I am thoroughly aware of my incompetence in the field of Egyptology, in obvious contrast to yourself. You are too quick to brush aside any positive knowledge of Egyptology with fallacious reasoning. Your use of the amplification method is uncritical because you do not amplify from the knowledge proper to an Egyptologist but just as you please, that is to say from your knowledge of the medieval and modern mind. When we amplify a modern dream whose content we do not at first understand, the amplifications are not chosen at random, but are supported either by the associative material of the dreamer himself or by the tradition available to him, or, going further afield, by the tradition of his historical milieu, and finally by fundamental conceptions of a more general nature, as for instance the Trinity, the quaternity, and other universal myth-motifs. In dealing with a definitely historical text it is absolutely essential to know the language and the whole available tradition of the milieu in question and not to adduce amplifications from a later cultural milieu. This can be done when, and only when, the meaning has been sufficiently well established with the help of methods warranted by the historical milieu itself. Only then may we adduce for comparison amplifications from other times and places, but under no circumstances can we use them to explain the text. One cannot be cautious enough in this regard

TANGLED UP WITH TEETH