Moses 5:31 wrote:Truly I am Mahan, the master of this great secret, that I may murder and get gain.
Critics have opined that in Mahan we see a veiled reference to Masonry. Cain is subsequently called “Master Mahan,” which looks something like the designation Master Mason. This seems to be confirmed by the fact that Cain becomes Master Mahan by swearing a secret oath to Satan, which carries the penalty of death if it is revealed. It is true that Masonic oaths carried symbolic penalties.
While it is unwise to dismiss the Masonic explanation altogether, there are ancient Egyptian roots to the Master Mahan narrative, which we will now explore. The significant point is the name Mahan, which, when one reflects on it, does not look all that much like Mason after all. That is because it is not a distortion of Mahan; it reflects Joseph Smith’s understanding of Mehen, the guardian of Ra, who accompanied the sun god on his nightly journey through the underworld until his successful resurrection in the rising of the sun at dawn.
Mehen (the Coiled One) took the form of a serpent who circled around the bark (boat) of Ra:
Sometimes the boat features less prominently:
Later in antiquity he took the form of the serpent that eats itself and regenerates, the ouroboros:
Mehen protected Ra principally from his enemy Apophis, who also took the form of a serpent. He was also tasked with the responsibility of guarding over criminals. His symbol appeared on the uraeus crown of the pharaoh and he also later appeared as the serpent legs of Abraxas, whose name has the numerical value of 365, the days of the solar year.
It is clear that to the Egyptians, who have retained a dim memory of the original religion of Adam, Mehen was not an evil figure. In fact, if you knew the secrets of Mehen, you could join Ra (the Egyptian Heavenly Father) on his bark and obtain deification. Indeed, in ancient Egyptian religion there were mysteries (something like the temple endowment) of Mehen. These mysteries are referred to in Coffin Text Spells 493 and 495:
CT Spells 493 and 495 wrote:My soul belongs to its body; my shadow belongs to its condition/I am the guard of the criminals after (the manner of) the mysteries of Mehen
As Piccione states regarding these mysteries:
[The mysteries of Mehen] appear to be a formalized set of rituals and beliefs related to the serpent-deity. This conclusion is based upon the general nature of st3w, “mysteries,” not as dogma or creed but rather… as a system of secret or dramatic rituals to reveal hidden aspects of the gods. In general though, as Ritner has suggested in the context of this spell, Mehen does not protect the sun god only by surrounding and enclosing him in his coils in order to shield him from outside evil, but also by encircling and containing the enemies of Ra—to hold them prisoner in his coils—and thus encumbering their inimicalities.
For Piccione's article, see: https://www.academia.edu/8169539/Mehen_Mysteries_and_Resurrection_from_the_Coiled_Serpent
So, Mehen protects Ra, and guards over his prisoners by containing them. Much like Cain gains power over Satan by swearing the oath and then killing Abel. Mehen has power over the enemies of Ra. As you can see, however, there are important differences in Cain’s case which suggest that he was duped. Before we talk about this, however, it will be helpful to understand more fully the secrets of the mysteries of Mehen.
Perhaps the most important aspect of the mysteries or secrets of Mehen is that they enabled the initiate to navigate the concentric fiery roads (spheres) and gates which separated the dead from Ra. By knowing the roads and the “gates that turn away” (sb3w stnmw), the deceased could make his way to Mehen, pass through the body of the serpent, and find the center Ra, who sits on his throne of “millions of years.”
The name of the roads is referred to in Coffin Text Spell 759:
CT Spell 759 wrote:I am acquainted with his enemies which are in the gates. I know the Roads of Mehen.
The fact that one must know the names of these roads and how to navigate them is clear from Coffin Text Spell 760:
CT Spell 760 wrote:As for the one who knows the name of those his roads, it is he who will enter Mehen./As for the one who knows this spell, he does not perish forever; he will live on that which Ra lives.
Also, see spell 759:
CT Spell 759 wrote:Make way for me, open the gates for me, (oh) you who are in Mehen, for I know the circuit of Ra and those which are with him.
Remember Brigham Young’s description of the purpose of the endowment:
Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the House of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, … and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell.
We can see how the LDS endowment, like the mysteries of Mehen (really one and the same thing), allow the deceased to navigate the afterlife in order to return to the father (Elohim/Ra), who sits on his throne (near Kolob) for ages upon ages, and there to be deified. In some of the Coffin Texts, the deification of the pharaoh is described as his navigating the Mehen board (an Old Kingdom board game in which pieces moved along the back of a coiled serpent):
CT 1003 wrote:Who will travel around the mhn-board, whose rank is great, whom Thoth will judge in the early morning?
A picture of a mhn board:
So, as it turns out, there is nothing at all wrong with being a Master Mahan, since being a Master of the mysteries of Mahan is what is required to pass the guardians and enter the presence of the Father. What happened to Cain is that he was deceived by Satan. Remember that Satan is playing a role similar to Mehen’s. Indeed, this is one reason that he is called the Serpent. If you are tricked by the Serpent, then you failed to navigate properly the roads back to the Father.
Satan deceived Cain by distorting the mysteries of Mehen. He convinced Cain that there was a shortcut through the fiery roads to Ra that would bring him godlike power and wealth. All he had to do was swear to Satan and then kill Abel. In a sense, Satan convinced Cain that the test was not about navigating the fiery road so much as it was one of becoming Mehen himself, and preventing others from getting the gifts of Ra. Cain wanted to believe all of this because he was envious of the gifts that Ra had already bestowed upon Abel. Another inducement for Cain was that this shortcut would also place him at a rank above Satan among the guardians of Ra. He would then guard the prisoners of Ra, among whom Satan is numbered.
Of course, all of this ties back into our earlier discussion of the Josephite mysteries as encountered in the Deseret thread. Mahonri, mr hnrt, or overseer of the prisoners, is one who knew the real mysteries of Mehen. This allowed him to navigate the path to deification on the solar bark of Ra (hnrt dsrt or holy temple) and reached the Promised Land. The path to exaltation at the right hand of Ra is to pass from prisoner, to guardian of prisoners, to Ra-hood (deification). Anyone who is familiar with the novel Joseph and Aseneth will recall that Joseph is depicted as a solar deity therein:
Joseph and Aseneth wrote:4. And the gates of the court that looked east were opened, and Joseph came in, sitting in Pharaoh's viceroy's chariot. 5. And there were four horses yoked together, white as snow, with golden reins; and the chariot was covered over with gold. 6. And Joseph was wearing a marvellous white tunic, and the robe wrapped around him was purple, made of linen woven with gold: there was a golden crown on his head, and all round the crown were twelve precious stones, and above the stones twelve golden rays; and a royal sceptre was in his right hand. 7. And he held an olive branch stretched out, and there was much fruit on it.
That is because he is exalted. He sits with Ra. He was a prisoner, became an overseer, and then reached his exaltation. He navigated the fiery paths of Mehen successfully to become their master.