Egypt and the Atonists


In both Doctorow’s Ragtime and Reed’s Mumbo Jumbo, Egypt appears to play an important role in our understanding of the main plot. Note: probably some slight spoilers for Mumbo Jumbo ahead, as, while the pieces are all there, the book hasn’t put it together for us yet. 

In Ragtime, Egypt is the ultimate destination of J.P. Morgan, where he seeks to find proof of the reincarnation of the fittest, and potentially a secret society of others who understand their power in this world. Morgan sleeps overnight in a pyramid alongside the long-dead Pharaohs, attempting to establish a connection between himself and them. 

Ragtime also points out a wider trend towards Egyptology in the early 1900s, an obsession with Egypt and the rediscovery of that part of the Ancient World. The family gets Egypt-themed wallpaper, and so on. 

In Mumbo Jumbo, we know that at least one secret society really does exist, the Wallflower Order. We also know that they too are connected to Egypt, and see the beginnings of the books explication of this in the reading for Friday. I made the mistake of looking up the Atonists, which sort of screws up the reveal. For those of you who don’t mind that, I’m going to go talk about it now. Basically, the Atonists are those who believed in Aten, a singular, monotheistic sun god. Here lie the references to Heliopolis, the city constructed in praise of Aten by the single Pharaoh who encouraged this system of belief. The Atonists were fairly quickly pushed back on in Egypt, but, Mumbo Jumbo implies, have been working to spread their agenda in secret ever since, through as many different religions as they can.

In both cases, Egypt serves as the most ancient but accessible possible civilization. Egypt is where Morgan seems to believe that he can find the first traces of his reincarnation, and it is the first emergence of Atonist ideas in Mumbo Jumbo. Without the Pharaoh Akhenaten, there are no Atonists for the Wallflower Order to support, and for PaPa LaBas to oppose. 

Also interestingly, Reed is not the only one to have thought of the Atonists as a fascinating bit of history. Unfortunately, he seems to be the only one who is not a crank. Websites such as truth-control.com and irishoriginsofciviliation.com also allege an Atonist conspiracy (the former extensively citing the latter). This involves extensive ranting on the hidden gods of the Ancient world, and the corruption of ancient religions by the Atenist conspiracy. The latter site in particular, as is of course traditional for such, appears to veer immediately into anti-semitism and a variety of other forms of racism. It also engages in insane ranting on a truly incredible variety of topics, all eventually tied into claims that in fact, as the name of the website implies, Eire is the true homeland of human thought and civilization, and that Celtic Druidism is a relic of an ancient, pre-Diluvian world. The Atonist conspiracy alleged by this website, and, in fact, an entire network of them, is massive, involves multiple branches (an ancient Matriarchy and then also the Papacy), and its aims are entirely unclear. In fact, it is unclear from reading what these sites believe Atonists to be, other than evil. Their goals are much clearer in Mumbo Jumbo. 

Anyways, this is sort of a rambling post, but it was a fun little binge into the crazy portions of the internet yesterday. How do you folks feel about all this?

Comments

  1. Alex HynesFebruary 7, 2020 at 11:03 AM

    I like the connections that you draw between the two books. As we were talking in class today about the Wallflower Order and Atonism, I made a connection to Aten, but wasn't sure if it was actually related. I think the Akhenaten monotheism this is often overlooked when looking at ancient Egypt, it's interesting that out of all of the things that could be talked about Egypt in the book, Reed choses this period. It is fascinating that Egypt and ancient Egyptian mythology play a part in both of these books. I find it cool that these historical fiction books talk about more than just the time period they are set in, but tie in ancient history and its connection to the current period. Like some of the real people and events in Ragtime that we never would have known about without reading the book (and Googling it), Mumbo Jumbo is bringing in this conspiracy theory and giving life to something that no one talks about.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Elliot GenglerFebruary 9, 2020 at 8:30 AM

    Those conspiracy sites are weird. Reed seems to be more mixed in how serious he takes his "Atonist Conspiracy." Partially, he uses it as this strange secret society conspiracy with thousand year olds trying to stop people from dancing. At the same time, he does use the Atonists as a serious way to criticise the way white culture is forced on others, providing a metanarrative explanation extending all the way back to ancient Egypt. The Ireland guy seems completely serious though. I'm not sure what to think of his writings.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Men Without Skin

In Beloved , the central scene of the novel, Sethe’s killing of Beloved herself and her attempt to kill the rest of her children, is first narrated from the perspective of “the men without skin”, Schoolteacher, his nephew, the slave-catcher, and the sheriff. But why? Why change our perspective to that of a character completely isolated from everyone else, who believes our characters to be profoundly inferior and worth only what he can extract from them?   And then, why does this happen again at the end of the novel? Why does Morrison switch again to the perspective of a (very different) white character for the scene of Beloved’s disappearance? In both cases, the radical switch in perspective massively alienates the readers from the characters we have spent the rest of the book with. We are forced to see Schoolteacher’s thoughts from his perspective, forced immediately to understand why he makes the decision to abandon all of the children along with Sethe. This is i...
Read more

Peter and Hugh in TSAR

        Peter Walsh, in Mrs. Dalloway , is one of the first post-War men. He would be, in The Sun Also Rises , “one of them”, alongside Jake and Brett. Peter Walsh is usually, like Jake, fairly judgmental. He also demonstrates a fairly developed since of humor throughout the story.  Hugh Whitbread, in particular, is the target of Peter Walsh, much like Cohn becomes the target of his fellows in The Sun Also Rises , and for essentially similar reasons. Peter criticizes Hugh for “having no heart, no brain, nothing but the manners and breeding of an English gentleman,”. The comment seems similar to what is regularly implied by the various characters in The Sun Also Rises about Cohn; that (in this case) Hugh is a relic of a past age. He does not understand the way in which the modern world works, and attempts to compensate for it by engaging in behaviors the other characters consider slightly or entirely ludicrous. Cohn constantly challenges people to fights fo...
Read more