might, and hence people would hear the fatal call of Egypt and Babylon. Again the problem of control. Precisely during Moses' tenure, also, the skies were usually clouded and dusted over; it was a poor period for astronomical observation. Finally, a sedentary observatory would be needed for star studies; this a wandering nation could not provide. In Jewish tradition we hear that a new calendar was divinely ordained to begin in the month of Nisan, with the Passover to be celebrated on the 15th of Nisan, "but the computations for the calendar were so involved that Moses could not understand them until God showed him the movements of the moon plainly."[54] God ordered a court to be set up to attest to each new moon. Apparently there was some change in lunar, solar, and Earth apparent motions, together with an intervening cloudiness. New calendars were required. One of Velikovsky's surprising hypotheses was that the 365 day year did not exist before Exodus, and that before Exodus the year was of only 360 days. He denied that available evidence supported such beliefs. He cites hints that the new Hyksos rulers introduced the 360-day year in Egypt and that while the Jews were in Egypt, 210 modern years passed, although 400 revolutions of the sun occurred [55]. Here I confine myself to the indication of mosaic calendar change, and to a second suggestion namely, that the year's length before Exodus may have been 260 days. This was the sacred year of the Mayans tenaciously adhered to by these great ancient American calendrists for long after they designed and employed a new calendar [56]. Evidence of Mayan-Egyptian interconnections is not absent, but the problem is too complex and controversial to treat briefly. Suffice it to suggest that the 360-day year would give Moses an age at death of 85, instead of 120, 360-day years, and other time counts of the several centuries before Moses would also make more sense. I fear however that the temporal confusion is so great that no easy formula will ever deal with all instances. Perhaps the most enduring of Moses' scientific contributions has to do with the beginnings of popular records and historiography. Hardly had the Israelites left Egypt when Yahweh said to Moses: "Write this as a memorial in a book and recite it in the ears of Joshua..."[57] it being a curse upon the Amalekites. In another surprising sentence of Exodus, Yahweh declares: "Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of My book."[58] History and anti-history: god as a writer and bookkeeper! Had this ever happened before? What faith in the record! Yahweh was supposed actually to have written the first set of tablets of the Decalogue. They were written with "the finger of Yahweh." When Moses broke them, he had to repair back to the Holy Mountain, like a dutiful schoolboy, with a new set of writing materials. Moses made the Jews "the People of the Book." From then on, they were literate and regardful of the written word. That Moses was quite literate surprises no one, yet it should. Probably only scribes then wrote, and the priest scientists of Egypt. Neither common man nor noble would be able to write, one more indication that Moses had been more than a prince in Egypt. Some scholars and an old tradition credit Moses with inventing the alphabet [59]. The alphabet that matches sounds with signs, as contrasted with communicating written meaning by pictures and constructions, is accredited to a North Semitic person and group of the same mid-second millennium of which we are speaking in this book. We know, too, that the Israelites were a people forged - in a strict sense of integration of diverse elements - in anticipation of, and amidst catastrophe. They established their continuity precisely in the period between the Middle and Late Bronze Ages when other peoples that we know about were experiencing a rending asunder of their cultural continuity. Therefore, more rapidly than others, the Israelites might have captured the peak development of the Middle Bronze Age and applied it under the new conditions of the Late Bronze Age. At the time of Exodus, Israelites knew probably three kinds of script, the Egyptian hieroglyphic, the Babylonian cuneiform, and a popular script. Ernst Sellin called it "a popular alphabetic writing." He says: "The only piece of evidence that goes to suggest that Israel may have been acquainted with it as early as the Mosaic period is that the Mosaic oracular symbols, the Urim and the Thummim, appear to be not unconnected with the first and last letters of this alphabet... but it would be perfectly possible that Moses might have taken it over from the Kenites. Cf. I Chron. 2:55. This alphabet made it possible to express everything with exactitude in the national idiom, which was not possible with the cuneiform.."[60] Sixty years after Sellin's remarks, Barry Page, employing the revised chronology used here for Egyptian history, can conclude: The initiation of a 'developed' linear alphabetic script in Canaan occurs after the conquest and occupation of Israel by Joshua, and one is strongly tempted to suggest that Israelite scribes brought a developed linear alphabetic system with them from Egypt to Canaan [61]. Moses is of the right time, the right place, and the right race(s). He has, too, a thorough education and literacy; he knows how to work with symbols. He has the explosive ingenuity as a person, and what is crucial, he exercises the necessary social control over his people; for an alphabet is a communication technology; it must be imparted with coercive sanctions or high voluntary motivation. With the adjustment of dates so that the Hyksos invasion of Egypt coincides with the Hebrew emigration from Egypt, the thought that the Hyksos may have carried an alphabet into Egypt is lamed by the fact that they did not impose the alphabet upon the Egyptians. There were many movements of tribes and peoples now, but was there any people whose particular situation was equally congenial to the invention? Several theories of Ugaritic and other origins must go by the way, because, by the chronology we are using, their alphabetic usage must be advanced to a later period and the Israelite presence placed ahead of it. Nor have we finished with the circumstantial evidence pointing toward Moses. The tongue-tied genius was inherently interested in sounds. He is, we know, also interested in communicating - both because he is a distant type of character and because he is embarrassed at his speech - through agents (Aaron, yes) as well as written messages. Further, he was the originator of the idea that Yahweh speaks his own name; Yahweh can be pronounced like a string of phonetics proceeding from an electrical discharge of the Ark. If one imitates the various hums of live wires and St. Elmo's fires, one can imagine the name of Yahweh continuously repeated. If this name is written down as in the First Commandment of the Decalogue, it is a phonetic name, perhaps the very first. But Moses is still adding to his points as inventor of the alphabet. He carries the Decalogue down from Mount Sinai on two tablets. Could he do so if they were written in hieroglyphs? A scholar complains that the Decalogue could not be compressed into two tablets, But it could if it were Moses writing in the abbreviated and new script. Of course, one cannot yet prove that Moses was the principal effective inventor of the alphabet, but, on the evidence, he may be acknowledged as the leading contender for the honor with regard to the Near East. With all this, I have hardly begun with the inventions of Moses. Bearing in mind that no invention comes without a buildup of antecedents and precedents and that Moses, as hero, even autobiographer, of the Pentateuch, will be credited for some discoveries not of his own making, still the total is astonishingly great. I shall adduce here briefly five sets of inventions, amounting to fourteen important individual inventions in all, that are in addition to the inventions of the Ark, the calendar, historiography, the alphabet and several others hitherto described. The first set is national: Moses invented the idea of a new nation, the concept of Israel, and the plan for it to come into existence - the Passover and Exodus. Surely there was insurrectionism in Egypt and among the Hebrews; surely the name of Israel-Jacob was known as a grand patriarch of old; surely there was a plethora of desires and schemes to win independence or set up a colony somewhere; perhaps a vague notion of the Promised Land existed. But Moses alone, so far we can tell, confirmed that all of these things could be planned and carried out, and he directed the operations. That he met with a response adequate to the occasion, and could rally the people and find the resources, that he could evade a crushing preemptive suppression were effects of his workable scheme. The outcome was the republican confederation of Israel. A second set of Mosaic inventions is religious: the new Covenant of Yahweh with Israel which he "negotiated;" the idea of a Constitution of morality: the Decalogue of Commandments; and the Code of Laws [62]. Of these, the Decalogue is outstanding, both as to form and to contents. Let me abbreviate these commandments of Yahweh [63]: 1. I am your god-ruler. 2. Do not experiment with other gods. 3. Do not employ me needlessly. 4. Rest from labor to celebrate my being. 5. Respect your parents. 6. Do not kill amongst yourselves. 7. Confine sex to your spouse. 8. Do not steal. 9. Do not slander. 10. Do not covet. The first four are intended to protect Yahweh. The six that follow are for the protection of the community. All are designed for the circumstances of life then and there. They are designed for people moving among disasters and disorganization. That they have been considered to be for all time and have been proclaimed as eternal simply proves that mankind has been forever in a state of disaster and disorganization, one step, two steps, but ever hardly more, from the Israelites in the desert. They are almost entirely negative, a criminal code, rather than positive, and punishment for their violation is intended to be heavy. To contemplate god; to sympathize with the gods of other people; to wish divine help for all who need it; to enjoy one's rest from labor; to love and respect one's parents in the measure of your maturity and their worth; to respect human life everywhere; to give a full measure of intimate love; to guard the possessions of others as your own; to be benevolent and generous to others; to wish all people well: these are hardly suggested in the Decalogue, nor are many other positive virtues. The Decalogue is a hard-hitting, explicit set of solutions for survival, brilliantly conceived and promulgated by Moses (though almost frustrated by the preemptive apostasy of the Golden Calf). Even with this explanation, modern exegesis has presented a hurdle to believing that this Ethical Dialogue is of Moses. Winnett [64] assigns the Ritual Decalogue [65] to the times of Moses and the Ethical one much later, to others. Judging its linguistics, it is, he argues, of a more cultivated age. The question can hardly be solved by stylistic considerations, inasmuch as, throughout the history of the Old Testament, we have a condition prevailing whereby, alongside what has found its way into writing, there runs an oral tradition that has not been written down and a problem of lost written pieces that had later to be recomposed. Moreover, the Ritual Decalogue is heavily agricultural. It contains instructions on how to make an altar, to sacrifice, and to cultivate; on attending to Yahweh's words but to mention no other god; it defines the Sabbath and feast days, and prescribes dietary practices. If my analysis is correct, Moses was quite able, and indeed more likely, to have produced the Ethical than the Ritual Decalogue, The catastrophe of Exodus would not have destroyed Moses' cultivated and managerial mind nor those of the elders. The Ethical Decalogue would have been the more useful one in the wanderings. The Ritual or Cultic Decalogue would have emerged as a product of post-mosaic times, when the culture of the leaders would have slumped for several centuries. The third set of Mosaic inventions treats of anniversaries and history; the change of the Sabbatical Year (from, I should say, a Saturnian-Elohist baseline to a Jovian-Yahwist baseline); an intense revival of the Sabbath day with the purpose of serving Yahweh; the possible inculcation of the second creation myth, that of Adam and Eve (which again I attribute to Jovian Yahwism), to follow the Saturnian-Elohim creation myth of Genesis. These are innovations, rather than heavy inventions. The Yahwist creation myth, like Mosaism in general, is sin- obsessed, punitive, and vengeful. It tells of an age of fire rather than water. It must have come into existence thousands of years later than the Elohim myth of creation. The fourth set of inventions, more important here, deals with social organization. Moses created a new organization of twelve tribes that he called Israel, counted the people by tribes, and had them organized by tribes and by military units within tribes. The military units were based upon the decimal system, not upon families or clans. At the same time, he created a separation of powers between the priesthood and the security police (Levites), and defined their functions; these men he placed over all the tribes, and then created an apparatus of state: the Ark, centralized worship, the Tabernacle; and provided (at the instigation of his father-in-law Jethro) a means of instituting complaints and pleas in the tribes and carrying the more important cases before Moses himself. Finally, there is the religion itself: Yahweh and Yahwism as an integrated religion. The Elohist tradition "quite unambiguously states that Yahweh was a newly received god for the Israelite war confederacy received through Moses" [66]. So far as we can tell, Moses invented the name "Yahweh." Merely to imagine that this is possible is amazing. The Egyptians had not heard of the name, nor probably had the Hebrews. Both groups used Elohim until Moses brought Yahweh from his exile. Later on, this point will be argued further, Although I believe that I have proven Yahweh to be in one sense an electrical engineering system, in the broad sense Yahweh stands for an integrated social system, a religion replete with a tradition in Genesis, a priesthood, a mobile cathedral, and a host of ordinances. This last achievement of Moses may also be considered as the invention of an integrated system of law related, of course, to the Decalogue. Thus Moses belongs with Confucius, Buddha, Jesus and Mohammed as an inventor of religion. There can be no question but that mosaism was as far from Elohimism as from Christianity and that these two latter manifestations may be closer to each other than to mosaism. TALKING WITH GODS Among the many thousands of Israel, there must have been a hundred who talked with god, the holy spirit, or angels - some once, some many times, some with every authentic sign, others lacking all substantiation. No one but Moses talked with god authoritatively: there is the difference. One has to earn the right to be believed to talk with god. Moses had very right to do so. Practically everybody admitted this; and almost all thought it fitting and proper that, as the Pharaoh of Egypt was himself a god, so the leader of the Hebrews might bear the Lord upon him like a crown. When one claims to be talking to supernatural super-powerful beings one is "talking with gods." Such behavior is not at all uncommon and is engaged in sometimes by most contemporary people. One "prays to god" and god "answers one's prayers." In cases of disaster, such behaviors are normal. About ten percent of a western population in non-catastrophic times experience visual or auditory hallucinations, or both.[67] Many of these talk to the "other." When there is great physical and nervous stress and difficult decisions must be made, tendencies to hallucinate increase sharply. The environment, then afterwards the person, is deranged. Thus, a Dutchwoman on Java, when Krakatoa is exploding, flees in terror and arrives in complete distress and agony among people, where she hears her own voice as someone else talking [68]. An "Evil One," to quote one survivor, is everywhere causing confusion and driving people mad. In ordinary times, persisting delusionary behavior is deemed unjustified and therefore a symptom of mental derangement. When the behavior is part of a syndrome of activities and attitudes adjudged antisocial or personally deleterious, it is grounds for special repressive measures against (on behalf of) the person. When the behavior is associated with "beneficial" attitudes and activities, the person is tolerated and even promoted in esteem and encouraged to develop. From culture to culture, or (which is to say the same) from one epoch to another, talking to god is deemed more or less possible and more or less rational by the therapeutic rulers, who are theologians, psychiatrists and politicians. The role of ordinary people in relation to the therapeutic rulers is generally similar to their role in relation to the elites of other areas of social rule. In the case at hand, that of Moses and the politico-religious environment of Moses, there is every reason to believe that the situation was highly favorable to exceptional cases of talking to god. In the Egyptian setting the general power configuration was a theological bureaucracy, with a rationalized god-man ruler whose divine qualities were part of the law and did not have to be frequently demonstrated by charismatic acts: such was Pharaoh. On the same side, the Egyptian people may have been inefficiently coordinated to the ruling religion in that they were prone to accept wayward actions and ideas connected with religions. This, again, is not uncommon. It may be presumed that the present populations of the secular regimes of the world are also prone, though not to the same extent, to expect "true" and "real" divine manifestations, including talking with god. Further, in the Egypt of the late Middle Empire, the Hebrews were generally a separately organized, ethnically distinct, and geographically concentrated element of the Egyptian population. It is precisely among groups of such special distinction and traditions that deviant religious manifestations may appear, often in connection with political movements arising out of perceived grievances. Numerous instances may be located in the history of protestantism and heresy in the Christian empires and among American Indian tribes of the past century. If, under such circumstances, a figure like Moses originates, the grounds are prepared for manifestations of charismatic leadership. In such cases, talking to god is one of a number of attributes, though a key one, that are attributed to the leader, here Moses. Indeed, given the circumstances, so fertile for charisma and dedicated believers, it is to be remarked how widespread was the scepticism and opposition faced by Moses among the Hebrews. One may speculate that, if there had been an Egyptian policy of promoting an alternative Hebrew leadership and if the Egyptian elite and mass had not themselves been subjected to immanent tendencies to religious deviations, and, most importantly, if natural disturbances were not mounting in intensity, there would have been no real chance of Moses' assumption of power and successful leadership of a mass insurrection. Moses himself realized this and returned to Egypt when he deemed conditions to be favorable. On the question of to whom Moses was talking and the functional analysis of this relationship, we are led to several conclusions. Although it is by no means clear how long Moses had spent in the psychically incompatible Midianite environment, probably a period of some years is involved. He is granted a family. One legend has him spending forty years as King of Ethiopia before arriving in Midian to begin his period there. These stories indicate at least the passage of some time, and the development of a character which while basically operating with a mind that knows intimately the Egypt of the high courts, of polyglot areas, and jealously competitive theo- sciences, would have suppressed much and fixed upon a relationship between the old life and new life over the years. Moses is an originally internalized rage type; his renowned humility rides upon a deep inner belief in his superiority both of genesis and of mind. He would therefore be prone to hallucinating and projecting with great conviction this deeper level of his personality. Finally it became what was so obviously offered by the relatively devout and unidimensional shepherding culture - a god who discussed issues with him and who alternately browbeat him, cajoled him, and seduced him. Biblical historians have wrangled over how much of Yahweh Moses brought from Egypt and how much he brought to the Hebrews from the Midianites. The one critical export to Egypt was the talking god. The pattern of hallucinatory projective development is so obvious that one would have to believe either that many thousands, perhaps millions, of characters in similar etiological circumstances have spoken to their god, or else that Moses was talking to himself, employing a spectacular set of media provided by natural events. Once more we recall the theory based on tradition and on evidence that Moses was a great magician and derived much of his political power from his successful competition with other renowned contestants in this sphere. Yes, we say, Moses was a successful competitor in contests of the marvelous. But his magic was the expression of a condition much more profound than magic. Those scholars who are inclined to attribute magic to phenomena such as were played upon and excited by Moses and magicians, are usually ignorant of the intrinsic, embedded place in the history of religion and politics of persons possessed. The magician is, at least in the most common usage of the term, a person who is in rational and cynical command of a limited number of media of obscuration and symbols. The sincerely dedicated person of magical powers who acts consistently in matters of political and religious organization, negotiations, and leadership has to conduct himself in affairs that, intermittently magical, are ordinarily replete with pragmatic judgements of reality, heartrending failures, dull routine, and practical communications to mobilize human action. Agonizing self-appraisals, fits of disbelief in the capabilities of his associates and the possibilities of the situation, and divine discussions in both dysphoric and euphoric moods are not marks of the specialized and self-aware magician, but of the charismatic leader. The leader can be relied upon for responsible hallucinations. Thus was Moses. THE CENTRALIZATION OF HALLUCINATION The Holy Tabernacle and tent of meeting was not a public place. Moses had exclusive rights to its use and extended that right to Aaron and other carefully supervised personnel. "When Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with the Lord, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was upon the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim, and it spoke to him."[69] Hallucinations were exclusively his right, and were rarely delegated, Aaron was permitted them from time to time. The occasion of the visit of the seventy elders to see Yahweh on Mount Sinai was a command invitation from Yahweh conveyed by Moses to them. It was to be a visible visitation, not a talk, and certainly not a roundtable, and was not completely successful. The "footstool" of Yahweh was manifest in the gleaming sapphire rock and it is said that the visitors saw Yahweh but not how or what they saw of him. A more extensive visit with Yahweh was achieved later. For he commanded Moses, when the people were desperate for meat, to bring seventy elders and "officers over them" to the Tent. "And I will come down and talk with you there; and I will take some of the spirit which is upon you and put it upon them; and they shall bear the burden of the people with you, that you may not bear it yourself alone." So they came and were placed around the Tent. "Yahweh came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was upon him and put it upon the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did so no more."[70] It was their first and last "pep talk" from Yahweh. That Moses and his aids were managing an electrochemical sound and light event here is manifest. Meanwhile, in the camp, two invited elders, Medad and Eldad, did not come and were prophesying on their own account. A young man ran to tell Moses about them, and ever-ready Joshua said: "My Lord Moses, forbid them." But Moses, in a surprisingly benevolent mood, replied: "Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord's people were prophets, that the Lord would put his spirit upon them." Needless to say, precious little of this occurred; Joshua's posture was the official one. Talking to Yahweh was centralized. Suppose that Moses had no god, as perhaps was the case before his revelation at the Burning Bush. Suppose that he had otherwise all of his genius and driving energy. Might he not have been accepted to lead the Hebrews out of Egypt and in the years of wandering? Could he not have established his authority and held his power out of sheer ability to solve their problems? With all due regard for the pragmatism of people and for the effectiveness of sheer force (which was not originally available to Moses), there must be an identification with a god, a constitution, a popular will, or a possession by long inheritance to lend enough authority to a person to rule a people. The leader may then monopolize the source of authority, but he must rule in its name. The most obvious, striking, immediate, effective identification in this case was with a god. Moses found the god and established the ruling formula: Yahweh, through me, governs you for your own good. Moses could never have achieved his great tasks by his admittedly great energies, genius, and artifices. Yahweh, his companion, had to be acceptable to others, so that he, Moses, might be believed. But how could such a stern god be acceptable to a people? It would not be Moses' Yahweh of course if he were anything but rigorous and stern. But, again, if Moses could perform the impossible feat of inventing a benign, good-humored, tolerant god, would not everyone be happier (everyone, that is, except Moses!) and the god made more acceptable? The answer may very well be that Yahweh was not so acceptable. We shall soon look into the matter of revolts against Yahweh, but meanwhile we might try to visualize the Israelites and the state of their beliefs. Truly we are dealing with a practically unknown situation and there is nothing to be done about it, no public opinion surveys to call upon, no interviews of people to determine the degree of charisma in their relation to Moses. Nevertheless, it is more useful to guide our thought with a model of the people's beliefs than to rest forever in a vague and confused cloud of ideas or to insist on some impossible idea such as that Moses was faithfully served by the Children of Israel unto his death. As soon as such an idea is abandoned, and one forces himself to roam with the help of an instructed imagination over the square mile or more of the Israelite encampment, one begins to appreciate how limited Moses' charisma must be. AN ISRAELITE OPINION SURVEY Granted his greatness and energy, given the need to believe in authority, given the marvels of manna and water and quail, given the glorious Ark, prescribed a god to follow, nonetheless with all of this, strong forces work against the total harmony of convictions and behavior under the formula: 'Do thou as I say because I am uniquely assigned to your salvation': the nearly impossible situation of the people out of Egypt - beset on all sides by enemies, without a fixed territory, victims of repeated natural disasters, composed of diverse ethnic and religious elements, holding little realistic hope for the future, death on all sides. It is a charismatic setting, but by the same token, it is a setting for disenchantment, despair, and opportunism. Gressmann thinks that Aaron and many others were anti- Yahweh [71]. I have supplied a table of what may have been the situation. If my analysis falls anywhere near the true situation, then it is sharply evident that Moses had plenty of reasons for his dyspeptic view of the people of Israel. It would require altogether too many pages to discuss the numerous cells of the table. To repeat, it is presented so that a reader of the Torah may realize the importance of thinking of the whole people of Israel and so will not abandon them to the good graces of Yahweh and Moses. TABLE I Attitudes of Israelites (grown males) Encamped at the Holy Mountain (Hypothetical) % of %of % of % of Egyptian Mixed Midianites Total Hebrews Multitude Elite (7000) (2000) (1000) (500) True Believers ..in Yahweh (neutral or opposed to Moses) 8 10 20 15 ..in Moses (neutral or opposed to Yahweh) 8 10 5 15 ..in Both 10 20 10 10 Self-Servers support Moses 5 10 3 10 oppose Moses 10 2 2 5 avoid commitment 5 15 5 7 Apathetics (tied to group by family or accident; nowhere else to go; taken care of; etc.) 20 20 35 3 Disbelievers ..in Yahweh (neutral to Moses) 10 6 5 10 ..in Moses (neutral to Yahweh) 14 5 10 20 ..in Both 10 2 5 5 TOTAL 100% 100% 100% 100% See Chapter VII first section, for the population in Exodus. Here the total population (with grown rnales in parentheses) is taken to be 25,000: 15,000 (7000) of (A); 5000 (2000) of (B); and 5000 (1000) of (C). To take one case, those who believe in Moses and are neutral to or opposed to Yahweh, and those that believe in both amount to 18% of the male Hebrew Egyptians, 30% of the Egyptians and other ethnics, and 15% of the Midianite and Kenite proselytes. This would total 2010 grown males who were the "true believers," the hard core of Moses' support, his charismatic followers. They would amount to about one-fifth of the potential warriors, and since the women and children would be inclined more than the males to be true believers, perhaps a somewhat larger percentage of the total population of 25,000. 1 believe that political scientists who are experts on elite theory would regard this as a robust basis for a tough and even despotic rule. The core of the opposition would be the 1970 disbelievers in Moses or in both Moses and Yahweh. For the hard core of true believers, the charisma of Moses is evidently based upon many proofs: that the Israelites survived due to Moses was the main proof and incessantly, compulsively repeated as a soldier tells of a dud bomb landing next to him; then the litany of his miraculous infancy (Did you know, too, that Yahweh sent a plague of boils upon Egypt just then ?);[72] his immense erudition; his princely connections; his works with divine fire; his halo; his tablets written "with the finger of god"; his escapes from two Pharaohs; his rod; his forty days and nights on the fiery mountain without food and drink; manna, quail, water; his knowledge of healing everything from snakebite to leprosy; the strong and deep men who obey him; his silence and aloneness; his speaking in tongues; his amazing timing of when to move, when to stay, when to fight, when to evade; and all the laws that keep the camp from anarchy and licentious chaos. He talks "mouth-to-mouth" [73] with Yahweh; Yahweh lives through him; Moses does nothing without Yahweh; who is against Moses is against Yahweh, and if you don't believe in Yahweh, you must all the more believe in Moses who knows how to pronounce himself in the "court language," the divine jargon of earthly rulers. ROUTINIZING CHARISMA I doubt that Moses was author of most of the as yet undeciphered rituals of the Books of Moses. A brief "Decalogue" may be traceable to him. The "safety rules" for handling the Ark and altar which extend to a danger zone beyond the tent are his. There are certain organizational ideas that would have been instigated by him. And, certainly, much else that was attributed to Moses in the Bible was his in fact. But the veritable avalanche of rules and taboos that have fallen into the Torah are the work of people who needed to lay the heavy hand of god upon every detail of existence in order to give themselves occupation and power. Moses gave them certain concepts - national pride, ethnocentrism, law, written records, fear of Yahweh, circumcision, repression and suppression, punishment. He opened the door to mosaism. They entered and took possession in his name, and dwelled there forever after. They routinized the charisma of Moses. Mosaism without Moses, like Christianity without Christ, or like Leninism without Lenin, brings about a different social order; behavior, and even the teachings change. However, the process began early, with Moses himself. He personally took charge of digging up and carrying the coffin with the bones of Joseph - traditional Hebrew authority - on the Exodus. Poor Moses, says the legend; while others carried their valuable loot from Egypt, Moses was burdened down by Joseph. Not at all. The coffin was like a suit of armor against his Hebrew opponents. And there was probably more in it than Joseph. It is another proof of Moses' genius - and the competence of the people around him - that hardly had they left Egypt when, with a greatly reduced people, in hunger and amidst disaster, he began to fashion ideological and social structures for the new nation. The central headquarters system, the reorganization of tribes, the provision of eternal slogans such as the curse against the Amalekites and the framing of laws - not despite the chaos of Mount Sinai, but taking advantage of that very chaos - all tended to move the nation into a future. Promises, promises: the people were fed upon these as well as miracles of springs and manna and quail, and were fed up with them. Yet there was always a developing system of rule that carried its own promise. Perhaps those people who survived ancient catastrophes best were those whose religions in some fundamental ways imitated the catastrophes and whose nations were born in the name of the disasters: it is a thesis we should like to develop sometime. It seems, at any rate, to have been the case with the Israelites. Like all charismatic leaders, Moses had problems in delegating authority: Aaron was a superb assistant but not harsh enough, Joshua was too harsh and very young. The tribal heads had little legitimacy in their own tribes. Moses complains to Yahweh: "I am not able to carry all this people alone, the burden is too heavy for me." Yahweh suggests an assembly of seventy elders come to him. Along with the Holy Spirit, they get executive responsibilities, by nearly direct divine authority, "nearly" I say, because Moses is explicitly tied into the donation of the spirit and power [74]. Jethro came upon Moses, his son-in-law, occupied endlessly with hearing disputes and advised him to appoint subordinate hearing officers. Moses promptly did so [75]. This probably was the institution of the elders [76]. As soon as he could, Moses institutionalized the Levites. They were given religious foundation, functions, authority, and a claim on the revenues of the tribes. Yahweh, in one of his most bloodthirsty moments, had claimed all the first-born of Israel for his sacrifices. Moses, speaking for a more moderate Yahweh, dedicated the Levites as surrogates for the infants. What better basis for the authority of this security police force than their having ransomed by their own persons the first-born of the Jews from infanticide? The Bible implies strongly that the whole Jewish nation was to have one Ark of the Covenant alone. It would be at the seat of government, the principal town. In fact it was literally the "mercy seat" of the government of Yahweh. This was certainly true centuries later, when it was installed in Jerusalem. More significantly, in the earliest period, when the population is divided by tribes and assigned regions in which to settle, the Levites alone are not given a special place but spread out as detachments among all of the fifty-eight townships. This would confirm the role of the Levites as special troops of the central government but would also indicate that each township was expected to have its own ark, if not immediately, then later. The Levites would operate it. I guess that after Moses, Israel decentralized, but had agreed in principle to keep a single ark which would be under central control. If one could rely upon the tribes to construct, maintain, protect, and employ their arks properly, there would be no cause for concern. However, in periods of low ark activity, they might expect too much from their arks and abuse them or abandon them; further, they might hear Yahweh with different ears, and disputes about the voices of Yahweh would occur. So, splendid and edifying as might be the possession of twelve or fifty-eight means of hearing and seeing manifestations of the Lord, and using arks in local warfare and criminal justice, there were probably even more compelling reasons for letting there be only one Ark, one Voice, one Interpreter (Moses or the high priest), one weapon system to maintain and control at instant readiness. THE MANIAC SCIENTIST If what has been said here were presented to a personnel officer or an occupational psychologist for a determination of the true vocation of Moses, the reply might be: he was a scientist. Educated. Literate. He is slow in speech, apparently modest but prone to indignation. Does everything in the third person (laying it onto Yahweh). Uncircumcised (indicating that neither Egyptians or Hebrews who raised him thought the question important, and that would mean a secular environment.) Heavy on abstract ideas. Does not believe in immortality. Impatient. Likes everything in writing. Handy and knows materials and tools. Weak on family life and sentiment. Marries outside the tribes of Israel. Needs help in political negotiations. Has an international reputation as a "magician." Is highly respected by establishment scientist. Although revered by many, never fully trusted by most people. Understands phenomena like electricity, manna, plagues, phosphorus, fire, smoke. Continually experimenting and inventing. Likes to number things and count people. Does not eat much or carouse; doesn't like people very much, and likes to see them well-ordered, serious. Does not believe the priesthood should have full authority. Keeps records. Was very open-minded on questions when young until he learned the "truth"; then he becomes dogmatic and insistent upon "the one right way" to do everything. Now he tends to be dogmatic from the first moment of a problem. Contemptuous of idols and images, though strongly object-oriented. Perhaps our imaginary occupational psychologist would agree, "Yes, the man's a scientist, one of these new-type administrative scientists." The question whether Moses had traits of a scientist may not interest the reader so much as whether he was a madman. I should say that by every criterion of madness, especially the test for schizophrenia, Moses would appear to have been mad. My answer, however, is that Moses was mad in theory but sane in context. Whereupon, of course, we become involved in the distinction between madness and sanity, psychosis and normality. Let me first recite the indications of madness and then afterwards explain my position. Not only may we arrive then at a determination concerning Moses but also at a better understanding of the perennial mad leader. Taking Moses to be psychotic, his illness would be termed obsessional neurosis leading into auditory hallucinations and culminating in paranoid megalomanic messianism. The disease begins with a weak early identity and a loss of self- respect, arising from circumstances such as I have already related in Moses' early childhood - a biethnic parentage with a confusion of attendants and conflicting messages from Hebrew and Egyptian attitudes playing upon him. He must suppress his speech and, in so doing, adds a physiological handicap of incoherent speech to his already diminutive self-respect. His drive to achieve intensifies and, because of circumstances, is repressed into autistic reveries of grand scope and ambitions. On both his Egyptian and Hebrew sides, his educators encourage him (build up his expectations) but at the same time his ideals are incompatible and unachievable, frustrating him when he seeks a clear realistic directive. He turns to scientific (and necessarily, in those days, partly magical) studies which reinforce his solitary and exclusive character while producing a value that both his sets of attendants recognize - priestly scientific magic. When we apply the Hoskins-Boisen basic behavioral manifestations of schizophrenia [77] - lack of self-respect, delusional misinterpretations, the externalization of conscience, and the sense of compulsive behavior, we can surmise that Moses is potentiated in all of these regards even before he gets into trouble and must leave Egypt. He is already a troublemaker in the Egyptian scientific-priestly establishment. Naturally, excluded from the semi-theocracy of the pyramid cult, he is developing cultist tendencies of a different sort, probably Hermetic (Thoth), for Thoth (Hermes, Mercury) is the most ambulatory and earth-bound of the pantheon, and probably in the direction of experiments and machines that are excluded from the main career line of science. His quietness, incoherence, and seeming meekness are the outward cover for a demand-system that is really excessive, harsh, and incredible. The conditions of exile, as I have detailed them, reinforce Moses' traits. He does not forget Egypt; his obsessions are nourished by the quite incompatible silences and solemn, accepting unrelatedness of the wilderness. God-names with a sound even of "Yahu" are heard among the tribal Semites[78]. His cultic tendency is confirmed when he hears a force that he has long thought to be everywhere - electricity - increasing its activity and producing god-like sounds, even the name of god itself. There is a decisive change, a worsening of his mental disease from a psychiatric standpoint, a move towards one of the most noble ventures in history according to another viewpoint. In the years to come, Moses exhibits the full range of schizophrenic symptoms. To those already suggested may be added those indexed by Paul Meehl [79]. Meehl describes schizophrenia as characterized by a deficiency in the ability to enjoy life or people (anhedonia), an aversion to other humans, a loss of control over certain kinds of perception including the introduction of a special logic, concerns about the abnormality of one's bodily organs and functions, ambivalent confusion of simultaneous love and hostility towards all upon which and whom his interest is centered, and a hypercathexis or superabundance of intellectual activity of a possibly fully rational sort. The application of these mechanisms to Moses is apparent. Respecting anhedonia, there is scarcely any passage to be found in the Torah respecting pleasure. In a negative sense, Moses berates the people for not enjoying their poisoned quail and endless manna. But the point is too obvious to belabor - sex, food, all is: "Be glad you're alive: Thanks to Yahweh!" Miriam leads a victory chant and dances one time, a pleasant surprise, though she sings bloody murder [80]. If a Harry Golden would appear and call to Moses a hearty "Enjoy!" he would be thrown out of the camp. But we know from Puritanism, a mosaic throwback, that pleasure is a sin. I have commented already on Moses' inability to support affectionate human contacts. The loss of control over perception is the famous "talking with Yahweh" of which we have said much and more is to come. But note only how well- regulated Moses is in this regard; he disciplines his hallucinations marvelously, according to a special logic of schizophrenia. And the result is not only persuasive as to the reality of his discourses with Yahweh, but also fits into Moses' general psychological dynamics, and this too is appealing: thus Moses projects his immense aggressive superego or conscience upon a god; then creates a bad family of children for the great father, namely the Israelites; then has Yahweh play the strict father of this bad family, punishing them on every possible occasion. He, Moses, finds the spectacle edifying, while preserving a remarkable detachment. This matter of "cognitive slippage" may contribute to the solution, also, of the great riddle of how Moses, the scientist, could give what a modern scientist would regard as an unreasonable and inadequate description and explanation of his intricate and ingenious works and of natural events. I said earlier that the answer may be partly for establishing the greatness of Yahweh and partly out of contempt for the popular intelligence. But one may perceive another reason: a schizophrenic need to satisfy only himself with explanations of why he is acting so and he is satisfied by bizarre or simple explanations. Further, when an applied scientist, here Moses, cannot explain whether in thought or in language the theory and causes of his scientific operations, he may satisfy himself by introducing the deus ex machina: Yahweh causes all things to happen - end of argument. Putting together the last two impulses with the first two reasons, a conventionally acceptable cognitive slippage will do great service. In regard to concerns about his bodily image, we have little of Moses' physiognomy to go on. The legends say he was a beautiful young boy and man. Obviously, his speech difficulty is relevant, as is the circumcision issue, already discussed. Yahweh is supposed to be invisible, and Moses is accredited with the great religious invention of abolishing anthropomorphism. Yet a review of the Bible and legends in search of anthropomorphic passages discloses them in abundance. Yahweh has mighty ears, arms, legs, brow, eyes, nostrils, lungs, and everything as Michelangelo paints him on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in Rome. He also hates, loves as a father, threatens, burns with rage, gives, takes, instructs, commands, discriminates, plays tricks, tests, and of course, is jealous. And as with Yahweh, so with Moses who is living in his image of Yahweh, and - apropos - it is not Yahweh who is the jealous god so much as Moses in his other self as Yahweh. Obviously this metaphorical kind of imaging did not violate the Third Commandment , whereupon we think that Ziegler may be correct in that the most important meaning of the forbidden "image" and "standing image" may be the visible presence of Yahweh on the Ark of the Covenant [81]. Next we consider Moses' ambivalence, alluded to earlier on in this chapter in connection with the Israelites. In several specific passages, Yahweh is directly described as the source of good and evil. Moses had no need for Satan: why? Because Yahweh was the devil and in Moses' unconscious mind there could be no separation of god and the devil: he must both hate and love the same personage. Again, going back to the bad children of Israel, Moses uses them to express all of his hatred of Yahweh - their willful disobedience, their unfaithfulness, their whoring after false gods, their ingratitude, their forgetfulness of the past, their disregard of obligations, and so on. Then, reversing the ploy in a marvelously acceptable but mad logic, Moses displays his detestation of the Israelites by having them continually and severely chastised by Yahweh. Thus Moses safely hates both Yahweh and the Jews. As for Meehl's final criterion - the hypercathexis of intellect among schizophrenics - Meehl makes it clear that in some cases the schizophrenic often pursues, alongside his rocky road of cognitive slippage and incoherent behavior, a straight path of intellectual hyperenergy and achievement. I have already advanced much evidence of the superiority of Moses in this regard. Such genius is already a sign that a most extraordinary emotional dynamic must be operative. With all of this, how can one avoid concluding that Moses was a madman? I refrain not so as to appease the billion labeled followers of Moses in the contemporary world. I refrain because Moses effectively managed the Exodus in ways that were the outcome of his character and depended upon his character. Given the disastrous conditions, the heavy risks and the loosely aggregated people, it is highly improbable that another man could have succeeded in any other way than that of Moses. I see two major errors in decision produced by Moses' character. The first is that it may not have been wise for the Hebrews to leave Egypt at all, or it may have been wise for the people to return, even if Moses and the cohort of leaders might lose their new power. The second is that there may have been enough stability and responsibility among the elders and representatives of the people at the time of Korah's revolt, of which I shall speak, to convert Moses' tyranny into a federal republic, with the ultimate result of holding all the tribes of Israel together in times to come. Other errors of judgement occurred, none fatal to his mission. Other traits of his also made life difficult beyond necessity for the people of Israel. There is another and imperative reason for not applying the term "psychotic" to Moses. Many of the biblically related events of the Exodus and its aftermath took place in a physical environment that was as chaotic as it was unforeseen. It was surreal. It was the substance, but the real substance, of which the visions of the schizophrenic are composed. Quoting alternately the studies of Hoskins and Boison [82], we see in the mind of the psychotic what was the real world of Exodus: To the patient himself, his ideas and emotions are... the matters of primary significance... To him they represent firm, terrifying, torturing, mocking, and fascinating reality. An initial feeling of strangeness is rather common. In the words of one patient, the subject is often beset by a 'flood of mental pictures as though an album within were unfolding itself.' Elements of the unconscious come into awareness and are interpreted as manifestations of the supernatural, often with devastating impact. In the new world into which the patient is thrust, previous principles and standards seem irrelevant. 'He sees strange meanings in everything about him and he is sure of only one thing, that things are not what they seem.' His new ideas and mental pictures become so vivid as to constitute the voices and visions that a large proportion of the patients experience. 'Very commonly it is as if the conscious self had descended to some lower region where it is no longer in control but is at the mercy of the terrifying ideas and imagery that throng in upon it. The eyes are opened so that one seems to see back to the beginning of creation. One seems to have lived perhaps in many previous existences. To the individual, the new experiences are so vivid that they seem to represent profound, new revelations and the marked sense of mystery is often associated with the more profound types of disturbance, with characteristic archaic symbolism, bizarre ideation, and often deep religious concern. A second set of observations confirms this view of the world as catastrophe. The latent schizophrenic must always reckon with the possibility that his very foundation will give way somewhere, that an irretrievable disintegration will set in, that his ideas and concepts will lose their cohesion and their connection with other spheres of association and with the environment. As a result, he feels threatened by an uncontrollable chaos of chance happenings...The dangerousness of his situation often shows itself in terrifying dreams of cosmic catastrophe, of the end of the world and such thoughts. Or the ground he stands on begins to heave, the walls bend and bulge, the solid earth turns to water, a storm carries him up into the air, all his relatives are dead, etc.[83] Here again, notably, is the Weltanschauung or cosmic image, this time observed by Carl G. Jung. It corresponds to the real images of the external world during natural catastrophe and the feelings normally inspired by the images. In the case of Moses, and generally in the psychology of catastrophe, the real and the unreal confirm and reinforce each other; they interact, but so in tandem are they that when the real pulls ahead of the unreal (or mental) it drags it along and vice-versa. This is what I mean when I say that Moses, with a character appropriate to an environment "gone mad," is not himself of chaotic and disordered mind in the framework of the surrealist natural and human behavior he was experiencing. Although Moses was beyond madness, the question of whether his life-work was "good" is swamped by "ifs" and "buts." Certainly he helped a small population to survive. However, the good in the survivors has consisted in the greatest degree of aberrations from, conflicts with, and transformations of mosaism. I shall explain this line of thought later on and in the light of more information about the revolts against Moses and the character of Yahweh. Professor James Breasted wrote that Moses was "cognizant of all the wisdom of the Egyptians."[84] But he was a creator, too. He was a type of Leonardo da Vinci in the variety of his scientific and military inventions, although we would have to reconstruct his tabernacle and clothing designs to evaluate his aesthetic ability. He was a ruthless monotheist who slaughtered his own charges, the "Children of Israel," to keep them in line. He was a hallucinatory genius, without his own father (his own father being practically unknown to him and powerless, and the Pharaoh unaccepting and remote), who made the voice of god his father and everyone else's father in a pure patriarchal absolute form spelled out in a system of laws and political organization of which he was the dispassionate proponent. He was a George Washington (even to his inarticulateness and the combination of arrogance with humility) who fathered a nation and led it through difficult years. Moses was even a kind of adventurer, clever and unscrupulous, who conceived a scheme to fit the times and pulled it off successfully, giving Israel the most sophisticated weaponry of the Middle Bronze Age and thus ensuring the capture and holding of a considerable "Promised Land" against a ring of powerful enemies for centuries. All of this was achieved amidst recurrent natural chaos. There was too much of Moses to make of him a god or a son of god: this at least all scholars and priests have agreed to and seen to. Moses was more than a man; he was many men at once. Yet he himself declined any relation to Yahweh other than being Yahweh's exclusive intermediary with Yahweh's "Children of Israel." From this one concept, which might be termed a legal fiction, ramified the structure of mosaism, then and thereafter. Notes (Chapter 6: The Charisma of Moses) 1. New York: Knopf, 1939, 3. 2. Life of Moses, 5. 3. III G. 4. The tribe of Simeon was quite lost to history, either assimilated to Judah or lost with the people of the tribes of Northern Israel. 5. Gen. 49:7. 6. II G 269. 7. II G 262. 8. Auerbach, Moses, 17, and others. 9. Buber, 35. 10. "Die Mosessagen und die Leviten," xxxi Sitzungsberichte der koniglich-preussischen Akademie der Wissenschaften (1905), 640, quoted in Rank, fn. 83. 11. G II 277-8. 12. G II 275. 13. Ibid. 14. Sebastian de Grazia, "Mahatma Gandhi, Son of his mother," 19 Polit. Q. 4 (1948), 336-48. 15. A legend says that Joshua had already a vocation as an executioner before joining Moses on the Exodus. (My source here was I. Velikovsky in a conversation in Oct. 1979; the passage is in Ginzberg's Legends.) 16. The relevant verses are listed in James Strong's Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, Nashville: Abingdon, 1963, based upon the Authorized Version. 17. Moses, 243. 18. Ex. 30:11-6. 19. Azazel was also a fallen star or Lucifer and called also Azzael, Azza and Uzza. Uzza we have found is the star angel of Hyksos Egypt, and was thrown into the sea during Exodus; al- Uzza is the planet Venus in Arabic, to which human sacrifices were once made. (see Velikovsky, W. in C., 157-8. 20. Ex. 32:30. 21. Ex. 32:33-5;33:12-16;34:6-10. 22. Il Principe e Discorsi, Milan: Feltrinelli, 1960, p. 468. 23. Neher, 79. 24. Buber, p. 167-8;Cf. Philo Judaeus, On the life of Moses, 5. 25. Ex. 3:4; Ex. 19:3; Lev. 1:1. 26. Ex. 2:12. 27. G II 281. 28. Philo, 11. 29. Auerbach, 25. 30. II G 290-1. 31. G II 293. 32. Cf. W. Hosford, "Extraordinary Case of Electrical Excite- ment....," 1:33 Am. J. Sci. (1838), 394-8, about a woman with such a faculty, unexpected and unwanted. 33. He would not be the only Hebrew dowser, but the only one with authority to whom attention was due. At this writing, on the Island of Naxos, Greece (pop. 15000), anyone may dowse, but only one dowser, Aristoteles, is hired to dowse. 34. H.S. Burr and F.S.C. Northrup, "The Electrodynamic Theory of Life, "19 Q.J. Biol. (1935), 323-33. 35. Probably he sent them back to Midian when the crisis deepened, for they were with Jethro when finally Moses returned to Midian after the Exodus. Ex. 18:5-6. 36. Ex. 5:24-6. 37. Freud's statement is supported by Gressmann, Altorienta- lische Texte, op. cit., 126, plate 254, which depicts an Egyptian circumcision operation. 38. Ex. 4:10-6. 39. Ex. 7:1. 40. II G 316. 41. I find myself having to criticize Freud for his neglect of the unconscious again. He lays Moses' speech impediment to his inability to speak Hebrew properly! Even then, his reasoning is illogical, because Moses complains of his affliction as an impediment to persuading also the Pharaoh, who presumably spoke Egyptian. Arthur Koestler once pointed out that the Greeks called stutterers and foreigners by the same name, "barbarous" (IX Ency. Britannica 9). Here is a hint of support for Freud. We cannot eliminate the possibility that Moses confronted his speech problem by employing a special or stilted form of Hebrew. 42. Philo Judaeus, 7. 43. III G 256. 44. Philo Judaeus, Ibid. 45. Rix,"The Great Terror," I Kronos nº1 (Spring ;1975) 51- 64 and "Note on the Androgynous Comet," I SISR 5 (1977), 17- 9; cf. P. Tompkins, The Eunuch and the Virgin, New York: Potter, 1962. 46. Moses, 6. 47. John Gager, Moses in Greco-Roman Paganism, Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1972. 48. Moses, 41. 208. 49. 10 Encycl Brit., 193. 50. Ziegler, 105ff. 51. Moses, 67. 52. III G 260. 53. Deut. 17:2-5. 54. II G 362. 55. Velikovsky, W. in C., 124. 56. M. Coe, "Native Astronomy in Mesoamerica," in A.F. Aveni, ed., Archaeoastronomy in Pre-Columbian America, Austin, U. of Texas, 1975. 57. Ex. 17:14. 58. Ex. 32:33. 59. Neher, 62-3, citing signs sculpted upon a statue at Serbit- el-Hadim. 60. Ernest Sellin, Introduction to the Old testament (tr. Lon- don, 1923), 13-14. 61. Barry Page, "A Palaeography of Biblical Israel," I Inter- disc. Bib. Scholar 1 (1979), 26. 62. Max Weber credits Moses with inventing the Convenant with the deity, p. 78, Ancient Judaism, Glencoe: Free Press, 1952. The Covenant codes of Ex, 20:22-3; 33; 34:11-6. cf. M. Greenberg, "History of Judaism," 10 Encycl. Brit. 304. 63. Ex. 20;24; Deut. 5. 64. Winnett, 30ff. 65. The Ritual Decalogue (Ex.20:23-6; 23:10-9) is assembled by Winnett, 192-3. 66. Weber, 121. 67. Julian Jaynes, The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1976, 87. 68. Furneaux, Krakatoa, 219. 69. Num. 9:89. 70. Num. 11:17-25. The exceptions prove the rule. The spirit of Yahweh changed the false prophet Balaam into an absurd but true one (Num. 24:2). Jephthah, with the "spirit of the Lord" upon him sacrificed his daughter (Jg. 11:29). Elijah the Prophet, transfers his spirit to Elisha before he is carried to heaven by a chariot of fire (2 Kg., 2:9-10). 71. Mose and Seine Zeit, 441. 72. Actually, scorching heat, leprosy and boils, in legend. II G 266. 73. Buber, 168-9. 74. Num. 11:10-25. 75. Ex. 18:13ff. 76. III G 68-72. 77. R.G. Hoskins, The Biology of Schizophrenia, New York: Norton, 1946, pp.82-9. 78. Buber, 50. 79. Paul E. Meehl, "Schizotaxy, Schizotypy, Schizophrenia," om A. and E. Buss, eds., Theories of Schizophrenia, New York, Atherton, 1969. 21. 80. Ex, 15:20-1. 81. Ziegler, 33-7. 82. 85 83. Carl G. Jung. Psychology of Dementia Praecox (1906, tr. Hull, Princeton U. Press, 1974). 181. 84. Breasted, The Dawn of Conscience (1934), 334.