The Relic of Bir Hooker: How It All Started
The Relic of Bir Hooker: How It All Started
In 1978 Gregor Spörri founded his own company for disco equipment, concepts and design. In April 1988, the then 32-year-old travels to Egypt for the first time to do three things: Wreck diving in the Red Sea. To gather ideas for a disco facility in pharaonic style in the country’s historical sites. Tracking down a mysterious force that has supposedly been at work in the Great Pyramid of Giza for millennia. Both the diving and the photo safari are a welcome balance to the young Basel native’s strenuous professional life.
Researching the pyramid forces, on the other hand, is more difficult. But how did Spörri get the crazy idea in the first place? In the mid-1980s, he read about these mysterious forces for the first time in the book ‘Pyramid Power’ by Dr. Patrick Flanagan. In yoga teachings the power is called Prana, in Chinese Ch’i, and in esoteric circles Odic Power, Bioplasmic Energy, etc.
At about the same time he hears about a strange experience of the French emperor and general Napoleon Bonaparte. After winning the Battle of the Pyramids in 1798, the general, it is said, explored the Great Pyramid single-handedly. When he left the structure after a few hours, he made a completely disturbed impression. His aide showed concern, but Napoleon refused to give him any information. Only many years later, during his exile on the island of Elba (1814-1815), Bonaparte reveals that he has received a dark vision of his future in the Great Pyramid.
Spörri reacts with great skepticism to Napoleon’s report. Nevertheless, the subject begins to interest him. And so he finally comes across a book by Paul Brunton: ‘Mysterious Egypt’. The English journalist spent an entire night alone in the Great Pyramid in the 1930s. In his book, he recounts eerie experiences and terrifying panic attacks. After he also dared to lie down in the stone sarcophagus in the so-called King’s Chamber, an overwhelming initiation of his soul into immortality happens to him, which shapes him for the rest of his life.
The reports from Bonaparte and Brunton literally challenge the inquisitive Swiss to get to the bottom of the mystery on site. Spörri knows what he is getting into and prepares himself for a lot. His trip to Egypt ends with a monstrous experience. But it happens in a completely different way than expected. The following is the report, compiled from the notes in his travel diary.
April 12, 1988, King’s Chamber, Great Pyramid, Giza
6:10 PM. I lie flat on my back and stare into the darkness above me. I let my vocal cords vibrate. The deep buzzing sound from my throat creates an overwhelming resonance effect. It booms in my ears, as if I were lying in a speaker box rather than a granite sarcophagus. I hold the sound as long as I can, then take a deep breath and start again. That’s exactly how this Paul Brunton did it some 50 years ago.
10:20 pm. My larynx and my back hurt. So far, I neither feel the existence of any forces nor do I perceive a change in my consciousness. After more than four hours I get out of the sarcophagus disappointed and leave the king’s chamber. Ghostly shadow images, created by my immersion lamp as the only source of light, flit across the huge cantilevered vault of the Great Gallery. At the foot of the over eight-meter-high and 50-meter-long vault passage, I squeeze into the next shaft. It is almost 40 meters long and leads into the so-called Queen’s Chamber. The room is empty. I squat down on my backpack in the middle of the chamber and turn off the light. Despite the warmth, I shiver. To be all alone in the legendary monument feels quite eerie.
April 13
01:40 AM. I startle. Something crawls across my forehead. A spider? A scorpion? With a quick movement of my hand, I wipe the thing from my face. After quietly chanting the monotonous Om syllable as a representation of the supreme principle of God for another two and a half hours, as I did in the King’s Chamber, I must have dozed off. Contritely, I take note: There are no cosmic or otherwise energetic forces at work in this chamber either.
I scramble back to the junction below the Great Gallery. From there I enter another shaft, more than 100 meters long. This leads 30 meters down into the base rock of the pyramid. The last few meters to the so-called rock chamber I have to crawl – with my backpack strapped in front of my belly – even on all fours, so narrow is the passage.
The air in the approximately 100-square-meter chamber is stuffy and humid. I let the beam of the diving lamp wander through the pitch-black room. Directly in front of me, an angular, ten-meter-deep shaft opens up. To the right of it, two huge, roughly hewn boulders emerge from the darkness. They take up half the room and look like unfinished sarcophagi. I wonder who these monstrous containers deep underground were once meant for. I take a few photos, sit down by the sarcophagi, turn off the lamp one more time and sing my Om.
03:45. I stare at the fluorescent hands of my dive watch. No energy waves. No change in consciousness. Not even a tingling between my ears. Why won’t the cosmic energy enter me? What am I doing wrong?
Frustrated, I make my way back to the entrance. While I wait for the guards, who locked me up in the pyramid last night for a small amount of money, I go through the next experiment in my mind. This time it must work!
05:00 h. It is still cool, nevertheless, the sweat runs from my pores. A few meters above me climbs barefoot Akram, the son of one of the two pyramid guards. I have great difficulty in keeping up with the boy. No wonder, he has left his competitors far behind in the annual illegal competition for the fastest ascent of the Cheops pyramid. Until the next trial of strength, the competitors pay the Pyramid King the respect he deserves.
With a pounding heart, I climb the last stone blocks, then I stand at the very top of the 140-meter-high monument. It is a sublime feeling. Despite the still prevailing darkness, the view is magnificent. To the east, the lights of the city, just awakening from sleep, glitter. To the southwest, the shadow of the Pyramid of Khafre piles up. The view down is no less spectacular. It makes me dizzy, and at the same time I realize: one misstep and I’m dead.
Originally, the Giza pyramids were clad with finely polished limestone blocks, and on their tops were enthroned highly polished or even gold-plated granite capstones. The so-called pyramidions were the first to shine in the morning sun and the last to glow in the evening sun. But the ancient wonders of the world did not stand alone in the area. They were the hotspots of a massive temple city. Except for the Sphinx and the Valley Temple, unfortunately, nothing of all this remains.
I crawl to the center of the flattened pyramid top, where a wooden frame is anchored. It marks the original building height of 146 meters. Akram watches in amazement as I pull everything out of my backpack: a bunch of tent pole segments, a bottle of water, a roll of duct tape, a sweater, a neoprene hood, gloves, and a diving mask. First, I pin the tent pole segments together. At the end of the pole, I attach the bottle with duct tape. Then I put on the sweater, the head hood, gloves and mask. The boy’s eyes get bigger and bigger. I hand him my camera and instruct him to take cover behind a block of stone. As soon as something happens, I explain to him, he should press the shutter release.
At that moment, the sun rises on the horizon and Akram shouts, “Yalla! Yalla!”
I lift the pole with the bottle at the top to a vertical position. It’s a wobbly balancing act. Carefully, I push the pole up along the wooden frame until the bottle is at the original height of the pyramid, then pull my head in. Nothing happens. I push the rod and bottle a few inches higher. No reaction. I continue to correct: a little to the left … to the right … up … down … Nothing! Nada!
All at once Akram points down and yells over to me, “Must go! Must go!”
Cursing, I put the pole aside and step to the edge of the pyramid. Down on the plateau, two white-clad figures are flailing their arms wildly. I ask Akram if that is his father with the other guard? He shakes his head, gives me back my camera, and begins his descent. I want Akram to take a souvenir photo of me on top of the pyramid, but the boy has already disappeared between the stone blocks. Therefore, all that remains for me is to take a quick snapshot of the surroundings.
Then I pull the diving gear off my head, shoulder my backpack and climb after Akram. I leave the tent poles upstairs in all the hustle and bustle. Someone will surely have a use for them, I think.
How I managed to get down to the plateau so quickly without falling will probably remain a mystery to me forever. In any case, Akram makes a run for it as soon as he reaches the bottom. My escape route, on the other hand, is blocked. Judging by their shrill voices, the Arabs are making all kinds of wild threats against me. I am well aware that it is forbidden to climb the Great Pyramid. In any case, the two ‘sheriffs’ have an easy time convincing me by gestures to give them a generous baksheesh for my ‘release’.
Hotel Capsis Palace, 117 Ramses Street, Cairo
I drive back to the hotel and go to sleep. After dinner I meet Jochen at the hotel bar. I had met the German engineer on the flight to Cairo and told him about my project. Jochen is eager to hear how the experiments turned out.
“What nonsense!”, I get upset. “With this esoteric fairy tale about the Great Pyramid, you’re just pulling money out of naïve people’s pockets.”
“And what about Napoleon and that English writer?”
“I’m sure they’re just tall tales!” I scold.
Jochen massages his chin. “I rather think you’re not the right type for that sort of thing.”
“Oh! You mean I lack the fine mental equipment, the antenna or something like that?”
Jochen nods, grins, and asks what it was like up on the pyramid.
I wave it off. “Nothing happened at all!”
Jochen follows up with, “Did you do everything right?”
I quote from a book on pyramid forces: “If you position a bottle filled with liquid at the location of the original pyramid top, the cosmic energy entering the structure there will cause the bottle to burst.”
“A purely physical experiment without any spiritual demand on the experimenter,” Jochen has to admit.
“Exactly! And I’m a dumbass, dragging half my diving gear up with me to protect myself from the exploding bottle.”
Jochen pats me comfortingly on the shoulder.
We order beer for Jochen and Coke for me, raid bartender Ahmed’s supply of pistachios, and discuss Egypt and its pharaohs, pyramids, and mysteries until well after midnight.
April 14
Shortly after breakfast Jochen says goodbye to me. He travels on to Luxor. On the way back to my room, Ahmed suddenly stands in front of me. The bartender is talking a wild jumble of German, English and Arabic. From what he says, I understand this: “I know someone who sells exceptionally beautiful objects. Are you interested?”
Ahmed’s motive is quickly sussed out: He wants me to seek out a dealer he knows. If the deal goes through, the bartender collects a commission. A side business without much effort for him.
Today is my last day in Egypt. The small city hotel has neither a garden nor a pool where I could relax for the rest of the day. During the round trip through the country I have seen everything I wanted to see and I have already bought souvenirs for my family and friends. Only for myself I haven’t found anything suitable yet, so I accept Ahmed’s offer …
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